An Edinburgh to London Cycle Challenge for Nature

Guest blog by Jim Densham, Senior Land Use Policy Officer (Climate), RSPB Scotland

Today, three RSPB Scotland colleagues and I will set off from the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh on a 520mile cycle ride to London. We have named ourselves Team Sky-lark (i.e. NOT team Sky). Riding to London feels like a pretty crazy undertaking right now as there are less than 2 weeks to go, I haven’t done enough training rides and I have a streaming cold. It certainly won’t be easy but hopefully with a group it will be fun, and rewarding when we arrive six and a half days later on the 17^th June.

So quite how we get there and how painful it will be is unknown but at least the reasons why are clear:

• The main reason is to get to the Speak Up climate lobby on the 17^thwww.rspb.org.uk/speakup. I wouldn’t choose to ride to London – riding round Scotland would be a more beautiful ride – but Westminster is where the MPs are who need to support climate action so we need to get there, and not be late!

• Cycling is zero carbon transport so getting there by bike will save 33kg of CO2 compared with travelling by train. That’s equivalent to not boiling a kettle 1000 times. The other alternatives would be emitting 70kg going by car or upwards of 91kg by air (based on figures from http://www.ecopassenger.org/). People have asked if we have a support vehicle but that would defeat the purpose of cycling.

• It will be a challenge. I love cycling but have never done anything like this before – maybe I never will again. Originally, I was planning to go solo, which would have been even more of a challenge, but now I have 3 other lovely team mates to keep me company and share the pain. Follow our daily progress on our Blog https://teamskylark.wordpress.com or on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-Sky-lark/1573952756226420

• We will be raising awareness of climate change along the route as we stop off at an RSPB reserve each day. Climate change is having an impact on our precious wildlife now and it is only expected to get worse. Scientists have estimated that for every 1^oC rise in global temperatures 10% of the world’s species will become extinct. That’s because they can’t adapt. Climate change is affecting the UK’s special wildlife sites now and will do so in the future. We will highlight a different aspect of the challenge that nature and our reserves face from the climate each day.

• We are raising money for the RSPB’s climate work. Please give a donation if you can, it will help the pedals go round.  https://www.justgiving.com/JimDensham/

• The biggest reason for our epic ride is because the world needs a new global deal on climate change signed at the UN conference in Paris in December. We want the MPs that we meet at the Speak Up Lobby to notice that this is important enough to ride all the way to London. In Paris we need world leaders to sign a new Kyoto agreement on reducing emissions, including binding targets for countries and money for developing countries to help them adapt. Plus quite a few other things I am sure. The For The Love Of… campaign running all this year http://fortheloveof.org.uk/ is aimed at helping to show that there is public support for a strong global deal so our part in riding to London will hopefully go a long way.