Hello eco-warriors!

I've been writing Easier Than You Think since July 2020 and have greatly enjoyed sharing my adventures in sustainable living with you all.

However, all good things must come to a (perhaps temporary?) end... and due to work commitments, I'm going to have to pause the blog for a while.

Thanks for reading... as a final round-up, here's a reminder of all the blogs I've posted so far.

How to switch to cycling

How to be a greener smartphone owner

How to have a greener shower

How to write to your MP about the CEE bill

How to shop for clothes ethically

How to shop more ethically in Bristol

How to combat Bristol's ecological emergency

How to stop shopping for clothes

How to keep your house warm

How to have greener socks

How to go local

How to green your finances

How to grow your own food

How to travel more responsibly

How to vote for greener politics

How to encourage nature

How to farm (and eat!) sustainably

How to reuse everything

How to have greener teeth

How to be (a little bit) vegan

How to rewild a hill near you

The Library of Things

How to have a sustainable baby

That's all for now, folks. I may be back to write more blogs in 2023. Until then, take care, and keep fighting the climate emergency.

Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash

Babies are great, aren’t they? That newborn smell, first smiles, soft skin – what’s not to love? (Well, I guess there’s the screaming and the pooping and teething, but let’s just skip over that for now!) However, adorable as the little tykes are, they do come with an awful lot of STUFF. Nappies and pushchairs and toys, oh my. And as keen readers of our blog will know, consuming STUFF is not good for the planet.
 
However, if you are a new parent, you might have rather more on your mind than the climate emergency, and understandably so. Fortunately, my lovely friends Polly and Mark – eco-warriors and brand-new parents to be – are testing the waters for you by trying to go as sustainable as possible in the run up to their baby’s arrival. I chatted to them about their plans for avoiding the baby STUFF avalanche.
 
Polly was initially inspired by the purchase of some organic cotton reusable wipes (such as these), which can be washed, soaked in essential oils and used again. Buying these items caused the pair to start looking into what else might get thrown into landfill when the baby came along.

Photo by 🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič on Unsplash

Polly said, “I think nappies were probably the main thing I was worried about, just because of the sheer amount of waste that we knew would be produced. I remember finding out how many nappies a newborn goes through in a day and just being mortified that they use one every two hours.”
 
While babies use fewer nappies as they get older, estimates are they can get through between 4,000 and 7,000  nappies from birth to potty training, depending on how much your progeny likes to poop. With all of these going to landfill, it’s clear that this is not ideal for nature. Nappies might take up to 500 years to biodegrade – so finding reusables that you can use (and re-use) is a great first step to sustainable parenting.

While reusable nappies might feel daunting if you’re used to seeing your friends and family use disposables, Polly and Mark were lucky enough to have friends who used them for their kids, so they saw that it could be managed… and that some of the reusable nappies are funky and cool-coloured!

Photo by Rob Hayman on Unsplash

As Polly said, parenthood feels so new and daunting that even using disposables would be a learning curve – so why not start with the sustainable option? “What we get used to is what we’ll be used to doing,” she said. “Or so we hope!”
 
Mark and Polly have decided to use disposables until the baby is big enough for the smallest size of reusables they have bought; not least as they don’t know how big the littl’un will be when they first pop out. But as soon as the baby is big enough, it’ll be into the sustainable system – and this means they already own all the nappies the baby will ever need, before they have arrived.
 
If you think you’d like to give reusable nappies a try for your young’un, visit the Nappy Lady website and fill in the questionnaire; this is how Polly and Mark worked out which system would work for them. The questionnaire asks about which aspects of nappy-life are most concerning for you (cost, drying time and so on) and then gives you recommendations based on your answers.

Photo by Tembinkosi Sikupela on Unsplash

Of course, there is more to a baby than wipes and nappies! I asked Mark and Polly what else they were considering in their journey to sustainable parenting.
 
“We bought lots of big things second-hand,” said Polly, “like the baby’s cot, pushchair and the changing unit. We bought all of these things on Facebook Marketplace and saved over a thousand pounds in the process.”
 
“We’ve also spent next to nothing on clothes,” said Mark. They bought nothing new… “apart from one Aphex Twin Babygro!” (Aphex Twin, for the uninitiated, being a musician who makes insane techno and ambient music. Probably not the sort of tunes you’re gonna be lulling your newborn off to sleep with, even if they are wearing his official merch.)
 
However, that one new item was £30; in contrast, Polly spent £30 on eBay to buy a sack of second-hand baby clothes, showing the value for money you get with second-hand. People sell baby clothes by the bundle online as their sprogs grow out of things. “There’s a real culture of sharing out there,” Mark said. “We try to reduce, reuse and recycle at home anyway, so this is just an extension of that. We don’t want the baby to come into the world and be part of the throwaway culture.”

Photo by Susan Holt Simpson on Unsplash

In terms of food, once the baby is weaned, Mark is hoping to make food with whizzed up organic veg rather than the disposable pouches on the market. However, he realises that having the time to do this is a luxury that is not available to everyone.  
 
I asked if the pair had had to buy anything new. Polly told me that the breast pump, baby bottle steriliser and a mattress were bought new to be more hygienic, which seems fair enough to me, as a confirmed non-parent!
 
If you feel concerned about the safety of any second-hand items, such as a car seat, you can of course check the credentials of the person selling it to you. Polly and Mark found that the people selling these items tended to be open, friendly people whom they trusted, so safety was not a concern for them.
 
In addition to buying reusable or second-hand stuff, green new parents also need to consider utilities. “We’ll have to do a lot more washing and heat the house to be much warmer than we’re used to,” said Polly. One thing new parents who are concerned about this can do is switch to 100% renewable, as we’ve outlined in a previous blog. Mark said they will also try to wash clothes at 30 degrees when they can, although this won’t be possible for everything.
 
Toys are a tricky one. “We would love to be able to ask people to avoid plastic or buy second-hand,” said Polly… but she suspects that you don’t get much choice about what other people buy for your baby.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

What are Polly and Mark’s top tips for sustainable parenthood?
 
Polly: “Try to let go of the idea that the baby needs perfect, brand-new things. The baby doesn’t know or care!”
 
Mark: “Explore your options for buying second-hand, as there are so many people selling good quality things out for next to nothing out there. And we met so many lovely people selling things like this. No one who would sell us a dodgy car seat!”
 
Once the new baby has outgrown things, Mark and Polly will plan to pass everything they can on, either via Facebook Marketplace/eBay or to other new parents they know to carry on the cycle.
 
If you’re a recent or new parent, do you have any tips for climate friendly child rearing? If so, post them in the comment box below.

