Wake up before it is too late (From The Northern Echo)

Wake up before it is too late

11:16am Friday 11th November 2011 in Ray Mallon By Ray Mallon

THE economic mess we’ve landed ourselves in seems to have put every activity under the sun on hold. But it’s business as usual when it comes to destroying the planet’s future.

I am talking about climate change and the forecast from the International Environment Agency that we have just five years to change our ways or face inevitable and disastrous global warming.

The Eurozone crisis is serious and is going to lead to harder times for us all. But painful as it is, we all know we’ll pull through eventually.

But with climate change there’s no get out clause, no light at the end of the tunnel.

Without an international agreement to limit emissions, the chance to peg warming at below two degrees centigrade will be gone forever. “The door is closing,” said the IEA.

And, as usual, we’re putting our hands over our ears. Carbon emissions reached a new high in 2010 despite the worldwide downturn.

World leaders due to meet in the next couple of weeks are already doing their best to postpone a binding pact.

The Kyoto Agreement of 1997, that sole outbreak of common sense, when leading nations pledged to limit emissions, runs out this year. Without a replacement we’ll be heading for an environmental meltdown that will make our money miseries a sideshow.

It is time for principled, even visionary leadership. A look around the great and the not-so-good who decide our futures does not fill me with optimism AS if that little item of news wasn’t enough to cheer you up, we had the NSPCC telling us this week that one in four babies is at serious risk of abuse. The threat comes from what they call the “toxic trio” of domestic violence, mental illness and parental dependence on drugs or drink.

As you may know, I have been arguing for some time for structured, vigorous and, above all, early intervention in families that cannot cope. It is the only way that we will take children out of the cycle of ill-health, poverty and benefit dependency that those families have experienced, sometimes for two or three generations.

I have said, too, that we must not wait until the child is born. We must, as far as possible, ensure that parents are equipped for their new responsibilities, towards their offspring but also towards society, before the child is born.

For some, that will be a painful process. We are talking about people for whom the rules that most of us live our lives by, have not been applied. But we must do it to stop the misery that too many children are born into.

THERE’S at least one reason to be cheerful though. People are queuing for hours to see nine works by Leonardo da Vinci at the National Gallery. It was, apparently, a similar story when earlier this year the Tate Modern ran a Gaughin exhibition.

It’s a useful reminder that, however much the mass media tries to dumb us down, there will always be an appetite for great art, something that takes us out of ourselves.

A reminder, too, that government, councils and other public purse-holders have a duty to make experiences like these accessible to everyone.

The divide between haves and have-nots is widening. But there can’t be a return to the days when a privileged few alone enjoyed access to great works of art and music. Even in the age of austerity, we should not be afraid to invest in the best.