LETTER: Time to work on survival of future generations

A month ago I sent a letter to the Tiser (unpublished) about combating climate change and describing the leaders of the main parties as four Neros fiddling away while the planet burns.

Today, one month, one election and one Queen’s speech later, nothing seems to have changed. A couple of comments that we could do something about global warming and climate change by 2050, ten years too late by ecological scientists predictions, but for now nothing!

In the Paris agreement we are committed to reducing fossil fuel emissions by half by 2040, a mere 20 years from now, but so far in the last 12 months we have succeeded in increasing ours by 18 per cent and last year’s Madrid climate conference was so dominated by the oil and coal lobbies that the global warming lobbyists were actually locked out of half the conference.

When are we going to wake up to the greatest threat ever to our existence and start making the changes needed to survive? Where are our commitments to phasing out coal, oil and gas dependency and supporting renewable energy? Where are our plans for upgrading our building insulation standards? What’s happening about upgrading and electrifying our railways to reduce transport pollution.

Brexit deals won’t help these problems and any deals with Trump and the US will probably be so tied up with ISDS clauses that even breathing will be subject to US control.

We now have a new MP who belongs to the ruling party and who so far has been making all the right noises. Time to realise that Brexit is only about who makes the most money out of us and start asking questions about our future generation’s survival.

Charles David Foulstone, Rotherham & District Green Party