Becky Ward was putting the final touches on her cake, dripping dark chocolate fondant into the pattern of a leaking oil well. It was Great British Bake Off season and she was one of dozens of mothers around the country raising awareness about climate change on social media.
I once timidly turned up to protest in London, where a nice lady in high-vis gently prodded me onto the main road outside the Houses of Parliament. Honk! went a double decker red bus – no way these idiots were going to block the commute – and I scampered back to safety. Surely, there was another way to draw attention to the problems and convince our leaders to take action.
Our own Government estimates 28,000-36,000 deaths occur due to air pollution per year, with costs to the NHS estimated as up to £1.6 billion. The first person to officially die fromLucy wasn’t a natural campaigner at heart, but she wasn’t prepared to sit around doing nothing. She’d already raised concerns about air pollution with the head teacher at school, who replied it wasn’t a priority – they needed to focus on kids without food and shoes first.
Yet we tend to focus on individual choices, and the blame and shame game. I know one thing that stops me from taking action is fear of hypocrisy – I’ll be criticised for not being “perfect” in the rest of my life. But taking climate action is a lot like parenting: you’ll never be perfect, everyone else always has an opinion, but it doesn’t mean you give up.