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HOW GREEN IS YOUR POLITICIAN?

© Linda Little

A Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution stated that a 60% reduction in emissions was needed by 2050, so Friends of the Earth have decided to hold the UK government to their promised 20% reduction. One very good way of achieving this is to increase the amount of electricity which is supplied from renewable sources. So, rather than the modest 10% target that the government set itself, Friends of the Earth suggest 20% of electricity from renewable sources by 2010.

Make biotech companies responsible for any harm caused by genetically modified crops and food by introducing strict liability legislation.

Biotechnology is a new technology having only been around for some thirty years. Despite this, commercial product are already in the foodchain. There are still scientific uncertainties about this technology. Long-term impacts are difficult to predict in short-timescale pre-commercial testing. Sometimes random splicing of genes produces unpredictable results. However, once released, GM organisms can multiply and spread through ecosystems and the foodchain.

There should be no release of such organisms without adequate liability legislation being in place. Suggestions for liability legislation includes:

• Strict liability for all harm from GM organisms to be placed on the biotech companies - other food manufacturers being able to direct such liability back to the source.
• Biotech companies being compelled to have adequate insurance to meet all future claims.
• Retrospective claims to be allowed
• A compensation fund to be set up by biotech companies to meet claims where the source of GM material is difficult to apportion to any one company.

Treble investment in buses and traffic-calming by 2005 so that everyone has access to regular public transport and can live in a safe street.

The lack of adequate public transport and traffic calming measures hits the poorest households far worse than anyone else. Although social exclusion is produced by many factors including low income, unemployment and crime, access to transport is critical. 41% of the poorest rural families in UK do not own their own car. In order to gain access to jobs, shops and other services which so many of us take for granted, they are dependant on public transport, a service which has been declining over many years now. An investment of approx three times the present level is needed to bring it up to an adequate standard.

Even more worrying are the accident figures. Children from poorer households are five times as likely to be knocked down by a car. If that car happens to be travelling at 40mph - and many of them are - then there is a 95% likelihood that the child will die. If the car had been travelling at 20mph 95% of these children would have survived. Traffic calming measures are therefore vital to the safety of our children. Such measures have become the cinderella of government transport plans, directed, as they are, towards new road building.