What can I possibly add to all the gratitude and awe I have been reading about since last weeks massive school strike? Up to 15,000 in Dublin! 1.4 million across the globe with about 100 of them being at the height in Ennis, Co Clare.
It’s typical that my first reaction after gratitude, was how people may be coping with the idea of change. If they understood the scale of it. If they considered what changes they could make. If they deemed it too late. If they need help deciphering what to do next. I can’t help but hope that watching the youth rising has woken up a lot more people to the climate crisis.
I read that Rob Hopkins from the Transition movement referred to it as reinforcements and I must say I understand exactly what he means. It feels as though some of us adults have been holding the front lines up against an army 1 million times the size of ours. We are pelted with climate denial, accused of being conspiracy theorists, scare mongers, doomsayers, manipulators for the green economy, anti capitalist hippies and the rest. We worked our way up from the margins to eventually take a seat at policy tables.
However we realise that the policy tables are smoke screens for inaction. They are all talk and very little action. They protect the economic lobbies who manipulate the data to pretend they are cutting emissions. The car manufacturers fiddling the numbers and agriculture fudging the facts. All to what end? They are fooling themselves because they are as dependent upon our ecosystem as the rest of us.
I was so elated to see the youth rising. We desperately need them. We need their enthusiasm, their unabated optimism that they can change the world, their energy, their drive, their support. They need us too. They need our advice and support. They need us to prevent time wasting by helping them not to reinvent the well worn wheel. So to all the adults out there who helped with the climate strikes, some continue to do so, thank you and well done.
To the youth rising – more power and you are soooooo welcome to the cause.
On another note the first meeting of Extinction Rebellion in Clare was held this evening. We had an introduction to the facts on climate change and what we can do about it. Followed by an introduction and update from Futureproof Clare. I will post more information on how to get involved when they have established themselves on various platforms. Futureproof Clare will also post details as they emerge on their Facebook page.
Theresa O’Donohoe
March 21st 2019.
TheresaOD.com 