Every day we’re experiencing a news cycle filled with the horrors of a global system in meltdown, while those in power seem intent on denial, distraction and destruction. Many of us have seen this coming for decades and yet it’s still hard to emotionally process what we’re all living through at the moment. As individuals, we may feel that there’s little hope of solving the multiple crises we’re all facing (see Active Hope Course below). But a better world is possible…

Let’s shift our gaze for a moment and focus not so much on what’s breaking down but what’s breaking through. People and communities are galvanising, supporting each other and actually doing the work on the ground anyway, despite the lack of leadership (or funding) from their political representatives.

Many of our public servants seem to be reticent to serve their public, to say the least – happy to exist in and profit from their corporate-lobbied bubbles. We (the public) are neither stupid nor powerless, as long as we stick together and keep applying the pressure – one firm, compassionate and peace-driven step at a time.

In this month’s newsletter… get involved with National Emergency Briefing, discover Active Hope, the Elections Bill, petitions to sign, some good news and our new Recommended Reads section… dive in and join in!

Coming up this month…

February, 6pm-8pm – date to be confirmed: Leeds National Emergency Briefing Planning Meeting (online) – see more on the National Emergency Briefing below.

XR Discobedience Training is coming to Leeds! Sunday, 8th February, 2pm-4pm at Leeds Dance Studios, Studio 3, Mill 6, First Floor, Mabgate Mills, Leeds LS9 7DZ. Full details here – including details of Discobedience Club Night at The Trades Club, Holme St, Hebden Bridge HX7 8EE on Saturday 14th February.

Saturday 21st February – Global Justice Youth “We Rise” Gathering: the annual activist gathering of the youth division of Global Justice Now is happening in Leeds from noon on 21st February at the Leeds Cardigan Centre, LS6 1LJ. More details and free tickets here.

Saturday 21 February, 10.30am-12noon (online): Anne-Lise’s next 6-week Active Hope Book Course begins. This course helps you to discover ways to cope mentally and emotionally with the times we’re in and identify what’s yours to do. Find more details and register here.

Monday 23rd February, 5.30pm-8pm – Green Drinks Leeds: Imagine Leeds, 9 Blenheim Terrace, Leeds LS2 9HZ. Meet up with XR Leeds members and other environmentally-minded folks and groups from across the city. Drinks, nibbles, plus a pub quiz! This month’s speaker is yet to be confirmed but we’re likely to be talking about the National Emergency Briefing campaign (see below).

Saturday 28th February – Axe Drax/Reclaim the Power Direct Action Skill Share Day: in London, please sign up here.

Some more dates for your diary…

9th-15th March – The Big Plastic Count is back: sign up here and check out the the solutions!

Sunday 22 March – World Water Day: XR’s World Water Wedding Day – if you fancy doing something for your local waterway, please let us know.

Sunday 22nd March, 2pm – XR Ilkley World Water Wedding Ceremony, Ilkley Old Bridge, Ilkley Riverside, LS29 9EU: following their walk along the length of the River Wharfe, XR Ilkley would like to invite you to join them in celebrating the River and making a commitment to guarding its welfare. There will be a short procession led by the Blue Rebels, followed by a reading and offering of flowers. You can get in touch via xrilkley@protonmail.com if you would like to discuss this in more detail, or have something that you’d like to share as part of the ceremony.

And for more inspiration, if you missed it doing the rounds last year, the fabulous documentary film “Rave on the the Avon” is having its first online screening on 19th February followed by Q&A discussion organised by Surfers Against Sewage. More details and tickets here.

SATURDAY 28 MARCH – MARCH TOGETHER

FOR LOVE. FOR HOPE. FOR UNITY.

Saturday, 28 March – Together Alliance March, London: an alliance of over 120 civil society organisations united against the far right. Sign up here. Transport information here.

National Emergency Briefing 🔜 People’s Emergency Briefing Film: here’s the plan in Leeds so far…

Around the country, hundreds of people, representing a wide range of organisations, have been moving forward in planning their local events and film screenings. We now know the film is due to be available from April and will be approximately 45 minutes long.

Our plan, so far is:

1.     Organise one big event in a city centre location (most likely mid-April on a Saturday) to show the film, showcase some amazing projects and solutions already happening locally and hold a panel discussion or World Cafe with as many of Leeds’ MPs and councillors as we can muster, seeking cross-party representation. This will be an opportunity for local campaigners, community groups and members of the public to hold our representatives to account and pressure them to take further meaningful and urgent action, as well as expanding support for local projects already underway. With local elections coming up in May, we’re hoping our representatives will be keen to attend. We’re also working hard to get our local television and other media involved and make the case for a national, televised event (as well as more coverage generally).

2.     Encourage each constituency/community to hold their own screenings (throughout April/May), invite their local MPs and councillors and have honest conversations about what can be achieved in your local areas.

3.     Maintain the momentum by providing regular updates, continuing to build communities and our links with the media to cover progress and maintain the pressure to hold a national, televised screening and debate.

We urgently need volunteers to step forward now to help with the organising, social media, leafleting, supporting events, outreach, etc. We’ll be organising an initial Leeds National Emergency Briefing (NEB) Planning Meeting online in the next few weeks. If you’d like to join in (or would like to help in any other way), please let us know asap: xrleeds@protonmail.com. Or you can sign up to register your interest nationally with Zero Hour here – and they’ll invite you to join the Leeds Whatsapp group.

If you haven’t done so yet, please

1.     Watch, like, comment on and then share the 11 short NEB videos.

2.     Sign and share the open letter to Keir Starmer and the national broadcasters calling for a televised emergency briefing.

