We must act now to halt climate change
As a Bath resident I share the concerns expressed in last week’s headline about the seemingly mindless vandalism that continues to affect residents and visitors to the city and agree more needs to be done to combat criminal activity. In terms of scale of negative impact, however, this type of vandalism pales into insignificance when compared to the damage we are all inflicting on the planet, and therefore on ourselves and our children through climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report published last October set out very starkly the challenge facing governments and us all as individuals - make comprehensive and immediate changes to stand a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees through reducing our carbon emissions or face catastrophic and irreversible climate breakdown. Drought, fires, flood, famine, civil unrest - this is not what anyone wants for their future ! Environmental protests and campaigns, school strikes and marches are beginning to make headlines and there are growing campaigns demanding that local councils including Bath and North East Somerset declare a climate emergency. Change needs to happen at international, national and local government levels but there is equally a need to drastically increase all our understanding of the scale of the challenge and the urgency with which we need, as individuals and families, to make changes to our everyday lives including how we travel day to day, where we go on holiday, what food and products we buy and so on. We will also need to support our politicians to make difficult decisions on taxation, laws and infrastructure to make low / zero carbon living easier and the new norm. We live in a beautiful city, in an amazing world - nothing can surely be more important than doing everything possible to safeguard this place and the planet for all our futures. We urgently need to recognise that our rampage of the planet and its delicate ecosystems needs to stop. Sue Poole Bath