Home
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead
A short film by We CAN co-founder Rebecca Frayn
What will we tell our children when they ask us what we did when the scale of the problem facing the world became apparent? We can’t stand by and do nothing.
Many of us feel powerless and anxious. We are all doing what we can and we’re not stupid. We know that our individual actions like changing to energy saving light bulbs; rejecting plastic bags and trying to cut back on car use are not going to be enough solve the problem. We need decisive political action and fast.
The facts are simple. We have to cut our CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050. Emissions have to have peaked and start to fall sharply by 2015 ie less than 97 months from now or a tipping point will have been reached and it will be too late to stop runaway climate change.
There are solutions to climate change but the government doesn’t seem to want to take them in case they upset those voters who don’t yet appreciate the enormity of the issues or big business.
And, it isn’t just that the government is failing to solve the problem, it is actually pushing through policies that will make the situation dramatically worse.
A third runway at Heathrow alone would emit as much CO2 as the whole of Kenya. The coal-fired power station planned at Kingsnorth would emit as much CO2 as 30 of the world’s lowest carbon emitting countries combined.
We are faced with insanity and we have to act.
The current economic downturn has created the perfect moment to re-think our whole short-term approach. Any problems we have now with the economy will be dwarfed by comparison with the economic problems that will result from runaway climate change.
It is time to turn a crisis into an opportunity and to make tackling climate change the number one priority. We have to tell our politicians they need to act.
We CAN organises events and peaceful and legal protests and also lobbies at every level so that politicians realise they have a mandate to take decisive action.
If you’d like to help organise an event please get in touch.
Read more about We CAN in the Guardian and the Independent.