Posted on 13th July 2019 by dizzy

Harvard Thinks Big 2010 – Daniel Gilbert – ‘Global Warming and Psychology’ from Harvard Thinks Big on Vimeo.

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Climate Crisis :: EXTINCTION REBELLION Monday 15 July – ‘Summer Uprising: ACT NOW’ begins

Posted on 12th July 2019 by dizzy

https://rebellion.earth/2019/07/10/from-monday-15-july-extinction-rebellions-summer-uprising-act-now-to-cause-major-disruption-across-five-uk-cities/

… [S]tarting Monday 15 July Extinction Rebellion UK will return to block streets day after day creating open public spaces for creative resistance in five cities in England, Wales and Scotland – Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds and London. People are coming together through a set of UK wide regional acts of nonviolent civil disobedience to demand the Government ACT NOW to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.

Marking the beginning of preparations for Extinction Rebellion’s next International Rebellion which will begin on Monday 7 October 2019, the Summer Uprising will follow on from this weekend’s East London Uprising.

Each site will have family-friendly spaces, live music, print workshops, speeches and more. Everyone is invited to join this exciting coordinated Summer Uprising in the city of their choosing:

Sea Levels Are Rising and So Are We – Bristol (XR South-West England)

In Bristol the focus will be on rising sea levels. This reflects the city’s maritime history and its risk of floods, which NASA research warns are likely to be a regular occurrence by 2050 if climate breakdown isn’t urgently addressed. 22,300 residential Bristol properties will be at risk, and flooding is likely to affect power stations.

Russell Arnott, 38, Oceanographer, University of Bath
“We are taking action in Bristol to tell the Government to act now on climate change and ecological breakdown. Average sea levels have risen by 23cm since 1880 with devastating consequences. This is causing destructive erosion, flooding, more frequent hurricanes and powerful storms, killing and displacing millions worldwide. We have to wake up to the facts. This is a crisis to deal with, here and now.”

For updates on Bristol, follow Extinction Rebellion Bristol on facebook, twitter and their website.

The Sixth Mass Extinction is Already Here – Cardiff (XR Wales)

Cardiff will be transformed by the arrival of concerned citizens from across Wales who are determined to highlight the need for the Welsh Government to dramatically accelerate its actions in tackling the climate crisis and ecological emergency. 

They will be occupying a central space in Cardiff – meeting from 11am Monday outside Cardiff National Museum. Dressed in yellow, protestors will represent dead canaries inspired by the words of Irish President Michael D Higgins, “If we were coal miners we’d be up to our knees in dead canaries”. The sixth mass extinction is here and it’s time to act now.

Stephen Lingwood, 37, Extinction Rebellion Cardiff
“People are dying right now of climate chaos in places like India. It’s only going to get worse. We’re at the beginning of the sixth mass extinction and a climate genocide and the government’s inaction is, in my view, criminally irresponsible.”

For updates on Cardiff, follow Extinction Rebellion Cardiff on facebook and their twitter.

The Future You Fear is Already Here: Glasgow (XR Scotland) #Justice4ClimateRefugees

Glasgow / Scotland’s focus for the Summer Uprising is solidarity with climate refugees. Climate crisis and ecological breakdown are not distant threats: all around the world people are already dying and being displaced. The future effects of the Climate and Ecological Emergency that we in the UK are terrified about – floods, food shortages, droughts and resulting conflicts – are already a reality for millions of people in the Global South/Majority World. The Glasgow event will have live music, a ceilidh, speakers on climate justice and refugee solidarity, and family activities with Wee Rebellion.

Daniel Armstrong, 24, Extinction Rebellion Scotland
“As the climate continues to break down, more and more parts of the world will become uninhabitable. Immigration is already seen as a big issue but it will only increase as more people are displaced. But if you’re faced with unlivable conditions due to extreme weather, food shortages and drought, you have no choice but to leave. From the perspective of my hometown Glasgow, where refugees are welcomed, we stand in solidarity with those affected not just by climate chaos but also those displaced by this global crisis.”

