Riding Le Jog with Otesha

It's taken a while to get my head around the names of the techy bits of the road bike I bought a couple of years ago, let alone the names of the Sportives, Audax rides and everything else that goes with it. One name that came up early on was the much mentioned Le Jog - Land's End to John o'Groats to you and me.

It's a ride that's been tempting for a while and one slightly focused good friend rode the route in 6 days on a fixed wheel. That's probably too much for most us; if you're in the right age group (18-28) - there's an alternative option that's a bit more reasonable. If you're too old, tell someone who's not; the organisation who're running this, Otesha are an outstanding group of Doers who make change from the seat of a bicycle. Try it out sometime!

Lands' End to John O'Groats - 2nd July - 28th August

While we were pondering where to take our route this year, it struck us like a lightning bolt - why not do THE route - Land's End to John O'Groats! Expect an epic 8-week cycle ride that hits up schools, youth clubs, festivals and communities the length of Britain, performing the Otesha play and presenting workshops, whilst admiring all the beauty this nation has to offer. Toot toot.

If you're between 18-28 years old and you fancy taking part, then find out more on becoming a tour member here - http://www.facebook.com/l/d181e;www.otesha.org.uk/59/about-the-tours/become-a-tour-member.html.

Feast or famine

That we're facing an uncertain future of food supply has been talked about and pondered over for a decade or more, underpinned by high quality research from Tim Laing, The Soil Association and many others. Today's article in the Observer by the UK government's chief scientist, John Beddinington makes yet another call for action on food security and the need to increase resilience of supplies.

The article quotes Beddington's comments from earlier this year:

"It was an ecological disaster that occurred on the other side of the planet. Yet the drought that devastated the Australian wheat harvest last year had consequences that shook the world. It sent food prices soaring in every nation. Wheat prices across the globe soared by 130%, while shopping bills in Britain leapt by 15%.

A year later and the cost of food today has still to fall to previous levels. More alarmingly, scientists are warning that far worse lies ahead. A "perfect storm" of food shortages and water scarcity now threatens to unleash public unrest and conflict in the next 20 years, the government's chief scientist, Professor John Beddington, has warned.

In Britain, a global food shortage would drive up import costs and make food more expensive, just as the nation's farmers start to feel the impact of disrupted rainfall and rising temperatures caused by climate change. "If we don't address this, we can expect major destabilisation, an increase in rioting and potentially significant problems with international migration, as people move to avoid food and water shortages".

As with many similar issues, I sense that it will be a combintation of in-built intertia to anything other than short term threats, lack of information and a lack of ability in systems thinking that will make things far more difficult for us, our children, and more importantly, the billions of people in the global south who cannot buy their way out of trouble.

Here's what you can do:

Little Do: write to the Chair of your local council asking what strategic plans are in place to prevent food security causing major problems in your area, and ask if there's anything that you and your colleagues can do to help.

Big Do 1: learn, or re-learn how to grow your own food in your garden or on a local allotment, and talk to members of your community to find out what they are doing too.

Big Do 2: Get involved with a joint collaboration between the Earth Open Source organisation and Ecosapiens to create a draft national food security response for Wales.

Quiet voices at COP15

One of the most exciting and heart-warming events is to see the latent energy of young people's passion turned into the kinetic force of action for good. For a number of years, organisations ranging from the UN to local authorities have created forums and networks of youth champions. Even without the endorsement or funding of a major funder, recent news from the energetic and focused Isabel Bottoms shows what can be achived with will and confidence:

Here's Isabel's note:

I am going to Copenhagen, and I especially want to tell you about what capacity it is that I am going in. Basically this year I decided to break free of delegations, and simply go there to try and be as useful as possible. So, with my friend Alex from CAT we have organised for a small team of 8 of us to get accrediation (allowing us to be inside the conference rather than outside with all the protestors) where we will support official delegations that are under represented in the negotiations. These are normally countries from the Global South who are often affected by climate change already, and they just don't have the man power or technical knowledge to get their needs and opinions across. Whilst we know us 8 aren't going to save the negotiations, we are hoping to help level out the playing field a little. We've already had over 8 countries ask for our support, so we are in the process of finalising which ones we will work with-yay or nay to the 2 dictatorships?! We hope you'll follow us on our blog that the 8 of us will be regaling our horrors on throughout the 2 weeks, and please spread the word! www.unfairplay.info

Building Ecotopia

There's a good event to get involved before the UK climate march on December 4th in London, run by activist and imaginist James Parr. Click through here for more information.

Do feedback

The first talks from the 2009 Do Lectures go online next week, and we're pretty excited about the prospect of aiming for over one million downloads in the coming year.

In the meantime, in between finances, following up and planning for 2010, David pulled together some of the feedback from this year, which is enough to make anyone feel good:

It was like a double shot of fresh air for my brain.T hank you.

It was the most inspiring and abundant event I have ever attended.

Thanks again for the super fun times. I have been trying really hard to describe everything to my wife. What a great week.

A cross between the Burning Man, the Ted talksand Where the Wild Things Are

Truly excellent.

Great job and great lectures -- I think you all have a very special thing going out there in West Wales.

There¹s a reason that there is not a 5 star Michelin restaurant that seats over 50 folks.  Small is beautiful.  Oh yeah...LOVED not getting emails...

When I say I loved the Do Lectures, I really mean I fell in love with them.

The location, the hosting, the food, attendees and of course the speakers all blended together to form a magical mix.

It’s the most important event of its kind..

You gave me the greatest experience and I will remember it forever.

It certainly for me was the most inspiring conference event thing, (which it clearly isn’t) that I’ve taken part in.

It was like putting a hell of a lot of interesting, clever, funny, sparky people in a blender. In a field.

 A place of storytelling. A place of inspiration.

 It has a Genius of Place.

 I jumped in a river with some of the smartest, kindest, friendliest people on the planet..

 Sotheby’s could learn a lot how to auction axes from these people

 The meals taught us that food is not a thing but a relationship.  Damn that food was good...

 I laughed.  I laughed a lot.  Fuel for the soul...

 Revolutions can start in that pub..

 A melting pot of people and ideas. Just an amazing event.

A bonfire with soul