Why it is time for us to redouble our efforts in the fight against climate change - Yorkshire Post Letters

Your readers may be interested to hear of the latest Climate Change Committee report on preparedness to deal with the impact of climate change. Concerns include steadily increasing exposure to heatwaves and drought, flooding and fire risk up to 2050, not so far off.

For example, over half of England’s best agricultural land is already at risk of serious flooding. An extra 1.7 million properties are expected to be at risk. Coastal erosion is speeding up.

We have an aging population, and at the same time the death rate from heat amongst the elderly will reach 10,000 per year. The resulting overall cost of climate change will reach around seven per cent of our economy, almost twice the long-term hit from leaving the European Union.

There is a lot of catching up to do. We need to redouble efforts to reduce emissions responsible for our changing climate through international effort, and both educate and prepare ourselves for what is coming down the track.

These are not options, but necessities if we wish to bequeath a manageable, livable country to our children. If we are like me, getting older, we may or may not see 2050, but we have a responsibility to do all in our power to help prepare our country for those who will.

Let’s start with responsibility in public life. We have a lamentable breakdown in trust and leadership in our politics. We have the spectacle of people seeking election whose response to all this is to say that they’ll abolish the Climate Change Committee and drill, drill, drill.

Psychologically denial, regression, blaming others, and anger in the face of an unprecedented set of grave problems is not surprising. We see this in the angry division whipped up by Mr Farage and his Reform party.

My guess is that Mr Farage, who is not stupid, has an inkling that all this climate concern is well based, but has decided to take a punt on denial as an electoral strategy. This is appalling.

As a doctor and a scientist I sometimes hold my head in my hands when I see the timid approach of our present government, but at least they are pointing in the right direction. And the once great Conservative Party must stop playing with Trumpism and rediscover its rational roots.

What we badly need is a responsible, calm national conversation, a recognition that this challenge is psychologically and materially tough, and that we need to change and to be part of global change.

We must work out who our allies are and work with them. There are people who will just never get all this. As far as possible we must set them politely to one side, and do all we can to change the way we live, ending our dependence on fossil fuels, and critically support politicians of whatever stripe who are willing to face these threats, and make sure that we redouble our care for each other. We are surely going to need that.