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A personal reflection on 2025 – can we still keep 1.5 alive?

Two things stand out for me from this past year. One was a nostalgic road trip with my family along US Route 66. The other was the Battle of Barnet. Ironically, both these events forced me face-to-face with our collective future. More about this unsettling fore glimpse in a moment.

Keep 1.5 and our grandkids aliveMy grandchild, Damon

I think I was born a naturalist. Perhaps we all are, but some of us never lose that sense of being part of nature and an awareness of the interconnectedness of everything. Though initially moved by wonderment, I was soon driven by increasing concern for our shared planet home and have been an environmental activist for the whole of my adult life. That adds up to a little over 65 years of conserving and campaigning. During this time, our native wildlife has been in severe decline. These Isles are now one of the most nature-depleted counties on Earth. Add to this rapidly increasing climate change, and there is good reason to be alarmed for the welfare of our grandchildren's generation.

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Is Barnet’s Biological Bridge Falling Down?

By Dennis Ayling, August 2025

Ideally, the London Borough of Barnet should function as a beautiful biological bridge between the green belt Hertfordshire countryside and the Inner London boroughs. Is it falling down? No, not quite, but it is becoming increasingly shaky. Although it is a multi-lane bridge, the various lanes are gradually getting disrupted, potentially rendering them ineffectual. If just one span of a bridge lane is undermined, somewhere along its length, then the whole structure is compromised. Take, for example, the Edgware branch of the Northern line, long-recognised as a fortuitous north-south green lane for flora and fauna. Its open, rural-style station platforms, like the one at Burnt Oak, are of little hindrance to the passage of wildlife.

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A New Retail and Nature Partnership to Beat Climate Change

By Dennis Ayling, June 2024

In presenting this proposal I am inevitably going to dish up some doom and gloom, but fear not. Ultimately, I am an optimist about the future of our planet. I am going to detail an unpleasant blot on our landscape and then suggest how it might be unbelievably transformed. It will achieve much more than the greening of a dreary place. It will serve to protect our physical and mental health along with the well-being of Nature, on whom we utterly depend for our basic needs. In fact, it will go even further. It is no exaggeration to say this unusual alliance of Retail and Nature will contribute to ensuring our survival in the face of frequent extreme weather events.

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Royal College of Art student collaboration

12 January 2024. Some students at the Royal College of Art would like our help with a project. Please contact the webmaster (address at the bottom of the page) if you would like to help.

The project brief that Aadhyaa mentions is here: Royal-College-of-Art-Grand-Challenge-2023-24-Student-Brief.pdf (PDF, 3 pages, 250kB)

Good morning

I hope this mail finds you well. We are a group of design students from the Royal College of Art, London, and are reaching out to express our interest in connecting with Barnet Climate Action Group for our RCA Grand Challenge 2023/24: Ocean & Cities project.  

The RCA Grand Challenge 2023/24: Ocean & Cities (GC), brings London closer to the ocean, exploring a wide range of design challenges at the interface of land and sea. The goal is to support behaviour change among citizens and organisations through the use of *ocean science, co-design and place-based approaches to:

1. Address the impacts of cities on the ocean.

2. Increase city resilience to ocean-related impacts of climate change.

As required for the project, we have been allotted The London borough of Barnet, as our area of interest. We were fortunate to even connect with the borough representative, Mr Ammar Naqvi, and his team, last year.

We are particularly interested in being a part of a discussion with some members of your organisation around the theme. Our goal is to explore the evolving relationship between the local residents of Barnet and the water bodies in the vicinity.

The proposed discussion could touch upon various aspects, including the historical significance of our local water bodies, our relationship with it while growing up, past/early memories around it, environmental changes affecting them, and the role they play in our daily lives now. Additionally, we can delve into potential community initiatives to preserve and enhance the quality of our water sources.

I am writing to inquire about the possibility of collaborating with your group , hopefully sometime next week. Your group's expertise and community outreach efforts make you an ideal partner for such a discussion. We are open to any suggestions or guidelines you may have regarding the event logistics and format.

Please let us know if you are available to discuss this idea further. We are enthusiastic about the prospect of bringing our community together for an insightful conversation about our local water resources.

I am also attaching the project brief issued by the university for your further reference.

Thank you for considering our proposal, and we look forward to the opportunity for collaboration.

Best regards

Aadhyaa Bhatt
MA Textiles
(Group representative)