Facebook announced in February 2010 that it was building a massive new data centre in Oregon, USA. Claiming to be using the latest energy efficient computers, it did not mention that it would be powering the hungry beast with the dirtiest of all energy: coal.
GreenPeace is running a campaign to try to make them realise what a bad choice that is. Their campaign: Facebook: Unfriend Coal asks Facebook to:
Increase the use of clean energy to make Facebook coal free Develop a plan to make Facebook coal free by 2021
Educate your users about how Facebook powers its services and its carbon footprint
Advocate for clean energy at a local, national and international level
“Basically, we are campaigning to get Facebook to drop coal and commit to 100 percent renewable energy, cutting its carbon footprint and helping in the struggle to prevent catastrophic climate change.”
FaceBook does not need to use dirty energy to power its data–it should be setting an example.
Shirin Neshat is perhaps the most famous contemporary visual artist to emerge from Iran. Born in Qavin, one of the most religiouc cities in Iran, her work, predominantly in film and photography draws on her own experiences as an exile from Iran, to explore with great sensitivity Islam and gender relationships and the widening political rift between the West and the Middle East. ——————- Journalist Peter Bradshaw wrote of Neshat’s debut feature film "Women Without Men" in his 2010 film review in the Guardian:
"The Anglo-Iranian comic Shappi Khorsandi recently revealed that Jon Snow had told her about a conversation he had once had some years ago with the then prime minister, Tony Blair.
The premier had asked Snow, plaintively, why Iran hated the British so much. Snow replied hesitantly: "Well, you know, because of Mossadeq …" – that is, the left-leaning Iranian leader, toppled in 1953 by a coup instigated by the British and American governments because of his determination to nationalise oil. Blair replied blankly: "Who?"
Perhaps watching this excellent movie would be a way for Blair, and the rest of us, to brush up on British and Iranian history." ——————-
In this presentation, Neshat talks about her journey as an artist in exile, with particular reference to her feature film "Women Without Men"
"The story I’d like to share with you today its my challenge as an Iranian artist. as an Iranian woman artist. As an Iranian woman artist living in exile.
Well it has its pluses and minuses and the dark side, politics doesn’t seem to escape people like me. Every Iranian artist in one form or another is political. Politics has defined our lives.
If you’re living in Iran you’re facing censorship, harassment, arrest, torture, at times execution. If you’re living outside like me, you’re faced with a life in exile. the pain of the longing and the separation from your loved ones and your family.
Therefore we don’t find the moral and emotional, psychological and political space to distance ourselves from the reality of social responsibility.
Oddly enough, an artist such as myself finds themselves also in the position of being the voice. The speaker of my people, even if I have indeed no access to my own country. Also, people like myself, we’re fighting two battles in different grounds.
We’re being critical of the west, perception of the west about our identity, about the image that is constructed about us, about our women, about our politics, about our religion. We are there to take pride and insist on respect. At the same time we’re fighting another battle that is our regime, our government, our atrocious government who has done every crime in order to stay in power.
Our artists are at risk. We are in a position of danger. We pose a threat to the order of the government, but ironically this situation has empowered all of us because we are considered as artists central to the cultural political social discourse in Iran. We are there to inspire, to provoke, to mobilize, to bring hope for our people.
We are the reporters of our people and are communicators to the outside world. Art is our weapon. Culture is a form of resistance. “
Iranian Artist Shirin Neshat talks about life as an artist in exile, and her debut feature film: “Women Without Men”
“I envy sometimes the artists of the West, for their freedom of expression. For the fact that they can distance themselves from the question of politics. For the fact that they are only serving one audience, namely the Western culture
But also I worry about the West because often in this country, in this western world that we have, culture risks to be a form of entertainment.
Our people depend on our artists and culture is beyond communication.
My journey as an artist started from a very personal place. I did not start to make social commentaries about my country. The first one that you see in front of you is actually when I first returned to Iran after being separated for a good 12 years. It was after the Islamic revolution of 1979. While I was in absence from Iran, Islamic revolution had descended on Iran and entirely transformed the culture from Persian to Islamic culture.
