‘Stop stealing future from our children’
“You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.” – Greta Thunberg
DESPITE the tragedy of thousands of avoidable deaths and the hardships being faced by NHS staff and other essential workers, there are some signs of hope that we might be able to build a better future after we emerge from the pandemic.
These include the solidarity and mutual support networks, displayed both here in the Moorlands and in the rest of the world, and also our renewed understanding that the most important contributors to society are largely those who have been previously undervalued.
The environmental benefits have been well observed but include the significant drop in air pollution since lockdown started, ironically a feature of our fossil-fuelled lifestyle now suspected to have contributed to the spread of Covid-19.
The other great bonus has been the dramatic decline in carbon dioxide emissions, something we have been struggling to achieve for decades but barely achieving.
A major reason for the failure before now has been the determination of the fossil fuel industry to keep going, and indeed expanding, in the face of all the evidence.
The fossil fuel industry have known for at least 30 years that their products were the cause of climate chaos and if continued unchecked would lead to intolerable living conditions for humans over large parts of the Earth’s surface.
They then launched a propaganda attack on any scientist who pointed this out so that their billionaire owners could continue to make money from others’ grief.
They have now, at least, stopped lying about climate chaos but continue to present technological solutions that at best are in the early stages of research and development, while trying to prevent the rollout of renewable energy and energy storage solutions which are already well established in Europe and many other countries.
The lobbying against wind turbines and grid scale solar arrays has been largely instigated by organisations with close links to the fossil fuel industry.
They will claim that we need to go back to the bad old days to rebuild the economy after lockdown but we deserve something better, as outlined in the Green New Deal, which shows that a fairer, cleaner and healthier economy is indeed possible and is arguably essential for our children’s future.
Staffordshire Moorlands is awash with potential renewable energy development, which has been prevented by SMDC planning policies to the obvious detriment of people and the environment, despite their having declared a climate emergency nearly a year ago.
It would be interesting to know when SMDC are going to stop stealing the future from our children or are they going to continue to listen to the self serving propaganda of a moribund 20th century industry? Nigel Williams Leek