John Payne
We have a smallholding and manage woodland. I am part owner of the local village shop and produce firewood and kindling. I oppose intensive livestock units and support the Forest of Dean XR group.
Location Lower Wye Valley Wales
Activity
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John Payne made a comment
Relate it to local events and factual risks of being related to. extreme weather over decent length timescales .
For example our local Citizen Scientist group linked a landslide on the main trunk road into Wales to a 180% increase of rainfall over a 18 month period compared to long term average. We could then show that this had destabilized the steep... -
John Payne made a comment
My purpose is a practical one in making communities more resilient and not relying on large corporations to provide us with for example factory farmed animal products that rely on long supply chains and are highly processed products. In confronting climate change we look forward to local solutions which come from local people.
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John Payne replied to Summer Winton
In my experience a healthy expression of anger and incredulity can be more useful, particularly in the area of heavy transport and intensive industrial farming sectors that I deal with. The trick is being able to switch off your anger and then constructively deal with their response.
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John Payne made a comment
I think cultural memes, rather than individualism and collectivism have more traction.
Unless one is a communicator that that travels widely it is more useful to study and react to prevailing local cultural norms -
John Payne made a comment
I am not sure that this
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John Payne made a comment
What I took away from Covid was the importance of local resilience and making local relevant changes in behaviour rather than obeying central political decisions. In our case in a small village on a National border, it was the role of the village shop and local social media, we with others part own the shop., it’s footfall increased considerably as we...
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John Payne made a comment
It’s the forum for communication that is difficult. After years of demos, I believe that the best strategy is to piggy back on current unfolding environmental disasters such as wild fires and river pollution, when on a hot day you long for a wild swim.
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John Payne made a comment
A s strong message from the Third World, they are not discussing whether Climate Change is relevant or threatening their lives, they are losing their homes. In the video he mentions not just mitigation or adaptation, but reversing the present CO2 levels.
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John Payne made a comment
I also use Mind Maps and create a framework that articles, say from the New Scientist or Economist can be collected and accessed.
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John Payne made a comment
A Clear description of how the earth has maintained a stable energy balance, despite glacial and interglacial cycles and sometimes quite marked and dramatic regional climatic changes. This has been associated with a remarkably constant level of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
But over the past 175 years C02 levels are on their way to doubling. This is... -
John Payne made a comment
Yes! The segment inexplicably chose No, this is incorrect!
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John Payne made a comment
That I have now been actively involved in Climate related action for the past decade.
My viewpoint and activism is something that a majority of people in the UK now share, but that a much smaller proportion of people have the agency to participate in changing their lifestyles -
John Payne made a comment
Danger
Ignorance
Unpredictability -
John Payne made a comment
There was a rockfall on the A40, the major trunk road into Wales 18 months ago. We believed that this was related to recent heavy rainfall ( 180%> than lta).
We discovered that the steep slope was faulted above the rockfall and that there was no operative drainage under the dual carriageway. Eventually National Highways listened to our concerns and closed... -
John Payne made a comment
Physical changes in our rapidly changing world come with instability and volatility in our everyday lives.
What markers in this realm would you choose? -
John Payne made a comment
Hi, I am a woodland worker and an Extinction Rebellion activist. I work by engaging people by being part of the Forest of Dean Samba Band ( very little musical Ability) and act as a Citizen Scientist in assessing Extreme weather on our Road infrastructure. I live on a forestry track in Wales and actively support “ Save the River Wye ‘ from the intensive...
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John Payne made a comment
I live in the Lower Wye Valley just in Wales. We are environmental activists and are looking to produce a mechanism that helps us assess the problems that Climate Change will have upon Ecosystems, economic activity and our lives, particularly with regard to food security and personal safety ( whether due to extreme weather or conflict) that often is...
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John Payne made a comment
Earl Brictric owned Upper Redbrook, the village just across the Wye from where we live. He was an indigenous Anglo Saxon wealthy land owner, but fell out of favour, apparently spurning the romantic advances of Matilda from Flanders who later became William the Conqueror’s wife, she later imprisoned him and he died in prison.