I came mainly to be reunited with my family and to reconnect in a way that I found my place in society, but instead I found a country that was totally ideological and that I didn’t recognize anymore. More so I became very interested as I was facing my own personal dilemmas and questions I became immersed in the study of the Islamic revolution, how indeed it had incredibly transformed the lives of Iranian women. I found the subject of Iranian women immensely interesting in the way that the women of Iran historically seemed to embody the political transformation. So in a way, by studying a women, you can read the structure and ideology of the country.
So I made a group of work that at once faced my own personal questions in life and yet it brought my work into a larger discourse, the subject of martyrdom, the question of those who willingly stand in that intersection of love of god, faith but violence and crime and cruelty. For me this became incredibly important and yet I had a neutral position towards this.
I was an outsider who had come back to Iran to find my place, but I was not in a position to be critical of the government or the ideology of the Islamic revolution. This changed slowly as I found my voice and I discovered things that I didn’t know I would discover, so my art became slightly more critical, my knife became a little sharper, and I fell into a life in exile.
I am a nomadic artist. I work in Morocco, in Turkey, in Mexico. I go everywhere to make believe it’S Iran. Now I’m making films.
Last year I finished a film called "Women Without Men". Women without Men returns to history, but another part of our Iranian history. It goes to 1953 when American CIA exercise a coup and removed democratically elected Dr Mohammad Mosaddegh. The book is written by Iranian woman Shahrnush Parsipur’s , a magic realist novel. This book is banned and she spent 5 years in prison. my Obsession with this book and the reason I made this into a film is because it at once was addressing the question of being a female, traditionally, historically in Iran and the question of four women who are all looking for an ideal, a change, freedom and democracy.
While the country of Iran equally as another character also struggles for an idea of freedom and democracy and independence from the foreign intervention. I made this film because I felt it was important for it to speak to the westerner about our history as a country. All of you seem to remember Iran after the cultural revolution. Iran was once a secular society and we had democracy and this democracy was stolen from us by the American government, by the British government.
The film also talks to the Iranian people in asking them to return to their history and look at themselves before they were so Islamified. In the way we looked, in the way we played music, in the way had intellectual lives, and most of all, in the way that we fought for democracy. These are some of the shots I create for my film. This is some of the images of the coup and we made the film in Cassablanca, recreating all the shots.
This film tries to find a balance between telling a political story but also a feminine story. Being a visual artist indeed I am foremost interested to make art. To make art that transcends politics, religion, the question of feminism and become an important universal work of art.
The challenge I had was how to do that. How to tell a political story but an allegorical story. How to move you with your emotions but also to make your mind work. This is some of the images and the characters of the film.
Now comes the green movement, summer of 2009 as my film is released, uprising begins in Iran. What is unbelievably ironic is the period that we tried to depict in the film, the cry for democracy and social justice repeats itself now, again in Teheran. The green movement significantly inspired the world. It brought a lot of attention to all those Iranians who stand for basic human rights and struggle for democracy. What was most significant again for me was once again, the presence of the women. They are absolutely inspirational for me.
If in the Islamic Revolution the woman portrayed was submissive and didn’t have a voice, now we saw a new idea of feminism in the streets of Teheran. Women who were educated, forward thinking, non traditional, sexually open, fearless and seriously feminist. These women, and those young men united Iranians across the world, inside and outside.
I then discovered why I take so much inspiration from Iranian women: that under all circumstances they have pushed the boundaries, they confronted the authorities, they have broken every rule, in the smallest and the biggest way and once again they proved themselves.
I stand here today to say that Iranian women have found a new voice and their voice is giving me my voice and it is a great honour to be an Iranian woman and an Iranian artist, even if I have to operate in the west only, for now."
Bank holiday, an extra day off, a Royal Wedding, a Prince and a Princess… so much for people to watch on TV and in the news. Street parties and celebrations.
It would be difficult to find a better time to “slip a little something in for the weekend…” and rest assured very few people will notice…
Well then, how about a little inoffensive piece of legislation that will never do anyone any harm, like banning the use of herbal remedies. Who uses herbal remedies anyway? It’s a term that sounds so quaint and antiquated, like something you read on an old newspaper cutting in your great grandmother’s scrap book.
