Dear Harriet,
It was good to see you devoting your Southwark News column to the climate emergency.
I was one of those 1,100 Extinction Rebellion arrestees, that you referred to in your letter.
We carried out mass peaceful direct action to block Waterloo Bridge because we despaired at getting our politicians to listen to the existential warnings coming from climate scientists & ecologists in any other way.
As interim leader of the Labour Party you urged the Tory government to expand Heathrow Airport faster, knowing the massive carbon emissions this would cause. Now that you understand the severity of the crisis, will you call for Parliament to reverse the expansion that you voted for?
Your government supported tax concessions for North Sea Oil. Will you now oppose them and keep the oil in the ground?
Your government supported tax cuts for toxic petrol & diesel, which led to thousands of deaths from pollution. Will you now support reversing them so kids can have clean air?
You watched whilst Southwark Council sprayed our streets with pesticides, devastating insect life & nature. Will you now call for a ban?
You watched whilst Southwark bulldozed woodland in Camberwell Cemetery. Will you now call for a halt to the destruction?
Your government poured billions into road expansion but invested nothing in building a desperately needed national cycling network. Will you now back UN target of £6billion per year to be invested in cycling?
Your government voted to spend billions on an illegal war in Iraq, which led to over a decade of global terrorism and distracted humanity from focusing on the climate emergency at a crucial moment.
Despite the devastation caused by the explosion in the human population of 1 billion, from when my father was born, to nearly 8 billion now, you called for it to be easier for women to have larger families.
If you commit yourself to working on these issues, we will welcome this and look forward to working with you as part of the solution and not part of the problem.
Yours, in grief for the damage we have already caused to our children’s generation.
Donnachadh McCarthy has been an environmental campaigner in Southwark since 1992 and is author of “The Prostitute State – How Britain’s Democracy Has Been Bought” www.theprostitutestate.co.uk .
He is also an independent environmental consultant www.3acorns.co.uk @DonnachadhMc