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11 year old boy to walk 200 miles in drive for nationwide carbon tax

Jude Walker, 11, from Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire, is doing the challenge in order to drive support for a petition to introduce nationwide carbon tax in the UK

An 11-year-old activist has committed to walking the 200 mile distance from his home in Yorkshire to London in a bid to help raise awareness of climate change.

Jude Walker, who is from Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire, is doing the challenge in order to drive the support for a petition that would introduce a nationwide carbon tax to the UK.

He set off on the 25th of July and is walking 10 miles a day until the 14th of August to achieve this impressive feat.

“I wanted to raise awareness for a carbon tax,” Jude said.

“I decided I wanted to do a walk because that seemed achievable, I had been doing lots of long walks because of lockdown.”

He will be completing his big walk alongside his mothers in a campervan, which they had chosen instead of staying in hotels in order to avoid the risk of needing to isolate due to the coronavirus.

This comes after a team from NASA and NOAA have recently found that Earth’s “energy imbalance” had doubled between the years of 2005 and 2019. The energy imbalance of heat within the planet is simple to understand but is complex in its causes and impacts upon the climate.

The 11-year-old boy will also be joined by MP Holly Lynch of Halifax, as well as MP Ben Everitt of Milton Keynes as he walks through their respective constituencies on his journey form Yorkshire to London.

He said that the government “hasn’t done enough for climate change in general, but also not for carbon tax because they seem to just be sticking with their Emissions Trading Scheme and Climate Change Levy“.

“I would definitely prefer a full carbon tax, that’s why we’re doing this petition.”

“I would definitely prefer a full carbon tax, that’s why we’re doing this petition.”

Jude has said that he was initially inspired by the young Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, as well as the teenage environmental campaigner from Northern Ireland, Dara McAnulty.

Jude said: “It’s really been in lockdown that I’ve become aware of climate change.

“Dara McAnulty, he wrote a book that was his diary called Diary of a Young Naturalist, and that really inspired me to go on more walks and made me appreciate nature, which is why I decided to do a long walk (for the challenge)”.

Sarah Courtney, his mother, said that the walking challenge was his idea and that the whole family is “very, very proud” of Jude.

“He’s really switched on and articulate, the whole of this was his idea,” she said.

Jude hopes that his efforts will gain the support for a Zero Carbon Campaign petition that was launched in February and urges the government to implement charges on carbon emissions, which now has more than 47,000 signatures.

This comes after a “wobble” from the moon will contribute to an increase in severe flooding within the mid-2030s, NASA has now warned. The orbit of the moon, which affects the tides of the Earth’s oceans, has a natural “wobble” that occurs every 18.6 years and causes both extremely high and low tides.

The head of the Zero Carbon Campaign, Hannah Dillon, said: “We are truly blown away by Jude’s support of our campaign, and his resolve and determination to hold political leaders to account with regards to their climate commitments.

“At 11 years old, he understands better than most adults the severity of the climate and ecological emergency, and the imperative need to implement effective, economy-wide solutions to address it.”

“He was just really determined. We did a 10-mile walk and that wasn’t a problem, then we did four 10 mile walks in a row and that wasn’t a problem… we felt that we should support him.

“We’re very, very proud of him obviously.”

Eve Cooper
Eve Cooper
I've been writing articles and stories for as long as I can remember and in the past few years I've had the fortune of turning that love & passion for writing into my job :)

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