It’s the Twenty First Century now, we should all grow up and start behaving like Modern Adults. 21st Century Citizens and all that, and we all know that you don’t use “Herbal Remedies”.
You go to your Drug Store, Chemist or supermarket and buy proper medicine, created in pristine, clean laboratory conditions, with no nasty “natural” “dirty” bits that probably creep or crawl into anything not made in test tubes and glass bottles. We really have come a long way since people did things like that. Right?
Well don’t worry because all the kind, caring pharmaceutical companies and drugs manufacturers have been heroic enough to stand up for your health and mine, because they really care about us, and to stop the damage Herbal Remedies could do to us, they have just banned hundreds of them…
Now products have to meet “safety, quality and manufacturing standards, and come with information outlining possible side effects.”
This ruling puts as many obstacles as it can in the way of herbal remedy manufacturers, and even individuals wishing to use product directly from nature’s pharmacy. The big multi-national pharmaceutical companies have the resources to bypass these obstacles, but small and medium sized businesses will be forced to close.
Herbal remedies have been used by qualified practitioners for hundreds and even thousands of years, and the effects and side-effects of them have been observed and documented. They are part of the wisdom of mankind.
Yes, herbal remedies can have negative side effects if used incorrectly. When something does go wrong it is likely to hit the headlines and receive massive press coverage.
However, natural herbal remedies have far less negative effects than most of the “modern” synthetic un-natural drugs, and far less coverage is given to these negative effects. Billions of dollars of profit make it worthwhile for giant multinational pharmaceutical companies to lobby continuously to create a positive image for their products and to build a negative one of “natural remedies” which are not controlled by them, and therefore stand in the way of their profits.
What they do not publicise is that they are promoting many drugs which do huge amounts of damage, are often prescribed unnecessarily, and in most cases have only a few years of observed side-effects, run in their “clinical trials”, unlike many of the “herbal remedies” which have been studied for centuries by healers.
And yet this law or European Directive has been brought in because they suggest they are worried about the “side-effects” of “herbal remedies”.
In a talk for the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) in London, Social innovator Rachel Botsman charts the growth of a movement that is transforming the way we consume and contribute.
She starts by talking about the Global Village and the Digital Sharing Revolution and Collaborative Consumption that takes many forms – traditional sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting and swapping, which are all being redefined through technology and peer communities.
Rather than creating a world in which people only interact remotely, and lose touch with the "real world", we are starting to “use the internet to get off the internet to form a stronger, bigger society", which is opening up all kinds of creative ways of interacting such as land sharing, bike sharing, car sharing: "Car companies have to realise they are no longer in the business of just selling cars, they are in mobility services and BMW, Peugeot and Daimler and have launched car-sharing service in the last 18 months."
"A new generation is growing up not wanting to own "stuff" it wants the needs or experiences it fulfils. Usage is proving "better than possession, access is better than ownership" She quotes Mark Levine, of the New York Times: “Sharing is to ownership what the iPod is to the eight-track, what the solar panel is to the coal mine. Sharing is clean, crisp, urbane, postmodern; owning is dull, selfish, timid, backward."
She talks about different types of new interaction: Redistribution markets, such as EBay, "like for like trading" (swapping) that is now powered by technology, and the enabling of free-giving on sites such as Freecycle, saying this is creating a new kind of wealth which is giving people a bit more control over their life and creating a renewed belief in the importance of community.
These changes have been powered by: A torrent of social technologies, Pressing unresolved environmental concerns A global recession that has shocked consumer behaviours and forced us to re-evaluate all our value systems.
"If the last generation – the Baby Boomers was all about keeping up with the Joneses, our generation is going to be all about getting to know the Joneses."
"Twentieth Century consumer behaviours were very much driven by our credit history. Now we leave a replication trail as we interact across the web, of how well we can or can’t be trusted."
"The 20th Century was defined by Credit, Advertising, Individual Ownership and Hyper consumption, the 21st Century will be defined by Reputation, Community, Shared Access and Collaborative Consumption."
"If you look back in history, every financial crisis marked the beginning of a paradigm shift, and a way of game-changing innovation."
