The government has set a target to completely negate the amount of greenhouse gases produced by human activity (to be achieved by reducing emissions and implementing methods of absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere), i.e., to go ‘net zero’, by 2050.

2050.

Why are we waiting so long to implement the changes that we so desperately need in order to save the planet?

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Already, we are seeing the effects of climate change on a mass scale

Last year was the hottest year ever recorded in the UK

It was only last year that the UK had its hottest summer ever recorded since records began in 1884, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in July ‘22. For a country whose average summer temperature is between 9 and 18 degrees, and 30 degrees plus is considered a heatwave, 40 degrees was unprecedented.

The UK is just not built for such an extreme climate.

We saw roads and railway lines melting.

We saw hospitals being overwhelmed with an influx of admissions for heat related illnesses, particularly in the older, more vulnerable population.

We saw weather warnings being issued on a weekly basis.

We saw restrictions to our usual activity being advised… Not dissimilar to the rules that we were governed by when the country went into lockdown during the global pandemic of COVID-19.

We saw, with the rising temperatures, people being told to stay indoors where possible, to only go out when necessary.

We saw it all, and yet, we did nothing.

And we’re continuing to see it.

We’re continuing to see wildfires breaking out across the globe.

Mass draughts.

Whole species being on the verge of extinction.

And, perhaps most horrifyingly of all, we’re continuing to see the government’s complete lack of action to do anything that will slow the effects of climate change down… In fact, it was only last month (September ‘23) that British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak declared that he was delaying some of the measures that were set to be imposed in the efforts to slow, what is, as of 2019 (4 years ago and yet, here we are, still doing the same old shit), being declared as, a climate ‘emergency.’

The decision to outlaw the sale of all new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 (which, personally, I think is still far too late. What are we waiting for?) has been delayed by a further 5 years, until 2035. Just to make sure the environment as polluted as it can possibly be!

Our lack of inaction towards climate change is completely nonsensical

Why has the ban been delayed, then, when we are in such a dire situation? Why would any government delay the measures that we so desperately need when we are, quite literally, on the precipice of entering the point of no return?!

To answer the ‘why’, and it’s a very dissatisfactory reason, I’m afraid, in Rishi Sunak’s words, to ‘ease the burden on motorists during the cost of living crisis.’

The ‘cost of living crisis!’

Mr Sunak, OPEN YOUR EYES!

The biggest ‘cost of living crisis’ we are in is related to climate change.

When whole countries become uninhabitable due to mass famine and floods and wildfires, what good will an ‘eased burden on motorists’ be?

An electric car won’t help us all when, in the future, the planet has been made completely impossible to live on…

A boat, yes.

A coffin, definitely.

But not a car.

And so, this is the greatest burden- the prospect of there being no planet at all…

When you think about it like this, you realise just how ridiculous the whole situation is.

Double standards meet hypocrisy, a government classic…

If we knew that there was a terrorist plot to wipe out the UK, we would immediately act. We would ramp up our security, we would try to minimise, if not completely prevent, any harm coming to anyone. And yet, with the climate crisis, despite us having known about the risks it poses for years and years, not just to the UK, but to the world, we do nothing.

We could have a massive banner being flown across the UK telling us that we are all going to die if we don’t change our ways, and people would still look the other way. People would still go about their daily lives as they have always done, because to change their lifestyle is ‘too much of an inconvenience…’

We need to take action while we can…

Oh, how our children will wish that they had the luxury of convenience when the world around them is coming to an end…

Oh, how our children will wish that we did something when we could, before it was too late.

Oh, how we must all wish that the people in power do something while they still can.

Suella Braverman (Sue-Ellen Cassiana Braverman), British politician and home secretary of the United Kingdom, has been caught up in controversy this week following a speech that she delivered in the US on Tuesday (26/09) surrounding migration.

In her speech, Braverman, in her criticism of the West’s current migration rules, proposed that we, in essence, should scale back the refuge that we offer to gay people and women, claiming that ‘the asylum system will break if people are given sanctuary for simply being gay, or a woman.’

