Thinking globally and acting locally over the last twelve months…

This week’s Imagine newsletter from The Conversation gives a ‘festive countdown’ looking at twelve stories.

Here we look at their stories in short – and add equivalents from both the CAPS archive and the goings on in the Sid Valley and beyond from the last twelve months:

1. Conservation works. Often, it really works. After analysing 665 trials across 186 studies, scientists at the universities of Oxford and Kent concluded in April that taking steps to reserve nature’s decline, like restoring a habitat or reintroducing a lost species, is generally effective at improving nature’s vital signs wherever it is tried. In fact, conservationists might actually be getting better at it over time. 

Probably the most exciting conservation project in the Sid Valley is the River Sid Catchment Group – set up earlier in the year, “to enhance and conserve the river Sid catchment” – and with an absolutely fabulous start to the River Sid Outreach Project earlier this month, working with art and young people.

2. Life is amazing, even in miniature. Exeter University entomologist Will Hawkes studied 17 million insects as they migrated through a mountain pass in the Pyrenees. Most of these 17 million insects are pollinators, he discovered, that could be migrating more than 1,000km to reach flowers and knit together ecosystems. Nine out of ten were flies, some just millimetres long. 

Yes, this is research from the University of Exeter – with the story of the 30-meter pass in the Pyrenees through which millions of insects migrate being told across the world’s media.

3. We’re finding new ways to communicate. Science educator Audrey Cameron at the University of Edinburgh is adapting 100 new signs so that British Sign Language users can discuss wildlife like loggerhead turtles without having to spell it out letter by letter. 

And CAPS is also finding new ways to communicate – the new Eco Hub Sidmouth project being all about engagement in different ways, from pop-up stalls to a fortnightly presence at the Library and Tourist Info Centre, to films and events and other opportunities to meet and mix.

Fundamentally, though, we need to be changing communication about climate change: from a story about science to a story about people.

4. We heard murmurs of an intraspecies dialogue. Just don’t call it “language”. Biologist Luke Rendell of St Andrew’s University says it is a very exciting time to be studying whale communication. He cites research which documented sperm whales synchronising clicks in exchanges that might be verbal bonding exercises. 

Sidmouth has its annual bonding with the sea in the form of the Sidmouth Sea Fest – and the Folk Festival this year had a similar focus, as 21st Century Folk returned to BBC Radio 2 with songs inspired by the sea. Plenty of dialogue and exchanges.

5. Sport will never be the same. In a bumper year for international tournaments, the climate crisis announced itself in heatwaves, flooded pitches and melting ski resorts. Mark Charlton at De Montfort University researches the ways clubs, teams and venues are adapting, and how their innovations could inspire wider change.

The continuing saga of South West Water and sewage spills forms part of the bigger picture of how climate change and flooding in East Devon are affecting life – and a particularly unpleasant way in which the sheer volume of rain water and run-off is becoming too much for the system to handle was when rugby pitches in Sidford were closed due to suspected sewage contamination earlier in the year.

6. Even kids’ movies courted the climate. Disney’s Moana 2 featured sea-level rise, acidified oceans and struggling island communities in a bracing echo of the real world. PhD candidate Susan Ann Samuel at the University of Leeds linked the animation to November’s UN climate summit, saying that Moana’s voyage “embodies the courage and determination of Pacific Islanders and younger generations” to push for tangible climate action. A

Interest in the climate is growing – as Disney goes SolarPunk, with its recent animation ‘Strange World’, and as Solarpunk fantasy comes to Hollywood. This is very much about  how our imaginations can save the future, with “this emerging sci-fi subgenre projecting a vision of the future where nature, technology and humanity operate in harmony”.

7. Beans beat fake meat. If you’re looking for a healthy, cheap and sustainable alternative to meat in the new year then look no further than the humble legume. Food researcher Marco Springmann (University of Oxford) compared lentils, chickpeas and butter beans to veggie sausages and lab-grown burgers in an exhaustive analysis and found the former are best for you, your wallet and the planet.

Whilst too much of the food debate is “polarized, ideologized and tribalized”, we all clearly need a ‘balanced’ diet. And perhaps growing soybeans in the UK or even the Sid Valley might be part of the way forward!

8. Britain closed its last coal power station in September. This capped a summer of record growth in renewable energy. Wind power generated a third of the country’s electricity in August while gas generation, which “appears to be losing its dominance” according to a team from the University of Birmingham, halved compared with the same period in 2023. 

With MPs calling for community energy to be added to the new Energy Bill, it looks as though we can be looking to local energy production of some sort, even in the Sid Valley. Here’s something very inspiring from a couple of years ago which might gain traction in the coming years: How to make a power station on your street

9. Do you realise how big wind turbines are now?. The largest are skyscraper sized with blades as long as the Big Ben clock tower is tall. The next big challenge for the offshore wind industry is to place these turbines on floating platforms tethered to the seabed in deeper waters, where the wind is stronger and more consistent. Emma Edwards, an engineer at the University of Oxford, looked at some of the innovative designs in the next generation of the technology. 

Stories from the last year show we are creating alternative energy technologies in the South West – as well as making local wind power happen. The future could look very promising for this wind-swept peninsular.

10. 2024 marked ten years of authoritarianism. Just Stop Oil activists were jailed for up to five years for helping organise a non-violent roadblock in July. Sociologist Graeme Hayes (Aston University) and law professor Steven Cammiss (Birmingham) study environmental activism and say these harsh sentences crowned more than a decade of increasingly authoritarian protest restrictions that seek to deter the next generation of activists. 

It’s all very well the likes of the Climate Awareness Partnership Sidmouth asking us to ‘do out bit’, but what sort of ‘action’ can emerge from ‘awareness’? How can we progress from eco-anxiety to eco-action? And How can we stay sane? – with care, collective action and counterbalance! There are lots of practical ways of moving from exhaustion to motivation and empowerment – without ending up in court…

11. The military is propping up nuclear power. What explains continued support for expensive nuclear power plants? Science policy experts Andy Stirling and Philip Johnstone at the University of Sussex argue that civil nuclear energy maintains the skills and supply chains needed for military nuclear programmes. Their article provides a useful outsiders’ perspective on a complex topic, where the “real story” is often buried in obscure documents and policy papers. 

Oh… the nuclear power debate… Well, rather than fission, fusion might be the future of energy. Or hydrogen might be the future energy source. Of course “solving climate change” might not be about technical solutions – or, rather, we already have the technology we need and don’t need some silver bullet.

Or as the founder of the Transition Town movement asked over a decade ago, would small-scale nuclear be the most efficient form of energy at a local level?

12. Don’t take pebbles from the beach. Seriously. Cumbrian beachgoers were threatened with £1,000 fines for taking pebbles home with them in May. Two coastal scientists at Lancaster University say that beaches grow and shrink and adapt to changing conditions – to do that, the pebbles must stay where they are. Our subscribers know we shouldn’t mess with nature too much. But perhaps there’s an environmental vandal in your family who would benefit from reading this before heading to the coast over Christmas? WdF

We seem, then, to be finishing our review of thinking globally and acting locally in 2024 with the dreaded Sidmouth Beach Management Plan which has been dragging on for two decades now. But, yes, we need a very localised solution to a very global issue.

But let’s finish properly by wishing all CAPS partners and all those in the Sid Valley and global communities a very peaceful festive season – and all the best for 2025!

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