"I believe we’re going to look back and we’re going to see this period as a momentous turning point, when we use the incredible technology we have to re-shape the kind of society we want. "
"I think it’s going to be called a revolution, when society facing very great challenges woke up from a humongous hangover of emptiness and waste and made a seismic leap to being defined not by what we consume, but by what we contribute, and along the way empowers millions of people, including us to play a larger role in building a stronger, healthier system…"
Parisian photographer and street artist "JR" has undertaken many projects that have spanned the planet, using giant billboard sized monochromatic photographs in unexpected places, in positions of high visibility.
He started out as a graffiti artist in Paris, but after finding a camera on the Metro, began taking photographs documenting his friends painting graffiti on the rooftops and walls of the city..
He now mixes the two mediums of photography and graffiti, calling himself a "photograffeur", posting giant black and white photographs in public places.
His "Face 2 Face" project was dubbed "the largest illegal photo exhibition in the world" in which the border wall which runs the length of the disputed area between Israel and Palestine became a gallery of giant portraits of Jews and Palestinians of all denominations and types, grinning and pulling faces into the camera and posted side by side along large stretches of the wall.
Part of this is a giant triptych of a rabbi, a priest and an immam wearing intentionally comic expressions. The message is simple but powerful: there is far more that unites humanity than that which divides it. "It’s about breaking down barriers," JR says. "With humour, there is life."
His more recent "Women are Heroes" project took him to meet, work with and photograph women in slums and war-torn, poverty stricken communities across the world, using art as a medium to reaffirm the positive, creative side of humanity.
"They keep on asking you: what is the purpose of your project? Are you an NGO? are you the media? … Art. Just an artist… Some who understood the project will explain it to others: to a man who did not understand I heard someone said: "You know, You’ve been here for a few hours trying to understand this thing with your fellows. During that time, you haven’t think about what you’re going to eat tomorrow. This is art."
"Women are Heroes" created a new dynamic in each of the communities and the women kept that dynamic after we left. For example, we created book, not for sale, but that all the community would get but to get it they would have to make it signed by one of the women…
Its really important point to me is that I don’t use any brands or corporate sponsor, so I have no responsibility to anyone but myself and the sisters… They made me promise… please, make our story travel with you…so I did…look… that’s Paris, that’s Rio… that’s London… New York…"
—— TURN THE WORLD INSIDE OUT ——– His latest project is one that everyone can participate in: "I wish for you to stand up for what you care about by participating in a global art project, and together we’ll turn the world.. INSIDE OUT.
When we act together, the whole thing is more than the sum of the parts. So I hope that together we will create something that the world will remember, and this starts right now, and depends on you."
Use the link below to find out how you can participate.
Events are scheduled in over 100 countries around the world to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Women’s Day.
Celebrating 100 years of celebrating the movement to overcome gender injustice
Events happen globally throughout March to mark the economic, political and social achievements of women.
Themes are chosen for each year, by organisations and women’s groups as well as governments. These can differ from country to country. Themes chosen for 2011 include: Equal access to education, training and science and technology: Pathway to decent work for women.
In the US, Barack Obama proclaimed March 2011 to be "Women’s History Month", a time for Americans to reflect on "the extraordinary accomplishments of women" in shaping the country’s history.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched the "100 Women Initiative: Empowering Women and Girls through International Exchanges" on the eve of the celebration.
This is a YouTube clip from an American TV station talking about the British NHS, with some of the responses to the clip below.
tourists that use the NHS, thats fine by me. it doesnt matter if your British, American, Russian, Chinese, Angolan, whatever, as humans we need to look after each other when we are in the most need. if some American breaks his leg on a step whilst taking a picture of Big Ben, im absolutely fine with him getting all the treatment he needs over here for free. i hope America one day embraces the idea, having a broken arm like i had whilst skiing then being asked about the bill is not what you want.
Oh ok - this is where you go back to claiming that the US is much better because of it’s wonderful free market, low unemployment right and world beating economic model? And Europe is shit because we’re all bereft, unemployed socialists desperately wishing we were American? Then I remind you of the following:
US Unemployment: 9.2%
SWE Unemployment: 8.2%
UK Unemployment: 7.8%
GER Unemployment: 6.9%
NOR Unemployment: 3.5%
Darn commies!
