There be dragons..... in the Dales
Plus climate cycling and all the latest eco headlines
Good morning! I’m Sarah Hartley and this is The Northern Eco weekly update. As you’ve received this newsletter then either you subscribed, or someone forwarded it to you. If the latter, then you can click on this handy little button below.
Hope you enjoyed a great early May bank holiday and welcome to the new month! We’ve plenty to share today including:
Plans for this year’s Indie News Week
A drone’s eye view of farms
Good news for three species of dragonfly
But first, the story of an inspiring young musician who is performing in our area this month while raising awareness about the climate crisis …….
Meet the cycling musician who is pedalling for the planet
Sarah Small doesn’t do anything by half measures. Faced with the dilemma that pursuing her career as a classically trained professional musician could mean touring the world with multiple flights, she got on her bike!
Her current tour - which comes to North Yorkshire and the North East this month - will see her cycling to venues over a 2,500-mile, 69 day journey. The route takes her from Northamptonshire to Stornoway, and from Unst at the top of Shetland down via Cumbria and Wales to Southampton in Hampshire.
The issue she is highlighting through her actions is the considerable impact the cultural sector has on the environment.
According to the representative body UK Music, it is estimated that the music industry produces 405,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK every year. On an individual basis it calculates that the average touring DJ emits 35 tonnes of CO2 a year alone.
To put those figures in context, the average UK person currently has an annual carbon footprint of around 13 tonnes.
But can one woman’s efforts really make a difference? I caught up with Sarah before she set off and asked what she hoped to achieve from her efforts?
“I'm very aware that me just cycling instead of say, driving, isn't actually making a huge impact on its own but I hope that, through the concept of the whole tour, I can appeal to people’s conscience, about how they travel and think about how they get to venues.
“Also the programs that I've chosen, especially the solo program, is music that I think is just incredibly beautiful and inspired by the elements. I've got a piece that is called The Weathervane which sounds really tumultuous and I think it is just perfect for the instability that we're experiencing at the moment.”
A love of the natural environment and simply being outside provided the inspiration for Sarah to look for alternatives to the standard way of touring. And this concert series isn’t her first such experience.
“ I like being outside, I notice a lot of things, and I notice when they're not there. That worries me a lot. It's that simple, really.
“Last summer, I cycled to a concert instead of flying with the rest of the ensemble. The conversations that I had along the way were great. It can seem like we feel we're a minority, until we speak to somebody else, and then we realise that most of us are actually really concerned about what's going on. By cycling I’m showing that this alternative way of touring is out there.”
Via Instagram, Sarah will also be documenting the tour and observing how the country is changing with the climate. She’ll also be linking up with some RSPB reserves along the way including at Flamborough Head where she hopes to experience the nesting puffins to highlight their plight.
On the practical challenges
How can a single bike be packed with essentials for two months of travel never mind a large, delicate viola da gamba instrument?
“It's all all on my bike, I’m completely self supported. I've done some trial runs like around the Midlands, and then also, I cycled around in Cornwall and checked everything worked - there's quite a lot of hills there!
“So my gamba goes on one side of my pannier rack, my tent (because I'll be doing some camping as well) on the middle. I see it as my house - so the back is, like my kind of sleeping arrangements and clothes and everything. Then at the front I have my kitchen and my office and my repair shed, and then essentials on the handlebars. That's just everything I need.”
If you want to see Sarah perform, the full programme can be seen here and if you’d like to support her with a donation, there is a Ko-Fi page.
In our region the tour is on:
For more information and resources about flight-free travel:
Scientists, academics, and members of the public who either don’t fly or who fly less: No Fly Climate Sci
A community of aviation workers and enthusiasts who care about the future of our industry and our planet: Safe Landing
A former pilot, Todd Smith speaks in a podcast by Sci4XR Pete Knapp, here.
Flight Free UK educates the public about the climate impact of aviation, and gives information and inspiration for travelling by other means.
Join us for Indie News Week in June
Regular readers may remember our event in North Yorkshire and week of special articles in 2024, but this year we’re doing something completely different - a big collaboration with the team at South West Durham News! More on that below but first…..
The three most clicked links from last week were:
Owl Adventures stops having live birds in Goodramgate shop
Councillors responsible for England's largest county chose to stick with glyphosate in February 2025
In water news
💦 WildFish, the environmental charity dedicated to protecting wild fish and their habitat across the UK, has now submitted our response to the Independent Water Commission’s “Call for Evidence” which can be found here: WildFish Response to the Independent Water Commission. The main points in summary include:
that the consultation is far too broad
lots of issues are outside the remit of a water industry review
concern that obligations under Water Framework Directive that water bodies should meet what is termed ‘good ecological status’ could be diluted
💦 The People's Commission on the Water Sector (an alternative to the government's Independent commission on the water sector regulatory system) recently published a mid-point report which found that England has a water industry close to collapse.
In other news
Project creates habitat for dragons in the Yorkshire Dales
Yorkshire Peat Partnership (YPP) has created breeding ponds for three species of dragonfly – black darter, common hawker, emerald damselfly – at a bog which could also be a site for reintroducing another dragonfly, the white-faced darter. The species’ first British record was in Yorkshire but it is now extinct here.
🌏 In a bid to counter misinformation about the climate crisis, a free and publicly-available interactive database and visualisation tool called Hot Air has been launched. The tool, developed in partnership with the University of Exeter and supported by Octopus Energy, helps users identify and track climate misinformation across platforms. The Hot Air tool is now available here.
⚡️ Almost all new homes in England will be fitted with solar panels during construction within two years with housebuilders will be legally required to install solar panels on the roofs of new properties by 2027 writes Eleni Courea at The Guardian.
Drones reveal true scale of US-style megafarms in the UK
New images of the UK’s 30 largest so-called livestock ‘megafarms’ – dubbed the Dirty Thirty by environmental campaigners – have today been revealed for the first time showing how these facilities have rapidly expanded across the country.
That’s all for this week but don’t forget there are updates on the website and via social media through the week too.
Lots of eco events to enjoy this month here so, whatever you choose to do, enjoy your week!
Thank you for reading edition number 133 of The Northern Eco. If you feel having this independent, free unless you want to pay and ad-free newsletter is worth a few of your hard-earned £, now’s the perfect join our paying subscribers. The main newsletter is sent out at 7am every Tuesday and can’t exist without paying subscribers. 🙏
Sarah, can I suggest that https://flightfree.co.uk should be added to your list of info and resources about flight-free travel. They are doing very good work!