Last week I
had the pleasure of being invited to Ditcham Park School to be one of the
speakers for their Hopeful Earth Youth Conference. This brought together 10 local schools to
start the conversation about how schools should respond to the global
environmental crisis. It was enabled by
Mark Philips, Head of Seniors, but this was very much a student-led event. I was immensely impressed with 4 students: Zac
Davidson (Head Boy), Sacha Fairweather (Head Girl), Nelly Bryan and Ben
Vass who guided the whole event along and facilitated
the workshop sessions.
The conference aimed to grasp the nettle of the current climate and
ecological emergency. These students
will be in the thick of trying to rectify the problems we are leaving
them. They should be angry – to be
honest, they should be angrier with my generation than they appeared to
be! But the conference was built around
hope – not the vague hope of people just wishing things were different, but the
progressive hope of people who are determined to act.
I was there to talk about rewilding.
It’s too late to stop climate change and we can no longer be comfortable
just conserving what we have. Nature
must be rebuilt so it can respond to (and protect us from) climate change. Rewilding is a great way of doing it.
There was also a hugely inspirational talk from Philip Lymbery, CEO of
Compassion in World Farming. He expertly
brought together compassionate farming systems with ecologically sustainability. These farming systems should replace the
exploitative farming that dominates today.
“You are able to take action three times a day” was one of his memorable
take-home messages. “Every time you eat
you can determine what goes onto your plate” and the choices we make determine
the agriculture we support.
Mary Skuodas of Bohunt School gave an excellent presentation with
crisp advice to fellow students on how to engage in environmental matters in
school. Her delivery was so professional
and clear that it was unbelievable that this was the first time she had given a
presentation to such a large audience!
It was, however, Jack Harries, climate activist and filmmaker,
who stole the show. He simply told the
story of how he had become involved in Extinction Rebellion (XR) and how he got
himself arrested. This was not a
boastful story or one that he encouraged students to emulate, but the
commitment, passion and overriding concern shone through.
The BBC were there all day. However, they came with the sole purpose of
covering XR. None of the subject matter
was discussed.
And herein lies a problem…….
Many (indeed most) people agree with XR’s
concerns. But some disagree with the
methods used. Understandable. But this follows decades of environmental
organisations (such as the Sussex Wildlife Trust) frantically trying to get the
media to take seriously, report on and encourage discussion on the over-riding
issues of our time. Throughout, the
environment has been relegated to the “and finally” slot on the news. It has been marginalised, trivialised, prettified
and degraded - no matter how urgent, important, scientific or persuasive the
case. XR have concluded that the only
way to get noticed and force discussion is through non-violent civil
disobedience.
BBC have proved XR right. Jack’s presence
gave the whole event a presence - good for him!
The rest of us were invisible. Some
may not like the methods used by XR, but the media coverage shows clearly that the
only time they engage is when there is the threat of non-violent civil
disobedience.
This is a very worrying message to give
our young people. The media must
change. Engagement must be based on the
quality of the case, not the threat of unrest.
Fortunately, the young people at the
conference are a level-headed bunch. The
discussion was about what they can do individually and with their schools,
looking sensibly at the subject matter. A
Hopeful Earth Pledge was drafted, recognising the scale of the problem and
demanding action. This includes asking
schools to play more of a leadership role, to talk more about the emergency in
their curriculum and to do more practical things to reduce carbon emissions,
source food ethically and reduce plastic.
They also want an environment programme in their own School Development Plan
(hopefully to include rewilding of school grounds?).
In their own words “We pledge to act; to change; to
hope.” I suspect the order of those words
was carefully thought about.
Let’s hope the BBC are as keen to report on
this as they were to profile potential social unrest.
