EU environmental benefits justify "Remain" vote says Green Party

 

The Green Party has called on voters who care about the environment and tackling climate change to vote for the UK to remain in the European Union.

The party's leader, Natalie Bennett, is taking this message around the country as Greens for a Better Europe begins its final campaigning push [1].

Bennett will say that collective standards across Europe can ensure that all governments - particularly our own, with its dreadful environmental record - meet the need for action on climate change and other environmental crises that we face - crises that don't stop at national borders.

She'll also highlight how the politicians running the Leave campaign have an abysmal record on the subject, including Michael Gove, who attempted to remove climate change from the school curriculum.

Bennett said:

"In environmental diplomacy, the EU as a whole is far more effective than member states could be individually in developing and promulgating cooperation, long-term approaches, and motivating others into action.

"The current UK government has taken actions, in particular on renewables policy, that have seen Britain slide disastrously in the league tables for attractiveness to clean energy investors and damaged small businesses and job prospects. But thanks to the collective peer pressure from our European partners, the UK government has indicated that it will aim to improve in areas of home heating and transport, where it so often falls behind

"When one EU country, for example the UK, moves in the wrong direction, this can be challenged by cooperative action. For example the European Parliament has called for a fracking moratorium and for chemicals legislation that can also act as a check on this government's fracking ambitions.

"On climate diplomacy, the UK benefits from enhanced representation in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, being both a party as the UK and again as an EU member.

"The Brexit campaign leadership is dominated by climate sceptics, with a terrible track record of attacking renewable energy and undermining climate action. They deny the scientific evidence on climate change, just as they deny the economic and environmental risks of leaving the EU.

"Michael Gove tried to remove climate change from the national curriculum, an indefensible attempt to prevent our young people being informed about the overwhelming scientific consensus on the subject. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage and UKIP want to abolish the Climate Change Act and have expressed total opposition to wind power [2]."

The Green Party's campaign is also focusing on celebrating the free movement of people in the EU, on our membership's central place in maintaining and enhancing workers' rights, and on the capacity and actions of the EU in reining in the abuses of tax-dodging, low-paying multinational companies.

Notes:
[1] https://www.greenparty.org.uk/europe
[2]http://www.climatechangenews.com/2015/03/11/nigel-farage-on-climate-change-in-his-own-words/
http://www.environmentalistsforeurope.org/

EU and the Environment

The Green Party is campaigning to stay in Europe, but with reforms. One of the reasons for remaining in the EU is the Environment. 

It’s only by working with our European neighbours that we can tackle the big issues like climate change, protect wildlife and reduce pollution. Thanks to EU rules, our beaches are cleaner, our air cleaner and our dirtiest power stations are being shut down. The UK government though, is always wanting to support corporations rather than people and their well being.

A current example is the use of glyphosate - a widely used weedkiller that the World Health Organisation has found is probably carcinogenic.

On 8 March Italy joined France, Sweden and the Netherlands in opposing a new 15-year licence for glyphosate at an EU meeting which had been expected to rubber stamp its reapproval. This chemical is a core ingredient in Monsanto's $5bn-a-year Roundup brand. If no new arrangement is found then the licence for glyphosate will expire at the end of June. Monsanto is furious.

True to form, however, the UK Government (not UK Green MEPS) is supporting the use of glyphosate. The European Parliament is about to vote on a resolution that would support a ban on glyphosate.

The campaign group SumOfUs is organising a petition to tell MEPS that they are accountable to us, not Monsanto.

Keep an eye out and see what happens. The EU may offer us protection. If we are outside of the EU, the UK government would definitely not.

See the Guardian article.

Single Use Plastic Bags

I don't get the plastic bag initiative which is supposed to help the environment by reducing litter which can be harmful to wildlife both on land and at sea, and cutting down on the use of plastic which comes from oil.

From Monday 5th October 2015 in England there is a 5p charge for single use plastic bags. But this only applies to supermarkets and large retailers with 250 or more employees. Smaller shops are exempt. So why does the charge not apply to all shops? Surely the aim should be to stop all single use plastic bags and to get people into the habit of taking durable shopping bags with them. The good old mantra of re-use first, reduce, recycle.

The Government hopes that the extra money the shops receive will be put to good causes. Many supermarkets have announced that charities will benefit. Why not follow the Northern Ireland route - in 2013 a 5p levy was introduced and the retailers pay the net proceeds of the levy to the Department of Environment at Stormont? This year 21 environmental groups that had their budgets slashed as part of government cutbacks received a share of a £1.25m fund raised by plastic bag charges. It makes sense that any money raised is used to improve the environment. Why is this not happening in England? 

Also, why does the charge not cover any disposable bag as in other countries?  Paper bags are not necessarily made from sustainable sources.

