| |
|
|
Stop climate chaos
David Cameron has his bike, Richard Branson's growing his bio-fuels and BP claim they are "Beyond Petroleum". The clamour to get on the climate change bandwagon is now as fashionable as an iPod.
The Earth is warming up. Increased greenhouse gases in the air, released by the burning of coal, oil and gas, trap in heat from the sun, heating the earth. The average temperature of the Earth has already risen by 0.7 degrees centigrade and will rise by between 2 and 6 degrees over the next century.
But behind all the celebrity posturing, the reality is that climate change is a despicable injustice to rival the slave trade, holocaust and third world debt crisis.
It is the poorest people who will suffer the most: whether from increased disease across Africa, flooding in Bangladesh or glaciers disappearing in Latin America. The UK's Chief Scientist, David King has warned that a 3 degree rise in temperature would put 400 million more people at risk of hunger, and up to 3 billion at risk of flooding and without fresh water supplies.
Yet 80 per cent of current climate change has been caused by rich countries. The average UK citizen emits as much carbon dioxide in two days as the average Malawian does in a year.
The more greenhouse gases we emit, the worse climate change will be, and the greater will be the suffering of the poor. It is therefore imperative that the UK starts to drastically reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, despite all the rhetoric, the UK's emissions have increased by 5 per cent since 1997.
Stop Climate Chaos is a campaign which has been launched to get the UK government to ensure that UK emissions fall by at least 3 per cent a year.
> More info: stopclimatechaos.org
> Or contact Tim Jones at the church
> Other global issues |
|
|