NHS is one of the greatest things to have happened in Britain and has recently been rated 2nd for the world’s top health care. Americans should support Obama if they want to stop greedy corporations from preventing them from receiving universal health care.
@katards Kat, I think this word "socialist" should be put to rest here. All that is happening in Britain..and other civilised countries is that the idea that informs collecting taxes to provide a fire service, an army, social workers and school teachers has just been extended into health care. Simple. SO if you pay for the police and you never need them, how do Americans feel about that? Well we feel the same in the UK about Health care. We pay a progressive premium, sick or welll. WIn-Win
@Thetruthishere11 Oh – and the NHS does *not* provide lower quality care. European healthcare almost always ranks above the US in healthcare tables. The difference is, it costs half as much, because we don’t have to factor in:
a. The beauracracy of having to arse on with hundreds of different insurance providers
b. We don’t have to factor in a 30% profit margin for everyone providing the healthcare.
Do yourself a favour and do some research – the US system is a laughing stock outside the US
@Thetruthishere11 You might have some semblance of an argument if it weren’t the case that 15% of your population don’t have any coverage at all, and another 50% would be bankrupted if they got a serious illness when the insurance company decides not to pay out. The US rations care *far far* more than any other developed country – it just does it by restricting access to only those that can afford to pay insurance company profits.
Thetruthishere11 I have never had rationed care, nor do I know anyone who has. You are talking nonsense. The same treatments that are available in the US are almost always available in the UK if they are proven to work. The difference is:
a. All citizens have access to them in the UK – not just the wealthy (so just who’s doing the rationing my friend?)
b. Having to pay for those treatments does not bankrupt anyone if their insurance company decides not to pay out
@Thetruthishere11 Minimum 44million and up to one-third of US population (not illegals) without insurance many millions more without adequate insurance to cover health costs and go bankrupt , over 22000 US citizens die every year because they do not have the correct medical cover. You are to cowardly to comment on "the US Healthcare system in international Context" which shows just how false Beck and Hannans claims are.
@Thetruthishere11 Well, given that the NHS costs 40%-50% less than the US system, whilst covering everyone and ranking above the US in health outcome tables, I’m pretty comfortable with the way costs are being contained.
As for Dr shortages – I don’t know anything about that. Maybe in some specialised areas? From my own experience, I’ve never had a problem seeing a Dr and I don’t know of anyone who has.
@sh856531 I think American’s who waffle on about rationing are completely crazy. The US is the most rationed system in the western world. The difference the rationing takes place based on whether you are poor or not and how likely an insurance provider is to be able to make a profit out of you.
In the UK system, "rationing" (something I have never seen anyone actually experience here) occurs based on what the most appropriate use of funds is – not profit
@Thetruthishere11 Yes everything does cost money. I’m going to get taxed no matter what. But I’m happy for my taxes to be spent looking after the health and well being of our people.
Do you moan when your taxes go to your countries war machine? No because you support your troops right? you think it ok to be taxed to kill other peoples, but not to help your own less fortunate and less well off.
@Thetruthishere11 Er… the rich and bloody famous can afford it. They can also afford private jets, several holiday homes, fast cars etc… I WANT the best drugs, the best hospitals and treatment. Unfortunately, I don’t have dollars is my bank account. I had insurance. They rejected every op I needed. Told me I’d have to pay half the docs fees. I went NHS instead cos they didn’t quibble over pennies.
If you disagree with the severity of any of the “Spending Cuts” then there is a Plan B that is worth investigating. You may not yet realise how much you disagree with the planned cuts.
We are being asked to give up libraries, NHS facilities, care for the elderly, care for the young, care for the disabled, essential services are being cut…funding for almost every worthwhile cause has been cut or is to be withdrawn, students are being asked to get into a huge amount of debt in order to be able to afford the privilege of studying, we were even being told we had to give up our forests… …
The only people that seem to have escaped the effects of this global shake up, strangely enough, are the banks. Barclay’s Chief Executive, Bob Diamond stated that the period of "remorse and apology" for banks was over and to prove the point they are back to paying out annual bonuses to themselves that would take 75% of the world’s population 600 or more years to earn.
Something doesn’t sound quite right with this equation.
