Green Heroes - Summary
Vote for your Green Heroes TODAY...
Well, here we are on Election Day 2019. We hope you have found our series of profiles of some of our greenest Liberal Democrat candidates useful in seeing them in a different light than the light of Brexit.
Whatever the outcome of this General Election we believe that the dangers inherent in the Climate Catastrophe will be worse than anything Brexit might bring, or the hung parliament which will no doubt take another few months at least of focus away from the Climate Change problems!
Special Election-Day Shout-out to Layla Moran
Layla Moran deserves a special mention on these pages for organising the first debate on climate change on the floor of the Commons for two and a half years alongside Caroline Lucas.
"I taught for the international baccalaureate where there was a whole unit where we would
look at renewable technologies and we would teach the physics through
renewable energy for example,
I was really inspired by the work of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the circular economy,
so all this stuff was in my head before I got elected."
Green Issues central to Election
As some of you perhaps know, I am past my three score years and ten of allotted time on this planet and I have to tell you that this is the first time that environmental issues have featured so fully in a General election during my lifetime.
Even so, the political system we have in this country (first past the post - FPTP) has meant that political campaigning has often been severely skewed by the media insistence on presenting it as a presidential race between two very flawed males representing two very flawed major parties.
.
.
.
..
.
Just a selecton of our Green Heroes
Because of FPTP it may be that the outcome is partially decided by tactical voting - but that may also obscure the great importance of the environmental agenda. As well as profiling two dozen of our greenest candidates (with apologies to those we did not manage to fit into the time available!) we have also tried to include as many different aspects of policy as possible across the series.
The Climate Catastrophe has been a recurrent theme of course, but, within that we have raised transport issues from walking and cycling to cars, buses and railways.
We have talked about most major sources of renewable energy from solar to wind to tidal. We have talked about the great possibilities of a revitalising Green business opportunity for investment in the country as well as international fairness and justice in transitioning to a sounder ecological economy.
We have talked about badgers and trees and natural resources. In other words we have tried to cover the breadth and length of Liberal Democrat environmental policies. These have been honed over many years of the existence of the Green Liberal Democrats - the environmental conscience of the party.
Our starting point for all of this has been that sentence in the preamble to the Liberal Democrat constitution - introduced over 30 years ago at the very start of the party after the merger...
"We believe that each generation is responsible for the fate of our planet and, by safeguarding the balance of nature and the environment, for the long term continuity of life in all its forms."
Keith M Melton
Vice Chair (Campaigns) Green Lib Dems
GOOD LUCK TO ALL OF YOU TODAY
And to all our Green Lib Dem colleagues who we did not manage to feature - STARS, all of you
