With climate change making headlines around the world, a number of Wolvercote residents have come to the conclusion that we need to be doing something about it closer to home.

 

With climate change making headlines around the world, a number of Wolvercote residents have come to the conclusion that we need to be doing something about it closer to home. The result has been two successful meetings so far, with various initiatives already underway - from putting solar panels on the village hall and school to recruiting and training ‘energy champions' for every street, and establishing an information and advice network. Now is the time to broaden the initiative out, so it is hoped that residents will discuss, amend and if possible sign up to a ‘village charter' at a public meeting, to be held on 27 April in the Village Hall at 7.30pm - the meeting will also include speakers and an excerpt from Al Gore's film ‘An Inconvenient Truth'. Here's the Charter below, in draft form.

Wolvercote: Charter for a Low-Carbon Village

The world's climate is changing. Within just a few decades, if nothing is done to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, large areas of the planet's surface will become uninhabitable. This is the greatest threat ever to face humanity, and we need to begin to reduce global emissions within the next 10 years if we are to act in time.

Governments are failing to meet this threat. Greenhouse gas emissions are still increasing each year. As a community, we in Wolvercote recognise our moral responsibility to face up to this challenge, and to begin to work at a local level towards solutions which must eventually become global if they are to succeed.

Wolvercote has a long history going back to Saxon times - for 98% of its history we were a low-carbon village, and we can be again. The aim is not to return to the past, but to pursue a new vision of modernity and community - one in which modern technologies are designed not simply to create wealth but truly to enhance human wellbeing, to keep the landscape in good heart, and to improve the lot of other species.

We, the undersigned residents and community groups in Wolvercote pledge, over the next decade, to kick the carbon habit. We will accomplish in our own community what needs to happen world-wide. The measures we will encourage include:

• Using cars less and walking and cycling more.
• Buying more in local shops rather than in supermarkets.
• Growing more of our own food and managing woodlands for firewood.
• Encouraging the purchase of fairly traded, low carbon-footprint goods which truly benefit producer communities in other parts of the world.
• Measuring our carbon footprints in order to identify where we can improve, and to monitor progress.
• Reducing the number of non-essential overseas flights we take.
• Reducing our energy use within the home, by insulating, installing low-energy bulbs, etc.
• Generating our own power renewably, including solar panels, wind turbines and biomass as appropriate.
• Reducing our landfill waste to zero by reducing consumption, re-using and recycling our waste.
• Supporting those around the world, particularly the poorest, who suffer the impacts of global warming-related disasters.
• Helping and supporting other residents and groups in Wolvercote (and more widely in the UK and worldwide) to pursue these goals.

We no longer want to act as if climate change is someone else's problem. The problem is ours. But, if we act collectively, so too is the solution.

Mark Lynas, on behalf of the Low-Carbon Wolvercote Group