Bob presents practical ideas for really helping and enabling personal environmental action
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Really helping and enabling personal environmental action: practical ideas
Context: Quite often when people purport to want to help individuals with advice in a parish or community setting they talk at the audience about their own agenda. Environmental professionals are particularly bad at this – coming into community contexts with ‘top down agendas’. The reality is that both environmentally tuned-in and non-environmentalist alike are already doing a great deal and are very aware but need responses to their questions about how to do more. This session covered:
Asking what people are doing – listening
Climate conversations – using ‘a conversation’ approach to discover people’s views
What are individuals doing? A structure for the responses
Organising meetings to respond to people’s questions and interests (virtual, face to face, small group and Can do Cafes)
00:00 - 29:00 Presentation
29:00 - 61:38 (end) Q & A
The team discussed their past experiences, connections, and ongoing projects, with a focus on environmental sustainability and climate change. They also explored strategies for engaging local communities in environmental discussions, the importance of personal action and choices, and the challenges of managing flooding and energy-saving measures. Lastly, they discussed the progress of their website's upgrade and relaunch, the need for more interactive features, and the importance of a more realistic approach to climate action.
Andrew to send Bob dates for a lunch meeting in the third week of January.
Andrew to share the meeting presentation and recording online.
Andrew to put the link to the Climate Outreach survey in the chat.
Andrew to work on updating and relaunching the Great Collaboration website.
Andrew to send Jenny login details for the updated website once it's ready for review.
Jenny to provide feedback on the updated website once she receives access.
Andrew to create a communications page on the website and encourage people to contribute.
Andrew to follow up with the programmer regarding the login functionality for community groups, businesses, and town/parish councils.
Bob to send reports from his recent local projects to interested participants.
Anna to explore setting up climate change meetings at local libraries.
Nostalgia and Future Conservation Plans
Graham and Bob reminisced about their past experiences and connections, including their shared history with David Bellamy. Bob shared his involvement in the first citizen science project for sports divers in 1968, which led to the formation of the Marine Conservation Society. Graham then had to leave the meeting early for another appointment. Andrew and Bob agreed to meet up for lunch after Christmas to discuss their ongoing projects. They also discussed the importance of making their work more visible to higher level authorities.
Developing a Structured Flood Management Approach
Andrew and Bob discussed the need for a template on how to approach and manage flooding, particularly for town and parish councils. Bob shared his experience with the Cywem organization, where he organized over 100 professional conferences, 40 of which were on flooding. He suggested that by collecting ideas from various sources, a structured approach could be developed that relates to real-life situations. Andrew agreed to draft a document based on Bob's suggestions and share it with him for feedback. They also discussed the challenges faced by councils in managing flooding and the potential legal issues that arise. The conversation ended with Bob preparing to give a presentation on personal approaches to flood management.
Environmental Sustainability and Personal Action
Bob discussed the complexities of environmental sustainability and climate change, emphasizing the need for personal action and choices. He shared his experience of organizing conferences and his observations of local environmental meetings, highlighting the challenges of engaging with the public and the importance of understanding what people are doing for the environment. Bob introduced a simple structure of seven categories for personal action, which he found to be helpful in organizing meetings and engaging with the community. He also mentioned his willingness to share a detailed list of these categories with those interested.
Climate Conversations and Personal Actions
Bob discussed his experience with Kempley Climate Conversations, where he interviewed six non-environmental individuals about their views on climate change. He found that these individuals were already aware of climate change and its human-made nature, and they were eager to share their personal actions and motivations. Bob also noted that these individuals didn't consider their local community's actions to be helpful. He then shared his findings on personal benefits and the concept of "beyond gardening" in rural communities, where people have larger areas of land to manage. Bob concluded by emphasizing the importance of listening to others' perspectives and experiences to gain a deeper understanding of their actions and motivations.
Engaging Local Communities in Climate Discussions
Bob shared his experiences and insights on engaging local communities in environmental discussions. He emphasized the importance of understanding the audience's needs and interests, using the example of a "Can Do Cafe" where local residents shared their experiences and knowledge on home energy. Bob also discussed the "Marketplace Method" where experts were given short pitches to encourage audience participation. He highlighted the power of local word of mouth and peer-to-peer learning. Councillor shared his challenges in engaging the community, noting the resistance to climate change discussions and the difficulty in getting people to attend meetings. Bob suggested focusing on the benefits for the audience and using willing participants as a focus group for future discussions.
Environmental Conservation and Community Engagement
Bob discussed the benefits of environmental conservation, emphasizing the energy savings and the potential for community engagement. He shared his experiences in a rural community where people have varying approaches to managing their gardens and land. Bob also highlighted the importance of focusing on the benefits of change rather than just climate change. Andrew agreed, noting that people often find themselves preaching to the converted and that starting conversations with the benefits of change can be more effective. The team also discussed the potential of training more people to spread the message in their local areas. Jenny shared her experience with reducing her electricity bills and her attempts to share this information with her neighbors, although she found limited success.
Energy-Saving Measures and Insulation Priorities
In the meeting, Jenny and Bob discussed the order of energy-saving measures for houses, with insulation being the first priority. Jenny shared her experience of installing solar panels after insulation, while Bob emphasized the importance of considering the spectrum of energy-saving options. Cllr shared his experience of applying for a home energy survey and the high costs of insulation. Frank highlighted the challenges of retrofitting and the need for a holistic approach to energy-saving. Bob suggested cherishing people who show interest in energy-saving measures and using opportunities like boiler replacements or house extensions to promote changes. The team agreed on the importance of proper insulation before considering other energy-saving measures.
Climate Change Engagement Strategies
Andrew, Anna, and Bob discussed strategies for engaging people on climate change issues. Andrew suggested reaching out to local libraries, as they are interested in being meeting places for climate discussions. Anna agreed, suggesting that libraries could be used to start conversations with people who are already engaged in climate change issues. Bob emphasized the importance of personal perspectives and not forcing preconceived projects on people. He also mentioned his concern about the cost of living and how it affects people's ability to engage in climate change discussions. Andrew shared a link to the Climate Outreach Survey, which identifies seven audience segments for climate change discussions. The team agreed to continue their discussions in the future, with Bob suggesting a meeting in January.
Carbon Calculators and Green Energy
Jenny and Andrew discuss various carbon calculators and their experiences with installing solar panels and a heat pump. Jenny found the World Wildlife Fund's carbon calculator user-friendly, while others were overly detailed. They acknowledge the ethical concerns around sourcing products from China but conclude that climate impact takes priority. Andrew expresses frustration at the lack of a national strategy to develop domestic green industries. Jenny shares her positive experience with her efficient Mitsubishi heat pump, which runs infrequently yet heats her home effectively. They compare it favorably to her previous gas boiler in terms of efficiency and temperature control.
00:22:55 Peter Bates: Not seeing slides
00:23:28 Peter Bates: Are others seeing slides?
00:23:54 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yes
00:24:12 Peter Bates: OK I will log out and then in again
01:01:15 Jenny Barna: My electricity bill is negative. 19 panels, ASHP, EV, no gas.
01:01:53 Andrew Maliphant: We're looking to add 27 panels to our community library
01:05:23 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Installed home solar panels last week and one of the neighbours popped round to ask about them.
01:10:20 Caitlin Williams: Sorry about that Stuart- we had to put some eligibility requirements in
01:16:07 Caitlin Williams: Apologies I will have to dash off to another meeting, thank you for a great presentation and interesting discussion!
01:16:26 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: Reacted to "Sorry about that Stu..." with 👍
01:18:48 Jenny Barna: They may put solar PV but buy two huge new EVs and fly many times a year.
01:20:13 frank deas: https://climateoutreach.org/britain-talks-climate/what-is-britain-talks-climate/
01:21:05 frank deas: many thanks to Bob
Prompt: What are you doing at a personal level to act on climate and environmental issues?
Make a list of your ideas:
Email for contributions: bob@bobearll.co.uk
Professional World:
The environment is complicated (200+ themes).
Focus: Marine & Water – Jack Barrie, 2021.
Common Issues:
Top-down lectures without listening or input.
Use of jargon, acronyms, and corporate speak.
Pre-formed ideas and no consideration of personal scales.
Virtue signaling by "experts."
Three Contexts:
Personal Choices and Actions – In Your Control.
Influencing More People – In your spare time (community & projects).
Influencing More People – At work or through organizations.
Key Topics:
Learning and Awareness: Talk and rehearse with people.
Diet & Food Security:
More plant-based diets.
Grow your own food.
Travel: Reduce carbon and environmental footprint.
Energy in the Home: Lower carbon footprint.
Consumption:
Refuse, rethink, reduce, reuse, repair, refill, and recycle.
Address plastic pollution.
Wildlife & Environment Restoration:
Gardening for biodiversity.
Investment: Spend wisely, divest from harmful practices.
Challenges:
Breaking into conversations.
Connecting with "friends" and acquaintances locally.
Strategies:
Use the structured topics; avoid leading only with "climate change."
Engage through motivational benefits:
Energy savings.
Food security.
Cost-cutting.
Resources:
Questions (2-hour sessions):
What do you think or feel about climate change?
What actions are you taking?
What benefits do you get from taking these actions?
How can village activities help you?
Focus on Benefits:
Motivation and personal benefits:
Health and financial benefits.
Solutions for future generations.
Peer-to-peer conversations.
Non-environmentalists are already knowledgeable.
People quickly share their actions.
Personal benefits drive engagement.
Village or local support is underutilized.
Poll for Topics:
Ask for interest (e.g., Electric Vehicles).
Build agendas based on specific questions.
Focus on Experts:
Brief local experts (e.g., EV garage owners).
Build discussions around audience questions.
Method:
Two sets of four expert speakers:
5-minute pitches.
Followed by two 40-minute discussion sessions.
Report on home energy issues:
Cheap solutions to investment ideas.
Key Features:
Tea and cakes during breaks for community bonding.
Understand and respond to your audience.
Use structured topics that relate to daily actions.
Recognize ordinary people as "experts."
Share experiences and insights for greater impact.
What has been your experience in engaging people?
What approaches have worked for you?
WEBVTT
1 00:00:08.469 --> 00:00:10.219 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Nice to meet you guys.
2 00:00:13.760 --> 00:00:15.859 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Alright, there is a meeting there.
3 00:01:19.580 --> 00:01:21.010 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Good morning, both.
4 00:01:22.430 --> 00:01:23.610 Bob Earll: Graham, how are you.
5 00:01:23.610 --> 00:01:26.549 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: You're looking very relaxed, sir, very nice to see you.
6 00:01:26.920 --> 00:01:31.610 Bob Earll: Well, yeah, I feel I feel fairly racked. Kind of the year is coming to an end.
7 00:01:32.343 --> 00:01:33.449 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: I mean.
8 00:01:33.450 --> 00:01:42.940 Bob Earll: I mean from Monday next week. I've actually planned not to do any. My wife would call it work.
9 00:01:43.290 --> 00:01:45.940 Bob Earll: I would call it hobbies.
10 00:01:45.940 --> 00:01:46.760 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Yes.
11 00:01:47.470 --> 00:01:58.589 Bob Earll: When my wife does what she does. It's kind of writing a grandfather's history so that sort of but it somehow isn't work. What I do whatever it is.
12 00:01:59.220 --> 00:02:00.259 Bob Earll: Is work.
13 00:02:00.450 --> 00:02:01.130 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Yes.
14 00:02:01.810 --> 00:02:04.530 Bob Earll: Anyway. So yeah, I'm I'm very well. How? How are you.
15 00:02:04.760 --> 00:02:06.485 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Likewise. Thank you.
16 00:02:07.060 --> 00:02:15.810 Bob Earll: I see your your your banter sessions are going, great guns, congratulations on keeping up the momentum on a weekly basis.
17 00:02:15.810 --> 00:02:33.709 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Well, I think they feed themselves. I'm staggered, as always, at how rich and talented our various speakers are, because it doesn't matter where you go, or what topic in England you find somebody who's an amazing resource.
18 00:02:33.710 --> 00:02:34.240 Bob Earll: Yeah.
19 00:02:34.580 --> 00:02:39.469 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: I don't know if you remember, but way back in the start of the Falklands war
20 00:02:39.540 --> 00:02:48.909 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: they needed somebody who knew the Falklands coastline intimately, and they found a guy sitting in a village who said, Oh, yeah, yes, I've been there done that.
21 00:02:48.970 --> 00:02:56.006 Bob Earll: No, no, I know. Yeah, no, I I know exactly what you mean. I haven't had a friend who'd been down there on the
22 00:02:56.450 --> 00:03:24.510 Bob Earll: She she collected snails, you know. She was a mollusk expert, you know, in the kind of Oncological society of Uk. She'd been to Falklands on one of the, you know, on the you know, the survey vessel used to go down there. Yeah. Decided to chop it off, didn't they? Decided they wouldn't run it anymore. And that's that was the signal for Galcyarian code to, you know the invasion. Anyway, she'd gone down there entirely, voluntarily, to collect
23 00:03:24.520 --> 00:03:35.509 Bob Earll: mollusks and things on the Falkland Islands, and you know again she, you know, got this wealth of information. I remember listening to a talk on you know the marine mollusks of the Falkland Islands.
24 00:03:35.510 --> 00:03:36.420 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Wow!
25 00:03:36.840 --> 00:03:37.970 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Quite extraordinary!
26 00:03:37.970 --> 00:03:41.907 Bob Earll: Yeah. So I mean, there are. You know, these people are everywhere, really?
27 00:03:42.610 --> 00:03:45.060 Bob Earll: yeah, indeed. And are you? Well.
28 00:03:45.590 --> 00:03:55.819 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Yes, I'm reminiscing. You've started a whole bunch of reminiscences now in my head. So did you ever come across a biologist? Called David Bellamy.
29 00:03:55.820 --> 00:03:57.259 Bob Earll: I certainly did.
30 00:03:57.260 --> 00:03:58.539 Bob Earll: Okay, hey?
31 00:03:58.540 --> 00:04:05.370 Bob Earll: Played a very large part in my life, which, if well, okay.
32 00:04:05.420 --> 00:04:15.900 Bob Earll: So in 1968, David Bellamy launched the, I think. What was the 1st Citizen Science project for sports divers anywhere in the world.
33 00:04:16.019 --> 00:04:16.399 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Wow!
34 00:04:16.599 --> 00:04:19.690 Bob Earll: He was a botanist and
35 00:04:20.959 --> 00:04:25.110 Bob Earll: He encouraged sports divers to go out and collect a square meter of kelp.
36 00:04:25.390 --> 00:04:31.009 Bob Earll: Yeah, from from a site around the around the country, and then bring it back home.
37 00:04:31.240 --> 00:04:35.190 Bob Earll: Put it in the oven and dry it for 4 h.
38 00:04:35.590 --> 00:04:36.420 Bob Earll: Now you
39 00:04:36.420 --> 00:04:48.239 Bob Earll: can imagine you know what you know. Wives around the round the country were kind of getting going absolutely ballistic with their ovens being filled with dried, you know. Drying kelp.
40 00:04:50.160 --> 00:04:55.079 Bob Earll: anyway. Well, you know what he was like, you know, absolutely totally larger than life.
41 00:04:55.080 --> 00:04:55.580 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Yes.
42 00:04:55.580 --> 00:05:09.340 Bob Earll: But I have him to thank. So I took part in that project. I was in Shetland at the time, but the the hop, skip and a jump. Later he and an editor of a diving magazine ran a thing called Underwater Conservation Year.
43 00:05:09.550 --> 00:05:10.280 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Right.
44 00:05:10.570 --> 00:05:24.735 Bob Earll: And I I did a I ran a project for that, you know, voluntarily, it was a species resorting project. It was the most successful recording project. So recording card, yeah? And divers were asked to kind of, you know. Fill in the species. And
45 00:05:25.320 --> 00:05:28.850 Bob Earll: we got. We got 400 cards sent back in a year. It's fantastic.
46 00:05:29.480 --> 00:05:42.800 Bob Earll: anyway. Hop, skip, and a jump. David Bellamy and and various friends decided to go on a major expedition to to the Chagos Archipelago in 1978. Okay.
47 00:05:43.080 --> 00:05:44.759 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Well, that was his second trip
48 00:05:45.760 --> 00:05:47.219 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: was with him on the 1st trip.
49 00:05:47.220 --> 00:06:05.140 Bob Earll: Yeah. Well, indeed. So you'll know where this is going. So this chap called Charles Shepard. Now Charles Shepard had been the Coordinator for underwater conservation year. Okay? And and Charles went off on the expedition to Chagos in 78. And basically there was a vacancy because there was some money left over.
50 00:06:05.140 --> 00:06:06.030 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Yep.
51 00:06:06.730 --> 00:06:09.250 Bob Earll: Hence the beginning of my career
52 00:06:09.280 --> 00:06:26.265 Bob Earll: in that, and that it went for you can only have. You can only have certain number of years, can't you know? So you had underwater conservation here. Didn't know what to call the second bit, so I called it Underwater Conservation program. It then became the Underwater Conservation Society, which we launched in
53 00:06:27.610 --> 00:06:35.309 Bob Earll: 1979, with a big conference in Manchester. And then it became the Marine Conservation Society.
54 00:06:35.310 --> 00:06:36.059 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Right now. It would be.
55 00:06:36.060 --> 00:06:38.179 Bob Earll: Which then took what?
56 00:06:38.360 --> 00:06:42.260 Bob Earll: 14 years of my, you know. So that was 14 years of the start of my life.
57 00:06:42.260 --> 00:06:46.449 Bob Earll: So that's a long, winded way of saying, Yes, I do know David Bellamy.
58 00:06:47.760 --> 00:07:00.340 Bob Earll: He was an amazing supporter. I remember he was going somewhere. Our office had burnt down in Ross, and on a Sunday morning it was on Saturday, and he called in to see me.
59 00:07:00.667 --> 00:07:10.949 Bob Earll: I want to see us on the Sunday morning, and kind of was filmed in the process of doing this, and we've got a stack of money on the back of that kind of quite spontaneous
60 00:07:11.720 --> 00:07:23.510 Bob Earll: visit. Do you know what I mean? No one asked him to come, you know. There he was, the day after it happened, happened to be driving through. Ross gave us an hour. All sorts of media got the story, and.
61 00:07:23.700 --> 00:07:29.110 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: But I need to take a second with Andrew, just to make sure he's all set up for this meeting.
62 00:07:29.350 --> 00:07:31.560 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So morning Andrew again.
63 00:07:31.560 --> 00:07:32.920 Andrew Maliphant: Hello! Hello!
64 00:07:33.277 --> 00:07:42.919 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Are you familiar with showing videos on Zoom? Because there is a special button you need to press to make sure that you get the sound through.
65 00:07:43.760 --> 00:07:46.340 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Okay, there's a video in the presentation, is there.
66 00:07:46.890 --> 00:07:49.460 Bob Earll: No, it's just the presentation just slides.
67 00:07:49.820 --> 00:07:53.300 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Right? Okay. So that video that you sent was just for fun.
68 00:07:53.988 --> 00:08:01.540 Bob Earll: I might. There are some videos at the bottom of my email. But and I might have sent you some videos from something else. But but there's no video in this presentation.
69 00:08:01.540 --> 00:08:03.119 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Oh, okay, that's fine. Then good.
70 00:08:03.120 --> 00:08:03.640 Bob Earll: Yeah.
71 00:08:03.880 --> 00:08:11.319 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So in that case, you're all set well. I'm very sorry to leave you, but I'm going to leave you because I've got to rush off to another appointment.
72 00:08:11.320 --> 00:08:11.890 Bob Earll: Hmm.
73 00:08:11.890 --> 00:08:16.289 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: But I do hope a thank you so much for jumping in. It's short notice.
74 00:08:16.290 --> 00:08:20.979 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Yes, absolutely. I hope it's going to be a wonderful session. I shall look forward to hearing the recording.
75 00:08:21.200 --> 00:08:33.490 Bob Earll: Yeah, I'm I'm looking forward to it because it gives me a chance to kind of, you know. Of course, this personal perspective, you know this personal action side of things. It's a perspective that you don't hear many presentations on.
76 00:08:33.850 --> 00:08:34.260 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Right.
77 00:08:34.260 --> 00:08:40.170 Bob Earll: Sort of assumptions about what people do, but not but but no one seems to. Well, you'll see them all over.
78 00:08:40.179 --> 00:08:43.089 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: I loved your point about people talking at you.
79 00:08:43.400 --> 00:08:44.679 Andrew Maliphant: Yes. Oh, golf, yeah.
80 00:08:44.680 --> 00:08:47.870 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Or from above, down, down on you.
81 00:08:47.990 --> 00:08:53.860 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: So I think it's going to be a spectacular session, Bob, and I'm very sorry to miss it, but I'll I'll be there afterwards.
82 00:08:53.860 --> 00:08:57.059 Bob Earll: Well, keep up the good work, anyway. I mean, it's terrific job.
83 00:08:57.060 --> 00:09:01.630 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Okay. So I've made you the host. Andrew, you've got all controlled.
84 00:09:02.723 --> 00:09:04.450 Andrew Maliphant: Oh, gosh!
85 00:09:04.450 --> 00:09:04.770 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: It's.
86 00:09:04.770 --> 00:09:09.619 Andrew Maliphant: And Michael Jones. Michael Jones, our programmer, says, Oh, yeah, I'll look at that soon, he says.
87 00:09:09.620 --> 00:09:13.099 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration: Okay. Well, I'll run off before everyone else starts joining. But good luck.
88 00:09:13.100 --> 00:09:16.279 Andrew Maliphant: Okay, enjoy, enjoy your lunch.
89 00:09:17.150 --> 00:09:20.710 Bob Earll: Andrew, I mean you live nearby, don't you?
90 00:09:21.042 --> 00:09:22.040 Andrew Maliphant: Mitchudine. Yeah. Yeah.
91 00:09:22.040 --> 00:09:28.410 Bob Earll: Yeah. Well, Christ, Mitchell Dean is a, you know, is a is a blink away, isn't it?
92 00:09:28.410 --> 00:09:28.900 Andrew Maliphant: Yeah.
93 00:09:28.900 --> 00:09:35.119 Bob Earll: Get together. I mean, I mean, obviously, I kind of responded to various things that you do. You know what I mean? But
94 00:09:35.770 --> 00:09:43.079 Bob Earll: you know. I I kind of understand exactly what you're doing, and and the kind of world that you're kind of trying to break into. I mean.
95 00:09:43.080 --> 00:09:45.752 Andrew Maliphant: It's in a way, it's the whole world, but it's
96 00:09:46.590 --> 00:09:54.750 Andrew Maliphant: I I feel I know what you mean, but it it feels like we're we're in the world, but we need to make it more visible. Because certainly, when you're speaking to.
97 00:09:55.830 --> 00:10:05.210 Andrew Maliphant: you know, people at sort of local authority and certainly government level town and parish councils. It's not like they're treating us as little people. It's just we're just invisible, you know.
98 00:10:05.210 --> 00:10:05.560 Bob Earll: Yeah.
99 00:10:05.849 --> 00:10:17.739 Andrew Maliphant: And and of course, in a number of cases, as you and I know, parish councils and their communities aren't always on all fours, either. So this is what we're trying to achieve. Oh, Jenny, good to see you. Yeah.
100 00:10:18.740 --> 00:10:19.400 Bob Earll: Alright!
101 00:10:19.400 --> 00:10:23.298 Andrew Maliphant: So we it. It is a long
102 00:10:24.590 --> 00:10:40.677 Andrew Maliphant: process, but I'm I'm convinced that well, 2 things the more that we show things happening on the ground at community bit level, the more that will encourage people to think there's something in all of this, and the more we do that the more we people get we'll get more traction with these higher level authorities, because
103 00:10:42.398 --> 00:10:45.980 Bob Earll: After Christmas. Why don't we meet up for lunch somewhere.
104 00:10:45.980 --> 00:10:46.510 Andrew Maliphant: Great.
105 00:10:46.510 --> 00:10:51.450 Bob Earll: There must be somewhere halfway. Well, you know, halfway, you know, in in Ross. Say.
106 00:10:51.790 --> 00:10:54.200 Bob Earll: Yeah, okay, where? Where are you living these days?
107 00:10:54.480 --> 00:10:58.679 Bob Earll: I live in campley, which is about 7 miles from New, and 7 miles.
108 00:10:58.680 --> 00:11:01.010 Andrew Maliphant: I know I've got friends in Campley. I know I know.
109 00:11:01.010 --> 00:11:01.420 Bob Earll: Right.
110 00:11:01.420 --> 00:11:02.230 Andrew Maliphant: But yeah.
111 00:11:02.230 --> 00:11:02.610 Bob Earll: Yeah.
112 00:11:02.947 --> 00:11:07.672 Andrew Maliphant: Well, there's there's Ross. That's pretty fairly close to you, isn't it?
113 00:11:08.010 --> 00:11:09.010 Bob Earll: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
114 00:11:09.010 --> 00:11:12.379 Bob Earll: Sure. We'll go to the the King's Head in Ross. Then.
115 00:11:12.660 --> 00:11:13.760 Bob Earll: Pretty good. Yeah.
116 00:11:14.480 --> 00:11:19.710 Andrew Maliphant: Yeah, I mean the the forest, you know. Community forest
117 00:11:20.010 --> 00:11:25.829 Andrew Maliphant: Climate Forum doesn't seem to have met at all lately, and that's partly because the key people involved have become district councillors, you know.
118 00:11:25.830 --> 00:11:26.970 Andrew Maliphant: Yeah.
119 00:11:26.970 --> 00:11:38.269 Andrew Maliphant: Jackie and Tim, they're just really up to their ears and stuff. Well, we're all up Tories, isn't it? Because it's such a big agenda? And Jenny there, who's already on the call, has been helping a lot with some of our
120 00:11:38.320 --> 00:11:42.650 Andrew Maliphant: of all of our room advanced guidance. So that's that's all.
121 00:11:42.870 --> 00:11:44.790 Bob Earll: No, it it.
122 00:11:45.260 --> 00:11:54.346 Bob Earll: I was just saying to Graham that you know. Somehow, somehow retirement seems to kind of get diverted into.
123 00:11:54.760 --> 00:12:13.180 Andrew Maliphant: Well, I always thought you know, if I once I retired, people were banging on me, become their treasurer. So I had my excuse all lined up, you know my wife's business, but blow me, I'm now. I'm now treasurer for 3 different organizations. Well, I used to get rid of one of them, but
124 00:12:13.240 --> 00:12:13.905 Andrew Maliphant: it's
125 00:12:14.790 --> 00:12:19.610 Andrew Maliphant: that that's the trouble. But the thing is, you know, we're all doing this out of conviction, aren't we? We're doing it
126 00:12:20.040 --> 00:12:25.329 Andrew Maliphant: important, and it needs to be done, and we're in the best place to do it with our chosen audience. So.
127 00:12:26.150 --> 00:12:29.599 Andrew Maliphant: as I say, often, let us go forward together.
128 00:12:30.760 --> 00:12:31.920 Andrew Maliphant: Indeed.
129 00:12:31.920 --> 00:12:47.330 Andrew Maliphant: Yeah. So yeah. So you were. You are one of our very earliest speakers, weren't you on floods? One of the things we need to do, actually. And that's come up with a couple of parishes lately, is of course. Lidney got flooded out again this last time around.
130 00:12:47.330 --> 00:12:47.840 Bob Earll: Hmm.
131 00:12:47.840 --> 00:12:51.249 Andrew Maliphant: Is, I think we well, no, we need some kind of
132 00:12:52.270 --> 00:12:56.500 Andrew Maliphant: template for an approach to flooding, which talks a bit about.
133 00:12:56.800 --> 00:13:00.320 Andrew Maliphant: you know not just the concept, but what what sort of
134 00:13:00.370 --> 00:13:05.530 Andrew Maliphant: situation might be, you know, in terms of ownership, in terms of risk, and all the rest of it.
135 00:13:05.550 --> 00:13:08.390 Andrew Maliphant: and the steps that you can take to do something about it.
136 00:13:08.390 --> 00:13:08.860 Bob Earll: Yeah, yeah.
137 00:13:08.860 --> 00:13:13.810 Andrew Maliphant: Preferably prevention rather than cure, of course. But I'll be right.
138 00:13:13.810 --> 00:13:17.319 Andrew Maliphant: think! And this is particularly obviously aimed at town and parish councils. But
139 00:13:17.826 --> 00:13:20.403 Andrew Maliphant: I'm sure we could put such a thing together.
140 00:13:20.690 --> 00:13:24.780 Bob Earll: Okay, I mean, but
141 00:13:25.460 --> 00:13:34.379 Bob Earll: about 2,003, I became involved with the Charleston Institution for water and environmental management. Siem for short, yeah. And and
142 00:13:34.450 --> 00:13:43.880 Bob Earll: that I was on there looking at their webpage just recently. And they they've actually got whole part of their website is devoted to property level
143 00:13:44.840 --> 00:13:46.310 Bob Earll: flood protection.
144 00:13:46.850 --> 00:13:54.169 Bob Earll: Because that was that was, that was the the area that was most ignored by the professionals, by and large, because there wasn't enough money in it.
145 00:13:54.370 --> 00:13:57.200 Bob Earll: But it's a huge huge sector now.
146 00:13:57.270 --> 00:14:01.939 Bob Earll: and anyway, for cywem. I organized
147 00:14:02.320 --> 00:14:09.499 Bob Earll: exactly a hundred conferences. Professional conferences. Probably 40 of them were on flooding.
148 00:14:10.680 --> 00:14:16.989 Bob Earll: And because I used to talk to in preparing the programs I used to sit in on all of the conferences.
149 00:14:17.070 --> 00:14:19.979 Bob Earll: Quite a lot of conference organizers seem to kind of
150 00:14:20.240 --> 00:14:25.509 Bob Earll: disappear outside by sitting on them all, because it was the best way of understanding what the.
151 00:14:25.790 --> 00:14:26.110 Andrew Maliphant: Hey!
152 00:14:26.110 --> 00:14:28.240 Bob Earll: Where the issues were for the next one.
153 00:14:28.240 --> 00:14:29.030 Andrew Maliphant: Yeah, yeah.
154 00:14:29.450 --> 00:14:32.499 Bob Earll: I actually also used to talk to all of the speakers.
155 00:14:32.650 --> 00:14:33.770 Andrew Maliphant: Right.
156 00:14:34.130 --> 00:14:52.930 Bob Earll: And and effectively. If you've got a sort of London Conference day of, let's say, 12 presentations. It meant that I rehearsed the topic 12 times, whatever it happened to be. So it's a lot of this still is still there, because I actually did 40 conferences on it and rehearsed with lots of different people.
157 00:14:53.060 --> 00:15:01.129 Bob Earll: And so and and, as Arthur Daly would have said, you know, this was a nice little earner.
158 00:15:01.270 --> 00:15:01.870 Andrew Maliphant: Indeed.
159 00:15:01.870 --> 00:15:04.651 Bob Earll: We? We did well, in fact, we did one for
160 00:15:05.980 --> 00:15:13.550 Bob Earll: Dclg on, you know, property. Well, they used to have Pps, wasn't it? Planning and policy guidance.
161 00:15:13.550 --> 00:15:14.160 Andrew Maliphant: Right.
162 00:15:14.290 --> 00:15:35.290 Bob Earll: Documents. We did what we did, a meeting for them on where they were generating that on urban flooding we had over 300, you know, had a room, 300 people who completed a questionnaire very systematically. We got over 1,200 responses.
163 00:15:35.290 --> 00:15:35.760 Andrew Maliphant: Think.
164 00:15:35.760 --> 00:15:50.059 Bob Earll: That the authors of the sections of the Pps presenting they got those representations. We did another conference for Dclg. You know, a year later, where they presented what the guidance was.
165 00:15:50.340 --> 00:16:00.310 Bob Earll: It it was, you know it was great, and it's kind of worked, and it was kind of it was really quite enjoyable in a whole variety of ways, do you know, I mean but.
166 00:16:00.310 --> 00:16:05.750 Andrew Maliphant: Well, I think that I think we've probably got that. And thanks that link to that organization.
167 00:16:05.770 --> 00:16:08.730 Andrew Maliphant: I think. There's probably
168 00:16:08.900 --> 00:16:16.436 Andrew Maliphant: from what you're saying enough online to to actually start drafting something. Obviously, I would share it with you in the 1st instance. But then we can run it around various.
169 00:16:16.860 --> 00:16:20.280 Andrew Maliphant: our various parish networks to get some feedback from on the ground. Yeah.
170 00:16:20.280 --> 00:16:25.969 Bob Earll: I mean, you know, as you'll see today, I mean, I kind of believe in. You know, I'm quite
171 00:16:26.530 --> 00:16:29.849 Bob Earll: open to having completely open meetings. Do you know what I mean?
172 00:16:29.850 --> 00:16:30.390 Andrew Maliphant: Gorgeous.
173 00:16:30.390 --> 00:16:31.739 Bob Earll: This is the challenge.
174 00:16:32.240 --> 00:16:43.809 Bob Earll: you know. Throw your things into the kind of into the pot, because then you get a structure that actually relates to what people you know are doing. And and and once you've got that
175 00:16:44.070 --> 00:16:57.330 Bob Earll: collection of ideas, then you can start structuring it in a way that actually makes sense to people or relates to their kind of. And it's things like, you know, property, level schemes and things, then become, you know, or you know, upstream.
176 00:16:57.650 --> 00:16:58.240 Andrew Maliphant: Yep.
177 00:16:58.240 --> 00:17:02.420 Bob Earll: You know, in measures and all that kind of stuff, you know
178 00:17:03.780 --> 00:17:11.509 Bob Earll: it is. It was a very exciting time. I kind of enjoyed these siren conferences. I'm not. I'm not a water person, but there's some really brilliant people.
179 00:17:11.510 --> 00:17:12.414 Andrew Maliphant: We do not. No.
180 00:17:12.640 --> 00:17:17.499 Bob Earll: No, I mean I I'm a marine, you know. I'm a marine person. Do you know what I mean? I kind of
181 00:17:17.819 --> 00:17:22.940 Bob Earll: But the the water people were really great and very, you know. I got them really well with them.
182 00:17:23.150 --> 00:17:23.710 Andrew Maliphant: Yeah.
183 00:17:24.240 --> 00:17:34.698 Andrew Maliphant: well, we'll we'll we'll have a we'll have a go at that there and as I say, certainly very much needed by town and parish councils at the moment talking with one early in the week, and
184 00:17:35.250 --> 00:17:45.429 Andrew Maliphant: they own land, which is a water meadow which is fine for normal processes. But of course we're not getting normal rainfall these days, and there is all this extra flooding coming in.
185 00:17:45.780 --> 00:18:01.429 Andrew Maliphant: And so they're wondering not just about how they might better manage it, but also are they liable, if flood comes off their area and in dates nearby people's houses, you know. I mean? I couldn't answer the second question, but that's a very real problem that they are facing right now.
186 00:18:01.580 --> 00:18:08.030 Bob Earll: There are lots of legal. There are legal questions, not least. When people start paving over their bribes.
187 00:18:08.030 --> 00:18:09.230 Andrew Maliphant: Yes, yeah.
188 00:18:09.490 --> 00:18:12.459 Andrew Maliphant: Well, we've seen it in many parts of the country people have.
189 00:18:12.570 --> 00:18:17.259 Andrew Maliphant: particularly if they've got a a terrace, and they pave over the front guards link bark their cars on it, you know.
190 00:18:18.018 --> 00:18:23.440 Andrew Maliphant: You see it all over the place. So the more hard standing there is, the less to less soak away, and so on, and so forth.
191 00:18:23.800 --> 00:18:24.120 Bob Earll: Yeah.
192 00:18:24.120 --> 00:18:29.710 Andrew Maliphant: And whether, of course, all these wonderful new houses which the Labour Government is promising will pay all attention to all these things.
193 00:18:29.790 --> 00:18:32.193 Andrew Maliphant: Well, we we wait, we wait and see, but
194 00:18:32.460 --> 00:18:33.970 Bob Earll: Yeah. Oh, rich. Yeah.
195 00:18:34.640 --> 00:18:35.430 Andrew Maliphant: Good, really.
196 00:18:35.430 --> 00:18:41.649 Bob Earll: I have right smiles because I've listened to ministers. Talk about this thing, and you know, and senior civil servants, you know, and you kind of
197 00:18:41.910 --> 00:18:44.350 Bob Earll: you can't help thinking about Sir Humphrey, and.
198 00:18:44.350 --> 00:18:44.670 Andrew Maliphant: Yes.
199 00:18:44.670 --> 00:18:45.330 Bob Earll: So I'm happy.
200 00:18:45.330 --> 00:18:50.374 Andrew Maliphant: Oh, oh, I I well, so Humphrey's alive and well, and I I know this because
201 00:18:51.340 --> 00:18:58.879 Andrew Maliphant: We got involved with finding out what I mean the new Labour Government's not imposed very long. Within 3 months
202 00:18:59.170 --> 00:19:17.809 Andrew Maliphant: each new Minister has obviously been tapped on the shoulder by their relevant Sir Humphrey, and they're complaining about any danger of loss to their department's budget. So they've been captured by the system already, you know. And we're back in the old game of each department trying to rob each other for funding. I mean, thinking we ought to be getting a bit beyond that.
203 00:19:18.267 --> 00:19:23.130 Andrew Maliphant: Well, maybe Rachel Reeves can can envy her job and getting her through that
204 00:19:23.280 --> 00:19:25.588 Andrew Maliphant: anyway. Welcome everybody. This is
205 00:19:26.859 --> 00:19:52.879 Andrew Maliphant: our latest zooms. I think it's probably the penultimate one before Christmas, because I think the Wednesday after in 2 weeks. Time is my calling. My calendar is Christmas Day, so rest assured we shan't be meeting on Christmas Day or New Year's Day, but we'll be hitting the ground, running in the New Year one of the things we're looking about for the New Year is. There's a big issue around community energy production and selling, which we may have a big session on.
206 00:19:53.150 --> 00:20:13.869 Andrew Maliphant: We're very pleased to welcome back Mr. Bob Earl with us today. He gave us a good talk on flooding at the very early stages of this year was one of our very early speakers, and he's asked to speak to us today on personal approaches to climate action. So, Bob, if I set, if I give it over to you and you let me know when you want me to start. Set up the presentation.
207 00:20:14.080 --> 00:20:16.010 Bob Earll: Yeah, if if you can start the slides now.
208 00:20:16.010 --> 00:20:16.455 Andrew Maliphant: Okay.
209 00:20:16.900 --> 00:20:18.910 Bob Earll: That would be really helpful.
210 00:20:19.500 --> 00:20:20.819 Andrew Maliphant: Right? Okay.
211 00:20:25.550 --> 00:20:30.920 Andrew Maliphant: alright. Let's start being slideshow. Come on, come on.
212 00:20:31.180 --> 00:20:34.300 Andrew Maliphant: Always seem to take. Always seems to take an age. There we go.
213 00:20:34.300 --> 00:20:34.850 Bob Earll: Yeah.
214 00:20:36.711 --> 00:20:42.679 Andrew Maliphant: I like to think I could set these up before the Zoom Meeting starts, but doesn't seem to want to do that either. Anyway. There we go.
215 00:20:42.680 --> 00:20:44.050 Bob Earll: No, that's fine.
216 00:20:45.060 --> 00:20:46.490 Andrew Maliphant: Right here we go.
217 00:20:46.870 --> 00:20:49.999 Bob Earll: Okay. And and, Andrew, if if I could ask you to.
218 00:20:50.260 --> 00:20:50.789 Andrew Maliphant: You let me know.
219 00:20:50.790 --> 00:20:51.640 Bob Earll: The slide. That would be.
220 00:20:51.640 --> 00:20:54.100 Andrew Maliphant: Yes, just kick me under the table, whatever. Yeah.
221 00:20:54.100 --> 00:20:55.284 Bob Earll: Okay. Well, look
222 00:20:56.290 --> 00:21:15.550 Bob Earll: welcome everyone. This is rather timely, because I was writing some information from my website last week, and Graham approached me and this tied in with something I've just written. So it's actually very helpful to me to rehearse on you in order to kind of get what I've got going to put on my website sorted out. So here goes.
223 00:21:16.151 --> 00:21:20.270 Bob Earll: I've called this really helping and enabling personal environmental action
224 00:21:20.320 --> 00:21:22.820 Bob Earll: because a lot of people speak about it, but
225 00:21:22.950 --> 00:21:40.279 Bob Earll: don't actually really understand what it involves. And and perhaps as a I don't know whether you've got handy access to a to a pen and paper, but what you you, what you might like to do, but is actually make a little list. As I'm speaking of the things that you personally
226 00:21:40.310 --> 00:21:42.520 Bob Earll: are actually doing
227 00:21:42.780 --> 00:21:54.349 Bob Earll: okay in order to kind of do environmental sustainability, climate change related things. So if you could make a list as as I'm talking for a little while. You'll see how this becomes relevant in a second or 2.
228 00:21:56.090 --> 00:21:56.740 Bob Earll: I
229 00:21:58.410 --> 00:22:19.769 Bob Earll: I have to say. I haven't been to many talks like the one I'm going to give you. So I and it's going to take me about 15 min to do this talk, so I will really look forward to any thoughts that you have or any experiences you have from this perspective in terms of what comes up, and I'm more than happy to send people. I've got sort of a number of reports from
230 00:22:21.070 --> 00:22:29.909 Bob Earll: projects I've done just recently and locally, and if you send me an email I will certainly send you copies of those reports, and I'll mention them as I go along.
231 00:22:30.310 --> 00:22:32.209 Bob Earll: so we can have the next slide. Andrew.
232 00:22:33.730 --> 00:22:34.330 Andrew Maliphant: Oh!
233 00:22:34.750 --> 00:22:47.230 Bob Earll: So I I put this in as a context slide. Because for 40 well, for 40 odd years I've been working professionally in this kind of in environment, environment.
234 00:22:47.250 --> 00:22:51.510 Bob Earll: sustainability, climate change area. Okay?
235 00:22:51.690 --> 00:22:58.019 Bob Earll: And for a lot of that time, I used to organize conferences.
236 00:22:59.260 --> 00:23:01.190 Bob Earll: Okay? And
237 00:23:03.010 --> 00:23:16.840 Bob Earll: I became pretty obvious to me that this was a pretty complicated area of work, and and I came across this in Covid. This chap called Jack Barry. Everyone was talking about green recovery then, and he itemized
238 00:23:17.170 --> 00:23:30.220 Bob Earll: all of the kind of environmental sustainability climate change activities that the Scottish government might like to take part in. Now the reality is, I'm not expecting you to
239 00:23:30.240 --> 00:23:33.939 Bob Earll: see these these categories. There are over 200 of them.
240 00:23:33.990 --> 00:23:45.450 Bob Earll: If you think environment is complicated, it is. And from a professional point of view, this, this world is populated by professionals who are working in this area.
241 00:23:45.700 --> 00:23:49.940 Bob Earll: Now, one of the kind of green categories is marine. Okay?
242 00:23:49.990 --> 00:23:53.509 Bob Earll: Now, I know from my marine experience, for example.
243 00:23:53.530 --> 00:23:58.240 Bob Earll: that I work with over a hundred categories of things just in marine.
244 00:23:59.390 --> 00:24:01.010 Bob Earll: Yeah. So
245 00:24:01.070 --> 00:24:21.679 Bob Earll: you know, we're looking from at a professional point of view for very large number of people engaged in the professional environmental sphere, and and they work and operate in that sphere, and it is complicated area of work. So don't anyone think that this is kind of relatively simple? But what I'm going to show you is something by way of complete contrast to this. So I can have the next slide, please.
246 00:24:25.400 --> 00:24:27.379 Bob Earll: Yeah, Andrew, if you could.
247 00:24:27.380 --> 00:24:28.749 Andrew Maliphant: Yeah, no, it's just being slow.
248 00:24:28.750 --> 00:24:29.800 Bob Earll: Oh, okay. Sorry. Okay.
249 00:24:29.800 --> 00:24:30.580 Andrew Maliphant: There you go!
250 00:24:31.380 --> 00:24:32.020 Andrew Maliphant: Yeah.
251 00:24:32.180 --> 00:24:48.550 Bob Earll: The reason, I suppose I kind of this really stuck in my mind and stuck in my mind for a long time, is that I've only been involved in local environmental activities for about 15 years. Most of my career has been spent in the kind of professional sphere.
252 00:24:48.550 --> 00:24:49.090 Caitlin Williams: Watch it.
253 00:24:49.570 --> 00:24:50.200 Caitlin Williams: Good!
254 00:24:50.200 --> 00:24:51.839 Bob Earll: But I've noticed that.
255 00:24:52.656 --> 00:24:53.473 Caitlin Williams: Yeah.
256 00:24:58.740 --> 00:25:00.490 Bob Earll: someone needs to turn their sound off.
257 00:25:00.942 --> 00:25:01.640 Andrew Maliphant: Done it. Yeah.
258 00:25:01.640 --> 00:25:21.990 Bob Earll: Look. I've noticed when I've gone along to local meetings that you know we have a local transition group which was fantastic. I've sat and listened to a wide variety of speakers, and who've come along and told, you know, told me, or told the audience that they wanted to engage with the local community in order to encourage them to do more.
259 00:25:22.530 --> 00:25:39.370 Bob Earll: And and it's sort of it struck me up, you know, many occasions. So you go along with with an open mind and and start listening. And then then a number of things happen. Okay, you get a sort of top down lecture. You get talked at
260 00:25:39.570 --> 00:25:48.150 Bob Earll: at its worst you get, you know it's utterly condescending. You know you're regarded as kind of a lower form of life. You know what I mean
261 00:25:49.930 --> 00:26:00.009 Bob Earll: you get bombarded with corporate. Speak acronyms, jargon coming out of every orifice which makes great sense. If you're working, say, in the flooding industry. We know all these acronyms mean
262 00:26:00.490 --> 00:26:03.490 Bob Earll: if you're at a local level, people, don't.
263 00:26:04.090 --> 00:26:10.510 Bob Earll: These people often come selling a preformed idea? You know they they they don't listen
264 00:26:10.930 --> 00:26:15.269 Bob Earll: often. There's very little time for questions, and they don't
265 00:26:15.340 --> 00:26:25.549 Bob Earll: really want any input from you at all. They're just selling the idea, basically. And although these are often sold as operating at a kind of local scale.
266 00:26:25.740 --> 00:26:33.569 Bob Earll: These probably often usually aren't. And and certainly in in our village we have a well, you know we
267 00:26:33.740 --> 00:26:41.110 Bob Earll: someone called one of my professional colleagues. It's it says it's worst. It's like he's like a religious fanatic
268 00:26:41.270 --> 00:26:45.380 Bob Earll: when he gets going. But he's speaking professional. Speak. Yeah.
269 00:26:45.690 --> 00:26:49.769 Bob Earll: So. And professionals, I have to say of which there are a vast number
270 00:26:49.890 --> 00:26:52.099 Bob Earll: from that world I just mentioned to you
271 00:26:52.270 --> 00:27:00.179 Bob Earll: are can be some of the worst people who actually do this sort of presentation in a local scope.
272 00:27:00.670 --> 00:27:08.160 Bob Earll: So move, you know. So I am very interested in this kind of local scale and engaging, you know, individuals. So you can have next slide, please, Andrew.
273 00:27:10.950 --> 00:27:17.600 Bob Earll: I gave this some thought, and and and I'll show you this really rather simple structure.
274 00:27:17.610 --> 00:27:25.879 Bob Earll: I mean, I'm going to be talking today about, you know the personal choices and actions that are within your control.
275 00:27:26.806 --> 00:27:35.419 Bob Earll: Stuart. You can go out today and buy an electric car if you want to. You don't have to consult with government or regulations, or you know any legal device. You can just do it.
276 00:27:35.660 --> 00:27:37.670 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: Funny enough. I just bought one yesterday.
277 00:27:37.670 --> 00:27:38.330 Andrew Maliphant: But he's like, Yeah.
278 00:27:38.910 --> 00:27:44.952 Bob Earll: Yeah, so yeah, Frank, you got it by side of the pile. So this is the sort of area we are.
279 00:27:45.250 --> 00:27:47.149 Bob Earll: in the context of
280 00:27:48.100 --> 00:27:53.914 Bob Earll: you know what Andrew does. And there there are quite a lot of people who want to influence things.
281 00:27:54.230 --> 00:27:58.790 Bob Earll: want to influence their parishes, their councils, their communities in general.
282 00:27:58.810 --> 00:28:04.699 Bob Earll: and I put that, you know I called it community and projects. But you know, I put this in a kind of middle category.
283 00:28:05.890 --> 00:28:11.459 Bob Earll: And then there's the 3rd category, which is that professional category which is, you know, which is vast.
284 00:28:11.690 --> 00:28:19.380 Bob Earll: And again, if you want to understand why life as a counsellor, and things is so difficult is that you're often piggy in the middle.
285 00:28:19.570 --> 00:28:23.440 Bob Earll: You're getting bombarded with stuff from the top down.
286 00:28:23.920 --> 00:28:30.780 Bob Earll: which you have to make sense of, and sometimes have to make sense of in relation to your parishioners, residents.
287 00:28:31.040 --> 00:28:33.139 Bob Earll: whatever you want to call them. Okay.
288 00:28:34.150 --> 00:28:42.799 Bob Earll: I'm not going to be talking about. You know, a professional perspective. I'm going to be focusing very much on this personal choices and actions one today.
289 00:28:43.170 --> 00:28:47.510 Bob Earll: So, Andrew, if so, let's move to this
290 00:28:48.480 --> 00:28:52.840 Bob Earll: if you take the simple step of actually asking.
291 00:28:53.990 --> 00:29:01.889 Bob Earll: and it's difficult to say there's not been concerning, but what people the public residents, parishioners, ordinary people
292 00:29:02.270 --> 00:29:04.789 Bob Earll: are doing for the environment.
293 00:29:05.980 --> 00:29:11.569 Bob Earll: I could ask you the question of how many of you have actually gone out and asked your parishioners.
294 00:29:11.740 --> 00:29:12.510 Bob Earll: won't.
295 00:29:12.950 --> 00:29:15.089 Bob Earll: They are doing for the environment.
296 00:29:16.830 --> 00:29:26.930 Bob Earll: If you take the trouble to do that. And I've I've done this and a couple of settings. Now I did it for a big conference in Exeter a few years ago, and I got over a hundred responses.
297 00:29:27.750 --> 00:29:47.940 Bob Earll: 100 people responded. Over 300 more than 300 individual comments, and I've done it for a group of students down a master's students who I lectured to in Plymouth for the last 7 years. And and it's extraordinarily revealing because you come to this particular. Well, the next slide.
298 00:29:48.560 --> 00:29:50.460 Bob Earll: If you ask that question.
299 00:29:51.030 --> 00:29:54.000 Bob Earll: which is the kind of question I asked you at the beginning of this talk.
300 00:29:56.360 --> 00:30:01.770 Bob Earll: You come to a simple listing of what people are doing.
301 00:30:01.940 --> 00:30:06.050 Bob Earll: Okay, now, I'm I'm a great believer in structures.
302 00:30:06.170 --> 00:30:10.819 Bob Earll: Okay, I hence my kind of, you know, earlier slide with with this in context.
303 00:30:11.430 --> 00:30:20.649 Bob Earll: But for the most part people's personal action falls into these 7 categories.
304 00:30:20.880 --> 00:30:25.270 Bob Earll: Now, clearly, these 7 categories can be expanded a lot.
305 00:30:25.370 --> 00:30:36.200 Bob Earll: Okay, and it and they can be. And I've got an a 4 sheet with the expansion of these 7 categories. If anyone wants one, I'd be happy to send it to them. Okay.
306 00:30:37.270 --> 00:30:38.310 Bob Earll: so.
307 00:30:39.070 --> 00:30:50.589 Bob Earll: and and on the face of it, there's no surprises here at all, really. These are are topics which you all will know and love.
308 00:30:51.910 --> 00:31:01.730 Bob Earll: Okay, obviously depending on the audience. You know, the students, for example, don't have houses, so don't have to worry about energy in the home.
309 00:31:02.110 --> 00:31:07.539 Bob Earll: but they do care passionately about their food and food security.
310 00:31:07.570 --> 00:31:15.460 Bob Earll: and they do care passionately about consumerism and a lot of them spend a lot of time working on wildlife and volunteer on all sorts of things as well.
311 00:31:15.880 --> 00:31:18.019 Bob Earll: and and they often organize.
312 00:31:18.090 --> 00:31:34.520 Bob Earll: you know and rehearse their views on on students so often. The actual focus of their particular activities, you know, varies. But again, that's not entirely surprising. But it still falls within this remit of this, this series of headings in relation to personal action.
313 00:31:35.550 --> 00:31:39.140 Bob Earll: If we go to the next slide I'm going to, I'm going to give you a
314 00:31:39.360 --> 00:31:47.340 Bob Earll: and this is, perhaps this slide isn't perhaps as clear as it ought to be. But let me let me give you a very practical example of how this works.
315 00:31:47.810 --> 00:31:59.779 Bob Earll: So I in our transition group, I basically set up our our sort of monthly and bi-monthly meetings. Okay? And often, we were looking for topics to cover.
316 00:31:59.780 --> 00:32:00.440 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: Peace.
317 00:32:02.800 --> 00:32:07.370 Bob Earll: If you pick any one of the topics in the previous slide.
318 00:32:07.840 --> 00:32:11.919 Bob Earll: virtually everyone in the room will have something to say about it.
319 00:32:12.030 --> 00:32:14.920 Bob Earll: Okay, everyone.
320 00:32:15.080 --> 00:32:22.219 Bob Earll: The whole room will have something to say about travel or diet, or you know the learning they've done everyone.
321 00:32:24.690 --> 00:32:35.109 Bob Earll: If you ask people, you know, and various other people. Let's take, you know, we had a lady, you know, in a local group who volunteered with a local council to do a big tree planting program.
322 00:32:35.930 --> 00:32:42.460 Bob Earll: But in our local group of about 30 odd people she was the only person
323 00:32:42.550 --> 00:32:45.159 Bob Earll: who was doing that in that community.
324 00:32:45.770 --> 00:32:50.110 Bob Earll: So it was very interesting to listen to what she was doing and how she was doing it.
325 00:32:50.470 --> 00:32:52.970 Bob Earll: But the other 29 people
326 00:32:53.040 --> 00:32:57.269 Bob Earll: weren't actually engaged in that in that process.
327 00:32:57.430 --> 00:32:58.310 Bob Earll: Okay.
328 00:32:58.860 --> 00:33:18.149 Bob Earll: so that particular listing I showed you before is incredibly helpful. If you're organizing, you know, meetings for, or to engage people at a local level in whatever format you want to deal with that. And there are obviously multiple formats for meetings or or that sort of thing.
329 00:33:19.480 --> 00:33:28.659 Bob Earll: So it's an incredibly helpful thing to know, because effectively you can engage the entire audience with these topics.
330 00:33:28.930 --> 00:33:35.689 Bob Earll: pick any one of them, and and away you go, because everyone will have done something on home energy, or, you know.
331 00:33:36.120 --> 00:33:40.680 Bob Earll: feeding the birds or whatever, anyway. So if we if we can move on.
332 00:33:41.230 --> 00:33:42.979 Bob Earll: and the next and the next slide as well.
333 00:33:43.030 --> 00:33:50.789 Bob Earll: So in in Campley a few years ago we were wondering what more we could do, and I set about, you know.
334 00:33:51.020 --> 00:33:55.739 Bob Earll: talking to and organizing a thing called Kempley climate Conversations.
335 00:33:56.210 --> 00:34:05.780 Bob Earll: Now, I, in the end, I interviewed 6 people. Okay, so this is not a massive, massive program, but
336 00:34:06.250 --> 00:34:07.590 Bob Earll: I found it
337 00:34:07.910 --> 00:34:22.259 Bob Earll: massively, a massive revelation in a whole host of different ways. And here are the 4 questions I used to talk to people the people I talked to were not environmentalists
338 00:34:22.330 --> 00:34:37.689 Bob Earll: absolutely no shred of environmental interest at all. And yet I mean, it might be an engaging chap, and I went up, you know, up to people I knew. And I said, Look, can I come and talk to you for a bit about yours on climate change and the environment? They said, Oh, yeah, fine. You come around for a cup of tea.
339 00:34:38.550 --> 00:34:42.220 Bob Earll: There's no escape within 2 h. Okay?
340 00:34:42.630 --> 00:34:50.020 Bob Earll: Because this gets this gets interesting. And and it is a conversation. So anything less than 2 h.
341 00:34:50.080 --> 00:34:56.900 Bob Earll: you know, is no use at all. But, by Christ, it's a really useful way of breaking in
342 00:34:57.710 --> 00:34:59.370 Bob Earll: to non
343 00:34:59.720 --> 00:35:07.090 Bob Earll: environmental people because you get to hear what they think. These are the 4 questions that I posed.
344 00:35:07.410 --> 00:35:08.460 Bob Earll: And
345 00:35:09.340 --> 00:35:22.720 Bob Earll: and I'm going to elaborate on a couple of these a bit later on. The one I would say is that and I'll repeat this twice. The 1st question was, what do you think or feel about climate change, and I very rapidly realized you had to ask a second question.
346 00:35:23.030 --> 00:35:32.129 Bob Earll: Do you need to tell me about it, anyway? Most people said, you know they realized climate change was happening, and and they understood that it was man made. You know, they said, off the top of their head.
347 00:35:32.380 --> 00:35:38.449 Bob Earll: So where they read The Guardian, or the Daily Mail, or the Express.
348 00:35:40.440 --> 00:35:46.759 Bob Earll: They knew all about climate change. They realized that it was happening now.
349 00:35:46.990 --> 00:35:51.719 Bob Earll: and when I asked them. The second question, do I need to tell you about climate change?
350 00:35:51.950 --> 00:35:56.619 Bob Earll: That almost as quick as a flash, and their resounding answer was, No.
351 00:35:58.730 --> 00:36:05.220 Bob Earll: now you think of the number of presentations you've sat through where you get a you know a disc, you know.
352 00:36:05.280 --> 00:36:09.789 Bob Earll: You know the 1st 10 min is taken up with explaining what climate change is.
353 00:36:11.110 --> 00:36:17.769 Bob Earll: I tell you what was even even more, you know, after that that kind of 1st question, the quick. They couldn't
354 00:36:18.200 --> 00:36:21.589 Bob Earll: stop themselves in telling me what they were doing.
355 00:36:23.210 --> 00:36:24.310 Bob Earll: I mean it.
356 00:36:24.610 --> 00:36:29.370 Bob Earll: All of these people who are not environmental people instantly
357 00:36:29.800 --> 00:36:32.329 Bob Earll: came out with the stuff they were doing.
358 00:36:32.620 --> 00:36:40.379 Bob Earll: And and that was very interesting in a whole variety of ways which I'm going to. I'll expand one example a bit later on.
359 00:36:40.430 --> 00:36:42.539 Bob Earll: But it was really really interesting.
360 00:36:42.660 --> 00:36:51.852 Bob Earll: The benefits question gets interesting, too. But again to motivation. I'm going to come onto that next. And and the last question, what we can do through the village to actually help
361 00:36:52.830 --> 00:36:58.030 Bob Earll: It was surprising that none of them ever thought that what we do in the village might actually help.
362 00:36:59.390 --> 00:37:03.250 Bob Earll: anyway. So we can go to the next question, Andrew, or the next slide?
363 00:37:04.072 --> 00:37:05.550 Bob Earll: The benefits question.
364 00:37:06.240 --> 00:37:18.720 Bob Earll: And we broke it down to these categories. And again, I've got these these questions. I've got a short report on what we did. That was really interesting, because it seemed to me that it was one of the 1st times I'd ever thought about. Sort of, if you like
365 00:37:19.660 --> 00:37:23.299 Bob Earll: looking at personal motivation for acting.
366 00:37:23.690 --> 00:37:33.649 Bob Earll: You know. What is it that made Stuart go and buy an electric car. What is it made Andrew go out and buy solar panels, or these are the name or Caitlin going out and buying.
367 00:37:33.960 --> 00:37:50.759 Bob Earll: you know, an extra vegetarian meal, for you know this, that, and the other so and and so, and I explored some of these things I mean again, the numbers were too small to actually kind of analyze them in a meaningful way. But it was incredibly helpful to me in understanding what people's personal motivation was
368 00:37:50.840 --> 00:37:52.459 Bob Earll: in order to act.
369 00:37:53.620 --> 00:38:03.780 Bob Earll: And so, you know, coming from this from, you know, from a personal perspective rather than a professional perspective, starts to actually open up different ways
370 00:38:03.980 --> 00:38:10.660 Bob Earll: of thinking about how you engage the local community, and I'll give you a perfect example. This slide illustrates.
371 00:38:10.830 --> 00:38:17.009 Bob Earll: We live in a very rural environment. Louise and I, my wife, came here deliberately because we wanted a garden where we could grow our own.
372 00:38:17.210 --> 00:38:23.790 Bob Earll: and and there are several kind of magnificent, you know. Grow your own experts in the transition group. You know this.
373 00:38:24.370 --> 00:38:25.000 Bob Earll: anyway.
374 00:38:25.870 --> 00:38:30.329 Bob Earll: Of the 6 people I interviewed in Kempley. 3
375 00:38:30.480 --> 00:38:35.220 Bob Earll: very explicitly wanted nothing to do with grow your own at all.
376 00:38:35.290 --> 00:38:38.990 Bob Earll: They hadn't moved to the country to grow their own food.
377 00:38:40.430 --> 00:38:46.109 Bob Earll: Anyway. I'll come on to several other things in a second. But let me come to a summary slide. Andrew.
378 00:38:47.490 --> 00:38:50.990 Bob Earll: if we go to the next. Yeah. Okay. So here, here were some of the highlights.
379 00:38:51.400 --> 00:39:16.960 Bob Earll: So they weren't environmentalists? Did they need to be told about climate change? No, they didn't. They told me about climate change. It was absolutely, it's actually really good, because they showed me stuff that you know I otherwise wouldn't have seen, and they go straight to what they're doing, you know, in other words, from that original list that I showed you of the kind of 7 points of what people do like. They would
380 00:39:17.040 --> 00:39:23.800 Bob Earll: rapidly expanding on that. The reality was, I mean, I know a lot about the environment, but I learned a lot
381 00:39:23.970 --> 00:39:25.480 Bob Earll: from listening to them.
382 00:39:26.760 --> 00:39:28.240 Bob Earll: I mean a lot.
383 00:39:28.690 --> 00:39:34.509 Bob Earll: I came back and and lots of scribble notes on things they were, you know, telling me it was quite
384 00:39:35.450 --> 00:39:45.930 Bob Earll: Well, you have to be slightly humble, because you might think you know what you know what people are thinking. But actually, the reality is in listening to them. You actually discover that you don't realize what they're doing.
385 00:39:46.220 --> 00:39:47.862 Bob Earll: The personal benefits.
386 00:39:48.550 --> 00:40:04.410 Bob Earll: Thing was was a revelation and very interesting, and I hadn't thought about the village helping. I put this picture of my back garden in, but the reality is in our rural community, lots of people in our rural community, and this came out from 3 of the people I interviewed.
387 00:40:04.700 --> 00:40:17.739 Bob Earll: and I called it beyond gardening. Now I you know many of you have got gardens, and you know the reality is that I think with most people they could probably garden.
388 00:40:17.790 --> 00:40:23.089 Bob Earll: you know, with, you know, fruit and veg flowers and all that kind of stuff about half an acre actively.
389 00:40:23.520 --> 00:40:31.240 Bob Earll: But in our in our rural environment lots of people have got 2, 3, 4, 5 acres of land.
390 00:40:32.710 --> 00:40:43.050 Bob Earll: and what you do to manage that you know that area of land is is really interesting, and I use that as a theme for for a local meeting I had with our transition group.
391 00:40:43.120 --> 00:40:57.620 Bob Earll: and we produced a fact sheet from that which was really really interesting, because you know, what do you get if you've got 3 acres of grassland, do you get a local farmer to come in and basically graze it for you, or what do you do with your orchards? Apples?
392 00:40:58.370 --> 00:41:06.430 Bob Earll: It's, you know. So it's on a sort of completely, you know. Again, it's a kind of audience related thing. But it's understanding what the audience are doing
393 00:41:06.440 --> 00:41:11.659 Bob Earll: that enables you to get engaged with that. What they're doing at a kind of personal level that was really interesting.
394 00:41:12.000 --> 00:41:17.760 Bob Earll: So I can have the next slide. So these that's kind of one way. That's very useful device for breaking into community.
395 00:41:18.020 --> 00:41:27.630 Bob Earll: In Covid, we? We obviously had a lot of virtual meetings, you know, that world emerged for us, didn't it? And but this relates also to the way you can actually formulate
396 00:41:28.500 --> 00:41:44.210 Bob Earll: other sorts of meetings locally. Our local groups. Quite, you know. It was quite helpful. You come up with something like electric cars as topic. But you can, you know again, you can ask your local people what they want to hear about. What's the topic they really kind of want to go. Let's say electric vehicles, sake of argument.
397 00:41:44.510 --> 00:41:46.589 Bob Earll: and what we discovered in Covid was.
398 00:41:47.190 --> 00:41:53.140 Bob Earll: But if you wanted to talk about that, I mean so it's a very diverse topic. It's got, you know, multiple different topics.
399 00:41:53.260 --> 00:42:18.400 Bob Earll: And we did a couple which were shambolic in the sense that you know, we had a presentation from our local and friendly garage owner does at Pv. Vehicles, and we were all over the bloody place. And so, taking a note of the meeting, was, you know, it was incredibly difficult. After a few few of these meetings we decided that what we would do is actually ask the participants from the group what they wanted the agenda for this meeting to be.
400 00:42:19.750 --> 00:42:29.789 Bob Earll: We then ask our friendly expert in this case, the Ev garage owner, you know, we'd form an agenda. We'd give it to him. And we then move to that agenda systematically.
401 00:42:30.990 --> 00:42:36.459 Bob Earll: So, you know. So we could take notes. We can make the recording in a systematic way.
402 00:42:36.750 --> 00:42:58.900 Bob Earll: So we weren't all over the place in terms of the structure. And because once you've got the notes, then you can communicate those notes out. I mean it's the same in some sense it's the same for doing recordings of meetings and things as well. So it was a very handy device for structuring the conversation, and then sending material out to a wider group who couldn't necessarily be at the meeting.
403 00:42:59.800 --> 00:43:01.250 Bob Earll: The next slide, please.
404 00:43:01.910 --> 00:43:09.179 Bob Earll: and in our village one of our local residents. Lady, called Maggie. Bly came up with the idea, you know. Wonderful, you know. Wonderful
405 00:43:09.970 --> 00:43:13.419 Bob Earll: title called can Do cafes. Okay?
406 00:43:13.460 --> 00:43:20.639 Bob Earll: And again, these were kind of driven by, you know, the the you know, the the desire to enable and help local people.
407 00:43:21.060 --> 00:43:30.130 Bob Earll: We've got no gas anywhere in our locality. So lots of people had to figure out how they're going to get energy from from all sorts of other sources.
408 00:43:30.320 --> 00:43:48.530 Bob Earll: So for this particular meeting, and in fact, this slide is not a very good slide, because, in fact, what we did was use a technique called the marketplace method. I organized over 300 conferences in my professional career, a lot of them were really participatory. This marketplace method is a really neat idea.
409 00:43:48.860 --> 00:44:08.180 Bob Earll: We wanted to cover the totality of home energy from the really cheap things you could do. You know, there's a slight spectrum of the really cheap things you can do. And then again, you put insulation in first.st That's kind of that's a lot of money still, but it's cheaper than solar Pv. Or a whole variety of things. There's kind of like spectrum of
410 00:44:08.210 --> 00:44:16.010 Bob Earll: cost and values. We did a report of this meeting as well. But we wanted to cover the entire spectrum. Okay, so
411 00:44:16.170 --> 00:44:19.489 Bob Earll: in this 3 h meeting. We use this marketplace model.
412 00:44:19.590 --> 00:44:23.750 Bob Earll: We got 8 speakers along to cover different aspects of the spectrum.
413 00:44:23.810 --> 00:44:27.849 Bob Earll: and they were allowed 5 min each to talk to the audience.
414 00:44:28.440 --> 00:44:32.865 Bob Earll: Okay, so that's 20 min. We did a batch of 4 to start off with
415 00:44:33.800 --> 00:44:37.550 Bob Earll: and we then we took the. Then the speakers gave a pitch.
416 00:44:38.110 --> 00:44:43.150 Bob Earll: and then hence the marketplace, and then we stuck them in the corners of the the corners of the
417 00:44:43.500 --> 00:44:44.780 Bob Earll: village hall.
418 00:44:45.130 --> 00:45:04.910 Bob Earll: and then that, you know, we said to the audience, well, look, you want to go and talk to Jimmy about electric Pv. Or you want to talk to Jeanette about cheap methods. There are hundreds of cheap things you can do to. Actually, you know, I've got 5 big jumpers on my chair behind me, which I can put on if I get cold. So we would cover this in complete range.
419 00:45:05.020 --> 00:45:12.070 Bob Earll: You need lots of tea and cake for this, you know. Tea and cake is in a little bit of a side. But basically people can move around and talk.
420 00:45:12.500 --> 00:45:13.380 Bob Earll: Okay.
421 00:45:13.680 --> 00:45:22.629 Bob Earll: we we had a short pause, you know, and then we then we, you know, reconvene had another 4 presentations, and that's another 20 min, and then split up again.
422 00:45:22.900 --> 00:45:33.769 Bob Earll: So that was kind of like a way of using the the 3 h. That kind of you know. I think it was 9, 30 to 1230 on a Saturday morning in the village hall, and we had about 60 people there.
423 00:45:34.920 --> 00:45:38.429 Bob Earll: It's great, but but the emphasis again is on.
424 00:45:38.690 --> 00:45:42.909 Bob Earll: The people going to talk to the people they want to hear from.
425 00:45:42.940 --> 00:45:48.349 Bob Earll: It's not the experts in the room talking at the ex, you know, talking at the audience,
426 00:45:50.480 --> 00:45:56.010 Bob Earll: at the audience. They've got 5 min just to sell their wares, and then encourage people to come and talk to them.
427 00:45:56.690 --> 00:46:13.100 Bob Earll: So that's the emphasis. So if so, in a certain sense, I've given you a number of kind of ideas. There the can do cafe, the you know, the you know thing you might do with virtual meetings in the agenda, setting the template conversations, the asking people what they're actually doing.
428 00:46:13.100 --> 00:46:27.989 Bob Earll: And this slide is by way of summary. But I kind of want to warm you up in the sense that I'd be more than happy to listen. You know, I really want to hear your ideas, because essentially, it seems to me this is an area of massive scope.
429 00:46:29.540 --> 00:46:41.660 Bob Earll: you know to be, you know, for all of us to kind of, you know. Listen, you know, you understand a bit more. So I think you know, just basically kind of in summary, it's really useful to ask questions. If you listen to the answers.
430 00:46:41.850 --> 00:46:43.840 Bob Earll: you can learn a lot.
431 00:46:43.930 --> 00:46:51.030 Bob Earll: certainly, about your own locality, and what people are doing, what the audience is, you know, in your locality can do.
432 00:46:51.180 --> 00:46:58.799 Bob Earll: If you use that structure, you've got a device for engaging large numbers of people locally in meetings
433 00:46:59.090 --> 00:47:07.690 Bob Earll: use experts, you know, but to respond to people's questions respond to their agenda rather than the experts agenda.
434 00:47:07.850 --> 00:47:11.260 Bob Earll: Now the electric vehicle man from Cheltenham is fantastic.
435 00:47:11.830 --> 00:47:21.429 Bob Earll: you know, but but you don't want him to, you know. Talk at you for an hour, you know. You want to, you know. Well, someone said to me once when I was organizing Comp said, grownups don't like listening.
436 00:47:23.320 --> 00:47:26.321 Bob Earll: They want to get stuck in so
437 00:47:27.440 --> 00:47:36.529 Bob Earll: I think there's a really important point here is that in the process of doing this and the trans, a lot of our transition members are become very expert at what they're doing.
438 00:47:37.175 --> 00:47:41.520 Bob Earll: Well, I shouldn't have used peer to peer word of mouth.
439 00:47:41.830 --> 00:47:53.929 Bob Earll: Knowing people is really powerful. This this chap in the picture is my best man from my wedding, but he's now he's managed to become a
440 00:47:54.300 --> 00:47:57.310 Bob Earll: an advocate of oh.
441 00:47:57.520 --> 00:48:06.380 Bob Earll: for an air source heat pump, pump company, because he's so good at telling his friends about the air source heat pumps he's got and how they work.
442 00:48:07.200 --> 00:48:15.179 Bob Earll: And and this company have put them in video promotional videos they use and all that sort of stuff. So actually, the kind of local word of mouth
443 00:48:16.100 --> 00:48:26.419 Bob Earll: stuff is absolutely not to be underestimated. And actually really what you should be going for, because the more people rehearse their ideas, the more they've got examples of.
444 00:48:27.070 --> 00:48:29.560 Bob Earll: And there are plenty of you know. I was after this sort of thing.
445 00:48:29.570 --> 00:48:38.669 Bob Earll: Actually, the, you know, the bigger resource you've got to call upon to make changes in in the locality to press for changes.
446 00:48:39.390 --> 00:48:53.489 Bob Earll: Okay, I've mentioned the structures and things. So I'll leave you with what's been your experience, what's worked for you, and and I'll be very happy to answer any questions or actually hear about stuff that you guys been doing.
447 00:48:55.200 --> 00:49:03.099 Andrew Maliphant: Many, many thanks, Bob, and that was from the heart, as we could all tell. That's brilliant, brilliant, brilliant stuff. Thank you for that, and we have the presentation which we will share with people afterwards.
448 00:49:03.400 --> 00:49:14.509 Andrew Maliphant: In terms of what's worked for us, I'll have to say, wearing my great collaboration, that these banter sessions are very much along those lines. People in we have topics that are requested by people that come to these events.
449 00:49:14.530 --> 00:49:29.480 Andrew Maliphant: We have presentations, and then we have good questions in exchange, which we follow up on afterwards. So that's certainly been our experience. Any anybody else would like to start the discussion in terms of what does already work for us in terms of getting the messages out and speaking to people.
450 00:49:30.740 --> 00:49:31.650 Andrew Maliphant: Stuart.
451 00:49:34.150 --> 00:49:37.310 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: Yeah, no, sorry. Just put my hand up for no reason.
452 00:49:37.940 --> 00:49:44.100 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: That that was very interesting. I I, personally have found it quite difficult to
453 00:49:44.460 --> 00:49:46.882 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: get people engaged.
454 00:49:47.940 --> 00:49:57.990 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: we did hold a community climate action meeting a few weeks ago in Dunmo and I spent days
455 00:49:58.420 --> 00:50:06.430 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: going around leafleting, putting ads out on local Facebook groups. This and the other
456 00:50:06.660 --> 00:50:10.219 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: 2 things surprised me. One was
457 00:50:10.510 --> 00:50:13.567 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: the amount I wouldn't call it abuse. But
458 00:50:14.270 --> 00:50:18.179 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: people responding to the Facebook ad with.
459 00:50:18.250 --> 00:50:27.119 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: this is just another government plot. They're just trying to get money out of you. It's just an excuse to put up taxes. What climate change?
460 00:50:28.430 --> 00:50:34.440 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: I I was quite surprised at the number of people who who were still hold that sort of view.
461 00:50:35.190 --> 00:50:40.070 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: and I was also, I must say, rather disappointed at the sort of turnout
462 00:50:42.930 --> 00:50:49.589 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: well, publicized meeting posters around, let's say, social media adverts, and
463 00:50:49.850 --> 00:50:53.139 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: I would say less than a dozen people actually turned up.
464 00:50:53.330 --> 00:50:56.709 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: and I don't know if that reflects
465 00:50:57.930 --> 00:51:03.849 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: the weather wasn't great. It was on a Sunday. We forgot to mention
466 00:51:04.020 --> 00:51:08.280 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: tea and cakes would be provided, which I think was a big mistake.
467 00:51:10.210 --> 00:51:14.150 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: But I I don't know. Is, is it just people aren't interested?
468 00:51:14.180 --> 00:51:19.819 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: Are they being turned off by it. They hear it every day on the news.
469 00:51:20.433 --> 00:51:25.880 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: Is it that people think that their actions can't make a difference?
470 00:51:26.160 --> 00:51:30.689 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: Is the problem too big that the best thing to do is just
471 00:51:30.720 --> 00:51:32.950 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: get on with life and ignore it.
472 00:51:33.640 --> 00:51:43.120 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: It's I think it's difficult trying to get to grassroot people engage and motivated.
473 00:51:43.720 --> 00:51:46.140 Andrew Maliphant: And 2 of the deniers actually turned up, didn't they?
474 00:51:46.400 --> 00:51:51.118 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: Yes, which was quite nice in a way.
475 00:51:51.590 --> 00:51:52.240 Andrew Maliphant: So.
476 00:51:52.990 --> 00:51:54.190 Bob Earll: Yeah, I'm
477 00:51:54.210 --> 00:52:01.296 Bob Earll: the denials are great fun. I mean, I sometimes you know, you can annoy them by saying you're not going to engage with them. But
478 00:52:02.050 --> 00:52:03.754 Bob Earll: That really annoys them.
479 00:52:05.190 --> 00:52:14.380 Bob Earll: what I would. What I would say is, is often it seems to me that it's kind of you're working with the willing. So if you've got, you know you've got a dozen people, then, you know, you know.
480 00:52:14.540 --> 00:52:16.170 Bob Earll: cherish them
481 00:52:16.520 --> 00:52:26.609 Bob Earll: because they can be your kind of Focus group for where you want to go next? Do you know what I mean? And again, if you kind of ask some of these questions, and you, then you might well get there, I think.
482 00:52:27.041 --> 00:52:33.238 Bob Earll: You know I showed you the picture of my best man on the drive. He lives in a little cul-de-sac, probably about
483 00:52:33.760 --> 00:52:41.450 Bob Earll: He's a very social guy, I have to say, but he's got about 1212 houses on the cul-de-sac, and they got street parties and all this kind of stuff very successful.
484 00:52:41.866 --> 00:52:49.570 Bob Earll: He found he was a very popular man when petrol prices went up a few years ago, because he was the only person on the drive with an electric car.
485 00:52:50.180 --> 00:53:04.489 Bob Earll: And suddenly quite a lot of people came round to his house and and basically asking about electric cars and this, that and the other. Do you know what I mean? And that that's happened subsequently I mentioned the air source, heat pumps.
486 00:53:05.840 --> 00:53:09.176 Bob Earll: What what we find. You know, there's a sort of
487 00:53:09.980 --> 00:53:16.989 Bob Earll: the interesting and irritating thing about him. He's got a he's got a big 4 bedroomed modern house.
488 00:53:17.450 --> 00:53:20.640 Bob Earll: His energy bill for the year.
489 00:53:21.170 --> 00:53:28.189 Bob Earll: which includes his electric car, is 1,500 pounds, and includes heating his house.
490 00:53:29.160 --> 00:53:30.200 Bob Earll: Now.
491 00:53:30.550 --> 00:53:59.559 Bob Earll: you know. So when it comes to the benefits I showed you that list of benefits. And my wife, who's a psychologist, said to me, well, what's in it for me? I mean, she's actually, she's she's the technical one who monitors the solar Pv, she said. You've got to ask, you know. So the benefits there are multiple benefits, you know, sort of aspects of this, but you know the what's in it for me. So you say to your denier. In fact, I remember a guy coming to one of my conferences in London, where we where we were talking about energy saving in the water industry.
492 00:53:59.680 --> 00:54:06.160 Bob Earll: And you know which is the water industry's energy bullies 50% of of their running costs.
493 00:54:06.770 --> 00:54:09.090 Bob Earll: because water is expensive to pump round.
494 00:54:09.150 --> 00:54:14.149 Bob Earll: And I said, he said, and he gave me a score of one out of 5, and I said, I can't. I rang him up after I said, Why.
495 00:54:14.380 --> 00:54:22.019 Bob Earll: why did you give me a score on? Oh, it wasn't relevant! They sent it to me. I don't believe in climate change. I was told I had to go, and I said to him afterwards, Well, look!
496 00:54:22.400 --> 00:54:32.330 Bob Earll: Don't you realize that energy saving, you know, saves you a lot of money, you know, irrespective whether you believe in climate change or not. Do what I mean. The reality is the benefits of doing some of this stuff
497 00:54:33.170 --> 00:54:45.950 Bob Earll: really are very significant, you know they are. And and you can couch things in those ways if you want. But that's why I think the climate conversations are really useful in a way, because
498 00:54:46.060 --> 00:55:02.980 Bob Earll: you know that lead on the kind of you know managing your garden, I mean, in our village. We've got 125 people in our village, and it's 125 households. It's not big enough for these meetings, so that energy meeting I mentioned we had 60 people was for the area as a whole.
499 00:55:03.090 --> 00:55:09.154 Bob Earll: That's fine. I don't care this, and we we but we got sort of, you know, a dozen people from the village.
500 00:55:09.440 --> 00:55:14.799 Bob Earll: so you know, you just got to, you know, travel in hope and and work with the people who kind of have.
501 00:55:15.370 --> 00:55:17.419 Bob Earll: who kind of supported you, I think.
502 00:55:18.400 --> 00:55:21.410 Bob Earll: and and you know, make sure you've got their names and addresses, and.
503 00:55:21.650 --> 00:55:37.140 Andrew Maliphant: Oh, I think we think we know where they live, don't we, Stuart? And a lot of the work was around things about start speaking with starting with the benefits rather than the word climate. It seems to be a good way to approach it. Gary, sir, you have your hand up.
504 00:55:39.490 --> 00:55:45.250 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yeah, thank you, Bob. That was very interesting. That was very useful. That was great presentation.
505 00:55:45.740 --> 00:56:04.915 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: in terms of what I've done recently. This morning I planted 20 fruit trees in the town, so that was a good start to the day for me, and on that line I was just gonna ask you seeing as you're in a rural community with like you said, like all these people with all these big gardens and stuff, do you
506 00:56:05.420 --> 00:56:11.300 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: kind of engage with people on the biodiversity crisis, or, like the nature approach.
507 00:56:12.810 --> 00:56:18.570 Bob Earll: Yeah. Yeah. And if if you ask, you know again, well, so from
508 00:56:18.870 --> 00:56:32.849 Bob Earll: so the answer would be, yes, I mean, I have to say, let me kind of put my situation in in context. So I'm 75, and I'm sort of I'm notionally retired.
509 00:56:32.960 --> 00:56:40.160 Bob Earll: and I volunteer on a marine project in the Southwest, which is great fun as it comes from my marine background.
510 00:56:40.270 --> 00:57:04.479 Bob Earll: Last year I was paid by, you know, a defra funded project to do what we do in the Southwest on the east coast. So for the last year I've done almost nothing to do with the environment at all because my headspace, my wife complains all the time, said, You're not here. Your head is full of this. You know this wretched project you're doing. Okay, so forgive me if I don't go into enormous detail on one of these 2.
511 00:57:04.480 --> 00:57:07.240 Andrew Maliphant: Yeah, I I have the same. Oh, carry on.
512 00:57:07.240 --> 00:57:08.513 Bob Earll: Anyways. So
513 00:57:09.790 --> 00:57:11.448 Bob Earll: But coming to your question,
514 00:57:12.360 --> 00:57:28.889 Bob Earll: when you ask people what they do with their 2, 3, 4, 5 acres. Then again, you get a diversity of of different responses. I mean, some people just basically give the whole lot over to a local farmer. The sheep come in. They don't have to do any mowing.
515 00:57:29.740 --> 00:57:32.920 Bob Earll: There's 1 local farmer who'll come in and mow
516 00:57:33.930 --> 00:57:38.790 Bob Earll: a particular time of year, and and and take the hay off for nothing.
517 00:57:40.750 --> 00:57:45.330 Bob Earll: 1 1 farmer comes in, it does, and there's actually a you know, they'll
518 00:57:45.874 --> 00:57:50.219 Bob Earll: they actually pay for, you know, for bales of hay a certain time.
519 00:57:50.480 --> 00:57:55.369 Bob Earll: Other other people in these kind of large areas have orchards which they then
520 00:57:55.410 --> 00:57:58.950 Bob Earll: troop the apples off, you know quite some distances to get.
521 00:57:59.510 --> 00:58:10.019 Bob Earll: You know the big thing around our way is often they often have horses in large chunks of these gardens, but you know you get a lot of manure out of that. And
522 00:58:10.050 --> 00:58:20.100 Bob Earll: but in a certain sense, if you've got a large garden, you've got a lot of space that you know, you can actually leave on one side for wildlife.
523 00:58:20.500 --> 00:58:27.939 Bob Earll: and often, I mean, we've got a chap who's got the bottom of his gardener in the village floods up with see? You know winter winter ponds.
524 00:58:28.546 --> 00:58:33.940 Bob Earll: It's it's 1 of the it's the, I think, one of the only frog ponds we've got in the actual village.
525 00:58:34.580 --> 00:58:47.210 Bob Earll: So you know. So it's kind of interesting realizing the diversity of things people do in that particular setting. Had I not done that climate conversations thing which which
526 00:58:47.260 --> 00:58:51.480 Bob Earll: Stuart breaks, it gives you an opportunity to break into
527 00:58:51.580 --> 00:58:53.730 Bob Earll: this conversation. Do you know what I mean?
528 00:58:53.740 --> 00:59:08.310 Bob Earll: So, in a certain sense you must have. You must have a good friend, you know, in Dunmo, and who's not an environmentalist, and you go on to say, well, I'd like to like to talk to you about the climate, you know, climate related stuff, and there's oh, God, it's not Stuart again. But do you know what I mean?
529 00:59:08.310 --> 00:59:10.510 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: That was most of my counsel.
530 00:59:10.840 --> 00:59:25.289 Bob Earll: Indeed, but that's exactly the point. You can do it down the pub. Do you know what I mean? But it's really a revelation about what people are actually doing, because they do pretty much get it, get it? And actually, you know, are doing quite a lot.
531 00:59:26.930 --> 00:59:33.469 Andrew Maliphant: Yeah, I think part part of what we're finding out at the moment, of course, is you. You do find yourself preaching to the converted in many cases.
532 00:59:33.590 --> 00:59:39.389 Andrew Maliphant: and after a while the converted think they've got all the account they need from you, and they are looking for stuff elsewhere, you know.
533 00:59:39.390 --> 00:59:58.879 Bob Earll: Well, the important thing is that the converted actually can convert other people. So there's a diagram I saw when I was preparing the talk just too late, because I think I just sent it to you about this, you know. Start off with one, and it goes to 2, and then it goes to a number, and when I came across the picture of my best man on the drive there.
