District Matters

Climate Change – The Elephant is now in the room

June 2022

This month's District Matters contribution is from Cllr Ian Shenton, Climate Change Portfolio

Climate Change – The Elephant is now in the room

With the war in Ukraine, petrol and diesel prices, cost of gas, the cost of electricity, food prices rising, talk of inflation hitting 9% or more, and the Queens Platinum Jubilee; amongst the conversations in the background, the elephant looms. You may not see it, but it's there in the room, and its name…… Climate Change. Everyone knows it's there and happening, but it's somehow slipping down the list.

Climate Change is not going away, and we must all play our part if future generations are going to be able to continue enjoying this beautiful planet. We experience longer hotter summers, wetter winters and when it rains, it rains for longer causing floods. This will get worse if we do nothing, crops will fail, trees will die, our lands that were full of biodiversity and flowers will become barren, sea levels will rise, the oceans will become lifeless cess pits, food will become scarcer, and health problems increase for everyone as a result. This is obviously a Domesday scenario, but it could happen and sooner than you think.

To play your part is easy, think reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Based purely on the last six years, we could see the increase in temperatures rise by 2°C before 2050 and to 3°C before the end of the century according to the IPCC, our own Climate Change Committee, the United Nations, the International Energy Agency.

At COP26, in Glasgow last year, world leaders declared that they were accelerating their programs on climate change, they would be carbon neutral by 2050 (or later) but before the ink on their commitments was dry, some were downgrading them. China and Russia didn't even bother to turn up.

It's down to ordinary people like ourselves to do something to reduce, reuse and recycle. If possible, try and turn the thermostat down by a degree (and possibly turn off in rooms you're not using, along with the lights), only buy enough food that you will use, don't leave the tap running whilst brushing teeth and avoid over packaged products. If it's repairable take it to one of the Repair Cafes that are springing up, if it works to a charity shop or to the reuse facilities at our tips.

Analysis of the contents in our grey bins shows that much of it should be in the blue or green bins or is food waste. This is where the new 123+ waste collection comes in later this year:

• 1 is weekly food waste collection
• 2 is blue bin, every two weeks
• 3 is grey bin, every three weeks
• + is a fortnightly subscription green waste collection.

If we recycled better and unrepairable small electrical items were put out separately on collection days, the grey bin might not be full even after three weeks. This is exactly why we are changing the collection of residual waste from the 1^st August to every three weeks.

Everyone must play their part and reduce, reuse, and recycle. Doing this will reduce the amount of waste going to landfill, might save you money and is good for the planet.

If you think Climate Change is bad now and getting worse then imagine just how much worse things will be for all of us if the climate is allowed to spiral out of control.

For future generations sake we must all do our bit for the planet.

Ian Shenton FCCA
Climate Change Portfolio Holder