Jerry Hall: Climate Change Biggest Problem

Posted on | March 23, 2009 | Comments Off

Jerry Hall is an actress and model that had four children with the Rolling Stones lead singer, Mick Jagger. She sent a message to the Prime Minister of England, Gordon Brown.

“My message to Gordon Brown – climate change is the biggest threat the world has ever seen”

Just like any mother, over the years I have worried about my children’s schoolwork, the food they eat, their happiness. But the issues I used to worry about while bringing up Elizabeth, James, Georgia May and Gabriel seem small fry when I consider that their very future is now at stake.

Climate change is the biggest threat the world has ever known and it is happening right in front of our eyes.

All the experts say governments need to act now if we’re to have any chance of saving our children from catastrophe. So I say the time has come for us mothers to stand up and make our voices heard.

It is really just common sense. After all, there is no emergency exit, no back-up planet. If temperatures continue to rise, scientists say we’ll be left not just with melted ice caps, but flooded cities and whole species wiped out for ever.

I grew up in Texas and as a little girl I kept a raccoon, a pig, horses and even an alligator called Nathan (I still have a scar on my thumb where he bit me when I was 11).

As I’ve grown older, I have begun to get back in touch with nature, and simple things like gardening give me great pleasure. I may have a cupboard full of Manolo Blahniks but these days I’m more likely to be found in a pair of wellingtons and carrying a spade.

I keep chickens and I’m starting to grow organic vegetables in my garden – there’s nothing like the taste of a carrot you’ve planted from seed. It may be a long way from the catwalks but I find it healing to get back in touch with the Earth, to remember where our food comes from, and how precious nature is.

For too long, we’ve treated the planet like a giant fridge that can be raided whenever we want. It’s an issue my daughters in particular are very aware of. I guess it must seem to them as if our generation has burnt up the planet without any regard to the consequences. Certainly it was my children who got me thinking about climate change.

Like a lot of people I probably had my head in the sand about the issue. It seemed a bit overwhelming and I remember being a little confused by the debate about whether climate change was man-made or not.

One day Georgia May came home from school and asked me: ‘What can we do about it?’ To answer such a question you need to be well informed, so I began reading all that I could about the subject.

And that’s how I realised pretty much all scientists now agree climate change is caused by the expanding population and all those fossil fuels we’ve been burning for 250 years.

Rob Bailey, the senior climate adviser for Oxfam, said last week: ‘The verdict of the world’s top scientists is clear. The big question now is whether the world’s richest countries, who created the climate crisis, will act before it’s too late.’

When I discussed it with friends, we began to ask ourselves: ‘Do we really need a third runway at Heathrow? Should we really be considering giving the go-ahead to a coal-fired power station in Kent?’

My children’s future is my biggest priority now. They are my greatest achievement, the greatest gift life has given me. Being a mother is my number one job. Acting and modelling have been very good to me but motherhood is what it’s all about. I love making a meal for them every evening. My kids are my favourite people and I’d rather hang out with them than anyone else.

Tomorrow I will be taking part in a rally at Parliament organised by WeCan, a group of mothers who are calling upon the Government to act now to protect the future of our children.

I have always been an optimist and in a funny kind of way I see this issue as empowering because we’re the last generation who CAN still do something. We do still have time – just.

Professor Jim Hansen, a leading climatologist, announced in January that we have four years in which to take urgent action before climate change passes the tipping point and spirals out of control.

So I’d like to remind our Prime Minister of something my grandmother, who was part-Cherokee, taught me when I was a young girl.

‘We’re just custodians of this Earth,’ she always used to say, ‘and it’s our duty to take real good care of it so we can hand it back safe and sound to our kids.’

From one parent to another, I’m calling on Gordon Brown to act on these wise words before it’s too late.

Comments