It's not often you get to speak to 5 million people! - I was involved in a discussion on BBC One's Sunday Morning Live recently, discussing Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain's action to block major roads and motorways.
With the recent actions of the Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain Groups. Insulate Britain sees itself as an offshoot of XR. In recent weeks they have been responsible for closing down the main motorway artery of London the M25. Hundreds of thousands of cars were blocked from moving by people gluing their hands to the road or laying in front of vehicles. Hysterical drivers were challenging the protest, especially one lady whose mother had been rushed to hospital and she was stopped from attending.
I was on the show today to bring a simpler approach to this complex subject, to encourage the 5 million viewers the programme gets to do three simple things.
1) Think about what you buy.
Last week I went to the supermarket and was looking for Blueberries, there were English Grown berries for £1.09 and Premium berries imported from South Africa. So the more expensive punnet had been flown 8,000 miles just to service our appetite. Make better choices, buy more local produce, eat seasonally.
2) Think about where to go.
We've got smaller cars and drive much less. We use much more public transport for journies from Wales to London or Manchester and curtail our travel a lot in preference of local walks, and experiences. It's almost like re-discovering the lands around you. We have avoided overseas travel in favour of travel and holidays in the UK. When we have traveled overseas we've offset the carbon used by paying a company to invest in Carbon Offsetting through the projects they run.
3) Plant Trees.
This is a no brainer. Planting a tree is something that will suck in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. The problem is for every three trees humankind has cut down it's only planted one in return so we need to plant as many trees as possible. We have options for individuals, families or organisations like Churches, Youth Clubs or Businesses to plant trees per month. We plant them overseas in areas of historical deforestation, providing employment and also addressing the issues of those now non-forested areas.
It's time to act now, join The Climate Trust - www.theclimatetrust.com
