The environment, the natural world, wildlife decreases, climate change and various other environmental issues under a variety names have never been in the general media as much as they are currently. Every newspaper will have a story somewhere about the perils that the natural world and humanity faces in the time we live in. Personally, I am pleased that more awareness to these serious issues is being made more public and also the fact that many more young people are challenging the way we live and the affects humanity has on the world environment, these are all moves in the right direction. I am slowly starting to feel that public pressure is working and was encouraged to see and hear people at the Extinction Rebellion demo in London the other week and to see how many people had gone out to let politicians know that it’s not just few hippies that are worried about the environment. I met and talked with many different people on the day I went up and in general felt encouraged that 1000s of people are willing to talk about the issues and hopefully make a difference.
We are, as always, are in the hands of government and as you have probably gathered from some of my previous articles I have, in the past, had little or no faith in politicians when it concerns the environment and so you can imagine my joy to find out that we were having another General Election on December 12th. Its obvious that the public pressure about environmental issues is starting to have an effect on the various political parties that will be standing at this next election. Good job as its about 50 years or more too late.
With this added political madness of an election I have been trying to keep tabs on what the various parties are saying about environmental issues and what they propose to try and do to halt the destruction of our country and planet.
There have been a few interesting things said already but I’m still feeling sceptical about some of these big claims
So, we currently have all the political parties claiming that they will make a significant change in policy, trying to halt the environmental crisis. Whoever wins next month has a lot of big promises to live up to and despite my scepticism and fears I also feel quite intrigued to see what actually happens and as always, cling to the hope that serious change will happen. We shall see …..
Before any serious change in the UK starts, we the voters have our own personal decisions to make about who we may vote for and we have to ask ourselves what are the most important issues that this country faces. I read an article last week saying that despite the pressure from many people and despite all the scientific data that has been accumulated about environmental issues, the environment in general is only the 4th most important point that a poll of UK voters named. I find this an equally worrying statistic despite many of the points I raised earlier about being in the news on a daily basis, the British voter still needs to wake up more and think more about the state of the planet we all live on. Unsurprisingly the number one reason given in the above-mentioned poll was Brexit, which in my nature conservationist mind has been a very dangerous distraction from the environment crisis.
I ask all readers of this site to think of environmental issues before you vote and I’m certainly not going to talk political viewpoints or make suggestions on how/who you should vote but if you genuinely care about our planet and its wildlife you will be thoughtful about where you put your mark.
