Volumize Winter 2016 | Page 6

Pray & Post - Forwards not Backwards Our latest Pray&Post campaign card calls on the government to cut the disproportionate support currently given to the arms trade, and instead give renewable energy the support it deserves. The Defence and Security Organisation (DSO), is a government department which gives more support to the arms trade than all other UK businesses and industries put together. SPEAK believes that this disproportionate level of support is both morally and economically unacceptable. Our partner CAAT’s research* shows that a move towards offshore wind and marine energy could produce more jobs than the entire arms industry. These jobs would provide alternative employment for arms trade workers in similarly highly skilled sector. It has a similar breakdown across broad categories of skill levels and employs many of the same branches of engineering. These would be better jobs for the workers and for all of us: Jobs in an industry that is growing not declining, which create a safer, rather than a more dangerous world. It’s time for the UK to move towards a future based on new technology where we can trade for a safer world, and clean, sustainable energy. It’s time to move support from arms to renewables. *arms-to-renewables.org.uk/readmore CAAT = Campaign Against the Arms Trade 6 www.speak.org.uk/ campaigns/climatechange/forwards-notbackwards