Saint Michael's College: Wales Study Trip 2019

Today we traveled to Cardiff, the capital of Wales and its largest city. While we were there, we visited the National Assembly for Wales, also known as the Senedd.

During this excursion, we had the opportunity to learn more about the government of Wales, which did not have its own parliament until a referendum was completed in 1977. The vote passed with a small majority of only 50.13% of voters for “yes”. This allowed decision-making to be brought closer to Wales. Moreover, in 2011, Wales also gained the power to make laws in twenty-one different areas of responsibility as well. In other words, this means that Wales has the power to act and pass laws in twenty-one different areas without needing to go to the Parliament of Westminster in Britain for approval. With this power, Wales has pushed forward a number of different policies, including advancements in organ donations, charges for carrier bags, and, most notably, the Well-Being for Future Generations Act in 2015.

A protest regarding climate change was even taking place right outside of the building while we were there.

However, Wales has not focused on sustainability in writing alone, but rather, the building itself was built with sustainability in mind…

1. The Senedd was built mostly with materials from Wales itself. The building utilizes steel, wood from Western Wales, and black slate from Northern Wales.
2. Rainfall on the building is collected and used in toilets, sinks, and for washing windows. As a result, they only pay roughly forty pounds for their water bill!
3. The National Assembly has a number of glass windows and was built facing the Southwest to allow for maximum natural sunlight.
4. There is no air-conditioning in the building, but rather, they use natural airflow to save a lot of money and resources. In fact, it is estimated that roughly thirty to fifty percent of the running costs and resources have been saved.
5. To heat the building, the Senedd uses both biomass and a geothermal heating system. Biomass utilizes wood pellets that would often be otherwise wasted instead of oil or gas. Geothermal heating involves drilling down into the ground to a depth of around one-hundred meters to allow the earth to naturally warm water in the winter and cool water in the summer. The water is then brought back up to help regulate the temperature in the building.

Visiting the National Assembly was a great experience. Not only did we learn a lot about the government structure in Wales, but we also were able to further witness the way in which this remarkable nation prioritizes and focuses on environmental sustainability.

-Deana DiBenedetto

What an exciting day!

We began with a trip to Cardiff, the capital of Wales. It is so beautiful here! Tons of restaurants and shops right on the water.

We got an inside look at the Welsh Assembly building, where our tour guide explained the ins and outs of Welsh parliament. Wales has only had its own parliament since 1999 (its as old as me!) The building is designed to have an emphasis on community and connection. The seats are arranged in a circle rather than in parallel isles. There is a crest of dots in the center to symbolize the flow of ideas. There is also a youth parliament- its awesome seeing Welsh government being so willing to include voices across several generations!

The building itself was commissioned in 2006 and is designed to be a landmark of sustainability. It is energy efficient, sustainability resourced, and collects rainwater to be used for grey water throughout the building. It also runs on geothermal energy for heating.

We also happened to be in Cardiff for the Climate Strike, in which school kids from across Wales were protesting for the Welsh government to declare a climate emergency and take action. Wales actually has declared a climate emergency in the last few weeks, but legislation will take time. Wales has had a charge/ban on plastic bags since 2011. We tried to pass a similar bylaw when I was in high school, but I think we were too far ahead of our time Hopefully the kids of today can rally for us!

Its really inspiring seeing the youth of our generation demanding their voices be heard. There were protests happening today held all around the world. I wish rallies like this were happening while I was in high school- I totally would’ve taken part!

Our last stop was the Welsh Museum of Life. It was laid out like an old Welsh village, and featured houses across many different centuries. There were also churches and courts that were built as far back as the 1200’s.

Lastly, and probably one of my favorite parts of the museum, was St Fagans Castle. The castle itself was built around the 1800’s, and the gardens and landscaping surrounding them were absolutely beautiful. I loved the rose garden and willow walkway. They smelled so good! Definitely helped to mask the scent of all the cows- they stanky!

Thats all I have for now! I am loving every minute of this place… minus the fact that their food is wack. Is a medium iced coffee too much to ask for? ),:

– Leah B

Today we visited the Museum of Welsh Life. The area modeled Welsh homes, gardens, and other buildings throughout the centuries. It had everything from clay homes to castles. However, my favorite display at the museum was the animals.

