Climate change is often seen as a leftwing issue. Those on the left are more likely than those on the right to see climate change as a major problem. Labour voters are twice as likely as Conservative voters to be very concerned about climate change and to accept that it is caused by human activity.…
On Friday 1st August 1834 the Slavery Abolition Act, which had been passed the previous year in Parliament, came into force. The gradual freeing of slaves throughout the British Empire began and was complete by 1838 (except in India which was a few years later). The Act was principally passed not for economic or…
Twitter can be a fine thing. A while ago I chanced upon Peter Kalmus, author of ‘Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution’ and climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I was drawn to follow him because of his positive messaging about how our individual lifestyle choices do indeed count. He…
I was looking at my electricity bill the other day and I noticed how little of it was paying for actual energy. In fact only 41% of what SSE charged me went to Buying the energy our customers use It is mostly admin, distribution, profit and tax or quasi-tax (5% VAT and 12% government ‘schemes’).…
Valentine’s Day 2018, CCL UK is taking part in Show the Love, an initiative by the Climate Coalition, with our own version of the green hearts. There are plenty of ways for you to join in, not just to show the love for our climate and planet, but also to have a conversation with family,…
Is technology constraint the main reason we have been unable to drive carbon out of the economy? Is there a stark choice between on the one hand cutting back on our high carbon burning lifestyles in the West and on the other hand allowing global warming to damage the most vulnerable? Or are there viable…
Our campaign to galvanize Parliament in advance of the recent UN climate negotiations (COP 23) in Bonn – which has just ended – has resulted in a surge of action and some splendid results. The numbers tell just a small part of the story. CCLUK members have been talking up our policy up and down…
There’s a budget tomorrow, and as we reported recently, some energy companies have been putting pressure on the chancellor to increase the carbon price floor, the UK’s carbon tax, currently set at £18 per tonne, which has helped us reduce the proportion of our electricity we get from burning coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel of…
When evangelical Christian Katharine Hayhoe is asked ‘do you believe in climate change?’, she answers, ‘no’. You’d be forgiven for thinking she’s just another religious climate denier. But you’d be wrong. Canadian-born Katharine is a professor of atmospheric science, number 15 on this year’s Fortune World Greatest Leaders list and scientific adviser to Citizens Climate…
In my last post, I wrote about how we would be more inclined to fight climate change if we focused on an immediate threat we could see: pollution. However, acting to reduce consumption only on obviously polluted days is just not enough to make a meaningful dent in UK emissions. In reality, the air in…
