Let’s not forget about the climate emergency: write to your local councillors

It is a year since Oxford City Council held its Citizens Assembly on the climate emergency, and budget planning for next year is beginning at officer level. We are concerned that short-term financial pressures may take priority over climate commitments.

Councillors need to be reminding officers of the crucial importance of sticking to the City Council’s commitments on the climate emergency, and we’d encourage all LCON supporters and other concerned citizens to ask their local councillors to do this.

Below is a template email you can use as the basis for your own communications, and you can find out who your local councillor is, and their contact details, here.

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Oxford 2040 webinar and panel discussion – recording and key messages

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Oxford 2040 event! The event explored what a thriving Oxford in 2040 could look like, and what action we need to take, drawing on Damon Gameau’s inspiring film ‘2040‘.

Our panel of guest speakers included Barbara Hammond MBE from the Low Carbon Hub on energy, Abena Poku-Awuah from the Coalition for Healthy Streets and Active Travel on travel, and Harpreet Kaur Paul, lawyer and climate-just solutions consultant, on food and farming.  A recording is now available here.

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Webinar on Sustainable Fashion – key messages, recording and slides

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Sustainable Fashion webinar with Kim Polgreen (Sustainability Educator) and Stephen Cawley (former Head of Sustainability at John Lewis). We hope you enjoyed it and found it useful.

For those who were unable to attend, a recording of the webinar is now available here and you can access the slides here: Kim Polgreen and Stephen Cawley.

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Want to talk about Climate Change? Join one of our friendly Climate Cafes

Our Climate Cafes run monthly. Details are on our Meetup page. Climate Cafes provide a supportive space in which to talk about how the climate crisis is affecting us – without pressure to act. The cafes are facilitated by Rebecca Nestor. 

During the Coronavirus outbreak our Climate Cafes are taking place via online platform Zoom. Please see the Meetup page for further details, including future dates.

We think our Climate Cafes offer something different from the usual gatherings of people with interests in climate change. They are facilitated – so you can be sure that there will be space for you to speak. They are not designed to recruit you to do anything or to put you under any pressure. The idea behind them is that talking about climate change is really important – but it is often made more difficult by our feelings of guilt that we are not doing enough, or frustration that others are not doing enough. So we provide a space in which we don’t talk about what we or others are doing or should be doing. We just talk about climate change and how it is making us think and feel. Everyone is welcome.

Cancelled due to Coronavirus: Help care for our new trees

Join us on Saturday 4 April from 10am for a ‘mulching morning’ in Cutteslowe Park. All welcome!

  • 10am – 2pm, drop in when you can
  • Hot drinks and cake provided
  • Overseen by Oxford Direct Services
  • Kit provided (please bring a spade if you can)
  • This event is part of Oxfordshire Trees for the Future (oxtrees.uk)

Find out more and register on Eventbrite.

Find us at the entrance to the community woodland (signposted from the pond, or ask at the Cafe):

Please ensure all children are accompanied by a responsible adult. LCON is unable to take responsibility for unaccompanied children.

E-Car Club is leaving Oxford

E-Car Club is, sadly, withdrawing its presence in Oxford. This means that the electric car in Summertown will no longer be available after 9 March. We are investigating opportunities to replace E-Car and expand car-sharing services. Please get in touch with Rebecca (treasurer@lcon.org.uk) with any suggestions or contacts.

Time to act: fossil fuel divestment

Last week Oxford students occupied St John’s College in protest at its £8.1m fossil fuel investments. The students held up placards reading “We can’t eat money or drink oil”, “Fossil Fuels are History” and  “Wake up Fossil Fools”. As they endured the overnight cold in their tents, the college’s response included attempts to keep out sleeping bags and blankets, deactivating the students’ key fobs, and a proposal from the Bursar that he could “arrange for the gas central heating in college to be switched off with immediate effect”. Calling themselves “Direct Action for Divestment“, the campaign group was supported by the Oxford Climate Justice CampaignXR Oxford and other climate activists.

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