The Museum of Welsh Life made clear that farm animals have been integral to the nation for centuries. Not a day goes by here that we do not see field after field of grazing sheep and cows.

While I love animals, there is a problem with a nation that raises grazers. A huge quantity of the land in Wales is set aside for sheep and cattle. This means trees and other native flora are unable to grow in the way they naturally should. Additionally, a large amount of farm land is dedicated to growing food for these animals instead of the Welsh people. I am happy to see cattle grazing in green fields instead of covered in mud as they would be in the U.S., however I can’t help but feel there is a more sustainable solution. For now, I think I’ll just enjoy the animals!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The Big Pit is an industrial heritage museum in Blaenavon, Torfaen, South Wales. The mine ran from the years 1880 to 1980 and it was owned by the Blaenavon Iron and Coal Company as part of the Blaenavon Ironworks industry. The mine included the existing Coity colliery as well as the old Kearsley’s pit that sunk in 1860. Then in 1878, the main shaft was deepened to reach the Old Coal seam at 293 feet making it the first mine shaft to allow two tramways. Therefore, this is where the mine gets its name “Big Pit” due to its oval shape with dimensions of 18 feet by 13 feet. 

Everything done at the mine before the year 1908, when the conveyor became a piece of popular mining equipment, was done by man power. The Big Pit provided employment for 1,122 people. Before the Mines Act of 1842 both men and women, as young as 6 years of age, would be found working at the mine. In the early days of the mining industry, candles were the only resource for light. However, if the candle went out, they were not given a spare match therefore would be stranded in the darkness. I could hardly imagine being a 6-year-old working the channel alone and having my candle go out; must have been a nightmare! Women would be used mainly to pull the carts of coals, as the men would follow behind. They would be strapped in like a horse and forced to crawl on all fours throughout the dirty mine channels. However, after the Factory Acts of the 1830s women were no longer allowed to work in mines and boys had to be 10 years old before they started work. Once they got rid of women, ponies were used to pull the coal around. Horses had to be 10 years old before working down in the mins. They had stalls built underground where the horses would be chained up. Meaning they would have to pee and poo in those areas and the boys would have to clean it up. Not only did the horses do their business in the mines but so did the workers.

After the pit closed in 1980, Torfaen Borough Council bought the site for £1 and it was given to a charitable trust called the Big Pit (Blaenavon) Trust to manage the conversion to a heritage museum. The mine reopened for visitors in 1983 and created 71 jobs. However, business was not good until the early 2000s when the Heritage Lottery Fund grant of 2000 was donated, the Blaenavon industrial area deemed as a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO in 2000, and the transition of the museum to the National Museum Wales, now known as “Big Pit: National Coal Museum” thus making admission free in 2001; did the mine turn into what it is today.

Now as you can see from the pictures, once a place of misery and suffering, is now a place of curiosity and excitement. As I walked around the grounds, I could not but imagine what it was like during the time it was operating. I thought it ironic how my own surroundings of the birds chirping, children laughing, and sun shining made this place a much happier and vibrant atmosphere. But to picture what everything would have looked and sounded like for the miners who worked here every day is a petrifying thought. I believe what Wales has done to create this mine as a national museum is so important for the Welsh citizens to learn about their own cultural heritage, as well as invite people from all over the world to learn about the mining industry. The experience of being down 90 meters underground, walking hunched over in the old channels is something I will never forget. (They would not let anything electrical down in the mine tunnels so that is why I have no pictures, sorry for the inconvenience. Guess you all have to go see them yourself!).

-Katriona Hajduk

Fun Fact: The Blaenavon Cheddar Company, a local cheese company, ages its Pwll Mawr (Big Pit) cheddar at the base of the Big Pit mine shaft.

On Tuesday afternoon, after departing the natural haven that is the CAT, we stopped at the UWTSD Lampeter campus and joined two professors Nick and Luci for a brief discussion on harmony. We heard from Nick a philosophical perspective on the matter which touched upon historic philosophers and a theme of one-ness. His message was insightful and thought-provoking, but I’d like to focus on what we heard from Luci, an Anthropologist.
Luci first made the point that often we view anthropology as looking at past cultures and identifying how the past has influenced our present — but there needs to be a shift in that approach. Her approach to anthropology is very forward thinking: looking at cultures and societies as they are now, and making educated choices on where to go from here. Her message? Looking to the past has not helped us up to this point, so why should we continue?
Luci was captivating and exciting – she offered agency to us as pioneers of the future, to begin fighting for the changes that we want to see, not that we’re being handed. It was truly a plea for us to take the future into our hands. We have been encouraged in the last few days to think about the future tales that we’ve been told: the movies and books that suggest a dystopian, ruined world being governed by malicious dictators and fear mongering, with limited food supply and dirty water. This is the world we are being asked to expect, but as Luci said, we should not have to.

