Invite to Take The Jump with climate change game at Westwood Cross and Turner Contemporary

Vanessa and Chris (along with Dr Lynne Jones) will invite people to Take The Jump

An invite to spin the wheel for Take The Jump climate change game is being made by a GP from Margate and an environmental social scientist from Cliffsend today (January 1).

Dr Chris Newman, who hit the news last year with his bid to raise the climate change conversation with a weekly camp outside MP Craig Mackinlay’s Broadstairs office, has created the wheel which offers pledges to change habits and help save the planet.

Chris, who will also be wearing a specially made ‘climate resolution’ jumper will be joined by environmental social scientist Vanessa Culliford and psychiatrist Dr Lynne Jones.

Dr Chris Newman is the founder of campaign group Doctors for XR with the aim of bringing the climate change issue into the public eye.

The 41-year-old says he wants to open up the conversation and believes “public messaging on climate change is vital for us to avert the catastrophic harms that are looming.”

 

Talking of the Take The Jump event, he said: “TakeTheJumpNow designed  the six segments based on a piece of research by c40cities which is led by the mayors of the richest cities in the world.

“I am taking this out onto the streets of Thanet on New Year’s Day to see what people have planned, and if they haven’t planned much hopefully this will be a spur to consider it.

“If everyone ‘took the jump’ we’d drop emissions by almost a third and help people have some influence on a problem that often feels too big to manage.”

Vanessa added: “We are attempting to get people to think about changing their habits to save the planet from the climate crisis’ we’re in.”

Dr Newman, who moved from London to Margate 18 months ago, initially started a podcast about plastic pollution in 2018 but was then persuaded to look at wider climate change.

He said: “Then all the XR stuff kicked off in London and the fact these people were willing to do this confrontational protest and potentially sacrifice their freedom made me look into it more.

“I was one of those trusting the government to fix it but realised it wasn’t happening and was just a can being kicked down the road.”

Dr Newman, who does not have a car and no longer uses air flights, says it was this that inspired him to create Doctors for XR and get health professionals on board to ‘legitimise’ the cause.

The group has around 1,000 members, a few hundred of which are actively involved in demonstrations.

People can see the Take The Jump game at Westwood Cross from 11am to 1pm. The trio will then move to Turner Contemporary for the afternoon.

Find out more about Take The Jump here

 

21 Comments

  1. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”.

    “The beginning of Wisdom is to admit one’s ignorance”.

    Just saying.

    • Not really sure what you’re saying Harry.
      What is incontrovertable – the Earth’s climate is changing due to warming. The warming has been progressively increasing since the 1900’s. The warming is due to human activity. The features of our planet that can regulate climate and/or reduce warming have been increasingly removed by human activity. Human populations are experiencing trauma due to local warming effects. Various and varied “tipping points” to disaster have been suggested but the overal impacts are not known as the interelation is complex. Current temperature is so high that some tipping points are already inevitable. The main contributors of global heating are multi-national and state controlled corporations, not individual citizens.
      None or the principal governments causing global heating are taking action to reduce their impacts. Conversely, most are increasing their contribution to global heating.
      Most of these governments have legislation and measures in place to prevent individual citizens from stopping their global heating actions.
      Just saying!

      • Vanity is a Human attribute. One of the things that it does is to lead individuals to believe that they and we are individually and collectively more important and more powerful than we actually are. The story of King Canute is that of a man wise enough to realise this.
        Vanity, along with Fear, can often be an impediment to individuals and groups admitting error. Just look at the trials of Galilei and Copernicus.
        I’ve studied Life Sciences, amongst other things, at undergraduate level. I was doing a foundation just as this was becoming fashionable topic. The “Science” then and now is full of holes and built upon up to half a dozen separate layers of assumption. Creating a geometric margin of error in excess of 100%!
        Prior to that I had studied Horticulture and was familiar with the work of Daisyworld creator the late James Lovelock. Who, despite his wisdom & advocacy – particularly regarding what constitutes “Rewilding” – did not decline the offer of one of the most unecologically sound journeys… into Space!

        Personally, I started thinking about these things half a century ago. I have always tried to take as little as reasonably possible from the society into which I was born. I do not use private motor vehicles, of any type. I do not fly. I have invested in “Green” technologies in other countries which are highly dependent on fossil fuels.
        One thing that I have learned is that nobody likes a preacher. Especially one who advocates for organisations like Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil. Whose funding and stated purposes do not sit comfortably together. Let alone nudging psychiatrists & workshy doctors who peddle snake oil for money!

        Just saying 😉

        • I studied Earth Science at graduate level, and I understand the science that explains how some, at least, of the current episode of Climate Change is man-made.
          Gain sayers will scrape the bottom of the barrel to justify counter arguments. They will miss-quote, quote out of context, or use the preaching of discredited people.
          What they won’t, and can’t, do is give a science based logical argument to say that Climate Changing isn’t happening, and/or isn’t caused by human activity.
          And a chap can be both a GP and an environmentalist.

          • All of them. Working in health care is a vocation, a calling. People do it because they care about their fellow human beings.
            You don’t spend 10 years training just to sit about doing nothing.
            You could earn more for far less effort by becoming an MP.

        • Harry, Fundamentally I see “take the jump” as a novel way of engaging people with man made global heating in the hope that some will make invdividual changes. This has to be a positive thing so I fully support it.
          Like you I’ve been aware of the human degradation of the planet for many years. I’ve also seen how vested interests happily distort facts to further their advantage, asbestos industry, tobacco, pharmaceuticals, artificial breast milks, etc and, of course, politicians.
          Scientific method provides evidence with imaginative leaps to reach theories. Those theorising in the 1960’s and 70’s on this have seen their views confirmed in basic terms – that Earth is warming due to human activity and the results will be devastating. How the devastation will look is open to conjecture as is how extreme it will be.
          Vested intetests have spent vast sums in undermining the facts, distorting the conclusions and even attacking individual scientists to rubbish their reputations.
          Initiatives like “take the jump” are an important step that could have wide ranging beneficial impacts.

          • Last night I slept with the window open and no heating. IF man-made climate chamge is true, we should at least be discussing the merits vs the bad things. It is not all doom & gloom!

  2. How easy is it to see this doctor,if it is hard to do, than maybe he should make being a gp ,first priority,than stunts pushed to second place ,more preaching going on here less doctoring

      • All of them. Working in health care is a vocation, a calling. People do it because they care about their fellow human beings.
        You don’t spend 10 years training just to sit about doing nothing.
        You could earn more for far less effort by becoming an MP.

          • Year year peter,I can get a face to face with my doctor,and been told the surgery does not do any uronolgy work at all, ,I have to go 50 miles away to see a consultant

  3. We have an epidemic of missed heart problems,cancers, and a multitude of other things.
    Because over the past 10 years the government has paid NHS workers such woefully low wages that doctors, paramedics, nurses, technicians and so on are leaving in droves. One estimate is 12,000 doctors and 50,000 nurses.
    Maybe a decent pay rise would attract some back.

  4. Another narcissistic health care professional. Doubt he gives a stuff about the environment, its just a vehicle for him to say ‘Look at me’.

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