The Climate Change Campaigner

When I originally came up with my idea for the Prime Minister to make a televised address to the nation on climate change, Gordon Brown had only recently come to power.  It seems a long time ago now, but back in the autumn of 2007, he was actually quite popular, and it appeared that he had the kind of support from the nation which would mean a televised address from him would have real impact. 

 

Then we had the election that never happened, the 10p tax rate, electoral defeats for Labour all around the country and now a challenge from David Miliband to his authority.  With Brown's popularity at its lowest point, many people have asked me whether I should not just give up on this campaign and wait for someone else to come into power.  Even if he made a televised address to the nation, they say, would anyone actually listen to what he's got to say?

 

The answer I give them is that this is not about individual politicians, its about all of us.  No matter who the Prime Minister is, we as people have to send a message to political leaders that we need them to do more on climate change.  The threat we face is so significant that we need to ask those within Government to rise above political concerns and provide the kind of leadership we need.  I could sit back and wait for a new leader - but who's to say that David Miliband or David Cameron is going to be any more popular or have any more authority?  If we keep waiting for the right leader to come along, we could be waiting a long time.   

 

Politicians in the main respond to people's demands.  The reason politicians are not leading on climate change as well as they should is fear of a public backlash against measures they'd take.  If we're going to convince them to provide the leadership we need, we have to show them that no matter who is in charge, and how unpopular they are, we still want them to lead on climate change.  And that's why I'm going to keep going with the campaign. 

 

If you want to help me, please sign up here

I was very happy last week when my blog was featured on the MSN-UK frontpage, and the traffic to the blog shot up immediately.  What I hadn’t expected was that the vast majority of the comments I received would be from climate sceptics. 

 

Their main argument was that climate change is an unproven scientific theory.  They argued that it was just the latest in a long line of scare stories (going from suggestions in the 1970s that a mini ice age was about to hit to fears about the Millennium Bug).  Most of them argued that climate change was being used as an excuse by the Government to raise taxes, while one guy argued it was in part so that teachers would have a topic to get their pupils to write letters to MPs about. 

 

What I found particularly interesting was the comments about the science.  The people making comments said that I was ill-informed and basing my work on bad science.  I would argue that they’re the ones who are ill-informed.  But how do you win that argument?  As a non-scientist, its impossible for me to know for sure that I’m right and they’re wrong.  I think it must come down to trust – do you believe the IPCC and the UN, or do you believe the scientists on the Great Global Warming Swindle?  When I made that argument, I got little response. 

 

(While I’m on it, I don’t question for a moment Channel 4’s right to air that programme, but I do wonder whether anyone from the Channel regrets the damage it has done.  If they don't, I think they should)

 

On the tax question, I wasn’t sure whether to debate with people or to dismiss their concerns out of hand.  I decided eventually to debate, and asked why on earth the Government would be looking to tax carbon-producing behaviours, which are generally those which people are most attached to - surely a recipe for unpopularity.  I also asked why the Government has recently put off the rise in fuel duty if it was so keen on taxing drivers.  Again, there was no response. 

 

I don't know for sure if I'm right or the sceptics are, and I think there are too many people on both sides of the debate who are unwilling to listen to each other, so I think its important to keep debating even if you don't like what you hear.  So come on climate sceptics, let's hear what you've got - I bet I can talk you round.  

Do people actually want the Government to lead Britain's response to climate change?  That was the question someone asked me the other day when I told him about my campaign to get Gordon Brown to make a televised address to the nation on climate change.  He was arguing that the Government is so unpopular right now that its not the right vehicle for getting the climate change message across.

 

Its a difficult question, and as I've mentioned in previous blogs I know that any campaign which involves asking the Government to do something is going to put off those people who have no faith in the Government at all.  But I still think most people look to Government for leadership when our national interest is threatened.  I think climate change is the biggest threat to our national interest by a mile, but I think part of the problem is that it hasn't been communicated that way by politicians.  People sometimes talk about getting the country on a war footing in response to climate change, but its harder to persuade people of a threat that you can't see (like climate change) than it is to persuade them, for example, that there's a terrorist threat. 

 

I heard a climate change campaigner talking the other week, and he said that "we need more Katrinas" to convince people in the West that there's a threat.  I thought it was an awful thing to say, and made me think that those of us who are concerned about climate change have to do a much better job of convincing people that there is a real danger, rather than waiting for something bad to happen, by which time surely it will be too late. 

 

So I do think its the Government's job to lead on climate change - I think its the only body that can - but I think both it and the climate change movement have to do a much better job of justifying why climate change is a threat to us and our children and why its in our national interest to act against it.   That's what I'm trying to do through my campaign, and I think if we can convince people that climate change is a major threat and that action is needed immediately, then I think the Government, even in its current unpopular state, is the body to lead us in that response.  If they don't, who will?

 

Click here to sign the petition supporting the campaign.

Let's Talk, Gordon went to Glastonbury last weekend...

 

I'd never been to Glastonbury before so it was quite an experience for me.  With other members of the campaign team and colleagues from Practical Action, I was collecting email addresses from people who were interested in the campaign.  What struck me most as I tried to persuade people to sign up was the level of bad feeling about Gordon Brown - the campaign is obviously based very personally on the Prime Minister and as you'll see from the photos, my colleagues and I were all wearing t-shirts with a cartoon of him on them.  Even though the campaign is not pro-Brown in any way, the mere mention of his name seemed to put a lot of people off, and it took a lot to persuade them that it was better to push the Prime Minister to be a better leader than to criticise the job he's done so far.

 

Its made me think a lot about the way I communicate about the campaign.  The message of the campaign is, I believe, one of hope - that if we come together as a nation to respond to climate change we can set an example for the world to follow, and fulfil our duty to our children.  But combining that message of hope with an acknowledgement that the focus of the campaign - the Prime Minister - is viewed with widespread skepticism is extremely difficult.  Ultimately, I will never give up on the hopeful message and may just have to accept that some people will see the campaign as hopelessly idealistic. 

 

Others at Glastonbury were more positive and we got a mention for the campaign on the write-up of the festival at Green Guys Global, complete with unflattering picture of me in my Gordon Brown t-shirt.  For any girls reading this: I'd been without a shower for 3 days, living on a diet of apples and biscuits - I promise I can look better...