Transition Black Isle is about helping Black Isle communities thrive in the face of Climate Change.  We run community markets, we support local food and drink producers, we help people grow more food, we encourage non-car travel, support energy saving and promote reduction of single use plastics  - and much more.  If we in the Black Isle work together to manage more of our own resources, we can thrive despite whatever climate change and the end of fossil fuels throws our way.

All of us will be affected, all of us can do something for our lives and our children's lives.  How can we help each other?

Campaign for ethical investment by Highland Council pension fund

TBI is supporting a joint campaign aimed at persuading Highland Council Pensions Committee to divest from around £160m of holdings in unethical investments, particularly in armaments and fossil fuels.  The campaign is led by groups supporting the Highland Charter for Responsible Investment (formulated after several years of research and campaigning by Highland Palestine on armaments investments); and a Friends of the Earth Scotland 'Fossil-Free Highlands' group focussed on investments in fossil fuels.

Council adopts non-committal 'amendment' in place of fossil fuels and armaments divestment motion

A meeting of Highland Council on 9 September adopted without a vote a non-committal 'amendment' put forward by Councillor Ben Thompson, chairman of the pensions Investment sub-committee, in opposition to a motion proposed by Scottish Green Party councillor Pippa Hadley, on behalf of the joint Fossil-Free Highlands / Highland Charter for Responsible Investment campaign, urging the Pensions Committee to divest from fossil fuels, armaments and other unethical investments.

More information, text of the amendment, and links

Interview with Johan Rockstrom

The Observer   29 May 2021   Jonathan Watts

Johan Rockström is one of the world’s most influential Earth scientists.  As director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, he advises governments, corporations and activists, including his Swedish compatriot, Greta Thunberg, about the latest research on the climate and biodiversity and argues for better science communication.  Last year, he co-edited Standing Up for a Sustainable World, a book that brought together essays from climatologists, economists, environmental defenders, financiers and school strike activists.  In recent months, he has teamed up with David Attenborough to create  a new Netflix series, Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet, participated in President Joe Biden’s climate summit and co-organised a declaration by more than 100 Nobel laureates.

In a recent interview with Jonathan Watts, The Guardian’s global environment editor, Rockstrom referred to this 'urgent call for action' on climate change signed by over 100 Nobel laureates following the Nobel Prize summit in April 2021 (the subject of our previous Home page Feature),  and said

Never before have we seen such a global uprising of Nobel prize winners. They issued an emergency call from science to humanity, calling for reason, truth and humanism in the transformation towards an equitable and prosperous future in a safe operating space.

An emergency is calculated by risk divided by time. Risk is probability multiplied by impact. Scientifically, we now have a very unfortunate set of data in front of us. We know that the likely impact on humans of climate disruption, mass extinction and air pollution is very, very high indeed. The probability is also uncomfortably high. This adds up to a very high risk. Now divide that by time. We have unequivocal evidence that we have entered a decisive decade. If we have any chance to prevent the loss of more than a million species, we must halt biodiversity loss now, not in 20 or 30 years. If we want to have any chance of keeping global warming to 1.5C, we need to cut emissions by half over the next nine years. That is what the Nobel laureates and other scientists are speaking out about. This isn’t just a matter of raising the volume on the same old data - it is a new juncture. We are running out of time.

Read the full interview

Read previous Home page feature articles