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Thursday, 10 December 2009 14:46 |
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Transport
20’s Plenty for Birmingham – Northfield Eco Centre is now supporting our campaign and helping us to push for all residential roads to have 20mph speed limits. We also have a very committed volunteer who's been contacting other community groups to ask for their support. We hope to organise a special meeting of all these groups in December or early in the New Year, so that 2010 will be the year when Birmingham's streets became safer for everyone.
Local Transport Plan – After an article in the press, there has been much interest in our response to the West Midlands Rail Development Plan. Now we are working to incorporate elements of that into the Local Transport Plan, for which the consultation is ongoing at the moment – read details in this edition.
Better Buses for Birmingham – We are drawing up our manifesto of what we demand in terms of service in light of the difficulties at TWM (Travel West Midlands). Letters are still available in the Warehouse for people to sign to support the campaign. You can also sign an e-petition and join a facebook group for this campaign.
Local Shops & Food September saw the Food Chain fortnight of action, when we invited MP Lynne Jones along to the Warehouse Cafe to break open a giant egg to illustrate the problems with the food chain and the greenhouse emissions that come from feeding factory farmed animals. There was also a parade through the centre of Birmingham to the Jewellery Quarter Farmers’ Market to raise awareness of the issues. Now we are focussing on trying to persuade all the main political parties to commit to measures on planet-friendly farming in their manifestos. Check if your MP has asked their party to sign up to supporting the sustainable livestock bill and contact them today is they haven't. Meat Free Mondays has been proving popular in the cafe with more people coming in to have a veggie meal with the understanding that this will also cut their carbon footprint. Next year we are hoping for some more ambitious local food projects to kick off surrounding growing food in Birmingham. Get Serious about CO2 The group have been looking at the 10:10 campaign and asking local businesses and public sector organisations to sign up to reducing their carbon emissions by 10% over 2010. They are also awaiting news of what the Council's action plan for reducing carbon emissions by 60% by 2026 will look like in order to respond to this and ensure that the measures included are indeed serious steps to achieving this target.
Stop Climate Chaos - Copenhagen We managed to fill a coach with people going to the historic march on December 5th – The Wave will hopefully send a strong message to our leaders that the talks in Copenhagen must deliver a strong deal to save us from catastrophic temperature rises of over 2 degrees. We have had good press coverage and put on speaker meetings as well as publicity stunts to promote this message.
Faith and Climate Change
The judges’ visit for the Big Green Challenge, hosted by Northfield Eco Centre, went very well and was well attended by those involved with the project. Fingers crossed now for a favourable outcome and lots of extra funding to continue and expand this excellent work. As part of inter-faith week, the Faith and Climate Change Group hosted a sustainablility forum with the Council which gave people an opportunity to hear about the fantastic energy efficiency projects going on in faith communities over Birmingham.
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Last Updated on Thursday, 10 December 2009 16:49 |
