I wasn't planning to go to any of the events at the Winter Festival this year, but as a committee member of the Library Supporters group I was invited to go to the event that the Library sponsored.
Half-a-dozen of us met up at the Library before heading down to the tent, where Michael Eccles got the chance to speak to Jonathon Porritt and tell him a bit about Hay Library before he went on stage. Also there was Anita Wright, chair of HOWLS, and Barbara Erskine, local famous author and patron of the library group. She's working on a new novel, but it's been going slowly, partly because of the difficulties of travelling to do research during the pandemic.
Hannah Martin was talking to Jonathon Porritt. She's the Co-Executive Director of Green New Deal UK, and he has been an environmental campaigner for 45 years, in the Green Party, Friends of the Earth and Forum for the Future, as well as Chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission.
Jonathon has a new book out, Hope in Hell. He explained that, in 2013, he wrote another book from the point of view of someone in 2050, describing all the things that had been done to make the Earth a better place, so he had been writing in quite a hopeful state of mind.
Since then, he's met younger campaigners who didn't see the optimism at all, so this book is rooted in present day reality, with the message that it's not too late to do anything about climate change, but that an awful lot of things have to be done to keep a planet that humans can comfortably live on.
There was a brief discussion about the generational divide between campaigners like him and the younger people like Hannah and Greta Thunberg, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the US, and how it's not helpful to say that we hope the younger generation can save us - they can't do it on their own, and we all need to take action wherever we can. They also touched on the contrast between younger campaigners emphasising the courage they needed to go on, and older campaigners emphasising hope for the future.
He was at COP26 (so were Michael and his partner Seza) and said that, though the conclusions of the conference were woefully inadequate, there had been a lot of work behind the scenes that was promising. It still fell short of what needs to be done, but at least it's going in the right direction.
Part of what is needed is a change in individual lifestyles, but on its own, that's not enough. We need to be active as citizens rather than consumers, and get involved in politics at every level, not just national party politics, but at the local level too. He even mentioned the fight for Hay Library as an example of a non-party matter that was important enough to local people for them to fight for it's survival.
He talked about 2019, and how Extinction Rebellion was effective in getting the UK government to declare a climate emergency, the first government in the world to do so, and also to sign up to the Net Zero Emissions target, again the first government to do so.
He also talked about international finance - he's dealt with a lot of business leaders and investors in his career. At some point, investors will stop advising their clients to put money into coal powered power stations, for instance, because they will not be able to get a return on their money over the number of years required. In fact, he believes that coal is already a dead industry, and is being propped up by national governments.
Because of Covid safety restrictions, questions were taken at the end via an app rather than a roving mic in the hall, and one of the questions was about Insulate Britain and their disruptive civil disobedience. Jonathon approves of non-violent civil disobedience and says it has an important part to play in the range of tactics campaigners can use, but in this case there is a disconnect between the cause (getting homes insulated and tackling fuel poverty) and the method of civil disobedience (gluing themselves to motorways). He said it would make a lot more sense if they glued themselves to the doors of the Treasury offices, or the offices of large-volume house building companies, and they might get more sympathy from the general public.
Another question was about legislation passing through Parliament at the moment, the Policing Bill and the Elections Bill, both of which are designed to curtail non-violent protest (some of the Insulate Britain protestors have already gone to jail), and curtail the right to vote. Another problem in the UK is the First Past the Post voting system, which the Bill wants to extend. At the moment there are only two countries in Europe with a First Past the Post voting system - the UK and Belarus!
Meanwhile in Germany, with a proportional representation system, a coalition has just formed between the right leaning party, a left leaning party, and the Greens, something he never expected to see when he went to Germany to see the first Green politicians enter the Bundestag.
Finally, he was asked what kept him hopeful.
He talked about the brilliant activists he'd met over the years - and if that failed, he recommended hugging trees.
I bought the book at the end of the talk, and also a little paperback by Jay Griffiths called Why Rebel.