With a bachelors in environmental studies, I have found that my education has unfortunately left me with a sense of pessimism and near hopelessness, but in the last few days I can feel my inner self releasing some of this tension. Yes, it will literally be the fight for our lives, but I want to take part in that fight as wholly as I can. It truly is up to us to challenge this story we’ve been given and push through the tough waters that we will inevitably face. I don’t want to be given a world of gas masks and infertility – I will no longer accept that narrative. I will fight for a world of harmony with nature.
-Kelly

Today we went to the Big Pit National Coal Museum in South Wales. From 1880 to 1980,  Big Pit was a working coal mine, but now is considered a National Museum of Wales and dedicated to preserving the Welsh heritage of coal mining. Big Pit has over 20 miles of underground mining paths, but nowadays only about 1 mile of it is open to the public for tours, like the tour we did today. The whole place is not fully open to the public because, due to British regulations, the mine needs to be checked for dangerous gas levels every 4 hours, so it would be impractical to have to check all 20+ miles of underground mines every 4 hours.

The main concerning gases found underground in the coal mine are methane and carbon monoxide and there are various ways in which they check for these gases both in the present and past.

To check for carbon monoxide, miners and/or rescue crews coming underground would carry small bird cages with canary birds in them. The canaries would get affected by carbon monoxide faster than humans would, so if a miner or rescuer noticed their canaries were acting strange or losing consciousness, it would give them enough time to get out of the area with toxic levels of carbon monoxide. The Big Pit still uses canaries and keeps them upstairs to use in walks around the mine to check for gas levels (see picture below). However, nowadays, there is more advanced and specialized electronic equipment that many rescue crews carry that have the ability to detect dangerous levels of carbon monoxide.

All miners in the past as well as tour guides and the general public that go on tours underground carry emergency respirators on their belt in case of carbon monoxide exposure. If carbon monoxide is noticed, people can put on the respirators, which given them enough air for an hour, plenty of time to find their way out of the mine.

Methane is another one of the dangerous gases found in mines. Methane is released in the coal dust when miners dig for coal in the walls or ground. It is an extremely flammable gas, which is why everyone going underground for tours has to leave all electronics and lighters at the entrance so as not to have anything that could possibly cause a spark and ignite any methane in the air particles.

In the past, miners used Davy lamps, which were lanterns with a flame enclosed inside a mesh screen, which acted as a flame arrestor (allowing air to pass through the mesh, but preventing the flame from propagating through and igniting anything outside the mesh). This lamp also was used to detect the presence of gases. If flammable gas, such as methane, was present in the air, the Davy lamp would burn higher with a blue tinge. It was also used to detect levels of carbon dioxide. Many of the tour guides, who were previous miners, still prefer this type of method to check gas levels rather than using electronic detectors.

Thanks for reading!

Bella Calabrese

Today we visited the Big Pit National Coal Museum in Blaenavon, Wales. The site of the Big Pit is an old coal mine that was in operation from 1880 to 1980.

When we began our excursion, we were prepared with just a few items- a helmet, a head lamp, and a belt that held both the battery to our lamp as well as an oxygen mask for safety (see photos below). We could not bring any phones or cameras, as this would cause a risk of fire or explosion. Unfortunately, this also means that I am limited in my ability to share photographs of what I saw after this point. However, I will try my best to describe what I did see.

After quickly being clothed with our supplies, we piled into the elevator and descended 90 meters under the ground. Our class was led by a previous coal miner himself who brought us down to explore what it was like for those that used to work in the coal mines.  

Quite honestly, the conditions were a bit startling. As we traveled downward into the ground, we felt the air gradually getting cooler. When we arrived, we quickly discovered why it was that we needed our head lamps. Without our lights turned on, it would be completely pitch black and dark down there. In previous years when the mine was in operation, this condition was common. Many individuals working at the mine used lamps, but if they blew out or the light died, they would be left in the dark for hours until others arrived.