534 00:59:59.070 --> 01:00:01.919 Bob Earll: I mean the number of people he has talked to.
535 01:00:01.980 --> 01:00:05.260 Bob Earll: He's not an environmentalist. He's not any kind of ist at all.
536 01:00:05.290 --> 01:00:21.730 Bob Earll: but the number is talked to about electric vehicles, air source heat, pump insulation. You know he could be, you know. I keep on saying to you it could be a salesman, Nick, you know, and it's utterly sickening, you know, when he's because he's a you know his electricity bill is a fraction of ours.
537 01:00:22.110 --> 01:00:22.500 Andrew Maliphant: Right.
538 01:00:22.580 --> 01:00:24.929 Bob Earll: But he's got a modern house.
539 01:00:25.110 --> 01:00:25.670 Andrew Maliphant: Yeah.
540 01:00:26.020 --> 01:00:32.530 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: I certainly think selling the benefits of change is a good approach.
541 01:00:32.670 --> 01:00:41.059 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: and I certainly found that concentrating more on nature and the environment tends to
542 01:00:42.440 --> 01:00:47.830 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: activate people a bit more than just straight climate. And I think
543 01:00:48.570 --> 01:01:03.830 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: the environment, the nature is something you can see. You can experience it every day, and I'm sure loads of people remember going for a drive in the country years ago you'd have to clean the windscreen every half an hour, because there's so many insects on it.
544 01:01:03.900 --> 01:01:06.410 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: and nowadays absolutely nothing.
545 01:01:07.166 --> 01:01:10.100 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: I think people notice things like that, whereas
546 01:01:10.830 --> 01:01:15.090 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: trying to notice a change in the climate is actually quite difficult.
547 01:01:15.330 --> 01:01:15.990 Bob Earll: No.
548 01:01:16.350 --> 01:01:24.600 Bob Earll: But yeah, and I agree. But basically all those. But all those topics in the 7 categories actually have a climate payoff in them.
549 01:01:24.700 --> 01:01:29.979 Bob Earll: So if if you, if you do become, you know, do use more vegetarian
550 01:01:30.000 --> 01:01:33.954 Bob Earll: stuff in your diet and less meat, then that has
551 01:01:34.360 --> 01:01:39.010 Bob Earll: that has a kind of climate payoff. So you don't need to actually lead on climate.
552 01:01:40.170 --> 01:01:45.220 Bob Earll: you know, front on, really. And that's what the that's what the kind of outcome of that 1st question was, you know
553 01:01:45.290 --> 01:01:55.139 Bob Earll: it was such a, you know, vociferous? No, I don't want you to tell me. I don't need you to tell me about climate change? It made you think, well, why am I starting there?
554 01:01:55.660 --> 01:02:03.099 Bob Earll: Why don't I just ask people what they're doing? For you know their impact on the environment. And and they tell you really quickly.
555 01:02:04.800 --> 01:02:22.890 Andrew Maliphant: I think that there is something about that. I mean we when we're talking at the moment with the within, the great collaboration in East Anglia. We're looking at having what we call train the trainers, in, in fact, training more people to grasp the message and go out and take them around their area.
556 01:02:22.890 --> 01:02:37.470 Andrew Maliphant: That's more about a sort of workshop sort of level. But I think what you're talking about, Bobby, getting people very much more on an individual level which in many cases can be more effective, because, as you know, word of mouth is the generally agreed to be the most effective form of publicity. Isn't it.
557 01:02:37.700 --> 01:02:43.289 Bob Earll: I mean, I I was thinking about, you know the idea of doing a kind, of course, on
558 01:02:44.190 --> 01:02:52.650 Bob Earll: you know, on these kind of personal action topics locally, and and I wouldn't need to do the course. I mean, at least, I put this way. I wouldn't need
559 01:02:52.660 --> 01:02:56.570 Bob Earll: to actually lead on the 7 topics, because I know
560 01:02:56.850 --> 01:02:59.730 Bob Earll: 7 people who could lead on the topics.
561 01:02:59.730 --> 01:03:00.330 Andrew Maliphant: Yes.
562 01:03:00.650 --> 01:03:09.770 Bob Earll: In a very confident way, and I think that that comes back to the point you just mentioned. It's kind of training the trainers, but in a sense it's not.
563 01:03:09.890 --> 01:03:14.309 Bob Earll: You know. We all did that kind of professionally, didn't we? But this is kind of like a word of mouth.
564 01:03:14.510 --> 01:03:19.089 Bob Earll: You know. How many friends have you got? Who, what do you talk to them about, you know.
565 01:03:19.160 --> 01:03:25.980 Bob Earll: and like once they know, you know, people know my wife's really interested in electricity tariffs, and they ring her up and ask her about them.
566 01:03:26.110 --> 01:03:28.969 Bob Earll: Thank God, they don't ring me up and ask her about electricity.
567 01:03:29.830 --> 01:03:30.570 Andrew Maliphant: Yeah.
568 01:03:30.810 --> 01:03:43.720 Andrew Maliphant: no, that's absolutely sound. I mean, I got into this whole response to climate change about 3 years ago, from a conversation with a group of cousins we we met for a social event and realized we didn't know enough about it. Then.
569 01:03:43.750 --> 01:03:47.110 Bob Earll: And got into it, and subsequently got hooked. So there we are.
570 01:03:47.150 --> 01:03:54.870 Andrew Maliphant: Has anybody else got any more thoughts about this about how we encourage reaches, discussions, conversations in our own
571 01:03:54.910 --> 01:04:01.085 Andrew Maliphant: local area. Some of us are doing this anyway, other as volunteers, or as part of local councils, and so forth.
572 01:04:01.510 --> 01:04:05.030 Andrew Maliphant: Any more thoughts or experiences around the round the virtual table.
573 01:04:05.620 --> 01:04:09.260 Andrew Maliphant: Thank you, Jenny, for putting that note in the chat about your your own
574 01:04:11.200 --> 01:04:14.465 Andrew Maliphant: Success in reducing your electricity bills.
575 01:04:16.314 --> 01:04:23.780 Andrew Maliphant: Jenny, can I ask you directly. Have other people in your neighbors asked you about that? Has it influenced people where you live?
576 01:04:28.918 --> 01:04:35.869 Jenny Barna: No, not much. Some of them have heat pumps. I'm on this thing called visitor heat pump.
577 01:04:36.270 --> 01:04:37.230 Andrew Maliphant: Alright. Okay.
578 01:04:37.230 --> 01:04:40.439 Jenny Barna: And it's not been very successful.
579 01:04:40.990 --> 01:04:47.360 Jenny Barna: I had 3 or 4 couples come the weekend after the article in the Guardian
580 01:04:47.840 --> 01:04:51.949 Jenny Barna: about it, although one of them had heard about it from octopus.
581 01:04:52.590 --> 01:04:58.750 Jenny Barna: And since then I've had one interest by email just wanting some information on it. And
582 01:04:59.350 --> 01:05:05.140 Jenny Barna: I'd hoped it was going to get advertised in the green Groups Newsletter the other day, but it didn't.
583 01:05:05.580 --> 01:05:12.460 Jenny Barna: I'm in dialogue with the developers of it the whole time, because surprise surprise. It turns out it's Beta.
584 01:05:12.580 --> 01:05:16.809 Jenny Barna: And they keep doing odd things and changing everything.
585 01:05:19.380 --> 01:05:28.629 Jenny Barna: but they've changed it now. So you only rise to the top of what shows up if you've set up events and nobody's signing up the events at the moment. So
586 01:05:31.700 --> 01:05:40.600 Jenny Barna: I find that in your village, if I talk to people about it. It might be I'd love to have one, but not yet, or they want to do the solar power first, st
587 01:05:41.500 --> 01:05:46.959 Jenny Barna: which is right or even better, they want to do the insulation first.st So
588 01:05:47.530 --> 01:05:51.159 Jenny Barna: they're doing it in the right order. It takes a lot of money.
589 01:05:52.360 --> 01:06:06.730 Bob Earll: Let me just kind of reinforce something I said earlier on. I mean, when we did that we'd done several workshops in in our village hall again with the transition group and things we come across this kind of this spectrum idea of of
590 01:06:06.740 --> 01:06:15.090 Bob Earll: the price spectrum. Yeah, what would you do first, st you know, and it's a really powerful idea, because in effect, you know.
591 01:06:15.180 --> 01:06:18.520 Bob Earll: there are hundreds of things you can do for less than a hundred quid.
592 01:06:18.780 --> 01:06:27.165 Bob Earll: essentially, and then you kind of move along and you come to the you know the insulation kind of point, and you do that first, st and then what do you do next? And
593 01:06:27.570 --> 01:06:36.869 Bob Earll: Interestingly, me, I kind of go along with what you just said. There, Jenny, you do. Pv. First, st because that can take the edge off the electricity. It could take electricity off the heat pump.
594 01:06:36.870 --> 01:06:38.980 Jenny Barna: Actually, insulation, first.st
595 01:06:38.980 --> 01:06:43.089 Bob Earll: Oh, yeah, yeah. But along the spectrum. So you've got your insulation in and.
596 01:06:43.090 --> 01:06:59.650 Jenny Barna: Yeah, I know. But I I did solar first, st because he'd all the man before had already done the insulation. The trouble is, he quaint recycled tiles on the roof, which all broke when I tried putting the panels on, whereas the neighbor opposite they moved in, and they remade their house
597 01:06:59.740 --> 01:07:08.500 Jenny Barna: with a nice new tiles with proper inline panels, and he's got a heat pump. He's mad on it, but it's the the people that haven't got the things.
598 01:07:09.360 --> 01:07:19.619 Jenny Barna: They they're right. The order they're trying to do it in is correct, like a lot of the houses in the middle are listed, or it's a conservation area, and they're doing double glazing or something first.st
599 01:07:19.720 --> 01:07:30.560 Jenny Barna: But I mean occasionally some of them talk nonsense, and you know I can politely change their mind. But actually it can be anywhere. I mean, I was talking to a woman in one of the orchestras I play in
600 01:07:31.100 --> 01:07:38.339 Jenny Barna: and telling her about it, and then it turned out she's got single glazed windows, and goodness knows what. So I said to her, You're right. You should do that first.st
601 01:07:38.340 --> 01:07:38.830 Bob Earll: Hmm.
602 01:07:38.830 --> 01:07:42.939 Jenny Barna: No point her getting a heat pump. If her house is so badly insulated because.
603 01:07:43.350 --> 01:07:43.680 Bob Earll: Yeah.
604 01:07:43.680 --> 01:07:45.990 Jenny Barna: Trying to explain to them that
605 01:07:46.440 --> 01:07:55.700 Jenny Barna: people on radio and wherever and right wing newspapers muddle all the arguments up, and that
606 01:07:55.750 --> 01:08:00.949 Jenny Barna: if they would waste energy with a heat pump. They must be wasting more energy now
607 01:08:02.160 --> 01:08:05.780 Jenny Barna: because they it's not a feature of heat pumps. Heat is heat.
608 01:08:06.000 --> 01:08:08.390 Bob Earll: And explaining to them that.
609 01:08:08.870 --> 01:08:15.170 Jenny Barna: If if they like it with the radio to turn up so hot. That means they're wasting more energy now.
610 01:08:15.690 --> 01:08:25.119 Jenny Barna: And even if they ran the heat pump slightly, inefficiently, it would still be more efficient, and their gas boiler could possibly be understanding basics
611 01:08:25.510 --> 01:08:28.560 Jenny Barna: makes it possible to explain it to people.
612 01:08:30.649 --> 01:08:33.819 Andrew Maliphant: Right. Sure you got your hand up. I got a point to add, Yeah.
613 01:08:34.846 --> 01:08:41.069 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: Yeah, I I would just like to say, I think with a heat pump, I I have.
614 01:08:41.599 --> 01:08:50.909 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: My biggest grumble is that with the price of gas being a quarter of the price of electricity.
615 01:08:51.512 --> 01:08:58.179 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: You're not going to save any money unless you do proper insulation first.st
616 01:08:58.805 --> 01:09:06.469 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: But one thing I got through yesterday I applied for a hero home energy survey
617 01:09:06.929 --> 01:09:12.929 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: mainly to see how they do it, what they do this and the other. And I I've been rejected because
618 01:09:12.949 --> 01:09:20.209 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: the house is too big and various other reasons. But they did send me through a couple of examples of
619 01:09:20.279 --> 01:09:22.869 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: the output from the heat survey.
620 01:09:22.889 --> 01:09:26.849 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: and I was astonished at the cost
621 01:09:26.909 --> 01:09:31.909 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: of properly insulating even a 19 thirties house.
622 01:09:32.586 --> 01:09:36.899 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: One of the houses had solid walls.
623 01:09:36.969 --> 01:09:41.369 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: So it was recommended. They got internal insulation.
624 01:09:41.429 --> 01:09:46.219 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: I think it was 15 or 50 mil thick.
625 01:09:46.379 --> 01:09:50.829 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: and the estimate for the house was 16,000 pounds.
626 01:09:51.179 --> 01:09:55.059 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: and the saving over the years would be.
627 01:09:55.549 --> 01:09:59.349 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: It's about 200 pounds a year, or something like that on your heating.
628 01:09:59.935 --> 01:10:11.149 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: The same for double glazing, and quite a lot of the fixes were actually hideously expensive even before you go to the expense of a heat pump.
629 01:10:11.309 --> 01:10:15.989 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: And one thing they they tend not to tell you.
630 01:10:16.029 --> 01:10:22.529 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: If you're thinking about getting a heat pump is that you'll need a water cylinder with it. Hot water cylinder.
631 01:10:22.699 --> 01:10:26.549 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: and you'll probably need to resize your radiators.
632 01:10:26.599 --> 01:10:29.496 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: and if you've got the micro bore
633 01:10:31.362 --> 01:10:37.969 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: plumbing in, you'll probably have to scrap that and put in decent size tubes. So
634 01:10:38.529 --> 01:10:43.729 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: it it's a difficult problem. But having said all that, I have got a heat pump.
635 01:10:43.809 --> 01:10:48.379 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: and I very much resonated with your 1st photograph of your best man.
636 01:10:48.409 --> 01:10:52.639 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: I've got a wood store, which is probably slightly bigger than that.
637 01:10:52.729 --> 01:10:55.899 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: and I've got 33 solar panels. So.
638 01:10:56.060 --> 01:10:56.480 Bob Earll: Hmm.
639 01:10:56.480 --> 01:10:59.130 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: I think I'm sort of doing my bit, as it were.
640 01:10:59.130 --> 01:11:04.930 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: Yeah. But just saying, put a heat pump in is is not an answer.
