Author profile

I have been a green activist and environmental educator for 40 years. I am a former teacher and teaching assistant over the same time period.

My passion is education, especially waking up the world to the oncoming climate emergency. Nature and growing food have been real passions in my life. 

Beginnings

Whilst in education, I have run eco clubs and gardening clubs, teaching children to grow organic vegetables and creating two nature reserves. 

I am a founder member of Canalside Community Foods, a community supported agriculture project to produce locally grown organic vegetables and fruits.

I have also been a community activist since 1981. I was a founder member of the LETS trading scheme, a form of skills sharing not based on money. 

I have also chaired a local recycling group and written and performed a recycling road show called “Mr. Rubbish” to take round local schools.

I have now built a puppet theatre and written and performed stories for young children about the importance of protecting nature. 

I was a founder member of Transition Town Leamington and active in educating the public of the need to transition to a low Carbon economy.

My experience

Protest to protect the environment has been a large part of my life. 

I supported the campaign against climate on their first mass demonstration in 2001 in response to President Bush's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol. I joined them and 100,000 others in protests at the 2009 Copenhagen U.N. Climate conference. 

In 2015, I joined Friends of the Earth and attended a protest march at the Paris climate talks. I have been a long-term supporter of 350.org. 

In 2006, I was part of the first ever climate camp at the DRAX power station in Yorkshire U.K. Here I offered talks on Green Spirituality as well as offering my services as a child entertainer, having been a professional part time clown and magician for some years. 

I also joined two further climate camps at Heathrow Airport in 2007 and Kingsnorth power station in 2008 and again offered my services. 

In 2011, I attended the first anti-fracking protest camp at Camp Frack, near Southport. 

In 2018, I became a founder member of Extinction Rebellion and have been on all national protests in London and attend local protests in my role in the media and communications group. 

Other passions

I have written and performed Eco Songs since 1999 to spread the message of acting on biodiversity loss and climate change, I have played at the Leamington Peace Festival, Green Gathering, Climate camps, climate change marches, Green Party Conferences, and for Extinction Rebellion in London and Birmingham.

I have always been interested in spirituality and spiritual traditions and I have been a practising Buddhist since 1985.

My understanding of the need for compassion for the earth and living things led me to want to form the Green Spirituality Working group in the Green Party in 1989. 

With my late friend and author John-Francis Phipps the group tried to bring in a statement about spirituality into the philosophical basis of the Green party by working with different spiritual traditions.

We produced 7 issues of a magazine on green spirituality and when it ended, I made a commitment to write a book about Green Spirituality.

Writing journey

I started to research and write the book in 1997 and 13 years later finished it. 

This research was deepened by a trip to India in 2002 where I interviewed 130 Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, Muslim and Christian leaders about their teachings and the environment. 

I also studied Paganism, Shamanism, Taoism, the Bahá'í s, Judaism and Spiritualism. 

In this period, I also gave public talks on Green Spirituality at Green Party Conferences, Campaign against Climate Change conferences, the Big Green Gathering, Glastonbury festival, a friend of the Earth group, a United Nations Association group and a university group. 

I also got involved in inter-faith work being active member of the Birmingham inter-faith group and later Warwick District Faiths Forum. 

More recent years

In 2012, after the publication of my book I went on an Eco Tour to North America and gave talks at 25 venues in America and Canada.

This was to groups such as inter-faith groups in Washington, Chicago, New Orleans and Seattle and at the United Nations church in New York, Transition town groups in Montreal, Vancouver, Grass Valley and Los Angeles, Quakers in Philadelphia, Buddhists in Seattle, Christians in Chicago and Denver, Hindus at the ashrams in San Francisco, Grass Valley and Los Angeles, the Farm eco village in Virginia and the Sierra Club in Atlanta.

Presently, I am making YouTube videos on Green Spirituality and the Climate Emergency, with a channel entitled “The Climate Emergency and Spiritual Values”, which is based on my current book.