Rosher.Net

Back in January I blogged about a decision I’d made. Well, you know how it goes, firmly of an opinion one day, and the next day you’re flipping and flopping like a badly aimed salmon… Here’s the original blog post.

So last night all of us that were re-elected to the Parish Council (including a couple of new folk) met up for the annual Parish Council meeting. You know, the one where they elect the Chairman. Yes, that Chairman, the one I wasn’t going to do any more.

Ladies and gentlemen, here I stand, the newly renewed Parish Council Chairman. There are after all only so many times you can say no to a bunch of people saying yes. I’m not sad of course, the job takes a lot of time and the pay sucks, but the challenge is always, well, challenging.

But hey, you want him you get all of him, and at the meeting last night I successfully presented and got a Resolution for the declaration of a climate and ecological emergency. You can read the full declaration here.

On the scale of a parish council it’s a minor thing, albeit I don’t know how many other parish councils have done this yet. Our carbon debt is small, amounting to little more than a handful of car journeys a month and a fizzle of electricity useage (even so we will address that, probably by tree planting, which although not entirely effective is at least a positive step).

Where it holds promise is as a potential block to unsustainable development in the area. We’re not averse to a few more houses, but without a low carbon transport option and with almost no employment in the village every house brings a car, or more likely three. And the local authority have promised more than a thousand new homes here.

As a villager, as a Druid and as an Earthling I am aware that we are all using far more than we should be able to justify, and that we are all – especially me – hypocrites. But if we need pushing, we need the organisations that push. It will be interesting to see how this declaration goes…

Oh, the photo? That’s Janet moving the new stuff out of the greenhouse for planting in the veg beds and borders. Just doesn’t know when to quit, that one.