This story begins sometime back in the mid-1990s when April came and went and I didn’t hear the voice of the cuckoo from my office window in the Rising Sun Country Park, in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.

It was a voice that had been there every year since I had started working in North Tyneside in 1983. A hole appeared in the world where the cuckoo song had once been. A hole that gradually expanded as the voices of other familiar birds – the wood warbler, the yellowhammer, the spotted flycatcher, the turtle dove – also began to fall silent, seemingly largely unnoticed by the wider world.

This article first appeared in Resurgence & Ecologist magazine.

Then, in the early 2000s I visited a primary school on the estate just near to where the cuckoo used to sing, and I played a recording of a cuckoo’s voice to a group of wide-eyed children sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Cultural memory 

I was taken aback when hardly a child recognised the song and many didn’t know what a cuckoo was. Unthinkable in my childhood – I realised then how quickly the once familiar can be lost from our cultural memory.

I decided to create a performance piece about the cuckoo that both celebrated the bird and highlighted its plight. The cuckoo is, after all, a bird that is immediately recognisable in its call and one that has likely been woven into our identity as humans since we first walked the Earth.

Indeed, there cannot be a bird (except perhaps the nightingale) that features in more songs, stories and poems across the northern hemisphere than the cuckoo.

It is an important character in tales from Ireland to Japan, where it has variously brought Jack a gift from Africa, been born from an old man’s pipe, and been caged to keep the summer. It appears in the 13th-century English round ‘Sumer Is Icumen In’ and has been put into verse by Ted Hughes, William Wordsworth, John Clare and many others.

It is an essential part of our folklore: it brings the spring, tells us when to plant our seeds, lets us know how many children we will have, and informs us of how long we have to live.

Ecological stories

The cuckoo is embedded in the human imagination, it is a very part of who we are, yet we are watching its disappearance from the English countryside with only the faintest murmurings of concern.

An organisation that has shown concern for the plight of the cuckoo is the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), which in 2011 developed an inspirational project, tracking the birds on their migration from Britain to sub-Saharan Africa.

The aim was to discover where they go, the routes they take, and where they encounter trouble. People are invited to sponsor these satellite-tagged birds, which can then be followed online as they make their extraordinary journeys.

I sponsored one and found myself identifying with my bird and willing it on as if it were a part of myself, which in a sense of course it was. This cyber-journey became the obvious backbone to my cuckoo story, and it was clear I needed to be involved with one bird from the beginning to the end of its journey.

The BTO were interested in working with artists to communicate ecological stories and had already got together a team of visual artists to represent migrant birds in their sub-Saharan locations, so they were open to the idea of other artistic intervention.

Oral storytelling

Oral storytelling was much more of an unknown, but willing to give it a try they teamed me up with a group of BTO scientists who were satellite-tagging birds on the wild land surrounding Fylingdales Early Warning Station on the North York Moors.

I remember arriving at Fylingdales in the 3 o’clock darkness of a May morning and having to show our passports before being allowed onto the military site.

We were driven out onto the moor surrounding the base, and there under the shadow of a great monolith, with its mighty discs pointing to the heavens receiving messages of possible nuclear attack, we set our nets to catch a cuckoo.

The man who facilitated it all was northerner Mick Carroll, an ex-RAF man and fearless bird conservationist with a huge presence undiminished by the incurable cancer that was gradually sapping the life out of his body.

It was he who released the trapped, satellite-tagged cuckoo, as if he were releasing his own spirit, which in a way he was, for he never lived to see it return. When the bird arrived back on the moor the following April, I imagined it singing over the very place Mick had released it.

Extraordinary sights

I remember thinking that it would not get far on its journey, as it stumbled in the sky after leaving his hands, a long aerial protruding between its wings.

On 24 June, however, I logged in to my laptop and saw a green line traced between Fylingdales and a forest in the South of France, where the bird lingered for a while, fuelling up on caterpillars. He now had a name, Vigilamus, given by Mick.

Vigilamus continued over the Mediterranean to Libya, and then across the Sahara Desert, flying for three days and nights at an altitude of 5km, until he reached Southern Chad. Here he recuperated for a couple of months before flying on to the Congo Basin, arriving at his destination in mid-October.

At each stage of Vigilamus’s journey I found myself vicariously experiencing the extra­ordin­ary sights he saw and facing the hazards that I imagin­ed he faced: the drought in the South of France, the mass trapping of migrant birds on the Mediterranean islands, more netting on the coast of North Africa, the rigours of a 2,000-mile journey over an expanding Sahara, deforestation and the search for suitable habitats in Central Africa.

And then finally returning to the farmed deserts of Britain and Northern Europe, where insect populations have crashed. That is leaving aside the hawks and eagles looking for a morsel of cuckoo flesh.

Musical journey

So here was a story that could be told. A story that I decided to tell as ‘I’ cuckoo, to bring us humans, as a close as we are able, to the experience of being bird. A story, also, that in its very essence is full of rhythm and passion, a story that invited music to travel with the words.

