It was this picture below, flashed across the television screen this morning and its accompanying simpering smile from the newsreader which inflamed me. Tagged onto the end of the (inevitable) reporting on last night’s BoyBand-style lineup of the five numpties vying for prime position in the UK, notwithstanding Brexit of course, this pretty little scene of what appears to be a boat being pulled along a lovely blue river by some dogs, was the ‘and finally…’ part of the News. 
Only it’s not. Pretty OR lovely. But it was what the newsroom clearly decided would be the best interpretation of global warming/climate change/environmental catastrophe they could use, complete with a cheery little ‘see you later’ smile from the pleasant lady.
What the picture actually depicts is what the New York Times online calls “The average sea ice extent in May [which] is nearly half a million square miles below the average for 1981-2010, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Parts of the Arctic, including the Bering Sea off western Alaska, have had exceptionally low ice cover for months.”
THIS IS what GLOBAL WARMING looks like! And it’s happening RIGHT NOW as we sit and stare at mobile devices or stationary devices or pound our way to so-called health through the park or on a treadmill or stand and wait in line for a lazy, easy-to-grab fast food fix for a quick lunch before making some more stock-market kills or sweeping the floor of a supermarket for the minimum wage or whatever you’re all doing right now which is NOT SAVING THE PLANET. And it’s Yours, did you know that, or are you expecting somebody else to constantly pick up your dropped litter as well as bring a bottle on your behalf to this lovely party you’re enjoying with the rest of us?
Russell T Davies, through Anne Reid in last night’s final of ‘Years and Years’ summed it up perfectly. It is All Your Fault (and by Your, I also mean My, of course).
Since becoming Vegan (oh God, she’s not going to start on about saving animals and the planet again, is she?) I have seen, heard and read many more things than I ever gave credence to when I was eating meat. Some of the things I wish I’d never seen but equally I wish I’d seen them a hell of a lot earlier in my life so I knew precisely what part I was playing in the world. Because, as a child I must have been the usual inquisitive soul that children generally are, but I came from that age where parents were always right and if they didn’t have an answer for my “Why?” then I’d get a short shrift of “Because I said so” which as we all know doesn’t help educate man nor beast in the ways of the world.
So I grew up naturally believing everything adults told me; parents, grandparents, teachers, newsreaders, news writers, bosses, boyfriends, friends, husbands, the lot. I was a kind of social sponge, soaking everything up and hanging on every word so I might become more like them, these people who knew so much and whom I held in complete awe. And because I don’t like confrontation because I don’t have the strength of conviction to say how I feel about something (anything) I therefore avoid any unnecessary discomfort by saying nothing, nodding politely and ploughing on.
But there must come a time when a constant plodder/nodder notices themselves in the looking glass of time and understands there ARE questions we want an answer to; there ARE things that upset us and make us want to talk about; there IS stuff happening locally as well as globally which we feel INCREDIBLY uneasy about and surely the time to admit to and say these things is while we still have the mental and physi
cal capacity to vocalise them.
While we still breathe.
Greta Thunberg has done more in her short sixteen years and spoken more eloquently and passionately than I could have ever hoped to aspire to in all of mine. She has fast-become THE voice of Planet/Mother Earth. And the way that she is standing up and speaking out for things she believes in doesn’t make her any less credible than anyone older than she is. She speaks from her heart and we should be listening with our own hearts well and truly open to receive.
A lot of things make me despair these days. I think that becoming an ‘over-50’ probably had something to do with it; realising I had another failed marriage in my catalogue of life material; noticing that I didn’t get published at the age of 38 as a fortune-teller assured me I would be, and to all intents was effectively ‘homeless’ before retirement as opposed to the Grand Plan of having paid off a mortgage and enjoying fun weekends away with the grandchildren.
Hey curve-ball; can’t say I ever truly expected you, but pull up a chair and help yourself to a cuppa.
The farce of five on the telly-box last night with Bo-Jo, Gove, Hunt et al made me cross. Actually it made me angry. Oh alright then, furious, there, I’ve said it. FUCKING furious as it happens. Because these are ultimately the dregs we’re left with to take over from Theresa May’s unholy shit-fest of a leadership experience. I have never. Ever. In my entire life spent so much time staring at the news about politics than I have since Cameron did that strange little hum and danced off into his particular sunset of choice after leaving the UK like a beached whale on his ministerial shores.
And I thought I wouldn’t understand it. These politicians. I still don’t really get what Right/Left/Extreme/ Marginalism etc means so these words soar over my head, and I never voted before because I always worried what if I did it wrong and my vote was the ‘reason’ for the pear-shaped country we were left with? (I couldn’t shoulder that kind of responsibility) So I’d remained a Nodder/Plodder in elections as well. Until Cameron buggered off. Now I pay attention. I WANT to know what’s happening and I want to know how and why and especially WHY things are NOT happening.
But there still aren’t answers. Where are the reassurances from those in power who we’re meant to trust to make decisions on our behalf and allay our fears?
The ‘candidates’ last night had clearly been primed with questions they were going to be faced with because there wasn’t ONE answer for one single person in the whole hour. Everything; all the concerns, all the struggles, all the plights their public (who they’e paid to protect and serve-aren’t they?) queried of them was cleverly, neatly, with practised-perfection, skirted around and blustered aimlessly through. Even the query about the climate emergency. Which Donald Trump has already flapped away as nothing more concerning than “extreme weather”. False news, probably.
I am a naturally nervous person. I have mental health issues. I don’t use Twitter or Facebook to get shouty about these issues because I don’t believe anyone’s really all that interested and I know I’m the only one who can help myself, so I use the only ‘F’ word that always detracts from the screaming terror: “Fine”. I try not to say too much about being Vegan because people look at me oddly, as if being kind and compassionate and NOT wishing to harm animals is something to get defensive about (what?), I have had more panic attacks in the last five days than I’ve had in a month and I am scared as hell for the future of this world, for the children (my daughter and her partner) who are still being delivered into it by parents who aren’t hearing or reading or noticing anything amiss, and I now completely understand what Octogenarians mean when they say “ah, I won’t mind when my time comes”, because you know what? I get it. I’ve had it.
Debs J Cooper 