I recently saw my first bee of the year, tempted out of hibernation by a sunny day. With little food and the temperature set to plummet overnight, I wondered about its fate. I’ve written about insects before, but every time I read about their steep decline I’m moved...

Are you taking part in a Secret Santa this Christmas? I am, and I’ve been matched with someone I’ve never met. Working out what on earth to do has surfaced difficult questions around trying to live a sustainable life and how that might be perceived by others. I could...

On November 6th, delegates from around the world will descend on Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt for COP27. It comes a year after COP26 in Glasgow, where world leaders agreed a deal to limit global temperatures to 1.5C. The pace and brutality of geopolitical changes since...

As we head towards winter, Keynsham residents – like thousands across the country – will start to feel the pain of higher energy costs. While the energy price cap is welcome, bills remain considerably higher than last year, and people will still struggle to pay. I...

Europe is in the grip of the worst drought in 500 years. ‘Hunger stones’ in the rivers Elbe and Rhine have been revealed by plummeting water levels. Wildfires are raging across the continent. The UK has not escaped. Our gardens and fields are brown, trees are dropping...

Transition Keynsham’s Veg Plot in the Park is celebrating its 10 year anniversary next month. The green fingered volunteers will be marking this milestone with cake on 3rd September, starting at 2pm on the plot, which is beside the café in Keynsham Memorial Park....

Mending and repairing things we love or find useful is a hopeful and healing act. Sharing skills and stories, joy and hope are really powerful acts of community. We’re lucky to have a band of dedicated volunteers in Keynsham who hold a Repair Café the second Saturday...

How much plastic packaging do you throw away every week? I’ve been counting mine as part of the Big Plastic Count. The aim of the count is to create the UK’s biggest nationwide investigation into household plastic waste; to find out how much plastic is passing through...

Researchers from University College London recently found that our warming climate and intensive agriculture have a catastrophic effect on insect species. Their research showed that in areas with high-intensity agriculture and substantial climate warming, the number...

What does it take to bring about political and social change? Armed conflict or non-violent protest? At a well-attended Keynsham Extinction Rebellion event in February, a speaker told the audience that their aim is to get 3.5% of the UK’s population engaged in...

As the world faces multiple geopolitical and environmental shocks, most notably the awful war in Ukraine, humanity finds itself between a rock and a hard place. The rock is our reliance on Russian oil and gas (an acute crisis), and the hard place is climate change (a...

Over the past two years, many people have found that being in nature supports our wellbeing.  Numerous scientific studies support that, and scientists have also found that being in nature – specifically trees – also has a positive effect on our physical health. In one...

Two years ago, a group of influential scientists identified 2030 as the date by which we need to transition to a low carbon economy to save the planet. With a mere eight years to go, this month’s column offers six suggestions for New Year resolutions to help us...

Every year, around eight million Christmas trees are sold in the UK. But what’s the best option for the climate – real or artificial? Both create emissions through transportation, but artificial plastic trees have a higher environmental impact. If you buy a new...

This week I’ve been thinking about the Eco Festival talks at The Space. Each talk – on how food, energy, nature and money affect (and are affected by) climate change – was interesting. But what really struck me was the connections between them. We heard that our...

I have been reading a book called Silent Spring. Published in 1962 by US scientist Rachel Carson, it inspired the modern environmental movement and sparked environmental protection laws across the world.   Carson wrote that “the beauty of the living world I was trying...

The clocks have gone forward, and we can all feel the benefits of more daylight. Our vulnerable members of society have been vaccinated against Covid-19, and this month – finally – we can meet up with friends and family again. I don’ t know if it’s because spring is...

In November, the UK hosts COP26, a summit of the 197 countries that are part of the UN’s climate treaty. Governments and negotiators will discuss how to prevent the climate crisis from causing even worse catastrophes than we’re already seeing across the world....

In a recent podcast, David Attenborough said that in the past half-century we have been given the mechanisms of poisoning and destroying nature beyond the powers of any human previously on Earth. We use this power to take what we want from nature without a care....

It’s no exaggeration to say that 2020 was a terrible year, and I fervently hope that in 2021 we’ll turn the tide on coronavirus and be able to live freely again. We’re by no means out of the woods, but I believe there are many reasons to be optimistic, on top of the...