And this is where my son, Joshua, came in, creating a musical journey both to accompany the words and to evoke the journey in its own right.

The music gave a sense of the cultures and environments the cuckoo visited that complemented the oral story­telling. It was now a story, not just told, but sung, chanted and ringing with thumb piano, guitar and percussion.

But a cuckoo is much more than its migration. It provokes both outrage and awe, it is loved and judged, and it has given rise to words like cuckold, cucking stool and ‘going cuckoo’.

So, as a counterpoint to the physical journey, we wove in the metaphorical: the myths, the folktales, the folksongs, the lore.

Interdependent futures

Narratives that echo the places and cultures from which they arise and explore what it is to be human in relation to a bird and what it is to be bird in relation to a human.

Tales and songs that evoke our essential beings and connection with one another. For as much as we may see a cuckoo bird as ‘other’, it is also a part of us – a living creature evolved from the same stardust and a vital expression of what it means to be alive on this planet. Through these tales our futures are interlinked and interdependent.

The other part of the journey is the personal story. The story of my participating in the capture of the cuckoo and my moral dilemma over harnessing a wild creature so that we can vicariously live its journey.

But possibly the biggest dilemma in making a story such as this is how to tell a tale that has an underlying theme of loss by human action. And how to do this without avoiding the issue for fear of being preachy or leading people to head for the door with yet another tale of doom.

A billion birds migrate from south of the Sahara to Europe and back each year. There are warblers, flycatchers, pipits, chats, nightingales, nightjars, waders, ducks, hawks, swallows, martins, swifts, and many more. Each one a puff of feathers high in the sky undertaking a journey it has to make.

They bring us the spring, colour, songs and life. They are like the Earth’s breathing, keeping it alive, keeping us alive. If through telling the story in words and music we can enable people to feel a little more a part of this wonder, then this is all we can hope.

This Author 

Malcolm Green teaches storytelling at Newcastle University. He is a founder member of A Bit Crack Storytellers and a member of the European Storytelling and Peace Council. 

A version of this article has appeared in Biodiversity Journal and Resurgence & Ecologist magazine. You can see Gone Cuckoo performed at our Summer Camp.

The winners of the Lush Spring Prize 2019 were announced as part of a three-day event taking place at Emerson College in East Sussex and at RichMix in London.

The prizes are awarded across four categories: Intentional, Young, Established and Influence; investing more than £200,000 in regenerative work.

Winning projects come from Southern and Eastern Africa, South America and Europe and work in a diverse range of fields including landscape restoration, food and farming, climate change mitigation and adaptation, protecting indigenous rights, empowering women and other marginalised groups.

Regenerative approaches

Projects may have different focuses, but they all take holistic and regenerative approaches to solving the challenges they face, with many being led by members of the communities they are working in. Information about all of the 2019 winners (and the shortlist) can be found here. 

One winner is YICE Uganda, which ​works with refugees in Bukompe refugee settlement and the neighbouring communities, seeking to provide smallholder farmers with access to regenerative agricultural training and flexible financial services to reduce hunger and poverty.

YICE Uganda has been working in Bukompe refugee settlement to engage the camp’s residents around sustainable farming techniques.

Over 100 women farmers have been trained in Permaculture farming, and 20 Permaculture gardens have been established.

Noah Ssempijja, founder and director of YICE Uganda spoke about why he set up the project: “I was raised by a single mother, also a refugee from Rwanda, and spent the early years of my life in a refugee camp, thus Refugees and women issues are very close to my heart.” YICE Uganda is a winner in the Young category.

Slow water

Another winner, INSO, ​was founded in 1991 to support communities with regenerative social and ecological initiatives in the diverse state of Oaxaca, Mexico.

Its flagship ‘Slow Water’ project aims to address the Central Valley’s watershed crisis, where the speed with which water flows impacts on both its communities and its ecosystems.

INSO remains deeply connected to grass-roots culture, while its Oaxacan Water Forum has brought community stakeholders together with NGOs, the private sector, and governmental and academic institutions.

It takes an integrated approach by combining traditional wisdom and community organisation with modern knowledge and techniques.

At its heart is a belief that we should view “nature and society as inseparable”. INSO is a winner in the Established category.

Equitable action 

Warren Brush, Spring Prize Judge, said:  “I am both fortunate and honoured to get to read through all the prize applications from an incredible web of organisations and people who are actively creating a better world that is filled with life-giving purpose, equitability, and right action.

“My only regret was not being able to fund every amazing organisation that applied for these grants from Lush.

“May Lush’s efforts to support resilient social, economical and ecological systems inspire other companies and individuals to generously give to these and other organisation’s efforts around the globe that are positively changing the world through regeneration.”

Each year the Spring Prize team struggles to create a shortlist of fifty and select just eleven projects for funding. It has concluded that it should aim to support every application and move away from being a competitive prize. ​

To start this process an additional £20,000 was made available in 2019 in the form of a ‘Judges Award’. This was used to support other shortlisted projects financially or through publicity work.

Rural economy

The Spring Prize judges also wrote a letter of celebration to recognise the valuable work of established organisations such as GRAIN, FERN, Survival International and Navdanya.

Precious Phiri, a Spring Prize judge, said: “The different Spring Prize applications keep reinforcing a need for us to celebrate this fact: ​the change we desire will take many small pockets of intentional groups of people around the world allying with nature to address nature’s complexity and to address the root cause of problems. There’s no one size fits all!”

The first half of 2019’s Spring Prize event took place at Emerson College, which is surrounded by biodynamic and organic farms and demonstrates the regenerative practices embedded in parts of the English rural economy.

The second half was held at RichMix in Shoreditch, an example of how social enterprises can play a role in regenerating social landscapes in urban communities.

The event was designed to give members of winning projects the opportunity to share their stories, expertise and ideas in an inclusive and collaborative environment.

Also attending the event are Spring Prize judges, press and representatives from other organisations – selected for their relevance to the winner’s projects.

Holistic approaches

The Lush Spring Prize was set up to support ‘regenerative’ projects – those which go beyond sustainability by taking holistic approaches to restoring degraded land and communities.

It seeks to support those who are actively involved in restoring all the systems they are part of. By supporting regenerative projects, the Spring Prize hopes to raise the profile of the movement as a whole to inspire more individuals, groups and communities to start the regenerative process.

Now in its third year, the Lush Spring Prize has awarded more than £600,000 to regenerative work and is a joint venture between Lush and Ethical Consumer.

This Author 

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from Lush. 

Image: Alianza Ceibo, Lush. 

The Belchatow power plant in Poland has seen a rise in CO2 emissions and air pollution for a third year in a row.

The lignite-fired power station in central Poland increased its emissions in 2018, according to data from Poland’s National Centre for Emissions Management (KOBiZE) and obtained by Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.

The Belchatow power plant saw an increase in emissions from 34,9 Mt CO2 in 2016, to 38,3 Mt in 2018, a rise of 10 percent. The power plant produces four times as much CO2 a year as all Ryanair flights combined.

Premature deaths

Along with rising emissions, air pollution levels from the plant have also risen in the last two years, with a 54 percent rise in particulate matter, 50 percent rise in sulphur (SO2) and 8 percent rise in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels, as well as increased heavy metal concentrations such as lead and arsenic released by the plant.

Robert Biedron, founder of a new Polish social-democratic political party called Wiosna, which will run in the upcoming European elections, said: “After decades of investment in infrastructure, we must finally invest in human wellbeing.

“In Belchatow, we have coal left for ten more years. After that a few thousand people will lose their jobs. We have to think about this now.”

Tens of thousands of premature deaths have been attributed to pollution from Europe’s coal plants.

Exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) alone caused the premature death of an estimated 422,000 people across 41 European countries in 2015, while exposure to NO2 caused the premature death of an estimated 79,000 people in the same region.

The health impacts of exposure to air pollution are diverse, ranging from inflammation of the lungs, to cardiovascular diseases, breathing conditions, cancer and strokes. Recent scientific research has shown air pollution may be damaging every organ in the body.

Fossil fuels

The 4,4 MW Belchatow plant currently accounts for 20 percent of the Polish power market, and is operated by Polish state-owned coal utility company PGE.

Coal accounts for 80 percent of the country its electricity generation, and will remain the dominant source of power supply in the foreseeable future, with a projected 60% of generation still fuelled by lignite in 2030.

PGE plans to expand several fossil fuel projects in Poland, including the opening up of two new mines, the  Złoczew and Gubin-Brody lignite mines, and the extension of an opencast mine in the town of Turow, despite protests by Greenpeace and other environmental groups.

The new Złoczew mine alone would produce an additional 18 million tonnes of coal a year, leading to the emission of an estimated 25.74 million tonnes of CO2.

Emissions from fossil fuel combustion saw a sharp increase by 3.5 percent in Poland in 2018, despite an average 2.5 percent decrease across the European Union (EU), according to Eurostat data.

This Author

Arthur Wyns is a biologist and science journalist. He is a climate change researcher at the World Health Organization and tweets from @ArthurWyns.

The Belchatow power plant in Poland has seen a rise in CO2 emissions and air pollution for a third year in a row.

The lignite-fired power station in central Poland increased its emissions in 2018, according to data from Poland’s National Centre for Emissions Management (KOBiZE) and obtained by Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.

The Belchatow power plant saw an increase in emissions from 34,9 Mt CO2 in 2016, to 38,3 Mt in 2018, a rise of 10 percent. The power plant produces four times as much CO2 a year as all Ryanair flights combined.

Premature deaths

Along with rising emissions, air pollution levels from the plant have also risen in the last two years, with a 54 percent rise in particulate matter, 50 percent rise in sulphur (SO2) and 8 percent rise in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels, as well as increased heavy metal concentrations such as lead and arsenic released by the plant.

Robert Biedron, founder of a new Polish social-democratic political party called Wiosna, which will run in the upcoming European elections, said: “After decades of investment in infrastructure, we must finally invest in human wellbeing.