For updates on Glasgow, follow Extinction Rebellion Glasgow on facebook and their twitter.

Planet Before Profit: Leeds (XR North England)

Rebels will target Leeds’ financial sector, which is the biggest and fastest growing outside London, to draw attention to the links between banking and the climate and ecological emergency. Demands will be made for the finance industry to radically clean up its act and invest to be part of the solution, not the problem. 

Rev’d Jon Swales (B.A Hons, M.A, MLitt), 41, Leeds 
“Too often we remain silent in the face of injustice, oppression and extinction. I will not be silent for the sake of the world’s most poor.

“The Extinction Rebellion protests in Leeds will allow the alarm bell to ring loud and clear in the City in which I live and work. If this call is heeded perhaps we can avert the worst of what is yet to come. I intend to play my part in non-violent and love shaped protest.”

For updates on Leeds, follow Extinction Rebellion Leeds on facebook and their twitter.

We Are Nature Defending Itself: London (XR South-East England and National)

People are invited to gather outside the Royal Courts of Justice (time TBC) in solidarity with all climate activists defending our planet around the globe. We demand climate justice for all and call on Government to make ecocide law. We stand with those laying their bodies on the line to defend the natural world and commend their courage. We are nature defending itself!

Fletcher Horobin-Worley, 45, Extinction Rebellion London:
“The time to debate climate change is over. Now we must talk of climate justice. Now we must talk of moral obligations. Right now thousands suffer and die every year in the global south due to climate change. Entire island nations are being wiped of the map. Now we must meet our duty to shoulder the burden of adapting to climate breakdown. ”

For updates on London, follow Extinction Rebellion London on facebook, twitter and their website.

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38degrees: Increase the fines for breaking electoral law

Posted on 12th July 2019 by dizzy

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/enforce-the-laws-of-our-democracy?utm_campaign=Electoral+Commission+petition

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Right now, you can be fined more for touting tickets at a football match than you can for subverting British democracy, with the max fine being £20k. The Electoral Commission imposed the maximum fine on Vote Leave – just 0.003% of its £7m budget.

Whichever way you voted on Brexit, it can’t be right that political machines with millionaire donors can break our electoral laws with impunity. The Electoral Commission has repeatedly asked for the maximum fines they can impose to be increased. But our political leaders don’t like being held to account. And so far, they’ve refused.

We could have another election or referendum at any moment – so the Electoral Commission urgently needs more power now to guard our democracy. We must make sure fines are proportionate to how much campaigns actually spend, so they act as a real deterrent. Please sign openDemocracy’s petition today and sign up to hear more about our investigations.

…

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Climate Crisis :: One climate crisis disaster happening every week, UN warns

Posted on 11th July 2019 by dizzy

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/07/one-climate-crisis-disaster-happening-every-week-un-warns

Climate crisis disasters are happening at the rate of one a week, though most draw little international attention and work is urgently needed to prepare developing countries for the profound impacts, the UN has warned.

Catastrophes such as cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique and the drought afflicting India make headlines around the world. But large numbers of “lower impact events” that are causing death, displacement and suffering are occurring much faster than predicted, said Mami Mizutori, the UN secretary-general’s special representative on disaster risk reduction. “This is not about the future, this is about today.”

This means that adapting to the climate crisis could no longer be seen as a long-term problem, but one that needed investment now, she said. “People need to talk more about adaptation and resilience.”

…

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THE STATE WE’RE IN :: Wealth in the Climate Crisis era

Posted on 8th July 2019 by dizzy

This post to be revised.

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Expecting a big event this week

Posted on 8th July 2019 by dizzy

Looks like a big event this week. Monday or Tuesday would be good but even if it’s much later … ;)

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Posted on 7th July 2019 by dizzy
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A few issues

Posted on 2nd July 2019 by dizzy

I would point out that it is a legitimate political perspective – although expressed rather directly – to object to upper-class twats having political power. It is actually totally logical to believe that rich twats who have been born rich and have attended public schools (actually private private schools with ridiculously expensive fees that only the filthy rich can afford) are so ignorant that they are effectively alien from reality.

