Let us hope we realise it is all down to us

EMMA Grainger’s letter ‘Moving too slowly to save the planet’ (Newsletter 3/4/2024) urged the acceleration of measures to contain the effects of global warming. Unfortunately she was right to dismiss present policies as sops to the campaigners for real policies. Let me refer to two contributors to the local newspaper letters page.

On 5th March Barrie Roberts reduced one of the approaches to a terse formula. ‘Although it may cripple the economy, I feel that they should bin every cookery and health book on the planet...four simple words: Eat Less, Move More.’ On 4th April Edward Cook’s letter ‘Oil and candles kept me from fuel poverty’ deplored ‘the zero hours gig economy, an increase in leisure, revelry and indulgence, while the kingdom burns itself out...vicious spiral of decline...a choice is coming very soon, maybe sooner than we can comprehend.’

These quotations provide a fair summary of the situation and negative possibilities. Why is so little done?

The authoritarian states are preoccupied by suppressing dissent and have not grasped the seriousness of the situation. To successful and peaceful liberal democracies people will not vote for policies and parties which will bring their standards of living down unless they perceive that the alternative is anarchy, loss of food security and/or foreign invasion.

‘Perceived’ is the operative word. People can refuse to perceive. Churchill promised ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat.’ Considering the alternative people accepted the sacrifice. Would they now? Each major party makes promises it knows it is unlikely to be able to keep and hopes for the best.

Basically our sluggishness in facing the need for change is the people’s fault. They elect the government.

What, on present showing, will happen?

The nation is living in a state of schizophrenia. In a way it knows that the present set-up is already crumbling but in another it expects it to continue. It extends its distance from reality. This week an ‘i’ journalist advocated paid leave for workers who had lost a pet. Then there are demands for special help for the menopause. It is cross between Nero fiddling while Rome burned and Marie Antoinette playing at being a milk-maid.

It looks as if only a set of interacting disasters could convince the electorate to change its ways to avoid worse. Ms Grainger says, ‘It’s down to us. Let us hope that the message gets through.

Margaret Brown