“In Belchatow, we have coal left for ten more years. After that a few thousand people will lose their jobs. We have to think about this now.”

Tens of thousands of premature deaths have been attributed to pollution from Europe’s coal plants.

Exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) alone caused the premature death of an estimated 422,000 people across 41 European countries in 2015, while exposure to NO2 caused the premature death of an estimated 79,000 people in the same region.

The health impacts of exposure to air pollution are diverse, ranging from inflammation of the lungs, to cardiovascular diseases, breathing conditions, cancer and strokes. Recent scientific research has shown air pollution may be damaging every organ in the body.

Fossil fuels

The 4,4 MW Belchatow plant currently accounts for 20 percent of the Polish power market, and is operated by Polish state-owned coal utility company PGE.

Coal accounts for 80 percent of the country its electricity generation, and will remain the dominant source of power supply in the foreseeable future, with a projected 60% of generation still fuelled by lignite in 2030.

PGE plans to expand several fossil fuel projects in Poland, including the opening up of two new mines, the  Złoczew and Gubin-Brody lignite mines, and the extension of an opencast mine in the town of Turow, despite protests by Greenpeace and other environmental groups.

The new Złoczew mine alone would produce an additional 18 million tonnes of coal a year, leading to the emission of an estimated 25.74 million tonnes of CO2.

Emissions from fossil fuel combustion saw a sharp increase by 3.5 percent in Poland in 2018, despite an average 2.5 percent decrease across the European Union (EU), according to Eurostat data.

This Author

Arthur Wyns is a biologist and science journalist. He is a climate change researcher at the World Health Organization and tweets from @ArthurWyns.

The Belchatow power plant in Poland has seen a rise in CO2 emissions and air pollution for a third year in a row.

The lignite-fired power station in central Poland increased its emissions in 2018, according to data from Poland’s National Centre for Emissions Management (KOBiZE) and obtained by Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.

The Belchatow power plant saw an increase in emissions from 34,9 Mt CO2 in 2016, to 38,3 Mt in 2018, a rise of 10 percent. The power plant produces four times as much CO2 a year as all Ryanair flights combined.

Premature deaths

Along with rising emissions, air pollution levels from the plant have also risen in the last two years, with a 54 percent rise in particulate matter, 50 percent rise in sulphur (SO2) and 8 percent rise in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels, as well as increased heavy metal concentrations such as lead and arsenic released by the plant.

Robert Biedron, founder of a new Polish social-democratic political party called Wiosna, which will run in the upcoming European elections, said: “After decades of investment in infrastructure, we must finally invest in human wellbeing.

“In Belchatow, we have coal left for ten more years. After that a few thousand people will lose their jobs. We have to think about this now.”

Tens of thousands of premature deaths have been attributed to pollution from Europe’s coal plants.

Exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) alone caused the premature death of an estimated 422,000 people across 41 European countries in 2015, while exposure to NO2 caused the premature death of an estimated 79,000 people in the same region.

The health impacts of exposure to air pollution are diverse, ranging from inflammation of the lungs, to cardiovascular diseases, breathing conditions, cancer and strokes. Recent scientific research has shown air pollution may be damaging every organ in the body.

Fossil fuels

The 4,4 MW Belchatow plant currently accounts for 20 percent of the Polish power market, and is operated by Polish state-owned coal utility company PGE.

Coal accounts for 80 percent of the country its electricity generation, and will remain the dominant source of power supply in the foreseeable future, with a projected 60% of generation still fuelled by lignite in 2030.

PGE plans to expand several fossil fuel projects in Poland, including the opening up of two new mines, the  Złoczew and Gubin-Brody lignite mines, and the extension of an opencast mine in the town of Turow, despite protests by Greenpeace and other environmental groups.

The new Złoczew mine alone would produce an additional 18 million tonnes of coal a year, leading to the emission of an estimated 25.74 million tonnes of CO2.

Emissions from fossil fuel combustion saw a sharp increase by 3.5 percent in Poland in 2018, despite an average 2.5 percent decrease across the European Union (EU), according to Eurostat data.

This Author

Arthur Wyns is a biologist and science journalist. He is a climate change researcher at the World Health Organization and tweets from @ArthurWyns.

The Belchatow power plant in Poland has seen a rise in CO2 emissions and air pollution for a third year in a row.

The lignite-fired power station in central Poland increased its emissions in 2018, according to data from Poland’s National Centre for Emissions Management (KOBiZE) and obtained by Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.

The Belchatow power plant saw an increase in emissions from 34,9 Mt CO2 in 2016, to 38,3 Mt in 2018, a rise of 10 percent. The power plant produces four times as much CO2 a year as all Ryanair flights combined.

Premature deaths

Along with rising emissions, air pollution levels from the plant have also risen in the last two years, with a 54 percent rise in particulate matter, 50 percent rise in sulphur (SO2) and 8 percent rise in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels, as well as increased heavy metal concentrations such as lead and arsenic released by the plant.

Robert Biedron, founder of a new Polish social-democratic political party called Wiosna, which will run in the upcoming European elections, said: “After decades of investment in infrastructure, we must finally invest in human wellbeing.