I’ve written before about the importance of recognising our privelige in the world, and the necessity for us to realise that, just because something isn’t affecting us (it’s certainly not effecting Braverman, a straight, upper middle class woman in the UK), it doesn’t mean that it isn’t affecting others. The reason I bring this up is because Suella Braverman seems to either be extremely ignorant, or to have simply forgotten (and I don’t know which is worse to be honest), the fact that it is still a crime to be gay in 67 countries around the world, with 11 of those countries (as of 2023) imposing the death penalty on people who are gay.

What is an Asylum Seeker, and why should we be helping them?

According to Amnesty International, the world’s leading human rights organisation, the definition of an asylum seeker is;

‘A person who has left their country and is seeking protection from persecution and serious human rights violations in another country.’

Is being at risk of being killed for loving someone of the same sex not enough of a human rights violation? Amnesty International go on to write that;

‘Seeking asylum is a human right. This means everyone should be allowed to enter another country to seek asylum.’

As a human right then, why is Suella Braverman proposing that we take away that right for people?

I’ve focused on Braverman’s comment towards gay people thus far, but the same applies to her proposal that being a woman isn’t ‘enough’ to seek asylum either. With only 14 countries having full equal rights for women, again, I have to question Braverman’s logic.

Women’s right to seek asylum

In the UK, we’re fortunate to have made so much progress in terms of women having equal rights to men. We might not be there yet, (the issue of misogyny is still a very real one), but we do have the right to an education. We can go to work. We do, on the whole, have access to the same opportunities as our male counterparts (to reiterate again, there is still progress to be made, we’re still not ‘there’, but, compared to other countries around the world, we are not denied basic human rights for being a woman).

As a woman in a very high up position in government-the home secretary- Braverman is perhaps blindsided to the very real situation that many women around the world find themselves in, but when she is in such a position of power, and when she has the potential to help women who are less fortunate than herself, she is choosing not to do so. Instead, she is choosing to withdraw help.

‘Being a woman isn’t enough to seek asylum.’

This is despite the fact that, in Afghanistan (as just one example of a country where human rights for women are pretty much non-existent), women have severe restrictions placed on them. They cannot leave their homes unless it is a necessity to do so. They can only travel long distances with a male chaperone. They are at risk of imprisonment, or worse, if they speak up for their rights.

Afghans who do take to the streets to protest for their rights are being threatened, arrested and tortured. Women’s rights activists report there have been detentions, child marriages, forced marriages and rapes.

Why, when we have the ability to offer a safe place for women like those in Afghanistan, women who arguably have no quality of life and have to live in fear every single day, would we deny them of that? Why would we deny women the opportunity to come to a country where they can actually have the right to live, not just exist?

It’s a slippery slope when we start deeming some victims of war/torture/human rights violations (however you want to describe what they’re going through), as more or less deserving than others. Because, to reference Amnesty International’s definition of an Asylum seeker again, someone who is ‘seeking protection from persecution and serious human rights violations in another country’, we have the duty and the responsibility to provide that protection to them. Not just because it’s a basic human right (though it is), but because we should want to be nice, decent human beings, admittedly, something which the Tories are historically not very good at… Just look at the Bibby Stockholm barge controversy, described by some as a ‘floating prison’, as I wrote about here, which, surprise surprise, Suella Braverman also introduced, alongside her plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda (she went as far as saying that it was her ‘dream’ to see a deportation flight taking off to Rwanda)… The latter thankfully didn’t go ahead, not because Braverman had a sudden shift in conscience, though (I wish), but because the Court of Appeal deemed it unlawful, stating that Rwanda was not a ‘safe third country.’

If Braverman had it her way, the UK would welcome no asylum seekers, I have no doubt about that. They’d all be put on a plane and sent somewhere else. Her logic seems to be that if we look away and can’t see it happening, then it’s not happening. ‘Out of sight out of mind…’ Which is really sad, not only because Braverman is a woman, so you’d think that she’d have more compassion for all the women who are seeking asylum, but also because her own parents are immigrants.

I wonder if she’d be more willing to offer help if it were a fellow privately educated Tory requiring respite? ‘We look out for our own’, and all that…

Hope For Humanity

All we can hope is that the backlash Braverman’s speech has resulted in will make her reconsider what she has proposed. A proposal that, if it does indeed come into fruition, will signify a very dark day for humanity.

