The Times Open Letter on Climate Change

Success! We got our open letter in The Times on Saturday October 26.

You can read the letter here, with all 99 MP signatories listed under it:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,59-2425107.html

The determination is admirable, but are the current methods effective?

My second foray into street campaigning recently was less than inspiring.
Trying to look earnest, enthusiastic, but non-threatening, I didn’t get far enough to ask most people how they felt about climate change, as they mumbled, “No thanks” and shuffled along with haste.

The fact is I usually walk past campaigners, without noting the cause.

If I stopped for every street campaigner on my way from the bus stop to work for instance, I would probably sacrifice two hours of my day to them, which I haven’t the time or inclination to do, so I understand their perspective. I feel compelled to 'do my bit' to tackle the problem of climate change but the minimal level of success I enjoyed with regard to actually engaging someone in conversation, let alone securing their support in the form of a signature on a postcard, I wondered whether my efforts and those of my fellow campaigners were warranted, at least in the form of street campaigning. Do environmental campaigners still need to be on the street, keeping this issue in the minds of the public?

The issue of climate change is addressed in the media on a daily basis. In a speech on the 14^th September 2004, our Prime Minister called climate change the world's greatest environmental challenge. Numerous surveys tell us that the public is concerned about the threat. And yet, carbon emissions continue climbing at an alarming rate, so it is essential that environmental campaigners maintain their efforts to remind the public about the challenge we are facing. But is street campaigning effective?

Even if a few members of the public stop to talk about the threat of climate change, when the invigorating chat is concluded, 'concerned citizen' then climbs into their 4x4 and continues the day as before, engaged in small activities that in collusion with millions of others continues to contribute to the problem, content in the knowledge that someone else (like the nice campaigner they spoke to) is addressing the threat of global warming … so they don’t have to.

Fellow campaigners, what should we be doing to inspire the public to actively participate in tackling the problem of climate change?

If you invite them #7

In London, update on MPs who've signed:

Sarah Teather MP, Brent East - SIGNED
Dawn Butler MP, Brent South - SIGNED
Vincent Cable MP, Twickenham - SIGNED
Susan Kramer MP, Richmond - SIGNED
Mark Field MP, Cities of London & Westminster - SIGNED
Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP, Kensington & Chelsea - SIGNED
Emily Thornberry MP, Islington South & Finsbury, [NEW 05/10/2006] - SIGNED
Lynne Featherstone MP, Hornsey & Wood Green, [NEW 05/10/2006] - SIGNED
Jeremy Corbyn MP, Islington North, [NEW 06/10/2006] - SIGNED

Glenda Jackson MP, Hampstead & Highgate - approached and happy in principle. Waiting for official confirmation.
Frank Dobson MP, Holborn & St. Pancras - to be approached 06 October
Meg Hillier MP, Hackney South & Shoreditch - approached by Hackney & Tower Hamlets group - waiting for feedback
Andrew Slaughter MP, Ealing, Acton & Shepherd's Bush - approached by Hammersmith & Fulham - waiting for feedback
Ed Davey MP, Kingston & Surbiton - to be approached by Kingston FoE

If you invite them #6

In London, update on MPs who've signed:

Sarah Teather MP, Brent East - SIGNED
Dawn Butler MP, Brent South - SIGNED
Vincent Cable MP, Twickenham - SIGNED
Susan Kramer MP, Richmond - SIGNED
Mark Field MP, Cities of London & Westminster - SIGNED
Sir Malcolm Rifkind, [NEW 03/10/2006] - SIGNED

Glenda Jackson MP, Hampstead & Highgate - approached and happy in principle. Waiting for official confirmation.
Frank Dobson MP, Holborn & St. Pancras - to be approached 06 October
Lynne Featherstone MP, Hornsey & Wood Green - approached by Tottenham group - waiting for feedback
Meg Hillier MP, Hackney South & Shoreditch - approached by Hackney & Tower Hamlets group - waiting for feedback
Andrew Slaughter MP, Ealing, Acton & Shepherd's Bush - approached by Hammersmith & Fulham - waiting for feedback
Ed Davey MP, Kingston & Surbiton - to be approached by Kingston FoE

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Guest blog #2: Hardly out of the news

This blog comes courtesy of Brent Friends of the Earth. This piece was originally written for the Brent Times newspaper.

