Sir, – I have read many criticisms of climate activism but Finn McRedmond’s assertion that young people are engaging in activism because the breakdown of the social contract has left a void in their lives paints a picture of climate activists (who, incidentally, span all ages) that is as detached from reality as she claims these activists to be (“New wave of climate protests most absurd yet”, Opinion & Analysis, October 20th).
I am neither politically disenfranchised nor spiritually at sea. I do not feel “stripped . . . of the grounding forces of family and community”. I am not filled with nihilistic anxiety. I lose little sleep over the status of the nuclear family. I am, however, extremely concerned about the climate crisis, and the fact that in the coming decades millions of people will die and hundreds of millions of people will be displaced by climate disasters if we carry on burning fossil fuels at current rates. Global greenhouse gas emissions are still rising, pushing us ever closer to irreversible tipping points in our planetary life-support system. This is not “the language of fire and brimstone”. This is reality, and accusing it of being too biblical or too apocalyptic will not make it go away.
Finn McRedmond’s response to the protesters’ question, of whether we are more concerned about protection of a painting than protection of the planet, is that “It does not matter”. Surely I can’t be alone in thinking that if we are are truly more concerned about the protection of a painting than we are about the deaths of millions, and the fate of hundreds of millions of displaced people, there is something deeply wrong. – Yours, etc,
JEMIMA TURNER,
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Ballybrack,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Finn McRedmond accuses climate protesters of not realising that fighting to protect human life requires “a reverence for the beautiful things humans have created before them”. I think this point is not lost on protesters, as they are at pains to point out that artworks are never harmed in their protests.
The protesters are asking the rhetorical question “Do we value art more than life?”, questioning why society seems to care more about the preservation of a painting than, say, the Amazon, Arctic ice, or Siberian permafrost, each of which is being destroyed by human activity and upon which we rely for the continuation of our way of life on Earth. Climate protesters are motivated by a profound love for humanity, culture, and creativity, and are protesting in order to preserve these aspects of our lives.
Finn McRedmond hypothesises that a deterioration of family, community, or organised religion is responsible for the protesters’ “nihilism”. The more obvious explanation for their actions is that they find themselves inhabiting a world at risk of ecological and societal collapse, and are exasperated by older generations’ refusal to act in any way proportionately to protecting the very civilisation that has produced the great art around which they organise their protests. – Yours, etc,
STEPHEN WALL,
Rialto,
Dublin 8.
Sir, – Finn McRedmond blasts recent eco-protests for detachment from reality and the “hollowness and absurdity of their entire project”.
She represents environmental protest as quasi-religious (those apocalyptic warnings!) but the dire warnings of destruction represent the unanimous findings of science, not anything religious.
Finn McRedmond unfolds what’s really motivating the young protesters. They’re “spiritually at sea”, with “little guarantee that they will be better off than their parents”. Worse, “marriage rates are declining” and “organised religion is collapsing too”. She finds it “easy to see where this has all come from”.
Very easy, if we dispense with evidence and reasoning, and just shoe-horn our pet theories in.
Your columnist admits the grim reality of the climate emergency, and acknowledges that the activists are “admirable, brave and rare”.
Yes, we may wonder if their specific actions are helpful. But why sneer? The simple measures needed to safeguard us are still being effectively blocked by Big Oil and its allies. What are we going to do? It’s easy to see that’s what matters. Let’s try and be a bit brave. – Yours, etc,
VICTOR HABERLIN,
Stratford,
London.