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John Payne made a comment
Whilst doing a survey on a major road in Wales which is subject to landslides I found it fascinating to trace old watercourses, one such stream, which is now culverted cooled a Gas works which supplied a local large country house.
Apparently the landed, wealthy gentry were not immune to spending large sums of money to keep up with the latest mid Victorian... -
John Payne made a comment
I see a very wooded landscape opposite to me on the other side of the valley, just one kilometre north is the site of the old tinplate works. It is now a small housing estate, but 150 yrs ago the valley would be full of smoke, the trees coppiced and the train running directly below me in the cutting beneath my cottage.
My small cottage would be divided in... -
John Payne made a comment
Really need to know more about LIDAR for a project I am doing on an unstable wooded hillside. Have downloaded it onto my Books section on my IPad, so useful thanks!
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John Payne made a comment
If landscapes can now, with our exploitive consumerism be lost and transformed, where and how can we continue to protect and link them to local communities.
In the UK planning laws are easily exploited by large companies and developers. -
John Payne made a comment
As someone who is committed to protecting landscapes, particularly those associated with rivers and ancient forests, it seems that HLC still cannot adequately enable these landscapes to be saved from corporate bodies with their economic expansion.
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John Payne made a comment
It is hard to reconcile the huge movements of the continents across the globe with the local movements of say the Permian sandstone that our cottage in Wye Valley sits on. The sandstone is older than Pangea, and although it has been subjected to all these pressures and movements it’s stratigraphy is still recognizable and I can work with to it identify areas...
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John Payne made a comment
After I retired I went on a camping holiday with my wife and children to British Columbia and after a flight in a small floatplane and a five mile journey on a Zodiac arrived at Ninstints off the southern coast of Haida Gwaii
https://parks.canada.ca/pn-np/bc/gwaiihaanas/culture/cultural-sites-culturels
This is a very isolated spot which gives a picture of... -
John Payne made a comment
As an environmental activist I see the Landscape, in its holistic state, as described in the introduction of the course as threatened. Often by the same political organizations that periodically seem to want to transform and change our Landscapes over quite short periods, which relate to their political ascendancy and then decay. Well meaning institutions seem...
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John Payne made a comment
Landscape for me it is a lived experience that has continued back many hundreds of years. It is the stone quarry in the forest of Dean and the line of the plate track that my family used a horse to pull the stone down to the village. The road, 10 m below, now follows it down the valley
That’s why I find it so difficult to describe the sprawl of a suburb or... -
John Payne made a comment
I live just inside Wales along a forestry track that runs beside the River Wye. I manage woodland and sell firewood and kindling. In another life I worked 30 years as a General Medical Practitioner.
6 months ago there was a Rockfall onto the A40, the main trunk road into Wales, it has been partially closed since then. We formed a Citizen Scientist Group with... -
John Payne made a comment
The median amount of MPs/day has been quoted at 553 particles/person/day. Sperm concentration and subsequent fertility has declined by 1/7 since the introduction of the widespread use of plastics (Mann U., Shiff B., Patel P. (2020). Reasons for worldwide decline in male fertility.)
Does this affect other species, particularly oceanic ones? What other modern... -
I am not surprised, I live in a village that experienced the very first pangs of the Industrial Revolution, particularly the first coal smelting of copper https://www.wyevalley-nl.org.uk/exploring-wye-valley-aonb/heritage/industrial-wye-valley/
The housing built on the site of the old tinplate works had to have all the top soil removed, I would not grow veg... -
John Payne made a comment
I found it interesting that in the literature soya was found to be often contaminated with TAs ( 30% in some cases) often from Datura seeds. Cocaine is also described as a TA, but doesn’t seem to cause harm in cola drinks.
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John Payne made a comment
We live on a Welsh forestry track, there is an intensive dairy and beef unit at one end of the track and our woodland in the Forest of Dean is despoiled by a Feed mill and large IPU ( intensive poultry unit) . We have contributed to closing that down because of its damage to the woodland with its Ammonia emissions and pollution to the River Wye.
