Why Don’t Folks March Anymore?
Over a million people marched to protest against the Iraq war but how come there were only 25,000 people on the ‘I Count’ Climate change march last year asks InSITE Editor Amy Nicholass?
I was one of those 25,000 who took to the streets of London and I want to know why you weren’t there? It was a Saturday, the weather was a bit nippy early in the morning but mostly lovely and sunny, so apart from the ill people and Saturday jobbers, there wasn’t that much of an excuse not to be there. They even put on buses from Hereford!
Why was it more important for people to turn up to show their disapproval for ‘liberating’ a Middle Eastern country than showing the need for action to reduce the effects of climate change which are already on our own doorstep?
We all know that the liberation of Iraq, war in Iraq or what ever you want to call the hideous mess, was indeed worthy of many millions pointing out to the government that they were making a very dangerous mistake. And I’m not going to wade into the murky waters of comparing the stakes of one protest issue with another, but jeez, surely an unpredictable climate that threatens every being on the planet is worthy of the attention of many billions of people?
Oh, hang on a minute, maybe the sheer lack of enthusiasm of the media that resulted in very little coverage of the whole ‘I Count’ message meant that you didn’t even know the event was happening, perhaps?
I also realise the whole climate chaos issue appears to be tricky to get one’s head around, but really it is very simple.
Put it this way, whether you believe that the erratic and lethal weather patterns the world has experienced lately are a result of you keeping your tv on standby or not, the way we live our lives and waste energy is not sustainable for much longer.
If we change our habits now we have a better chance of coping than if we are suddenly plunged into greater conflicts over oil, gas, drinking water or even land to grow food in the future.
Do you see where I’m going with this? I’m not trying to be all doom and gloom. In fact the whole point of the march was to show government that we all count, every single one of us.
Everyone can take responsibility for the impact we each have on our planet. It’s never too late to do something, if you’ve ever seen weeds growing out of tarmac you’ll know that nature doesn’t give a toss about humans, it’ll adapt and carry on if we’re here or not.
With some creative thinking we can together prevent the worst case climate chaos scenarios which will inevitably happen if we don’t act now.