I need to finish THE STATE WE’RE IN short series although it hardly needs to be said. The main point is that business as usual is unsustainable. How is that so difficult to understand? There is a climate emergency, a crisis. We can’t carry on in the same way. It’s not enough to issue platitudes and carry on regardless. That’s going to kill the planet.

Jeremy Corbyn is annoyed that civil servants have been briefing against him. I am also pissed off with civil servants acting in a partisan way. I understand that Nosey Parker’s job is to be a fking nosey parker. I don’ t agree that he and his gang should be taking such an interest in me but I think that it’s totally unjust that the blond upper-class twat gets to know my business.

[8/7/19 Hey Nosey Parker, I’m sure you’ll agree that I’m getting better at it (although I might have been pretty good when that fat-arsed Home Secretary was moaning about OpenBSD? What was that acronym I used? Something about him being a fat b’stard?)

I was looking forward to open-source mobile devices. Not sure that it will happen now. C’mon, open-source mobile devices please, that would be great.

[8/7/19 later. I really enjoyed that one Hey Charlie, I’ve got a preacher of hate for you …. ;)

[I remember now. It was SIUYBFA.

Can we get those c’nuts locked up? Those New-Labour evil shits? Reid, Blunkett, Clarke, Ian Blair, Tonee Blair, et al. There is cabinet responsibility so that they’re all guilty

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THE STATE WE’RE IN :: Statement 1

Posted on 20th June 2019 by dizzy

A short series of statements that recognises the current urgency and absolute primacy of the climate crisis. May be revised or corrected. Undecided how this series will go. Away njoio over the weekend (no not Glastonbury).

Let’s get this clear from the outset: I represent nobody except myself. Despite supporting Jeremy Corbyn’s UK Labour party I have never been a member of the Labour party. I may have briefly been a member of SERA (Socialist, Environment and Resources Association) approximately 40 years ago while I was an active anti-nuclear activist. SERA was and continues to be closely associated with the Labour party.

I have been publishing inconsistently on the internet since 1998 or 1999 and I am certainly amoung the earliest bloggers. I have a portfolio of posts and articles that establishes me a competent and accomplished blogger, journalist or political activist – whatever I am. I warned of climate crisis online – from memory – in 1999.

Politicians encounter problems addressing the climate crisis because of 1. the short-termism inherent in contemporary politics and 2. the huge influence of climate crisis deniers on them.

  1. Politicians are typically elected for terms of four or five years. They are concerned with one or at most two terms only by which time they will have lost power to the opposition.
  2. Climate crisis deniers exert huge influence over politicians. For example, the Murdoch media empire promotes climate change denial. Rupert Murdoch has historically exerted huge influence on successive UK prime ministers, certainly since Blair. “When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice.” Dodgy Brexit financer Aaron Banks said “Global climate change represents the biggest transfer of wealth from poor to rich ever via inflated energy costs“. The UK’s next prime minister will probably be a no-dealer tied to transatlantic climate science denial network.

I have difficulties comprehending climate change deniers. Perhaps I understand it in the ignoramus US resident Donald Trump.

Climate crisis activist protocol says stay positive, promote the notion that climate crisis can be averted. I am breaking with that protocol. I believe that the tipping point has been passed, that climate change has now acquired it’s own frightening dynamic. Apologies for saying this to those of you who have children.

10/7/19 There’s an issue with normally intelligent people having minds closed to the state we’re in. I’m talking in terms of the world having been destroyed, having passed tipping points that develop their own frightening dynamic. Their minds are closed and they cannot contemplate the state we’re in.

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Greenpeace tax and preview of the ideal Slinky … bike

Posted on 18th June 2019 by dizzy

Dear Greenpeace,

Thank you for your email. While I am very supportive of your direct action and watch your activities online e.g. BP rig makes u-turn amid Greenpeace protest there is actually somehow an error. I didn’t have a direct debit with you and my name is Rhys not Ryys.