As you’ll have read in some of our previous blogs, the need to buy and consume new things is damaging our planet. This means that engaging in the sharing economy is a great way to help fight climate change – and to save yourself a bit of money. There are various options for sharing and repairing here in Bristol, including Karshare, Freecycle and Share Bristol’s awesome Library of Things.
 
What is the Library of Things (LoT), I hear you ask? Well, it’s exactly as it sounds. It’s a magical place in Kingswood, Bristol where you can borrow household items for a small annual membership fee, so you don’t have to buy specialist stuff you’ll probably use only twice before it starts to gather grime in the corner.

Photo by Luca Laurence on Unsplash

I had a chat with Judith, head of Share Bristol, about how the library came to be and how our readers can use it.
 
Some years ago, Judith decided to try her hand at microadventuring; that is, small adventures for busy people. She wanted to try sleeping outside with a bivvy bag, but wasn’t sure if she would enjoy the experience. So she went onto a local Facebook group about adventuring and asked if there was a way equipment could be shared. No-one else in Bristol seemed to be doing this kind of thing at the time, so Judith and her husband Ben decided to start sharing on a wider scale.

Frome, London, Edinburgh, Oxford and Cardiff all had libraries of things – why not Bristol?
 
Judith and Ben visited the LoTs in London, Edinburgh and Oxford to learn more about how their libraries work. Each has a different model; by learning from those sites, the pair felt they had the understanding and the tech, so all they needed was the space and the people.

Bristol is a big city, so the branch in Kingswood is a pilot. It’s been going since May 2021; although there may be more branches in future, Judith and Ben want to ensure that they have a sustainable model before going forwards. Having said that, early conversations in four different areas of Bristol have started already, so the future is looking bright. Once the right money, support and premises are in place, more sites might open.

Photo by Andy Newton on Unsplash

Currently, the LoT in Bristol is open to the public on Saturdays 10am-2pm, Tuesdays 10:30am-12:30pm and Thursdays 5-7pm, and is run by a great team of volunteers. When the volunteers arrive, they open the shutters,  get out all the things that have been reserved for that day and check the names of the borrowers they are expecting. When borrowers come to collect, they will usually have a little chat about why they need the item, at which point volunteers can offer anything else that might be needed, such as PPE for DIY, extra party items and so on. Friendly people of all ages and abilities drop in to ask questions and say hello – the response from the public has been really positive.
 
“Some people say, ‘Thank goodness, we didn’t think people were environmentally-minded in this area,’” said Judith. She thinks that people in Kingswood are climate-concerned but haven’t found a way to join together. The LoT is a great way to join that community. 
 
When items get returned, the volunteer ‘Thing Technicians’ check them over during the week to ensure that they are ready to go out again.
 
Sounds good, right? So how can you sign up? Well, you can either join online or in person. Standard membership is £50 for the year. However, if you’re on a low income, you can pay £20; or if you’re feeling flush, you can generously pay £80 instead, helping to support the work of the LoT. Once you’ve paid for the year, you can borrow as much as you want.

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

You can browse the library catalogue online before joining to check that the things you want are in stock. Once you’ve paid, you can reserve those things weeks in advance. You have to sign a membership agreement to say you will look after the items, read the instructions and bring your things back in good condition. If the LoT doesn’t have what you are looking for in their catalogue, you can send them an email and they will see what they can do to get the things you need.
 
“Pressure washers and carpet cleaners are the two most popular items,” says Judith – if anyone has any of these to donate, please do so! And bear in mind that if you want these items, you’ll have to book in advance.  Other things they’re also looking for can be found on their wishlist.
 
I asked Judith for her top tip for reusing rather than buying new. “If you think you want something rather than needing it, pause,” she said, “and think about the number of times you would use it.”
 
If, like me, you sometimes struggle to distinguish between what you need and what you THINK you need but actually just want, avoid those impulse purchases. If you’re still thinking about the item in a week or a month, maybe it is worth buying. If not, maybe you can find a way to borrow it!
 
While the Bristol LoT doesn’t lend clothing – one item I think lots of us buy on impulse – there are other places out there where you can borrow clothes. Or you could try asking your neighbours or friends.

If you’d like to get involved, there are volunteering opportunities at the LoT.

Thing Technicians check items in when they arrive, to ensure they are fit for borrowing, and then check them over every time they come back, to clean them up and make sure they’re ready to go out again. You don’t have to be technical to do this job, you just need an eye for detail and a few hours a week or month. In contrast, Librarians are in the shop front, checking things in and out and promoting the LoT to people who visit the space.
 
If you’d like to support the LoT you can do this by spreading the word, making a donation, raising funds when you shop online, buying gift vouchers for friends and families, collaborating to support development or joining the team. 

West Bristol Climate Action (WBCA) is a group of local people who are concerned about climate change and want to take action to slow its pace. (Hence the name, as Smash Hits used to say.) This action takes various forms including our monthly talks and challenges, this blog… and, recently, our campaign to create a wildflower meadow on the grassy slope of Clifton Hill.

This campaign thas been spearheaded by two of our members: Julie and Dan. After months of background work, the project has got off to a flying start, with 300 people responding to our public consultation – 99% of whom were in favour of the meadow. Excitingly, our fundraising target for the work was exceeded within a week, potentially spurring on further local projects.

Photo by Harry Kessell on Unsplash

Julie and Dan told me how the campaign got started, their vision for the meadow and what the future holds.

Asking Bristol City Council to mow Clifton Hill less often was one of the first projects Clifton Climate Action (one of the founder groups of WBCA) embarked on back in 2019, Julie explained. When busy but passionate conservationist Dan came to CCA, he was already wilding an area on his street with his neighbours, so the two decided to take on the project together.

“Clifton Hill is the perfect site to be wild-flowered,” Dan explained. “It’s super sunny most of the day, it’s free draining as it’s on a slope, and it’s accessible by the public.”

The site is currently an ecological desert, sporting only a few species of plants, including clovers, one type of grass, buttercups and cow parsley. “This is down to the management,” Dan said. “In nature, it’s rare that a habitat is managed in the way Clifton Hill is. One species doesn’t wipe out a whole area 12 times a year, the way we do [with regular mowing].”

If we want to bring biodiversity back to an area, we must think like nature. Instead of frequent mowing, we should imitate the impact of herds of herbivores, grazing and then disappearing as they flee a predator. This allows vegetation to grow again as the herbivores move on and take those nutrients elsewhere.

Photo by Bas van Brandwijk on Unsplash

In practice, mowing will now happen less frequently on the Clifton Hill slope, and the cuttings will be collected, gradually depleting the nutrient-rich soil and helping the flowers to compete with the grass.

