This post represents my own views, and not that of transition Horncastle, or any of it’s other members.
On Saturday I attended The Wave, in London, with about 40 people from Lincolnshire. The Wave was a demonstration designed to remind politicians that we want them to come away from the Copenhagen Summit with a strong agreement to tackle Climate change.
I’m really glad that I went, as I would have felt pretty hypocritical if I hadn’t made the effort. Sadly, I don’t think that enough people showed up to make ministers sit up and take notice. Too many people either don’t care, or don’t care enough. Here in Horncastle, we have around 10, 000 people, and yet I know of only six adults, and two kids who went to London. There may have been more, who went independently, but even so, it was a poor showing, that was obviously repeated all around the country.
So now we have to wait for leadership from our politicians. The same politicians who took us into Iraq, fiddled their expenses, and wasted £14,000 pounds per person propping up a banking system as corrupt as themselves. Perhaps this really is the Age of Stupid.
So what do we do if World Leaders fail to live up to the title of ‘Leader’ ? Probably what we all should already be doing. Acting now, without waiting for the nanny state to tell us that we should, or can, or cannot for ourselves. I think that deep down, most of us know that we have to do something about the way that we’re living, even if we don’t really want to change. Probably the first thing to do is to sign up to the 10:10 campaign. You sign up to reduce your own emissions by 10% in 2010. By signing up, you show the government that you want to reduce emissions, and help give them the backbone that they need to to act at their level. You can sign up here
There are other posts on the site which will give you more details. The more people that sign up, the more that politicians can see the support for action, and we start doing something NOW. Even if you’re not totally convinced by the Science, surely it is better to act now, than not to act, and risk being wrong?
Even if our leaders let us down, we are only responsible for our own actions, not theirs, but we are TOTALLY responsible for all of our actions, or inaction.
It’s time to stop talking and act.
Deano
Hello Deano.
I can understand your frustration, at the dismal turn out in London. I didn’t attend it either. For several reason. My partner and myself, live on a very low income, and could just not afford the fair down. I’ve just, in the past few days, discovered Transition Horncastle, and if I had known you were organising a trip to london, we could have possible gone along.
We would also like to come along to the Candle Vigil, on Saturday, in Horncastle, but again, we live 7 miles away, and right now we have no petrol, the garage in the village is waiting for some to be delivered – a good case for a transition group in this village here if ever there was one! Even so, to use travel 14 miles,buring polluting petrol, kind of defeats the purpose of the event!
There may be many reasons for people not being able to attend events, such as the one in London
Best wishes
John
It was really good to meet some of you at the Christmas Fair on Sunday. Helen and I spent a while chatting with Rose; her dedication is quite inspiring.
We both feel that effective, local actions, must be the main way to tackle the effects global warming, watching the predicted shenanigans coming out of Copenhagen this past week, only reinforces this view. I’ve always felt that politicians were the wrong sort of people to be in change of a country! Self – interest only produces more mess
I’m enclosing an e-mail, I sent a mail to the Customer care department of Tesco’s last week, concerning their and all other supermarkets mania with plastic wrapping, on most of the products they sell. Also, do look at the link too, with all of the horrible facts about plastics.
Oh, and Rose just phoned, to inform us we had won a prize in the raffle you held at the stall, we are most grateful.
Take care
Helen and John
Reasons to not shop at Supermarkets, part 107!
I recently bought a packet of Tesco Total Care interdental woodsticks from one of your branches. I can almost accept that the sticks are enclosed in a plastic container, for safety reasons, but, why do you then need to encase the container in more moulded plastic?
The same goes for many of the other products you sell too, we all know about cucumbers that are wrapped in plasic, which is seen as the height of bad taste and an uncaring attitude towards the environment, but what of the hundreds of other products that are also encased in plastics; from foods to toys, from electrical goods to clothes. Whenever I enter one of your stores, and of course of any other supermarket, my eyes are assaulted by the mountains of plastic that seems to cover most of your goods.
You must know that plastic takes thousands of years to break down, and that it causes untold suffering in the environment, especially when it gets into rivers and seas, where it is ingested by fish and other vertebrae, eventually finding its way though the food chain to us!
My partner and I never buy fresh produce from supermarkets, wrapping being one of the main reasons for not doing so, but we have continued to use you for non perishable products. However, we have made a commitment now, to source, where ever possible goods from smaller outlets, or just not buy any more items that are overwrapped.
Ok, we are still in a small minority, and, not until many more people like us boycott supermarkets, will you have the incentive to change your profligate ways. But I just want to let you know, we will not longer enter your stores. Not that the trade of two people will affect your balance sheet at all, I realise.
This isn’t meant to be a personal attack, and I bear no animosity towards any one.
http://www.plasticbagfree.com/facts.php