We have an online meeting next Monday evening (3rd August) at 8pm. It is about getting more signatures on the petition for a seventh scrutiny committee, devoted to climate change [anyone who lives, works or studies within Manchester City Council’s boundaries can sign it here. Please share widely.]
The basic questions for the meeting are around who can help get signatures, and how? Can you invite us to meetings where we can briefly explain why a seventh committee is a good idea? Are you bezzies with Ariana Grande and can convince her to tweet/insta about it? Do you work in an office with 200 rabid greenies? Etc.
Please email us your ideas about the collecting of signatures. If you want to come to the Monday 3rd August meeting, email us. That address – petition@climateemergencymanchester.net
Oh, and the Manchester Evening News kindly printed our latest letter.
Mr Douglas (Letters, MEN, 30 July) now wants us to believe that he “never claimed that CO2 isn’t a greenhouse gas.” That’s odd,because two days earlier you published a letter of his where he said the CO2 “theory has been debunked” and that the “idea that CO2 causes warming is a very old and flawed theory.” Further tedious examples stretch back over the past weeks.
With such convenient amnesia and blithe disregard for his own previous statements he is a perfect candidate to be the next chairman of the Manchester Climate Change Partnership (applications close 10th August, Mr Douglas).
Which brings me to the important point. Why in exchange of letters are we not hearing from a) climate scientists and professionals working in Manchester and, more crucially, b) those well-paid people with responsibility for getting Manchester’s emissions down? Where is their plan for reducing the city’s emissions by 14.8% next year and every year after that? The city only managed to reduce its emissions by 4% last year so it’s got a long way to go.
They seem to be living in a parallel universe of grant applications (often unsuccessful) and jaunty feel-good jamborees, where watching someone make a cup of tea is part of the thrilling experience (a recording is available online). The rest of us, who want better leaders for the real world, need to push for the creation of a seventh scrutiny committee. This would be devoted to more creative and ambitious climate policies to help the city – its businesses and residents – play their part in helping the city recover in a more healthy way from this ongoing pandemic (there is a petition for this on the Council’s website). Climate Emergency Manchester is hosting an online meeting on Monday 3rd August at 8pm. People who know that we should listen to the scientists are welcome to join us – email us on
contact@climateemergencymanchester.net for more details.
Marc Hudson
Climate Emergency Manchester
