Daily Politics: ‘How to Change the World’

I went to see ‘How to Change the World’, a great film on the history on Greenpeace, Wednesday night, broadcast simultaneously in cinemas throughout the country.

There was a panel discussion afterwards and I missed the opportunity to say something really good. This is what is what it was: neither the panel nor the audience seemed to have a sense of urgency at all.

Some of the people I talked to afterwards were very upset that nobody could give them any kind of solution. I assume they really wanted to know what they could do. They know there is so much wrong in the world and that we are in danger. They understand what I understand but they don’t know what to do about it.

One lady, Sophie, who is very important in the Greenpeace team, was also on the panel. She said, “Demonstrations, I really believe in old fashion demonstrations. We’ve got to have that!” I mean she is absolutely right.

And what I should have said at that point is we’ve got to tackle everything – but one thing at a time. We’ve got to keep building the demonstrations – that’s the way to do it. You can’t deal with everything at once, we can’t stop or change politicians overnight. You’ve got to give people specific targets – that the only way we can do something about changing the Government. This is also linked with the film.

The link is that the Greenpeace started with one thing, saving the whales that were on the brink of extinction. In 1982, after a 10 year campaign, their actions  resulted in a moratorium on commercial whale hunting   – and so the numbers began to recover. This is the link: they fought one thing at a time and it changed policy and got people interested…and then they went for the seals. It’s really important we fight fracking right now as it’s so close to us.