Victoria's Green Matters - 16th January 2014

Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury:

Well, it certainly has been a wild New Year! We have been so lucky in our little corner of Kent when compared with other areas and the terrible floods that people are experiencing. Although it has been a beautiful, cold and sunny day today the forecast tells us there is more stormy weather to come.

It seems that the Prime Minister is keen to blame the current bad weather on climate change, incurring disagreement from some of his fellow Tories and particularly from his Environment Secretary, Owen Patterson. There’s a surprise! Perhaps the PM would like to take action on climate change but is not supported by the rest of the party.

Experts are reluctant to lay the blame on climate change for the extremes of weather around the globe but many are coming to the conclusion that our continuing carbon emissions are exacerbating these effects.

We continue to use energy produced from the burning of fossil fuels with little attempt to reduce our use. I’m sure we have all seen lights burning in rooms and computers switched on when no-one is working. These are only the obvious tip of the iceberg where energy waste is concerned. Most waste occurs through badly built and badly insulated buildings, energy that could easily be saved and many jobs created.

Now the threat of fracking rears its head. Not only will it destroy our countryside but it will add to our carbon emissions when we burn the gas. Victoria Nicholls. Transition Deal.