Oh My Word...

Yesterday was Friday. March 15th. Day of the first global march to wake up our society to take action to prevent global warming.

My son is in primary school, I was planning to lead him to my local town where a FridaysForFuture march was organised. Except they planned it at 6pm, and by then I had a migraine, and I felt awful to skip this chance to make a difference with others who care. I thought the march was going to be small.

I thought the students taking part in it would have been few. I thought me taking part in it would be essential in affirming a stronger participation. That they needed me because the movement is still small.

I was wrong! I was so wrong. Tears came to my eyes when AT LAST! I saw the first images streaming through, from Oxford, from a forest in Kenya, from a village in India, from Milan, Verona, of course Stockholm, Berlin and so on... Yesterday felt like a new dawn! I had not felt this amount of hope in a long time, since I started to become preoccupied with the damage we were causing to ourselves with carbon dioxide.

Now what? How long before governments - and is it in the power of these said governments, controlled by money, lobbies - how long before businesses are forced, because I for one see that they are not leading, to take action? We know we don't can't carry on to spend the amount of energy we do, with its current by-products, for ever. How long before the internal combustion engine finally dies? How long before airplanes either become obsolete or use a sustainable energy? How long before we realize we can't continue to live as we do and be as many as we are? What is it going to take? How long?

Here are the latest news that caught my eye lately:
- Think we should be at school? Today’s climate strike is the biggest lesson of all, Fri 15 March 2019
- Pictures From Youth Climate Strikes Around the World

Mark Margolin, whose daughter organized a youth climate march in Washington last summer, said he understood the urgency of climate change intellectually but didn’t feel the panic the younger generation feels emotionally. Partly, he said, it’s because he has seen the world overcome other global challenges — the fear of a Cold War nuclear confrontation, for instance.

But also, it’s because parents like him are focused on short term. “I don’t have the fear and panic they do,” he said. “Adults are so focused on, ‘Can I pay the bills, am I going to be able to pay my daughter’s college tuition?’”

- The climate strikers should inspire us all to act at the next UN summit António Guterres, Fri 15 March 2019
- World Bank to invest $200bn to combat climate change, 3 December 2018