Category: Geographical

Climate emergency!

If you’ve made it to this point, then ‘Thank you for watching and thinking it over’, and thank you also for anything you can do, however small, to reduce your impact on our climate in the days and years ahead. Many small impacts can add up to something really significant.

Climate emergency!

ad hoc post – 7

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Europe from Space

The UK Government commissioned a video nine months ago to launch their response to what is now seen as a full blown climate emergency. It’s a good video; it includes presentations by people who are experts in their fields; it’s informative; and it’s very hard-hitting. It’s not widely available except through a series of local meetings throughout the UK where it’s being used very effectively to get people thinking and responding in useful ways at the local community level.

Click the video below to watch the Earth turn on its axis. Your home is here, can you spot it as it rolls by? This planet is home to every single one of us.

The UK Government video is available, however, on YouTube, published there by GB News.

Whether you live in the UK or not, I suggest you watch this video in full. (Note that the useful content ends at 2 hrs 41 mins into the video. There are plenty of natural breaks between speakers so you can watch it in sections if you find that more convenient.)

If you live in the UK, I also suggest you attend one of the many local meetings currently available, discuss what you have seen with others at the meeting, and try to get other local friends and family to join you. If you can’t find a meeting, you can always organise one yourself. as you watch, jot down anything that strikes you as particularly important or significant.

Finally, go through anything you wrote down and consider how it will affect you, your friends, your family, and your community. Is there anyone else you should share this with? Could you watch the video again with friends, family or neighbours and talk it over together? Also (and just as importantly) think about ways of reducing your individual impact on the climate.

If you’ve made it to this point, then ‘Thank you for watching and thinking it over’, and thank you also for anything you may do, however small, to reduce your impact on our climate in the days and years ahead. Many small impacts can add up to something really significant. That, after all, is how we got into this mess in the first place. It may also play a significant part in getting us out of the dangers we now face.

I have one last thing to say, and this is primarily for anyone involved in church in any shape or form; but please don’t let that stop you reading it. Jesus was prophetic and that’s a gift with two characteristics. On the one hand it forges links between people here on the planet we call Earth and the Father we think of as living in heaven. But also the prophetic gift involves bringing people together here on Earth, forging links between opposing sides, rebuilding trust and a willingness to work together, mending broken fences. Prophetic people are always demanding justice and aiming to reforge broken links. A sort of conciliation service. If we ever needed a conciliation service we need one now.

So if you are involved in any form of church, now is the time to recognise your prophetic gift (whether strong or weak) and use it to call as loudly as possible for everyone to work together to save this planet at last from the danger we have put it in. There is no time to lose. We need to bridge the gulf between those who would profit in the short term with no concern about next year or the decades and centuries ahead, and those who would do without in the here and now to secure a long term future for children, grandchildren and great-great- grandchildren.

Prophetic voices would give vision to the former, and hope to the latter. Indeed, there are many prophetic voices in the government film you just watched. It would be a serious mistake to think that church has a monopoly on gifts like this.

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Climate change ideas

Mentioned in News

It’s a great place to stay up-to-date on all sorts of important topics. Furthermore, you need a university degree as the bare minimum if you want to write articles for the website. This results in a high standard of writing.

The Conversation

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On the web – 2

The Conversation

I’ve started reading The Conversation, not every item but whenever I spot something that catches my attention. This happened back on 8th April when I added a news item based on a post from ‘The Conversation’. This time I’d like to write about the website itself, not just an item that I read and liked.

The web as intended

I mentioned this in the news item. Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World-Wide-Web, made his original intentions very clear in his recent book, ‘This is for Everyone’. The web, especially recently, has significantly tampered with and damaged what he had hoped to create. If you read the book you’ll see what he means and how he intends to fix things and is already working to do so.

The Conversation is a website that already conforms rather well to Berners-Lees’s intentions. For one thing it’s completely free to use, like Wikipedia, the Internet Archive, and my own site which you’re reading now. Everything here is free to read, use, copy, and re-use. Check my copyright page for more details.

‘The Conversation’ presents world news and updates and articles on research and development; so it’s a great place to stay up-to-date on all sorts of important topics. Furthermore, you need a university degree as the bare minimum if you want to write articles for the website. This results in a high standard of writing and articles you should be able to trust. There are different versions for different nations and regions, every Conversation page has a drop down list near the top where you can select the version you want to view.

That’s all I wanted to say about ‘The Conversation’. If you subscribe for notifications and read whatever grabs your attention, you’ll stand a good chance of being better informed than ever before and enjoying the process as well. Happy reading!

