Free online Earth Day talk by local "sustainability provocateur" Martin Brown

Martin Brown was due to give his presentation at Longridge Environment Group's own Earth Day last Saturday.

The day of events, ranging from talks and walks to poetry and music, had to be postponed due to the Coronavirus lock down.

But Martin, from Inglewhite, near Preston, who is one of the group's founder members, was determined to share the group’s vision of sustainable living and being more environmentally aware.

Martin, who runs his own sustainability consulting business called Fairsnape , was also determined to share the background to Earth Day, an event which originated in the United States 50 years ago and is credited with starting the modern environmental movement..

He will be delivering his planned free one hour talk “Earthday50 - Past and Future” online on Wednesday, April 22, at 2.30pm. The talk is subtitled “Shaping the new normal” and Martin, who describes his role as being a “sustainability provocateur”, said: "We don’t want to go back to what we had before COVID. We’ve now got a preview of what the earth could look like, the fresh air. We don't have the dual noise and pollution of fossil fuels. We don’t want to go back to bad air quality. We’ve got the opportunity now to start again and really do things better.”

For the last seven years Martin has presented an Earth Day talk to a variety of organisations. He is the lead for the Longridge Environment Group ecology team and author of FutuREstorative: Working Towards a New Sustainability.(www.fairsnape.com)

• The talk will be presented via Zoom. Book a talk ticket at Eventbrite by searching for EarthDay50 ... Past and Future,

• Longridge Environment Group is also launching it's own Green Longridge initiative, asking local residents to submit copies of sketches, paintings, photos and images of how people are currently seeing and connecting with local nature.

Its website advises: "Starting EarthDay 22 April, we want you to help us keep a 30 day record of this unique period. It will be our Green Longridge legacy. How are you noticing nature in the garden, or, when you are out and about on your daily exercise, how did it make you feel?

"Nature is helping us cope during lockdown, instilling a sense of calm. But it is important we remember how much it gave us, once this is all over."

Images should be submitted on Twitter @LongridgeEG, or on the group's Facebook page, Instagram, or by email to [email protected]

Every submission needs the hashtags #GreenLongridge #inoticenature

There will be three categories, for primary and secondary school pupils and adults. The best entries will be posted on social media and be exhibited in the Longridge Heritage Centre.