641 01:11:05.380 --> 01:11:05.910 Bob Earll: Thank you.
642 01:11:06.180 --> 01:11:15.409 Bob Earll: I think it was very useful. From our kind of energy meeting we went going from this cheapest, you know, through insulate, I mean, on this spectrum through insulation
643 01:11:15.520 --> 01:11:23.749 Bob Earll: to, you know, the more expensive options. And certainly Pv. Came out. You know you put Pv. In before you put a heat pump in. But what I was going to say was that.
644 01:11:26.200 --> 01:11:35.470 Bob Earll: And it's interesting seeing your house because you've got as many old beams as there are in the back of our house, too. So it's a complete nightmare, as far as kind of insulation, and that sort of stuff.
645 01:11:35.470 --> 01:11:37.579 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: I've managed to get it up to a seat.
646 01:11:37.740 --> 01:11:38.257 Bob Earll: Yeah,
647 01:11:40.640 --> 01:12:05.169 Bob Earll: we got a free home energy survey done. Christ know how we did it. But you know, a guy came and spent 3 h wandering around the house and measuring things, and recording this, that and the other, and made various suggestions about how we might invest in future. So you know, so that this material is kind of available. What I would say to you, I think about the kind of basically about people is that you know if people show an interest, then cherish them.
648 01:12:05.480 --> 01:12:15.279 Bob Earll: I mean, include them on sort of an email group. And that's what you know. It struck me with this Kempley climate conversation that, in fact, you were creating a focus group.
649 01:12:15.360 --> 01:12:26.959 Bob Earll: We I want to, you know, I'm thinking of organizing a meeting locally on this. Do you think that's a good idea? Now you say you've already almost got a group of people who you've spent 2 h talking to.
650 01:12:27.110 --> 01:12:34.559 Bob Earll: and they've spent 2 h talking back to you. So you kind of you cherish the people who actually do come to you for a whole variety of reasons.
651 01:12:35.080 --> 01:12:38.060 Andrew Maliphant: Yeah, right, Frank, you got your hand up, sir.
652 01:12:38.950 --> 01:12:47.450 frank deas: Thank you. No. I just could say on the energy side that we're trying to work on that just down in our local area and get the concept to retrofit
653 01:12:47.620 --> 01:12:50.810 frank deas: as as a holistic solution rather than the
654 01:12:50.820 --> 01:13:13.849 frank deas: both Scottish Government and Uk Government have had these series of silver bullet solutions, whether they were loft spray on roof insulation, capital insulation. And the problem is that they've gone where the money has gone. So you've got cowboys jumping into the funded program and people for everyone who has a good experience, or probably a dozen people have good experience, but they don't talk about them. What you hear about are the bad experiences people have
655 01:13:13.850 --> 01:13:31.510 frank deas: where they then can't sell their house because it's got unsuitable insulation, either cavity wall or loft insulation. So I think there is a real challenge that people have heard about it. But what they've heard has been primarily negative, because people with problems shout more loudly than people who've had a good experience.
656 01:13:31.620 --> 01:13:33.730 frank deas: So so we're we're sort of trying to
657 01:13:34.200 --> 01:13:38.049 frank deas: wind the thought back and say, no. We have to start with retrofit. We have to start with that
658 01:13:38.220 --> 01:13:47.139 frank deas: bigger picture thing of looking at the whole thing which says, yes, let's look at the fabric first, st let's look at the the insulation and and draft proofing, and so on.
659 01:13:47.160 --> 01:13:52.329 frank deas: Then look at transitioning to a lower carbon heating system, such as air, source, heat, pumps.
660 01:13:53.670 --> 01:14:01.409 Bob Earll: Let me just on this energy thing. I mean, our local area has has really almost no, you know, main gas.
661 01:14:01.930 --> 01:14:04.650 Bob Earll: So that is is absolutely not an option
662 01:14:04.700 --> 01:14:08.959 Bob Earll: going and talking to people. You'll realize we called it the new boiler problem.
663 01:14:09.350 --> 01:14:20.219 Bob Earll: Everyone will know exactly how old their boiler is, and when they have to replace it, do you know what I mean? It's it's 1 of the things they they know whether it's oil or natural gas, or whatever.
664 01:14:20.380 --> 01:14:45.690 Bob Earll: And there seem to be 2 big prompts often that actually get people. One of these comes from the great collaboration, although we did try earlier on where people are opening their houses to show other people what's going on. I think the design and build group. So if you're having a major extension done often. That's another opportunity. It's like the new boiler problem. It's an opportunity to change bits of heating
665 01:14:46.097 --> 01:14:54.910 Bob Earll: heating arrangements and things. So that's kind of that's a kind of good. These are kind of opportunities that you can highlight to people in that kind of, because, again, lots of people
666 01:14:55.040 --> 01:15:03.560 Bob Earll: you can't live in a house of Stewart. We've discovered that some double glazing we had put in 20 years ago. The wooden frames are all rotting
667 01:15:05.380 --> 01:15:09.375 Bob Earll: nice Christmas present, but it's less inheritance tax. So
668 01:15:09.930 --> 01:15:13.380 Bob Earll: do you know what I mean? So in in a certain sense, it's an opportunity to get.
669 01:15:13.470 --> 01:15:17.580 Bob Earll: you know, up to date double glazing which is going to be better than it was 20 years ago. So.
670 01:15:18.280 --> 01:15:18.830 Andrew Maliphant: Yeah.
671 01:15:19.404 --> 01:15:34.139 Andrew Maliphant: feel moved to say that there's a firm, small firm in. I think it's in Cardiff. It's sort of Patel and Patel. I think home engineers, and they have a slogan on the side of their van. You've you've tried the cowboys. Now try the Indians. I think it's wonderful.
672 01:15:37.120 --> 01:15:48.270 Andrew Maliphant: I've actually seen it more than after, in terms of reaching out. I don't know if you're there. If you're Anna from Cambridgeshire libraries, do you want to give us any thoughts about reaching people through the libraries.
673 01:15:50.205 --> 01:15:57.629 Anna McMahon: Sure. Yes, libraries are very interested in being kind of meeting places for people who
674 01:15:57.770 --> 01:15:59.650 Anna McMahon: want to engage on climate change.
675 01:15:59.740 --> 01:16:01.600 Anna McMahon: So you know you could
676 01:16:02.010 --> 01:16:09.899 Anna McMahon: talk to your local library and set up a meeting there, for example, and what I was also thinking kind of listening to earlier chat.
677 01:16:10.020 --> 01:16:15.969 Anna McMahon: It's always worth pitching up with events that are already happening and starting a conversation there.
678 01:16:16.160 --> 01:16:20.260 Anna McMahon: And, as Bob was saying, you know, you'll talk to the people who are interested.
679 01:16:21.820 --> 01:16:22.970 Andrew Maliphant: And.
680 01:16:23.170 --> 01:16:28.519 Anna McMahon: And then then you can work from there. But it's kind of
681 01:16:28.670 --> 01:16:31.409 Anna McMahon: if you go where people are and start conversations.
682 01:16:32.160 --> 01:16:38.429 Andrew Maliphant: Yes, absolutely. I mean, and I think that is, there is our National Greed library program. Do I remember that? Was it just.
683 01:16:38.430 --> 01:16:41.650 Anna McMahon: There is. Yes, no, it's a national thing.
684 01:16:42.480 --> 01:16:44.250 Andrew Maliphant: Okay, so our local libraries.
685 01:16:44.582 --> 01:16:51.367 Andrew Maliphant: Well, as I'm currently chair of our community library, Mitchelle and I should get me. Get me? Get me boots on, shouldn't I?
686 01:16:51.650 --> 01:17:04.531 Bob Earll: The new library. People have been very positive in relation to meetings, because transition used to meet in the in the new library, and I've been very positively. And also I'm promoting local
687 01:17:05.280 --> 01:17:08.529 Bob Earll: recycling stuff as well, which there are a lot of.
688 01:17:08.540 --> 01:17:15.413 Bob Earll: Come this whole business about engaging kind of with climate change deniers.
689 01:17:17.090 --> 01:17:21.760 Bob Earll: you can make yourself very unpopular very quickly by saying that you're not going to waste your time on them.
690 01:17:23.490 --> 01:17:24.080 Andrew Maliphant: Right.
691 01:17:24.080 --> 01:17:28.150 Bob Earll: Because my wife says to me in some ways, well.
692 01:17:28.410 --> 01:17:33.539 Bob Earll: well, you know, from a psychological perspective. Well, you know, it's almost they're never gonna change. So.
693 01:17:33.540 --> 01:17:34.400 Anna McMahon: So.
694 01:17:35.130 --> 01:17:45.939 Bob Earll: Are you really going to bother spending a lot of time, but actually, funnily enough, even in our village, with people who are who read the most right wing of the right wing press.
695 01:17:46.484 --> 01:17:56.750 Bob Earll: Some of the conversation with them. Those conversations are really extraordinarily productive, and and they do are doing an extraordinarily number of things, and you know, you sort of
696 01:17:56.890 --> 01:18:02.020 Bob Earll: gosh! A Daily Mail reader can actually be doing something for climate change.
697 01:18:03.720 --> 01:18:19.610 Andrew Maliphant: And there are different things that people can do. You familiar with the climate outreach survey, Bob, about how Britain talks climate, and they've identified 7 different audience segments. So the people who are up for it approach it in different ways. It's quite an interesting analysis.
698 01:18:21.020 --> 01:18:21.680 Andrew Maliphant: That that's.
699 01:18:21.680 --> 01:18:28.879 Bob Earll: That talks the the benefits and the motivation side of it. It was actually really interested to. I mean, that's what I'm saying. Essentially, there's a
700 01:18:28.990 --> 01:18:31.259 Bob Earll: if you come at it from
701 01:18:31.870 --> 01:18:49.110 Bob Earll: a personal perspective, really interested in the personal perspective, it is very different. Coming with some preformed project that that is thrust down your throat. This is a great project we want you to buy into it. It's really good, and you've got to, you know, you think. Well.
702 01:18:49.160 --> 01:18:55.229 Bob Earll: actually, I'm more worried about my kind of you know the double glazing that's just blown, or or my air source heat pump that's
703 01:18:55.290 --> 01:18:56.959 Bob Earll: is always working.
704 01:18:58.200 --> 01:18:59.579 Andrew Maliphant: Anna, you have your hand up.
705 01:19:00.174 --> 01:19:01.549 Anna McMahon: Yeah, I just wanted to
706 01:19:01.620 --> 01:19:08.970 Anna McMahon: condone that approach of meeting people where they are. So I mean, in some of the communities where we have libraries.
707 01:19:09.140 --> 01:19:16.480 Anna McMahon: They don't really talk about climate change, but they do talk about cost of living. So going at it from that angle can be very productive.
708 01:19:18.040 --> 01:19:29.099 Andrew Maliphant: Yes, I think the climate outreach survey which I should put the link to in the chat. I think they figure from their research 8% of people in our nation are in that boat
709 01:19:29.496 --> 01:19:33.540 Andrew Maliphant: too busy. They're too busy making ends meet, or whatever to really
710 01:19:34.067 --> 01:19:37.892 Andrew Maliphant: get get further engaged, even though they know that it's important.
711 01:19:38.580 --> 01:19:44.118 Andrew Maliphant: I'll be just looking that up any any more thoughts around the table about what we're talking about.
712 01:19:44.520 --> 01:19:49.090 Andrew Maliphant: I'll just find that that connection.
713 01:19:50.020 --> 01:19:52.220 Andrew Maliphant: Britain talks the climate. Yeah.
714 01:19:54.268 --> 01:20:02.031 Andrew Maliphant: Again. Thank thank you very much again, to Bob for what you've done with us today. And for the
715 01:20:03.130 --> 01:20:08.029 Andrew Maliphant: on the discussion you've engaged and delivered.
716 01:20:08.090 --> 01:20:10.873 Andrew Maliphant: We have. Obviously the
717 01:20:12.850 --> 01:20:15.267 Andrew Maliphant: here we go. I found it. The
718 01:20:15.980 --> 01:20:22.102 Andrew Maliphant: We'll be obviously thank you for your presentation, which I've got so their presentation and this this
719 01:20:25.070 --> 01:20:30.844 Andrew Maliphant: and this oh, Frank, you beat me to it! Thank you.
720 01:20:31.480 --> 01:20:59.920 Andrew Maliphant: This presentation and this recording will be posted by Graham online. We have one more conversation next week when we're having a lady called Daphne Ducross from the Shropshire Food Partnership, talking about food, resilience. And so that will be something that we're all very interested into. But thank you again, Bob, for coming along, and we will certainly keep in touch. I think you and I will certainly get together after Christmas and put our heads together. Great! Thank you very much for coming.
721 01:20:59.920 --> 01:21:00.870 Cllr Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC Essex: And.
722 01:21:00.870 --> 01:21:01.739 Bob Earll: Thank you very much.
723 01:21:01.740 --> 01:21:03.900 Andrew Maliphant: See you again. Have a great Christmas.
724 01:21:03.900 --> 01:21:04.640 Bob Earll: Okay.
725 01:21:04.640 --> 01:21:05.510 Andrew Maliphant: All the best.
726 01:21:13.310 --> 01:21:17.030 Bob Earll: So I'll I'll send you a few dates in January.
727 01:21:17.170 --> 01:21:18.760 Bob Earll: Please do. Yeah, that'd be sound good.
728 01:21:18.760 --> 01:21:21.250 Andrew Maliphant: You up for lunchtime, or is that.
729 01:21:21.250 --> 01:21:23.813 Bob Earll: Yeah, fine. Yeah. Well, as as a
730 01:21:24.210 --> 01:21:27.720 Andrew Maliphant: I'm either retired or self unemployed, I can't remember which, but you know
731 01:21:28.550 --> 01:21:30.220 Andrew Maliphant: my wife hates it when I say that. Yeah.
732 01:21:30.220 --> 01:21:35.929 Bob Earll: I know, but it's it. How do we actually rationalize this stuff, anyway? But so
733 01:21:36.330 --> 01:21:40.149 Bob Earll: have lunchtime in the in the 3rd week of January.
734 01:21:40.150 --> 01:21:41.590 Andrew Maliphant: Yeah, sure. Yeah, sure.
735 01:21:41.910 --> 01:21:42.389 Bob Earll: I haven't.
736 01:21:42.390 --> 01:21:45.229 Andrew Maliphant: I've got a I have got a deck. Yeah, send us some dates that suits you.
737 01:21:45.440 --> 01:21:48.289 Bob Earll: Brilliant. Alright! Thanks very much indeed for for chairing this
738 01:21:49.730 --> 01:21:52.800 Bob Earll: very helpful all right. Cheers bye, bye.