Additionally, there wasn’t much room and we often had to duck down so that we wouldn’t hit our heads when we were walking. Even just having to squat down like that for a few minutes wasn’t very comfortable, so I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must have felt like for the workers who spent hour after hour and day after day there.

Finally, the ground of the pit was wet. We all had to be careful not to slip and fall.

Aside from having the opportunity to take notice of these shocking conditions, we also learned a lot about the history of the Big Pit and the coal industry in the United Kingdom as a whole. Before the invention of machinery, in order to transport the coal out of the Pit, women and later horses would drag large and heavy carts for long distances (see photo below). Moreover, children as young as six years old were also recruited to work in the mines. These were terrible and often dangerous conditions for all. Many lost their lives when walls collapsed or fires and explosions occurred.

Visiting the Big Pit was an engaging and eye-opening experience for me. I wondered why it was that we continued to place humans in such dangerous conditions simply to extract a dirty, polluting, and nonrenewable energy source.

Today, all coal mines have been closed in the United Kingdom. In place of coal, the nation has actually instead been turning to more renewable sources of energy like wind, solar, and hydro power. In fact, I saw numerous solar panels at the Big Pit, which I found to be an irony in and of itself (see photos below). Hopefully we can take what we have learned from this experience to reduce our demand for coal and begin to focus on more renewable sources of energy as well.

-Deana DiBenedetto

Yesterday, after sprinting to the bus on recently filled stomachs, we made our way by bus to UWTSD Lampeter campus. We were greeted off the bus Nick and Lucci with big smiles and an invitation to Starbucks. They brought us into their library where we opened a very important dialogue: Harmony.

We discussed the future and what it holds. The benefits, dangers, and everything in between. It all climaxed with the establishment of a dichotomy between narratives. It is often portrayed that the future is desolate. We have no control and there is no hope. But this is not the case. If we continue to think this is our future, then it will be our future. The narrative needs to change to one of bluer skies. The story must be rewritten. And as Nick and Lucci told us, the pen is now in the hand of our generation. It is our responsibility to draft a better chapter than the last. However, how we reach this harmony will continue to be widely debated. Some will bring the views of Socrates and Homer, while others will bring the disciplines of chemistry and statistics. The critical message, though, is that we must work together. We must have the discussion. As told to us, the ideas must be stretched out, stomped on, and thrown around the room. We keep what remains and move forward.

We must not stop writing our chapter.

Josh Dionne

Paul Allen of the Centre for Alternative Technology said it well this morning: the science is irrefutable on climate change…”been there and done that” as climate change is already locked into the system. What humanity needs now more than ever are positive stories of the many already existing climate solutions and responses that civil society, governments and many businesses are embracing to work towards zero net carbon by 2050. To be clear: making zero net carbon happen is a real challenge, as it involves changing how hundreds of millions of people think and live. Continue reading “Climate Solutions vs. Climate Changes” →

Today we spent our second day at the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT). While we were there, we went to a presentation led by a man named Paul Allen regarding Zero Carbon Britain: Rethinking the Future. While I had already learned so much at the CAT, I felt like my horizons were expanded even further today.

Zero Carbon Britain (ZCB) is a scenario that demonstrates how the United Kingdom as a whole can confront and overcome climate change. In fact, this plan estimates that it would be possible to reduce the UK’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to net zero by 2030 using only currently available technology and whilst maintaining a modern standard of living that is socially acceptable.

In order to do so, we must both “power down” and “power up”. In powering down, the UK would work to be more efficient in regards to their energy consumption and would also work to reduce the amount of energy being consumed as a whole. This would include improving heating in buildings by better insulating walls and reducing drafts, as well as traveling less and differently through the use of public transportation, more walking and cycling, and electric vehicles.

On the other hand, powering up means the UK would turn to renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and hydro-energy. This would also entail the nation having proper storing methods as well so that excess energy that is generated but not being used at the time can be held for a later time.

Transitioning to a nation with zero carbon emissions will require new conversations to take place, as there are economic, cultural, and psychological barriers to change. However, I truly believe that we can work together to challenge norms, overcome wider systemic barriers, and form a cultural shift regarding environmental sustainability in the weeks, months, and years to come.

What do you think? Will Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom be able to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030?

-Deana DiBenedetto