28th May 2025 / 28th May 2025 by Susan Fenton
Poor air quality is detrimental to the health of our planet – not just for humans, but for all living things. Air pollution is a major public health risk, ranking alongside cancer, heart disease and obesity. It shortens lives and damages quality of life for many people and adults and children with lung or heart problems are at greater risk of symptoms.
Thankfully, there are people who care about and monitor the air pollution in towns, cities and countryside – people prepared to stand up to big industry and government and call out bad practice, often with consequences for their actions.
The speakers are at our latest Cloud Cafe event on Wednesday June 11 will be:
Dr Gary Fuller from Imperial College. Gary has been a leading light in the UK Research and Innovation Clean Air Programme. He led the development of the London Air Quality Network, is a member of the Medical Research Council Centre for Environment and Health, Defra’s Air Quality Expert Group and a project reviewer and steering group member for the Irish EPA.
Tom Jarman is co-founder of Community R4C, a community-owned organisation advocating for lower-cost, environmentally sustainable waste management. He will share their legal struggle against the installation of the incinerator and the latest research on the true costs of the incinerator (the most expensive in the country), current progress on legal advice and auditor complaint – and how this leads to a way forward which can mean less incineration of household waste, less pollution and lower costs.
Ruth Kettle-Frisby is co- founder of Clear the Air in Havering – a group connected to Mum for Lungs, a Quaker organisation whose purpose is to raise awareness about air pollution, tackle misinformation and champion the right to clean air for everyone. Ruth has taken Havering Council to court via a judicial review as a desperate last resort to challenge their recent decision not to designate land as contaminated. If they are successful, Havering Council and the Environment Agency will have to clean up the site once and for all.
Come and join us for an evening of discussion and debate with guest speakers. Everyone is welcome and the event is free. Can’t join us on the night? Register anyway and you will be sent the recording.
Register here: https://actionnetwork.org/events/the-health-of-our-planet-the-air-we-breathe/
WATCH OUR LAST CLOUD CAFE
All types of pollution in the environment gradually take their route to water in one way or another causing water pollution.
Water pollution is considered one of the most dangerous forms of pollution as water is the basis of all the forms of life on earth. Most of the deadly forms of water contamination are caused by man-made activities that result in the death and diseases of many organisms. It is responsible for the devastating effects on aquatic life as well as terrestrial life and can contain harmful disease-causing elements such as bacteria and viruses.
Toxic waste dumped into water bodies increases water pollution levels, gradually killing animals and plant life, destroying biodiversity, and decreasing the quality of oxygen in the water, leading to the death of living organisms.
NICOLA CUTCHER
Nicola updated us on the progress of work to clean up the River Wye as seen on the documentary Rivercide, a live investigative documentary streamed in 2021, presented by George Monbiot and directed by Franny Armstrong,
CHARLOTTE LAWRENCE
Charlotte talked about the Gloucestershire Citizen Science Project from WWT, funded by the Council with the aim of improving the health and status of water-related environments in Gloucestershire and the Severn Vale area.
SENARA
Senara spent many years working in TV documentary production in London before returning to Cornwall in 2009. Senara set up the group Keep Our Sea Chemical Free in 2023 and organised the protests against geo-engineering in the St.Ives Bay.
CONTRIBUTE
We have been running monthly Cloud Cafes since 2020. Most of our speakers offer their services for free and we are proud to offer such a great range of topics for discussion. If you are able to, please contribute towards the sessions.
Previous cloud cafes
You can watch all previous episodes of Cloud Cafe on our YouTube channel or browse below.
WOMEN & SAFETY – FEBRUARY ’24
The STATE OF OUR PRISONS – NOVEMBER ’24
Britain needs you – October ’24
GREENing education – September ’24
GREEN PARTY INFLUENCE IN BRITAIN AND EUROPE – July ’24
FAITH AND ACTIVISM – may ’24
Stroud’s history of dissent – April ’24
Doing Politics Differently – March ’24
Media Reporting on environmental Issues – February ’24
WHAT WOULD A PROGRESSIVE MIGRATION POLICY LOOK LIKE? – November ’23
ECONOMIC GROWTH OR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT? – September ’23
THE MACHINES ARE TAKING OVER, OR ARE THEY? – July ’23
A BRIGHT GREEN FUTURE – April ’23
FARMING POLICY – IS IT FIT FOR PURPOSE? – April ’23
STROUD YOUNG GREENS CLOUD CAFE TAKE-OVER – March ’23
LOSS & DAMAGE WITH SARAH QUEBLATIN – February ’23
GREEN MONEY, NOT DIRTY MONEY – January ’23
EQUALITY & DIVERSITY – November ’22
ENERGY – October ’22
A Party for the Future – September ’22
THE USE OF SATIRE AS SOCIAL COMMENTARY – may ’22
Enslavement, Colonialism & Empire – April ’22
What is the reality of poverty in Stroud? – march ’22
Art in Action and Action in Art – February ’21
Nationality & borders bill debunked – December ’21
COP26 special – The Day After – November ’21
COP26 special – Time for real action, our final chance for climate justice? – October ’21
Rod Nelson’s illustrations from cop26
India, the mother, the great Sacred Cow amongst nations, has produced a display stand of Bollywood magnificence, and considerable opulence. I scratch my head at what this means and why. The image I remember is a photograph of the ruthlessly political and extremely worldly wise Narendra Modi sitting in half-lotus on the Janpath in Delhi, with the magnificent Empire architecture of Lutyens as a background to hundreds and hundreds of Yoga practitioners joining with their Prime Minister to practice. If there is one thing I do know, it is that all people who practice Yoga are equal on the mat, so the image pleases me. And even though I know I am being a sucker for being pleased a soft smile comes to my mouth that there are certain things that cut through politics.
Every evening at 5, all comers from every nation on Earth, no questions asked, nobody excluded however unpromising, are welcome to come onto the Indian Stand to practice for an hour under some really delightful, stylish and expert Yoga tutors. Here we are, stretching ourselves in thirty languages. Thank you India!
The sinuous tarmac way to COP23 in November 2017 upon which the eternal thunderous ribbon of European prosperity snakes its way nose to tail into Germany, and I am part of it. But my purposes are different from almost everyone else in this procession.
I am sitting in a darkened room on a plastic chair, one of hundreds of minds and brains and energies organised neatly into serried rows in the Forestry conference day at the COP, a tiny speck of being, but the one I call me. As the speaker intones, I allow my eyelids to half close, and the sense of warm cosy sleepiness lulls me dangerously towards that indolent den of comfort, the oblivion of Morpheus. The speaker speaks of forests, forestry, forestry initiatives, of measures and protocols, standards and protections, parternships and planning and a whole lot else besides. Suddenly I snap out of it: there is some creativity to be done. I am instantly taken back to 1994 when I first went to a forestry conference. A sudden spark of realisation comes to me. THE LANGUAGE IS IDENTICAL. I have heard all this before. This single speaker has been speaking for twenty three years and nothing has changed!. Furiously I start to scribble down the words as they pour in an endless torrent from his mouth. I write them as they are.
Egged on by the magnificent and formidable Bianca Jagger, every shaman in the place is assembled in revolutionary defiance. WE NEED A SEAT AT THE NEGOTIATING TABLE! Yes, we do.
The faceless men……there they are, faceless, and there they are, men. Oh man! There must be money in it, no other explanation fits for the rapt attention, the full attendance, the complete order, such conformity. The room hangs on every word….or does it? I wonder what is going through the mind of the shaman sitting in front of me. I wonder what ancestral memories lie under that magnificent headpiece, what magical knowledge there must be on those shoulders.