'Heatwave is a reminder there must be no let-up in mission for Net Zero'

THIS last weekend will be remembered for the time when the weather crossed the heatwave threshold.

- Joan Walley — former MP for Stoke-on-Trent North

Last week was also Net Zero Awareness Week, not that many would be aware of it. And therein lies the dilemma.

Scientific evidence points to climate change as the single greatest challenge facing mankind.

Yet we can’t quite bring ourselves to face up to having to take sufficiently ambitious action needed to safeguard our planet for future generations.

As Sir David Attenborough constantly reminds us through his prolific output of films and documentaries, our planet requires us to protect nature and wildlife in all its forms as well.

Climate breakdown and biodiversity loss is all around us all of the time if only we could see it. A far cry from the abundance of wild flowers and birdsong when my generation were young.

In turn, our parents will have shared with us their fond memories of when the brooks and streams were teaming with tiddlers, hedgerows stacked full of birds’ nests and hillsides loaded with bilberries all ripe for the picking. I can’t remember the last time I heard a cuckoo.

Climate and nature breakdown are interrelated. They have huge implications for the way we live, our physical health and national and local economy.

People and communities, as well as adapting to extreme weather, need government to take preventive measures to slow down the rise in global temperature attributable to man-made methods of production.