Crispin School’s message to everyone

Blog 14 – by Paul Lund
Crispin School, in Street, held its first community climate change debate, organised by students and staff to bring together their local community with the aim of identifying the urgent action that is needed. Up to 100 parents, pupils, school staff, governors and members of the public gathered for the evening last week (13.1.10).
To quote the programme for the evening: “United community action is the only way in which climate change can be solved. By taking part in this debate you are personally taking part in something much larger which will not only impact this local community but also the national community.”
The event was also a stage in the year 11’s Citizenship GCSE, but the pupil’s enthusiasm in meeting their audience and hosting the event was truly inspiring and showed real commitment beyond simply obtaining their course marks.
Green leadership comes from Frances Thomson, the school’s deputy head and climate action champion. “The school is a three times holder of the Eco schools national Green Flag award, and we’re hoping to reach our fourth,” said Frances, who chaired a panel of five experts for the debate. To receive the Green Flag award the school has to reapply every two years and meet a set of standards under the Eco-Schools programme. “We have set aside a Sustainable Learning Room in school to show pupils examples of sustainable living and some of our pupils took part in the pre-Copenhagen march in London, called the Wave, and afterwards they met Prime Minister Gordon Brown at Number 10,” Frances told me. They are also aiming for a 10 per cent reduction in their school’s C02 emissions this year.
Before the debate started, introductions and an outline of global warming were carefully presented by students Charlie Johnson, Ben Judge and James Paterson in front of the audience. This would be a daunting task for anyone, but rehearsals clearly paid off as it was done perfectly.
Four topics were raised for the panel of experts to discuss after which members of the audience were invited to ask questions.
Under ‘bridging the energy gap...’ both Mike Beal from Sustainable Shapwick and Charles Graham of the Green Party supported clean renewable sources, including hydropower (wave and tidal barrage) as well as reducing and saving energy. Producing electricity locally, where it is needed, is less wasteful, said Charles, as power through the grid results in a net loss. Ross Edwards, PRO for EDF Energy with responsibilities for public communications at Hinkley Point power station, defended the role of nuclear energy for the future saying power stations were being designed to be safer and nuclear electric generation had equal C02 emissions, in total, as those associated with wind energy production. He didn’t say what the disadvantages were with cost and waste disposal.
‘Community climate action...what do we need to do, and are young people today ready for the challenges of tomorrrow,’ had Dr Stewart Barr, senior geography lecturer at Exeter University, urging people to lobby and protest to make their views heard by government. Everyone agreed that young people today will be the future negotiators of climate deals, and they will look back at the disarray exhibited by current world politicians at Copenhagen. It was also clear that working on smaller, local, issues made sense as individuals and communities saw the effect of such things as saving money by home insulation, growing your own food and reducing the amount of unnecessary items we buy. A show of hands indicated half the audience would give up air travel entirely if that was what it would take to reduce aviation carbon emissions.
‘Adapting to climate change...what will the impacts be and will we be able to cope’ was tackled by Lucy Hunt, South West regional development manager for the Environment Agency, who explained how managed retreat from coastal areas will be necessary and how the EA has strategies in place to work with communities.
Lastly, ‘Copenhagen, should we be optimistic or pessimistic’ had most people in agreement that staying positive was the only way forward and that better deals must be done in the next round of talks by world leaders.
As a former schools education officer and projects coordinator for RSPB and BTCV, I have seen hundreds of schools involved with creating their own nature areas and environmental resource centres, all of which were ‘sowing the seed’ of care and respect for our natural world. Now that we have the most serious of global issues to contend with, it is through education and giving young people of school age the skills and opportunities to influence others, especially their communities, that a new era of understanding and human change will come about.
It has been said before that adults are all too often set in their habits and won’t act in significantly different and lasting ways. For many people it is hard to switch after decades of plentiful supplies of cheap energy and fuels to embrace an uncertain future that will involve the need to save and cut back.
Some with the best intentions, even those who experienced war time rationing, can be of the opinion that they are too old to bother about climate change or to carry out simple things like reducing electricity through using energy saving light bulbs.
Younger generations growing up now will need a very different view of the world and their place in how to shape it, if things are to change for the better.
Education for sustainable development, as practiced by Crispin School, is something all children and students need to encounter in their timetables, and if Crispin is anything to go by then the subject will be as popular as media and the arts.
For more information about the Green Flag awards and Eco-Schools programme go to www.eco-schools.org.uk
Paul Lund