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Tom Swarbrick reacts as Green Party leader Zack Polanski claims the extreme weather in the UK is the 'biggest threat to this country since the Second World War'.
Mr Polanski argued fossil fuel producers should be forced to pay for firefighting helicopters following the outbreak of blazes in the UK.
He also urged Prime Minister Andy Burnham to "be truthful, be brave" and block new drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea, including in the Jackdaw and Rosebank fields off the Scottish coast.
Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp
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0:00
We are facing the biggest threat to this country since the Second World War
0:05
He's describing it as a wake-up call. In a speech, the Green Party leader Zach Polanski said the threat to public health and food supplies
0:12
as a result of the hot and dry weather that we've been experiencing this summer
0:17
record hot and dry weather in certain parts of the country, posed the biggest threat to this country since the Second World War
0:24
Today I'm sounding the alarm and I'm laying out a plan. because last week while a wildfire the size of 200 football pitches was raging across Suffolk
0:36
I called on Prime Minister Burnham to act urgently to address the crisis. I suggested a Cobra meeting
0:43
being the very least he could do and six days later with another heat alert just having ended
0:50
we have still heard next to nothing from the very top of government. No emergency briefings
0:58
no new plan and precious little detail about how this government will protect people from the crisis
1:05
It is putting lives and livelihoods at risk across the entire UK
1:10
He warned that the crisis risks food and water shortages. He called on the government to bring water into full public ownership
1:17
He cited farmers warning of the risk of empty shelves after flooding followed by droughts led to the UK
1:23
facing now its worst harvest on record. No doubt it has been a record-breakingly warm and dry spell
1:31
and it is having major impacts on farming, and we will have an impact on excess deaths, no doubt, as well
1:37
The Greens say an estimated 3,000 people have died as a result of the dangerous temperatures in recent months
1:47
And to suggest that this summer we are seeing a crisis that is the biggest threat to this country since the Second World War
1:52
is that how you feel about it? is that your experience of it is that over the top i the biggest i mean this country has faced
2:01
some very significant crises since world war ii is i mean not that we're getting into a game of
2:07
ranking them necessarily but i mean covid was covid was absolutely at one stage felt to be
2:14
pretty existential is this the same thing to your mind as as existential a risk as covid seemed
2:21
originally to be. 03456060973 is the number. Is what Zach Polanski is saying true to your
2:29
mind You have seen it you felt it you experienced it you dealt with the wildfires that have burnt in parts of the country you are seeing the supermarket shelves empty you are a farmer trying to till your land with nothing there but dust that coming up from it Is this a bigger crisis or the biggest crisis in
2:47
this country since World War II? Paul De Silva is a senior campaigner at Friends of the Earth
2:52
Thank you very much indeed for coming on Paul. What say you to Zach Polanski's warning
2:56
We're not having bombs dropped on us. We're not getting much rain falling on us either. Certainly
3:02
not in the more arid parts of the UK, which have experienced, what, three, four weeks of
3:09
no rainfall or very, very little. And I also think it's really important to see this in the
3:17
context of the weather patterns and conditions that we're seeing over time. So we had
3:24
extremes of heat in 2025. We had prolonged and extensive floods in previous years
3:36
We had extreme heat in 2022. And these have knock-on effects. They don't just stop when the year stops
3:42
They tend to have a concertina effect. So farmers are also reeling from some of the effects
3:49
and the cost pressures they felt last year, and I'd say probably the year before that
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where they couldn't be sure if they could harvest a crop or they couldn't plant a new crop after because the fields were too wet
4:02
or they couldn't drill the ground because it was too dry. So I think we're certainly in a position where..
4:10
And farming was always a bit of a best guess, right? Let's be honest about it
4:14
They're on the front line of the weather and the changing climate
4:18
But what it feels to me as though what was a best guess
4:23
has now become a bit more of a complete gamble. It doesn't help that they're kind of in a stranglehold to the supermarkets
4:31
Well, quite. There's no doubt that as, you know, summer's become more, quote, extreme in their temperatures
4:39
people are going to have to think differently about infrastructure, whether it's farming, whether it's water supply and all the rest of it
4:44
And you're right about the fact that excess heat does lead to excess deaths
4:50
because of that heat. so there's no doubt that this is having an impact I just wonder Paul about the sense
4:57
of saying that this is the biggest crisis since World War II and whether that is a useful
5:02
description of what we're going through notwithstanding the fact that this is something
5:06
that we going to have to think quite hard about yeah as you said it hard to rank them isn it Because as I said bombs aren dropping and whatever I think Russia up some naughty tricks
5:18
We don't need to be... I guess, Paul, I just don't know... Why do we need to be hyperbolic about all this
5:23
Well, no, I think the facts speak for themselves, actually. I think what I would say is that it's..