I don’t know what’s happened but I’m going to take this opportunity to ask the readers of my blog to support you and your direct action. 

I had a bicycle stolen from me very recently. It was nothing special – a cheapish rigid-framed aluminium bike fitted with cheap semi-slick road tyres. I’ve got one or two other bikes – three [8.45pm two now] actually, all second hand – but that was my favourite and I was intending to pass the others on.

I’ve been designing the ideal ‘Slinky …’ bike to replace it and was intending to tax users of the design with a donation to yourselves. Here’s a preview of the spec. This is an early draft and I’ve been considering different sized wheels, etc. 

…

If any of my loaded readers are so inclined, I can only accept an anonymously donated bike e.g. I can’t accept if I see your details on the delivery note.

… I want a donation of at least £10 to Greenpeace for each one built to this design for yourself. Don’t forget the Slinky …

I like rigid mountain bikes with slick or semi-slick tyres. 

Specification
Decent quality so that it will take many years of reqular use, 70 miles per week

Aluminium frame or better

Cartridge bottom bracket

Medium size
I like a fairly upright riding position, swept back cruiser or bullhorn style bars 25cm rise

Target weight 9kg or less if possible. No heavier than 12kg.
24 gear derailleur. Need a low first for the hills while the bike is loaded, clunk on the highest cog

175mm or 180mm crank options

Black metal cage pedals SYMMETRICAL!

26″ sealed bearing double-walled wheels. Wheels may need to be rebuilt to accept wider, higher pressure tyres

Rim brakes, quality cantilever fitted with replacable pad cartridges – do not need pad position adjustment once set properly

Tapered roller bearing with adjustment like motorcycle swinging arms for head bearings. Uncertain that this is necessary and may be overkill introducing unnecessary weight. Sealed bearings? Push-fit sealed bearings won’t have any adjustment – so what? – but will be durable

Slick or semi-slick tyres 26 x 2.10 with puncture protection. Tyres to accept at least 90/110 PSI. At least 65 psi spec if not possible and will run 65/70.

Twist grip gear change is acceptable
Stubby wide mudguards in black gloss or matt

The squareish black alloy low-riders front and rear if possible. Otherwise sturdy black alloy rack at rear.

Midnight blue with

Slinky … 
in small but noticable pink handwriting style both sides front of top tube. No other branding

Legally required deflectors ,[8.50pm reflectors, deflectors would be great] to be satisfied using discrete adhesive stickers

Long rectangular lights mounted horizontally front and rear ratio ge5:1

I wouldn’t be surprised that I’ve started a meme now with everyone greeting each other “Slinky” on my local cycle track ;) I hope someone calls me Slinky.

Anyway, best wishes and I hope that I have taxed some of my readers for you.

Love,

Rhys

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Climate Crisis

Posted on 14th June 2019 by dizzy

Please ensure that your elected representatives are fully aware of your concern about the climate crisis. Please tell them that you demand action.

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State of the nation

Posted on 13th June 2019 by dizzy

I cannot stress enough how important the climate crisis is. It’s not a matter of reducing climate damage. Instead it has to be reversed.

UK politicians need to act responsibly. We need a general election so that a responsible government can be elected. We need a government that leads the World, shows the way on the Climate Emergency.

Brexit is bollocks. We need stability and continuity to address the climate emergency.

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Coming soon and more

Posted on 11th June 2019 by dizzy

Coming soon, hopefully in the next few days a state of the nation sort of post.

Confessions of drug-taking from Conservative and prime ministerial candidates seems to have stopped. No “I have to take a small mountain of coke before I can clean my teeth” or “I’ve not slept since 1997” confessions. The trouble is – of course – is that they could all be off their tits on coke.

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Pinned

Posted on 9th June 2019 by dizzy

Conservative party leadership (and therefore also prime minister) candidate Michael Gove has admitted taking Cocaine many years ago.

