By Sami Sami,
Last week I attended my first Barnet Council meeting. It was quite an experience, I had only a vague idea of how the system worked - how our councillors organised, made decisions and generally kept Barnet running (which, for all the ups and downs and bin collections, they generally manage).
The trigger for me attending the meeting was because one councillor (a member of the Labour party - not that it should be relevant) was putting forward a motion calling on Barnet to declare a climate emergency - following the lead of the
UK parliament, the
Scottish Government and over
100 other local councils (regardless of which political party controls them, not that it should matter).
Also last week -
Ethiopia planted 350,000,000 trees. That's 3.5 trees per person. Barnet think they're doing their bit to avert dangerous climate change by 4,700 trees over the next 5 years. That's 0.01 tree per person in Barnet. Barnet say they're doing a few other things - but the example of the trees shows how much more we could do if we wanted.
Worldwide those in power are mobilising to deal with the threat - a threat which has been largely ignored by the masses since it was first recognised over 50 years ago.
Barnet Councils Climate Change Denial
Barnet Council - however - are continuing on the same path of the previous generation. The self focused, short term attitude that's left us with little over a decade to avert the worst of a crisis we've been warned about for 50 years. The
extreme danger has finally reached Europe in the last few years, although several major disasters recently have been
linked to climate change.
So we know it's real,
the scientists know it's real, the people who have lost loved ones in heat waves and flooding know it's real. What's stopping Barnet Council from knowing it's real?
All the votes at last weeks meeting were along party lines. I don't think that all 37 Conservative councillors are climate change deniers any more than I think all 22 labour councillors see preserving the world for the next generation as a priority.
Screw the parties - save the planet
If there's one thing which should cross party boundaries (and indeed usually does, across the rest of the country) it's having a planet to live on. My second passion in life is accessibility, and I think it's critical that we have accessible busses, step free access at stations, screen reader friendly websites and service staff trained in dealing with dementia (those are my examples, I don't know if/what Barnet is doing for accessibility).
But none of those matters if we don't have a planet on which to implement those great thing.
So as well as learning how the council works, I learned how it doesn't work. Unfortunately, councillors are just humans - like you and - and they're fallible like we are too. Dangerously they're also party loyal - and that's causing our council to be dysfunctional.
The Future
The climate is changing, that is of no doubt (except by the usual conspiracy theorists). Science has told us what we need to do - the same science which has brought us faster transport, more food, warmer houses, global communication, holidays and the Internet. We don't ignore science when it's making our lives easier and we are not at liberty to ignore it when it's asking us to cut back a little.
Barnet is going to be a hotter place in 20 years time than today (and today it's hotter than 20 years ago). The south of France is already making preparations for it's tropical future, The country of Kiribati has already lost a few islands and is purchasing land on Fiji preparing for losing the rest of their land to climate change.
The world is acting, why is Barnet not?
What to do?
We need the Housing and Planning committees to make new builds ready for the weather of the future (hotter summers, colder winters, more extreme changes). The transport committee to help us cut out short car drives by improving public transport. The Education team to help train the youth of today in the skills of tomorrow - a whole new sustainable industry is finally opening up and Barnet are missing the boat. and the Financial Performance and Contracts Committee to award contracts to sustainable companies.
"Sustainable" think about that word for a moment. If something isn't sustainable, then sooner or later it's going to collapse. Lets make Barnet sustainable.
Is this our responsibility?
Yes. We have lots of problems to deal with in Barnet - but we're one of the most well of corners of the world. Like it or not - our strong position in the modern economy comes form the British Empire - which comes from the Industrial Revolution - which was the start of human caused global warming.
We've outsourced most of our manufacturing to third world countries - so their emissions are ours. The argument that China should be doing more than us because their current emissions are higher than our current emissions is easily debunked when you realise that our clothes, our tables and chairs, our technology is produced by emissions producing factories in China - for us. There's also a billion people in China. So lets stop trying to blame someone else, recognise the privileged position we're in - and how we got here - and sort our own ship out.
What Next?
This all begs the questions as to what next? If our councillors aren't listening to the masses (last week they also passed the
gagging motion to restrict public say on council motions - thought to be an instinctive response to the
Capita fraud - it's common human nature to try and avoid criticism rather than apologise and deal with it) what are we to do?
With the council getting increasingly defensive and sticking their fingers in their ears, it's easy to see how groups like Extension Rebellion (of which we have a local Barnet Group) feel the only way to get them to listen is through non violent direct action.
As a local resident, what can you do? Support the groups fighting for your area.
Find a cause you believe in, and get involved.
Do you know any other ways Barnet residents can get active? Let us know in the comments.
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Sami is a Barnet Resident and a member of the local Extinction Rebellion campaign. Guest blogs are always welcome at The Barnet Eye, please send us yours CLICK HERE
great point. we are all sharing one planet and so we should be focusing to save it regardless of which party/group you belong to
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