Climate change deniers are urged to ‘wake up’

Councillor criticises Angus Council for its ‘ostrich-head-in-the-sand’ approach

Conservation groups have warned Tayside climate change deniers to “wake up” before it’s too late.

Robin Parker from WWF Scotland told people in Angus, where 17% of the population do not believe climate change is real, the “climate emergency” is an “inescapable reality, and we are already witnessing its effects”.

Neighbouring Aberdeenshire has the highest percentage of climate change deniers at 19%, while Perth and Kinross has 10% and Dundee and Fife are both at 7%.

Mr Parker said: “The debate on whether climate change exists is over, no more strongly demonstrated than last month when politicians from across the Scottish Parliament voted for the strongest climate legislation in the world.”

Wendy Murray from Angus Clean Environments said: “We are experiencing more extreme weather events and many communities across Angus face a real risk of more frequent flooding. People in Angus have lagged well behind the rest of Scotland for a number of years in remaining unconvinced that climate change is happening”.

Councillors in Angus voted to remove a 2045 deadline to become carbon neutral and also to take out key actions from a plan to tackle the effect of climate change on local communities, claiming Angus was too rural to decarbonise rapidly while questioning what other parts of the world were doing to tackle the problem.

Kirriemuir SNP councillor Julie Bell, Angus Council’s habitat champion for marine littering, said: “To ignore the science is beyond reckless. I really cannot comprehend the barriers to understanding climate change and, worse, the emergency we are facing.”

She said the “lack of political leadership” in Angus is one element behind what she described as the “ostrich-head-in-the-sand approach”.

She added: “I am heartened by many local and national developments that suggest to me we are reaching a significant tipping point, fuelled by the remarkable bravery of young people like Greta Thunberg, so let’s do more to support the 83% who do believe in climate change, most of whom will already be actively doing something about it.”

Monifieth Liberal Democrat Ben Lawrie said the figures show there is still much work to do in “raising awareness among the public around the threat that climate change poses to our way of life”.

“In the face of hard facts and universal scientific consensus there are still those who remain sceptical of climate change.

“I urge these people to get behind moves to green up our community.”

Picture: Getty. Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, centre, has done much to highlight the extent of the emergency facing humanity.

Councillor Julie Bell. Picture: Paul Reid.