“In Belchatow, we have coal left for ten more years. After that a few thousand people will lose their jobs. We have to think about this now.”

Tens of thousands of premature deaths have been attributed to pollution from Europe’s coal plants.

Exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) alone caused the premature death of an estimated 422,000 people across 41 European countries in 2015, while exposure to NO2 caused the premature death of an estimated 79,000 people in the same region.

The health impacts of exposure to air pollution are diverse, ranging from inflammation of the lungs, to cardiovascular diseases, breathing conditions, cancer and strokes. Recent scientific research has shown air pollution may be damaging every organ in the body.

Fossil fuels

The 4,4 MW Belchatow plant currently accounts for 20 percent of the Polish power market, and is operated by Polish state-owned coal utility company PGE.

Coal accounts for 80 percent of the country its electricity generation, and will remain the dominant source of power supply in the foreseeable future, with a projected 60% of generation still fuelled by lignite in 2030.

PGE plans to expand several fossil fuel projects in Poland, including the opening up of two new mines, the  Złoczew and Gubin-Brody lignite mines, and the extension of an opencast mine in the town of Turow, despite protests by Greenpeace and other environmental groups.

The new Złoczew mine alone would produce an additional 18 million tonnes of coal a year, leading to the emission of an estimated 25.74 million tonnes of CO2.

Emissions from fossil fuel combustion saw a sharp increase by 3.5 percent in Poland in 2018, despite an average 2.5 percent decrease across the European Union (EU), according to Eurostat data.

This Author

Arthur Wyns is a biologist and science journalist. He is a climate change researcher at the World Health Organization and tweets from @ArthurWyns.

It took Tony Abbott – the architect of a decade of climate agony for Australian progressives – to boil a catastrophic defeat for Labor down to a trademark slogan.

The former prime minister and Liberal MP said on Saturday night: “Where climate change is a moral issue, we do it tough. But where climate change is an economic issue, as the result tonight shows, we do it very, very well.”

Abbott was, in fact, giving a concession speech. He’d just been thrashed by an independent who made his climate denial the defining issue for voters in the affluent Sydney seat he’d held for 25 years.

Coal country

But away from the lilly pilly-lined streets of northern Sydney, Australians were emphatically rejecting the fullest climate offering from a major party in years.

Labor, led by former union boss Bill Shorten, had come to the election promising to end Australia’s ‘climate wars’ with energy reforms that would foster the growth of renewable energy over the country’s traditionally powerful coal industry. It was, Shorten said, time to end a decade of inaction as Australia recovered from its hottest ever summer.

Shorten had been heavily favoured, with betting companies even paying out on a Labor victory in the week before. Instead, the governing coalition of Liberal and National parties was returned to power, aided by a resounding victory in coal country.

In the central Queensland seats of Dawson, Capricornia and Herbert, the swing to the Coalition was 11.3 percent, 10.7 percent and 7.6 percent. Herbert was one of two seats Labor lost in a state where they had to make gains to win government.

In this arid corner of the north east, Indian company Adani plans to dig a massive and controversial new coal mine. The Coalition has backed the project, which still faces state regulatory hurdles, as a job bonanza for central Queensland. Resources minister Matt Canavan’s response to the government’s re-election was a two word tweet: “START ADANI”.

Potential beneficiaries 

On the other hand, Labor has remained ambivalent, saying that it won’t block the development, but it won’t give the project federal finance to build a rail link.

One of the single biggest potential beneficiaries of the Adani project is a billionaire businessman called Clive Palmer. His Waratah Coal company holds major mining leases near the Adani site. The rail and port infrastructure that would service the first mine would make his Alpha North and China First Coal projects, which he claims have even larger reserves, all the more likely to proceed.

In this election, Palmer, a former MP, financed one of the most extraordinary guerrilla campaigns in Australian political history. He reportedly spent AU$60m on Labor-bashing advertising for his own United Australia Party. He ran candidates in every seat, but didn’t win a single one.

Then, under Australia’s preferential voting system, Palmer did a deal that meant his 3.4 percent of the national vote flowed to the Coalition. Late on Saturday, he claimed credit for returning the government.

In Queensland, Palmer’s attacks found their mark. According to Richie Merzian, director of the Australia Institute’s climate programme, Labor’s fence-sitting over Adani “meant they were unpopular in Queensland where the Coalition were successful in equating coal and jobs … and not popular enough in Victoria where the population wanted climate action”.

Major setback

The mining union, which is affiliated to Labor, called on the party to back the Adani project. Instead, Shorten’s election offer to communities impacted by the declining coal industry was the establishment of a ‘just transition authority’, but no finance for restructuring their economies.

Wayne Swan, Labor’s national president and a former treasurer, told the ABC his party had failed to reassure communities that view coal as their lifeblood.

Swan said: “What they want is someone who respects the dignity of their work and their lifestyles in their region and the whole country, not just the Labor party, has to come to grips with that challenge.”

