Guernsey Press

Making small changes can add up

IT is difficult to ignore the fact that there’s been a lot of wild weather recently.

Published

From flooding in India, Nepal and Bangladesh to hurricanes Harvey and Irma affecting the Caribbean and United States, severe weather events are wreaking havoc across the planet

This year, summer in Guernsey was – along with 2006 – the hottest on record. That’s two of the warmest summers on record in one decade. August saw record-high rainfall at the start of the month, resulting in flooding.

Scientists have yet to pinpoint a direct link between events such as Irma and climate change, but the evidence is clear that the planet is warming. A physical law known as Clausius-Clapeyron equation says for every extra degree celsius in warming, the atmosphere can hold 7% more water, which tends to make rainfall events even more extreme when they occur.

Guernsey may be too small to be viewed with the naked eye on an atlas, but global warming will affect us just as much as the residents of hurricane-hit America.

The United Nations agrees that something must be done and over recent decades numerous summits have been held and accords signed with the intention of tackling global warming.

It would be easy for an island our size to sit back and say countries such as China and the US should do all the heavy lifting, after all nations of these sizes are the biggest polluters.

But we all have a part to play.

We are easily cut off from the rest of the world in the winter months. When supply boats cannot dock due to high seas, we see for ourselves how a few days of wild weather leads to empty shelves in supermarkets, disturbing the continuity of our lives.

As Deputy Emilie Yerby recently wrote in the Guernsey Press, government must take the long view when shaping policy that reduces climate change. And so too must we as individuals.

As consumers, we hold the power in our wallets.

By taking personal responsibility and making smart choices in what we buy, recycling more and making environmentally-sound purchases, what may seem like small changes made by individuals will collectively bring about significant change.