My column this week in the Plymouth Herald (25.7.23), ahead of a local protest march by supporters of “Freedom” and “The Light” condemning Plymouth City Council for declaring a Climate Emergency, the protesters headlining that Climate Change is lie. 
Climate Denial has to be challenged forthrightly and publicly, even if at first it appears too idiotic to take seriously. As we move towards a General Election, action on Climate will be weaponised as a political tool to divide the working class, climate activists scapegoated and demonised alongside climate refugees.

Climate Emergency is in Front of Our Eyes

The Climate Emergency is very real. The past two weeks have seen the highest temperatures ever recorded, and the proportion of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in the Earth’s atmosphere 30% higher than in the last million years. 
Interrogate the gases trapped in ice-sheets over millennia and it is undeniable that Earth’s temperatures correspond with the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. 
Excess CO2 emissions do warm our Planet, and we’ve been creating them since the invention of the coal-burning steam, later amplified by oil and gas emissions.
There is no conspiracy here. The crisis of our climate is not made-up. We can all see it for ourselves: the wild fires from Canada across to Siberia, Central Africa to Greece, The Amazon to Australia. 
The Glacial melt of the Himalayas, Andes and Antarctic, Greenland and New Zealand, are undeniable with the threat to water supplies witnessed by hundreds of millions.
This is not a natural cycle of Nature, nor is it the work of a destructive God. The speed of change over less than two-hundred years has no comparison in geological history – we can see that by digging-up rocks and analysing their contents. We can believe our own eyes.
The intensity of extreme weather is now experienced by billions of people everywhere. And let’s be clear, Weather is not the same as Climate. Whilst “weather” is the description of what is happening outside our doors right now, “climate” is the description we give to the local pattern of weather over at least a 30 year period. Whilst changes in the Weather are not proof of Climate Change, the changing patterns are.
Our children will see power outages and food shortages. Our grandchildren will see the desertification of the countries bordering the Mediterranean and the immersion of Florida, Bangladesh and England’s East Coast.
The only solution is to end all global heating gas emissions, and adapt our living conditions to best manage extreme weather. These are hard tasks to accomplish. Yet, twice in times of world war our entire economy and forces of production have been turned over to the Cause. We melted our iron railings and aluminium pots, accepted ration-cards for a completely changed diet, reduced our electricity use substantially, and shared transport to limit our movements. All this in the shared aspiration for survival and freedom from fascist totalitarianism.
Comparable levels of adaptation are required again, on a societal level and immediately unless we’re prepared to see economic collapse here, billions of people forced to migrate or die of famine, drought, pestilence and wars over access to the basic essentials of life. 
Working class people care about the climate because we care about our grandchildren. Indeed, it doesn’t take much intelligence to dismiss the irrational and metaphysical reactions of so-called “climate-deniers” proclaiming personal freedom over whole-population protection. 
We can see how the System we’ve been living-in has exploited all the natural resources of the Earth and its people. Whilst the vast majority of the world’s population struggle day-to-day for subsistence (including at least 2 million in the UK surviving on charitable Food banks), a tiny fraction of humanity hoards the wealth extracted from our labouring, living in a luxury they hope will keep them safe from the storms. 
This system has to be replaced lest we perish. The wealth of the billionaires has to be redistributed. The priorities for production have to be for the needs of the many in this unparalleled period of global crisis.
It’s not a conspiracy, it’s how the current system has always operated. The blame should be directed against Capitalism.