"Climate change has hardly been out of the headlines this year. A seemingly endless stream of evidence has made it clear that climate change is happening, that we are making it happen and that – if we don’t act soon – the outlook is bleak.

This gloomy assessment applies to Brent as much as anywhere. Londoners struggled with the heat wave in early summer – the tube was unbearable, an unprecedented demand for air conditioning caused power cuts across the capital, newspapers were filled with scare stories about water shortages, rivers and streams ran dry, our parks and gardens were scorched brown and high levels of low level ozone pollution made life difficult for the elderly and those with respiratory diseases. Yet if climate change takes hold this summer’s heat wave may be nothing out of the ordinary – it might even be quite mild.

Thankfully last week Friends of the Earth and the Co-operative Bank showed that there is light at the end of the tunnel when they launched the results of research carried out by the UK’s top climate researchers at the Tyndall Centre at the University of Manchester.

The research offers a way out – a road map to a low carbon, climate friendly future which, if followed, will ensure the UK helps avoid dangerous climate change. The report calculates the UK’s carbon budget - how much carbon dioxide we can emit between now and 2050 if we are going to play our part in tackling climate change - and sets out what needs to be done and when to enable us to live within this carbon budget.

The report also provides us with a glimpse of what living in a climate friendly Brent would be like. It’s a future I would be happy to see happen.

There is no doubt that dealing with climate change will affect the way we live our lives however in many ways the changes will be positive for individuals and local businesses.

Yes we will need to fly less but, if the Government implements the policies outlined in the climate roadmap we could expect to swap the frustration of long check in queues at out of town airports with the convenience of high speed train travel between cities in the UK and on the continent.

Yes we would need to use our car less but we would be exchanging rush hour congestion for a comfortable, more frequent and better integrated public transport system. Or maybe a cycle ride into work along one of the many safe and well designed cycle lanes?

Yes we would need to cut down on our energy use but with the right kind of Government support we will see more and more affordable energy efficient appliances on our shelves. It will be cheaper and easier for us save energy and money by insulating our homes or even generate our own heat and power from mini wind turbines or solar panels fitted to the roof of our homes and businesses.

Yes we will need to look at alternatives to burning coal or gas to produce energy but if the climate roadmap is followed we will be replacing old dirty inefficient power stations with super efficient gas and coal power stations and clean renewable energy sources that harness the power of the sun, the sea and the wind.

It may strike you that most of the solutions to climate change which I have touched on rely on technology that we already have and use. This is an important point. Though some of the technologies suggested by the researchers will need a few years more work before they are ready for widespread use it’s not the science that is slowing our progress to a climate friendly future – it’s a lack of political will to put the policies in place that will turn this roadmap into reality.

If the Government is serious about climate change then it needs to start implementing the policies that will make it easier and cheaper for us all – business and individuals – to cut our carbon emissions. And it needs to act quickly – a major programme of action to tackle climate change needs to be introduced in the next four years if we want to deal with climate change in a manageable way. The longer we leave it the more drastic the action we will need to take. The longer we leave it the closer we get to dangerous climate change.

That’s why as a first step towards tackling climate change The Big Ask, Friends of the Earth climate campaign is calling on the Government to introduce a climate change law that will commit the UK to making annual cuts in our carbon emissions.

A climate change law is backed by over half of UK MPs from right across the political spectrum [including Sarah Teather (Lib Dem) Brent East MP and Dawn Butler (Labour) Brent south MP. Members of Brent Friends of the Earth want Brent MPs to write to the Prime Minister about a climate change law, and are currently asking Brent Councillors to bring in climate change policies in the Borough.

