My mom and I heading towards Stockholm on the ferry
This past week me and my family went to Stockholm, Sweden. My mom had another conference down in Helsinki, but after that we hopped on an overnight ferry to Sweden. That was a new experience for me. I have been on a sleeper train and busses, but have never slept on a ferry overnight. It was pretty cool, me and my family shared a small cabin with a tiny bathroom. It was 9 by 15 ft, so it was very cramped, although I got to explore the ship and look outside at the passing Swedish islands.
When we finally arrived at 10 am, we walked through town to our hotel. When we went back out in the damp Swedish town I started to remember the first time we went here in 2014. We went to the old armory which they turned into a museum. It was very interesting, then we visited the Swedish National Museum near the Baltic Sea which explained all about the history and culture of Sweden. When we were all done looking around we decided to have a little walk in the town. The next day was my father’s birthday, and we had a walking tour of the old city planned. I got to see a lot of old buildings and many different statues with diverse meanings. At the beginning of the tour we came upon the mint square where many thousands of children were protesting climate change instead of being at school.
That’s it for this week, bye.
Another ferry following us through the island channel
Greta Thunberg somewhere on stage flanked by thousands of fellow demonstrators demanding change in Stockholm, Sweden
In and amongst all our sightseeing in Stockholm, Sweden yesterday, we discovered a huge student strike in Gamla Stan Old Town at Mynttorget (mint square) between Parliament and the Royal Palace. Thousands of people, mainly secondary school students, gather there and at hundreds of other cities worldwide instead of going to school every Friday to encourage governments to make positive choices to halt any further increase in global warming.
Greta Thunberg, a local teenager, started protesting alone at this spot last August instead of attending school on Fridays as she felt strongly that her generation’s future as well as those that will come after was being taken away by adults who were not doing enough to stop global warming. Her calls for attention and change have been heard by young people all over Europe and have grown exponentially ever since. The FridaysForFuture (FFF) movement now has over a million participants worldwide. Indeed, there were estimated to be 1,400,000 participants on March 15, alone. It was amazing to see so many people attend the meeting and listen to Greta speak in her now famously direct way. We felt that we were part of history being made as we joined the crowd to listen to the speakers, the singing, and the chants.
I found myself confronted with my own green shortcomings as an adult who slowly veered away from more idealistic and passionate views about the planet’s environmental crises as I became a working home-owning parent. Of course, we recycle and reuse/repurpose at home, are changing over to LED lightbulbs, have downsized to one car, and try not to be super consumers. Yet, this is a mediocre kind of attempt at preventing global catastrophe and making our planet a healthy and viable place for future generations to inhabit. I noticed that there was a very tangible concern that time is running out (or has already) and that such an extreme time needs extreme action by everyone. Coincidentally, a few days prior Meggie asked me about population growth and environmental concerns when I was her age. When I shared what I knew (starting with the world’s population doubling in 1970) she asked me why her mom and I had kids instead of adopting if things were already bad. She explained that’s what most of her friends are talking about doing. In other words, we knew the world’s population was in trouble and was growing exponentially, but we only added to the problem and didn’t take direct action to help. I mumbled something about the biological pull to have children which sounded kind of lame and unconvincing even to my own ears.
The young people’s passionate calls for action, and the perception that everything is as simple as black and white is easy for older generations to refute as being naïve or unrealistic, or perhaps even anarchistic; an attempt by a younger generation trying to break down the work and rules of the older generation. And yet witnessing this demonstration and my daughter’s questions awoke my own passion for being more proactive with regards to protecting the environment. I like to surf, kayak, and scuba dive, and have paddled with whales and dolphin countless times, yet how many hours have I spent as an advocate for the ocean? How am I protecting these amazing creatures? I don’t agree with industrialized farming, but how many changes have I made to our diet? What organizations do I belong to that are dedicated to facilitating change? The troubling questions go on and on. I think that as I became a husband and father with a career and a home, my wider view narrowed and certain parts of me became dormant under the daily necessity of work.
This demonstration in Stockholm followed by our inspiring visit to the Nobel Museum has stirred things up and has reopened doors and channels I hadn’t even been fully aware had almost totally closed during the past decade. It is often said that it is never too late to do the right thing, and that it is better to do what is right rather than what is easy. I would like to be able to look my grandchildren in the eye and say that yes, things were looking pretty bleak back in the early 2,ooo’s, but we each made big changes and turned things around by our own efforts. We didn’t wait for anyone to tell us what to do or make the changes. We were the change. Is it too late? I sure hope not…