Intensive... -
John Payne made a comment
Wales, I am part of “Save The Wye” preventing water pollution and woodland damage by ammonia from Intensive Poultry Units.
We are very conscious that agriculture contributes as much to climate Degradation as the Fossil Fuel industry.
Just as we have to move away from Fossil Fuels we must transition away from intensive industrial animal husbandry. -
John Payne made a comment
1. An XR Samba Band meet at Lydney Docks in the Forest, could explain about river pollution and likely sea level rise in the Severn Estuary. 70 people signed up
2. Band outside the COOP in the same time, generally not the same engagement with different audience, less relevant venue -
John Payne made a comment
Governments do everything to keep a positive spin alive!
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John Payne made a comment
I agree broadly with what are said to be survey supported connections, but they reflect views that human society is linear in its acquisition of knowledge, useful infrastructure and rationality.
Unfortunately this may not be the case as in the past societies were cyclical and experienced periods of decline and even extinction.
We are entering a downward path... -
John Payne made a comment
Catastrophic inevitable technology
Software baulked and crashed at my suggestions! -
John Payne made a comment
COP 26 in Glasgow, left feeling depressed at the fate of the indigenous peoples who were part of the protest and should have been included in the dialogue
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John Payne made a comment
When our group went to Lydney Docks to protest against River pollution and highlight Climate Change issues
https://www.facebook.com/groups/XRFOD/permalink/1249435789105315/ -
John Payne made a comment
How do we engage with big businesses that have unsustainable and climate wrecking policies, like Avara, Cargil and Noble Foods whose activities have killed the Ecosystem of The River Wye that I live beside
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John Payne made a comment
To be more effective in getting the message across and finding a better way than scaring everyone with apocalyptic gloom.
Using music with the message, I play the Tamb in an XR Samba Band -
John Payne made a comment
Here is my effort on a project that I am involved in using the UN Tripartite Guidelines on Zoonotic Disease.
https://prsm.uk/prsm.html?room=ALJ-RMW-MNX-JLZ
I think you can create different levels of connection between the factors? Useful to add notes, about the technical features, but quite different from mind map -
John Payne made a comment
This is easier to use than Mindmaps. I am in the process of mapping a Multi sectorial coordinated framework to illustrate how to assess Intensive Poultry Units for Zoonotic diseases, taking the approach offered by the UN Tripartite Guidelines for Zoonotic Disease.
The resource does seem to involve System Thinking, but it lacks a way to aggregate all the... -
I have to say that what makes Wales such a great place to live, is it’s regionality and lack of speedy transport corridors!
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John Payne made a comment
Mind mapping has been very helpful to me for understanding and retaining information. Looking back at mindmaps that are now twenty years old I can get a clearer sense of where I was and what I was thinking.
I was taught the SOAP concept at VGH ( Vancouver General Hospital) in the 1970s.... -
I own woodland and one very poor quality field, with the Demise of The Common Agricultural Policy and the introduction of EWCO there has been a complete change in policy, now it is about Environmental Goals and Public Benefit.
For Natural Colonization or Re Wilding, one third of a very generous grant is for Public Access. One of my brothers fails to... -
John Payne made a comment
3.3 either I am very honest or just so old that I reflect and am infused with a post war (WW2- not that old) spirit of rebirth and hope!
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John Payne made a comment
Although it may not be a very objective statement and does increase the gulf between academic research and personal experience, it is clear to me that educational achievement, political affiliation and personal achievement and autonomy all are major contributions to the richness or flatness of our minds.
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John Payne made a comment
Since my retirement I had focused on filling the “empty spaces” in my day and life. My previous life had no interstitial gaps, work, children, woodland and often having to work at night, leaving the house in the early hours.
I found That with COVID I was forced to slow down, think more critically and not pass off my numerous poor decisions as just stemming... -
For too long society has seen itself as powerless and has valued the “status quo” rather than opting for radical change. Russia is such an example where Totalitarian control has sidelined political discourse and produced a mindset where the decision making processes are left to the leader. Iran has been controlled by Religious Ideologues, the USA by huge ...