Another candidate Rory Steward has admitted smoking Opium which is certainly my preference.

Here’s a video for another Conservative prime minister candidate who is obviously a Cocaine addict. Enjoy.

14/6/19 The title should instead be ‘pinged’. I suppose it could be anti-psychotic medication but it’s probably Cocaine.

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Images of climate change for ignorant climate change and climate emergency denier Donald Trump

Posted on 7th June 2019 by dizzy

Images for ignorant climate change and climate emergency denier Donald Trump. source

Graph of global average temperature 1850 - 2015

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Recognising Russia’s suffering during WW2

Posted on 6th June 2019 by dizzy

News in UK is all about D-day. Russia suffered huge military and civilian casualties during WW2.

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Theresa May announces resignation. I wonder what happens now

Posted on 24th May 2019 by dizzy

Theresa May has announced her resignation as Tory leader UK on June 7th to be replaced as prime minister as soon as the Tory party decides on her replacement.

Theresa May became prime minister in unfortunate circumstances with UK divided following the Brexit referendum.

Her misfortune was compounded by the 2017 general election that resulted in her government becoming a minority goverment dependant on DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) support.

Turmoil followed with repeated failed attempts to agree Brexit.

Continuing instability is expected. The Conservative party is divided, Brexit is toxic and the Labour party is desperate for a general election and consequent election.

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Climate Emergency: The rich have destroyed the planet

Posted on 20th May 2019 by dizzy

The long-awaited climate-emergency post. I have taken some time to decide what’s necessary to say. This post may be revised and expanded but the main points will remain.

Climate change, the climate emergency or crisis is a fact. The poles are melting, sea levels are rising, seas are turning to acid, polar bears and penguins have nowhere to live. It’s taken repeated record temperatures and a little girl for it to be accepted such was the power of climate denial.

The rich are responsible for having destroyed the planet. They were fully aware of the consequences of their actions but continued regardless. They destroyed the planet for profit, to enrich themselves and funded climate denial. Big oil was aware of climate change and global warming in the sixties and certainly fully aware by the early eighties.

Political parties that deny climate change – right-wing parties like UKIP and Nigel Farage’s Brexit party “In terms of policy, there’s no difference (to UKIP)…” are sucking up to the ultra-rich showing that they present no threat to their interests. ed: many prominent Brexiteers are climate change enthusiasts.

It is safe to assume that the World’s plants and animals do not have a concept of ownership. They do however have as much right to live, to exist. The rich do not own the planet and do not have the right to destroy it.

Unless you’re filthy rich, it’s unlikely whatever you do is going to make any noticeable difference. It is the rich who have superyachts and private jets. It is the rich who fly abroad for meals. It is the rich who travel with entourages. It is the rich that own private islands.

There is an exception – a secondary lesser class of human that is climate-dirty: those who travel a great deal especially those that commute by airplane. People who fly regularly are climate-dirty.

A wider issue: the rich are in charge. Wars are conducted at their behest and for their benefit. The whole bullshit narrative of terrorism and consequent anti-Muslim racism is for them. It is their bullshit narrative to divide and control, to weild their influence. There is one main nation-state behind terrorist attacks, often aided by another one or two nation-states with police and intelligence agencies playing along with it, turning a blind eye. Terrorist attacks are often timed for political objectives of no advantage to Islamists. You have to be really stupid to believe that a disabled old man could achieve so much from a cave in Afghanistan and that it didn’t provide the excuse for yet another war for the dirty black stuff.

edit: I am aware that I have power and influence which I tend to regard as transitory and temporary. The climate emergency is a big deal and I am laying the blame exactly where it belongs.

later: I need to write about corporate climate destruction while this post is about lifestyle climate destruction. Corporate solar exploration appears particularly futile and climate destructive. Trips to outer space for the rich? ed: It’s space tourism for the rich to further destroy the planet.

