Part of the Climate Clinic blog
These are the people who are shaping our lives and the world around us. We should all be getting in there, getting involved and getting excited about the political process once more.
I'd put my money on the inability of politicians, with a few notable exceptions, to talk to us about what actually matters. They seem obsessed with choice and how we all apparently want more of it, but the big things on the agenda like climate change get pushed to the back of the conference centre along with the curling sandwiches and rancid coffee. So in the stale atmosphere of the conference mausoleums it isn't hard to think of the Climate Clinic, an attempt to get serious debate going at the heart of politics, as a breath of fresh air.
Reflecting the all-encompassing reach of changing climate patterns, the Climate Clinic has been born from a meeting of businesses, energy saving bodies and environmental campaigners including Greenpeace. We're right there in the thick of it and one of our press officers, Ben, will be blogging from the Labour and Tory conferences over the next couple of weeks. The Clinic itself will host debates and provide information for anyone with an interest in the future - MPs, researchers, journalists and (perhaps mostly importantly) that gloriously indefinable and amorphous body, the general public.
But what exactly does the Clinic hope to achieve? Producing a solution to all our climate-related woes after just three weeks is a little too much to hope for, but getting the topic pegged firmly at the top of the political agenda is more realistic. You may argue it's been there for some time and that, although there has been plenty of hot air and lip service, little concrete action has actually been taken. Getting policy and legislation moving forward is the other aim of the Clinic and by floating alongside each of the big three conferences, it can encompass the entire political spectrum.
Right now, it feels like there's momentum building. From An Inconvenient Truth to the revelations about where Exxon Mobil has been putting its spare cash, it's been impossible to avoid climate change in the news. Of course, getting politicians to recognise that groundswell is another matter but hopefully the Climate Clinic will give them the shot in the arm they need so badly.
