Supermarkets take over the world?

Hello everyone,

We’ve got a new on-line action on supermarkets that it would be great if you could take.

It’s telling MPs that introducing a supermarket watchdog (or ‘Groceries Code Adjudicator’) is urgent – and asking them to push Vince Cable to make sure the next Queen’s Speech includes a Bill to set one up.

Full details here.

Crucial to winning this campaign, even more so than usual, will be showing the Government the strength of public feeling behind it. All the main parties, and the Coalition, are signed up to this in principle – they’re just not getting on with it.

Once you’ve taken the action, it would therefore be great if you could tweet it, share it on facebook and/or forward on this email to your contacts, friends and family.

Thank you so much!

Feed in Tarriffs – Judgement brings a Happy Christmas

Just to let you know that today a High Court Judge ruled in Friends of the Earth’s favour on the feed-in tariff changes the Government proposed!   The Judge described the Government’s plans to bring in new tariffs on 12 December (nearly two weeks before the consultation closed) “legally flawed.”
Here’s the news story on our website:
http://www.foe.co.uk/news/legal_challenge_win_34270.html
And here’s our press release:
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/solar_fits_victory_21122011.html
We’ve also just set up a Christmas action – send a Christmas e-card to your MP calling on them to put solar back on track: http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/climate/press_for_change/mp_christmas_card_34263.html

 

This is great news – please do spread this far and wide and take the action yourselves!

Feed in Tarriffs – the debate continues

Karl has written to the Oxford Times about the question of feed in tarriffs, please look here!  It really is something that we need to debate – do we continue to sponsor people who can afford to make their homes up to a C and over rating or do we concentrate on helping those on lower incomes to  be able to afford to keep warm in winter?  What strikes me is that we need to really look at our priorities – years ago I was the FoE Housing Campaigner and was concerned that modern housing stock is still not being built with solar panels and with grey water systems.  As fuel prices rise why aren’t we doing this?

Feed in tarriffs

See this article in the Oxford Mail yesterday, which is talking about the cuts in feed in tarriffs.  We’ll be in Cornmarket lunchtime today collecting signatures for the FoE petition on thisl

News about CAP Reform

The European Alliance for a Common Agricultural Policy based on Food Sovereignty (of which Friends of the Earth is an active member) has just launched a new video which explains the Cap process and how it can be transformed towards food sovereignty.

You can see the video herehttp://nyelenieurope.net/foodsovcap/video-the-missing-option

The same webpage, linked to the Nyeleni Europe website has info about the work towards CAP reform over the coming yearhttp://nyelenieurope.net/foodsovcap/

Food, Fun, Polar Bears and other good things ……………

Laugh or the Polar Bear Gets It

Friends of the Earth are running a comedy benefit gig at the Hammersmith Apollo on Friday 18 November. Big names confirmed so far include Dan Antopolski, Simon Day, Justin Edwards as Jeremy Lion,  Richard Herring, Josie Long, Francesca Martinez, Lucy Porter and Rob Rouse, with music from special guest Badly Drawn Boy. A number of us are thinking of going as a group – if you are interested, please contact Fiona (stalls@oxfoe.co.uk).

and before that there is a food campaign event in Trafalgar Square:

FoE are supporting an event in London on 18 November called Feeding the 5000, from 12 noon to 2.00pm in Trafalgar Square. It involves a free lunch made entirely from fresh ingredients that would otherwise go to waste.

FoE Conference

The conference last weekend was a great thing to go to.  We were up for an award but were pipped to the post by Caerphilly who have been fighting an incinerator in the Valleys.  They have even doubled their membership in the past year – good for them – worthy winners.

The highlight for me was the talk by Benny Wenda of the Free West Papua Campaign.  It brought home to me how important the work we do on preserving forests throughout the world is.  Have a look at Benny’s website.

OxFoE at Elder Stubbs

Here are Tim and Fiona and family at Elders Stubbs Festival on Saturday.  This is one of the most fun events of the year.  Most of the people who come are ‘green’ so we can sit back and chat to the other folk there and do some networking.

Thanks to Tim and his nephew, Ben, we raised some money for our campaigns in the winter.  We are keen to get new members to help us to campaign, so please come along to our meetings and find out what’s going on.  We are running campaigns on Food and Energy at the moment, plus a local transport campaign.

A fun summer

I think we can safely say that OxFoE folk are having a great summer bringing the message of Climate Change to Oxford.  So far we have been at Kidlington, Headington, Cowley Road Carnival and the Playhouse with our stalls.

On Saturday, we will be building a Totem Pole at the West Oxford Fun Day, so please bring you children and friends to help us.  We will be doing this with the help of the folk at Orinoco.

Just to prove I know how to put pictures on this blog, here is a picture of our stall at Headington Festival – and a picture of our pledge tree at the Playhouse on Friday, 8 July.

If you don’t fancy the Cowley Road Carnival on Sunday……

Friends of Radley Lake have a fundraiser and Open Garden:

Open Garden  Sunday 3rd July at 33 Lower Radley, OX14 3AY.
Martin and Sylvia Wilson are opening their garden to raise funds for the new
visitors centre at Thrupp Lake. 2 till 5pm.