With recent massive floods in Germany and China and a 49.6°C heatwave in Canada, sooner or later we will wake up to find that either the Watford town centre is flooded or all the outside air is so hot that we can’t breathe safely. Climate change is now having drastic effects on people’s everyday lives around the world. So what can we do about it?

While better flood defence is down to the council, we ourselves can do a lot to prevent climate change from getting worse. The key is to cut down on using fossil fuels which produce carbon dioxide, the main cause of climate change. So the advice from the UK Government’s Climate Change Advisory Committee is to switch to an electric car as soon as possible, install solar panels, consider a heat pump and a large wall battery (from which you can also charge your electric car), keep your house thermostat set to 190 C maximum (not too difficult at the moment), walk or cycle as much as possible, give up flying on holiday (flying is the worst thing any of us can do), cut down on meat and dairy products and eat more fruit and vegetables, though you don’t have to go vegan.

Let your MP know how worried you are and ask every organisation to which you belong or work for, what they are doing to cut down their carbon emissions. All of this is desperately urgent – the Government’s plan to reach zero emissions by 2050 is far too slow to prevent catastrophe. The time for action is now.

Donald Reid

Formerly Director, Association for Public Health

Devereux Drive, Watford