Guacamole Girl

An Inconvenient Truth

Last night, I had a really good evening with some friends from our church, mostly from the environment group called "Earth Matters". We watched Al Gore's "slideshow": An Inconvenient Truth. It was a fascinating documentary, mostly of Gore showing evidence of climate change, interspersed with snippets of him talking about his own life.

What came across most strongly to me was the lack of doubt in the scientific community that climate change is a reality - and a dangerous one at that. Every timeline he showed had a sudden change, starting around 1970 and shooting off the scale. Whether it's air temperature, sea temperature, CO2 levels - all increasing exponentially. This is not "natural variation".

The effects of this could be catastrophic. Areas of the world that will disappear under the sea - like Holland for example, and other areas where there once was fresh water - Lake Chad once sustained many people with water & fish. Now it's just not there any more.

However, the bottom line was that IT'S NOT TOO LATE. We have a chance (maybe a last chance) to reverse it by reducing our emissions now. We have the technology, it's just the will to do what's difficult.

I am conscious that I haven't brought much of this into the blog so far. However, I hope to change that & bring you, over the next few months, some join the dots (I.e. why this is part of my worship to my Father God) and some wee things to help reverse a terrible trend. Stay tuned - please - I promise not to rant any more!

Check this out

Some friends have set up a blog to raise the issue of asylum seeking, in particular it's a place where asylum seekers can tell their stories. It's called Still Small Voices and it's uncomfortable reading - that's why you should read it!

I think attitiudes in Scotland are slowly changing away from prejudice, towards  welcoming acceptance, but we need to take the next step and actively promote the rights of asylum seekers.

In my work, I often speak to ordinary folks about things they see as "cost-cutting" - denying them aomething they believe they have a right to. A few years ago, it would not be unusual for me to get an earful of "I've paid my taxes for x years, and now these asylum seekers are coming here and getting everything. There's not enough to go round......." You can imagine how much I wanted to shout rude words at such people! (Instead I had to just deflect these comments to get back to the matter in hand) The truth is, we are a rich nation - there is enough to go round if it's shared out evenly. Asylum seekers are coming here for a better life and I was ashamed that this is how desparate people are treated in Glasgow "the friendly city".

However, as I said, this is changing. I was moved to tears by pride in my country in July 2005 when, during a pit-stop on the Make Poverty History march, a large group of people marched past us chanting "Refugees are welcome here!" I pray these people, even if they were just swept up in the day, have gone back home to live that out since then.

What can I do about it now? If I wrote to my MP of the top of my head, I might get carried away & have a total rant, so if I can get a template letter to start from, I'll post it here.

However, as this is my space, I will have a final rant. There is something that to me makes no sense. Why are asylum seekers not be allowed to work? I know people who have been here for 5 years or more and are in limbo, made worse by the fact that they are living on meagre benefits, not by choice. These are people with skills they want to share with us, people who want to support their families & have some say in the running of their lives. Instead they have to live where they are placed, and accept the handouts that divide them still further from their neighbours. We are a small country with a diminishing and ageing population. It strikes me that we can solve that problem and save the government millions by welcoming those who have risked their lives to be here, rather than persecuting them. Just think, Dungavel could be remodeled into a luxury hotel, hundreds of civil servants could be retrained in urban regeneration, we could stop wasting police time on dawn raids, and I'm sure we could find a use for the smart people-carriers with the blacked-out windows. Am I dreaming? Yes. Is it a dream worth pursuing? Oh yes. This is the Scotland I want my children to grow up in. What do you think??