Thanks for sharing your story. I’ve just had a quick look at the organizations you suggested - they really do look like people we should get in touch with!

We do hope we’re on to something with this, and that it’s part of a wider movement.

Thanks for your support.

My husband (Stephen Kinsella) is a very successful corporate lawyer and a few years ago he thought about giving up his job to do something more worthwhile - and then he realised that the most worthwhile thing he could do was to stay in his job and give his money away. So it is happening!

Do you know about Mike Dickson and Take One Step (you’ll find him on Google). He is doing wonderful work persuading the world to give away more money. Also are you in touch with The Funding Network - again Fred Mulder who chairs that organisation is an inspirational man who has persaded loads of people (us included) to give away money.

You are pushing at an open door!

Good luck,

Alice Jolly

PS. I am a Quaker and so particularly welcomed the comments on Quakerism which has always beeen a small but significant force in ethical business.

For me, we need to look more to how we won fundamental battles like those to form the NHS or bring into being the welfare state than we do to post 60’s campaigns that have been more focused on individual or part issues.

Would love to write more but have got to rush! See below article for some interesting thoughts:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/12/clicktivism-ruining-leftist-activism

But there was a P.S.

I meant to paste in this ‘Gramsci Beat’ update courtesy Rupert Read:

Gramsci updated: ‘Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will, realism of the intervention’. We need to ACT,realistically, pragmatically

David Wasdell talks about progression from denial, through despair, to *doing*.

And i think most of us spend a bit of time in each of these three places?

Denial isn’t exclusively the province of Monckton and co. We all go there, time to time. We have to, to cope, to give us a break!

And a bit of Despair, given the reality we face, isn’t really so inappropriate either?

The fun bit, the real bit, the tangible sexy physical bit, the ‘be here now’ bit, is the Doing. The Be the Change bit. The Cut The Carbon Crap bit. This is where the ripples of the carbon we cut can run deep. Just Do (b)it.

It’s obvious and it’s an old idea, but there can be tremendous (almost infinite) power in a ‘futile gesture’. (e.g. The Starfish on the beach rescue story.)

Every time we demonstrate, in our own life, without fuss or ceremony, that we take the subject of avoiding this carbon stuff deadly seriously, we send out truth ripples.

And sadly of course, every time we don’t, we send out the opposite signal, undoing all our good work.

One of my hopes is that we can soon bring to an end the era of ‘flying to climate conferences’ :o)

There are some people on this planet whose message is so compelling, and whose physical bodily presence so inspirational, that I would fight for their right to keep on flying. e.g. Gandhi, Mandela, Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Anita Roddick, Bill McKibben, Satish Kumar, … the list is long.

And me, I am *not* on it! So I chose not to fly (and haven’t flown long haul since 1981.)

Don’t be disturbed by your reaction to this :o) I am *not* saying it’s ‘wrong’ to fly - far from it. But I am saying that if one’s words are ‘extreme’ then one’s actions need to be congruent for any authenticity and integrity?

Once we’ve cleaned up a little at home, then we can clear the air and talk down and dirty about the heart of the matter: the carbon story. And our part in it.

- There isn’t a right way or a wrong way to talk about climate change - it totally depends on the audience.

- Can we bypass climate change altogether by talking about things which have a daily relevance (and also an impact on the climate), like food? I think this is a really exciting avenue - and linking the impact of our relationship with food to health, body image, community, family, animal rights, workers rights, food production, self-sufficiency etc.

- I think we’ll be able to talk about the ins and outs of carbon etc, and the enormity of the problem, once we start properly talking about the enormity of the solution. I haven’t found many people doing that yet.