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John Payne made a comment
We have to also think from a European perspective, and here I distance myself from Brexit , an analogous state to Trump and the GOP.
Faith doesn’t resonate in the UK as it does in the US, something Gus does mention as having the capacity to be transformational. I have found the comradeship of Extinction Rebellion mind altering, enhanced by the experience of... -
John Payne made a comment
I like to think now that when I joined Extinction Rebellion in 2019, turned up with a few people at the northern end of Waterloo Bridge on a Monday morning that I was exerting leverage on the system. The bridge, a major commuting avenue into London was held for five days, despite repeated efforts to clear it by the police.
Donella’s contribution I find too... -
My local MP David Davies who opposed the Welsh Government’s plan to stop all new major road projects in Wales, particularly the M4 relief road in Newport and the plan to build a new bridge to Anglesey.
He would prefer to encourage road traffic in the interests of his ideological pursuit of free enterprise and personal freedom of choice.
The Welsh government... -
I do like the way that the Climate Co- Benefit Portal only gives two adverse trade offs but many Benefits from ecologically sensible measures. Whilst it maybe that most adaptation and mitigation measures for Climate Change are positive, I am more than concerned that market forces and ingrained habits may actually result in far more deleterious trade offs.
We... -
John Payne made a comment
Chicken waste dumped on the land adjacent to the Wye, fueled by large IPUs ( Intensive Poultry Units) funded by US food corporations has turned the Wye into a dead river.
Even in the presence of a huge price rise in fertilizer prices it is not economical to move these mountains of waste because they are mainly water.
Here is Avara’s solution... -
We should concentrate on Sustainable goals 1 and 8, reducing poverty and providing decent work and economic progress. But that does mean that developed economies need to stop growing and act more sustainably. Humans flourish in being occupied with physical work that unities family units and communities and not working in new, and growth led technologies that...
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John Payne made a comment
In the autumn I attended a Venture Capital Event at The Shard in London to go live ( without their knowledge) on their nationwide Zoom event, to make a plea on the behalf of Extinction Rebellion for them to embrace Disruptive Technology. But here I was thinking of new housing with point pillar foundations rather than concrete ones, abandoning fossil fuels and...
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John Payne made a comment
The subsidizing of fossil fuel prices, the promotion of huge road projects by our local Tory MP and the expansion of IPUs by large US Poultry corporations in the promise of providing an income for small family owned farms.
The only good sign is that our Welsh Government has had the sense to cancel a vast road programme, they have been reading and... -
In the UK our landscape is only about 12-13,000 years old. I own an ancient wood in the Forest of Dean with my brothers, it contains remnants of the huge Forests of small leaf lime that used to dominate Post ice age Britain.
Our landscape is dominated by farming communities, from the sheep ravaged uplands to the huge agricultural plains in East Anglia.
It... -
John Payne made a comment
Matt Ridley is a pernicious example of self interest, he owns a coal mine!
Inequality seems to directly stem from the process of worshiping economic growth for its own sake.
We have yet to find a politician who can square personal happiness, health and economic equality with the material aspirations of a wealthy society. -
John Payne made a comment
I am a forestry worker and have been pretty stressed by the whole process of delivering firewood and kindling on a “ Just in Time” basis. The huge demand this winter with the energy crisis has drained me!
3 days ago, before I started the course I decided I was going to concentrate on doing batches of drying and packing, rather than assembling orders. I also... -
The death of the River Wye which flows below the forestry track which separates our small holding from the river.
Caused mainly by IPUs spreading the chicken manure on fields in the catchment area and also by illegal
Sewage discharges. -
John Payne made a comment
Polycrisis, such an evocative term caused by the poly effects of a single species which dominates the world.
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John Payne made a comment
For me it’s about acting as a citizen rather than a consumer and agent for large corporations and political parties that are chasing economic growth.
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John Payne made a comment
I am a woodland manager and firewood producer, I also have a professional interest in Zoonotic Disease, such as Covid and the new threat posed by avian flu.
