The local groups' Conference was held between the 14-16 September – Everyone enjoyed the weekend and each attendee from our group has written a short piece on their favourite part:
Satish Kumar (Resurgence) Lecture
Satish is a former monk. He once walked 8,000 miles from India to America so he must be a determined character, the blisters after the first 100 would put me off! ‘We have to be the change that we want to see in the world’, never were truer words spoken. The way to change is a bottom up movement, a people’s movement. We have been misled. We were told vote blue and go green for the greenest government ever. Eric Pickles tried to bring in planning laws that were a charter for developers. However these were changed due to pressure from many groups including Friends of the Earth. George Osborne thinks the environment gets in the way of the economy. He must remember that money is only a measure of wealth, only a figure on a computer. Economists should study Ecology at the same time. They would learn how to manage the economy far more wisely. There is no longer apartheid, the Berlin wall came down, if we have faith in our activism we will succeed.
Maureen Edwards