Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Let’s do this together
The new statue of Greta Thunberg installed at our local Winchester University doesn’t seem to have inspired its students to stop leaving their rubbish lying all over the town’s green spaces.
Apparently the university says its green credentials mean eco-warrior Greta is the perfect pin-up for the college. I think Pig-pen from Peanuts would be more fitting.
Students are said to be up in arms about the cost of the £24,000 statue of the Swedish climate activist, saying it should have been spent on them instead. It’s true – you could get a lot of bottles of voddie for that.
We walked past the Greta statue to see if the town got its money’s worth. Patting the life-size bronze activist on the head, my daughter said, “She’s a lot smaller than I thought she would be.”
“Proving you don’t have to be a big corporation to make a difference,” I said, in a nod to Jesse’s recent conversion to activism, having just watched the new Netflix series Seaspiracy.
The Dark Lord has suddenly been radicalised by the shock doc, which is revealing to a new generation that our ecosystems are on the verge of collapse due to over-fishing.
Before watching it, you could have told her that a polar bear dies every time she leaves a light on and she wouldn’t have given a stuff. Now she’s all, “Ooh, I’m never ever eating fish again” and I’m like, “Well that shouldn’t be much of a hardship as you weren’t that keen before”.
Still, I’m over the moon that my daughter finally really cares about our planet, and she’s not just doing her bit inadvertently by never washing.
As a child of the 80s, I used to spend my weekends making “Maggie Maggie Maggie, Out
Out Out” placards. I was anti-nuclear, antiapartheid, anti-racism – I would have gone on an anticlockwise march if you’d asked me!
And now I can fully bond with my Gen Alpha child who promises me she’s going to stop ruining the planet… just as soon as she’s finished off her Amazon birthday vouchers.
Email me at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.