Julie said, “The council owns the grassland on Clifton Hill and so we’re working with them on the project. And we didn’t want to just wild up Clifton Hill – rather, we wanted to inspire similar projects across the city. The council is a major landowner in the city, and there’s a lot of scope for residents to work with them to do more.”

However, knowing the right person to speak to at the council to access help can be tricky and took perseverance. Ideally, WBCA would like to build a template to help others get projects like this off the ground, but this is a work-in-progress as the council develops its own systems.

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

When I asked why this project is important, Dan said, “Firstly, it proves that people are willing to help. Some 300 people responded and 189 of those said they wanted to help, whether with volunteering or by raising both awareness and funds. People want to help with the ecological crisis but need to be catalysed.”

There’s also the obvious environmental and ecological benefit. Additionally, WBCA is encouraging the council to roll out this kind of management for wildlife across any council grassland that isn’t used for walking or recreation, except where sightlines need to be preserved for traffic.

If the council has the right machinery to ‘cut and collect’ – that is, cut the grass and remove the clippings to nutrient-strip the soil and slow down grass growth – this will be better both for the environment and the council’s finances, since it’s cheaper to mow less frequently.

If we get the signage right,” Dan said, “people will realise they can do something similar near them, either in their gardens or nearby parks. Whether you have a windowsill or five hectares of land, everyone has a part to play.”

For Julie, an important element of the project is that it can be copied by others. “We wanted to do the project here because lots of people go past Clifton Hill,” she said. “We want everyone to go home and ask the council to do the same thing on a piece of unused land that they know about. As a climate action group, we can’t reach everyone, but lots of people will drive past this meadow and notice it.”

Part of the money that has been generously donated by some of you is going towards signage so that the public will understand what the meadow is and what to expect as it develops, which will take some time. The signage includes a link to our website with more information – including how people can copy the meadow at home in their own garden.

The site itself will be divided into two areas. The first is a traditional wildflower meadow that will be cut twice a year and may look a bit messy at first, containing high grass and lots of plants. “It’s not a flower bed,” said Dan, stressing that it’s important to manage people’s expectations around this. It may take a few years for the meadow to reach its full beauty, something we’re not used to in our culture of instant gratification. But the meadow will be planted with plug-plants in the spring to dramatically speed up the rate at which it will come into full flower.

Photo by Roman Synkevych on Unsplash

The second part of the site will be a floral lawn. This will also contain wildflowers, but they will be kept quite low.

Again, the signage will play an important part here, letting the public know how the site will look and what they can expect. From November 2021 to February 2022, for example, there will a patch which will be just turned-over soil.

Julie said, “It will be interesting to see how people regard it. We might have got more pushback two years ago from people who are used to seeing close-mown grass on public land but, since David Attenborough and others have spread the word about the ecological crisis, people understand more about what’s needed. So hopefully people will see it, like it and cut it some slack while it beds in.”

Dan said, “As a group, we want to have action for the environment – we need to be front-facing and get on with it. Bristol is known for being green, and it has the people and the ethos, but not always the action. But if we can provide case studies for how this kind of thing can work, it makes sympathetic councillors’ jobs much easier.”

Photo by Dmitry Dreyer on Unsplash

So how can readers of this blog help? Dan said, “We need people who will come out and spend a day with us digging, raking and planting. We also need a team of people eight times a year to rake, collect and remove the cuttings consistently for the next few years. You’ll spend time outdoors, meet new people and learn new skills; but it is manual labour – there’s no two ways about that!”

If this doesn’t sound like your kind of thing (it definitely isn’t mine, I’m far more of a sofa-based kinda gal), then fret not, WBCA can still benefit from your help. Dan and Julie have big ambitions, intending that – once WBCA has got the Clifton Hill site underway – we’ll be looking for more people to work on similar projects. Might that be you? Can you come and give a talk on your area of expertise? Maybe you could help with advertising our ideas, writing newsletters or liaising with the council? We need lots of skill-sets to get projects like these off the ground so, if you’d like to get involved, get in touch and we’ll find a job for you.

If you want to find out more, we have a webpage about the Clifton Hill meadow project here – including details of how you can create a meadow or floral lawn in your own garden.

The data is in – one of the best things you can do for the planet is to go plant-based in your diet. The authors of a 2018 study found that avoiding meat and dairy is the single biggest thing that individuals can do to reduce their environmental impact on the planet and that, without global meat and dairy consumption, farmland use could be reduced by 75% without anyone needing to go hungry. 

Of course, there are nuances – switching from mass-produced beef products that are being shipped from halfway around the world, to mass-produced vegan products also being shipped from halfway around the world probably won’t make as much difference as you might hope. Shopping local and seasonal is important – but cutting down on your meat and dairy consumption is something that most of us can attempt and feel good about.

Photo by Stijn te Strake on Unsplash

I went vegan back in 2015. As an annoying little animal rights activist, I’d gone vegetarian at the age of 11 after years of pestering my long-suffering mother about my desire to stop eating animals. This meant I had a 28-year gap between no longer eating animals and no longer eating their products. For a long time, I would never have considered the switch but, by the time the 2000s rolled around, I kinda knew, in a back-of-my-mind way, that if I was serious about fighting climate change, going vegan was a good idea. But the cheese! The omelettes! The Galaxy bars! How would I cope?

Well, how I coped was to gradually cut one dairy product at a time from my diet, promising myself that, if I found anything too difficult to switch out, I’d give myself a break and leave it in. This slowy-slowly method worked pretty well for me and it might work for you too – so here’s how I did it.

Milk

The first step I took was to cut out cow’s milk, which I used to have on my breakfast cereal.
​
No matter how you slice it, cow’s milk is riddled with problems. Methods of obtaining milk from cows are barbaric, to say the least, and of course we all know that cows' ruminant belching and their rather over-active bottoms are a big problem for our carbon levels. Plus lots of people (maybe unsurprisingly!) find it hard to digest the milk that is made for another species’ babies.  Fortunately, there are lots of dairy-free milks available everywhere now, so it’s easy to make a switch.

Having said that, you might want to avoid almond milk as well, given that almond farming is connected to drought in California – the steep rise in demand for almond milk has played a part in that. 

Instead, I’d suggest using oat milk. Oats are grown here in the UK, so you should be able to find some local brands – or you might even consider making your own, which is cheap, easy and saves on packaging. 

Photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash

I found that it took me a little while to get used to the taste of nut milk – but only a couple of weeks. Milk is easier for me than for some as I don’t drink tea or coffee – but there are lots of options if you need milk in those drinks. My friend Jenni, who is an ardent tea lover, swears by the Koko brand of coconut milk for her tea. Others might like the Alpro Barista range. 