I work with Save The Wye and oppose IPUs (intensive Poultry Units) in the Lower Wye Valley. -
John Payne made a comment
I already do think differently since joining The Forest of Dean Extinction Rebellion group in 2019!
What is interesting is that the general public are no longer hostile or dismissive. -
John Payne made a comment
I live (just) in Wales and manage woodland, run a small business selling firewood and kindling and have a financial stake in the local community village shop and Post Office.
I am a member of Extinction Rebellion and am acutely aware of changes in the weather and landscape as I am pretty old!
My wife runs a pressure group opposing IPUs ( intensive poultry... -
John Payne made a comment
I am too busy carving a sustainable living on my smallholding, I have already made the leap from reflection to action, it has taken me at least ten years.
What hope is there for those with the demands of a younger family, rising costs and the forced commitment to work that envelops all one’s time and energies. -
The SDG are useful, but the discussions will flounder because few nations have a viable energy policy to supplant fossil fuels.
They are also wedded to the mantra of growth and personal wealth.
We are just starting to reach the era where these two aspirations can no longer be achievable in the developed world. The developing world has already failed to see... -
John Payne made a comment
I start in the village I live in and take as the focus the village shop, I own 1/8 of the community business and provide the Fuelwood and kindling.
I see the village as a unit, hopefully a resilient unit.
The next step up from the village is the District Council area, it is only just recently that the Council have started to listen to the voices of the... -
Climate action as this has been my focus for the last decade and sums up the critical problem of unsupportable growth, both in consumer behaviour and ur effects on other ecosystems.
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John Payne made a comment
Twice last month when I marched with the Forest XR Samba Band to Parliament Sq and two weeks later to Downing St to protest at “short termism” and lack of action on environmental issues.
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John Payne made a comment
Robbie is talking about the framework that we have to acquire and then experience to enact change. You get all of this, including the important social connections and reaffirmation of values if you join a protest group.
A very good example in our area of The Marches is the “ Save the Wye” movement that works to restrain the intensive poultry industry. -
John Payne made a comment
I am increasingly becoming more challenged by the frustration that I see in listening to politicians, both local and national who don’t seem to get it, it being ecological and landscape breakdown.
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John Payne made a comment
This chimes with what I have found, I have embraced more pro social views by joining Extinction Rebellion in 2019, this channeled my energies into meeting more ecologically and socially aware people
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John Payne made a comment
I am a member of Extinction Rebellion and recently have learnt to drum in our Forest of Dean Samba Band. It is joining a movement that enables one to grow emotionally and increase a knowledge base in a community of people whose priorities are being sustainable not are afraid to take affirmative action to realize them.
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John Payne made a comment
The timeline was important to me, I often feel that my life is on a continuous loop, having such a small place on the 45m line, at about a third of the width of a human hair reminds me of my place in the linear progression of history.
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John Payne made a comment
Muesli, dried figs from Turkey, yoghurt and two slices of home baked bread with honey. Coffee and oatmilk.
I am a veggie, since 1988 when I met my wife. -
John Payne made a comment
Fight industries such as the intensive poultry units and engage others so that they understand it’s impact upon rivers and woodland by the pollution generated from the IPUs. Use this example as a model to understand why some practices and industries are unsustainable.
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John Payne made a comment
Core to sustainability is the concept of a knowledgable local community that acts to be resilient, whilst at the same caring for the landscape and its inhabitants. Define unsustainablity as the pursuit of individual gain and consumption.
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John Payne made a comment
Sustainability for me, comes down to the practical struggle of running a smallholding and woodland with fun, where I try and temper my consumer drive and support my bank balance.
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John Payne made a comment
I am a climate activist living just inside Wales in the Lower Wye valley, we own and manage woodland in the Forest of Dean. I run a small business selling firewood, kindling and making charcoal. Eight of us own the village community shop and Post Office.
Despite being retired, the government keep maintaining me on the active medical list, ( do they fear... -
John Payne made a comment
Online learning on issues like sustainability, climate change and the subsequent economic and social consequences are best discussed and then related to local landscapes and events. Having interested friends or a local Extinction Rebellion group can really help bridge the gap that is often felt between the short term politician’s field of vision and normalcy,...
