Maggie’s Birthday.
Today marked the first birthday of Maggie Elizabeth Ahearn, my beautiful niece. Our family gathered in a park in Melbourne to mark the occasion, in what was doubtlessly an occasion filled with joy. As, I’m sure, are most all 1st birthday parties.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it, as I’m still on hunger strike for climate justice up here in Canberra.
I hope that this doesn’t make me a bad uncle.
I promise that Maggie is not far from my thoughts. In fact, for the past few weeks, and especially during the period directly before climate justice fast! began, I have thought about her about her a heck of a lot. Maggie will probably live, I suppose, until the latter part of this century.
Which means, (deep breath),
...that unless drastic action is taken on climate change, far beyond what governments are now proposing, there is an increasing likelihood that she will experience a planet four degrees warmer than the one in which humanity has flourished.
This is no ‘doomsday cult’- this is the word of our most eminent scientists. And according to their modelling, this warming would leave Australia, Maggie’s (and my) country of birth, a catastrophic 7 degrees hotter. If this were to occur, Australia would become near uninhabitable. Coastal areas would be inundated. Agriculture would be extinguished. Water security would be a thing of the past. And bushfires would increasingly blacken the summer skies.
Yet Maggie would not only have to suffer these things, for which she is completely innocent (a horrible enough prospect), she would also be burdened by the agonizing knowledge that back when she was only 1 year old, without the ability to speak out for her interests, people had the chance to stop them. But we did not act.
To me, that is terrifying. And in the face of this awful but very real possibility, the only way I can react, and the only thing that I can think to do, is everything I can to stop it happening.
So in the past few weeks, thinking of Maggie has given me resolve. It has helped me to remember the bigger picture, and why I am undertaking this fast. And it has helped me to feel that what I am doing is right.
I hope this makes me a good uncle,
-even if I missed her party.
This makes you a very wonderful uncle. You care enough about her future (and the future of all life on this planet) to take an enormous risk for her. You’re my hero.
Hugs and good energy on its way to you from me.
By Ruah Swennerfelt, Charlotte, Vermont, USA on Sat, 14/11/2009