Chocolate

The next step I took on my vegan mission was to cut out milk chocolate. Now, six years later, this seems completely insane to me as step number two. But back then, I wasn’t really all that bothered about chocolate. I was much more of a crisps and peanuts snacker than a chocolate girl, so I figured that this would be relatively easy. And, indeed, it was.

I realise some of you may not have this experience, but for me, it was simple to buy a packet of ready-salted or prawn cocktail crisps (watch out – many salt and vinegar, cheese or meat-flavoured crisps have milk in them, annoyingly) instead of a Star Bar when I fancied an indulgent treat.

What I wasn’t bargaining for was how totally addicted to vegan chocolate I would become!

In my infinite wisdom, I decided that, since I wouldn’t be able to pop to a corner shop and buy a KitKat whenever I wanted, it would be better to have a stash of vegan chocolate in the house, for when the urge took me.

Turns out, when you keep chocolate in the house as standard, the urge to eat it comes fairly often... 

My Addiction to Chocolate and How I Beat It is a whole different blog for a whole different day but, for the purposes of this blog, I shall share what I’ve learned about the best vegan chocolate on the market. Hint: A lot of the chocolate deliberately marketed as vegan isn’t that great. But 100% chocolate has no milk in it, so manages to be vegan without even trying. Dark chocolate flavoured with mint, orange or salt is also usually vegan, although Lindt do insist on putting milk in everything for some reason.

My three top tips for vegan chocolate, whether it got that way deliberately or accidentally, are the Moser Roth brand from Aldi – I especially recommend the mint and sea salt flavours – Booja Booja’s award winning truffles – especially the salted caramel – and Nomo’s salted and caramel bars.

I guess even though I switched to chocolate, I’m still addicted to salt!

Eggs

When I first considered turning vegan, I wondered why I would need to cut out eggs if I was only buying free range ones. Well, free range eggs are usually still produced in hellish conditions. Additionally, it is usually the case that male chicks – who obviously can’t lay eggs – are killed in very unpleasant ways shortly after birth as they aren’t profitable. While this might not be an environmental issue, it’s still something I have no desire at all to support, so I decided to send my money elsewhere. And indeed, while we all know about the evils of cattle farming, chicken farming isn’t great for the planet either, as chickens are fed with soy, which is produced by deforestation, which of course is a big factor in the reduction in biodiversity that is driving climate change. 

Having said all that, eggs are a great source of protein for vegetarians. So what can vegans replace that protein with? I get my protein from various sources, including:

• the home-made hummus my fella makes   

• bean salads (we buy dried pulses in bulk and cook them in the pressure cooker so we're not going through load of cans or plastic)

• seeds

• dark green, leafy vegetables 
​
• lentils made into delicious dahls and spaghetti bols...
​  
and, I must admit, from the occasional Oowee Vegan burger, which probably isn’t really doing the planet any favours but is delicious.

If you really can’t imagine a life without eggs, you could look into buying organic or slaughter-free eggs, both of which are better than free-range for different reasons.

Photo by Alice Pasqual on Unsplash

Sundries

The next things I ticked off my food list were things like margarine, pesto, mayo – non-vegan bits and bobs I had been buying in jars. As my non-vegan items ran out, I replaced them with vegan versions... and quickly discovered that none of them tasted any different at all. Literally, no difference. Free-from pesto is just as delicious as the stuff with the Parmesan in it. Vegan mayo tastes identical. The Naturli' Vegan Block tastes like butter. Milky ice cream can be replaced with Swedish Glace, which I swear is more delicious than the non-vegan stuff. Peanut butter, thank goodness, is already vegan.

Of course, buying ready-made-things-in-jars ain’t great for the planet so, if you can, think about making your own. Pesto is an easy place to start... My fella and I go foraging for wild garlic leaves every spring (they are easily found in Bristol) and then whip up enough delicious sauce to freeze and last all year. We use nuts instead of cheese and it’s great. I’ve not yet  tried making vegan mayo, but according to this recipe it looks pretty damn simple, so I might give it a go and report back.

Cheese
The last thing I gave up was cheese. Oh, how addicted to cheese I used to be! Port Salut, strong cheddar, Brie, feta – even dirty stuff like Tuc cheese crackers and tubs of supermarket own-brand Philadelphia. If you gave me a packet of crackers and a box of cheese, I didn’t need anything else for hours. I was dreading giving up cheese – and I think it’s probably the thing that most people considering going vegan feel they can’t live without. Small wonder, since there is plenty of research out there to suggest that cheese is genuinely addictive. 

In reality, I found that, having successfully stopped eating all those other non-vegan items, cheese wasn’t as hard as I feared. I replaced my cheese and crackers snack fix with crackers and hummus. I cook with nutritional yeast, which adds that cheese flavour. And there are, now, lots of really good vegan cheeses on the market. I rate the Violife range, particularly their feta knock-off. Although, if what you want is locally produced vegan fare, packaged in recyclable cardboard (of course you do!) then check out Bath Culture House, which has a great range of soft vegan cheeses that can be bought in Better Food. Their activated charcoal flavour is my favourite. 

If you feel inspired, give it a go and see how you get on. Don’t punish yourself – if you can only cut out one or two things, well, that’s better than none at all. I slip sometimes and have a bit of ‘real’ cheese or a milky crisp – although, interestingly, I usually regret that as I have become very sensitive to the flavour of milk and think it’s pretty claggy and horrible these days – and that’s OK. None of us can save the planet on our own. If 80% of us went 80% vegan, however, we would make a huge difference.

​Do you have any vegan tips? If so, post them in the chat below.

One of the first blogs I wrote for Easier Than You Think was about how to have a greener shower. Ever since then, I’ve been trying to come up with ways to make the rest of my bathroom more sustainable. However, I’ve found that having greener teeth is pretty challenging - there are some fairly duff products out there. Of course, one option for going green in the gums is to stop brushing and flossing, but I don't think that's the kind of green anyone really wants!

Given that August is self-care month at WBCA, I thought I’d share some of the options I’ve learnt about for more sustainable smiles.

Photo by Gabriel Silvério on Unsplash

Toothbrushes

You’d probably have to have been living under an unsustainable rock not to have heard of bamboo toothbrushes by now, as these little buggers have been around for quite a while. There are various brands on offer these days.

Why are bamboo brushes better for the planet? Well, the plastic ones don’t biodegrade, so will sit in landfill until the end of time. In contrast, while the bristles on these bamboo babies are still plastic, the handles themselves are made from sustainable bamboo (hence the name) and so will biodegrade when you’re done with them. This article from the Independent lists what they say are the six best bamboo brushes on the market.

