17th November 2006

Letter One

Julie Yaisuwong (Letters 9.11.06) is perhaps right to take the Green Party to task because we have written to The Echo so often about the greenhouse gas emissions from cars and aircraft.
 
This has disguised the the fact that the Green Party espouses many other policies like energy saving, shopping locally, being against the privatisation in the NHS and opposition the the war in Iraq.
 
However Ms Yaisuwong does not tell us what is the source of her figures.  Mayer Hillman, at the 2004 Literature Festival, explained that in the UK the proportion of energy use are as follows: Transport 35%, Domestic 30%, Industry 22% and Services 13% (see his book How We Can Save The Planet).
 
So transport is the biggest polluter, but our inefficient houses are not far behind.  Of the 17 million homes that have cavity walls, only 6 million have been filled with insulation.  And here are the Department of Transport figures: excluding air and sea travel, transport accounts for 22% of our CO2 emissions.  Road travel accounts for 91% and of this 87% is by car.  According to the transport minister, cars emit 7 and 8.5 times more CO2 per passenger than trains and coaches respectively.  Government projections are for traffic to grow by 26% between 2000 and 2010.
 
The recent Stern report said that it would be better to invest now to change our industrial and domestic lifestyles rather than wait until the problem gets even worse.  The Green Party accepts this recommendation and is trying hard to convince the doubters that doing nothing is not acceptable.  The Tyndall Centre predicts that if we achieve the government's own emission targets by 2050, then business and the domestic sectors will have to emit no carbon at all, in order to compensate for the growth in aviation.

John Heywood
Cheltenham Green Party

Letter two

Julie Yaisuwongs' letter last week accused the Green party of "unfounded hysterical language", "harrassing travelers" and making a "mockery of reality" (9/11/06). Strong accusations indeed.

Yet the point we make about expansion of air travel including Staverton, is sadly based in reality: it will just not be possible to meet CO2 emissions targets if we expand air travel as proposed.

Clearly we also need international leadership on this issue and to seriously look at how we can reduce energy consumption across the board. The letter writer will be pleased to know that homes can be made significantly more energy efficient and that she wont have to resort to her suggestion of living in a tent.

However we should not forget that our current consumption and production patterns is already losing peoples' homes and leading to many deaths. It can only get worse. Thousands around the world are already paying the price in famine and drought for our lifestyles in the affluent West.

The newly announced Climate Change Bill fails to go far enough and indeed completely fails to challenge our single-minded pursuit of economic growth that will render us incapable of tackling climate change. As Stern notes we only have a few years in which to act. Stopping airport expansions is one step on many we must take.

Cllr. Philip Booth, Press Officer, Gloucestershire Green Party.