30th June

I was sitting here ready to go into a Zoom meeting with others and Tim Farron on Climate Change (as there is a big online lobby of MPs by the Climate Coalition today), but, because of the vote on the Immigration Bill, that has been moved to 7.30. Just a reminder that in these times when we are naturally focussing on Covid-19, other major issues are being dealt with too. Climate Change will probably face us with much more drastic effects than Coronavirus in the long run and could be far more fatal to life on the planet, while the question of immigration affects 1,000s of lives both of those already living here and those abroad. The two are also connected because it is partly the affect of the greenhouse gas emissions that we rich countries send up into the sky that creates the desertification in the Sahara and the rise in sea levels in Bangladesh and the Pacific that forces others to move from now devastated homelands. They then end up at our door at Calais (or at least at Europe’s door) where we hold them in horrible camps. I know war has similar effects, but then whose policies allow matters to get so far. It is often the indecision or poor decision of the stronger countries who fight proxy wars in already poverty stricken regions.