A Canvey environmentalist today warned storms will get "much worse" and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

In the wake of the winds which rattled the country, Chris Keene - the South East Essex Green Party's leading voice - told how the Greens blame the increasingly stormy weather on global warming.

Mr Keene, 50, of The Parkway, Canvey, said: "Storms are going to get much worse. "Global warming leads to an increasing frequency of severe weather such as storms, droughts and floods.

"The Green party claims this is only the beginning because it takes 20 years for the pollution to take effect, so the storms we are suffering today result from the pollution we produced in the 1980s.

"We are now producing a lot more pollution, so things can only get worse, even if we stopped polluting tomorrow."

Mr Keene, the Green party's regional spokesman, said global warming is mainly caused by air pollution resulting from the burning of coal, oil and gas.

And the former lecturer in environmental studies told people to act now to keep the dangers of climate change to a minimum.

Published Wednesday October 30, 2002

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