I used these brushes for a while but found that they didn’t leave my teeth feeling very clean. Plus when I lived in a house with a slightly damp bathroom, the wooden handles started to rot, which wasn’t great. Additionally, when I hit 40 and had to have about six of my teeth filled in several sittings (what a fun month that wasn’t!), my dentist recommended that I switch to an electric toothbrush. Despite my environmental misgivings, I did as instructed, since paying for rotten teeth is no fun at all, either financially or in terms of pain.

Photo by zoo_monkey on Unsplash
Initially, I was just buying and throwing away the toothbrush heads, consoling myself with the thought that at least they were a bit smaller than regular brushes. However, I then heard about Live Coco, who sell electric toothbrush heads which can be used and sent back for recycling. I’ve been using their heads for a few months now and have found this to be the best solution for green yet healthy teeth.

Perhaps even better, a friend of mine sent me a link to these little beauties - bamboo electronic toothbrushes. I’ve not tried them, but they look worth checking out as they boast month-long charging and come in entirely recycable packaging. If any blog readers have tried these, please let us know what they're like below.

Additionally, these toothbrushes from Yaweco - which have replaceable heads - have the thumbs up from Pippa, one of our WBCA committee members. She says:

I’ve found Yaweco toothbrushes comfortable to use with no hard edges. Changing replacement heads is easy, and great for both reducing plastic consumption and maintaining a brush in good condition. Most importantly, the relatively small heads have a soft bristle option, both of which my dental-surgeon father always stressed as vital for effective cleaning and care of both teeth and gums.

Toothpaste

Standard toothpaste comes in plastic squeezy tubes which also can’t be recycled and will just sit in landfill at the end of their lives, or end up in the ocean. However, there are alternative options out there.

You might want to try this 'Happier' toothpaste, which comes in an aluminium tube and so is easy to recycle. Additionally, their recipe is vegan and designed for sensitive teeth. I'm definitely tempted by this one.

Toothpaste tablets are available from various outlets and are beneficial as they are zero waste products. You chew them up, get brushing and off you go. However, several people I know have tried these and said that they aren’t that satisfying to use as they don't froth up. Other friends have said they can taste pretty bad.

If you’ve tried some toothpaste tablets which you get on well with, please post below with your recommendations.

Some people make their own toothpaste using coconut oil and bicarbonate of soda - but I’d be reluctant to recommend this approach as it means you’re not using fluoride and so your teeth might be at risk.

Interdental hygiene

Cleaning in between your teeth is just as important as cleaning the teeth themselves. But unfortunately, traditional floss and interdental brushes create lots of landfill, and tend to be both made of and wrapped in plastic.

I tried bamboo interdental brushes like these and found them pretty useless. The wire inside the bristle bent so easily that they wouldn’t go between my teeth at all. If you’ve had more success with another brand, let us know below.

Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash

There are various plastic-free brands of floss on the market. I’ve bought some from Live Coco which I found quite hard to use initially - I'd previously been using a silk coated floss which slid between my teeth like a dream - but I’ve got used to them now. One thing I will say is to take care to try to floss at the right angle as this floss breaks more easily than traditional stuff, so can get lodged between your teeth.

One product which does seem to be the solution to both of these issues is a water flosser.  These gizmos aren’t cheap, but are apparently very good for your teeth. My friend Jezaya, who runs Sew Much More (a Bristol-based sewing company) uses a water flosser and says:

My gum health is at a lifetime high thanks to the water flosser. Both my dentist and hygienist have said my gum health has improved since I started using it. I always struggled with tape floss getting stuck between my teeth too - so much easier and waaay better.

Do you have any top tips for greener teeth? If so, please share them below!

Did you know… Plastic toothbrushes take 400-500 years to biodegrade?

Reuse, reduce, recycle - we’ve all heard this phrase, and I’m guessing we all try to apply it within our own lives. Recycling yoghurt pots and reusing coffee cups is second nature to most of us these days. But reducing can be harder. And recycling some of the larger items in our lives is something many of us may never have considered.

I’ve been happily recycling away for years and feeling pretty pleased with myself for doing so. But there is (at least!) one person in my life who puts me to shame in this area - my fella, Arif. He buys almost nothing new and never has. From clothes to laptops to kitchen units, the vast majority of the stuff my beloved buys is reused or recycled in some way or another, which has inspired me to go second hand more often. So, in honour of WBCA’s reduce and reuse month, I thought I’d interview him about his shopping habits and share his wisdom with our blog readers. Here's the conversation we had...

Johanna: Please explain your philosophy on buying new things

Arif: “It isn’t a philosophy on buying things so much as a bid to stop fueling the collective need for new things to be produced. I love buying stuff and believe that buying (second-hand) and selling things is intrinsic to creating fewer new things.

“Broadly, we don’t need the vast majority of the new things we’re producing. If you choose to acquire something, you will ask yourself how much you need that thing and where you’ll get it. But what we don’t tend to do is consider the true costs of owning things. Everything has a cost, whether that be carbon, human or otherwise. 

Photo by Ravin Rau on Unsplash
“If we stop demanding new things to be made, fewer new things will be made by the people who are responding to market forces. Buying and selling is the quickest way to show the market that we don’t need new stuff - in the same way that more people becoming vegan has meant that there’s now more vegan food on offer.”

Johanna: Can you give me some examples of things which other people would buy new that you would always try to buy second hand instead?

Arif: “Everything! It’s easier to think of something I don’t see in that way. In an ideal situation, there’s nothing we should need to buy new. If we had decent right to repair, certain things could be bought new, but then the old ones would be dismantled properly. The only things to buy new are things that are only safe when they’re new – like scaffold boards, which are condemned after a certain amount of time. Though they do tend to be reused (to make shelves and so on) here in Bristol."

“Think about, for example, a plug socket – there’s no way someone’s going to rewire our house and not replace the plug sockets. But why? It’s a good example – it probably will be there 20 years before it’s replaced, which is good, but
it’s still a piece of plastic and metal. And it’s still
functional. I’m not an electrian – if they say it’s dangerous, that’s different, but this is an example. There’s a bias of saying we’ve used a certain item for 15 years so it’s fine to throw it in landfill."

Photo by Sven Brandsma on Unsplash
Johanna: What about cables? Could you buy them second hand? You buy a lot of those new! (I like to joke that every time a parcel arrives in this house, it’s a cable for Arif. I’m terribly funny, but probably quite unfair, as at least 50% of the time, it’s a book for me. The rest of the time, definitely cables.)

