Editor,
I was rightly brought to task by Tony Lovelock (‘Fairbourne’s plight is a concern, but it’s not an act of God’. Cambrian News Letters, 28 November). Indeed, climate change is brought about by human activity, i.e. by use of fossil fuels and by cattle farming, all of which we could stop here in Britain by 2025 had we the political will - a will which in my opinion should dictate the policies of the incoming government.
I do not know whether even this policy adopted by every country on the planet, my fervent wish, could, in particular, save Fairbourne. I trust it will. All threatened areas depend on everyone ensuring they stop digging and drilling for fuel and stop farming cattle.
I am sorry I got caught up by a turn of phrase that suggests other than that human are wholly responsible for the climate and indeed ecological crises.
Equally Tony Lovelock is surely right to point out that without swift and permanent change in human behaviour the damage to the planet and to humankind will be catastrophic, with billions of people suffering, their lands and cities inundated.
This truly apocalyptic vision should not however cause us to forget the fundamental principle of human justice, namely that of equality, and when resources are so limited that there is insufficient for all to survive, then equality of opportunity. Survival is a good to which the rules of justice, the principles of equality, should by applied, as they should to every other good.
The people of Fairbourne are entitled to the same platform from which to deal with the future as anyone else. And that means, as I said, the Plaid Gwynedd Council using its council tax statistics to calculate the cost of relocating the community (akin to the Eastenders relocating to the new towns after World War Two and making financial plans, including allocating reserves and loaned moneys), to be ready should this eventuality arise. Which, as an atheist and humanist, I fervently hope it never will.
Graham Hogg, the Welsh Labour candidate, has both backed to the hilt Fairbourne’s insistence that Plaid’s Gwynedd Council show that they are planning for the village’s future properly, and spoken volumes on his commitments to fighting the human causes of the climate crisis by backing the Friday strikes by Tywyn schoolchildren.
The huge sums the Labour Party plans to devote to the Green Revolution should satisfy everyone that the Labour Party, in Tony Lovelock’s words, ‘attend(s) to the major issue and face(s) up to the global threat’.
Would that Plaid here in Dwyfor Meirionnydd did the same.
Ian MacIntyre Shelbourne Court, St John’s Hill, Barmouth,
Have your say on the local issues affecting you - email [email protected] or join in the conversation on our Facebook page


.jpeg?width=209&height=140&crop=209:145,smart&quality=75)



Comments
This article has no comments yet. Be the first to leave a comment.