Ending use of fossil fuels works in so many ways: to reduce dependency on imports and slow the rising cost of living, hamper war, and above all stop making the climate emergency worse.
We have had the first IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – United Nations) report setting out the problem, and now the second report telling us what we must do to stop making it worse: stop government subsidies to the fossil fuel industry; stop insurance and finance companies investing in fossil fuels; stop all new fossil fuel mining and exploitation.
The third IPCC report will tell us what we must do to reverse the damage.
It is vital that we turn all manufacturing to solar panels, wind turbines and alternative green energy sources immediately, and insulate our homes to save energy and reduce global warming.
It would be good to stop the infrastructure projects (like motorways, High Speed 2, incinerators) and construction, following just transition and global justice.
We could follow the Netherlands' example and limit motorway speeds to around 50mph and have no driving days, eg Sundays.
Impressively, Ian Duncan Smith has called on Michael Gove for the government to take over running the North London Waste Authority, so appalling has the management of the Edmonton Incinerator become.
The government is ramping the bills through parliament to take away and further restrict our civil liberties, criminalising sectors of the community who travel and live in camps, and refugees and those who rescue them.
Soon we will have a police state to rival the dictatorships we like to criticise. The Lords are trying to save noisy protests and gatherings of more than one in the Police (Crime, Sentencing and Courts) Bill, but there are others like the Nationality and Borders, Elections, NHS bills that demean and harm us all.
High Speed 2, Network Rail and Camden Council are all working on plans for the rebuilt Euston Station. We can be sure as the “consultations” proceed, that the community will be sold short on replacement of the two hectares of green and open spaces to the west of the station and other promises in favour of developer profits.
Meanwhile, not satisfied with felling the entire Adelaide Woodland, HS2 now wants to fell trees in the nature reserve as well.
Dorothea Hackman is head of Camden Civic Society.
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