Local Authorities have to enforce this regulation. I wonder how many cash-starved local councils will do this?

England is lagging behind other countries in this initiative. In 2002, Bangladesh became the first country in the world to ban thinner plastic bags altogether, after they were found to have choked local drainage systems during floods.

See the recent article on the BBC website and the older one on Northern Ireland.
See the Government Guidelines.

A simmering resistance, a building movement

What a couple of weeks it has been. Even by Tory standards the weather of late has been very Tory. First we had the budget designed to make poor people poorer and rich people richer. Then we had the attempt to repeal the fox hunting ban by the back door; fox hunting is a blood sport which is the reserve of deranged elitists. Finally we have had the announcement of legislation to permanently alter the way trade unions operate and set back workers rights by around 100 years.

In addition to this George Osborne decided to basically ignore the issue of climate change in his budget, gave greater fiscal support oil companies and sort to incentivise ‘fracking’ whilst at the same time hampering the green energy movement by absurdly removing the Climate Change Levy exemption from renewable electricity.

To get a flavour of what our own local Tory is fighting for on some of the points briefly mentioned above;

In our Stroud District -   Neil Carmichael MP has voted;

 against paying higher benefits for people unable to work through illness or disability,

in favour of bedroom tax,

against benefits rising to meet cost of living,

 in favour of a reduction in welfare spending,

against a scheme to create guaranteed jobs for young people who been long term unemployed,

against a tax on bankers bonuses

against a mansion tax

in favour of reducing corporation tax

Neil Carmichael MP has stated that he will vote in favour of fox hunting.

                                 Neil Carmichael MP has a poor voting record when it comes to the environment.

                                               

When I sit down to write these blogs I want to be positive and constructive. But I am, like many of you I am sure, finding it hard to be positive right now. My MP is essentially the very antithesis of what I believe in and my government even more so.

Every morning when I come down to my kitchen and make a cup of tea, I switch on the radio as my preferred method of getting the news as I get my baby ready for the day or get ready for work. Increasingly though I am finding that my finger hovers over the preset button for Radio 4 and is tending to tap the Planet Rock preset as I say to myself ‘do you know what? I just don’t want to know today’. Of course this could just be that I am getting fed up with the today programme!

Progressives must work together

Before the budget was announced I attended a meeting of Stroud Against the Cuts. Stroud Against the Cuts brings together progressive groups from across Stroud and Gloucestershire who, despite whatever other differences, are united in their opposition to austerity.

When the election result was announced in May Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton Pavillion, said the following;

“…we must move forward today. While the campaign for electoral reform gathers momentum, those of us wanting to see a fairer, more compassionate and progressive politics must find new ways of working together, a new way to do politics – and put that in to practice now”

Caroline Lucas MP

This is the thing that gives me hope now; the simmering resistance that is turning in to a movement. It is a movement that questions this neoliberal austerity ideology and outright calls for something different, something more hopeful, something less damning.

It is no longer just a utopian fantasy but something eminent economists such Tim Jackson have put in to sound theory. We can create a world in which we redefine prosperity away from our ability to consume goods and amass economic wealth. We can redefine prosperity in terms of happiness, wellbeing and living within the means of this planet that we call home. We don’t have another one to fall back on after all.

The Labour Party

Following Osborne’s despicable budget it is time for the Labour Party to stand up and truly be the main opposition party. Not just opposition for the sake of it no; but because the very fabric of what makes our society great is at risk. Childhoods, retirements, working lives, already desperate lives are at risk.

I hope that the Labour Party will reach out and grasp the hand of Caroline Lucas, and will also stand up to the offer put forward by the 20 year SNP MP, Mhairi Black (youngest MP in 300 years) in her, already very famous, inspirational maiden speech;

“Now, yes we will have political differences, yes in other parliaments we may be opposing parties, but within this chamber we are not. No matter how much I may wish it, the SNP is not the sole opposition to this Government, but nor is the Labour party. It is together with all the parties on these benches that we must form an opposition, and in order to be affective we must oppose not abstain. So I reach out a genuine hand of friendship which I can only hope will be taken. Let us come together, let us be that opposition, let us be that signpost of a better society. Ultimately people are needing a voice, people are needing help, let’s give them it.”

Read the transcript here

See the speech in full here

It appears now that scores of Labour MPs are set to join Caroline Lucas in opposing the welfare cuts proposed by the Tories. It is shame that Labour MPs have to do this in defiance of the Labour leadership, but it their true opposition and defence of those who need it most is very welcome all the same.

Progressives must work together, form an opposition both locally and nationally and not allow this government to continue to ideologically dismantle all that makes our country great. The situation is already so very desperate and there has only been a Conservative majority government in power for 2 months. Imagine the horror of a Tory party unopposed for 5 years… if you dare.