You too can add your support to the campaign by writing to your MP at www.thebigask.com or contacting Brent Friends of the Earth at www.foe.co.uk/brent ."

Climate Beats no.1

I find that there is another world and that there is a curtain that separates us from that world like the leaves of brown and gold and red and yellow that twirl down my street as I stare out the window on Sunday mornings contemplating over coffee steaming grown on the slopes of Guatemala Indonesia Ethiopia taking water and sun and heat and hands and backs and people with leathered skin running up and down mountain sides like goats leaping over clouds .. clouds forming in towers and building cirrus white marshmallow angels feather pillow puffs of wind coagulated and solidified, towering particle ice steaming into the sky an extraction of the poles that thin thin thin and run run run away from the South to the ever decreasing circle of the North a Poincare conjecture of changing weather as the snow falls inward an introspective fluttering of delineated lassos reflective and regressing to infinitely small points fleeing the support offered for millenia to ghost bears which fall and swim and tire and drown and float, whitenowgreynowbonewhiteagain leaves, rapidly disappearing, their spirits rising in screaming agony in the swirls of coffee vapour that cloud my face and dead eyes with the fire of blame and sorrow drip back into the coffee oils colouring green rainbows over the brownblackcoffeesurfacemirror where they melt with no one's tears to cool their heat back into the evaporating diamond storm, where a slight hushed unguarded breath butterflies forth twirling and twisting in straitjacketed fits and parodies annihilated through open windows letting in the long late heat of autumn evenings.

If you invite them #5

The Open Letter has now gone out to all MPs in the country, courtesy of Head Office's Media Team.

In London, update on MPs who've signed:

Sarah Teather MP, Brent East - SIGNED
Dawn Butler MP, Brent South - SIGNED
Vincent Cable MP, Twickenham - SIGNED
Susan Kramer MP, Richmond - SIGNED
Mark Field MP, Cities of London & Westminster - [NEW 18/09/2006] - SIGNED
[that's the 3 main parties covered now]

Glenda Jackson MP, Hampstead & Highgate - approached and happy in principle. Waiting for official confirmation.
Frank Dobson MP, Holborn & St. Pancras - to be approached end September

Lynne Featherstone MP, Hornsey & Wood Green - approached by Tottenham group - waiting for feedback
Meg Hillier MP, Hackney South & Shoreditch - approached by Hackney & Tower Hamlets group - waiting for feedback
Andrew Slaughter MP, Ealing, Acton & Shepherd's Bush - approached by Hammersmith & Fulham - waiting for feedback
Ed Davey MP, Kingston & Surbiton - to be approached by Kingston FoE


Feel like a spider at the moment, waiting in the middle of a vast web of people. I keep testing strands of the web, checking which ones need repairing, which ones have caught interesting morsels.

Sometimes the strands get tangled when a confusing wind blows through. But if we use all of our senses we can divine patterns and intuit understanding. All strands lead to the same destination after all.

There was a newspaper report the other day, warning that spider breeding season is upon us. The report said that there'd be more big fat spiders around, as fewer died in the mild winter, and recent rain and shine have given them plenty of bloated insects to eat.

Giant spiders prowl the streets of London due to Climate Change, hiding in our baths, in the arm of a cardigan, under the cushion we threw on the sofa the other day, behind a cereal packet. They're creeping, running - scuttling - around us, crawling on hairy legs.

I once said that "every hobby is a lobby", meaning that you can get any interest group hooked into Climate Change if you can hook Climate Change into their hobby. I'm not sure what catchy phrase to use for linking phobias to action on Climate Change.

But giant spiders scuttling through the living spaces of Londoners' flats and homes and houses and studio apartments and bathrooms and kitchens and bedrooms - that must surely be a massive reason to take action.

It's an ill wind that blows an eight-legged climate freak.