Individuals seek to do their part after UN climate report
HOBOKEN, Belgium — Young urban shepherd Lukas Janssens guides his flock among the graves in Schoonselhof, one of Belgium’s iconic cemeteries, knowing sheep are kinder to nature than lawnmowers.
Limiting emissions of carbon dioxide, a key contributor to climate change, and promoting biodiversity are two key goals of De Antwerpse Stadsherder — The Antwerp City Shepherd, Janssens’ company of one human and 270 sheep.
“We won’t stave it off with a flock of sheep,” Janssens said of global warming. “But it is another step to build an more ecological society.”
Only days after the alarming U.N. report on climate change, the message of U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres was still stuck in his head — “code red for humanity,” with global warming threatening to choke the planet.
Even if Guterres’s words were aimed primarily at
governments, investment managers and asset owners, some citizens have known this day would come for decades.
Janssens is one of many who have taken on a very personal commitment to do something, along with those who refuse to fly, adapt their personal diet or skip school to protest on Fridays.
“I started as a shepherd because, together with the small sheep, I wanted to commit myself to society, to have a social goal beyond the production of meat, milk or wool. I want them to be useful,” he said.
None of this might matter unless nations show similar commitment when they meet in Glasgow, Scotland, in November for the COP26 UN meeting on climate change. Participants will seek to agree to measures to try to limit warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above levels in the late 19th century. The figure has already reached 2 degrees Fahrenheit. Which begs the question: Are Janssens and his ilk 21st century Don Quixotes or the vanguard of a global Green revolution that might help keep the planet from overheating?
“Not everyone is going to become a shepherd, of course. But it is great that there is such a variety of initiatives,” said bio-engineer Benjamin Clarysse of BBL, a confederation of environmental groups in northern Belgium.
And all together, he insisted, individuals might amount to more than the sum of their parts.
The challenges raised in the U.N. report are huge. It gives a guarantee that warming will get worse and insists it is “an established fact” that climate change clearly was human-caused. If that were not enough, a summer of exceptional floods, heatwaves and wildfires from the U.S. west over much of Europe and north Africa to Siberia has added to that sinking feeling.
Greta Thunberg addresses political and business leaders at U.N. conferences and is feted by world leaders — even if they stop well short of following much of her advice.
Activists warn, though, that politicians should not shrug off responsibility on the individual.