“Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.”
Quotation from Nelson Mandela
All householders and organisations need to take action on climate change now.
When we all understand why, how and when we need to change, only then will we change our lifestyles.
Most people are well aware of the consequences of climate change:
- Scorching temperatures – this causes more people to die, and makes people feel very uncomfortable
- Increased drought across Africa with water shortages leading to thirst, hunger and mass migration
- Storms and violent weather events cause economic damage, disruption and higher costs of living
- Rising sea levels cause erosion of coastlines. Some island populations have been destroyed already.
- An increasing cost of living through the rising cost of carbon-based energy sources and loss of agricultural areas.
The root cause of all of these severe consequences is human behaviour, and our lifestyles.
The UK’s Committee on Climate Change (CCC) says that without changes to people’s behaviours now, the target of net zero by 2050 is not achievable.
They say that 32 per cent of what we need to do to reduce emissions up to 2035 require decisions by individuals and households NOW. We believe that human behaviour is responsible for 100 % of emissions.
If every human being on the planet knew what their emissions were, and reduced them close to zero, we would eliminate the threats to our planet from climate change.
Our driving passion is to ensure that our fellow citizens, their children, and grandchildren, will have lives that are worth living on this planet.
We would all be healthier, wealthier and happier!
There is not much time left to complete our actions:
Carbon Literacy Education
We provide education approved by the Carbon Literacy Project through online and in-person workshops. The Trustees of Save Our Shropshire are all certified as carbon literate. We are accredited as a Platinum Carbon Literate Organisation, which is the highest accolade that the Carbon Literacy project awards.
The Carbon Literacy Project are committed to bringing about change through understanding. People who come to our courses can get a certificate for their “literacy”. You have to prove your understanding and make pledges to reduce your own and a group’s impact on the environment. Education means you will be confident to help others change their lifestyles.
The workshops will help you buy, travel, eat, use energy, build, and plant well for the planet. You will change your lifestyle away from dependence on harmful fossil fuels to one that ensures the future of our planet. They will also save you money.
What do our learners say?
Feedback from a recent delegate:
“I look forward to doing further work with you and SOS again. You are a partner organisation that plays a vital role in Shropshire in terms of tackling our climate change challenges and helping us to become carbon neutral,” said Tim Smith – Assistant Director of Commercial Services Place Directorate at Shropshire Council, following attendance at our recent Carbon Literacy for Local Authorities course.
He attended with a number of others who got their Carbon Literacy certificates.
The Facts
Human beings have the capacity to destroy our planet. We must now take action to save it. We must stop it from becoming another barren rock circling the sun.
Take a look at this video here from BBC TV by David Attenborough to understand why there is an emergency and what we must do about it together.
We face a climate emergency – the facts
EXPERT VIEW
David Attenborough:
“We are at a unique stage in our history. Never before have we had such an awareness of what we are doing to the planet, and never before have we had the power to do something about that. Surely we all have a responsibility to care for our Blue Planet.
The future of humanity and indeed, all life on earth, now depends on us.”
SAVE OUR SHROPSHIRE WORKSHOPS
We run courses for :
- Local authority leaders/managers
- Town/parish councillors
- Small to Medium size businesses
- Householders
- Organisations like social housing providers
They will help you understand the basic science, your impact on the planet, and what you can do to change your and others’ lifestyles to protect the planet.
You will learn how to engage other people positively so they will also take the action they need to take. Click on the following button to get more detail:
Why Education?
People do not react positively to education. They have unpleasant memories of school classrooms. It can make them feel ignorant.
Human beings change habits slowly, and only if they think it is good for them.
We all know that losing weight is good. Losing weight is easy. Just eat less and exercise more. And yet, many people find it difficult to do .
Change happens because of two ingredients – knowledge and enthusiasm.
Once we know and understand why what we do today is bad, we will then move on to being positive and enthusiastic about changing our ways of life. We will then take action.
The following “Chinese Proverb” summarises the need for education:
You can learn more about the science and the issues under the heading learn. Click on the following button to go there:
Should our government do it all?
There is a time and place for governments to act.
Saying that the national and local governments should take action can just delay activity. They will not take action unless people proactively say what they want,.
For example, if people understand that houses must be built to an energy standard that will reduce carbon emissions, they will insist on that standard. They will then force changes in planning regulations that will make builders build houses that reduce emissions. They will refuse to buy homes that are not fitted with proper eco-furniture.
Householders would not buy a new house without a fitted kitchen. In the same waythey should demand the installation of triple glazing, insulation to the highest standard, along with air source heat pumps, solar panels, and electric vehicle chargers as standard.
When people understand that they must stop buying petrol or diesel vehicles, they will buy cars that will radically reduce carbon consumption, and create a demand for the infrastructure for electric cars.
Education will mean that the action to tackle climate change will be demand-led and not supply-forced.
The size of the problem
Shropshire is one of many Counties committed to preventing disasters from happening here and in the rest of the world.
However, this will only become a reality if the 200,000 households in Shropshire and beyond take action to live carbon-neutral lives.
Today each household in Shropshire consumes harmful gases which add up to around 15 Tonnes of Carbon Dioxide equivalent.
The following diagram illustrates the situation just for the Shropshire Council area:
The following similar chart illustrates the data just for the Telford and Wrekin council area – 15 tonnes:
Our aim is to get to net zero by 2030. That means that the planet’s natural state is that human beings emit and take out of the atmosphere no more than the planet can manage. It is set to 2030 because that is the time by which we must stop the earth from heating by more than 1.5 degrees centigrade more than the average temperature between 1850 to 1900 (the industrial age).
Scientists have worked out that this will lead the planet to a steady-state balanced situation.
To do this in Shropshire (and elsewhere), we need to change our:
- Diet to become more plant-based
- Buildings so that they are insulated better
- Use of oil and gas to heat homes and building
- Use of less electricity for light and heat
- Use of oil and petrol in travel from towards using renewable energy and eventually hydrogen.
- Purchasing habits by reusing and recycling
We have a list of actions you can take on our website, listed by areas where you can take action:
