Our recent Climate Change sections gave Caroline Westgate of Northumbria MM cause to reflect on the dramatic rise of the environment in public awareness.

Many years ago she attended a Northern Friends Peace Board week-end workshop led by Mary-Lou Leavitt.
‘We were all committed peace Friends’ recalled Caroline ‘and one exercise required us to list all the different areas of un-peace which we were addressing. Clearly we were all flogging ourselves witless to Save the World because every darn topic under the sun was there on the flipchart.’

Mary-Lou, however, was not convinced and kept repeating – ‘there’s one thing missing.’

‘We were sure that between us we had absolutely everything covered’ said Caroline.

The missing topic turned out to be green issues – ‘completely off the radar at that point, even among activists.’
Today the northern peace Friends would not make such an omission. ‘It would be unthinkable today’ says Caroline. A sign of progress?