Let them eat cake

Air pollution in the UK has been bad enough that people in London were advised not to cycle. The government are keen to crack on with fracking – which will not improve air quality and is likely to poison our water. Climate change threatens our food supplies and collective long term health.

The dominant health story in the news this week has been eating 7 portions of fruit and veg a week, and cutting sugar intake to stay healthy. The week before that, we were talking about obesity. We get plenty of public information about smoking, alcohol consumption and exercise, as well. What these stories do, without exception, is to put the responsibility for health squarely on the shoulders of the individual.

We aren’t talking about the 38% of sick leave from work being caused by work stress. It was in the chief medical officer’s report, but didn’t make the news. We aren’t really talking about the implications of air pollution even though we know it’s a killer. We know that water pollution nearly rendered otters extinct in the UK – being predators at the top of a food chain, they are where the toxins collect. We don’t talk about what those pollutants in our rivers might have been doing to the human population in the same time frame.

Health and the environment are not different issues. What we eat, drink and breathe impacts on our bodies. What is in our clothes, in our buildings, in the plastic bottles we drink from? What’s in our soil?

If you care about your health, then you need more than the efforts you can make on your own behalf. You need political action to safeguard your food and water, and to tackle the smog. There’s not much point giving up cake if a sick work culture is undermining your mental health. An extra portion of fruit and veg might not be so good if the TTIP forces genetically modified plants on us.

There is nothing more precious than health. Our personal health, and the health of our eco-systems are one and the same. If we poison our air, then we poison ourselves. If you care about your health, you need to vote Green. We can have a better future.

Flood solutions

Of course when the waters are rising, threatening homes and lives everyone wants a solution right now. The trouble is that there are no short term solutions to this much water. A shortage of long-term thinking got us into this mess in the first place. We can only hope that more short-term ‘problem solving’ does go on to make things worse.

Yes, in the short term if you dredge rivers you can move more water through them at a faster rate. However, what that does is causes more erosion to banks. There are two consequences here – eroded banks are more likely to give way in face of higher water pressure, which means an increased risk of flooding. All that eroded material goes into the river, silting it up, so you have to keep dredging to keep this under control. By destroying the natural ecology of the river you create an ongoing problem that you then have to keep throwing human solutions at, or you get more floods.

All of our problems here are really of our own making. We’ve built on flood plains. We’ve drained wetlands. We’ve laid down non-permeable surfaces (tarmac, concrete, buildings) and this means water is moving faster. The faster water flows out of our towns, the more likely it is to cause flooding. Once upon a time we had flood meadows, and marshes to soak up the excess, and water could seep in where it landed to a far greater degree. Our collective approach to development has caused this problem.

If we insist on ignoring these basic facts about how water moves through the environment, all we are going to do is invent ever more expensive flood protection schemes that do not deliver protection.

If we build on flood plains, we will get floods in those areas. If we destroy wetlands, we lose capacity for managing water. Yes, right now flooding is a big issue for farmers, but we need a totally different attitude to the value of those flooded fields.

Heavy rain isn’t going to magically go away. We need long term solutions to the underlying problems, not political quick-fixes that just move the problem down to the next town downstream, or the next generation, or some other unfortunates who inherit double the damage and an exorbitant bill. We need to start recognising there is a direct relationship between what people do, and what happens in our environment.

If you’d like to take action to do your bit and prevent flooding, and you have any garden space, consider creating a rain garden... more information here. 

Environmental offsetting

It’s amazing that someone with as tenuous as grasp on natural sciences as Owen Patterson could be our environmental secretary, taking decisions about the future of nature in the UK.

Apparently he thinks its ok to chop down ancient woodlands for development, if you do some offsetting some other place. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25599249 As though all you need to do to replace ancient woodland, is plant a few trees.

Perhaps Mr Patterson has never seen a wood? Clearly he’s never read anything more complex than ‘may contain trees’. Ancient woodland is so much more than the trees. It is a habitat. All manner of things live there. Birds, insects, animals, plants that are not trees. Ancient woodland has different flora to younger woods, and that flora is precious. None of these things magically relocate just because you planted some other trees for them. In many ways the most important thing about ancient woodland is not the purely the trees, but the complex interplay between fungi in the soil, and the trees. The life below the surface of the woodland floor is as important as the bits you can see. Quite possibly more so.

Woodlands are not separate from the land they stand on. They have grown up over hundreds, sometimes thousands of years in relation to the shape of the land, the flows of water, the underlying geology. Nothing is replaceable. Every wood is unique, and none should be chopped down carelessly for the sake of a fast buck for a few already overly-rich individuals.

Woodlands are our heritage. We should leave them intact as best we can for future generations. It is Owen Patterson that needs removing for development, and for the good of our countryside.