It’s not easy being Green

Lisa was fifteen years old, fair haired and freckly, bright and full of life, with a ready smile, and a great love of nature. She fanatically watched the Richard Attenborough Blue Planet programmes and took it all to heart. The world was a beautiful place and it was under threat. Lisa felt she had to do something.

That is when Lisa began her campaign. It started with her joining her local environment group to pick up litter on the beach. They were a dedicated bunch, mainly young, but with a smattering of older people. There was such a sense of camaraderie. They made saving the planet fun.

It went on from there. The more Lisa found out the more alarming it became. She progressed to saving hedgehogs, lobbying for gaps in fences for the creatures to move around gardens. She was dismayed to find the collapse of insect populations. Then there were the frogs, toads, newts, swifts, swallows, grass snakes and slowworms. Lisa began lobbying MPs, writing to newspapers and highlighting the grubbing up of hedges, the filling in of ponds, the culverting of ditches and the pollution that was killing the things she loved. For Lisa it was as if she felt each example of nature being battered as a personal tragedy.

Lisa’s parents were impressed with her passion and encouraged it. She’d formed an environmental group at school and, despite her young age, begun taking an active leadership role with the local greens. The environmentalists seemed a nice friendly, intelligent crowd. The type they approved of. They liked the idea of her using her time so positively, in a good cause. They thought that it kept her out of trouble and away from some of the pitfalls of teenage life; that she was developing useful skills, scanning the internet, writing letters, standing up and talking to groups, preparing dossiers. They were proud of their daughter and thought these skills would all come in useful when it came to future careers.

They were happy to support her, drive her around to various meetings and environmental activities. They were impressed with her enthusiasm and the way she’d thrown herself into her campaigns. Lisa’s spare time was spent petitioning, writing letters, investigating and meeting with her similarly minded friends. Even her older brother was impressed with his little sister and gave her grudging respect.

Her concerns widened. There were campaigns to save the rhinos and elephants from poachers, to protect the rainforest from the creeping encroachment of palm oil and coffee, to create a sustainable world. She was opposed to trophy hunting and for the protection of the dwindling numbers of gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans.

Then there were the issues of Global Warming and Species Extinction, the massive overpopulation problem, the madness of Trump and Bolsonaro, and they watched as Lisa became more political.

At school Lisa’s environment group, mainly due to Lisa’s drive and vitality, had become huge. Fortunately her Headteacher was supportive and gave her every encouragement, she too thought that Lisa’s passion was healthy and liked the blossoming of her personality and qualities. Lisa was becoming a leader. She allowed her to run assemblies for the whole school, where she argued for chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and whales to be afforded the same rights as people – asserting that their intelligence demanded that they be recognised as sentient beings.

Lisa had joined Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. In school the group was active organising recycling schemes, cycle racks, and arranging litter picking in the community – which went down very nicely with the school’s neighbours.

Lisa’s parents were not quite so enamoured when Lisa’s ardency started to impact on their meals. Lisa declared she was now vegan and, for the sake of the environment and in support of opposition to the inhumane treatment of animals and their cruel transport and slaughter, she was forsaking meat and wanted the family to do the same.

Well that created quite a ruction. Her older brother was not amused and was having none of it. He liked his bacon butties and Sunday roasts, in fact he did not consider it a proper meal without meat and, to be truthful, her parents felt the same. After many fiery encounters a compromise was reached. Lisa would have her vegan meals and the family would try their hardest to cut down on their meat consumption. It left her brother brooding with resentment but it provided a way forward.

Shopping had also become a bit of a nightmare. Mum and Dad’s weekly trip to the supermarket had a whole new range of products that they were under strict instructions not to purchase. There were the things that were apparently destructive to the environment, the things with unrecyclable packaging and the brands who were supporting rainforest destruction, using palm oil or anything that was unsustainable. At first it was extremely difficult, limiting and more expensive, but they settled into the new shopping regime and life settled back into a pattern.

Lisa had moved on to energy now and was campaigning for solar panels, windfarms and zero carbon. Being run around in the car was a definite no. She now used public transport or cycled. Cycling was healthy and did not pollute. Lisa’s parents worried about her safety on the roads but there were cycle paths and Lisa assured them that she and her friends were responsible and careful, so they tried not to worry.

A whole group from school, with the Head’s blessing, took the day off to protest and petition the government over global warming and species extinction. They went up to the big rally in London to hear Greta Thunberg speak. They excitedly had prepared their placards and discussed the event round at Lisa’s house. She had become the focus and Greta was a huge inspiration.

Then came the week of protest from Extinction Rebellion.

Lisa felt like the rest of the young protestors. They had written their letters, petitioned and protested, but nobody was listening. The politicians all paid lip-service to environmental concerns. It seemed that all they were interested in was the economy and getting elected. All they cared about was power. Nobody was really worrying about the looming catastrophe of global warming. They were quite happy to kick that can down the road and let future generations pick up the bill. Nobody really cared about the plight of the poor animals whose habitats were being ripped down or polluted, who were being hunted and slaughtered in droves. Nobody cared.

But Lisa cared. She cared with all her heart.

During that week Lisa and her friends were at the forefront. They sat on the bridges and blocked the traffic, bringing London to a standstill. Lisa and her friends superglued themselves to the underground trains and brought the transport system to a halt.

With more than a little alarm Lisa’s parents found themselves picking up Lisa from police stations along with threats of court action and prosecution. Things had taken a turn, much argument and fury was spent as her parents harangued her, but Lisa remained unrepentant, defiant even. They had to make people listen, she explained. Things had to change. They were fighting for the planet. But still nobody was listening!

That was when Lisa realised that she had to do something more. Protest was simply not enough. She had to do something that would make everyone take notice – would force them to do something about it – something to wake everybody up to the pressing need.

Sacrifice was required.

It’s not easy being Green.