Sir Edward Garnier, MP for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, joined Market Harborough residents at a Question Time style debate focusing on environment and climate change. The event was at the Market Harborough Baptist Church last Friday, 15 April, and was organised by Canon Brian Davis.
The panel consisted of: Sir Edward, Reverend Nick Cook, Cllr Blake Pain, Oliver Savage (Chair of Sustainable Harborough), Professor John Twidell and Darren Woodiwiss (stood as Green Party candidate in the 2015 General Election). The questions raised by Market Harborough residents ranged from green energy to local community energy schemes, climate change and rising sea levels.
Edward Garnier said, following the event: “Unquestionably climate change is a politically controversial subject with different views being held passionately by people of intelligence, good will and common sense but who cannot agree with each other on the many human, scientific, economic and moral questions it raises. What I think most people who have given the subject some thought can agree on, however, is that our natural resources are not unlimited or inexhaustible, that our capacity to invent solutions to already-existing problems such as food and energy shortages, whilst impressive, may not march at a pace sufficient to feed and heat us all in the future at a price we and the planet itself can afford; and that therefore a good deal more thinking about how we can ensure we survive and leave a sustainable planet for the generations that come after us is urgently required.”