To celebrate the opening of COP26 we’re holding a big village bonfire: every family bring a sack of coal and we’ll build it high and wide.
We’ve got burgers and a hog roast laid on, and to mark the internationalism of the event, food from all over the world.
There is so much to be done that everyone can see our commitment. I flew home from Provence for this, and friends and neighbours drove in from their holiday villas. We sent teams around the village to help neighbours to dig up their front gardens and lay down concrete so they have somewhere to charge an electric car, when they get one.
Glasgow holds the hopes of the world, and no one has ever said that before – so we have a festival of Glasgow culture in the local pubs, and sing-songs with the music familiar from the city – the children have learnt this week how ‘Ye cannae shove yer granny aff a bus’, while the village choir have been practising their Glaswegian choruses concluding “Well the famine is over; why don’t you go home?”
As we all roll home, no famine in sight after we’ve roasted a herd on the green, we can be satisfied that this one night we have signalled our virtue so high the fire could be seen from space. Those meeting in Glasgow are our last best hope for peace (or is that Babylon 5?). I hold in my mind the motto which this village has always stood by: ‘Any excuse for a good nosh-up’.
Postscript
That you to all who took part, and who made it such a memorable night. We went away maybe not with a wider appreciation of issues but certainly wider personally. That is what it is all about.
Thank you also to the Fire Brigade for joining in the fun after you had finished putting out the trees and the grass, and The Lodge. Without you, we would have a less of a village this week, and would not have had the bass section of the singalong. The vigour of your singing will long be with us, and your enthusiasm notwithstanding that the song for Glasgow was not a familiar modern piece: it is old but it is beautiful.
See also
- We are going green
- Eschatological Rebellion
- No, XR, I don’t believe you
- Tempestuous climate on QT
- 4IR: understanding and fear
Books
- Hard Green: Saving The Environment From The Environmentalists A Conservative Manifesto by Peter Huber
- By Sir Roger Scruton:
- Others on the environment:
- Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth by James Lovelock
The Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock - Green States and Social Movements by John S. Dryzek, David Downes, Christian Hunold, David Schlosberg, Hans-Kristian Hernes
- By Thomas Hobbes :