Arif: “Unfortunately, we’re in a situation where – firstly, there’s an obsolescence and an economy of scale which we quickly use as an excuse. We start to drift into a meta economic paradigm of thinking, well, this thing that’s worth 90p – would I spend £5 of my time fixing it? Now you remember, when we went to Sri Lanka, the price of a human hour was such that you would just repair things. Cables are a tiny version of that. It comes down to local economics. No cables get thrown away in Turkey [where Arif’s family are from], and I guarantee you that they don’t get thrown away in Sri Lanka either. There’ll be a guy in a shop fixing electronics – cables are worth a pound, which is a percentage of a day’s wages. Everything changes depending on the local economics.

“The only solution is to make things expensive, as we should be doing with meat. We need to know the true transparent cost of items through educated eyes. Cables are a great example. Once we’re fixing £1 cables and making that socioeconomically viable, all a sudden it’s like eureka! That would be great.”

Johanna: If buying a second hand thing is more expensive than the new version, how does that play into it?

Arif: “When you learn about business and marketing, you learn about the difference between price, cost and value. Unfortunately, most people don’t understand the difference. Everyone has to make their own decisions, but the main thing to do is get the data to enable people to make the right choices. And to remember that all costs effect other people. A cheap new telly has a carbon cost, it won’t last long, it’ll go in landfill, some horrible stuff is going to leak out of it and if you were to look at a chart of all the costs – you realise you’re polluting the planet, that the person who made it isn’t paid enough and so on."

Photo by Ales Krivec on Unsplash
“The iPhone mentality has us playing each other off against each other idea, feeling attached to ownership of stuff – but it’s worse to buy a cheap TV every year rather than a good one every 10 years.”

Johanna: It’s interesting that you mention phones. We’re all conditioned to think we need a new one every two years. How do you deal with that?

Arif: “I’m an early adopter of tech, I like having a fast phone. The interesting thing about phones is that they are very small – there’s a coefficient of usage versus cost. It’s small and you use it all day. That’s better than – for example – something bigger and more aspirational that you don’t use much every day. I bought my phone new a year ago – I tried to buy one second hand, but this model wasn’t around. I could have bought the model before, but I probably would have been done with it by now. The production cost is relatively low. But the whole right to repair thing needs to have correlative model with operating systems. We need a broader level of adoption for things that can still be used. Then we wouldn’t even need to recycle the device because there are people all over the world who would use them if the OS just worked still."

Johanna: The problem is, though, that there are so many phones in the world that they are having a big impact. (See our previous blog on this topic.)

Arif: “Google are working on a phone where you can update the elements – like a Fairphone, but better. It has a motherboard, sound card and speaker – you can upgrade them. It’s all about open source and cross platform. I blame the consumer a lot less for phones than for other stuff. There are fewer options."

Johanna: I considered getting a Fairphone but had heard bad reports and in the end, I couldn’t deal with the daily stress of a rubbish phone. But I did buy a second hand handset, which I’m just as happy with, thanks to your influence. So, next question; where do you shop for second-hand items?

Arif: “Facebook Marketplace, mostly. It's easy to use and has a wild west element that I really like. People are rude to you, or you’ll meet someone really nice, or someone will come and offer you a tenner for a thing that you put up for £50. I like that, I think it’s fun – I like throwing myself on the human pile and seeing what happens!

“I use EBay for specifics. Or if I’ve bought something from a person, if I’m at a yard buying a van wheel from someone, I will often ask what else they have. People who sell stuff sell lots of other stuff too.”  

Johanna: What’s the best find you’ve ever had?

Arif: “Now you’re asking! The slimline dishwasher which cost £20 and is still going – that’s a good example of something which would have gone to the tip otherwise. That was really good.

“When I knew I was buying a house, I bought a hob off a kitchen fitter who had a steady stream of leftover kitchen units and fillings and so on. He would ring me and ask if I wanted things. I got an oven from him as well, which I think I sold. He had a new Bosch fridge freezer, two years old, a person had ripped out the whole kitchen because they didn’t like the colour, so it was going to the tip. That really bugs me – there’s nothing you can do about that. But it meant I got a fridge freezer for free. Anything really big with a lot of metal in it is a real win."

Photo by Obi Onyeador on Unsplash
Johanna: That’s a really good example of what other people would never consider buying second hand.

Arif: “Kitchen, bathroom suites, taps, things like that. Front doors. It becomes harder for people when they need skills to adapt the thing. There’s a set of skills that you need to make this work. But do some research, contact a tradesperson, find a person who will implement this for you… try to have a real human conversation with them. Maybe someone should start a business buying and fitting used kitchens. If people ring their kitchen fitter and ask them to fit a second-hand kitchen for you, maybe they will do it.”

Johanna: What is the best tip you can give someone who wants to try buying second hand from now on?

Arif: “Start by looking for it second hand, then buy new if you have to. That’s the big paradigm shift, which is analogous with reducitarianism. The real shift is not thinking I’m a meat eater who eats veggie once a week, but instead, we eat vegan and I treat myself to meat now and then. If you need a new pair of trainers – do you go to the shop, or do you decide what colour you want and look on eBay? If 80% of us can do that 80% of the time, that will be really helpful. Make that your starting point.

“Secondly, consider that it can be enjoyable to hunt for these things. You just teach yourself to do this if you have the energy. Talk to others – I like to think that in most groups of friends, there’s a me. You know them as the tight arse! Ask them where to find the things you need, as they will know. It’s a learn by doing thing.

“It’s also about how you dispose of things. If you know something is going to landfill, think about the implications of that. Leave something outside your front door with a post-it on it. This is a great way of getting rid of stuff which people often do in Bristol.”

 Arif runs Hartwyn Natural Building with his business partner Joe, so sustainability is part of his life every day.

As a nation, we are becoming more aware of the impact that our diets have on the climate. Having been a vegan myself for around six years, it is amazing (and brilliant!) to me that Gregg’s, Subway and so many supermarkets have climbed aboard the plant-based band wagon. However, the bad news is that eating our way out of climate change isn’t as simple as just ditching the animal products. 

The good news? Well, for those of you who are partial to the occasional steak or scrambled egg - if you choose right, you can eat these things without damaging the planet.

A movement of farmers in the UK (and around the world) is engaging in regenerative agriculture; farming that aims to increase biodiversity, improve soil health, protect the environment and enhance ecosystem services. While many traditional farming systems take more from the land than they give back, regenerative agriculture aims to do the opposite. If farmers work together in this way, there is hope that they can reduce and sequester carbon, an idea which is pretty exciting for the climate concerned among us.

