These Psalms Were Made For Walking

Some Psalms are known as the "songs of ascent", to be sung by pilgrims while walking up the steep road to Jerusalem for the major festivals. A friend was telling me this morning how he had done this himself earlier this year, an experience which had changed his understanding of the Psalms forever. But it turns out most of the Psalms have a sense of movement about them.

For example, what comes to your mind when you think of Psalm 23?

International Women's Day: Why I'm Pledging for Parity in the Rail Industry

The theme for this year's International Women's Day is to Pledge for Parity: "to change everything, we need everyone" because everyone can contribute to creating an inclusive culture. So what does that look like in engineering, and particularly the rail industry? I highly recommend the ICE's series of Engineering Change short talks (you could use these as conversation starters in a team briefing this month!)

Engineering change takes all of us - yes, you too! (image (c) Institution of Civil Engineers)

Sitting Down for a Fairtrade Breakfast in York

"Before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world" (Martin Luther King)

Perhaps this morning you relied on farmers in India for your tea, Colombia for your bananas, cocoa from Cote D'Ivoire, sugar from Malawi or coffee from Ethiopia. So since we rely on so many people just to produce our breakfast, how come the people who grow the food we take for granted can’t always feed their own families? This question lies at the heart of this year's Fairtrade Fortnight, which we kicked off in style in Yorkshire by hosting a Fairtrade Breakfast in front of York Minster. This is probably the only time I'm likely to eat breakfast outdoors in my pyjamas with the Lord Mayor of York in her dressing gown! The passing tourists loved it, unsurprisingly...

Breakfast with Lord Mayor of York, Sonja Crisp, in her dressing gown, complete with mayoral chains (she refused to be drawn on whether she actually goes to bed in these!)

The Perfect Storm? Climate Change, Flooding and Resilience

Following the flooding across Yorkshire over Christmas, this week I'm speaking at a panel debate in York entitled "A Perfect Storm: Climate Change, Cuts and Floods", bringing a civil engineering perspective to a national (and international) problem. Come and join us at 7.30pm on Thursday 18th Feb, Quaker Meeting House, Friargate. 
So how can I summarise in a ten minute opening speech (alongside contributions from a climate expert, a flooded resident and a firefighter) what are the most important things we need to do to become more resilient to flooding, and are we doing them? Well, as I've written in my earlier posts, to consider a problem holistically I like to start from first principles. So here is the flooding problem as we face it in the UK: 

1) Rain falls out of the sky (and more rain is coming)
We live on an island next to the Atlantic Ocean, which is warming up as a result of climate change. The prevailing wind blows warm wet air over the UK, depositing its moisture as it goes (especially on the west side of the Pennines - sorry Cumbria!). My gut feeling in December was that something was seriously wrong with the weather and our infrastructure was likely to suffer the consequences. The Met Office confirmed this as the average temperature over the month of December was 8.0 degrees, a whopping 4.1 degrees higher than the long term average of 4 degrees and much larger than the previous record (6.9 degrees in 1934). 
Warm winters usually mean wet and windy ones, as storms blow in off the sea and this winter has been unusual, but not unexpected given what we know about climate impacts. Therefore, while we cannot control the weather itself, we do have a choice about limiting our carbon emissions now to prevent making it worse. 

Holiness in Action: The Girl in Black

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down, Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town… …But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back, Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black. (Johnny Cash, Man in Black)

This year I discovered another resonance to the Good Friday tradition of wearing black for the day, as my husband asked me if I was aiming to look like Johnny Cash, who famously wore black as a constant reminder to all who saw him that not everyone had riches or fame to rely on. 

His song was in my head all day, and got me thinking about how fasting and mourning can help us to connect with those who are on the edges. On the day which Jesus died, it seemed all hope was gone. Evil had triumphed, the authorities had had their way and fear and injustice was all you could expect if you happened not to be rich or powerful. So this seems like an appropriate theme for Holy Saturday: Even if by definition hope refers to the future, for the Bible it is rooted in the present. Anne Lamott puts it like this:  

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: You don’t give up.” 

So will we take up the challenge? Will we learn to lament the state of the world as it is, where the powerful usually triumph and the poor are forgotten? 

Thinking Long Term: Why "Doing it for the kids" is not good enough

Principle 3: Intergenerational Stewardship (or Thinking Long Term)

This post examines the concept of intergenerational stewardship, the 3rd principle of sustainable infrastructure (see the introduction to this series inspired by the book “Sustainable Infrastructure: Principles into Practice”).

