Putting our eggs in one basket

SUPPORT THE RSPB'S NEW POP-UP 'SHOP OF THE FUTURE' CAMPAIGN

As part of their 'Revive Our World' campaign, the RSPB has launched a week-long crusade, from 1st-8th July 2021, to show our leaders why they urgently need to put nature first, by creating both physical and online free 'pop-up shops' with everyday products that we'll all need unless urgent action is taken now.

Rather soberingly, the 'InConvenience Stores' show a future in which nature has collapsed, our skies have fallen silent and entire cities have disappeared under rising sea levels. It stocks items such as fresh air cannisters, a vinyl of the Dawn Chorus (as live birdsong will have become a thing of the past), UK grown rice (as potatoes and wheat can't now be grown) and local fruit that costs a fortune (such as one apple for £50), due to the extinction of natural pollinators.

As well as being on-line, if you're in Manchester, Cardiff or Edinburgh July, you can visit these real-life future shopping experiences to see what life could be like if we don't take action. Customers will also be briefed about how to stop this nightmare from becoming a reality.

But alongside the shops, the RSPB aims to deliver real shopping baskets containing some of these items to our political leaders across the UK to really hit the message home. The baskets will include sandbags - because flooding will be commonplace, bottled air - because the air we breathe will be toxic and bottled water - because our water will be polluted and deadly.

We're each encouraged to go on-line and add our names, in order to to add more products to these shopping baskets so we send as strong a message as possible. For every 15,000 names, the RSPB will add another item to the basket of survival products we hope that we'll never need. For maximum impact, they need to gather more than 100,000 names in just eight days.

You can take part and find out more Here.

Footnote: ** A new RSPB report also launched today shows how the UK Governments could change the course of history and even unlock £6.4 billion in public benefits by harnessing the power of nature. For every £1 invested in saltmarsh, peatland or woodland restoration and creation, they have worked out that an average £3 in benefits is returned. The £6.4billion figure does not include a host of other benefits including water quality, flood management, job creation, temperature regulation and combatting noise pollution.