It’s an issue for all of us wk48 (From Tewkesbury Admag)

It’s an issue for all of us wk48

11:39am Thursday 26th November 2009

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

It was good to see it reported in the Journal (November 14) that a group of people from Evesham are going by coach to join the climate change march (The Wave) on December 5.

Your headline referring to ‘Environmentalists’ was a surprise however. My understanding of the strength of feeling building up around the country, prior to the UN Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen next month, is that this reflects the broad interests of the one hundred groups who are organising it. These are essentially the same coalition who organised the Jubilee Debt Campaign and Make Poverty History with the addition on this occasion of more environmental groups. The organiser of the coach who is quoted in your article is the convenor of Transition Evesham, part of the rapidly growing grass-roots movement promoting a positive approach to both problems of Peak Oil and Climate Change.

The poor countries are bearing the brunt of what is already happening as a result of these two issues. The marchers on December 5 want to see the leaders of the rich nations signing up to an effective and binding agreement on climate change control which is fair to all. As President Evo Morales of Bolivia stated recently in a pre-Copenhagen rally in Cochambamba, “by defending the rights of Mother Earth, we are defending human rights”.

That is precisely why environmentalists, faith groups, development charities and human rights groups will all be taking part in the London march. Their common aim is to defend the rights of Mother Earth and its inhabitants.

Your journalist asked our MP for his views on the march, some of which were quoted. Mr Luff should have no doubt as to its being ‘legal’; it is unlikely that the Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster, who are leading it, would ally themselves with rogue demonstrations. Nor is it likely that all MPs will be in their constituencies on that day as Mr Luff says is his intention; many of them from different parties, are already pledged to join the marchers, as they did for the Make Poverty History events prior to the Gleneagles summit.

I shall join the coach from Evesham on December 5 and will be marching to demand justice for both the Planet and the people who live on it.

Andy Davies, Evesham.

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)