We don't inherit the world from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children (Anon)

The concept of protecting the earth for our children has been one of the key ways that people have understood the environmental movement over the last 30 years. It has been posited that as a direct appeal to people's emotions, this is a strong motivation for people to act. Unfortunately, the evidence doesn't seem to support this view.

What is Infrastructure For? Social and Economic Sustainability Goals

Principle 2: Social and economic development

‘If you’re asking me to choose between conservation and development, I’m going to choose development every time.' Community worker in Democratic Republic of Congo

This is part of a series inspired by the book Sustainable Infrastructure. What is infrastructure for? And do we really have to make a choice between meeting people's needs and protecting the environment, as the quote above suggests? 

The purpose of most infrastructure is to improve social or economic outcomes (and let's face it, when one third of the world's people have no access to sanitation, there's no shortage of need) and that's why economic issues have traditionally been the biggest influence over project scoping and delivery.

For example, many projects are justified on the basis of a cost-benefit ratio, which may consider only benefits within the organisation (eg reduced maintenance and operation costs for a railway) or may additional calculate the wider economic benefits to users (eg the business case for HS2).

Putting it into practice 1: How do we live within our limits?

This post is part of a series inspired by the book "Sustainable Infrastructure: Principles into Practice" (see the introduction to the series here). Having examined the issue of planetary boundaries (Principle 1) in my last post, how can we put this knowledge into practice in real civil engineering situations? 

Two "operational" rules of thumb are proposed to ensure that all our buildings, transport etc protect rather than damage our planet's capacity to support life:

1.1: Set targets and measure against environmental limits
"If you can measure it, you can manage it"

Getting Transport Policy Right: The Harrogate Line Blues

Since August, my new job in Harrogate has meant a daily commute on the York – Harrogate – Leeds line, a secondary route in need of some TLC. But before I explain the problems, here are four things I love about my daily train journey:

1. The fantastic view over Knaresborough and the Nidd gorge from the Nidd Viaduct.
2. Mist rising gently over the flat fields of the Vale of York between York and Knaresborough (ie before it gets into the hills).

Advent Reflections 4: The Advent Antiphons

This post is the fourth in a series of weekly posts during Advent inspired by "Holy Boy", a Christmas oratorio which we're performing at Acomb Methodist Church on 21st December at 2.30pm.

The Advent Antiphons are an ancient set of seven Latin prayers recalling the promises of God, to be read or sung each day in the week between 17th December and Christmas Eve. These were immortalised in the carol "O Come, O Come, Immanuel", though we don't usually sing all seven verses! So over the next week I invite you to join me in praying through them as we prepare for Christmas. Thanks to the Northumbria Community for their inspiration in Celtic Daily Prayer!  

17^th December

O come, O come, thou wisdom from above, The universe sustaining with thy love.
Thou springest forth from the Almighty's mouth. Subdue us now, and lead us in Thy truth.

Advent Reflections 3: A Song of Mary

This post is the third in a series of weekly posts during Advent inspired by "Holy Boy", a Christmas oratorio which we're performing in Acomb on 21st December.

Having spent a few weeks considering the promise of Emmanuel, the story now moves to a teenage girl in an unknown small town, who has just been told that her life will be turned upside down by being unexpectedly pregnant with the Son of God (and not even married yet! What will the village gossips say, let alone her fiance?)

A Fossil-Free Nativity

This year I'm singing in two very different productions of the Christmas story. I've written previously about Holy Boy, a choral nativity we're perfoming in York on 21st December. Yesterday I took part in a fossil-free nativity play outside Methodist Central Hall, next to Westminster Abbey, calling for the Methodist and Anglican churches in the UK to follow the lead of the World Council of Churches and divest from fossil fuels. 

Wildlife on Holiday - Los Angeles

To what extent do geology, wildlife and climate help create culture and a sense of place? Over the last few weeks I've had the chance to explore this question in four cities with very different climates: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver.
In LA, the climate is hot and dry, with the city built within a bowl of mountains between the ocean on one side and desert on the other. Some places like Arizona and Texas embrace the desert as part of who they are, creating gardens of succulents like the Tequila cactus (which I'm told produces a sweet drinkable sap) and hardy arbuto trees with amazing bark which eventually strips off entirely and locust trees. These plants are in evidence on the hillsides next to the freeways, but hardly visible in the city at all. Instead, Los Angeles seems to be a city of dreams: green grass, palm trees and eucalyptus sustained only by sprinkler systems.

Blog Action Day 2014: Fuel Poverty Costs Lives and the Planet

Today I am joining thousands of bloggers across the world in Blog Action Day by blogging on a single subject: inequality.

