A head teacher has started a petition to save an environmental education project from cuts.
Brighton and Hove City Council is scrapping the £41,000 Our City Our World project as part of £30 million in cuts and savings agreed at the budget meeting last Thursday (22 February).
The £41,000 covers the cost of a part-time environmental education officer who designs and delivers climate change, sustainability and environmental education programme, teacher training and advice and updates on a dedicated website.
A report to councillors before the budget meeting said that the saving was proposed in January, leaving no time for consultation with schools.
St Nicolas Church of England (CofE) Primary School head teacher Andy Richbell started the petition on the council website earlier this month as soon as the proposals were announced. It took a week before the petition went live.
Mr Richbell said that working with a specialist environmental education officer had brought the process further forward than schools would manage on their own.
He wanted the council to stop and rethink because the money was a relatively small amount when compared with an advertising campaign.
Mr Richbell said: “What this project does is gets not just to the children, who are passionate about this, as we saw with the youth climate protests, but it gets to their families as well.
“It seems to me that it must be a cost-effective way of getting the message out. We know this is an important area to be working on.
“We’ve been nudged to move further and faster than we would have done if it had been left to me or my staff to lead on it because we have so much to do.”
The Our City Our World petition on the council’s website, which closes tomorrow (Wednesday 28 February), asked for the council to maintain the current funding for the project.
The petition said: “Large-scale surveys in the city show that 90 per cent of young people, 97 per cent of parent and carers and 98 per cent of teachers in Brighton and Hove think it’s very important or vitally important to learn about climate change in school.
“The majority of young people are worried or very worried about climate change and less than half of young people are excited by the future.
“Our City Our World (managed through the council’s environmental education provision) addresses the above by working to ensure that climate change and sustainability is integrated into all curriculum areas, all children have regular access to nature, all schools take action to lower their emissions and empower young people to be changemakers and have hope for the future.”
At the budget meeting, Labour councillor Mitchie Alexander gave schools hope that the project would continue with external support.
Councillor Alexander said that Our City Our World was a “non-statutory project” which was why it faced the brunt of the sweeping cuts to the council’s budget.
She said that she had been seeking external support to keep the project going because the specialist officer provided expertise.
Councillor Alexander said: “We have been looking at who and which organisations locally would like to take on this programme in partnership with the council.
“I have had a rather positive meeting on how we can ensure Our City Our World can continue with longevity and sustainability.”
More Tory inspired cuts facilitated by New New Labour
This flagship programme supports the integration of climate issues into the curriculum and enables young people to engage in practical education and action. Our City Our World unexpectedly, and at short notice, fell victim to this year’s council budget cuts. Surely we have a moral obligation to support those that will face the brunt of climate change in their lives.
Primary teacher salary £32k full time. Set against £41k for a part time adviser.
It is all these “small amounts” of money which add up and contribute to the financial mess.
There is a support website (https://www.ourcityourworld.co.uk/ ) to maintain – take a look; and other expenses given it’s an outreach to more and more local authority Schools in the City.
Are you, by any chance, the “part-time environmental education officer”?
No – concern person that knows that school need support and that the next/future generations (e.g. those in schools) are the ones that will pay most for the Climate Change that earlier generations have caused, and neglected to take action on.
Albeit it is not the city council’s responsibility to address the climate crisis. The UK is the source of about 1% of global emissions, and Brighton and Hove generates about 0.5% of the UK. The council’s emissions which we are contributing £10m per year of our council tax to only represents 2% of the city’s total and so far they have cut that by about half.
Perhaps the council could fund this £41k per annum from our £10m if it is delivering real benefits.
In the meantime moving to wind, solar, and nuclear electricity as we migrate to EVs and use biomass and biofuels as well as government schemes to encourage a move from gas boilers to heat pumps and community heating promises real opportunities for achieving carbon neutrality.
This is fundamental misunderstanding. Climate change is driven by the accumulation of greenhouse gasses over a long period of time. In the UK we are historically responsible of a big lump of that, particularly from the 19th century industrial revolution and the practices we drove and fostered in our former colonial empire. As a rich industrialised country we are still making a large impact (compared to many in the global south). Using current live emissions as your dismissive indicator of responsibility can be viewed as a form of climate denialism.
True, its not the Councils responsibility (alone) – it’s everyone’s responsibility.
But aren’t greenhouse gases absorbed naturally by organisms returning oxygen to the atmosphere? If your theory was correct then the level of CO2 would be increasing continually, we would never be able to be returned to earlier levels, and there would be no benefit to moving to renewable energy.
How about plans for planting more trees and rewilding?
Do take a look at this
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zhssgk7/articles/zq2m2v4#zdmxm39
Very interesting motherhood stuff, but where is the blame being given for historical carbon emissions. I note that the BBC include tree planting as a way to reduce levels.
I’m no denialist – more of a pragmatist – and wanting to see major changes to reduce carbon levels by reducing production and increasing absorption. Not sure how getting to school kids is going to help if we need to achieve significant reducitons by 2030 and/or 2050.
For me, doing something constructive to reduce my carbon footprint is more important – see https://ecologi.com/ – I currently have almost 500 trees planted in the tropics via them.
I note that you didn’t respond to my comments.