Renewables are the obvious solution

AS a local resident, I’m in despair that the money we pay in council tax is being used to fund the fossil fuel industry, whose owners are getting rich while driving more and more people into fuel poverty, and escalating climate change.

This is where social problems and climate problems merge, because the solutions are the same. If politicians had listened to the scientists decades ago, and started taking renewable energy seriously, we’d all have clean affordable fuel by now and the environment would be in a better state. Renewables are the quickest, cheapest and most obvious solution to the climate catastrophe and the energy crisis.

As individuals it’s easy to feel completely helpless hearing news like this, but local politicians and councillors work for us – we pay their wages, so they are accountable to us. We can all help by writing to local councillors and MPs and put pressure on them to move their investments to ESG funds (funds that are checked for Ethical, Social and Governance standards).

Another way individuals can make a difference is to join an environmental organisation like Greenpeace, who are campaigning to make the government impose taxes on oil and gas companies and use this money to support people who can’t afford to pay their fuel bills, and also to invest in renewable energy (tackling both fuel poverty and the climate crisis at the same time).

Local people must make their voices heard on such vital, lifechanging issues, and we can make our message louder when we join together.

Nicole Hood By email