Category: Ideas

Give pensioners something meaningful to do before they die

Posted by Rupert on January 20, 2009

I’m in a complete depression about Gordon Brown giving the OK for a third runway for Heathrow Airport. If this government doesn’t have an election soon and get voted out, what are we to do?

I would gladly riot but how to organise it?

Even if we do get a new government, how can we persuade it to take seemingly unpopular
measures? The general public are still very, very far from taking the whole climate change
issue seriously.  And big businesses (if there are any left) and most politicians, are just
not on board. Besides, people switch off when they hear depressing news. They can’t handle
more. I know the feeling.
Personally I think the Sun (newspaper) and other such tabloids needs to have ongoing campaigns, headline stuff, with week by week results, to get the masses, and the government galvanised.  And get school committees involved (the big kids).  Many of them have eco teams or committees in their schools.  They should be given FULL and REAL responsibility — it is too urgent for them to simply debate and be on the periphery of the real effort to change things.

Encourage them be eco warriors. Invite them to events where their presence should be used, take meetings into their schools, make great eco T-shirts, have them demonstrate in an exciting way. Kids in Black. Silent vigils of thousands of kids 24/7 in Downing Street. Or maybe the oldies could do it. I volunteer myself!

Give pensioners something really meaningful to do before they die.  The problem with all of us supposedly enlightened ones is that we circulate the information endlessly  between ourselves, sometimes slightly widening the circle. It’s got to happen faster.

Stephanie WM

20th January 2009

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