Threat to the Earth needs our teamwork
WE have a health emergency, a climate emergency, and mass migration/poverty!
In South Korea, we have the largest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases outside China: “The country is in a state of war against the virus,” said its President.
And in the Antarctic, a temperature of more than 20C (68F) has been recorded for the first time on record, prompting fears of climate instability: “Incredible and abnormal,” said scientists.
To beat COVID-19, “We should wash our hands for at least 20 seconds.”
Why 20 seconds? Why not 10 or 30?
Why do we have speed limits? Why are we allowed to drive at 10 per cent above the speed limit plus 2mph? If beating COVID-19 requires precision, why not to beat climate change?
At present, the Antarctic sea temperature is stable at -2 degrees. To enable creatures – from plankton, to coral, to starfish – to survive in it, they have a unique anti-freeze/protein. To enable humans to survive, they have intelligence.
If hot water kills bugs, will a twodegree rise in global temperature kill humans?
To beat Hitler, we had rationing. And, from all bar traitors – from children, to the Land Army, to the trenches – we had teamwork.
In the war against COVID-19, panic buying is NOT teamwork. And, neither is breaking speed limits in the war against climate change!
Speed kills, and where ‘time is money,’ it equals greed and ‘panic driving,’ and should amount to environmental terrorism.
To win the war against COVID-19, “washing our hands is the most important single thing a person can do.” To win the war against climate change, (save our uninsurable planet), we must stop breaking speed limits! They are ‘maximum, not minimum’!
What’s the maximum/minimum temperature humans can survive in? To beat viruses we need teamwork and vaccines. To save our planet, we need speed limiters, cycling and walking, and caring and sharing!
Allan Ramsay, Radcliffe
It’s time to scrap Trident
IN previous National Security Strategies the government highlighted the risks from climate change, terrorism and, interestingly given the spread of coronavirus, health pandemics.
Presumably, reference to reviewing the strategy will be in this week’s budget, which falls on the anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
It was reported in the media that the government’s upcoming foreign policy and defence review ‘allows us to have some difficult conversations.’
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his adviser Dominic Cummings want to overhaul Britain’s role in the world and have announced that the review will ‘identify the necessary reforms to government systems and structures to achieve these goals.’
But in a surprise announcement, United States officials let slip last month that work had started on a new nuclear warhead for Britain.
It is a sorry state of affairs, and anti-democratic, when our elected Parliamentarians, despite government promises of a
Parliamentary decision, hear about the commissioning in secret of a new UK nuclear warhead from Pentagon officials. And so much for Britain’s “independent nukes”!
Previous strategies downgraded the threat of nuclear attack. Surely, with the real risks we face, the strategy would want to review the spending of at least £205bn on an outdated nuclear weapons system? Those conversations should involve cutting our nuclear ties, not embarking on a programme to build new nuclear bombs.
Scrap Trident once and for all. Steve Roman, Manchester CND
Not ready for electric cars
WE are nowhere near ready for the mass introduction of electric cars. How will those who live in terraced houses with no off-road parking be able to recharge these cars?
I live close to Salford city precinct where there are hundreds of parking places and to my knowledge there’s not one single charging point.
I believe we are years away from their introduction.
Phil Meakin, Salford
Stop the HS2 vanity project
I AM outraged at the decision to go ahead with HS2. It is an utterly nonsensical political vanity project which will cost at least double the projected £56bn and probably treble. People are more interested in the train actually turning up rather than shaving a few minutes off journey time. People are often happy to work on the computers on the train so they are not particularly agitated over journey time.
Robert Marshall, Salford