After suffering such a major setback, Guardian Australia’s political editor Katherine Murphy questioned whether Labor would “have the resolve to go to another election championing an ambitious policy” on climate change.

But others argued the party needed to double down on its commitments, not only to cutting emissions, but to the regions that feed the biggest coal export industry on the planet.

Greens MP Adam Bandt said on Twitter that if Labor jumped to the conclusion that only a small target could win the climate policy struggle “it could cost us all dearly”. He called for an Australian version of the green new deal, the massive investment in transitioning to a cleaner economy currently championed by progressives in the US and Europe.

Wishful thinking

Bandt said: “The only way out of this cul-de-sac is with a plan for real jobs in new industries located in these coal communities. A ‘green new deal’ can be picked up and applied across party lines and can work as well in Melbourne as in Capricornia if it’s believable.” 

This has international precedent. In Spain, the Socialist government brokered a €250m regional development deal with unions to phase out coal mining. In April, they won back into power campaigning on a ‘green new deal’ platform and increased their vote in mining regions.

Marc Stears, director of Sydney University’s Policy Lab, told Climate Home News Labor needed to “make the economic case for climate reform bigger and more compelling”.

He said the idea of an Australian green new deal was “on the right track” but its proponents needed to “persuade people that it is real and not just wishful thinking”.

Durable compromise

An even stronger lesson for Australia may come from Germany, where coal is every bit as woven into the political, economic and social fabric.

Last week, Angela Merkel said the country would find a path to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Germany’s coal commission, with representatives from across industry, unions, science and green groups, has set out a plan to manage the end of coal within two decades. That is slower than climate advocates would like, but represents a durable compromise with an influential coal lobby.

Without that type of engagement, Australian Labor remains vulnerable to an industry that has again demonstrated its close ties to power and to the electorate.

This Author

Karl Mathiesen is Climate Home News’ editor. He has written for national newspapers, newswires and magazines in Australia and the UK. This article was first published on Climate Home News.

Image: Jeremy Buckingham, Flickr. 

The public’s attention has rightly been on the streets this spring, in particular those streets occupied by masses of creative and dedicated young people protesting for the future of the planet.

The National Education Union – which with around 460,000 members is the biggest education union in Europe – recognised the importance of this movement, and committed itself to active solidarity at its conference this April.

A motion was moved by Islington and Wandsworth districts and overwhelmingly supported by conference. In it we argued that “the transition to a zero-carbon society to keep below a 1.5 degree increase is the most urgent problem facing humanity and is technically feasible”.

The motion also argued that  “the consequences of a failure to act – or an unjust transition, whereby those with wealth and power dump the costs downwards – will be severe for our members, our communities, the children we teach and – in the worst case – could threaten our survival.”

Organisational support

We resolved that our generation has a responsibility “to help lead a just transition; shifting energy production, transport, housing and agriculture onto a sustainable basis within the lifetimes of the children currently in our schools,” requiring urgent government investment and an end to failing market ‘solutions’. 

This involved a commitment to “lobby Government to press them on plans to carry out their obligation under the Paris Agreement to educate the public about the scale of climate change and the measures needed to deal with it – including through school’s curricula”, and the need “for every school to be zero carbon by 2030.”

We plan to hold an Education for a Just Transition conference on 12 October 2019, to further discussions about reorganising our societies and reskilling our citizens, and how this can be integrated into a liberatory pedagogy.

We also promised to “oppose any reprisals against students taking action to fight climate change, such as detentions [or] exclusions” because “the rights to strike and protest are fundamental democratic rights for students and workers alike”.

The conference also pledged “to support future student actions by approaching student representatives to offer trade union speakers, stewards and organisational support.”

This Author 

Andrew Stone is secretary of Wandsworth National Education Union.

If you are an NEU member and would like to be involved in organising the Just Transition conference or other aspects of union climate change activity, please email the organisers. 

Image: School strike, Flickr. 

The bioenergy industry gives the impression of being at the forefront of tackling climate change. Every wood pellet that’s burned communicates the illusion of innovative progress away from fossil fuels and towards ‘renewable’ energy.

In the context of our urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it is easy to be persuaded by a strategy which can supposedly help steer us away from impending doom.

Before I took my job working to protect forests I was under the impression that bioenergy was something positive. 

Capitalism growth 

Since humans first discovered how to create fire about 1.5 million years ago, our ability to harness the flames has sustained us, warmed us, and fed us.

Most of the world is fiercely globalised and intensely capitalist, focusing on – or subjected to – short-term economic gain.

Societies in the global north have become demanding and consumerist, reaching ever further afield for products to satisfy our desires. We have plunged deep into oil wells, and exploited pristine, ecologically priceless ecosystems in the Arctic and Amazon.

Burning materials to produce energy continues to drive our modern society. 

Many people will have heard and agree with the slogan ‘keep it in the ground’ in reference to coal, oil and gas. The need to do so could not be more pressing, as we teeter on the brink of global climate catastrophe.

Climate denial 

A crisis is already playing out around us – more noticeably in some parts of the world than in others, and exerting greater pressure and injustice on certain communities than on others. 

