Peoples Republic of South Devon

Changing climate in Bovey

November 13th, 2007

Posted by Cptn

Good ole Bovey Climate Action. One year old and it’s still ploughing the furrow of small scale individual action that can make environmental gains. And small initiatives can grow - there’s a network of 15 towns around Dartmoor that are sharing knowledge, expertise and enthusiasm about environmental action.

Going through the year’s achievement, Simon Hooton mentioned Waste Watchers and the 50 homes signed up to the energy audits, the push to green energy providers, a dolls house with 34 energy saving initiatives and the plethora of events that they run. As well as their very own Hamster Project - school children take electrosave equipment home to monitor the family’s energy usage.

But it was the big hitters in the environmental world who were the real draw: Mark Edwards of Hard Rain fame; Mark Lynas of Six Degrees fame (if you missed him, catch him today at a South West Debates gig at the Exeter Picturehouse) and Jonathan Porritt of environmental fame.

The global nature of the problem was certainly focused on, and why not? It is a boundary breaking issue and the crammed audience of acolytes in Bovey Parish church was told that the biggest environmental danger lay in India and China, as the two countries rush towards industrialised capitalism (that last bit was mine).

International issue, international speakers and a local response - still it would have been nice if we’d seen the impact of small changes and one of the school kids had done a bit of presentation on how they’d shamed with their family into modifying their energy habits.

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