There is no sacrifice in avoiding oblivion

Ok, no denying it. This one is a rant.

I am fed up with people talking about sacrifices when it comes to climate change. We have to sacrifice petrol, convenient living, economic growth ect.

When you talk about sacrifice it's giving up something... But there is no future in climate change where we can continue to have petrol, convenient living and economic growth. If we don't 'give it up' willingly then we will be forced out of it by climate change. There will be no petrol cars in a world riddled with conflict and famin. There will be no convineant living in a world with mass floods, devastating storms, months of drought and infertile spoils. There is no path for economic growth as people homes and livelihoods collapse around them.

However if we change in good time. Find a more sustainable way of living we might just, stressing and might and the just here, find a way to have a decent standard of living.

Rant over

Speech for Guilford council meeting

Good evening, I am here today to support the motion to declare a climate emergency.

This is my daughter Rachael, she is 8 months old, I love her to pieces and would do anything for her... including talking at council meetings!

What we do today is pivotal for Rachael's future. The IPCC report provides stark warnings for us should we fail to act now.

By the time Rachael is just 11 years old her fate will be sealed. If we have not acted by then we will be unable to prevent climate breakdown.

By the time she is 20 scientists predict that the northern permafrost will have thawed, releasing methane into our atmosphere, and triggering irreversible global warming and acidification of our oceans.

By the time she is 30 all corral reefs globally will be destroyed, reeking havok on fish stocks and our oceans ecosystems

By the time she is 60 there will be no more fertile soils due to the loss of pollinators, mass starvation and global collapse are likely.

By the time she is 80 the globe could be 4 degrees warmer, she will have seen the extinction of most species on earth and large parts of the world will be uninhabitable. Global conflict will be inevitable.

This is not a future any parent would want for their child. This is not a future that I believe this council wants to see for its residents. The challenge we face is daunting. Inaction is not a viable option.

The problem is huge and it will take commitment at both a government and local level to tackle. I am delighted that the motion that has been brought forward today includes a 2030 target which is better aligned with the IPCC recommendations. I am heartened to see that the motion commits to meaningful action being taken in the next year. I would like the council to support this motion, and challenge each and everyone of you to consider if more can be done. Every day that passes without action is a day we steal from our children.

Can we hand on heart look Rachael in the eye in 11 years time and say we did everything possible. I hope that this council will be able to.

Life but not as we know it

I haven’t posted for a while but there is a good reason for that.

Recently we were supprised with a beautiful baby girl and I have spent the last few months trying to get my head around the whole thing. Babies change everything. I am now under a 6pm curfew and now spend my days fighting pensioners for the best spots in cafes. I spend my life juggling between the competing demands of baby and everything else, regularly dropping all the balls in the process. I crave adult conversation to find that ironically when I do find and adult the only thing I talk about it the bloody baby!

But despite the chronic sleep deprivation, isolation, and complete overhaul to my previously carefree existance I am utterly smitten with the tiny dictator that is currently snuggled to my chest. And in the twighlight hours where she contently suckles, little hands innocently clutch to my pjs, I sighlently vow to do everything in my power to protect her. As I watch her fall asleep I like to think about my hopes and dreams for her.

I hope she has a strong personality and is bright and whitty. I hope she grows up to have a career in something she is proud of, I hope she excels at university, I hope she finds a stable relationship and has a family of her own. I hope she can live a comfortable life in a nice house and afford holidays abroad without having to worry too much about finances. I hope she enjoys the outdoors, sports and loves animals. Basically I hope she has everything that I have got and more. I hope she is truly happy.

I like to think of these hopes as aspirational but achievable, but in reality these are day-dreams. I have not considered the world in which my daughter has arrived.

The Met office recently published a report that forcastes a rise in global temperatures above 1.5C and this could occure within the next 5 years. This is a critical threashold for climate change and the concequence of breaching this threashold are catastrophice. When the gloabal temperature goes above 1.5C my poor baby girl will be in a world of turmoil. Crops grown in currenly furtil lands with stable climate, for example cacao beans (chocolate) will be destroyed as nutriantes are washed away from the soil in turblant wheather conditions. The artic which currently cools us by reflecting solar radiation will melt, causing widespread flooding and accelerating global warming. The Pacific islands are likely to disappear, displacing millions of people and killing entire eco-systems. The world will see severe floods and draughts leading to world food shortages and conflict. We are already seeing large scale migration due to climate change.

I have delivered my daughter, who I have vowed to protect into a world I cannot save her from. She will suffer hardship from climate change. There won’t be chocolate polar bears at Christmas or holidays to the Percific. its unlikely that there will be holidays at all. Instead there is likely to be starvation, conflict and desperate struggle for survival. If she does have children will they even have the chance to grow up.

All this could be avoided if we act now, but this would require a global commitment and co-operation to dramatically cut carbon emmissions. This means a substantial change from every single one of us. I mass act of ulterisim – except it isn’t ulterisim, it is saving ourselves from oblivion. However humans suffer from such a strong collective state of denile I cannot see us taking action until it is too late.

Even I a write this I can’t fathom the furtre we have created. The horror of the predictions from the scientific community overwhelm me when I think about it in the wee hours. I can not comprehend it. And so when I wake in the morning and remove these nightmares from my thoughts. I forget about it whilst I drive us in our petrol car to the café so I can enjoy a decafe caramel latte and chocolate cake with NCT friends. I use the facilities to change my baby before I head to our comfortable home, disgarding the soiled nappy into the bin not thinking about how the nappy will still be in existance long after I am gone, and my baby is gone and the world has entered oblivion.