“We might want to tackle climate change but the sea routes are opening up.”

SNP Euro candidate Stephen Gethins spoke in Nairn at the YES Nairnshire meeting on Thursday night (video here). He mentioned Whiteness head and the opportunities for employment from renewables. The Scottish Government’s commitment to renewable energy needs no explanation, locally it is set to provide jobs soon if predictions are correct but it is not without its controversial side as witnessed by developments up the hill in Glenferness. 

Climate change means flooding and extreme weather for many and more of that may come as the polar ice caps melting contribute to rising sea levels. (As an aside to this there is an item on the agenda at next Tuesday’s West and Suburban CCs meeting to discuss flood prevention in Nairn both in terms of the river and the seafront.) In a way then our commitment to tackling climate change offers opportunities, going further from that should we ignore other economic opportunities that climate change offers? Stephen Gethins touched on this on Thursday night. He said, whilst talking in terms of Scotland’s competitive niche in the world:

“Climate change is something that this part of the world knows all about. Things are changing. One consequence of this , and it is something that is emerging that the Russians are really starting to open up on; is what are the consequences for the opening up of the northern sea routes and that is something that will have significant impact on towns like Nairn and this part of the world in particular and I think we need to start having a think about how do we respond to these changes as well.”

Stephen later added: 

“We might want to tackle climate change but the sea routes are opening up. Now the UK is clearly not looking at that fact. You had a Russian warship in the Moray Firth just a few weeks ago. The Defence Ministry had no idea how to respond to it. In fact it couldn’t respond to it because there were no UK ships in the vicinity. In fact on Austrian television I saw someone put up a clip of Russian sailors just a few miles from here making fun of the UK’s defence just off the coast, just off the NE coast here.”

Stephen also mentioned a few other topics linked to the EU and the Independence debate. Videos of his speech and also a question and answer session are available here and here. 

The Gurn would be interested to hear opinions from any Better Together activists locally or any NO voters out there - if you are planning any meetings too, let us know. We are not interested in publishing any of the national press releases, links etc, from either camp however, but any material spoken or created by politicians at meetings locally or anything that has a relevance to Nairnshire is welcome. What would be the impact of Independence on our community, our town, our County? Let us know your thoughts.