Climate campaigners to host talk on taking effective action on climate change at Pioneers Museum

Rochdale Pioneers Museum

Some of Britain’s leading climate campaigners will be hosting a talk about taking effective climate action at the Rochdale Pioneers Museum next week.

Free to attend and open to all, the ‘Our Responsibilities At This Time’ event by Just Stop Oil North will honour the UK’s long tradition of non-violent civil resistance.

It comes as the UK has experienced the hottest New Year on record whilst the UK’s 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 2002.

2020 was the second hottest year on record, behind 2016, according to data compiled by the Met Office, University of East Anglia (UEA) and the UK National Centre for Atmospheric Science.

Just Stop Oil is a new UK-wide campaign demanding the government call an immediate halt to all new licences and consents for the exploration, development and production of fossil fuels in the UK.

Rev Mark Coleman, who has helped organise the talk, said: “I am excited that we can host this talk because watching politicians talk blah blah blah whilst our house is on fire is beyond depressing. This talk, by some of Britain's bravest, is a breath of fresh air.

“Whilst many people in Rochdale are now acutely aware of the need for urgent action on what scientists say is the greatest threat we’ve ever faced, most of us don’t know what we can do about it.

“This no-holds-barred talk will not only tell the truth of how serious and urgent things are, it will also spell out clearly what each of us can do about it.”

He added: “Here in Rochdale and Littleborough we have had the flooding of Boxing Day 2015 and we know that these events will become more common and more destructive in future. The reality we face is ‘blood, sweat and tears’ even if we start now, the alternative, to not act, is literally unthinkable.

“We need to act within the next handful of years so we have a chance to avoid locking in climate breakdown, which will have catastrophic impacts within our children’s lifetimes. We go over 1.5C sometime in the 2020s, described as an overshoot, it doesn’t make sense that our leaders are prepared to undertake this reckless gamble.”

The Our Responsibilities At This Time talk will take place from 7-9pm on Wednesday 26 January at the Pioneers Museum, 31 Toad Lane, Rochdale, OL12 0NU.

To register, please visit Eventbrite.