Skip to main content
Read page text
page 6
Scientists believe we have entered a period of abrupt climate breakdown. The Earth’s atmosphere is already over 1oC warmer than pre-industrial levels and the chance of staying below the 2oC limit set in the Paris Agreement is tiny. Projections show we are on course for three degrees of warming and probably much higher. The evidence is undisputable. Seventeen of the 18 warmest years in the 136 year record all have occurred since 2001, and global temperatures have increased by 0.9oC since 1880 (NASA/GISS, 2018). The most surprising warming is in the Arctic, where the 2016 land surface temperature was 2.0oC above the 1981-2010 average, breaking the previous records of 2007, 2011 and 2015 by 0.8oC, representing a 3.5oC increase since the record began in 1900 (Aaron-Morrison et al, 2017). A WWF report recently published has warned humanity about an irreversible collapse; the global vertebrate population has declined by 60% since 1970. In just 60 years, we have decimated natural habitats that they depend on: grasslands, forests, waterways and oceans. 4  | www.permaculture.co.uk
page 7
Activists at Westminster Billy Rickards © issue 99  spring 2019 From Gentle Living to Extinction Rebellion Ele Waters describes how she awakened from her permaculture ‘sleep’ to become a peaceful yet civilly disobedient activist For me to be writing an article about rebellion is quite ironic. Anyone who knows me is aware that I try to be a model, law-abiding citizen. I hate the idea of upsetting anyone and have very little time for, or understanding of, politics, preferring to garden and make things from sheep’s wool! I also really struggle with being in cities and crowds. I have just returned from London, however, having joined thousands of people in acts of peaceful civil disobedience. This involved causing massive disruption to the capital with the aim of getting the authorities to the negotiating table to discuss positive actions to tackle the ecological emergency that is climate change. I am now fully committed to working in this way for as long as it takes. Many have asked me why I’ve had a change of tactic, and why now. My form of ‘activism’ has always been through living by example. With this in mind, my husband and I created Pentiddy Woods in 2002, a permaculture woodland project in Cornwall. Our aim has always been one of gentle, right livelihood as part of Nature, hoping to inspire others in the process. The project has been more successful than we could ever have imagined, way exceeding our aspirations. Pentiddy is a thriving community of beings: wild, domesticated, human, all with their niche roles. We have an intern programme which is training people in a whole range of sustainable land management skills. We run an award-winning natural burial ground, manage an in-rotation coppice which was previously bare fields, head the charity for a community woodland created here, live in a beautiful off grid straw-bale house, and are building a resilient community and regenerating culture through our work with Jon Young’s ‘8 Shields Model’. The money to support all who live here comes from the land and ideas to expand and extend are still coming in thick and fast. I was treading lightly but deep down I had a heavy heart. We’ve been living in our little bubble for all these years, home educating our kids, baking bread, crafting our home and feeling positive about ‘doing our bit’. Then Wham! It hit me! The latest IPCC report came out ... then unbelievable silence in the media. This was swiftly followed by one of our interns being arrested for her involvement in the anti-fracking campaign in Lancashire. It was the ‘wake up!’ slap-around-the-face that I needed. My idyllic bubble burst allowing my awareness to expand. It was not that I was oblivious to all of this, but I think there was a big part of me that had felt too helpless to even dare look at it fully. I was now facing the knowledge that what we were doing here at Pentiddy, although valuable, was not enough. That’s when another of our interns introduced me to the Extinction Rebellion, a movement that is most definitely facing the truth that time has almost entirely run out to address the ecological crisis which is upon us, including the 6th mass species extinction, and abrupt runaway climate change. Societal collapse and mass death are seen as inevitable by scientists and other credible voices, with human extinction also a possibility if rapid action is not taken. |  5

Page Text

View plaintext

Activists at Westminster

Billy Rickards

©

issue 99  spring 2019

From Gentle Living to Extinction Rebellion

Ele Waters describes how she awakened from her permaculture ‘sleep’ to become a peaceful yet civilly disobedient activist

For me to be writing an article about rebellion is quite ironic. Anyone who knows me is aware that I try to be a model, law-abiding citizen. I hate the idea of upsetting anyone and have very little time for, or understanding of, politics, preferring to garden and make things from sheep’s wool! I also really struggle with being in cities and crowds. I have just returned from London, however, having joined thousands of people in acts of peaceful civil disobedience. This involved causing massive disruption to the capital with the aim of getting the authorities to the negotiating table to discuss positive actions to tackle the ecological emergency that is climate change. I am now fully committed to working in this way for as long as it takes. Many have asked me why I’ve had a change of tactic, and why now.

My form of ‘activism’ has always been through living by example. With this in mind, my husband and I created Pentiddy Woods in 2002, a permaculture woodland project in Cornwall. Our aim has always been one of gentle, right livelihood as part of Nature, hoping to inspire others in the process. The project has been more successful than we could ever have imagined, way exceeding our aspirations. Pentiddy is a thriving community of beings: wild, domesticated, human, all with their niche roles. We have an intern programme which is training people in a whole range of sustainable land management skills. We run an award-winning natural burial ground, manage an in-rotation coppice which was previously bare fields, head the charity for a community woodland created here, live in a beautiful off grid straw-bale house, and are building a resilient community and regenerating culture through our work with Jon Young’s ‘8 Shields Model’. The money to support all who live here comes from the land and ideas to expand and extend are still coming in thick and fast. I was treading lightly but deep down I had a heavy heart.

We’ve been living in our little bubble for all these years, home educating our kids, baking bread, crafting our home and feeling positive about ‘doing our bit’. Then Wham! It hit me! The latest IPCC report came out ... then unbelievable silence in the media. This was swiftly followed by one of our interns being arrested for her involvement in the anti-fracking campaign in Lancashire. It was the ‘wake up!’ slap-around-the-face that I needed. My idyllic bubble burst allowing my awareness to expand. It was not that I was oblivious to all of this, but I think there was a big part of me that had felt too helpless to even dare look at it fully. I was now facing the knowledge that what we were doing here at Pentiddy, although valuable, was not enough.

That’s when another of our interns introduced me to the Extinction Rebellion, a movement that is most definitely facing the truth that time has almost entirely run out to address the ecological crisis which is upon us, including the 6th mass species extinction, and abrupt runaway climate change. Societal collapse and mass death are seen as inevitable by scientists and other credible voices, with human extinction also a possibility if rapid action is not taken.

|  5

read next page

My Bookmarks

Buy this Book
Skip to main content