We need YOUR help to decide what our town’s priorities should be in the fight against climate change, and in the need to become more resilient to the changes that are coming. Please come along to our next meeting, 20 February, and help us list some priorities for applying for funding. In March we are planning a meeting about climate resilience…we need your help. Everyone is welcome. Any queries contact us transitionwilmslow@gmail.com
Joaquin Phoenix unveils his next film after Joker…
Who cares about peat?
6. Variety of plants near a small bog pool: In areas where peat cutting has been relaxed, mire vegetation including the characteristic cotton grass is able to re-establish and the bog begins again to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
5. Fossilized pine roots: From around 6,000 years ago pine trees were able to colonise the surface of the mire and the pine woodland persisted for 2,000 years until wetter conditions prevented pine regeneration. The pine trunks and roots were preserved beneath a blanket of Sphagnum moss. Today the magnificent ancient pine stumps are trashed and discarded by the peat operator.
2. Part of the Moss stripped of surface vegetation and some of the peat: Fossilized pine tree roots (see 5 below) have been excavated from the peat and left in rough piles. There is still more depth of peat to be excavated here.
4. Small bog pool: Lindow Moss started as a post glacial lake which became choked with vegetation. Patches of bog pondweed, soft rush and reed mace can still be found on the moss, supporting a small population of water voles.
3. Drainage channel: Today deep drainage channels criss-cross the bog and extract the water from the peat, causing it to shrink and oxidise so releasing carbon dioxide back to the atmosphere.
1. Piles of extracted peat waiting to be removed: Lindow Moss was once the most extensive lowland peat bog in Cheshire covering 600 hectares (1500 acres). At its heart the bog is still cut for peat on an industrial scale. Two thousand years ago people revered this place and marked it with the ritual sacrifice of Lindow Man whose preserved body was discovered in 1985. The site where the bog body was found, although internationally renowned, is not marked in any way.
8. Sphagnum Moss: Lindow Moss was ‘built’ of sphagnum moss over thousands of years and it can still be found in the wet areas. If the drainage channels were blocked and the peat surface was re-wetted then sphagnum would re-establish, so accelerating carbon capture from the atmosphere.
9. Sundew: in July the delightful, insect catching plant sundew is found flowering on the bare peat. The insect trapping ‘dew-drops’ persist even in hot weather and herbalists believed the plant to have special powers as an elixir of youth!
Well, we do obviously, because we know how vital peat is as a carbon sequester, we know that damaged peat bogs are extruding CO2, and we want to see our beloved Lindow Moss restored so it can become the beautiful landscape it should be, supporting biodiversity and acting as a much needed carbon sink. It is good to know that we are not the only ones, and that most commentators (not all) are on side with us. The recent CCC report on Land Use specifically targets peat bogs as a vital component in the battle against climate change and demands specific action including the banning of peat sales by 2023, the banning of peat burning and restoration of bogs including rewetting. Zac (now Lord) Goldsmith, Secretary of State for the Environment is reported to have said in a radio interview that if we are worried, we should stop buying peat and lobby DEFRA. Well, yes…we hope everyone who loves Lindow Moss does not buy peat based composts. We are not quite sure how to lobby DEFRA but we have written to our MP, Esther McVey, to ask her to support the immediate ban on peat sales and to lobby for immediate peat bog restoration, and we have copied the letter to DEFRA.
Our letter is here
Feel free to write in support as well. Save Our Peat Bogs!
Welcome to the Roaring 20’s!
Transition Wilmslow Community Fund Application
We have submitted this to the National Lottery Community Fund Call for community groups to do something about climate change. We are unlikely to be shortlisted but it does at least give us a template for planning future work. Please read it and tell us what you think.
We are all devastated by what is happening in Australia but we can only do what we can in our own corner of the planet. Let’s hope world leaders wake up to the canary in the mine.
On a more cheerful note the famous Transition Wilmslow Repair Cafe is back!
Come along and get your repairs repaired by our talented team of volunteer repairers. And there’s cake!
Our next monthly meeting is on Thursday 16 January, 7.30 pm Friends Meeting House. Please come along and help us plan our strategy for 2020.
