What do we want?

Another of my new year resolutions (well, it was made at the Greenbelt festival last August, but who’s counting?) is to get back into collective climate activism. What with Covid and moving to a different part of the country and taking on a demanding job and whatnot, I had dropped out.

I went to my first meeting of Climate Action Newcastle, and then a few weeks later went on a demonstration in the city centre. That’s me in the middle of the photo, in the red hat, looking cold and disorientated.

To be honest, I am sceptical about protests and demonstrations. I have been on many marches over the years and I am not convinced that they serve much purpose beyond the opportunity to express your anger or objection to something and communicate to the wider public that you’re not the only one who thinks like that. I don’t think they win many people over and I don’t think they persuade governments to change their minds. On 15th February 2003, I marched through London with an estimated 1.5 million others to protest against sending troops into Iraq. It was a massive ‘NO’, yet it was ignored by the government. The troops went to war, many died, and two years later the government was re-elected, which is the expression of opinion that really matters to politicians.

Anyway, there I was in Newcastle with about 200 others. First there was a rally where we stood in the cold and the rain and listened to people telling us stuff we already knew. Then we walked along the main shopping street chanting to the prompts of a man with a megaphone. There was also a samba band. I am getting old and these days I don’t like crowds very much and I don’t like loud noise. I wondered what we were achieving.

Well, people out shopping for Christmas that Saturday noticed that the climate crisis is important to a lot of people. I didn’t pick up any hostility towards us, which interested me when comparing to the olden days. Maybe most people understand that there is a problem. Perhaps they just haven’t connected the dots or given it much thought or simply don’t know what they can do about it. Another achievement was hearing an inspiring and encouraging speech from Jamie Driscoll, the regional mayor, who is using what power he has to address the crisis with practical action. Another was connecting up with friends from the north-east chapter of Christian Climate Action, as well as introducing myself to people campaigning for the Tyne and Wear pension fund to divest from fossil fuels – an area in which I have some experience to bring (and experience of some success in terms of church investments).

Maybe that’s the thing about activism. As with pastoral ministry, the important, basic thing is to be present. Be in the room. Be on the streets. See what emerges when you bring your passion and your person into the mix along with other persons and passions. As Roger Hallam, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, said in a recent radio interview, it’s not about success or achievement, it’s about telling the truth – “Say the truth and act as if it’s real.” We show up. We listen. We speak. We act. And the world changes when we do this together. The demonstration was a meeting place and the meeting is what mattered. And – for the first time in quite a while – I showed up. It’s a start.