Transforming Our Futures

In this Podcast we talk to Dr Beryl De Souza about the different ways medics engage communities in a time of climate change. Beryl is a plastic surgeon but she is also a community activist. She works closely with the Enfield Racial Equality Council (EREC) and is a passionate supporter of the work they do in the diverse community of Enfield.

In the Podcast she talks about how medics can engage over the issues of public health and climate change and explains how climate change will and has already created a health crisis.

Medics of all kinds are getting increasingly concerned at the impact that climate change is having on air pollution, heat exhaustion, on well being and mental health and on the possibility of disease spreading as well as future pandemics.

She talks about the need for agencies to work together in collaborative networks and the importance of creating relationships with communities and individuals.

Trevor Blackman works for the Edmonton School Partnership but he also wears another hat in that his is involved in Maritime Radio a steaming radio station. He used to work with local radio in the BBC.  

Here Francis Sealey who also worked as a Producer in the BBC talks to Trevor about engagement in the media and how it has changed over time.  When Francis started there were no audio or video cassettes let alone streaming and the change over the years has been enormous.  

Both Francis and `Trevor talk about those changes and how they have affected the way we communicate in the new media.

In this Podcast we interview David McKelvey and Maggie Fay who are both medic - one a GP and another a nurse and they arrested for demonstrating outside of JP Morgan

In all six healthcare professionals were arrested after cracking eight panes of glass at investment bank JP Morgan’s offices in Canary Wharf as part of a non-violent protest.

JP Morgan is the world’s biggest funder of fossil fuels, having poured $384.2 billion into the sector since the Paris Climate Agreement in 2016. The financial services giant and investment bank funded the fossil fuel industry to the tune of $61.7 billion in 2021, the same year the International Energy Agency stated that new oil, gas or coal investment must end if the world is to reach net zero by 2050.

Heatwaves are known to pose a variety of health risks, including an increased risk of stroke, and heart failure. [6] Periods of extreme heat have also been linked to negative impacts on mental health and increased suicide rates, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change looking at data from the U.S and Mexico. [7] Experts have warned that thousands of people in the UK could die as a result of the coming heatwave, with both the vulnerable as well as the fit and healthy at risk.

Here we talk about the climate crisis, the role of civil disobedience and the dysfunctional nature of our democracy that seems unable to face the health emergency that we face through climate change

Here we interview Katies Knight about her efforts and that of others to achieve a “green NHS” that has sustainability embedded in all it does. Katie is a Paediatric Emergency Medicine Consultant in the North Middlesex Hospital and has taken a lead in forming a Sustainability Group within her trust.  .

Working together they try to collaborate with the Trust to ensure that the site of the Trust and its practices follow green principles in how the site is organised and in its procurement.  

Katie is passionate about climate change and tells us that many of the younger generation of doctors are increasingly feeling this way as they see the emergency of climate change threatening the health of the children they work with.  

We are pleased to do this interview with Katie and equally pleased that sh has also agreed to join our EnCaf Core Group.

In this interview we talk to Rebecca Nestor who is a member of the Climate psychology alliance and has become part of what is know as the Climate Cafe movement.

Rebecca talks about the growing anxieties that people are feeling about climate change and the stress and guilt they sometimes have of feeling helpless and concerned they can do nothing about it.

Climate Cafes were set up so that people could join with others to talk about their feelings and share their anxieties. They take different forms in the many locations where they are found and some develop into other forms as the cafe develops. One cafe for example turned into a book group.

But having a place where people can talk openly and freely with others is important and climate cafes fulfil a need that is growing as the impact of climate change is every more visible.

Hetty Fruer-Denham is an engagement officer in Trees For cities and we interview her here both about her work and the importance of trees for cities.

Many people do not live close to open spaces where many trees can be planted but live in densely populated areas. Many of these people suffer from excess heat in high temperatures and increasing pollution.

Trees for Cites often work with these communities because green space is vital here to lower temperature, capture carbon dioxide and create a sense of well being.

Hetty tells us about her work both in communities and with schools and how she engages in a way that discovers what communities want and then works with them to develop a greener environment.

In this Podcast we talk to Andrew Samuels who is the Group CEO of WislPort and they have a team to help organisations set up a whistleblowing strategy and they also help individuals who want to whistleblow about wrong doing or unethical practices in their company or organisation

Often information about climate change, emissions, the success of offsetting and much more is not always totally transparent within local authorities. One way to address this is through creating gateways for employees to whistleblow.

In many local authorities there has been doubt about the information they give out on pollution or waste and recycling and officers are often pressured to only give out limited information or collaborate only with groups that support the ruling party of whatever colour.

Here we look at what whistleblowing is, how authorities and individuals can use it, how anonymity is ensured and who to contact should anyone feel so strongly that they see whistleblowing as their only way for the truth to be told.

In this Podcast we interview Stephen Cox about his second novel - Our Child of the Stars. Stephen uses science fiction to explore a number of crucial issue including family relationships, existential threats, personal ambition and the enduring quality of compassion.

Small-town USA, entering the Seventies. A childless couple Gene and Molly adopted a strange, wounded child of the stars they call Cory.

Molly is the main narrative voice – a passionate nurse fighting for her own extraordinary child. Cory is gentle, vibrant, excitable, endlessly curious and loving – and both joy and danger comes from his otherworldly origins.

In Our Child of Two Worlds a figure from the past brings uncomfortable truths and Gene and Molly face the terrifying loss of everything they took for granted. Humanity needs Cory’s people to return to save the Earth – but if they take Molly’s son, it will break her heart.

In this Podcast we talk to Sarah Eastwood who is the Emergency Planning Officer for the North Mid Hospital Trust.

We explore what emergency planning is around a crisis incident. However we also discuss what emergency planning means when the crisis is long term such as climate change and whether that needs a new way or working and also of thinking.

We loo at how working together in bottom up collaborative networks is important and how over time these need to be improved.

In this podcast we interview Maggie Brookes about her latest novel - Acts of Love and War: A nation torn apart by war. One woman caught in the crossfire.

1936. Civil war in Spain. A world on the brink of chaos . . .

Although this is a climate change site we like to promote the work of local authors and a world in conflict today and threatened by climate change this novel is highly relevant.

21-year-old Lucy feels content with her life in Hertfordshire - not least because she lives next door to Tom and Jamie, two very different brothers for whom she has equally great affection.

But her comfortable life is turned upside down when Tom decides he must travel to Spain to fight in the bloody Spanish Civil War. He is quickly followed by Jamie who, much to Lucy's despair, is supporting General Franco.

To the dismay of her irascible father, Lucy decides that the only way to bring her boys back safely is to travel to Spain herself to persuade them to come home.

It is a novel that looks at one of the seminal moments of the 20th century and how love expresses itself in extreme circumstances

Maggie is an ex-journalist, BBC TV producer as an historical documentary writer / producer / director and she has also been a creative writing lecturer, and is now full-time novelist and poet. Maggie was born in London and has been writing stories and poems since she was six. Her novel ‘The Prisoner’s Wife’ was published in March 2020, in the first Covid lockdown. She has published six poetry collections in the UK under her married name of Maggie Butt. Her poetry website is: www.maggiebutt.co.uk.