We can and we must get ahead of the game on climate change - Andy Brown

Almost all the great slogans of recent times make much more sense if you reverse them than if you take them at face value. It is for instance not easy to explain the actions of Donald Trump if you accept his assertion that he is only interested in putting America First.

They make a lot more sense if you assume that what he is really interested in is putting himself first.

In similar ways we were promised that we could have a strong and stable government and got three Prime Ministers and around 150 Ministerial sackings or resignations in a single year and were told that we would get millions more every week for the NHS only to find it on its knees. We have been promised economic growth by people who have delivered horrible reductions in the standard of living for huge numbers of working people.

Such doublethink is often accompanied by some particularly bizarre accusations against anyone who is actually trying to base policy on sensible things like scientific facts, expert knowledge or reliable evidence.

There is, apparently a liberal elite that is determined to undermine the country by taking science seriously and trying to respond to it with ideas that will work.

Facts aren’t always easy to listen to. No one made up the measurements of how much carbon dioxide there is in the atmosphere or distorted the experiments that proved that carbon dioxide traps heat.

Scientists simply conducted the measurements of how much of the gas could be found in ice core samples from before the industrial revolution and how much is present now.

They got very scared when they realised that we have already changed the entire atmosphere of the earth from having around 280 parts per million of CO2 in pre industrial times to 424 parts now and thought people ought to know that this means a lot more energy is trapped in the air and that must inevitably result in a more chaotic and warmer climate.

The rate of increase in CO2 levels is currently over 5 per cent per decade.

We were warned by the experts that such dramatic changes would result in 40 degree temperatures in Britain accompanied by droughts and wildfires across Europe whilst glaciers would melt.

The only thing that has proved to be wrong with those predictions is that they have happened a lot quicker than most scientists expected.

We’ve waited so long to take serious action that it is now inevitable that the temperature of the whole planet will rise by over one and a half degrees and that is expected to trigger feedback mechanisms like lost sea ice and melted methane deposits with consequences that no one can fully predict.

We can decide how much more damage to do but we can’t avoid passing massive problems onto our own descendants.

If there is a gravy train that comes the way of anyone who tries to act to avoid the worst consequences of that then it is very well hidden and has somehow passed me by.

There is, however, rather a lot of money to be made from drilling for fossil fuels, selling them and managing the finances of those who have a self-interest in maintaining a very dangerous status quo.

The common interest of the vast majority of the population lies in modernising the economy and the best interests of our nation lies in being at the forefront of change rather than lagging behind.

No civilisation ever prospered by trying to follow outdated methods of production when new alternatives came along.

Insulating existing homes so that they consume less energy results in lower bills. Onshore wind farms provide the cheapest energy.

Incentives to encourage people to use fuel at off peak times result in fewer power stations being needed and lowers imports.

Placing solar panels on roofs of schools, offices, factories, supermarkets and car parks cuts the cost of doing business and providing services and helps Britain compete around the world.

Better and more reliable public transport improves the quality of life whilst clogging our cities with traffic jams leaves our children breathing damaging fumes.

All of the technology we need to make drastic reductions in the consumption of fossil fuels already exists. We just aren’t adopting it fast enough.

Andy Brown is the North Yorkshire Councillor for Aire Valley.