All the solutions to the climate crisis already exist. We know how to generate energy, how to travel, how to produce, how to consume, how to live in low-carbon, less-destructive ways.
We know how to grow food in ways that look after the planet rather than trashing it. The farmers who grow the food you buy through GC are already producing food that way.
What’s lacking is the will from global governments to listen to citizens, to make tough decisions about the catastrophic pathway we’re on, to speak uncomfortable truths to greedy corporations, to stop subsidising and investing in the bad stuff, like fossil fuels and rainforest destruction, and support the good stuff, like agroecology and social justice.
As our colleague Nicki East at the Better Food Traders says: "While plant-based food dominates the delegates' conference menu, the crucial issue of the industrial food system will barely make the agenda. Brazil and Argentina are working hard to remove uncomfortable references to plant-based diets. Western governments continue to duck the big questions such as how to fairly legislate in favour of food with lower carbon footprints: a carbon tax on high-carbon footprint offenders or subsidies for those producing food sustainably? Further, a cynic might argue the list of the corporate principal partners suggests the influence of key lobbyists that have little interest in moving beyond greenwash when it comes to food."
With the COP26 Climate Summit nearly upon us, we need international governments to make crucial changes urgently. Here are some ways to get involved in campaigns to persuade them to do that, even if you can’t be in the thick of it in Glasgow.
Tuesday 26 October and Saturday 30 October
Join a talk by XR's Citizens’ Assembly Working Group that highlights the contrast in approaches, principles and potential outcomes of COP and Citizens’ Assemblies. Assemblies have shown that citizens propose solutions more ambitious than politicians can. Find out how Citizens’ Assemblies could help COP to Go Beyond Politics.
Friday 5 November
Gather at Hackney Town Hall to persuade the council to divest from fossil fuels, 12.30pm to 1.30pm
Saturday 6 November
Global day of action London: assemble at 10.30am in Shoreditch Park or at 12pm at the Bank of England to march to Trafalgar Square
Read the Landworkers’ Alliance's excellent resources on COP26 and listen to their podcast, Frontline Foodcast. Mobilise! looks at how farmers, growers, foresters and landworkers come together to bring solutions to the climate crisis from the grassroots in the context of COP26.
Help XR rebels in Glasgow call out crimes against humanity. Donations will help to: ensure the well-being of arrestees after release; support young and low-income people to travel to Glasgow; provide warm clothes, hot food and safe spaces for rebels; create attention-grabbing actions.
Sign up for the Women's Environment Network event on Thursday 4 November, 6pm : Why do we need a feminist approach to tackling the climate crisis? Attend online or in person. Panel discussion, Q&A, exhibition, drinks and nibbles. The panel includes climate activist Dominique Palmer and international human rights lawyer Kavita Naidu and will be chaired by Anne Karpf, sociologist and award-winning journalist and author of How Women Can Save the Planet.
To show your support from home, carve a pumpkin (organic, of course) with a crop, vegetable, fruit, animal or insect of your choice, and share photos of your artwork on social media using the hashtag #Diversity4Resilience. (Then cook it into delicious soup, cookies or something else.)
