Britain’s ‘gray greens’ joining climate fight
The movement isn’t just for the Greta Thunberg generation
LONDON — Arnold Pease isn’t as nimble as some of the other climate protesters who have flooded the streets of Britain’s capital. At 93, he walks with the support of a stick and carries a foldable stool for when he needs to sit down. But he’s just as determined.
“It’s desperately important to take serious action against climate change,” said the great-grandfather and retired engineer. Last week, he was arrested after refusing to budge from a road where fellow activists had glued themselves to a bamboo structure.
The climate activist movement tends to be associated with younger people. Greta Thunberg, a Swedish teenager, prompted hundreds of thousands of students to skip school to demand action.
But there are indications that an increasing number of older people are getting exercised about what is happening to the planet. During protests in London over the past two weeks, there have been quite a few gray heads in the crowd — the “gray greens,” as one BBC presenter called them.
And many of those people said they were willing to go to jail for their beliefs.
Pease was among the nearly 500 people who were detained and subsequently released over the course of the demonstrations, which were organized by the environmental group Extinction Rebellion.
The older protesters who spoke with reporters said they felt a sense of collective responsibility: It was their generation that drove gas guzzlers, thought nothing of flying abroad for a beach vacation in Spain, paid scant attention to deforestation in the Amazon. It was on their watch that carbon emissions climbed.
That sentiment is not exclusive to Europe. American climate activist Bill McKibben announced this past week that he is starting a new group called Third Act aimed at getting older people involved in climate activism.
“We’re going to try and organize ‘experienced Americans’ — i.e., people over 60 like me — around issues of climate justice, racial justice, economic justice,” he tweeted. “Our generations have done their share of damage; we’re on the verge of leaving the world a worse place than we found it.”
Many of the seniors protesting in London, calling on governments to divest from fossil fuels, said they were concerned for their grandchildren. Those that led a march on Thursday, snaking from the Tate Modern museum over the Millennium Bridge to the financial district, held aloft signs that read “I would be arrested for my grandchildren’s future” and “Grandparents against climate change.”
“I’d do anything to protect my grandchildren,” said Charmian Kenner, 67, a retired academic. “I won’t live long enough to know whether it worked or not for them, but I’m here, doing this.”
John Lynes, 93, a great-grandfather and retired engineer, said, “Full stop, we are responsible — no doubt about it.
“Nowadays, increasingly, it’s older people taking part. That’s true of my experience,” he said. “If you have a job to lose, need to ask someone for a mortgage or are looking after children, it’s not that easy for you to be arrested. For me, what does it matter if I’m arrested?”
Those attending protests are a small subset of society. But a new poll this past week by Ipsos MORI suggests that the climate is becoming an important concern for older people in Britain more broadly. Given an open-ended prompt about major issues facing the country, 42 percent of those age 55 to 64 and 35 percent of those over 65 mentioned climate, compared with 24 percent of 18- to-34year-olds.