When I meet people who are like “oh how can I DEAL with my very special and personal climate anxiety” and “I’m working very hard to save the world with my bamboo toothbrush* but it doesn’t feel like ENOUGH,” and “how can progress possibly be made,” then it’s like… oh have you met your local eco group? You really need to meet your local eco group. They admittedly spend a certain amount of time doing strange little Extinction Rebellion activities and “bug hotels” but they spend an equal amount of time on repair cafes and fairs/festivals and if you hang out with them it will, regrettably, cure the parts of your brain that have been scorched.
You, personally, individual citizen, are not in any way “rewilding the park” when you dump a seedbomb on the grass where the dogs of the town are explicitly coming to wee because it’s the most accessible grass for the apartment dwellers. That does not, in any way, make any sort of progress. You make progress by following the toddlers clutching small shovels with fierce expressions, old retired people in handwoven shawls, old British men with Hats who Tell You About Concepts, extremely young genderless people apparently in their teens with owlish glasses and large raincoats who are always the Government Ecologist, loud dads in incongruously overengineered boots and possibly hi-vis vests, mothers with an Ergobaby who ask you for tips on gently ending breastfeeding on your toddler, the ENTIRE elderly committee of the allotment, extremely small babies being passed around like teddy bears, and the mayor who is for some reason in full mayoral regalia, who are all Officially Rewilding The Park. And none of these people are even remotely cool. There is no coolness to be found here. You might not have chosen to be friends with them; you might have said “what does a cool twentysomething have in common with a MOM who will talk about her BABY or an OLD MAN IN A HAT or a STICKY CHILD,” but it is actually quite normal for humans to regularly hang out with people of different ages and interests. It is abnormal in the span of human history to not hang out with toddlers and practice graciously accepting the leaves they hand you. These people have leveraged a free donation of 25 native saplings and the full permission of the council to change the unloved-part-of-the-park-where-dogs-don’t-piss-and-kids-don’t-play into a “wild” place whose primary function will admittedly be a place where the park squirrels can hide from said dogs and kids and smoke a quick cigarette in peace, but which also separates the miner bees from the other park users, who keep calling the council and complaining about the “wasps.” An informational signage board about miner bees has been commissioned. Your first job as a Part of the Community Effort to Save The Whole Damn World will to make a quick pass to collect all then especially unsavoury or dangerous trash (condom wrappers, broken glass, suspicious pieces of discarded clothing, godforbid needles, etc) so that the toddlers can litterpick the safe stuff in safety. None of it will be cool at all. It will be a fantastic cure for your climate anxiety or the equivalent. I am not being judgmental or thomas_edison_was_a_witch.jpeg when I say that it is demonstrably better for you and the planet than fighting on social media.
Like if you can learn to tolerate Morris Dancers and their international equivalents, whatever admittedly crunchy and cringey things that people do without shame around you, you do unlock some of the things you’re looking for; elder queer communities exist around you. Eco-groups exist around you. Skill-sharing communities exist around you.
Also, to support @headspace-hotel please see above: photos of a larger-scale cross-county event attended by thousands that wasn’t really advertised at all. Everyone of a certain group of interests simply Knows about it.
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