My View - Andrew Stevens
I first started reading about climate change perhaps 25 years ago1. At the time I was interested in environmental issues in general as well as politics, specifically inequality and how I thought politicians don't take a lot of notice of evidence on what works to improve the health, well-being and - I'll use that rarely heard word... happiness - of their citizens, but often prefer using ideological clichés to guide their actions. Since then my social and political interests have funnelled into a focus on climate change, and I admit to struggling not to let it become an obsession. Not so easy when my evaluation of climate change is that it is an existential issue for the human race, along with thousands of other Earthly species.
But, maybe it won't be that bad? Carbon capture or nuclear fusion – or the excellent increase in renewable energy output in many countries - might make the breakthrough to keep global temperature rise to that 1.5C figure? Perhaps total global emissions will soon start to dip from the record CO2 high in 20232? So, like many folk I guess, my climate prediction thoughts and the associated emotions go up and down, though I have to admit my 'anchor point' is towards the catastrophic end of the continuum. Mind you, a significant proportion of the people who know a lot more than I do about climate change also seem to be located there3.
Climate change, what a whopper of a problem, so where are the solutions? As a Northampton Town councillor I'm a politician of sorts, but a minnow in terms of political influence. Also I'm not a scientist or technical advisor to a government department, and I don't own or work for a big organisation that might turn itself to significantly reducing its own emissions or devising and then selling a product that will usefully reduce many other people's. I'm left with the conundrum "what can I personally do about climate change?". The two poles of the continuum of choices then seems to me to range between to tell myself "nothing", to trying to make habitual the thought "whatever I can, in whatever way I can".
So as a citizen, I can reduce my own carbon footprint. I walk, cycle and use road or rail public transport unless those modes just seem too tiring, inconvenient, excessively time consuming or expensive. But, on balance, in psychological terms - I was a clinical psychologist for 35 years - I'm now highly operantly conditioned to travel like this due to the improved fitness, mood and smugness quotient4 rewards, and probably a bit classically conditioned to associate getting in a car with feeling guilty – and in a plane, prohibitively guilty. I do other things as well, especially with what I eat, grow to eat, water saving and my use of plastic, but don't worry, I'm not gonna list loads of examples. That would make both of us realise what a tedious pain I can be.
As a councillor, I chair the Town Council's Environmental Services Committee and its offspring, the Climate Change Forum (CCF). The Forum has implemented some projects with the help of advice and practical involvement from its six much valued community volunteers and the energetic enthusiasm of my Councillor colleague Paul Joyce. Council officers have helped with some climate change related public engagement activities, leaflet design and printing, providing Living Streets5 Walk to School Week activity packs to some primary schools in our area, and some biodiversity planting initiatives (not that simple as whilst the Council does have 10 allotments and closed churchyards as assets, we have no small green spaces as many even small Parish Councils do).
The CCF has also set up a Climate Change Grant scheme6, and has some web pages that undoubtedly need a lot more development7. The Forum's regular meetings are in abeyance at the moment, as we're working on behalf of the Town Council with West Northamptonshire Council, some Northampton area Parish councils and CA-WN on a Climate Summit for October this year plus, we hope, a 5-year climate mitigation and adaptation programme for all the 160+ councils in the West Northants area.
The idea is to set up a resources and networking support framework to help councils both with what they are doing now and what options there may be to expand that activity on both climate change and the related crisis in nature. The Summit and extended support framework aim to encourage councils' activities on a number of key environmental issues, including projects involving their electors. I personally hope this programme will also extend to involving the wider public directly.
It's sometimes difficult to believe that small actions do anything in the face of still persisting and data-defying climate change denial, the apparent indifference, the 'business as usual' approach, or conspicuous high emissions lifestyles8 that some of our politicians, companies, fellow road travellers or neighbours continue with. The admittedly worst case, but I fear plausible, scenario is of an end to most life on Earth within a few hundred years. I really don't know, given the scientific evidence that suggests this apocalyptical vision is actually possible, why the precautionary principle is not much much more widely adopted by governments, business organisations, and global citizens.
But carpe diem, eh? Let’s do "whatever WE can, in whatever way WE can". Keep it going CA-WNers!
References
1. I recently found in my ‘tatty beige folder’ collection one labelled 'climate change', and inside an article torn from a pre 2000 Sunday newspaper magazine with photos of extreme weather events, and text setting the scene for what could be on the way, though the book that first prompted real unease for me was Mark Lynas's 'Six Degrees' (pub. 2007).
2. https://www.iea.org/reports/co2-emissions-in-2023/executive-summary. “Global energy-related CO2 emissions grew by 1.1% in 2023, increasing 410 million tonnes (Mt) to reach a new record high of 37.4 billion tonnes (Gt)”; AND “Between 2019 and 2023, total energy-related emissions increased around 900 Mt. Without the growing deployment of five key clean energy technologies since 2019 - solar PV, wind, nuclear, heat pumps, and electric cars - the emissions growth would have been three times larger.”
4. I estimate I've used a bicycle for perhaps 60,000 miles of 'A to B journeys' (that is, not leisure cycling) in the last 50 years. I mention this as the typical car driving metric is mileage covered, so a bit of comparison with plausible active travel mileage is perhaps worth stating?
6. https://www.northamptontowncouncil.gov.uk/climate-change-forum
7. https://www.northamptontowncouncil.gov.uk/climate-change-grants-scheme
8. https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/energy-related-co2-emissions-per-capita-by-income-decile-in-selected-countries-and-regions-2021
e.g. in 2021, in the EU, the richest cause 24t CO2 per annum, vs 1.5t CO2 for the poorest, and even mid range incomes are about 8t CO2. So there is a lot of opportunity for high emitters in your country, city, town, or village to reduce the damage their lifestyle is doing. But, maybe individual choice and freedom to make those choices is OK?