The real lesson of tonight's Charlbury Society Zoom meeting

Thu 8 Jan, 15:22

Jenny Lewis has written a great note on Professor Julie Ingram's Zoom talk tonight about how Net Zero can transform our landscape.

But how many of us really understand how catastrophic not thinking about Net Zero can be for people living in the world's poorest countries? Or how spectacularly reacting against it can improve their lives?

In 1971, for example, over 700,000 Bangladeshis died in a Bay of Bengal monsoon. Fifty years later, the next major Bangladesh monsoon was ten times stronger - but killed "just" a hundred. 

Both deathtolls were obviously too big. But between them Bangladesh industrialised -increasing both the country's pollution and its wealth. And that wealth paid for the training and the investment that made the country more resilient. Just like India, China and Vietnam today - and Britain (like most of Europe) in the 19th century.

My company, like many others, works to help underdeveloped countries become more resilient. And, at a time the US President is trying to reduce poor countries' resilience, we believe we should all know more about how  poor countries can grow.

So we're putting together a series of case histories which we'd be very happy to offer anyone in our area who'd like them

Email me (mike.flanagan@clothesource.info ), phone me (07957 676 661) or stop me in the street (usually being walked by Oscar the Cocker) if you'd like a copy of our Resilience Toolkit