More people are becoming concerned about how the climate crisis is affecting their lives and will make their children’s future difficult and dangerous. Yet when it comes to general elections, less important issues take centre stage and some candidates have thought they can ignore the subject.
Perhaps not any more. Some clever work by a PhD student, Georgia Willits at University College London, has linked the past and future effects of climate change to every constituency in the UK. Each voter can click on the interactive map for their area to see how much temperatures have risen in the last century and how much more they will go up by 2080. There is more on how rainfall intensity has grown as a measure of the future risk of flash or river flooding.
All these indications show how rising temperatures are affecting life for the worse across most of the UK, but impacts also vary widely from one constituency to another. The increased risk of flood, drought and heatwaves can now be weighed up by each voter close to home. If the forecasts are alarming, voters can look at the climate policies of each candidate and make an informed choice about where to put their cross.
