Protesting on an Arctic ice f loe, it’s Brrrritain’s Greta Thunberg
SHE’S Britain’s answer to greta Thunberg – and clearly has the same eye for promoting her cause.
Myra-Rose Craig, 18, from Somerset, mounted a solitary protest on an ice floe at the edge of the Arctic Ocean yesterday to highlight climate change.
She was participating in Fridays for Future, a global campaign inspired by Miss Thunberg, the 17-year-old Swedish activist.
As she floated on the icy waters, Miss Craig held up a sign for Miss Thunberg’s youth Strike for Climate movement.
The British environmentalist, from the Chew Valley, south of Bristol, said she spent weeks travelling by road and boat to the Arctic edge north of the norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. Her journey was part of a greenpeace expedition to ‘bear witness to the sea ice minimum, the lowest level of ice at the end of each summer’.
Calling on ‘leaders and decision makers’ to ‘do something’ about climate change, she said: ‘ Just floating in the middle of a sea of slush has really just reminded me how delicate the Arctic is.’
In a Twitter post, she wrote: ‘Time is running out. The Arctic is melting and could be gone by the time I’m in my 30s.’
Miss Craig, whose mother’s family are Bangladeshi, founded the Black2nature charity that encourages inner-city children from black and ethnic minority backgrounds to explore the natural world. Ice in the Arctic Ocean melted to its second-lowest level on record this summer, triggered by global warming along with natural forces.
The extent of ice-covered ocean at the north pole, extending further south to Alaska, Canada, greenland and Russia, reached its summertime low of 1.4million square miles lat week before starting to grow again.
In the 1980s, the ice cover was about 1million square miles bigger than current summer levels.
Miss Craig’s protest marked a day of global action held each Friday by children and youth activists to draw attention to climate change.
pupils and students around the world have been striking on Fridays for nearly two years, a form of action pioneered by Miss Thunberg, who led a socially distanced protest in Sweden yesterday that was limited to 50 by lockdown laws.
Demonstrations were planned in at least 150 countries yesterday, although many were online.
In February, Miss Craig shared a platform with Miss Thunberg at a rally in Bristol.
The same month, Miss Craig, who attended Chew Valley secondary school, received an honorary doctorate in science from the University of Bristol. She is believed to be the youngest Briton to
‘Floating in a sea of slush’
receive such an award. A keen birdwatcher known as ‘Birdgirl’ online, she has campaigned for years to improve diversity in conservation work.
She became interested in nature because her parents are bird enthusiasts, but noticed there were few from ethnic minorities on birdwatching trips.
In 2015, Miss Craig set up a nature camp for 20 teenagers, which led to Black2nature.