To Fly Or Not To Fly?.

The way some people talk about flying you’d think it was the work of the devil. Well I suppose now religion has declined all those sanctimonious nay sayers had to go somewhere.  How really bad for the environment is it?  The actual emissions from aviation are tiny, only 2% of the total. However, carbon at stratospheric levels is more damaging than on the ground, the scientists aren’t sure whether two or four times as bad.  So that 2% might really be 8%.  The real problem is the projected increase.  The first thing Chinese aspirers want is a car.  The next thing is a package holiday.  By 2030 we could be looking at  25% of global emissions coming from aeroplanes which is obviously serious.  Richard Branson is pouring money into reducing aviation emissions, but since it mainly centres round ethanol from crops that come from land that could grow food in an increasingly hungry world, that might not help.  So what should the individual do?   Your package holiday in Greece is really doing little harm.  Though you may soon find the hotels full of Chinese.  It’s regular domestic flights that are more of a problem.  You could always take the train for your business trip to Glasgow.  But what about that holiday cottage in the Dordogne or the apartment in Turkey?   It’s up to you.  We don’t preach.  We only try and provide accurate information so that you can debate it for yourself.

RCCG’s next undertaking is sponsoring an exhibition called Rossendale Past and Future to be held in Rawtenstall and Haslingden on Saturday January 31^st. The motto of the exhibition is ‘The Irwell Valley led the world into the first industrial revolution, let’s play our part in the second’.

The exhibition will have two aspects. One (the past) will be a dramatic presentation of episodes in Rossendale’s fascinating history by two teams of actors, drawn from the Accrington and Rossendale College Players. The other (the future) will be largely concerned with the great issue of our time, the climate problem. We’ll have a stall at the exhibition that will provide information about climate, argue that the prominent journalists who are denying that there is any great problem are wrong, explain why the issue is so important, especially for our children, make suggestions as to what we can do about it and try and answer any questions that you might have.

The dramatic presentation will take one hour and ten minutes including an interval. The first performance will be at Longholme Methodist Hall, Rawtenstall at 11 a.m on Saturday January 31^st. The second will be at St.Peter’s Church, St Peter’s Avenue off Manchester Rd, Haslingden at 7.00 pm on the same day.

The history of Rossendale is completely captivating. It included great suffering and privation, at one period starvation as bad as any in Ethiopia today, great riches, extreme poverty, machine breaking, insurrection and revolution, but also immensely colourful characters, incidents of high comedy, a strong sense of local community and great generosity of spirit. The people of Rossendale were independent, resilient and resourceful. When bad times came they didn’t sit about wailing or denying that any problems existed. Instead they banded together and solved the problems themselves. In particular, they formed the first industrial workers’ co-operatives in the world with great success. Quite ordinary people in Rossendale held shares in these enterprises, and also in international ventures, some of them quite hare brained it must be said, that Rossendalians started all over the world. We could do with some of their spirit today and they are surely a most tremendous inspiration to us. In particular, their small shareholder model is one that we could really use to help solve the climate problem. Which leads us on to our next project Focus on the Future. We’ll keep you posted.