East Grinstead Bookshop welcomes professor for latest in a series of events highlighting climate change

Professor Goulson said: “We are all on the surface of a rock hurtling through space –this is it – this is what we have – we should look after it.”

This was the third in a series of climate change talks organised by The Bookshop which, said event organiser Helen Scott, has become ‘a trilogy in four parts’.

The first talk was from novelist Laline Paull.

Paull’s novels take dry academic research and turn it into page turning novels.

Her latest book, ‘Pod’ concerns the devastation in our oceans and the plight of dolphins and other marine life and is on the Women's Prize Longlist 2023.

Paull emphasised the need for a shared language, between the politicians, activists and people on the street.

Better understanding of the scientist’s research will help us all activity work together whether that’s by changing our lifestyle, lobbying MPs or campaigning.

Award-winning garden designer Marian Boswall, recently included in The Prolandscaper’s list of the most powerful women in landscape design, spoke next bringing an awareness of what we could do in our own gardens to make them more sustainable.

She reminded us that water is a finite resource, used over and over again as it evaporates and returns as rain: "The water we drink today was drunk by the dinosaurs. Make sure it leaves your patch cleaner than it arrived.”

The audience left clutching freshly signed copies of Marian’s ‘Sustainable Garden’, filled with ideas for the every day gardener.

Dave Goulson, whose talk sold out five weeks ahead of time, spoke of the need for regenerative farming, rewilding our outdoor spaces, making our urban spaces greener and holding our government to task on the use of pesticides.

“My crazy optimistic dream”, he said, “is that every garden in the UK should be gardened for nature … with local councils on board making the roadsides, parks and cemeteries green havens for insects, birds and humans.”

Goulson, nicknamed ‘the eloquent entomologist’ by the Daily Telegraph speaks as well as he writes.

‘A Sting in the Tale’, his first science-based memoir on the importance of the bumble-bee, is filled with humour.

His most recent ‘Silent Earth’ is a passionate manifesto for better ways of living.

All his books are beautifully written.

All three of our speakers emphasised man’s role in nature.

That we are just a cog in the natural environment which inhabits our planet.

We must clean up our act, both individually and globally, if our planet is to survive.

The fourth part of the trilogy will be on Thursday, April 27, when James Adler, chief executive of The Conservators of Ashdown Forest, will speak about the signs of climate change visible in our local forest.

His talk will be illustrated with the photographs of local photographer Craig Payne.

Copies of ‘Ashdown Forest Through the Seasons’, their beautiful photographic collaboration, are currently available at The Bookshop.

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