Posted in climate change, Climate Emergency, environment, Extinction Rebellion, Nigel Farage, politics, the filthy rich, war on terrorism | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Just checking in

Posted on 16th May 2019 by dizzy

Just checking in. Brexit poll a week from today looks bad news if the opinion polls are accurate. Nigel “No more Mr. Nice Guy” Farage’s party of bigots and climate change enthusiasts may do well. Unfortunately he has the support of a lot of angry, misguided people who somehow genuinely believe that Brexit is in their interests. He plans to try yet again to join the “Westminster elite” which he condemns after seven failed attempts. There are many unanswered questions about Farage dealings, Trump (and the Clinton emails), Assange, Cambridge Analytica, Arron Banks, the dodgy Brexit campaign donation funnelled through Arron Banks’ dodgy offshore company …

Coming soon: the great universal credit deception

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After years of ministers pretending otherwise, Amber Rudd, the DWP secretary, now admits universal credit’s introduction has left people so short of cash that they have resorted to food banks. What Iain Duncan Smith hailed in 2011 as a transformation of welfare has turned into something grotesque, with massive delays and huge flaws both of administration and design, repeatedly damned by MP select committees. The independent National Audit Office judges that universal credit has neither saved public money nor helped people into work. But it has left thousands of vulnerable claimants penniless, while others starve and even lose their homes. In a House of Commons debate last summer the London Labour MP Catherine West recounted how one of her constituents had “fallen off benefits” and ended up “sleeping in a tent in a bin chamber” on a housing estate.

Such are the horrors whose very documentation by journalists the DWP letter dismisses as “unfair”. Rather than halt universal credit, as demanded by so many groups, the department’s managers now say they will respond “in a different way … very different to anything we’ve done before”.

What follows is an elaborate media strategy to manufacture a Whitehall fantasy, one in which the benefits system is running like a dream while a Conservative government generously helps people on the escalator to prosperity. It begins at the end of this month with a giant advert wrapped around the cover of the Metro newspaper; inside will be a further four-page advertorial feature. This will “myth-bust the common inaccuracies reported on UC”. What’s more, “the features won’t look or feel like DWP or UC – you won’t see our branding … We want to grab the readers’ attention and make them wonder who has done this ‘UC uncovered’ investigation.”

Not only is this a costly exercise, with a Metro wraparound going for a headline rate of £250,000 (of your money, let’s not forget), but the Advertising Standards Authority will doubtless be interested in that description of the feature. Its guidelines stipulate that“marketers and publishers must make clear that advertorials are marketing communications”

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Under Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) the state – probably the Home Secretary – could make secret orders which could never be revealed. That sounds familiar somehow. RIPA has since been replaced by the Investigatory Powers Act but I’m sure that similar laws still exist. It’s a way for the state to attack people while hiding. A hypothetical example – the state could interfere in a political activist’s affairs e.g. frustrating complaints, actually denying the activist’s human rights so that the activist would be consumed with pressing more personal issues and thereby distracted from the bigger political issues. People tend to change their jobs and move away in my experience. Isn’t that the obvious thing to do if you’ve been prevented from doing your job and prevented from discussing it with anyone under threat of imprisonment? I think that the way to deal with this nonsense is to carry on regardless so that many more people become aware of these actions against democracy (even if they can’t discuss it with anyone).

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Congratulations to Corbyn and the Planet

Posted on 1st May 2019 by dizzy

Congratulations to Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour party and the Planet on the UK parliament passing Labour’s motion declaring a Climate Emergency.

Jeremy Corbyn, Labour party leader said

“Today we have seen something incredible, the UK parliament has passed Labour’s motion and become the first in the world to declare an environment and climate emergency.

“This can set off a wave of action from parliaments and governments around the globe. We pledge to work as closely as possible with countries that are serious about ending the climate catastrophe and make clear to US President Donald Trump that he cannot ignore international agreements and action on the climate crisis.

“Protesters and school-strikers told us to act. Governments never act without pressure and we must keep the pressure up. I’m proud that the Labour Party brought this motion to the House, and now we will carry on this work by developing our plans to deliver a Green Industrial Revolution.”

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