We all want better healthcare, more young people in work and able to afford houses, and to reduce the size of the national debt. But these social and economic policies seem to have pushed aside any thoughts about environmental policies.
Why does it matter that the politicians ignore the subject of the environment? Because if we ignore the real and present environmental threats our future social and economic policies will be irrelevant. Sounds a bit drastic, doesn’t it?
But we humans are a little like goldfish swimming happily in our glass bowl – our planet – our fishy ecosystem. We love our bowl and enjoy swimming across it through the attractive weeds and shells. We are unaware of how the waters in our bowl are kept fresh and clean.
Well, our bowl or ecosystem is now showing serious signs of becoming, to say the least, “cloudy”. If you want to see the evidence just spend a little time on a computer and search for the following topics: mass extinction of wild life, freshwater shortages and soil erosion. It sounds depressing, but we are allowing species to die at an unprecedented rate, we are using up our fresh water and we are losing the soils we need to grow food.
This gloomy list is only half the story. Manmade global warming is heating our planet to dangerous levels. For those who still think that man is not responsible for this warming then it really doesn’t matter, because the planet is warming whether we like it or not. The consequences of an increase of more than two degrees will be – not to put too fine a point on it – catastrophic.
A common rhetorical flourish used by the politicians is to assert that they are doing the best for future generations, whether it is by building up the economy, improving education, reducing the debt. But the consequences of ignoring these environmental challenges will mean a very hard time for future generations. Life in our goldfish bowl will become increasingly unpleasant and ultimately impossible.
Hey ho! What a cheerful thought! But there is so much that can be done now. We have to take much better care of our planet: use less of its resources and protect the land and sea and all the creatures that live there. Here in Rye we need a local recycling facility to process such things as unwanted electrical goods, cardboard and other packaging materials. The county council facility at Mountfield is too far away. We also need much more effective support for energy efficiency and renewable energy in owner-occupied and rented homes as well as businesses. We also need a government that encourages local solutions with real community engagement and ownership. We must challenge the politicians and ensure that they will support more radical action now – before we are all found floating at the top of the bowl.