The Comb Lab newsletter : Equinox
Night and day lengths cross over in March. Unfortunately, a counter-equinox is stirring our lands. In mid-March, electoral marketing unabashedly transgressed the reality of accelerating climate change by unravelling the European green deal and its national variations.
On 15 March, the member countries of the European Council approved (at last!) a duty of care requiring multinationals to protect social and environmental rights. Unfortunately, the text adopted at the last minute was… much weakenedi. Short-term interests retain their privileges.
In response to the agricultural crisis, the European Commission has proposed changes to the rules of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Several environmental conditions have been dropped, including the protection of wetlands, which will no longer benefit from set-aside. NGOs deplore the fact that the revision has been rushed through without an impact assessment. Numerous European and French media covered the storyii.
Let’s not add to the dark side of the equinox by, for example, authorising « mega-trucks » instead of giving priority to rail freight, and let’s look at the bright side of the equinox.
Comb Lab is delighted to announce the inauguration of La Mallette des Combrailles! A pleasure shared with all those who have enabled, supported and contributed to the creation of this first version of the Mallette. This virtual toolkit, consisting of five videos for its launch, was funded by the Budget Éco Citoyen (BEC) of the Conseil départemental du Puy-de-Dôme. It’s important here to emphasise the approach. In addition to funding around sixty winning eco-citizen initiatives, the Conseil départemental organised, with dedicated and very supportive staff, a network of competition winners, offering numerous meetings and training courses. This approach enabled Comb Lab to benefit from the excellence of Agence Louise’s know-how to disseminate widely the expertise of our scientific friends at Groupe GREFFE and our vision of territorial resilience.
These five videos are the first elements of the Mallette des Combrailles. The Mallette aims to be a toolbox for resilience. In addition to these first videos and those to come, it will include methods, techniques, feedback and many other elements for building territorial resilience.
To encourage dissemination, the Toolkit is available on Comb Lab’s You Tube channel, and can be sent out on request if required. All distribution channels are of course welcome.
The second part of the good side of the equinox: it’s time to announce the Festival of Possibilities, to be held on 4 May in Blot l’Église (63440). Organised by the Combrailles Sioule et Morge Community of Municipalities, this major festival will give local residents the chance to become aquainted with initiatives working towards transition and resilience in the Combrailles region.
Comb Lab will be running a stand where visitors can find out all about the global and local issues at stake. Food concerns everyone, and the sustainability of food is a current challenge. Sustainability has to do with maintaining soil fertility over the long term, access to electrical energy for storage, access to fuel for distribution and energy for cooking. In short, food is the gateway to local resilience.
Our partners Groupe Greffe, Cisca, FNE63, Soli’Doume, Bio 63 and Combrailles Durables will be helping to run our stand, each highlighting the systemic dimension of food in their own specialisms. Interaction with the Territorial Food Programme (PAT) stand, set up by the elected representatives of the Combrailles region, will show how civil society and local authorities can complement each other, because neither of these two inseparable segments of society will be able to meet the unprecedented challenges of climate change on their own.
It’s a safe bet, then, that visitors to the festival will leave with ideas, questions and, we all hope, the desire to join one or other association to take part in the region’s transition/resilience.
In conclusion, the contents of the Mallette des Combrailles will enable everyone to grasp the true scale of the processes of climate change and biodiversity loss, from which no one can escape. The work of associations and citizens’ initiatives throughout the region means that anyone who wants to can take action in line with their skills and (more or less) available time. The non-rational setbacks for electoral reasons mentioned above contain a hollow cry of hope: change will come from the grassroots and from the alliance of organised civil society with local authorities… or it won’t!
i https://www.novethic.fr/economie-et-social/droits-humains/vote-devoir-vigilance-conseil-europeen-affaibli
ii Source Les Echos 16 03 2024. https://www.lesechos.fr/monde/europe/lue-propose-de-modifier-la-pac-au-prix-dun-affaiblissement-de-ses-ambitions-vertes-2083095