Moorlands Climate Action was established in April 2019 to support a petition to the District Council asking that a Climate Emergency be declared, and an action plan developed to make Staffordshire Moorlands carbon neutral by 2030. Members of the Parents for Climate Action, Peace Through Folk and Leek Youth for Climate Action joined us, and we worked with local councillors to put forward a motion to the District Council in July. We used music, poetry and storytelling to get over our message to councillors as they arrived for the Council Meeting.
Following the successful campaign, the group met to discuss if they wished to continue and develop our own set of projects. There was a resounding decision to continue and work across our community to be part of the solution, and not just expect the council to come with all the answers.
Over a couple of meetings, we worked through a potential governance structure (roughly based on the Transition towns model), developed a constitution and eventually called a general meeting to vote in a committee and agree on the constitution.
We agreed to levy a modest membership subscription (£10/year or £5/year for unwaged) and developed a collaborative working system using the Slack system and a mailing/membership system using Mailchimp. We have 140 people on our mailing list and 30 signed up members.
Our Purpose is:
- To work with Staffordshire councils and other organisations to develop and deliver a plan to work towards a more sustainable Staffordshire Moorlands, and reach Carbon Neutrality by 2030.
Our Primary Objectives are:
- Work with councils to help them to understand their impact on climate, reduce carbon emissions from their direct activities, their plans, policies and strategies, and their decision making.
- Hold councils and their members to account when not enough is being done quick enough.
- Work to engage, educate and enthuse local communities to take action against the climate emergency.
- Liaise and work with schools to help educate children and youth about the climate emergency.
- Promote positive action towards tackling the climate emergency and the benefits of a Carbon Neutral future.
- Hold events to communicate, engage, inform and educate people.
- Create and organise various topic-based Project Teams to deliver actions aimed at tackling the climate emergency.
- Work across all boundaries; geographical, social and political to deliver action.
- Seek to educate ourselves more and more so we understand the issues and can communicate them to others.
- Seek out and share information about the ways in which other people and groups are taking action that we can learn from.
Work with local business to encourage and promote their sustainability efforts.
“Normal” is no longer acceptable; we say no to the status quo.
Our Teams
MCA is divided into seven teams focusing on different areas of climate action. If you would like to get involved and participate in these teams, you will need to register as an active member, through our website.
Once you have done this you will be invited to join our Slack group and attend monthly meetings. Active members often receive free attendance to many events and training courses as well as access to our Ethical Consumer Organisation Subscription. If you would prefer to keep up to date with a particular team’s work, you can instead sign up as a follower to receive our monthly newsletter.
Youth Engagement
Anyone who is interested in promoting youth events and establishing educational links across the Staffordshire Moorlands would be well suited to this group. We will be setting up a diary of events for 2020 to promote, local, national and international climate action, building community links to engage positively with young
people. If you have ideas and/or contact with schools and youth groups across the Staffordshire Moorlands, we would love to hear from you.
Sustainable Consumerism
Our focus is to raise public awareness of how overconsumption is affecting our planet. We hope to help the public and businesses in our area consume less and to recycle, repair and repurpose more.
Transport
The Staffordshire Moorlands currently has extremely limited options for movement and transit without the use of fossil fuels. Our transport group aims to highlight the current constraints placed upon people’s choice of transport and provide information relating to getting around the Staffordshire Moorlands in a more climate-friendly way.
Energy
The energy group explores climate-friendly alternatives for meeting the energy needs of community members of the Staffordshire Moorlands. We also seek to provide resources and advice to people wishing to conserve energy.
Communications
This group manages the publication of the monthly MCA newsletter as well as the group’s website, Slack and social media accounts. We also have a “press-room” subgroup, which focuses on writing newspaper articles and open letters to the local press. In this way, it is responsible for the internal communications of MCA and any media that we create to convey our message to the public and external power-holders.
Wilding and Biodiversity
Our wilding and biodiversity group aims to focus on restoring and protecting our living systems within the Staffordshire Moorlands, which have the capacity to draw millions of tonnes of carbon out of our atmosphere.
Events
Our events group aims to host non-violent events and beautiful, visual protests using a wealth of strategic tools developed by MCA’s senior artists and activists. We hope to inspire movements within the Staffordshire Moorlands to create a healthier, climate-conscious community.
