Victoria's Green Matters - 13th March 2014

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

Despite the fact that we have suffered our wettest winter for 200 years and despite our little island being assaulted by some of the most vicious storms ever seen, some people are not able to believe what is happening is climate change. Misleading articles in the popular press and some political parties have much to answer for, but the facts speak for themselves.

A global assessment of the impacts of climate change is due to be published next week. This has measured the effects on the world’s food supplies, human health, cities and rural areas.

The head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has stated that each of the last three decades has been warmer than the last. It cannot be denied that extreme weather events have been on the increase, both in frequency and intensity.

The effects of these changes are many. Crop yields have been falling by 2% per decade – bad enough in itself – but populations are increasing by 14% per decade. Because sea levels are rising there is coastal erosion and flooding and this will lead to millions of people being displaced.

A winter like the one we have just had could be looked upon as fluke if taken by itself but multiply that by the number of very strange weather occurrences around the world and the picture is of abnormality becoming the norm.

Whether man has or has not been responsible for climate change, shouldn’t we work on the precautionary principle and try to offset those changes?

Victoria Nicholls. Transition Deal.