Rachel Burgin attended the “Time to Act ” demonstration in London on Saturday 7th March in order to highlight the problems associated with Climate Change.
The event attracted in excess of 20,000 people from a wide range of backgrounds and political persuasions.
Rachel also attended the pre-demonstration church service at St. Mary Le Strand, organised by Operation Noah.
Rachel said “the issue of Climate Change is much bigger than one political party. I believe it is important that all of us – of whatever political persuasion – who recognize the the importance of addressing these challenges – are prepared to work together to find solutions.
The Climate Change agenda wasn’t dreamt up by some do-gooders in a darkened room set on undermining the profits of multinational oil companies: it is recognized as a reality by every credible school of science. And you don’t need powers of fortune-telling to see the evidence all around. We’ve all heard about the polar ice caps melting and sea levels rising. Another identified consequences of Climate Change is large-scale flooding – and there have been numerous such crises in recent years. In 2009, when floods hit Cumbria, bridges fell that had stood for 200 years. And many other parts of the country have been affected by similar catastrophes.
But it is important that in addressing the challenges of Climate Change, we don’t cause other injustices such as pricing consumers out of affording electricity, which is why Labour’s War on Cold Homes is such an important policy. We can radically reduce our energy needs by improving our homes – and the science is already there to build homes that require no electricity bills at all.
Those who seek to undermine Climate Change science offer consumers a “quick fix” to the problems of rising electricity bills and prey on the unpopularity of wind farm and solar farm development for their own political and economic purposes. But it doesn’t need to be this way. New ways of generating electricity are being invented all the time – and new ways are being developed for consumers to take more control of their electricity supply through, for example, Community Energy Co-operatives. I would urge everyone to look for the possibilities rather than the threats: the biggest losers ought to be the Big Six Energy Companies.”