In 2015 it emerged that ExxonMobil knew about climate change and the impacts of burning fossil fuels as early as the 1960s, yet went on to fund disinformation campaigns to promote climate denial – the basis of a hearing in the European Parliament which Exxon failed to attend.  

Not only have companies been knowingly carrying out activities that have a long-lasting detrimental impact on the climate, but they have also been infringing on human and constitutional rights, for example through oil-spills, incursion onto and violence within indigenous lands, and widespread damage to lives and livelihoods. 

It is clear that we need both an end to the burning of fossil fuels and, more widely, an end to and prevention of any activity which releases significant quantities of greenhouse gases and destroys the environment.

This demands a whole-scale shift in our system – from one of extraction and burning, to one where we can produce energy without causing social and environmental harm.  

Ecological responsibility 

Replacing fossil fuels with biomass is like building a house of cards, and choosing to keep removing one kind of card rather than another. In both scenarios, the house collapses.

Burning biomass is just another path to environmental destruction.

There is extensive research to show why burning biomass is terrible for the environment.  Burning wood for energy emits more carbon on a per-unit-of-energy basis than burning coal, as well as harmful particulates that cause health issues to local communities, just like living near a coal plant.

Despite attempts to market an image of ecological responsibility, wood pellets are either sourced from the clearcutting of biodiverse forests that would otherwise act as carbon sinks, or from monoculture plantations that replace those forests, offering little benefit to wildlife and communities.  

An incredible 22 million tonnes of pellets, many imported from the US, are already consumed in the EU each year. This is set to rise as demand increases, thanks to policy such as the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive, which misleadingly suggests that bioenergy has zero emissions, and the EU long term climate strategy, which relies on large increases in bioenergy of up to 80 percent.   

Fatal ideology 

Where bioenergy companies claim that they will only burn waste and residues, they cannot live up to their promises. This is due to the sheer quantity of wood pellets required, resulting in the need to source directly from forests, not to mention the lack of suitable infrastructure to safely burn these types of pellets: so far, only pellets made from virgin wood have been used.

In 2018, Drax power station gobbled up 7.2 million tonnes of wood pellets, to the detriment of natural forests in the Southern US and Eastern Europe.

What has not permeated the public consciousness is that bioenergy is a flagrant hitch-hiker on the structures already built up by the global fossil-fuel industry.

Bioenergy relies on the same fatal ideology that keeps oil barons happy as millions of barrels of oil are extracted, despite all the science to show that we must stop drilling.

It’s the same ideology that favours centralized corporate control over community empowerment. And it’s the same ideology that climate criminals like Trump and Bolsonaro use to justify deforestation and attacks on indigenous peoples in the Amazon, and the use of harmful agricultural chemicals, to name only two examples.  

Extractive system

The bioenergy industry is all about producing ever-increasing quantities of wood pellets, exploiting the land, disregarding the need to protect forests, and distracting from the work required to reduce emissions.

Thanks to the efforts of NGOs, scientists, and a growing number of concerned citizens, the inherent risks of burning wood for bioenergy have recently gained more attention. 

Over 800 scientists wrote to the EU in January 2018, calling for an end to subsidies for energy produced from biomass, and for recognition of the socio-environmental risks of burning wood pellets.

On 4 March this year, their concerns were echoed in a landmark case which was filed against the EU by six plaintiffs claiming that classifying bioenergy as carbon-neutral within the EU Renewable Energy Directive has caused them and the wider environment harm.  

Civil society groups are also rising up to protest clearcutting for biomass, and to fight the conversion of coal power plants to biomass rather than shutting them down permanently. The very need for this struggle is a sure sign that the old extractive system is simply being adapted to accommodate biomass. 

Public opinion

Yet, as public opinion swings strongly against the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, there is still not enough being said about – nor against – bioenergy.

In the context of the Paris Agreement, the IPCC’s report on 1.5 degrees, and the global climate strikes, the bioenergy industry is being allowed to slip in, relatively quietly yet nevertheless in plain sight, as a ‘saviour’. 

Now, after reading and learning from industry, scientific and NGO documents alike, I know that burning wood for energy is a continuation of the same old story, with the most dangerous characters (resource extraction, greenhouse gas emissions, short-term gain, trampling of community rights and destruction of nature) combined in a nefarious mix. 

As this industry continues to carry out its destruction of forests and landscapes, not to mention the climate, in several years’ time we could see huge civil society protests to not only ‘keep it in the ground’, but also to ‘stand for forests’.

Wave of outrage

There will be a rising wave of outrage and distress born from the realization that once again companies marketed their activities as green and sustainable, even when they knew better.

The realization that once again governments and leaders chose the extraction of finite resources and irreparable damage to ecosystems, even when they knew better. The realization that once again society and our planet has been pushed further into climate chaos, even when we knew better.

There is already every need to panic.  

Let’s halt bioenergy, reduce emissions and protect natural carbon sinks and landscapes rather than relying on false solutions. We must stop going backwards before it’s too late.