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https://jhm.scilla.org.uk/2026/04/01/current-roundup
Another great post

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Cirencester at night

We are looking more or less along what was once a Roman street in old Corinium. Although it winds left and right here and there, nearly 2000 years ago it would have run almost entirely straight.

Jupiter and the church tower

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Image of the day – 191

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Jupiter and the church tower

The town’s streetlights illuminate the lovely old architecture in Dollar Street, and Jupiter is bright enough to see high above the church tower’s flag pole. Click the thumbnail to enlarge it and you’ll also see a star a little further to the right, almost over the open window. This is Saiph, the bottom-left star of Orion. If you’re looking at the sky from the southern hemisphere Saiph will be Orion’s top-right star and Jupiter will be very low in the sky.

Looking south

We are looking more or less along what was once a Roman street in old Corinium. Although it winds left and right here and there, nearly 2000 years ago it would have run almost entirely straight, part of the Roman military road between Glevum (Gloucester) and Calleva (Silchester) through the local Iron Age kingdom of the Dobunni whose capital was about four miles to the north of Corinium in what is now the village of Bagendon. Behind you, in this view, the road continued north-west to Glevum where there was a military fortress. Some British tribes were allies of the Romans, including the local Dobunni. Some tribes opposed the Romans and their conquest of these islands. In the south-east direction the same Roman road (Ermin Way) passed through the town’s Forum, past the Basilica and made its way to Calleva to the south and east.

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Mosaics underfoot
Image of the day – 64
Image of the day – 46
A view of ancient remains

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If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!

A large bookshop

The basement, shown in the photo, is known as The Norrington Room and has five kilometres of bookshelves in it, containing 200 000 books.

The Norrington Room

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Image of the day – 190

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

The Norrington Room
(Click to enlarge)

The photo shows the basement of Blackwell’s Bookshop in the centre of Oxford, the famous university town in the UK.

Blackwell’s Bookshop in Oxford is huge

You can get a good idea of size from the photo, there are four or five floors above the basement, large but not as open; the upper floors are smaller and have no long views like this one as the line of sight is broken up by countless units of shelving.

Map centred on Blackwell’s

This was where the original Blackwell’s bookshop was, but it has grown larger and larger over the years. The basement, shown in the photo, is known as The Norrington Room and has five kilometres of bookshelves in it, containing 200 000 books. Blackwell’s in Oxford also hosts a Caffè Nero on the first floor. The map (opens in a new tab, click to resize and drag it) is centred on the bookshop in the very heart of Oxford.

Some history

The current bookshop in Broad Street opened in 1879, though it was much smaller in those days, at a mere 4 m square. The first bookshelf unit is still in use, at the top of the stairs to the first floor. The shop soon expanded, incorporating the cellar and the first floor as well as several adjacent shops. There was an earlier Blackwell’s bookshop, also in Oxford, that opened in 1846.

Blackwell’s had an online presence from 1995, selling books worldwide. It also opened retail outlets in many other cities and towns across the UK. As a company it remained independent until the business was bought in 2022 by Waterstones, another major British book retailer.

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Castle Street
What does Jesus mean to me and how do I respond to him?

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If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!

Arkell’s Brewery plaque

It’s likely the cracking will have been caused by differential thermal expansion and contraction with the iron changing its dimenions rather more than the ceramic glaze.

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Image of the day – 189

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Click images to enlarge

This is one of the old brewery plaques, once numerous across Britain. This example is in Castle Street, outside The Brewers Arms, not far from the junction with Querns Lane and Lewis Lane.

Arkell’s Brewery

The brewery originated in 1843, the year on the plaque. It was founded in Swindon by John Arkell, remains family-owned and operates as one of the oldest remaining brewery companies in Britain.

The plaque is probably of cast iron with enamel decoration and apart from some cracks seems to be in almost perfect condition. It’s likely the cracking will have been caused by differential thermal expansion and contraction with the iron changing its dimenions rather more than the ceramic glaze. The plaque has seen more than 180 day/night cycles in its time!

Brasso

The image is of Noah’s ark with a large capital letter ‘L’, so a play on Arkell (‘arkL’). There’s a long history of businesses advertising their presence with logos and other illustrations, it happens in all nations and cultures, sometimes the themes, names and images employed can become quite famous and long-lived. When I was a young child, Brasso (a British brass polish) was sold in steel containers with blue and white rays coming out in all directions. It’s still available today in cans with the same design. And it probably looked just the same in Victorian times as well! When I was young it was fitted with a low-profile, steel screw-cap, today it has a much larger, plastic cap. Otherwise, it looks identical to me.

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The old Woolmarket
Castle Street
A grand old house in Cirencester

Useful? Interesting?

If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!