05 November 2007 - Dr Caroline Lucas, Green Party Principal Speaker and MEP for the South East, will be in Canterbury on Thursday (8 November) to speak at a public meeting on the global and personal impacts of climate change.

Dr Lucas will join a panel of experts on sustainable living for a discussion based around the concept of ‘Tackling climate change: from global to personal’. A high profile campaigner on a range of issues including global climate change, animal rights, GM food and nuclear power, Dr Lucas will discuss the huge impact that human activity has had on the environment.

Crucially, Dr Lucas will also address the question of personal wellbeing, asking whether or not modern life, with its rampant consumerism and environmental degradation, is really making us any happier.

She is expected to say: "Having a good quality of life and safeguarding the climate are not only compatible, they are inextricably connected and mutually dependent. In other words, it serves both our own wellbeing and the wellbeing of the planet to challenge our deeply unsustainable economic system, based on the ever-increasing consumption, and waste, of natural resources.

The Canterbury meeting will provide an excellent opportunity for local people to learn more about the damage that we are inflicting on the planet and what can be done at a personal level to help curb the effects of climate change.

The panel will also include: John Thorp, Managing Director of ECSC (Energy Centre for Sustainable Communities, Tracey Todhunter from ‘England’s first carbon-neutral village’, Ashton Hayes, Cheshire, Independent columnist and author of Saving the Planet Without Costing the Earth, Donnachadh McCarthy and Dr. Jan Drozd of the Church of England’s Environmental Advisory Panel (EAP).

Dr Lucas sits on the European Parliament Trade and Environment Committees and is Vice President of the Parliament’s Animal Welfare Intergroup. She was voted Politician of the Year in the Observer Ethical Awards 2007 and was recently elected Principal Speaker for the Green Party in England and Wales. She is also the Green parliamentary candidate for the Brighton Pavilion constituency.