Politicians and tax campaigners have been stunned by the (forced) admission this week by Barclays Bankthat in 2009 it only paid !% tax – just £113m in UK corporation tax in a year when it rang up a record £11.6bn of profits.
The current rate of corporation tax in the UK is 28%
Most of the bank’s taxes are avoided through loopholes in the system… Barclays admitted it has 30 subsidiary companies in the Isle of Man, 38 in Jersey and 181 in the Cayman Islands, so there is no shortage of ways in which money can be siphoned out of the system.
Max Lawson, of the Robin Hood Tax Campaign, said: "This is proof that banks live in a parallel universe to the rest of us, paying billions in bonuses and unhampered by the inconvenience of paying tax.
"If banks paid their fair share we could avoid the worst of the cuts and help those hit hardest by the financial crisis they did nothing to cause."
On Tuesday – when Barclays announced 2010 profits of £6.1bn and a 23% rise in average pay in its investment banking arm, Barclays Capital – the tax campaigners turned a London branch of the bank into a library
The banks are holding us to ransom, threatening to leave us high and dry if we so much as slap them across the wrist… and what are they actually providing us with?
A call for celebration. The campaign to stop the government from selling off the English forests has surprised the coalition with its depth of support and they have announced that the program has been scrapped.
Some of the responses from campaigners are below, and as is pointed out “the government is still allowed to sell-off 15% of forest and woodland every 4 years…. if you thin about it, that could be 45% after 12 years!”
Below are some of the responses to the success of the campaign on the 38degrees Facebook page
Eileen Nicholson: A large percentage of woodland workers have already been given their notice.
The next thing is, the ‘powers that would be’ will say the woodland aren’t being mantained well enough and will us that as an excuse to take over. Are there any woodland workers out there prepared to share their story with us? Horse’s mouth and al…
David Clarke: I don’t think they believe they got it wrong… this was just to test the water and we must not be complacent as the government is still allowed to sell-off 15% of forest and woodland every 4 years…. if you think about it, that could be 45% after 12 years!
Vanessa Mordin: Not so fast with all the congratulations!!! There are changes due with the planning laws which will make it possible for local authorities to allow woodland to be built on. Please go to the Woodland Trust website for more information and sign up to that campaign.
Victoria Taylor: Knew they would find a way to do it……together we have to stop them. They are using a psychological method that they used when they were trying to close the coal mines, tell the miners that they were going to close 8 pits, debate it and then only close 3…..the miners thought they were victorious, but really the government had only ever intended to close 3 pits. This is the same kind of psychological warfare that they are using with our woodlands.
Neil Hughes: What fantastic news. This policy, as in the case of the NHS reforms and cuts in welfare services, was driven by pure ideological hatred of either public or common (despite the big society rhetoric) alternatives to private property.
It’s exactly the same struggle as is being waged by indigenous groups in the Amazon rain…forest against state attempts to undermine their collective property rights and privatise their land. Thanks to 38 degrees for organising the campaign and congratulations on its success. Looking forward to the next one!!!!
Mickey Modern: This is the way the UK Britain should be run. By the people for the people! After the fuss has died down, shouldn’t 38 Degree appoint a ‘green’ Lawyer to go through any new Government ruling on this issue?
Dean Bromley: The problem is this doesn’t stop governments selling our forests and woods they will just sell them off bit by bit as they have been doing for many years, before we know it in 10-20 years time we will find out they have sold them all off behind our backs, what we need to do is make sure they cannot sell any more forest…
Flangela Pangela: If you want evidence of what our forests would be turned into, if they were leased out or sold off to private companies, take a look at Parkhurst Forest on the Isle of Wight. This ancient forest HAS been leased out to European logging firm “Euroforest” and it is being unsympathetically ripped up at an alarming rate.
Where once there was dense forest, there is now torn up waste land. I understand it is the commercially grown pine that is being logged, but there is a lot of damage to the native trees and the rate at which the forest is disappearing is worrying. I have also seen no evidence of replanting.
The Isle of Wight is well known as one of the last havens for red squirrels in Britain and Parkhurst forest was the largest habitat they had. It is so upsetting to see this happening here on our beloved Isle, but it is heartening to hear that people’s voices have put a stop to this happening elsewhere.
