Our Vision
Greenhouse gas emissions and climate change
Our dependence on fossil fuel and ‘peak oil’
Our growing waste
Loss of wildlife and biodiversity

Our Vision

Green Ovingham’s vision is ‘Challenging climate change by promoting and supporting sustainable lifestyles in the Ovingham area’.  Sustainability is the key to our existence as a group and is defined as meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. We want to ensure that our children and grandchildren can continue to live happy and comfortable lives in a recognisably Northumbrian landscape still with a rich biodiversity and free from pollution. Sustainability faces many challenges:
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Greenhouse gas emissions and climate change

There is now unassailable evidence that the world is suffering from dangerous climate change.

• The atmosphere is warming (the decade 2000-2009 was the warmest on record – See Figure)
• Ocean water temperature is warming down to several hundred metres below the surface
• Arctic sea ice and glaciers are shrinking
• Sea level is increasing.

The scientific consensus is that human activity through the release of greenhouse gases is the main cause of these changes and that the changes are progressive. The last IPCC Assessment indicated that there was less than a 1 in 10 chance that the changes were from some other (unknown) source.  We cannot afford to await certainty before taking action to reduce emissions. The Government recognises the risk in setting a target of 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 but progress towards the target is weak and emissions by households are still rising.

We all contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, through our use of energy in the home, in our use of transport and in the food we eat. Through our actions and choices we can take the first steps to reducing our emissions with little cost or pain whilst saving money in the process.

Failure by the world to take action now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy use will have drastic consequences for our grandchildren but will be first felt by vast populations of the world subject to effects of sea level rise and more severe droughts and floods. About 160 million of the world’s population live within 1 metre from sea level. Island states and much of Bangladesh will be submerged.
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Our dependence on fossil fuel and ‘peak oil’

The use of fossil fuels is woven into the very fabric of our lives. However, we cannot assume that oil and natural gas will continue to remain plentiful and affordable indefinitely. Global production of both oil and natural gas is likely to reach its peak soon. This phenomenon is referred to as “Peak Oil.” After the peak, every successive year will see an ever-diminishing flow of oil, as well as an increasing risk of interruptions to supply. The peak of oil discoveries was in 1965, and oil production per year has surpassed oil discoveries every year since 1980. Peak Oil is not about “running out of oil” but the remaining oil becomes too hard to reach or it takes too much energy to extract.

Given both the continuous rise in global demand for oil and the role it plays in our homes, transport, industry and agriculture, the consequences of peak oil are enormous. The assumption of ‘business as usual’ is unsustainable. At some time in the not too distant future, life with less energy becomes inevitable.  It is better to plan for it than be taken by surprise. This is the message of the Transition Network. Green Ovingham is not a member of the Transition movement but we hold common ground with them in our wish to increase our local resilience and reduce the carbon footprint of our community.  In particular we encourage residents to take up loft and cavity wall insulation (often free or supported by grants) both as a means of reducing energy bills and our carbon footprint.
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Our growing waste

Some waste is inevitable but most of it is needless. We live in a society where all major parties support the ‘fetish of growth’ based on ever increasing consumer spending which implies throwing out stuff that is slightly unfashionable, marginally obsolescent or that has not quite as many widgets as our neighbour’s. We throw out on average more than a third of the food we produce. In the past most of the waste has gone into holes in the ground (landfill) but the readily available holes are already filled up so we are now building up mountains that grow year by year. However, over the last decade, the way our waste is managed by Northumberland County Council has improved enormously.  Ten years ago 96% of household waste was sent to landfill, now only 12 % of household waste is buried directly in landfill sites. The West Wylam Household Waste Recovery Centre enables a wide range of materials to be recycled and much of our general household waste is used to generate energy.  We can still do better at composting and recycling as you can see in our GO leaflet.

Even better than recycling is the reuse of goods that are no longer required by one individual but of benefit to another, through the use of the website Freecycle, charity shops and specialist reuse organisations. Our Reuse and recycling leaflet indicates where you can locally take goods for reuse including cycles, furniture, tools, spectacles, toys, and printer cartridges (Link).  
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Loss of wildlife and biodiversity

The landscape of Ovingham and its inhabitants have changed radically in the last 40 years. The changes are only half remembered by the old and are unknown to the young. Can you recall hearing a cuckoo from your doorstep? When did you last (or did you ever) see a redpoll, treecreeper, stonechat, whinchat, grasshopper warbler, or spotted flycatcher in the vicinity of Ovingham? They were all seen regularly in the 1970s with many others that have disappeared. Now they are gone, gone, gone .... Yellowhammers used to be common in the blackthorn hedge along the path from the First School to Ovington. Now their familiar flash of gold and their little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheese call are no more. Instead we have a barren and silent hedgerow. Where are the sand martins that used to nest in the Spetchells and swoop and dive over the river? The spring dawn chorus in the Dene is weak and insipid. It is not just in Ovingham that these losses have occurred. A recent Defra report (http://www.defra.gov.uk/evidence/statistics/environment/wildlife/download/pdf/110120-stats-wild-bird-populations-uk.pdf) states that the breeding farmland birds index for England was 52% lower in 2009 than its 1970 level. The woodland birds index for England was 24% lower.

It is not just the birds. When did you last see a daddy-long-legs seeking the morning light at the window or its larval stage the leatherjacket in your garden. They were annoyingly frequent in the 1970s and their disappearance is symptomatic of the loss of insect life on which the birds depended. The pesticides and herbicides of industrialised farming have robbed the landscape of diversity at the bottom of the food chain which has affected it at every level. We have paid the price for cheap and ‘unblemished’ food.

What do we have in return? Yes, the return of salmon to the Tyne is a success story, now the Number One salmon river in England and Wales. More than 40,000 salmon and sea trout now cross the fish counter at Riding Mill in a good year. With the salmon have come their predators, goosander and cormorant in increasing numbers. Otters are a more welcome return to the local river reach. Kingfishers have re-established themselves after being wiped out in the cold winter of 1963. Sparrow hawks are plentiful after near extinction from DDT in the 1950s. Song thrushes have made a tentative return. Magpies are vastly increased in numbers since the 1970s. They strut by the roadside in their dinner jacket plumage waiting and eyeing their next meal at the unwary blackbird’s nest. Her early morning shrieks bewail the demise of her family.

There are no signs yet that the degradation is complete. What’s next - sparrows and blackbirds? It’s not impossible. Or can we retrieve our loss?

On the river bank alien plant invaders are threatening our native species. Himalayan balsam and Japanese knotweed spread in such dense stands that other plants are displaced. Giant hogweed with its poisonous stems has reached epidemic proportions with over 500 plants last year in the Ovingham reach

The biodiversity focus of Green Ovingham will be to catalogue the changes that have occurred, to attempt to understand the causes, whether local or distant and to support measures to redress the degradation. A practical response will be to continue to eradicate the riverside alien species in conjunction with the Tyne Rivers Trust (www.tyneriverstrust.org).