Campaigners set for big climate change demo
09:23, 31 October 2006
ENVIRONMENTALISTS from across Kent are gearing up for one of the biggest ever demonstrations against climate change.
More than 10,000 people are expected to converge on London’s Trafalgar Square on Saturday for the Stop Climate Chaos I Count event.
The demonstration comes in the same week that economist Sir Nicholas Stern warned that delaying action on climate change by even a decade would lead the human race into “dangerous territory”.
Maidstone Green Party spokesman Stuart Jeffery said: “The Stern report highlights the stark future that we are facing unless fundamental changes to the way we live our lives and how we view the world are made.
"The economic effects of climate change will hit everybody; the recession forecast by Stern could herald very high levels of unemployment and poverty in Kent unless collective action is taken."
Saturday’s event is being organised by a collective of environmental charities and associations including Action Aid, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and Garden Organic, which runs a centre in Yalding.
Names lined up to speak at the event now include, among others, environment guru George Monbiot, singer songwriter KT Tunstall and Stop Climate Chaos director Ashok Sinha.
The main event begins outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square at noon. There will also be a bicycle protest halting traffic throughout the city. This begins at 10am at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, near Holburn.
For more details visit www.stopclimatechaos.org or www.icount.org.uk