Bonanza: Harriet's Sat letter, Conor's headline letter today & Hannah's press release about the Mass Climate Lobby

[Soo Chapman]

Well done Harriet with your Plastic- Free July Echo letter in on Saturday, straight after the headline letter which was about ending the air show. 

You made good points about how complicated it is to sort the plastic (manufacturers should be reducing it) and how your family are trying hard.   Brilliant, thanks!

Another great headline letter today from Conor O'Luby for the Friends of Riverside "Think about congestion" re the hospital expansion plans and the A338-Wessex Fields Link which will add more development and traffic.

And another hit today page 6 for Greenpeace's feisty Hannah Sharland reporting on the "biggest lobby on climate and the environment in UK history"; the Time is Now Mass Climate Lobbying Campaign last Weds 26.9.19.   A coach load of us from Bournemouth joined 15,000+  others. 

 The column does not mention our failure to make contact with Tobias Ellwood despite many emails & some phone calls on the day itself.   I'm trying to get to see our representative at the local surgery and have jumped through the usual zillion hoops. Just a few more zillion to go. 

  Conor Burns, having messed around the activists to whom he'd given a late time-slot (meaning they'd had to fork out again & book a later coach back from London ) & then cancelled was then persuaded by a v persistent Westbourne resident to meet up with him.  I think she'd posted up on social media that she was awaiting his arrival!   He did meet a group but did not see all those who wanted to meet him.  Perhaps he'd like to reimburse them their extra coach ticket. 

   Another cheeky pop at the air show was a headline letter on Saturday which also mentioned Navitus.  Ex-Councillor Sue Anderson, mother of so-called previous green Champion Mark Anderson, is obviously still cross with Cllr Bull for daring to mention the air festival, cleaner air & a safer planet.  In today's contribution to the letters page she's asking Simon to solve any other number of problems including population. 

  Well Simon here's your to-do list from the ex-councillor:  

   a. you should have followed Sue Anderson's great example (???????) and waved a flag outside the Chinese Embassy. 

   b. ... persuaded the middle east warmongers in the Middle East  to be nice to each other- as presumably she has done.

   c..... you are told to think about the growing population.   Did you cheekily reply negatively to Mrs Bossy's demands on population?  Who are these "Eco-warriors" dear Ms Anderson?   And what's wrong with actually having a conversation with us if you think we're so misguided?  

  And it's all the Greens' fault that the Japanese are killing whales for commercial use I suppose. The Japanese are strangely not listening to her either.   I have, like many of us I'm sure, just signed yet another petition about it without running it past Mrs Anderson first.    I've never seen her at a Greenpeace meeting even before my nodding -off days.

 I have had an email exchange with this person before and will revisit it for my next letter to the Echo.  She mentions a negative answer about the population explosion from "prominent local Green members" - who else, apart from me, has she discussed this with?    

   In fact I had replied to her at some length which did take valuable time, as ever, of course.  She had  obviously hoped that this pensioner, should have reeducated the folk of Bournemouth.   Naughty old me for apparently not waving my magic wand at a time she was watching.   But I had seen nothing about population concern on the Bournemouth Borough Council website.   Why had she herself not made it a prominent topic?     I had agreed with her that it was an important issue that needed airing & that I have myself spoken of the successful "Two Will Do" campaign.  And we might add   " One and Done" nowadays.   Or indeed the Birthstrike  baby refusniks.

  She has not replied to my lengthy email of 15.4.19 which I have previously forwarded.    And she forgot to thank me for to the Population Matters information I subsequently sent her.  

  There is a good amount of discussion about population on the Green Party website which she is welcome to thoughtfully discuss with us.     Molly Scott Cato does warn us some folk are unable to be debated as they seek over- simplistic answers.

    "Condoms against Climate Change"   was the entertaining poster of the Population Matters' folk who were giving out leaflets on Lambeth Bridge.    Provenance & disposal sadly undiscussed in their leaflet but nice try Pop. people. 

   But my main preoccupation this weekend was Will Frampton's disgracefully disrespectful and climatically illiterate  Saturday article 29.6.19 which contained the outright whopper that "there is nothing in the IPCC...to make panic or declarations of emergency justifiable".

       Well Will on  7.10.18 there was a warning  that we have perhaps a dozen years to start turning the ship before triggering runaway climate change.  Apparently Will thinks this is not worth a mention. Perhaps his job is not investigative journalism after all.  He is just paid for his invaluable opinion.  Worth every one of those  85 pennies we have to fork out on a Saturday.  

  Meantime on the Beeb news today;   Bolsanaro's  saying goodbye to the rainforests.  Apparently Brazil can do what it likes as we've already said goodbye to our own forests.

   The IPCC says all these things are "threat mulipliers".    So where is our Defence Minister to fight for a safe global future? I look forward to our conversation chez Tobias when I have a reply and  invite others to join me, especially those who will have to pay disproportionately for our negligence when my age-group have left the building, 

    Soo