In his first post for The Culture Vulture, Lewis King (@squirrellking) tells us about the Leeds launch of a national climate change campaign at Leeds Trinity University that needs YOUR help. Lewis is a recent graduate from Leeds Trinity University and currently works there as a graduate intern, as well as entertaining local Leeds audiences with his comedy performances and compèring. Over to Lewis…
Don’t you just love talking about the weather? It’s a topic that’s constantly reliable, and essential for filling deathly silences and forming friendships with strangers. But then, like with any conversation topic as soon as it gets political, polite chats turn to hostage situations.
If you’ve been unlucky enough to have been trapped in the pub next to a Top Gear-obsessed climate change denier, you’ll understand. You suggest that it is possible to make a change, which then results in a rant about never trusting authority as ‘climate change’ is a cover-up for government experiments involving a big cloud laser. Or something like that.
You know you’re right, but you don’t know why, staying ignorant but with good intentions. “They’re probably not,” you say and add a light chuckle. And then they kill you with a beer mat.
So here’s your chance to learn a bit more about climate change and be a part of making an impact.
Next week, Leeds Trinity University will host the Leeds launch of ‘One Climate, One World’ – a campaign from catholic aid agency, CAFOD. It’s a national campaign that calls on all of the Westminster party leaders to prevent climate change pushing people deeper into poverty and to move towards sustainable energy for everyone, as well as raising awareness and understanding about climate change.
The launch is on Thursday 16 October at Leeds Trinity University, from 11am to 3.45pm. There will be TED-style talks from theological and scientific experts, and music and arts hosted by Leeds Trinity Students’ Union. CAFOD will also be encouraging everyone to make a pledge and sign a campaign action card, which will then be handed to No.10 later in the campaign. Students and staff on campus, local schools and the community are getting involved in this world-changing campaign – and so can you.
One person who is really passionate about this is Leeds Trinity Students’ Union President, Miki Vyse. She was full of cold and Lemsip when I spoke to her, but she was still energetic about the campaign:
“I really want UK politicians to listen, and it’s especially important in the year of a general election to talk about subjects like this.”
I asked Miki why people should come to this particular campaign launch. “Although I’ve learnt a bit from past campaigning activity, sometimes I still feel a bit ignorant myself about climate change.” She told me. “The thing about CAFOD is that they talk about climate change in a voice that people understand, particularly for young people. It’s not just in language the use, but the way they relate to experiences too. As young people are the next generation, it’s especially important that we talk to them about climate change and how it will affect them.”
“We’re really proud to be hosting this launch at Leeds Trinity University. It says a lot about our ethos and it shows that students don’t just come here to do a degree, they also want to make a social impact. Young people get empowered about causes like climate change, and as soon as young people get empowered, it changes the world. It’s young people that have brought feminism back and got people to talk about these subjects. It’s really heart-warming to see this, and it makes the rest of the community realise that getting involved in something like this is really important.”
I think the big question that needed to be asked, though, was ‘What is Miki’s pledge going to be?’
“I dunno,” she says slightly concerned. With her head full and brimming with cold she thinks for a short moment. “I think my pledge would be to turn off my computer. Because I never do. I leave it on at night because it takes three hours to load, but that’s really bad.”
Visit Leeds Trinity University on 16 October, make your pledge and help make an impact on tackling climate change. Find more information on Leeds Trinity University’s website.
Fortunately, I’ve never had to sit next to a “Top Gear-obsessed climate change denier”, but then I expect they’re very few are far between and, in fact, largely exist in the fevered imaginations of climate change affirmers – also an unpopular minority, but a vocal one pushing a backward and often naive agenda, such as calling on “Westminster party leaders to prevent climate change pushing people deeper into poverty”.
Not only is climate change not the cause of poverty, but over the last couple of decades there’s been some real, first-world style development taking place across the developing world – which is making real stride in both lifting people out poverty and enabling those countries to better deal with the direct, negative effects of nature upon them. And this is despite attempts by Western governments and environmental organisations to impose their ‘sustainable’ agenda upon them.
you’re very lucky not to have sat next to one, they are more than a minority in the centre of Leeds, and I often find myself explaining why it’s fundamentally important that we campaign about things like climate change.
Of course there are more factors into poverty than just climate change, but it doesn’t help. Obviously the complete lack of honest democracy and political infrastructure in third world countries, leads often into more complex societal issues that fundamentally need to be challenged, however the constant eroding and change of the climate and the way pollution is effecting the world, doesn’t help the countries that don’t have the infrastructure to help themselves let alone the ones that can.
Calling on our government, and the party leaders to take a stance on climate change, and a stance that could actually make some difference, not just here in the UK but globally is absolutely what we have to do. Our generation can not be remembered as the generation to let politics over-rule them and not listen to what they’re actually saying.
When students elect people on a political mandate to challenge attitudes towards climate change and how we can help from our priviledged societies that we are 100% right to be held accountable for leading those campaigns.
Of course there has been massive improvements over the past decade, however there have also been huge disasters (duie to climate change) that have affected and effected not only the landscape of countries but the infrastructure of them too. If we talked more seriously about how we look after our world, then we might not have to watch these things happen.
There have been, and always will be, extreme weather events. And the climate will always change. However, the extent to which we deal with both natural disasters and changes in climate is determined by our level of development. So while a powerful hurricane might kill a dozen people in very populated areas of the USA it will kill thousands in similarly, or even less, populated areas of poorer countries.
However, even in many areas of the developing world, like the Philippines, where last year the most powerful hurricane recorded killed an estimated 10,000, if you compare this to a decade and more ago hundreds of thousands regularly died in such events. And the difference has been the development taking place in these countries. However, if environmentalists got their way, these countries would be condemned to ‘sustainable’ development only – that is development that Western campaigners think is ‘appropriate’ for them, which would mean making do with less developed status, staying poor, and continuing to be more vulnerable to natural disasters.
So rather than a pointless campaign to tell our leaders to take a stance on climate change – which they do anyway – maybe you should tell them and environmental NGO’s to stop trying to impose their sustainable agenda on poorer countries, and for Western leaders to remove any restrictive trading practices that prevent developing countries from competing on the world stage and developing further and faster.