Paul Crossley

Thursday 26

The Royal High School in Bath put on an excellent Climate Change Conference today with over a 100 young people attending from 6 schools. There were a range of presentations in the morning from an activist, a charity, an employer, an eco-entrpreneur and me as the local politician. My contribution was on the impact of our lifestyles through the waste we generate and I contrasted two solutions - the unsustainable, hugely costly and deeply unsound incineration route being pushed hard by the Government with the philosophy/policy of Zero Waste which we, in Bath, were the first local authority in the UK to adopt and pursue. However the star of the morning was a young South African poet from London called Bruce whose poetry was amazing.

The afternoon started with a group song led by a local community choir leader, Chris Samuels. We sang a tribute to Wangari Maathai who is a leading lady in the African Green Belt movement, and then had a series of workshops. I led two on reducing Carbon Footprint of schools, homes and individuals. I was impressed by the knowledge and ideas they generated and their commitment to take them back to their schools and homes.

Yesterday I heard that a national newspaper survey showed that a majority of the population are still not convinced about climate change and global warming!

I wonder what will convince the sceptics. We have less than 10 years to halt and reverse the CO2 damage to our planet. One thing is for sure Mother Earth will heal over time and adapt and survive but the more damage we inflict, the harder the recovery will be. The question is will the human race be there if the climate gets hotter and hotter? We already have all the solutions we need to solve the problem. Lets get on with it.