CLIMATE CRISIS ACTION
Lisa Johnson (48) from Wilmslow is a clinical aromatherapist with a handmade organic skincare business
lj-natural.com for people who want natural, plant-based products with no nasties, and with a range specifically for eczema. She is one of the founders of Wilmslow Festival of Nature which star ted in 2021.
“I went on a school strike with my daughter exactly three years ago and was blown away by the passion of the kids, who were rightly ver y angr y about the state of the planet, and that previous generations had done nothing to stop this happening. I felt ver y ashamed. I’d always been mildly eco-conscious, vegetarian, animalrights activist, but kind of assumed that the climate crisis was someone else’s responsibility – but that day I realised that it was actually 100% my responsibility and ever y single person on this planet needed to step up and take responsibility. I suddenly felt outraged that we were all sleep walking into climate crises, without anyone doing enough. I immediately joined up with local groups who were already taking action – our local Transition Group – and became friendly with all these wonder ful, passionate people doing something.
“As COP26 approached last year, Pippa Jones, the head of Wilmslow Transition, suggested we do a Wilmslow version of COP26, and a few more of us got stuck in with tons of amazing ideas, and Wilmslow Festival of Nature was born. The idea was to engage all of our community with the climate crisis in a way that they could feel involved and people stepped up and helped with the events that
interested or appealed to them. As the whole festival was free, and we had no backing initially, we needed people to help for free. There were times when I really struggled to get through the amount of work alongside my normal life, and I think my business was neglected at times. Over the summer, we planned it all out, the festival began at the end of September and ran until the end of COP26. We hoped our local community would feel more involved in COP26 if they saw all the local ways in which we can play a par t in climate change mitigation. Most people want to do something about climate crisis but don’t know where to star t, so we aimed to set out ways in which individuals and families could join in, without making it heavy-going.”