![Completed GPS portrait. This stunning GPS portrait of the Queen was created over a period of months - using six individual light aircraft. See SWNS story SWBRplane. The 12 aircrew members from Henstridge in Somerset teamed up to complete the worldâs first-ever GPS portrait to be drawn by multiple aircraft. Followers of FlightRadar24 may have spotted a few strange recent goings-on with aircraft across the county. Their flight paths generated some very unusual shapes over the course of several months. Code-named âArt Force 1â, six individual club aircraft belonging to the Light Aircraft Associationâs Wessex Strut and 12 crew members were handed a secret GPS plotted path from team leader, Amy Whitewick. âNone of them had any idea what the final image would look like â each team was given a small, unrecognisable chunk which, when flown, recorded on SkyDemon [aircraft GPS software] and sent back would be stitched together digitally to form the final image."](https://www.mnrjournal.co.uk/tindle-static/image/2022/07/19/11/newFile.jpg?width=669&height=445&crop=669:445)
Bath and North East Somerset Council are joining over one hundred and fifty parliamentarians, representing all major political parties, and one hundred and ninety three Councils already listed as official supporters and calling for the Climate Ecology Bill to be made into law.
The bill, which sets out a whole-of-government emergency plan to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels, and reverse the destruction of nature, would create a legal requirement for the UK to achieve the climate and nature targets needed to keep global heating down to 1.5°C, and would give the Secretary of State a duty to implement a strategy to achieve those targets. This legislation would also lead to a new public Climate and Nature Assembly and a commitment to reversing the destruction of nature by 2030.
Councillor Paul Crossley, who proposed the motion, said: “We must commit to targets and crucially meet or exceed them. It is pointless saying we are only a small country – let’s be a small country that leads and locally let’s be a small authority that leads.”
Councillor Sarah Warren, Cabinet member for Climate and Sustainable Travel, added: “Despite this, the government isn’t doing enough. The High Court ruled that the UK’s Net Zero Strategy breaches the Climate Change Act, as it doesn’t show how its legally binding carbon budget will be met.
“The Climate Change Committee found last month that credible plans exist for just 40% of the government’s planned carbon reductions required to hit its net zero target date of 2050 – and that date, of course, is much later than demanded by the Paris Agreement.”
The Council therefore resolves to write to the MPs for Bath and for North East Somerset, to know the motion has been passed, and gather support, as well as the organisers of the cross-party campaign for the bill, to express Bath and North East Somerset Council’s support.