Emily Parry: I don’t trust any of them – not one bit. I feel almost ashamed I voted at all, as I voted LibDem, but I also feel ashamed that I voted at all, as all of them have been involved in this except perhaps the greens or a few independents.
How dare they even think of this sell off of forests?! I looked at the stakeholders list – there were housing developers on it. It was disgraceful – the stakeholders should not have included them, because the forest should have at least have been assured legal protection against having housing put over them!
Can anyone tell me – is there a way to have a “vote of no confidence” in our current political system?
Julia Neesham: Overwhelmed with a sense of being part of this monumental movement towards protecting our environment, power to the people and trees!!!!
Shane Beaver: Proof that people out there really do care about the environment of the UK, and are determined to do something about. Another defeat for greed! That can’t be bad!
Patricia Rutt: So pleased, we helped plant a wood in our village for the Millenium and it is looking lovely now so great. Our MP was all for the sell off ( tory ) and is now sending out emails saying how pleased he is we have won, how hypocypical. Have signed the coast guard petition, lets get that one going and remember folks they …are going to try and bring fox hunting back !! Please keep an eye on that one. We are now going out of our way to look for any just causes that we can sign for.
David Clarke: I don’t understand why they have to waste millions on feasibility studies BEFORE they’ve actually asked the public what they think….
Joanna Newbold: FANTASTIC…..hip hip hooray to everyone who stuck up for their rights.People Power does work and so does the support of M.P’s fighting for the same cause. Thank you 38 Degrees team, your efforts and attention have been tireless. Inspiring outcome BUT we must make sure the Government does not blind side this decision and be vigilant, as a National Team we know we can make it work, it has up till now!
Kathleen Basiewicz: People power emerges, what is next for us to conquer
Julia Neesham: Overwhelmed with a sense of being part of this monumental movement towards protecting our environment, power to the people and trees!!!!
Andy Plummer: Was becoming very cynical about trying to object to things that seem beyond our control. This result has gone part way to reinstate belief in POWER TO THE PEOPLE. Good old Wolfie 🙂
Peter Wallace: It’s great to feel heard! Long may it continue! Thanks 38 degrees for making it possible……….
Sylvia Barham: great!!! about time we the people had our say.
Ed Hooper : Well done everyone it would seem that people power can make a difference. Now can we please have our country back?
Joanna Newbold: Too damn right..it’s time we let our combined voices/thoughts heard..fed up with being a ‘sheep’ herded round and penned up. Time to make a change and put right the massive wrong in our system.
Helen George: How fantastic that we actually got somewhere with the government! This was the only time I have ever written to my MP about anything so I am thrilled that it worked. Thanks for bringing such an important campaign to my and everyone else’s attention. I think without your campaign, this proposal could very well have slipped under the radar. God forbid!
Evelyn Corney: Forests can never be rightfully “owned” – instead, we all share a joint responsibility to keep them and preserve them so that everyone can enjoy them! Thank God that sanity prevailed on this occasion.
Anne Bell: Like it I love it. I didn’t spend Sundays with Brownies and Guides planting trees to have someone tell me I can’t stand next to them. a wonderfully well done everyone who bothered to speak out.
Ronnie McInnes: Superb news – I’m based in Scotland but was dead opposed to this happening anywhere in UK. I also used 38 Degrees great pages to get access to my local MP to find out why he had abstained. More than a week later I’m still waiting for his promised return call… Guess who’s vote he and his LIBDEM party will be losing at next election 🙂
Mary Woodfield: Absolutely brilliant news. I feel really proud to have been part of the campaign. Congratulations 38 degrees.
Ray Riley: Just a thought, when people in previous governments got things as wrong as this they resigned. Usually stating it was the honourable thing to do. Does this ramshackle ConDem bunch of miscreants know anything about honour or decency or fairnes or ……
Wendi Jarrett: Seriously excellent news. We the people CAN make our voices heard. all over the world ORDINARY PEOPLE are STANDING UP AND SPEAKING OUT… and democratically changing things. Excellent … Walk good x
Krystyna Boswell: So delighted over the success of the forest campaign. In dark times it is hard to imagine we, the people, can have an effect on government policy. But we did. Next battle…..
