Silent Procession in Bristol for people killed by Climate Change

This Silent Procession in Bristol city centre to remember people killed by Climate Change was a moving experience for those who took part and for many observers. Organised by Grandparents for a Safe Earth (https://network23.org/gfase/ ) participants walked in solidarity with the communities across the world most affected by Climate Change. They linked deaths from extreme weather to the continuing emissions of Carbon Dioxide from the human use of fossil-fuels and the massive worldwide investments in fossil-fuels by most of the UK banks.

People brought flowers and carried a coffin to remember those who have died. They placed the flowers outside each city centre bank which makes such investments and took a letter into each bank to be sent on to the bank’s Chief Executive Officer, asking for a rapid reduction in fossil-fuel investments and an equally rapid and extensive investment in the development of renewable energy and energy efficiency. Our letter also asked if the bank is willing to sign the BankTrack Pledge  http://www.banktrack.org/show/news/banktrack_launches_paris_pledge_campaign which calls upon banks to follow the example of Bank of America and Credit Agricole in making commitments to pull out of the coal mining sector  before the Paris UN Meeting in November. (If all of the coal plants proposed worldwide are built, the outcome will be disastrous because it will be impossible to keep the increase in temperature below the 2 degree Centigrade).

Phil Kingston, a member of Grandparents for a Safe Earth, welcomed people to the procession, saying ‘’We grandparents and elders acknowledge our own part in this destructive process and are more and more committing ourselves to keep fossil-fuels in the ground’’.

He described how climate change is mostly affecting countries and communities where poverty is widespread. ‘’Many of their populations are also on the receiving end of severe austerity programmes. Some of you here today, perhaps many of you, are experiencing the worst effects of the Government’s austerity programme. We are concerned that the Government is by-passing the responsibility of the banks in causing the economic crisis; and instead is placing much of the cost of solving it upon the most vulnerable people in our society. We particularly welcome you here: your experience can help us all to walk in a more meaningful solidarity than we might otherwise manage to do.’’

At the last bank, people lay on the ground to represent those who had been killed by climate change. This was a moving experience for passers-by, bringing home to them the reality of what is happening across the world, a reality which is predicted by the Royal Society and the US Academy of Sciences to become substantially worse unless there is an urgent and radical reduction in the use of fossil-fuels.

To view two YouTube videos of this action click on: