'Stop building houses’ – public response to climate crisis

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released last week warned of increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts and flooding.

The report makes the strongest call to governments yet for decisive action, predicting the key temperature limit of 1.5C being broken in just over a decade.

When this paper asked readers on Facebook what we should do to combat climate change, many looked to the new housing being built across the area.

Protesters in the street

Ian Kingsbury said: “Stop building houses on the green stuff, it’s killing the planet".

Terry Miles agreed, saying: “Protect green bits. Stop encouraging infinite growth.”

Matthew Goldie suggested building high rise flats everywhere is part of the problem.

He said: “They are massively more structurally demanding than smaller buildings which hugely impact the environment.”

Richard Simmons added: “Get the Liberals out of local government. Expel too much hot air and produce too much methane. Happy to paint rainbows on our roads but happy to watch the potholes get deeper. I bet any potholes on the rainbow would be immediately repaired.”

Other readers looked at wider causes of pollution and climate change.

Andrew Dunton said "stop producing plastic bags,", Ash Watford commented “watch Cowspiracy. You’ll then know the truth about global warming”.

One of the key points from the report stated that human influence is "very likely" (90%) the main driver of the global retreat of glaciers since the 1990s and the decrease in Arctic sea-ice.

The past five years have also been the hottest on record since 1850.

On how the UK should tackle the global climate crisis, Justin Phillips argued the UK should do “nothing”, when this country contributes only 1 per cent to carbon emissions.

He added: “China, India, the US and Brazil are the main contributors, so unless they change there’s little impact our changes will make but I’m sure our wonderful government will have us paying through the nose for the next 30 years for it.”

Head of place shaping at Watford Borough Council Tom Dobrashian said: “Like many of our residents, Watford Council is very concerned about the future of our planet, that’s why we declared a climate emergency in 2019 and set a target for the town to be net zero carbon by 2030.

“We are working hard to meet this target with a host of ambitious initiatives already underway including our Sustainable Transport Strategy (Transforming Travel in Watford: the strategy for 2021-2041) which is published this week and we are asking residents for their feedback.

“As one of the smallest boroughs in the country, unlike our neighbouring councils, we do not have green belt land so housing development is on brownfield.

“Our housing targets are set by central Government and our local plan sets out how new homes can be delivered in the most sustainable way near to existing transport hubs like Watford Junction so new residents don’t need to use cars. This is more sustainable than building on green belt."