Climate Change

Most of us will have watched the floods in Germany and Belgium with considerable shock and great sympathy for the poor inhabitants. Our hearts go out to them all. Earlier in the week and still ongoing are the massive forest fires raging in the western United States. Again, this is another great natural disaster but fortunately with fewer casualties so far.

In both cases the problem lies with a changing climate: too much rain in Germany and not enough in the USA. Both can be directly attributed to global warming, and we have had similar dislocations to our own climate here. The climate emergency is real. These situations were not unexpected. In both cases warnings by the weather experts were largely ignored. In the West as in the rest of the world the climate emergency is very real. Advanced economies are not immune to these natural disasters driven by human activity and it is too easy for us to assume that adequate protection and infrastructure is in place. Was there complacency? In Germany the only way to save lives was to evacuate early but there was not the fear of the power of nature which we should never underestimate.

The best way to show nature the respect it deserves is to stop polluting our environment and bring global warming under control. Every little bit helps: walking and cycling rather than using a car, or sorting out and disposing of the rubbish properly. The role of government should be to make it easier for us to do so, and not to put barriers in our way. Government also needs to make it harder not easier for those companies who make a mockery of our laws, and put the corporate profit before their public responsibilities. One quick win for Tory Test Valley Council is to introduce doorstep glass collections. Tory Basingstoke has it. Lib Dem Eastleigh has had it for years. What is wrong with our local council?