Our Climate Conversation

Emergency!

By definition:- a serious, unexpected, and often dangerous situation requiring immediate action.
Our council however does not acknowledge the immediacy of Climate Change and has set their target date of reducing their carbon footprint as 2050, some 28 years from now. What part of the word emergency is incomprehensible to them??
In 2019 we at Bromsgrove Climate Action started approaching councillors to engage in discussion. The majority did not even bother to respond. The few we met with had serious concerns and have carried on occasional meetings with us. 2020 saw the council do a public consultation but, partly because of Covid, it was done online via their website. The many people we spoke to in the High Street about this knew nothing of the consultation, so we were able to provide them with the link to the survey. And yet the council boasted of the success of this consultation – how many people actually took part remains a mystery. On the back of this their Action to Reduce Carbon was compiled and put on the Council web site. This is not an Action Plan but a series of aspirations with no mention of what exactly they are going to do, how they are going to deliver it or the timescale involved.

It is time that councillors woke up and started working together, putting aside party politics and working for the good of the community as a whole. Climate change is not going away – we have seen a spike in our temperatures to nearly 40 degrees in July and a sustained drought in Europe, reckoned to be the worst in 500 years, that will impact the price and availability of fresh food in our shops. Daily there is news of the devastating floods in Pakistan and the terrible droughts in Africa with no monsoon rain for the 5th year in a row, both attributed to the effects of climate change.
We all need to start acting together instead of adopting the attitude “I’m alright it doesn’t concern me”. Without rapidly making changes to the way we live, we will be leaving an awful legacy to our children and future generations. As UN Secretary General said: “We have a choice. Collective action or collective suicide. It is in our hands”

Start the conversation with your local councillor, ask how concerned are they about climate change and what do they think they should be doing about it locally.
See us on Facebook - Bromsgrove Climate Action or email BromsgroveClimateAction@gmail.com