4th February 2019

Dear friend[s],

I am writing to you as a fellow citizen of Bath, and a fellow human being.

I am writing to you in an attempt to find – locally – all those amongst us who are concerned about the human predicament as regards socio-economic injustice, and the related existential threats of nuclear war/winter and environmental breakdown.

This is a call to arms to those people. Please consider what I have to say here (and perhaps write something of your own to your own friends and acquaintances in due course).

The human response to the current situation in the next few years may well determine the fate of humanity as a whole.

As bleak as the picture is, I believe it may just be possible to avert the worst ravages of environmental breakdown – and head off the threat of nuclear war – if those citizens who are already concerned, step forward and use the powers they have, individually and collectively. This is not presently happening on the scale that it requires, but there are, I think, encouraging signs in the UK, continental Europe, and around the world.

BATH

In the local context, there are now rolling Friday lunchtime and Saturday lunchtime protests outside the Guildhall. I will be there on as many of these days as I can until at least the fourteenth of March, when I may be speaking at the meeting of the Full Council about a motion for BANES to declare a climate emergency (depending on the selection made from a list of speakers).

I believe attendance at these events (for as little or as long as you like, between 11:30 and 13:30 each day) is, in itself, helpful. It also has value though as a way of concerned citizens meeting each other and discussing what our repertoire of powers (individual and collective) is, and how they need to be used over the next, say, 24 months.

Many of us have been thinking about this for a long while. Many feel disheartened or isolated. Many feel confused about what they can do. I believe we are a good deal more powerful than we think. Moreover, not everyone need make the same contribution. Our own contributions must fit the circumstances in which we find ourselves. As a collective, locally, as nationally, and globally, we must form something like an orchestra : not everyone needs to be in the brass section, or indeed the percussion, but we need concerted action.

Come and help me (and others) get this sorted out, whilst the opportunity is there.

Friday 8 February 2019 11:30 – 13:30

Saturday 9 February 2019 11:30 – 13:30

Friday 15 February 11:30 – 13:30

Saturday 16 February 11:30 – 13:30

Friday 22 February 11:30- 13:30

Saturday 23 February 11:30 – 13:30

Friday 1 March 2019 11:30 – 13:30

Saturday 2 March 2019 11:30 – 13:30

Friday 8 March 2019 11:30 – 13:30

Saturday 9 March 2019 11:30 – 13:30

It is okay to turn up with questions. There is much to share, discuss, and work out. The event is not owned by any one organisation or group.

Both the Friday and Saturday events are family friendly, and have been attended by folk as young as five and as old as seventy five (I think).

I have no particular passion for demonstrating. I am doing it because I believe it is part of what is necessary to avert a disaster that will likely now befall us, our children, grandchildren and future generations in the absence of action. I personally have had enough of historical and current injustices too, which are, of course, intimately bound up with the emergency situation.

Yours sincerely,

Jon(athan)