These Are Not My Kids - Vancouver Climate Strike - September 27, 2019
These are not my kids.
When I die, my lineage stops here. My house will be cleared of its contents and donated to strangers. My belongings won’t travel to their new homes with the stories of how they were acquired, built, or earned. The chord of nostalgic reasons for their care will cease to exist, and how they are handled will be the sole responsibility of the next owner.
40 years in, I admit that the climate-deniers have nearly broken me. They’ve stopped me thinking about your children’s future, and instead, have me thinking it might be easier to just live for me, and hope for the best. Conversation and science don’t seem to be enough rationale against their decision to deny that anything is happening. As humans, we like to create neat boxes where we put our emotions and justify the things we say, think and do. This climate stuff is just another box, added to a pile of things that need to be done, but it has triggers and guilt, hostility and fears, and that’s best kept for ‘sometime later’.
The truth is, only a minority of people have been working towards educating us and providing real guidance. Our governments, politicians, and business-people are not leading for the good of the world as a collective, they are leading for the will of 'the ME’. They don’t stop to reflect on new revelations and learnings, and how we can apply that information now. 4 year election cycles, histories of political parties choosing to work against each other as a default, and businesses led only by profit, mean that, much like me, they only exist for themselves, not you. Not you as a citizen, not you as an employee, not you as a global member.
Yesterday’s strike made me reflect on the fact that, your personal objects hold more meaning when you know they will be treasured by those who follow. When it will be loved-down to the next generation.
What I know, is that these are not my kids walking in these strikes. These are not my kids, wondering what the world will look like when they’re 40, 60 or 95. But yesterday I asked myself what I could do for those kids, your kids, other peoples kids. And so I walked. I walked with my broken heart for the people that are already being impacted around the world due to environmental changes and all that is yet to come. I walked to add one more dot to the map of people who have always cared and still care.
These are not my kids, but I’m proud of them as if they were.