And so, let us all hold out hope that, this time, morals will prevail over money.

As something that we put into our bodies, it makes no sense to me that drugs are illegal.

BANNING DRUGS WON’T STOP PEOPLE FROM TAKING DRUGS

If we consider what drugs actually are, all drugs come from natural sources. Cocaine, for example, is extracted from coca leaves, weed from the cannabis plant, heroin from the Papaver somniferum plant. Drugs get such a bad rap in our society but, ultimately, they’re just a part of nature, and have been used by humans since the beginning of time…

Whether rightly or wrongly, drugs are a massive part of so many peoples lives. The universality of drug use throughout human history has led some experts to conclude that the desire to alter consciousness, for whatever reason, is a basic human drive. People in almost all cultures, in every era from prehistoric times*,have used psychoactive drugs.

*(Archaeological evidence indicates the presence of psychoactive plants and drug use in early hominid species about 200 million years ago).

For something that has been in our lives for so long, making drugs illegal, as we well know, will not stop people from taking them, for they have become so ingrained in our culture…

BANNING DRUGS IS DANGEROUS, JUST LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENED WHEN ALCOHOL WAS BANNED…

Although alcohol has never been illegal in the UK, the first half of the 20th century saw periods of prohibition of alcoholic beverages in several countries, including the US (1920–1933), whereby the manufacture, transportation, and sale of intoxicating liquors was banned.

Making alcohol illegal didn’t stop people from drinking it, though, it just drove the market underground instead.

Organised crime took control of the distribution of alcohol, the most notorious example being Chicago gangster ‘Al Capone’, who earned a staggering $60 million annually from bootleg operations. This led to a massive increase in gang violence as a result, as street gangs would fight each other over alcohol distribution and sale, much as organised crime gangs fight each other today over illegal drugs.

When alcohol became legal, however, gangs formed on the basis of selling alcohol disappeared, as there was no ‘underground’ trade anymore. People could purchase alcohol from their local corner shop. This not only eliminated the risk of gang violence between the people selling alcohol, but it was also so much safer for the people drinking alcohol. How so? Because buying alcohol underground led to thousands of people dying each year due to the alcohol they were buying being tainted with toxins…

It was because of such dangers associated with the underground trade of alcohol that saw prohibition coming to an end in 1933, and alcohol being decriminalised.

BENEFITS OF THE DECRIMINALISATION OF DRUGS

As we saw happen when alcohol was decriminalised, decriminalising drugs would not only see crime rates decreasing, but it would also see health improving, as people would be more likely to seek help for their addiction.

When drugs are illegal, not only is the person addicted likely dealing with the stigma and shame surrounding being an ‘addict’, and all the connotations that such a label brings with it, but they will also most likely be dealing with the stigma and shame of, legally speaking, being a ‘criminal.’ It’s unsurprising, given this, that people, when they become addicted to drugs, don’t seek the help they need, precisely because of the stigma and shame they feel. They might fear the repercussions that may arise if they do attempt to seek help for their drug use, i.e., the police getting involved since, after all, they are committing an offense in the eyes of the law.

The reality, though, is that most people take drugs, not out of a desire to be a full-time criminal, but in an attempt to block something out.

It makes no sense to me that drugs are illegal, yet alcohol, which is just as harmful, isn’t. In fact, not only is alcohol legal, but it is also pushed on us, with people who don’t drink alcohol often being perceived more negatively than people who do…

Why are people who are all for the criminalisation of drugs so pro-alcohol?

As a chemical that affects our bodies, alcohol results in more premature deaths and illnesses than all illicit drugs combined. Yet instead of being taken seriously, alcohol is valued as a commodity, a ‘necessity of life’, even…

There shouldn’t be one rule for one thing and another rule for another. It just doesn’t make sense.

We either need to decriminalise drugs, or we need to criminalise alcohol. And because bans historically do not work, (not to mention the fact that the Tories love a drink #downitstreet #definitelyameeting), the decriminalisation of drugs, really, is the only viable option.