5:30
Our political leaders, and very often large parts of the media, only ever deal with these things when it's rather too late. In my view, host pipe bans are a bit of
5:42
a nonsense because they should have been called years ago, months ago. The signs of drought have
5:48
not suddenly sprung up. They were fairly clear weeks, if not months ago. So it's not a very good
5:55
device. So we need a little more serious attention as we go. Why don't we have proper water saving
6:03
measures all year round rather than when it's too late for example then we can actually start having
6:08
a sensible conversation we could have a sensible conversation about how we grow food in this
6:13
country what crops we grow where they grow because we don't always grow the right crops in the right
6:19
place um and uh why are we um why are we not good at saving water what why are we not good at
6:28
managing infrastructure so is resilient to both the extremes of flood and the extremes of heat
6:35
so friends of the earth has been uh on this issue for quite some time we haven't just popped up
6:41
we're not jumping on some bandwagon i wrote uh an article friends several years ago saying if
6:47
we paid farmers properly in this country i.e let's say we doubled the amount of public money we give
6:53
them instead of giving them whatever's left over after the chancellor's made a budget and i know
6:59
the government will say well we've got record amounts of money going into farmers pockets yeah
7:03
but only for the next two years farmers need to plan over several years time they don't need to
7:08
just do it on a kind of drip by drip basis then we can have a sensible discussion about how we
7:14
manage land how we use land what we use it for farmers could have a bit more certainty about
7:19
where their income's coming from. Well, that is certainly... Always on the guessing game
7:24
Yes, it's interesting to read what Jeremy Clarkson has said about that as a new-ish farmer
7:28
that he has become more aware of the impact of climate change since being a farmer because of the..
7:33
And he's dropped it last. Yeah, because the pressure's finally tolling. Robert is in Hawley. Robert
7:39
Hi, Tom, how are you? I'm extremely well, sir. Is this the biggest crisis since World War II No not at all And I kind of bored of these sort of end scenarios I mean you know I just been reading a book on biological warfare
7:54
and, you know, that's positing things that are really lethal and scary. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it
7:59
But those are possible end-of-the-world scenarios. This is not. You know, I'll take it down to 2018
8:06
Were you enjoying that lovely, hot, sunny year, Tom? I can't even remember it
8:10
Yes, it was because it was the World Cup and it was in Russia it was very warm i remember that exactly i i took photographs of st james's park um very early
8:18
september end of july and it had turned to dust in richmond park was also dusty and arid and the
8:25
south downs which had paragliders over them looked like sand dunes you know we have had this book i'm
8:32
not denying that june had some very hot days in june yeah but we have very very dry yeah yeah yeah
8:38
But it was a very dry year, 2018. So, Robert, people will hear you and say
8:43
look, the asteroid is coming. You're one of those that's putting their head in the ground
8:48
not really interested in trying to distract with other things. You're not taking this seriously enough
8:52
I find the level of hysteria and chaos in this country, I would welcome an asteroid
8:58
I'll give a rest of all. Yeah, honestly. I would welcome it
9:01
I mean, look, I'm very... People shouldn't be crass about the environment
9:06
I'm not ignorant about the environment. at all but i i do hate the alarmism i think it's over i think we just have to be sensible use what
9:14
we have and not listen and the climate scientists who say uh past the tipping point of 1.5 degrees
9:21
that's you know heading to real danger zone for the planet and for multiple species including
9:27
possibly our own well there are counter arguments saying they're taking measurements in cities
9:32
before etc i won't go down that route but i will say to them look you can just do this sensibly
9:37
with holistic approach, panic and misery and poverty creates people that do not care about
9:44
the environment. We can still use gas. We can still draw for oil. And the number cited by the
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Green leader, quoting here, estimated 3,000 people died as a result of the dangerous temperatures in
9:56
recent months. Well, I can only draw attention to perhaps another statistic that was handed
10:02
to me by the nhs itself on june the 4th 2020 uh 27 000 approximately people had died as zars
10:10
called two by then but when you look at it by the nhs wise own admission 14 000 of them all
10:18
had underlying health conditions very very serious ones all right
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