Call to Action

John Newson guest blogger writes;

I first got to know Esther Boyd when the Birmingham Tornado came through our area (July 2005). All the roofs were off in my street, the windows smashed and fences down. Over 400 properties were damaged including churches and schools. 19 people were injured. Many lost their possessions. My neighbours were homeless for nine months, while everything got soaked - then dried out and repairs were done. My house had to be decontaminated of other people's asbestos roof tiles, arrived in a storm of fragments and dust. see pictures Tornado

This hadn't felt like normal British weather! I took our tornado as a serious warning from Mother Nature. Climate change had arrived in Britain, and it wasn't nice. Our 'extreme weather event' was just the first of many such incidents, driven by the warming atmosphere.

My approach to any problem is to stop making it worse. I discovered that the air now has 25% more carbon dioxide than when I was born. That's how quickly the blanket of greenhouse gas has grown. Many people still haven't seen the gragh of these readings of CO2 over the last 50 years.

It was clearly time to tell other people about all this. So, I volunteered with Friends of the Earth, who were pushing Parliament for the world's first law to require cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases.

Friends of the Earth gives us a chance
to ask for tough targets for reducing emissions in the UK.
Or volunteer your time..

More tomorrow on what I have done to cut my own carbon emissions at home....