This Author 

Katja Garson is a campaigner and writer focussing on the intersections of climate, land-use, nature, and grassroots action. She currently leads communications for CLARA.

Extinction Rebellion will stage non-violent action in response to BP’s annual general meeting in the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre at 15.30pm today.

Protesters are inviting people to take part in a People’s Assembly outside Marischal College. The assembly will begin with a welcome and introduction. We will then hear a series of short talks before forming smaller facilitated groups to share feelings and to deliberate on ideas for change in Aberdeen, the North East and Scotland.

These will then be shared with the rest of the assembly before concluding at 16.30. This is a family friendly event. Extinction Rebellion Aberdeen welcome everyone and every part of everyone.

Environmental impacts

In Fort William, XR would also like to invite the public to join them in a peaceful demonstration outside the BP petrol station on North Road at 11am to protest the environmental impact of the company’s activities.

BP continues to actively inhibit progress toward carbon emission objectives set out in the IPCC Report of 2018.

The Gulf oil disaster of 2010, for which they were responsible, has become emblematic of human mistreatment of our planet. Their operations contributed net CO2 emissions of 51.2m tonnes in 2015 alone. Of their £15-16bn budget last year, they invested only £0.5bn in renewables.

The exploitation of Scotland’s North Sea oil reserves is an unnecessary stress on the planet’s finite resources that is causing irreversible environmental effects on a global scale.

These include rising sea temperatures, rising sea levels, and climatic instability. All of these effects have been identified by independent scientific bodies.  

Lobbying campaign

Oil Change International’s Sea Change Report reported earlier this week: “Carbon dioxide emissions from the oil, gas and coal in already-operating fields and mines globally will push the world far beyond 1.5°C of warming and will exhaust a 2°C carbon budget.” 

The opening of any new reserves in Scotland, as anywhere else, would gravely exacerbate what is already an immediate crisis on a global scale.

BP has invested heavily in a lobbying campaign to suppress legislation that attempts to reduce global heating, in accordance with their aims to expand their gas and oil operations.

The OCI Sea Change Report found that “given the right policies, job creation in clean energy industries will exceed affected oil and gas jobs more than threefold“.

John Bolland, 61, a former oil worker from Aberdeen, said: “I am here today because the compelling weight of scientific evidence demonstrates that we are running out of time.”

Tipping points

Bolland continued: “Personally, I worked in the oil & gas industry for over 30 years and earned a living from it. I accept I share the blame.

“We have known for years that the impact of fossil fuel extraction was damaging the planet and our children’s future. But, it’s too easy to put off the big and necessary changes. Beyond Petroleum…what happened to that?!  

“And too easy to think you can change things from the inside. We can’t change this gradually from the inside. It has to stop and it has to stop now.

“So this is the new beginning. For our children and grandchildren. Their parents here, myself included, have driven the planet too close to catastrophic tipping points.

“People in this AGM, probably people I used to work with and for, are playing Russian roulette with their lives… and with most of the chambers loaded.”

Better democracy

Amy Marshall, 38, an artist from Fort William, said: “I am utterly terrified about the unfolding climate disaster and ecological collapse.  

“The destruction of wildlife and the wonders of nature is on a scale of magnitude that is almost too awful to grasp. The natural systems that sequester carbon are being destroyed, or are themselves under threat from rising temperatures, and may cease to function.

“Hearing of those who have already lost their lives or their precious children to wildfires or cyclones fills me with sorrow and despair, and makes me cling to my own two small children, fearful for our future. Governments and society seem incapable of changing quickly enough to halt our extinction.

“The only shred of hope I have is in Extinction Rebellion, and the idea that we can radically change our system of government. We could have a better democracy, where Citizen’s Assemblies make decisions on climate change, free from oil interests.

“That is why I am out here today, dressed for a funeral: to highlight the true cost of oil, what we are losing, and the danger of leaving decisions up to politicians who are in thrall to the oil industry.”

Pivotal position 

Paul Mather, 43, a geography teacher from Aberdeen, said: “Our climate is breaking down around us. The warnings given by the scientific community have been stark and clear.

“We must act now, decisively and with immense urgency to stop extracting and burning fossil fuels.

“As a company that profits from a product that threatens our very existence, BP is in a pivotal position to help us protect ourselves. There is a moral imperative for BP to keep its fossil fuel assets in the ground.”

Andrew Squire, 64, an architect from Fort William, said: “I’m part of the BP protest primarily because I have two young grandchildren and I am terrified for their future and that of their generation, if the environment continues to be wrecked by massively wealthy corporations in their endless quest for greater profits.”

BP have consistently demonstrated that their culpability exceeds mere negligence. Extinction Rebellion demands that the British Government hold them and others like them to account for their actions, and prohibit further exploration of natural gas and oil reserves.

Extinction Rebellion Scotland will continue to campaign for a rapid and just transition to renewable energy sources to reduce CO2 emissions to net zero in the UK by 2025. Meeting this objective requires an end to further use of harmful energy sources such as offshore oil and gas.

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from Extinction Rebellion.