Good day. Welcome to Diagram Club, episode #084. We’ve had a heatwave here in the UK, and in this edition I talk a bit about that, and there’s the usual cartoons, bicycles, analysis of my working efficiency this week (low), hand-drawn paragraph dividers and a certain percentage of misc nonsense.
It’s a climate drawing. Yes, you’ve possibly seen it before, but hopefully you won’t notice.
I’ve written more about this cartoon and related topics below.
Photos:
My town, Basildon, doesn’t always get the best press, but I will say this for it: I can go almost anywhere in the town by bike via an entirely traffic-free route. This is one of the cycle tunnels in town which take walkers and cyclists under the dual carriageway slash roundabout. (The distant walking figure did indeed step out right in front of me 2 seconds later.)
Bold but probably accurate (and not intended as arrogant) claim: I think I am likely to be the only person who carries their shopping home from my local Tescos on their bike. The plus side to this is that I almost always get my favourite parking spot.
The Cafe, out of hours. I’ve enjoyed cycling or walking around most evenings this week once it’s become cooler.
Daytime photo, as I have my cartooning rucksack. We assume, but don’t know for sure, that I’m on my bike in this photo. The helmet could be in case I walk into a tree whilst taking excessive selfies.
As announced last week I have a new shop where you can buy and download printable versions of my work (bike race sample above). It’s been lovely, having put quite a reasonable amount of effort into this, to have had some orders coming in - thank you.
The great thing about a shop selling digital products is that they can’t run out and there will always be enough to go around. That said I would still urge you to panic buy, just in case.
Further and additional announcement. The same downloads are now also available on Etsy. I receive a bit more money if you buy them on Gumtree, but I think you might pay a bit more too. So swings and/or roundabouts. My Etsy shop is here, anyway:
If you’d like to add me or follow me or stalk me or whatever people do on Etsy then that would be lovely.
A cartoon from my archives that most of you won’t have seen, drawn in Uganda in 2013 (hence mosquito net).
It is sort-of topical, for anyone else using elaborate methods (turning specific lights on and off, etc) to let fresh air into the house at night whilst attempting not to alert mosquitos and moths to the fact the window is wide open and that they could just saunter in if they wanted, and still ending up bitten.
It’s been hot, but the [stats time] 55% of you who live in the UK don’t need me to tell you that.
Here’s a photo from approximately Wednesday. You could fry an egg on my bicycle saddle (though I could come up with 7 or 8 good reasons why you wouldn’t).
Thanks again to the staff and volunteers who have enabled me to have somewhere to go and work most days, even though The Cafe has been a little bit warm so I’ve only been working at (say) 35% efficiency.
I hope everyone has been OK this week during the hot weather. As I write this it’s the hottest day here in Essex, and I (or at least my windows) have been encased in cardboard to keep out the sun, there’s a fan blowing humid air at me, and I still insist on having a hot cup of redbush.
I wanted to write something about what I’m thinking / feeling about it, and, to warn you, this will be more serious content than usual.
I don’t know about anyone else, but a week like this of extreme weather like this makes me very anxious. About what we’re doing to our planet. How life will be for today’s children and future generations after people like me are gone. The effects on people in more vulnerable areas of the world, production of the food we rely on, wildlife, and much more besides.
We know what we have to do (‘Experts’ cartoon, above), but it seems to me that our politicians continue not to grasp the urgency of the situation, as they mostly haven’t over my entire lifetime. It seems like the fossil fuel companies, who have known about the climate implications of continuing with ‘life as usual’ for decades, have been allowed to have their way, making it worse for all of us.
I feel pretty helpless about it all, and I know I’m not alone. ‘Climate anxiety’ is the term.
So what can we do?
I think we do have to maintain optimism about progress that has been made and can still be made. My friend Grace has written about this in her (excellent) Substack article about climate optimism:
“The good news is that we have the solutions to the climate crisis, and we are in a far, far better position technologically than we were when Al Gore released ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ almost two decades ago. The even better news? The solutions to the cost of living and the climate crisis are aligning. The way out of inflationary gas prices is renewable energy and emissions reduction. The best remedy for a heating planet? Renewable energy and emissions reduction!”
After that: I think all I can do is to plug away doing the (seemingly insignificant) thing I do, in the hope that, combined with lots of other people doing their (seemingly insignificant) things, whatever those are, together we have a (hopefully significant) cumulative effect.
For me that’s active travel campaigning - encouraging people to think differently about how they make local journeys. Though my drawing, this newsletter, and also new website (forthcoming).
For you it could be writing to your MP, your work, your art, involvement in politics, or many other things besides.
On active travel: It’s been good to hear more people in the media talking about climate this week, but it does often seem to me that simple and effective solutions like walking and cycling don’t get the airtime that (say) electric vehicles do.
As Chris Boardman said this week in an article titled Climate Action Doesn’t Have to Mean Sacrifice (on LinkedIn):
“The evidence is consistent: replacing short car journeys with walking, wheeling or cycling is one of the quickest ways to reduce transport emissions…
No one suggests active travel alone will decarbonise transport. It won’t. But there are remarkably few policies capable of delivering carbon reductions at this scale while simultaneously making places healthier, quieter and more affordable to live in.”
My message to myself and (if you’d like a message - it’s optional) to you: Don’t lose heart, and keep on doing the (seemingly insignificant) thing you do.
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Susanna, a reader and supporter of this newsletter, has made another brilliant video with a folding bicycle and a tent, this time about bikepacking through Wales. Susanna’s videos never fail to lift my spirits.
Charlotte’s adventures in Latin America continue.
Got a bike that needs fixing? It’s Cycling UK’s The Big Fix next weekend, and there’s a map telling you where to go.
If you want something very silly indeed lasting approx 2 mins 27 seconds, Tim Vine’s World Cup song could be it. “And we’re coming back out again…”
On the Facebook page for my church cartoons this week: Rituals for hot weather.
I still have the same bikes for sale as last week.
Colour of the week (filler): Ice lolly orange*.
[*Only really works if you have an orange ice lolly.]
Paid subscribers are in for a right royal treat this week in Part Two (below the orange line). Not only do I talk about parakeets, but there’s exclusive information about a mystery shoelace that they (and only they) are party to.
That’s it for now. Have a good weekend / week, and I’ll speak to you again soon.
Dave
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