Environmental group to present climate emergency petition to SIC
An environmental group’s petition calling on the council to declare a climate emergency has garnered hundreds of signatures.
Over 500 people have signed Shetland Climate Action’s petition, which will be presented to Shetland Islands Council at a town hall meeting on Wednesday 22nd January.
Members of the group are urging SIC “to provide a clear signal of the seriousness of the climate crisis” by declaring a climate emergency, and have said they will make the case for the council to reduce their own emissions, and take the lead to encourage and support partners and residents to reduce theirs.
Over 80 per cent of the British population lives in areas that have declared a climate emergency, with 15 of Scotland’s 32 councils having now declared, the group said. Orkney Islands Council did so in May last year.
“Declaring a climate emergency won’t solve the climate crisis alone but what this moment can do is clarify the councillors’ commitment to act. We recognise the carbon reductions that the council has made in recent years, however Shetland requires a much greater sense of urgency – the longer we leave it, the harder it will be to transition to a greener, cleaner community,” the group said in a statement.
The petition will also be presented to an environment and transport committee meeting on January 22nd.
Shetland Climate Action formed last year to organise September’s climate strike, which saw crowds gather at the Market Cross.
David Spence
It is obvious climate change is happening. You only have to look at how mild our winters are.
What is the driving force to this? I would hazard a guess at the man-made concept of money being the major cause to climate change. People will say it is population increase due to better health, food and living standards, thus greater the pollution being caused?
It may surprise you one of the greatest sources of pollution is Agriculture. This industry produces 5 – 6 times more pollution than the whole of transport put together……..but we are brainwashed into believing transport is, literally, the sole cause?
The disturbing irony in tackling climate change is for us to go nuclear. It is the only way we can meet the demand without causing further fossil fuel emissions to increase pollution further, as well as, hopefully, giving the planet time to heal itself?
However, if we put the concept of money ahead of anything else, tackling climate change may take longer than planned or until Mother Earth deals with the situation herself and eradicates humans entirely.
We are part of a very balanced system which sustains life on Earth.
James J Paton
And??? The climate Action Group need to show as well as tell? What is the Climate Action Group actually practically doing to mitigate climate change in addition to ‘driving’ to the Town Hall? Have you come up with a prioritised action and policy list for the Council-assuming they are, as they are, incapable of innovative thought and action themselves – senior officers and councillors alike!
PS Craven District Council and North Yorkshire County Council are equally as feckless!
John Tulloch
An “Inconvenient Truth”.
The United Nations’ expert body, the IPCC does not use lurid language like “the climate emergency”. The reason being that it has no basis in science.
In fact, both physical and economic vulnerability to climate-related disasters has plummeted by over 80 percent in the last twenty to thirty years::
“Using a global, spatially explicit framework that integrates population and economic dynamics with one of the most complete natural disaster loss databases we quantified mortality and loss rates across income levels and analyzed their relationship with wealth. Results show a clear decreasing trend in both human and economic vulnerability, with global average mortality and economic loss rates that have dropped by 6.5 and nearly 5 times, respectively, from 1980–1989 to 2007–2016. “
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378019300378