No vaccine to reverse climate change crisis
Nearly all the houses are on brownfield land
SIR James Bevan, CEO of the Environment Agency, announced this week that the climate emergency is already hitting ‘worst case scenario’ levels - and if left unchecked ecosystems will collapse with dire consequences for humanity.
Do we care? On the whole, it seems we don’t.
Without doubt, the most breathtaking photograph that has made the biggest impact on me is the awesome picture of earthrise taken from the moon’s surface by NASA’S Apollo 8 on Christmas Eve, 1968.
If there was anything to put my trivial, microscopic life into perspective, it was the feeling that I could hold a world teeming with life in one hand.
This image released within me a terror of being alone. But more alarmingly, it gave me an overwhelming feeling of responsibility.
1968 is possibly one of the most turbulent years in human history in social and political change, in prejudice, injustice, assassination of civil rights campaigners and political leaders, endless war, and mass starvation in developing countries.
It was also the year that television brought it all into the common living room, to give proof that we are one world.
The picture of earthrise was also alarming. There was nothing to show that the planet’s uniqueness was anything but peaceful and serene.
But the picture troubled me, and I began to question the agony the planet was enduring.
I started to gather disturbing thoughts about its fate, about a future that might adversely affect the most intelligent of species that calls it home, wondering why that extraordinarily beautiful, ingenious species was deliberately selfharming.
Perhaps it is the lack of permanence that has something to do with our disregard for all-embracing preservation? The knowledge that everything that lives must die? And I resolved that it was to do with our genes.
The concept of the ‘selfish gene’ was posed in 1976 by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. His book of the same name spun the argument that the natural selection process of evolution is not about the security of the species as a community or group, but about making the individual secure.
There is little doubt that the potential collapse of Earth’s ecosystem is being caused by humans. Most ecological scientists agree with the overwhelming and convincing data. And for me, denial is the effect of the selfish gene.
The worrying thing is that our species is well-aware that it is human action that is causing the destruction of the planet’s natural resources. Water, land and air are being progressively polluted and pushed to established limits.
And we can see that global warming is clearly underway. The evidence of melting polar icecaps is compelling. We know high temperatures are worsening and causing floods and droughts.
Soil erosion and deforestation, desertification is affecting many existing species that are dying 1,000 times faster than their natural rate of extinction in a phenomenon that distresses the expected balanced ecosystem.
It was in 1988 that an intergovernmental panel on climate change was launched. Since then scientists have been calling for a halt, bringing to notice ways in which the process of extinction can be reversed.
But the hearer is deaf to the hailer. Life and living for the individual are about existence and survival. And, like a virus, it is the evolutionary curse that exists in all of us.
2020 was the year that affected all humans irrespective of nationality, race and creed. Like some troublesome tenant, the pandemic is difficult to evict, and we will have to live with it.
But we won’t be able to live with the consequences of climate change once the threatened ‘worst case scenario’ happens. There is no vaccine to prevent it, no cure when it strikes full on.
In sharing this beautiful planet, the most intelligent form that calls it home has to equally and universally embrace the responsibility of being its protector and carer. Acting now is the only way to survive.
MORE than 900 homes were built in Stoke-on-trent last year – the second highest annual total since the housing crash.
The city saw 948 units added to its housing stock in 2019/20 – down from the 1,066 completed in the previous year but still much higher than the government-set target of 525.
Last year’s total included 726 new builds – down from 939 in 2018/19 – along with 210 conversions and 12 communal accommodation units.
These figures, featured in Stoke-on-trent City Council’s latest annual monitoring report, only cover the period up to March 2020, so they predate the pandemic.
They include a number of major housing developments, including the 151-apartment Clayworks complex in Hanley, and 101 houses built on the former Churchill Pottery site off Waterloo Road.
There were also 61 new homes on the old Victoria Ground and 55 on the former Bucknall Hospital site.
Nearly all the new housing – 99.7 per cent – was built on brownfield land, up from 98 per cent in the previous year.
Dan Jellyman, above, cabinet member for infrastructure, regeneration and heritage at the city council, welcomed the figures.
He said: “We have a commitment to bring forward brownfield land for redevelopment, for both housing and employment schemes.
“To reach the figure of 99.7 per cent of new housing being completed on previously developed land is really pleasing and exactly what our residents want to see.
“Building on brownfield has the double whammy of removing eyesores and breathing new life into areas that need regeneration, and these sites are often already in areas where people want to live, with amenities and services nearby.
“What is really important is that we build houses for Stoke-on-trent people. There are certain places in this country where people grow up, but then have to move away because they simply cannot afford to buy a house because of the local property prices.
“We don’t have that issue here, and our approach to house building is about providing homes for residents at all stages of their life.”
The amount of employment floorspace completed in Stoke-ontrent also fell in 2019/20, from 69,558 square metres to 53,565 square metres.
But the amount of office space completed during the year increased from 688 square metres to 2,669 square metres.
Mr Jellyman added: “This is a really encouraging report that shows Stoke-on-trent is moving in the right direction in a lot of important areas.
“The data captured is for the period pretty much up to the outbreak of the pandemic last year, and we know Stoke-on-trent was experiencing an economic resurgence before coronavirus, the like of which it had not seen in generations.
“When the lockdown gradually lifts, I’m confident the city will come out in a strong position ready to pick up where we left off, because of all the groundwork we have already put in.
“We are an affordable and accessible city, which will be two really important factors in a post-pandemic United Kingdom.”