Stop Climate Chaos While we're out and about campaigning we sometimes find that people aren't aware of Oxfam's work to help tackle climate change. In fact, this issue plays a part in all our work because global warming is affecting everyone on the planet. We've all just come back from a meeting about a new coalition that Oxfam is part of called 'Stop Climate Chaos'. It's an exciting idea, here's a summary... Joining forces to tackle climate change Oxfam is part of an important new coalition called 'Stop Climate Chaos'. Launched yesterday (1st September 2005), the coalition brings together environment and development groups, faith groups, humanitarian organisations, women's groups, trade unions and many others and has been set up to create 'an irresistible public mandate for political action to stop human-induced climate change.' Climate change is real The vast majority of experts believe that climate change is a global catastrophe in the making. In fact the UK Government's Chief Scientific Advisor believes it's more dangerous than terrorism, and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has declared that climate change is the greatest long term threat we face. It will affect the world's poor first and most No one will be immune, but climate change will have a disproportionate effect on the lives of people living in poverty in developing countries. Between 1990 and 1998, 94 per cent of the world's 568 major natural disasters and more than 97 per cent of all natural disaster-related deaths were in developing countries. Find out more The Stop Climate Chaos website is full of detailed information, key facts about the issues, suggestions for how you can help and details of all the coalition partners. There's also a lot of information about climate change on the oxfam.org.uk website, including news, press releases and special reports. What do you think? Got something to say about climate change, the Kyoto protocol or the 'Stop Climate Chaos' coalition? - send us your comments (link below). Perhaps you've been trying to reduce the amount of energy you use, if so, how's it going? If you're one of the minority who don't believe a word of it, check out the websites above. Still sceptical? Tell us why. posted at 12:12 PM | Permalink 8 comments   Comments: GenerationWhy and Oxfam accept no responsibility for the content of comments in the Blog. All very well sending emails to blair but its the americans and chinese who will make the difference. Everyone should ban american imports until they get there act together. By  Anonymous, September 02, 2005 2:08 PM   We need to accept our own responsibility - Bush may be a very bad president when it comes to doing what we want, but we are not innocent in climate change. By  edd, September 02, 2005 9:34 PM   Agreed Edd - let's get positive here. What a fantastic idea this all is. Now, when they're talking global warming on the news etc. rather than just some face from the met office the media will have a single contact with the environmental, humanitarian and ethical angles covered. Given that the fossil fuel, forestry and auto industries have $$$$$$$$$$ to spend on lobbyists at the drop of a hat it's encouraging that the rest of us will now have an organised and properly funded voice to counter all the bs. Like the blog said I didn't know Oxfam had much of a position on this (nor Christian Aid, CAFOD etc. for that matter). Looks like we might be getting somewhere. By  Anonymous, September 03, 2005 10:02 AM   Yep, I'm still sceptical. As a published scientist I have reviewed the recent analysis and I am very concerned at the rigour and standards applied in the analysis. I have very technical reasons for being sceptical, which are difficult to get across in this kind of forum. Essentially we have strong evidence that climate is naturally highly variable, without human influence. The recent trends are well within natural climate variability. It is impossible, for example, to separate the warming from the recent increase in solar activity (due to reduce in the next 10-15 years) from the increase in carbon dioxide concentrations. It is unreasonable to assume that computer models can untangle the relationships of a highly coupled non-linear system such as the earths atmosphere. Claims based on this approach are highly specious. By  Anonymous, September 15, 2005 8:46 PM   Hmm I think we need to get a bit more strategic in our campaigning on climate change than banning American imports! Can't really see that one happening. Really good to see that Oxfam and other development organisations are waking up to the impacts of climate change. It really is time that there is a big public campaign on the scale of Make Poverty History or Jubilee 2000 on the issue. One of the exciting things about campainging on climate change for me is that we can combine both personal action and political in putting pressure on the decision makers. One point surely is that it is up to Government to create the conditions for us all to live 'low carbon lifestyles'. As to any remaining sceptics out there, over 2,500 of the world's top scientists agree that climate change is happening and that we need to take action. Check out the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And note that most of the sceptics are in the pay of oil companies (think Esso). Let's think how we can really get the Stop Climate Chaos message out there and start to make a difference. By  Anonymous, October 29, 2005 2:15 PM   Hmmm...., published scientist....., even if climate change is NOT all due to human activities we know that human activities contribute to climate change, and that climate change is going to be bad.... so shouldn't we reduce our climate changing activities anyway? By  Anonymous, January 20, 2006 2:55 AM   Streams of motorway traffic are often people travelling to their places of work or making deliveries. Therefore it is big businesses that contribute the most to carbon emissions. Why does the government recognise this and make them pay a carbon tax? They could then use that money to develop public transport so that we do not need to use cars. Just a thought..... By  Anonymous, October 16, 2006 10:30 AM   I think that it is important to maintain a comfortable level of integrity by citing the evidence used in the climate change issues sections, as well as the others. While Climate Change is a pressing issue for many reasons, it is always important to avoid encouraging hyperbolic statements that is often founded in activist literature. By  Anonymous, November 16, 2006 10:14 PM   Post a Comment

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