Every September 22nd people from around the world get together in the streets, intersections, and neighbourhood blocks to remind the world that we don’t have to accept our car-dominated society.
But we do not want just one day of celebration and then a return to “normal” life. When people get out of their cars, they should stay out of their cars. It is up to us, it is up to our cities, and our governments to help create permanent change to benefit pedestrians, cyclists, and other people who do not drive cars.
Let World Car-Free Day be a showcase for just how our cities might look like, feel like, and sound like without cars…365 days a year! Can you imagine it?!
As the climate heats up, World Car-Free Day is the perfect time to take the heat off the planet and put it on city planners and politicians to give priority to cycling, walking and public transport, instead of to the automobile.
Bell-ringing for Biodiversity will also be taking place throughout Britain on 22nd September. There’s no reason why churches in Ireland shouldn’t join in too by ringing their bells between 12 noon and 2pm!
Plants, animals and life as we know it are all linked and the loss of one species can affect many others.
The Church of England, as an official supporter of IYB-UK has been invited by the UN to encourage its churches to ring bells between 12noon and 2pm on 22ndSept. The aim is to remind people throughout the country of the crisis but also to celebrate the church and church people’s role in celebrating and recording the biodiversity contained in its 12,000 churchyards.
Churches are already signing up, ranging from some who have full peels like St Eds in Cambridge to others with just one or two. Charlecote in Warwickshire only has two bells, but will be ringing them and at Christ Church Whittington in Norfolk Jenny Elsey will be ringing the church’s only bell.
St Peter’s Church in Onchan on the Isle of Man has a special reason to ring its bells as this was where Rear Admiral William Bligh was married. As well as finding fame through the Mutiny on the Bounty, Bligh was also a world famous botanist.
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