Calling for a Big Climate Plan on High Street

With one week to go until we meet one of our local MPs to talk about the Big Climate Plan, we had another stall to collect people's ideas for climate action and postcards to pass on to the prime minister. This time we were in the centre of Leicester, part way up High Street.

Street campaigning can be a challenge because people can be reluctant to stop and talk (especially if they think you're asking for money) and explaining campaigns very quickly is not always easy. We collected fewer postcards than the week before, perhaps because the weather was a lot colder. We noticed that people are feeling very disillusioned with the current government and are therefore unwilling to engage in anything 'political'. But we kept ourselves entertained with a friendly rivalry as to who was collecting the most signatures! Bruce beat everyone else hands down - we think it must have been his bobble hat. People gave us some odd excuses for not stopping to talk - the strangest being "I'm already married"! We're not sure what they thought we were asking!

Calling for a Big Climate Plan on Queens Road

We spent a couple of hours on Queens Road today, talking to passers-by about the Big Climate Plan campaign. National Friends of the Earth took the government to court last year for having an inadequate climate plan. They won the case and the government is now re-writing their plan, which they have to publish by 2nd May. Alongside Friends of the Earth groups across the country, we are calling on them to develop a new climate plan that is bolder and fairer. Millions of people in the UK are already suffering the impacts of extreme weather, sky high energy bills and rising inequality Our communities deserve warmer homes, cheaper energy, cleaner air, better public transport and well-paid green jobs.

Eight members of Leicester Friends of the Earth spoke to people on Queens Road, asking them to sign a postcard to the Prime Minister and collecting their ideas of what climate action we would like to see. It was a beautiful, sunny spring day and many people stopped to talk and share their ideas. If you were one of them, thank you! If you haven't had chance to sign a postcard, you can sign our digital petition instead. We're hoping to deliver the postcards and the petition to local MPs later this month, for them to pass on to the Prime Minister on our behalf. 

Cruise ships

 

Cruising volumes are going up rapidly but it comes at a large environmental cost, a fact that cruising companies are keen to greenwash.

This article from the Which makes interesting and worrying reading, but how often do you hear about this level of pollution in the press?  The article has an error in the table in the section marked “The carbon footprint of cruise holidays vs flying” but the general concept is obvious: cruising is the worst way of having a foreign holiday.

This isn’t just about CO2 either.  The heavy fuel oil that ships burn isn’t the same as the diesel fuel we put in our cars.  The article makes clear it has 100 times as much sulphur as the diesel we normally know.  The last time we took a cross-channel ferry the smoke coming out of the funnel was purple!

Cruise ship operators will talk about scrubbing the sulphur out of their exhausts using sea water, but that’s just transferring the sulphur from the air to the sea, along with other pollutants, a practice that is increasingly banned in ports.  It’s slightly ironic that people living near a port may think they’re getting fresh sea air when in reality they are probably suffering worse air and water pollution than people living inland. When added to the sewage in our rivers and seas you wonder what sea swimmers are actually swimming in...

When it comes to the impact on places cruise ships visit there is another problem, one that places like Barcelona and Venice are already grappling with.  The sudden arrival of thousands of tourists in a short period.  On a recent holiday to Orkney we are were given a listing of cruise ships, how many passengers they are capable of carrying and when they were to arrive and depart.  The reason?  When a 3,500-passenger cruise ship arrives at Orkney a fleet of buses appears to clog up the roads and any place of interest you want to visit is swamped with people – it’s best to hunker down somewhere.  These cruise ships are giving all tourists a bad name.

So, are you considering going on a cruise?  Do you know somebody who is going on a cruise?  Have you made them aware of the environmental damage they are doing? Have cruise ship passengers heard about the climate emergency?

Now We Rise - COP28 March

On Saturday 9^th December, we stood with XR Leicester, Leicester Animal Rights, Green Guardians Leicester and Climate Action Leicester for a march through the streets of Leicester to mark the International Day of Action for Climate Justice.

Speeches were made at Leicester’s Clock Tower and then we marched to the Town Hall Square where an aerial picture was taken. People were dressed in black to represent an oil slick as they asked world leaders meeting at COP28 in Dubai to stop drilling for new oil: ‘Rosebank Oil Wells’ has recently been approved. We don’t need to drill for new oil we have enough for our needs already.

Thousands of people across the world rose up on Saturday; people from 4 continents, 50 countries, 300 locations – standing together to raise awareness of the need for action to stop global temperatures increasing more than 1.5 C.

Melanie Wakley from FoE said “We want promises that mean something. Promises that stand for a reality of things we can achieve to save our planet from environmental disaster and promises that are made and are kept, not watered down once everyone goes home from Dubai.”

The march ended with the chant from XR Leicester “We want action! Action for the Climate! Action for Nature! We want Climate Justice! The people have spoken – Now We Rise!”

Melanie Wakley

#NowWeRise

Warm Homes Coalition

We have joined the WarmHomesLeics coalition, led by Climate Action Leicester and Leicestershire, along with other groups including The Race Equality Centre, Loughborough Climate Vigil and Muslim Green Guardians. This is part of a national campaign calling on the government to do the following:

• Roll out a street-by-street insulation programme
• Provide targeted financial help for people in fuel poverty
• Act to switch the UK to cheap, home-grown renewable energy
• Stop providing support for the fossil fuel industry

Find out more about how you can get involved here.