From Stephen Cockett, Ventnor:

On Saturday I joined almost 200 Islanders in a march through Newport to highlight the need for urgent action on climate change.

Despite a wealth of evidence, our environment is undergoing a slow-motion collapse, governments have, for the most part, carried on with business as usual.

This political inertia isn’t surprising when we consider climate change most immediately affects poorer people in far-off lands and the governments focus on the more immediate needs of the economy.

It is, however, an unacceptable situation for a large swathe of the population who care deeply about the natural world and think beyond these shores and beyond the next election cycle.

Assuming that you don’t own an oil rig or power station there is very clearly no downside to improving the environment in ways that can simultaneously combat climate change.

Improving the environment means warm housing, locally produced food, vibrant accessible high streets and decent public transport. I don’t see any controversy there.

What we should not be doing is putting ourselves in a position where future generations have to clear up our mess because it is deemed too expensive for us.

To that end we shouldn’t refrain from a protest because it might be a tad impolite to briefly inconvenience someone.

Instead, we should remind ourselves nature belongs to no one, society belongs to us all and our children trust us with the future.

Given the gravity of the situation we have a right and a responsibility to effect change in ways that extend beyond the ballot box and onto the street to alert our decision makers to the strength of our convictions.