Harry Mellor

meeting reports

A brief overview of climate dynamics (and how we try to predict changes)

A general transcript of the 16 April 2026 presentation to CA-WN by Dr Colleen Golja. _____________________ Preface by CA-WN Planet Earth sits in the infinity of space, powered by our sun, a nuclear reactor 150 million kilometres away. Since day one, roughly 4,600,000,000 years ago, geological

opinion

Crisis, what crisis ...

… the crisis that our politicians and the populist media prefers not to mention. CA-WN doesn’t do capital P Politics but it would be socially irresponsible if we didn’t couple the climate crisis to the elephant in the room. And call for action. First, the expert briefings on

BIOSPHERE: a drama

Theatre Director Olivia Munk1 invited CA-WN to the Royal & Derngate Theatre for the 21 November 2025 première of Olivia Foan’s2 drama BIOSPHERE. Many of us accepted and these are my personal observations. The inspiration for the drama was a 1991 experiment in self-sufficient living called Biosphere

net zero

Net Zero Stocktake 2025

The Net Zero Stocktake 2025 assessed progress in setting and strengthening whole-economy net zero targets and evaluated more than 4,000 entities on whether current plans and strategies contain the key components for deep decarbonisation. The world must reach net zero carbon dioxide emissions in the early 2050s if

nature

Hedgehog Awareness Week

The 2025 national campaign to help hedgehogs runs from 4 –10 May. Do you have hedgehogs in your neighbourhood? Hedgehogs play a vital role in controlling insect populations and are an important part of our ecosystem, but they face growing threats from habitat loss and road traffic. What can we

opinion

popcawn April 2025

CA-WN is not a political group and The CA-WN Exchange is not a political platform. But CA-WN cannot stay silent at election time. Our elected representatives hold all the levers of power essential for delivering on CA-WN’s mission: the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from

opinion

Meet the Steering Group - Harry Mellor

As others in the Steering Group are busy with local election matters it falls to someone with zero personal election interest to introduce themself. Q1. What is your motivation for being involved with the environmental movement and with CA-WN in particular? Simple questions that in my case warrant detailed,

popcawn - March 2025

Wokeness is trouble. Wokeness is bad. It’s gone. It’s gone. So said President Donald J Trump in his 4 March 2025 address to US Congress. Is this the template for leadership that we can expect in West Northamptonshire? Why have words like Woke or acronyms like ULEZ been

council Featured

Things Can Only Get Better

Wouldn’t it be great if things could only get better. But they won’t if we carry on with ‘Business as usual’. Our headline image is taken from a recent peer-reviewed publication relating air quality (AQ) to public health outcomes1. The left image represents 2019 estimates of PM2.

local matters

West Northamptonshire Area Climate Summit 2024

On Wednesday 9 October 2024 representatives from West Northamptonshire town and village councils met at Delapré Abbey for the area’s first ever Climate Summit. Over 50 delegates took this first step in a five-year programme intended to develop and support local projects aimed at dealing with, and lessening

housing

Visit to Nottingham Energy Partnership

Nottingham Energy Partnership (NEP) is a climate change and fuel poverty charity working across Nottinghamshire. They share CA-WN’s aims of reducing carbon emissions, increasing resilience and lessening reliance on fossil fuel. On our visit we were welcomed by their Chief Executive Officer, Miranda Cumberbatch, their former CEO Philip

business

If only ...

London is about to trial an electric bus that looks like a tram, has a claimed range of over 200 miles and batteries that can be topped up in ten minutes at bus stands fitted with overhead charging points. The ieTram1 is manufactured at a purpose-built plant in Basque

food & farming

Syan Farm visit

What is a Vertical Farm? As the vertical farmers at Syan Farm themselves say: "With space and time running out for open field farming, we’re looking up. We grow beautifully nutritious crops on multiple levels – vertical farming. It saves on space, reduces carbon and gives us total control

bookshelf

Britain's Housing Crisis

Broken Homes: Britain's Housing Crisis: Faults, Factoids and Fixes by Peter Bill and Jackie Sadek Today’s housing crisis featured in an earlier Bookshelf. I make no apology for another housing-related reading recommendation, this time 200 or so pages of useful historic context, anecdotes and picture-painting

bookshelf

Our Housing Disaster: and what we can do about it

This little book, smaller than A5 and just 180 pages, by Julian Richer, entrepreneur and philanthropist, examines how our housing got to such a disastrous situation and suggests what we can do about. This is an essential and quick read for anyone wishing to understand the causes of today’s

council

New Local Plan for West Northamptonshire

West Northamptonshire Council is preparing a new Local Plan to guide the future development of our region. This post reveals how local planners made it possible to allow huge scale developments in the open countryside near Towcester. Harry Mellor – a resident of Easton Neston, the Parish next to Towcester – suggests

air

What's in our schools' air?

West Northamptonshire schools are being offered a free SAMHE air quality monitor and education resources. Why not sign up your school for the SAMHE project? Act now because registration closes at the end of May! SAMHE (pronounced ‘Sammy’) stands for Schools’ Air Quality Monitoring for Health and Education. It is

bookshelf

Last Chance to Find Duke

This is something different to lighten the mood, an utterly charming cartoon story by a Chinese author and illustrator – which explains why its English language speech bubbles have to be read from right to left. An insect researcher called 063 sets off to find a rare species of cricket whose

individual impact

Six things for you and the world

Travel – Walking and cycling are healthy for you and healthy for the planet. For longer distances consider travelling by train instead of driving or flying. Renewable Energy – Switch your contract to a renewable energy supplier if your electricity supply is not already from 100% renewable sources. Switching a contract can

local matters

ONE in Milton Keynes

The ONE Campaign, sponsored by many of the world’s greatest charitable foundations, hosted a Great Big Green Week event for Milton Keynes. And CA-WN was invited. A diary clash had pushed the event to Saturday 24 June, the week after the official GBGW, which very usefully highlights that

water

GBGW 2023: There’s no more water

It’s true. All the water in the world is just that, all the water in the world. No one knows how water got here and we can't make more H2O. Welding two parts of hydrogen to one part oxygen doesn't work, unlikely as that seems

housing

GBGW 2023: It starts at home

The government figures shown here chart our collective contribution to global climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions. Because everything we do has a climate consequence let’s keep in mind that when it comes to reducing emissions, as they say, every little helps - one way or another. With nearly half a

air

CA-WN's Air Quality Monitoring Project

Air pollution matters. No one likes bad smells but airborne particles can damage human health so it is important to know what is in the air we breath. For Northamptonshire there is just one official site for measuring air pollution. This project complements official measurements with real-time outdoor, hyper-