Climate Crunch

I was well equipped therefore to attend the Hastings and Bexhill branch of United Nations' meeting on Saturday on the 'Climate Crunch'. The event was very well supported. Presentations including one from both pupils of St Richards and Bexhill High School were followed by workshops on energy, local food and transport.

It was great to see such an awareness of the risk of climate change by the younger generation. They are well placed at their age to develop less of a reliance on the use of fossil fuels. Simply seeking to find alternative fuels is not enough to stop climate change.

I believe that we can reduce reliance on fossil fuel in the same way that we are beginning to produce less waste. This has to an extent come about with the mantra of Reduce Reuse and Recycle. We need a similar slogan to encourage a lower demand for energy.

This will of course mean a change of lifestyle. As we have learnt to take our own bags with us when we go shopping we must automatically turn off the switch on appliances not in use, consider whether our car journey is really necessary and look first for food produced locally.

We should also be questioning the need, for example, as to whether we need to use energy to light our roads and towns to such an extent.

There are plenty of statistics available to help us. There is a suggestion that a substantial aim should be to reduce our individual mileage by 250 km per year and electricity consumption by 100kW hours. What is not in doubt is that we all need to do more than a little bit.

At Rother District Council's meeting on Monday evening this week Councillor Sue Prochak urged everyone to sign up to the 10:10 campaign. This is a commitment for both individuals and organisations to pledge to reduce their own carbon footprint by 10% by the end of 2010. Liberal Democrats voted in Bournemouth to do so.

Sadly Sue's request was refused by the Leader of Rother District Council at the meeting as he thought that it was not an achievable target. What hope is there that the larger global targets will be met with local leadership such as this?