for Climate Change/Environment Scrutiny Committee on 20 June 2022

BLEAK OUTLOOK AS WE IGNORE THE WARNINGS:

"Code Red for Humanity" from Antonio Guterres, Sec Gen, UN on 9 August 2021

"... the collapse of civilisations, the extinction of much of the natural world and time is running out ..." warnings from Sir David Attenborough

"You are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the Earth belong to us all and the Earth itself to nobody." Rousseau, ‘Discourse on the Origin of Inequality’, 1754

I heard about climate change in about 1980 when I saw a BBC TV 'Tomorrow's World' programme. The main greenhouse gases are CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and water vapour.

Finite fossil fuels are coal, oil and gas and all give off greenhouse gases that enhance the natural greenhouse effect. The natural greenhouse effect makes life on earth possible. Unfortunately, the burning up in 300 years of our one-off geological inheritance that took 300 m years to form is enhancing that natural greenhouse effect to raise temperatures to make life uninhabitable on earth. This is called human-induced climate change. Hence, we have to urgently and drastically cut all GHG by quickly reducing our use of fossil fuels and, ideally, leaving them in the ground.

We can get out of using oil and gas by spending less, like:

1. Using a self-powered bike or a bus to come to council meetings.
2. Switching off lights when you leave a room - especially in the Council House.
3. Turning down the temperature of the room you sit in and wearing more clothing, instead.
4. Buying less of absolutely everything and making everything last a lot longer.
5. Insulating your council offices and your own homes to the maximum possible.
6. Put in secondary glazing or double/triple glazing.
7. Use your car as little as possible and try walking and cycling and public transport.
8. Immediately, tell your officers to scrap Metro tram extensions that have spoilt and even destroyed railway lines and infrastructure in the Black Country and Brum. And, Five Ways underpass.
9. Put the commuter and regional trains back on the 120 Kms Black Country Railway "of national strategic significance" that has not yet been turned into the over £500 million, 10 Kms Dudley Tram.
10. Bring in FFPT to reward everyone who uses bus, trains and trams, with traffic priority for buses on the inside lane and a stiff financial charges for every vehicle on main roads, within the Outer Ring Road, in the rush hours that are not registered as being essential vehicle users.
11. Move your council offices to more energy efficient buildings like those at the Waterfront and use the railway line!
12. There is still time to cancel the climate-busting concrete and steel, double-track railway/tram viaduct to smother the carbon-absorbing grass, soil and trees/shrubs on Dudley's No 1 premier canal embankment at Merry Hill.

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