3.     If you want to stay informed and involved with what’s happening nationally, you can join the NEB Momentum Building Whatsapp group here.

Last month the Government finally published the delayed Joint Intelligence Committee’s Report on Global Biodiversity Loss, Ecosystem Collapse and National Security. The report makes for disturbing reading and makes the case for more ambitious and urgent action. Needless to say, it didn’t make any headlines! You can read the report here and share widely, especially with your MP – they need to know we know they know!

Here’s an excellent article on the report by Rupert Read and Caroline Lucas here. No doubt, there’ll be more to come on this and questions asked as to why the Government seems so keen to keep this quiet.

Keeping our eyes on the Elections Bill

The government is bringing in new laws to change our elections – and this is our chance to make things better. After years of broken promises and an electoral system that left millions of voices unheard, Parliament finally has the chance to fix our democracy.

They have already confirmed the Elections Bill will be packed with changes we’ve long been fighting for. This is great progress – but now we need to push them to go further.

Because there’s still one fundamental change missing: fair votes.

They’re calling it an ‘Elections’ Bill, but without proportional representation, it won’t fix the key problem with our elections: millions of votes being wasted, seats not matching votes and politicians only listening to voters in marginal constituencies.

Petitions

Client Earth: Tell Ed Milliband to Stand Up for Nature! Our wildlife is already hanging by a thread. Now the UK Government is thinking about making it even easier to destroy what little nature we have left. Tell Ed Milliband UK nature needs more protection, not less!

Stop the Water Stitch-up! Last week the Government introduced its Water White Paper but their new plan to “fix” our water doesn’t even mention public ownership and only consulted regulators, investors and the water companies themselves. They are now hoping to forge ahead with this major legislation without a public consultation. We know 82% of the UK public support of public ownership of our water services. Our Government needs to include a public consultation in the process, if not just to avoid any more embarrassing U-turns! Sign here to stop the water stitch-up!

Tell Ofcom to stop climate misinformation! TalkTV regularly spouts misinformation about the climate crisis, claiming that “CO2 is not a threat to the planet” and that the science behind it “doesn’t add up to a row of beans”. The rightwing news channel has even said that we are “scaring children about something that is not going to happen” and that net zero is “driven by pseudoscience” and “suicidal”. It’s about time Ofcom did their job and held these channels to account. Sign here if you agree.

Drop oil & gas sponsorship of the Olympic Games! The International Olympic Committee is allowing Eni – one of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies – to sponsor the Winter Olympics and Paralympics this month. Eni’s emissions are fuelling the climate crisis and literally melting the snow and ice that the Games depend on!

Fossil fuel giants have knowingly driven the climate crisis for decades and the International Olympic Committee’s own research showed that by the 2080s, more than half of current and potential Winter Olympic host locations will be climatically unreliable. Accepting sponsorship from oil and gas companies is wrong. It undermines athletes who are speaking out about the climate crisis and also weakens the public trust in the Olympic movement.

In the 80s, the International Olympic Committee showed global leadership by banning tobacco advertising in the face of overwhelming evidence of its harm – a decision that reflected a commitment to responsibility and public wellbeing. To honour its promise of a sustainable future for all, the Committee must show the same leadership again. Sign the open letter

Stop Airport Expansion!

Help GALBA stop Leeds Bradford Airport expanding: in October, LBA wrote to Leeds City Council saying they want to rewrite the rules that limit night time flying. They want to abolish the cap on the number of planes allowed to fly at night – GALBA says Keep the Cap! LBA also want to extend the definition of ‘daytime’, because there’s no limit at all on the number of planes allowed to fly during the day.

You can find out more about LBA’s plans here but it’s safe to say they would mean massively more greenhouse gases from thousands more planes. Of course, more night flights would also be very bad news for local people and the air we breathe. If you’re not already a GALBA member (Group for Action on Leeds Bradford Airport), it’s free to join and only takes a couple of minutes to fill in this form on the website.  

Sustainable Travel Leave: spread the word on how you and your friends and family can get time off work for climate-friendly travel! Find all you need for your workplace to introduce Sustainable Travel Leave here and let everyone know!

Good News

ECHR orders the Netherlands to take urgent climate action to protect the residents of Bonaire!

Another win for people and the planet that consolidates precedents for holding our governments to account. Bonaire is a Dutch Caribbean Island. Read all about it here.

Good news for our Oceans!

On 17th January, the Global Ocean Treaty became international law, opening the door for new marine sanctuaries across the high seas.This is one of the most important ocean protection agreements in history and it exists because millions of people around the world took action and demanded better protection for our blue planet. This win shows what’s possible when we come together and fight for what we love.

But right now, the UK can’t take part. While more than 80 countries celebrate this moment, our government has failed to make the Global Ocean Treaty UK law. But it’s not too late: the UK can still step up and join this global movement to protect our blue planet. Please write a postcard to Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper urging her to make the Global Ocean Treaty UK law now.

New! “Recommended Reads” Section

Have you read a book or listened to a podcast that blew you away recently? Spread the word by letting us know (xrleeds@protonmail.com) and we’ll share it in our newsletter. We’ll also keep a library list for future reference.

As we’re all keen to avoid using Amazon, please also recommend any ethical online bookshops you know of. For starters, we recommend Hive – they donate a small percentage of your purchase to a local bookshop of your choice.

And if any of you were blown away by the beautiful poem Jon Swales shared following our COP30 event in November, he has recently published a volume of his poetry called “Let Me Be The Kind Who Weeps: Poems for a Wounded World”. All proceeds go to Lighthouse West Yorkshire – you can get a copy here.