Monday 20 January 7.30pm, Macctastic Meeting Meet Rod King from 20s plenty and hear about the benefits of 20mph in speed limits in residential areas. Many places have adopted these but not CEC as yet. http://www.20splenty.org/
Thursday 6 February 8-9.30 Undercroft URC Climate Conscious Wilmslow Meeting. Our very own Professor Sarah Bridle! Change Your Diet: the easiest way to combat climate change.
Change Your Diet: The Easiest Way To Help Reduce Climate Impact
Wilmslow’s Professor Sarah Bridle has been studying dark matter and dark energy for the last 20 years, but when her kids started school she started to think about our own planet in the next 20 years and beyond. She learned about climate change properly for the first time, how it threatens worldwide food production, and how food causes about a quarter of all global warming.
Sarah wanted to know how much each of her food choices was contributing, and why. She delved into the academic research literature, and summarized the results in simple charts. The charts make it easy for the non-specialist to see the impacts of different meal options, and show that some easy food switches can reduce food greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent.
Most of us make many food choices every day, and by changing these we can significantly reduce climate change caused by food, and free up land that can be used to help reduce climate change overall.
Christmas 2019 Update
We wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a healthy new year. We hope you’ll be able to join us in 2020 and help make Wilmslow a more sustainable and greener community. Please note we will not be having a monthly meeting in December; our next meeting is Thursday 16th January 2020, Friends Meeting House, 7.30pm.
Our next Repair Cafe is Saturday 18th January at the URC, 10am. We need volunteers! So if you can make a cake, repair small items of furniture, fix small electrical, bikes, toys….please contact Ken Wallace ken.wallace0111@gmail.com
Our response to the CEC draft environmental strategy is now on our Consultation Responses page. Individual responses are most welcome: respond on https://surveys.cheshireeast.gov.uk/s/111PX/ by 11.59pm on Sunday 1 December 2019.
We had a really interesting talk last night from Chris Widger on the Riverlands project, which is a restoration project involving the whole community. It’s horrifying to hear how polluted our rivers are, and how human interference has caused rivers to flood, but this is an opportunity to improve our local rivers. You can attend the Riverlands Project first Wilmslow Community Conversation, 7-9pm Parish Hall, Monday 2nd December.
Professor John Whitelegg gave a fabulous lecture on Sustainable Transport at our Transition Wilmslow lecture last week, and it was great to welcome Suzy Akers-Smith, CEC Commissioner for walking and cycling, who chaired the discussion. The comparison between UK transport policies and those in the rest of Europe were depressing to say the least, (trams waiting for trains… hourly buses in even the smallest villages…) but it is great to hear that Suzy has plans to really push sustainable transport across the borough.
Don’t forget the hustings on Saturday 30 November, 2-3.30pm, URC: meet the candidates! Submit questions to wilmslowhustings2019@gmail.com
Don’t forget the Sustainable Market on 28th November: an opportunity to have a greener, more sustainable Christmas and to get all your Christmas shopping done in one go!
Seasons greetings to you all and we look forward to seeing you in 2020.
Great News!
Congratulations to everyone who has helped with our Community Garden this year! We won “Outstanding” in the RHS “In Your Neighbourhood” awards and were part of Wilmslow’s entry into Britain in Bloom. The town was NW Large Town winner with a Gold and won Silver Gilt at National Level http://www.wilmslow.co.uk/news/article/19607/wilmslow-in-bloom-adds-a-sixth-gold
Not only that, but Wilmslow was awarded Plastic Free Town status! Congratulations to Ruth Menlove, Andrew Backhouse and the team. The real work starts now! to build on the progress that has been made so far and to continue to reduce single use plastics across the town. http://www.wilmslow.co.uk/news/article/19564/wilmslow-awarded-plastic-free-community-status-as-it-takes-action-on-single-use-plastic
The 4th Transition Wilmslow Annual Lecture.
Booking is open for this year’s Annual Lecture. Booking and attendance is open to all. We look forward to seeing you at this most pertinent and stimulating event.
Book via Wilmslow Guild at https://www.wilmslowguild.org/courses/-21st-century-transport-a-vision-for-cheshire-friday-15-november-2019/1123/
or call on 01625 523903