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John Payne made a comment
I would read Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy first!
Mars has immense highlands, how could one cope perceptually after a month in a cramped spaceship, how easy would it be to use a plasma propulsion unit to slow down when there is almost no atmosphere to slow the descent onto the planet surface? -
John Payne made a comment
We should move to Bioregional economies, where the energy resources are matched to local resources and money is used as a transactional force for change rather than a means of investing in speculative ventures whose costs are obviated by inflation.
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John Payne made a comment
What is the ultimate efficiency of the fusion reactor, the ratio of energy consumed in the process compared to the yield?
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John Payne made a comment
So what is gravity? It seems to affect solids, gases and fluids, but does it influence plasma?
Are electromagnetic waves more powerful than gravity, or is gravity only a property of objects in the supra atomic world? -
John Payne made a comment
I am perplexed by the apparent virtual reality of matter at the subatomic level.
Is this the result of the limitations of my human physiology, perceptive apparatus and data processing abilities, or is it because we do not have access to the programmes that assembly our reality out of the apparent chaos of fundamental particles and their properties? -
John Payne made a comment
I am also 73 yrs young, retired from medicine in 2009. FutureLearn has helped develop my interest in Climate issues and Zoonotic disease.
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John Payne made a comment
There has been a huge expansion of knowledge in fundamental science over the past 120 years. But can we be really confident in the Provenance and Confidence of this knowledge, I hope this course will help me decide.
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John Payne made a comment
Some of our schools are so huge, it was only after our youngest daughter left the local comprehensive at 16 years old that she gained confidence and realised her potential.
Rural settings can be quite socially isolating with long transit times. This kind of work, looking beyond educational attainment goals helps develop the person and give them their voice. -
John Payne made a comment
We live in one of the less diverse parts of the UK, the Forest of Dean.
Inertia and sequestration of BME communities has an effect upon an understanding and interaction to meet these goals. -
John Payne made a comment
I was struck by the comment that Zarina made about Climate Change not being an abstract concept, but rather reality for many people from diverse backgrounds. My wife reminds me that it is best not to lump people from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds together. The label that aggregates them is discriminatory.
Their interests are best discovered by... -
John Payne made a comment
I am reading “ The Dawn of Everything” by David Graeber and David Wengrove
, they describe a time when the inhabitants of Britain, at a time in the past, roughly in tune with the erection of Stonehenge changed their life.
They were finding the hard, restricting and burdening toil of farming less preferable than the old life of hunting and gathering wild... -
John Payne made a comment
I have a lifetime of trying to persuade people to see themselves and their problems in a different light. I had a role in a Substance, alcohol and Miss Use Team as well as working in a Community Day Hospital for the Elderly.
It was only when I retired and went back to college to work part time on a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy course that I understood the... -
John Payne made a comment
Yesterday a friend sent me a link for a zoom meeting to the Climate Action Group which is co-ordinated by The Forest of Dean Council’s Climate Emergency Officer. It has the following remit-
“How can the outcomes of COP26 support the net zero ambitions of businesses, policy makers and communities in the Forest of Dean District?”
I think the question is flawed... -
My sustainability issue is food, particularly the unsustainability of intensive livestock factory units.
Sitting in my pickup with the dog for an hour, I counted the 44 tonne HGVs going down a small country lane to an IPU for Turkeys and a Feedmill. I counted four in an hour, one was a huge oil tanker to run the mill, the remainder were carrying feedstock for... -
John Payne made a comment
My circle of influence has been quite small, but this week it is hopefully enlarging as I took part in a TV report on intensive poultry units and their effect upon so many Ecosystems as well becoming an untouchable, totemic emblem of consumerism. BBC West news at 6pm on Monday 13th Dec.
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John Payne made a comment
Well for me it is overcome my total loss of musical ability and persevere to learn to play the High Surdo drum in our local Extinction Rebellion Samba band. Emotion and solidarity are important components of generating change and I want to use it to contribute to the dialogue on Climate Change.