Photo by Gary Ellis on Unsplash

WBCA recently hosted a fantastic talk on Regenerative Agriculture from Dan Geerah, a former agricultural adviser, and a promotor of landscape collaboration between landowners, plus an occasional Tweeter. I found the talk inspiring and educational - so here are some of the highlights, for those of you who couldn’t make it. You can check out the talk on YouTube whenever you like.

1. Soil health is key

Healthy soil should be dark, rich and full of nutrients. Sadly, much soil around the world is light, dusty and unhealthy, meaning that nursing it back to health should be a top priority. Researchers from Oxford University have said that we must adopt better agricultural practices to protect our soil. These include:

• cover cropping, which is the practice of planting crops for the purpose of covering (and therefore protecting) the soil rather than harvesting them;
• minimal tillage, in which land is tilled (prepared for growing crops) without the soil being turned over; and
• contour cultivation, where sloped land is tilled along lines of consistent elevation to conserve rainwater and to reduce soil losses from surface erosion.

Darker, healthy soil has is made up of 10-12% carbon, whereas unhealthy soil is just 1-2% carbon, demonstrating that looking after soil sequesters a lot of carbon.

Regenerative farmers limit soil disturbance by drilling seeds directly into the ground and keeping soil covered to protect it from wind and rain.

Crop rotation is another great way to increase soil health whilst protecting biodiversity. Rotating the crops grown on the same piece of land means that the soil benefits from a range of nutrients, rather than giving and taking the same ones year after year.

Photo by Dylan de Jonge on Unsplash

Additionally, heavily tilled, unhealthy soil does not absorb rainwater, leading to more floods and droughts. As the rainwater drains away, it takes both soil and any fertilisers that have been used with it - eroding topsoil and spreading pollutants. Thus we can see that healthy, untilled soil has multiple benefits. Check out this experiment to learn more about this.

It’s not just farmers who should be aiming for healthy soil. If you have a garden, healthy soil will help the environment. If you’re unsure how healthy your soil is, try burying a pair of your undies in it. No, seriously! Healthy soil should erode the cotton in two months, so plant your pants and then hoik them out again eight weeks later to find out how healthy your soil is.

Integrating animals into crop farming is another way to protect soil…
​

2. Farmers can work with animals to benefit everyone

Regenerative farmers use rotational grazing to increase the health of their land. In this practice, cows are moved every day from field to field in what is known as ‘mob grazing’, meaning they are continually moving across the grass. The land is rotated every three months, meaning that each piece of land only has cattle on it four days per year, meaning the grass can flourish on the other 361 days of the year.

Photo by Lomig on Unsplash

Additionally, farmers can harness help from critters who can do their pest management work for them. Hedgehogs can be encouraged, as they eat slugs. Beetle banks attract miniature John, Paul, George and Ringos (geddit?) who will eat aphids. Clearly, this holistic way of working is way better than using harmful pesticides and chemicals to bend land to our will.

3. We can support farmers doing this excellent work by buying their products

How can we, as individuals, help the farmers who are doing this great work? Well, as suggested at the beginning of this blog, one way is to vote with your wallet when doing the weekly shop. We all know that buying local food is a good idea, but if you can spot one of these logos on your grub, this is even better as this demonstrates that your food has been grown regeneratively.

If you want to eat meat, look out for Pasture for Life products. The cows sold under this label have been entirely grass fed (using the mob grazing method described above) in the UK. This method of feeding cows means that their carbon output is net positive, and so a far cry from your bog standard burger, fed by cutting down vast swathes of the Amazon. Meat Box on Wapping Wharf is just one place in Bristol where you can buy PLF meat, which also includes chicken and lamb as well as beef. Cotswold Beef is another source.

WBCA secretary Dorian loves Meatbox. He says, "my girlfriend and I have a big steak from Meatbox about once every two months - it's always absolutely delicious, not that expensive, and makes our mostly pretty strict vegetarian diets much easier to enjoy."

These products are more expensive than the fare on offer down at Tescos - but if you are fortunate enough to be able to afford this food, you’ll be making a real investment in humanity’s future. Additionally, an interesting fact to ponder is that we used to spend 20% of our income on food, whereas now it’s only 8%. We’ve got very used to cheap food - is that really a good thing?

Once you have got your British, sustainable food in your fridge, try your best not to waste it. UK households wasted a shocking 4.5 million tonnes of food in 2019. If your veg is on its way out can you make and freeze a soup or stew? Invite your buddies over for a feast? Feed it to your niece’s guinea pig?

And finally, if you buy some of these products and enjoy them - tell your friends. Tell them why you chose to buy these items and where they can also get them.

Photo by Iñigo De la Maza on Unsplash

Did you know: You can find out more about regenerative farming by watching the Biggest Little Farm, Sacred Cow or Kiss the Ground?

Do you have any tips for how we can eat our way out of climate change? If so, share them in the box below.

Spring is here… and OK, so at the moment, Bristol is still pretty cold and wet, but brighter days are (hopefully) on their way. To compliment this, our challenge this month is themed around nature.

Horrifically, since 1970, there has been a 50% decline in marine populations, a 68% decline in wild vertebrates and an 83% decline in freshwater wildlife globally. Closer to home, in the Avon area, birds are on the decline. There are 80% fewer linnets in our skies than there were in 1994, and we’ve lost a shocking 96% of starlings and swifts. UK butterflies are also dying out.

Photo by __ drz __ on Unsplash

Therefore, encouraging biodiversity is one of the most important things we can do to tackle climate change. Here are a few ideas for individual actions we can all take to try to encourage more nature in our lives.

1. Encourage wildness

If you have a garden, can you let it go back to nature? This page of our website contains all kinds of tips for how you can let nature take over in your garden. Cut back spring shrubs such as flowering currant so that they produce plenty of flowers for nectar and pollen next spring - just make sure nothing is nesting inside them first.

One beautiful if pricey option for wilder gardens is to invest in some wildflower turf.  My partner and I have some of this in our front garden. Between March and September, new flowers burst into colourful bloom, seemingly on a daily basis. I've spent many happy hours when I should have been working gazing out the window and pointing out new plants. Wildflower Turf attracts wildlife, absorbs carbon and is beautiful. It does set you back a few quid, but if you’ve got the money, it’s a fantastic investment. Plus, great news for the non-green-fingered among us (which includes me), it is extremely low maintenance.

Whatever the size or shape of your garden, if you have grass, you can take part in No Mow May. What do you have to do? Well - nothing at all! Just sit back and let nature do its thing in your garden. That's the kind of gardening I can get on board with.

The people who have run this project have discovered that cutting the grass once every four weeks allows plants like daisies and white clover to bloom, boosting nectar production 10 fold. Given the bee crisis facing the planet, this has to be worth a try.

Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash

Of course, we don’t all have gardens, but we can all enjoy parks and verges. Unfortunately, at the moment, councils mow verges and parks frequently, cutting back the wildlife that our city is crying out for. Sign this petition to ask Bristol Council to stop mowing and let nature in.

2. Encourage wildlife

Letting nature take over your garden will mean you get more furry visitors. And what’s not to love about that?

For example, did you know that May is hedgehog season? Make sure your garden is safe for hedgehogs by getting rid of any loose netting or other litter. You might also want to leave out some food and water for the little critters - they like meaty pet food or chopped, unsalted peanuts.

Hedgehogs and other animals also love log piles, so build one of those to get all kinds of animals hanging out in your backyard.

Photo by Alexas_Fotos on Unsplash

If you fancy seeing more butterflies flitting about your yard, check out this handy article on wildflowers - could you plant some to encourage butterflies to your backyard? These colourful plants are just as beautiful as the butterflies they will encourage, so that’s a double win there.

This suggestion is a pretty big project… but if you fancy digging a pond in your garden, nature will really thank you for it. Ponds are homes to frogs, newts, toads and insects, and provide drinking water for birds and hedgehogs. Plus they’re soothing and beautiful, meaning they are pretty good for the mental health of us humans.

If you feel intrepid enough to give this a go, check out these three articles - and let us know how you get on. 

3. Read and watch

In her book Wilding, Isabella Tree tells the story of the 'Knepp experiment', a pioneering rewilding project in West Sussex, using free-roaming grazing animals to create new habitats for wildlife. Although I haven’t read this myself, two of my friends have read the book and they loved it. I asked those pals for their key takeaway points:

"The key takeaway for me was the data around carbon sequestration in soil. We all give a lot of attention to meat, animal welfare and emissions and so on but soil improvement literally pulls carbon out of the atmosphere. Cure, as well as prevention."

"The fundamental structures and systems that nature needs to restore and recover are ones that it has total capacity to do already if humans stop interfering. We need to free ourselves from the neat and tidy countryside that was fashionable in Victorian times. Trees that fall need to be left where they are, while ugly and daunting thistles which are the sole environments for rare and beautiful butterflies should be left well alone."

Photo by Gabriel Jimenez on Unsplash

Additionally, you might want to check out the documentary Kiss the Ground on Netflix, which is a full-length film about a “new, old approach” to farming called 'regenerative agriculture', which the filmmakers say has the potential to balance our climate, replenish our vast water supplies, and feed the world. Plus, the film is narrated by Woody from Cheers. What’s not to love?

West Bristol Climate Action is hosting an online talk about Regenerative Agriculture on Wednesday 26th of May.  For full details and to book tickets check out the Eventbrite page. If you're reading this blog after that event already took place, the video of the talk should be available on our Youtube page.

If you have some ideas of your own for how to encourage Nature, post them below. We always love hearing from you!

First published April 2021

​If you’re a climate activist in the UK in 2021, it can be easy to feel hopeless and disillusioned in the face of party politics. Politicians pay lip service to tackling the crisis, yet we’re still hurtling towards irreversible climate change. The much publicised Green Home Grants was quietly scrapped last month , while the Committee on Climate Change criticised the government last year for failing to take enough action on issues such as flash floods and the loss of biodiversity. 

It’s also easy to feel like the only elections that really matter are the big ones; but this is really not the case. The results of local elections (which are coming up in Bristol on May 6th)  are what determine how your local area behaves. Schools, bin collections and libraries… but how your local area responds to climate change.

Do you wish the council would stop mowing down all those bee-friendly plants on the verges? Do you want to see more cycling lanes and fewer cars whizzing past your front garden? Then do a bit of digging about your local candidates and vote for the greenest options. 

After all, we in Bristol were the first in Europe to declare a climate emergency. This is great opportunity for the Climate Concerned amongst us to put the pressure on and ensure that we are acting appropriately.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

In line with West Bristol Climate Action’s politics month, here are three things you can do to ensure you vote with green in mind in the upcoming elections. 

1. Attend a climate hustings 

Hustings are the local meetings that happen ahead of an election that give constituents a chance to ask questions. If you decide to go to a hustings, do a bit of research in advance and come armed with a question or two that you want answered. For example, you might want to know what candidates are planning to do about the fact that more people die in Bristol every year because of air pollution than car accidents , or whether they support the appeal to continue planned harmful extension to Bristol airport.  

There are four events Bristol events focused on the candidates’ climate plans.

The first is the Bristol Mayoral Debate on ‘People, Places and Climate’ on April 8th. Marvin Rees and the mayoral wannabes will be debating their ideas and plans about, amongst other things, the climate.

Candidates will be asked how the city can reduce emissions and congestion as well as how technology will be embraced to address the climate emergency.

You can book your place here.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

The second and third events are for the West of England (WECA) Mayoral candidates on April 19th (book here) 
 and the Bristol Mayoral candidates on April 27th (book here). In these events, candidates for the two respective elections will be asked to set out their vision for ensuring that the region’s response to the climate emergency will be both fair and fast. 

Finally, on April 21st, the Bristol Mayoral candidates will be quizzed on how they will ensure that Bristolians can walk and cycle in safety. This is your chance to find out who is prepared to make the radical changes that are necessary to tackle air quality emergency in our city. Book here.

2. Contact the candidates

If you can’t make any of the hustings, another option is to get in touch with the candidates and ask them what they plan to do to tackle the climate emergency in our city. You might want to give examples of how climate change has impacted you and your loved ones. Or perhaps there are specific questions you would like answered.

Asking questions in this way serves two purposes. Not only does it mean you get the answers you need, it also demonstrates to the candidates that their potential future constituents care about the climate. Hopefully, this will push climate change issues up the agenda. 

You can find out more about the council candidates here. Booklets about the candidates for both WECA and Bristol mayors will be posted to you nearer the time. 

Photo by Florencia Viadana on Unsplash

3. Shout about your findings 

The final really important step you can take is to tell people what you’ve found. If you discover that one candidate is really prepared to stand up for the climate, let people know that you will be voting for them, and explain why. Post on social media. Message your local friends. You might even want to consider volunteering to help that candidate - they will be glad of your support! This volunteering could consist of anything from putting a poster in your window to delivering flyers or ringing voters. Get in touch with that candidate to offer your support. They will be delighted to hear from you!

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

Did you know: If you want to register for a postal vote (which many of us might want to do as Covid continues), the deadline for doing this is April 20th. You can apply here.   

Do you have any tips for how to push climate change up the political agenda? If so, get in touch via the box below to tell us your thoughts.