It was my friend Jenny who first thought of having a local Climate Action group. Though I had only moved to Oxford quite recently, I said let's meet at my house so I don't have to get in a babysitter - Jenny and her husband Tom can invite people they think are interested; we'll have a cup of tea, talk about what we can do about climate change ...
The doorbell rings. Damn - someone is a quarter of an hour early. The kids are still in the bath and yelling at one another. The kitchen sideboard is overflowing with dirty pans, the table littered with glue and glitter from some recent bout of creativity.
"Sorry, am I early?"
There on the doorstep is Hugh, his wiry figure hunched against the north-easterly wind. I feel warm air from the house escaping past me and remember how I turned up the heating for a short blast when I got home. It must still be roaring away. As I lead Hugh past the thermostat, I adjust the dial down; he grins conspiratorially.
Kettle on - careful, just enough for the ten or so people who are due to turn up. Herb teas out; table swiftly wiped. I leave Hugh to wash the cups and man the door whilst I bound back upstairs to broker a deal with my daughters - read yourselves a bedtime story and tomorrow evening we'll have a video.
Downstairs, there is quite a party hotting up. Someone has brought along a packet of luxury biscuits, wedged upright in their luxury plastic packaging. My guests are chatting about the new rubbish system - how are we meant to remember whether this week is glass or grass? I pitch in about the new bins - if the council is going to weigh my bin with their microchips, then I am going to stop my neighbourly toil, gathering other peoples' cans and crisp packets off the pavements. Neighbourliness - that is what we are all here for, we agree. Community campaign ... grass-roots action ... from the bottom up. The jargon is familiar enough, though exactly what it means I am not entirely certain. None of us has done this sort of thing before; but then again, we have never been in this sort of situation before. This frightening climate change situation, where we feel we really have to do something before it is TOO LATE!
As we squeeze around the kitchen table, I remember to turn off all the unnecessary lights. We hunch forward with our notebooks and mugs - the sockets of our eyes deepening under the glare of a single lightbulb (proudly low energy). It feels secretive, exciting, like some underground meeting where we dangerously defy some oppressive regime.
Of course, so far our dangerous defiance goes no further than complaining about the rubbish. We really must get beyond such whinging; this is serious, this climate change business. What about solar panels? I suggest. That's the sort of thing a grown-up Climate Action group should be talking about. Well, actually Maz and Ralph have got solar panels - they are incredibly knowledgeable about solar power altogether; whether to get the water-heating type or the full works ... Maz starts off. We are all listening hard, taking notes, thinking - oh dear, where am I going to store the tank? Can I really afford £3k to install those panels? Someone suggests we get together and buy en masse; then there might be some reduction in costs. Maz says she will ask Solar Solutions for us ...
This is going well. In very British fashion, back against the wall, we're not indulging our fears; bravely, we are focusing on what can be done. Maz says that she got a government grant to help buy their panels, but she thinks it might have been withdrawn recently. Oh no; I can feel my enthusiasm starting to give way to anxiety - maybe the government knows better than we do how hopeless the situation is, how investing in carbon reduction is already a lost cause. Hell, if we want to survive at all we should be building brand new houses on stilts, up a hill, not hanging around in these leaky old terraces.
I take a break to check on the children. When I get back to the meeting, Ron is talking about his car. Well, his second car, in fact. He is waving around a photo of a huge, pillar-box red people-carrier. I feel my green hackles start to rise. I know nothing about Ron except that he has a weed-full allotment quite close to mine. What the hell is he doing now, advertising that ecological disaster? Well, he says. He wants to offer it as a 'community vehicle'. The fact is, he hardly ever uses the thing, except for holidays, so he wants to share it - 25p a mile to his neighbours. If we don't have a car ourselves, it might come in useful. Personally, I can't imagine wanting to steer that monstrosity through our little streets, but I don't say so. Jenny says I mustn't be judgemental - this group won't last a minute if we judge one another. So instead I say 'Ron is right - we should be sharing our cars'. I look around the table - everyone is smiling in their friendly, supportive way, but they are not exactly signing up to the scheme. Why not?
I know. I know because I myself don't need Ron's extra car. Despite loving my bike and living in a bike-friendly city, despite having an excellent bus service on my doorstep, I have a car of my own. And truth be told, I feel rather fond of it. I know its particular bumps and scratches; I know the quirks of its gear system, the angles I need to follow to get it parked. Frankly, I'm too cowardly and too selfish to give up all that.
Now it's Victoria's turn to step in. Victoria has been subscribing to Resurgence magazine for decades; she knows she is far too green for an aspiring group like ours; she just came along to offer a guiding hand. Victoria would like us to think more about car pools; we really don't all need individual cars. If she does some research, would anyone be interested? A few of us say we would, but what about insurance ... what about scheduling it fairly ...? I am thinking that no one could bear to use a car once my children had been in it. Victoria says she will look into pooling models and report back to us. Well done Victoria. We all need to get off our bums and look into things like that.
Tom has been busy taking down the minutes of the meeting. He is the most professional member of our group - in the environment business; he even worked for an oil company once, payed by them to discover alternative energies. He knows how many groups like ours have failed to get off the ground. Now he asserts his authority, saying he is pleased with how things have gone, but that we must keep our meetings to an hour and a half's duration. Can we discuss more issues on another evening? Everyone seems keen to do it. What will be the agenda? I say I want to exchange thoughts about local shopping and avoiding supermarkets - when I say 'supermarkets', I am sure I can hear someone sigh. Is that because they are fed up with the idea already? Or are they struggling with yet another bit of guilt? I smile encouragingly - must root out the horror stories about supermarkets' impact on the environment before next time.
Hugh says he would like to talk about plane travel - the biggest greenhouse gas problem of all. There is the sound of ten guilty holidaymakers simultaneously sucking in between clenched teeth. Like it or not, we are going to have to talk about that one.
Right. Let's put a date in our diaries.
Next month: will the group set up a car pool and boycott the local supermarket?