This is an issue which affects all of us, with well-publicised research by the University of York’s Kate Pickett demonstrating that people living more unequal societies are less healthy, more anxious and more likely to be affected by crime, right across the income scale.

Research published in the Guardian showed that around 80% of Britons now think the income gap is too large, and the message has been taken up by world leaders. According to Barack Obama, income inequality is the "defining challenge of our times", while Pope Francis states that "inequality is the roots of social ills".

A new economics?

This week I bought an excellent book by economist Ha-Joon Chang  called "Bad Samaritans: Rich Nations, Poor Policies and The Threat to the Developing World". I'm looking forward to reading it, as his other book "23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism" is one of my favourites. On the other hand, I'm feeling somewhat jaded by the effusive comments on the back cover about these new and compelling ideas. I don't want to knock the ideas themselves, but I would contest the concept that they are new.
In fact, for the past 15 years I have campaigned about global injustice based on the evidence through which Christian Aid, WDM and many others have prominently and repeatedly demonstrated that the free market policies and privatisation forced onto poor countries by richer ones damage the countries forced to adopt them.

2014: Review of the first quarter!

We're nearly at the end of the first quarter of 2014 and I think that makes it time for a review of the year so far. I've been a bit quiet on the blogging front lately but I'm hoping to make up for that in April – I have loads of ideas and looking forward to some time over Easter to put them onto paper (virtually, at least). I set myself the aim this year that every month I will try to make a difference to climate change in four areas: personal and work-related carbon emissions, campaigning and prayer.

Climate Politics: Where Are We Now?

Addressing climate change requires international as well as local solutions, which means co-operation and negotiation on a grand scale. The scientific community has been doing this very well: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed in 1988, and has been called the largest international scientific undertaking in human history, with thousands of experts involved from around the world in the task of examining peer-reviewed technical literature and publishing the results to advise policymakers. Over the years, the language in the reports has grown stronger and stronger as the scientific consensus has grown more and more confident, to the point that the 4th report published in 2007 could state baldly that:

“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising sea levels”.

However, the policymakers' response to the ever-growing body of evidence that the climate is warming and that human activity is responsible has been essentially: “La la la, I'm not listening”

January Challenges

This post is a summary of my challenges for January, because it helps to be specific.
Personal: I will calculate my carbon footprint and publish the results. This will act as a steer for future months' challenges by highlighting the areas where I can achieve the most significant reductions.
Political: I will write a letter to my MP as part of Age UK's 'Spread the Warmth' campaign calling for measures to improve insulation for people on low incomes. This is really important, because Age UK's estimates indicate about 24,000 elderly people will die this winter unnecessarily because they cannot afford to heat their homes. Given that research indicates that the UK has the leakiest homes in Europe (letting more than 3 times more heat out of the average house wall than houses in Sweden, for example), we need to act.

Engineering: As I noted previously, this requires some research. So this month my challenge is to read my company's sustainability report and two  recently published reports about low carbon infrastructure: "Construction 2025" and "Decarbonising Infrastructure".
Prayer: This is a commitment to pray daily for an effective response to tackle climate change. This problem is much bigger than me, and I want to work with the creator of everything so prayer is absolutely key. To that end, I have signed up to Christian Ecology Link's prayer community and I'll be using their daily prayer guide to help me pray.

Storms, Floods and Landslides - An Engineer's Tale

At this point in my blog, I could try to explain to you the science behind climate change, and the ever-growing body of evidence demonstrating that the atmosphere is getting warmer and that this is almost certainly the result of human activity releasing astonishingly huge quantities of greenhouse gases. I could show you the 5^th report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published this year demonstrating yet again the consensus from scientists across the world about this problem.
But I won't, because you learned the basics of the greenhouse effect at school and people have an uncanny tendency to switch off as soon as anything is mentioned that relies upon them understanding any details about the workings of the troposphere. I am not a climate scientist, I'm a civil engineer. So instead, I will tell my own story of how the change in our climate is already affecting us in the UK and my daily work through storms, floods and landslides.

2014: The Challenge

In 2014 I want to live differently.  Instead of a traditional New Year's Resolution to lose weight or whatever, I want to start taking the environment seriously and make effective, long term changes to my habits and behaviour to reduce my contribution to environmental damage.  That is, I want to lose some carbon and keep it off!

I am sure that this year, as every year, the newspapers will be full of stories about New Year's Resolutions that apparently most people only manage to keep theirs for about a fortnight. But last year we tried something different in my workplace: the 'Change One Thing' campaign encouraged people to make just ONE change that they can sustain.