Welcom, September 2024

Year 10 student at Sacred Heart College, Napier, Poppy McCaskey, crafted this article for the 2024 O’Shea Shield Junior Prepared Speech Competition, in which she was placed second in her category. Poppy’s article reflects the theme for O’Shea Shield 2024: Te Ahi Kā – ‘Sparks of Hope’. It also witnesses to the charism of her school, which draws on the Visitation of Mary. Just as Mary physically brings Christ into the life of Elizabeth, so we are inspired to go out and ignite the sparks of hope in the lives of others. 

Poppy McCaskey 

Climate change – two words – is something we all dread to think about. But when you hear the rain, what’s the first thing you assume? When the wind picks up, do your toes curl for seemingly no reason? When you hear weather reports, does your stomach churn, bracing for bad news? Worrying about climate change is becoming increasingly common. This is known as eco-anxiety, which is a fear of environmental doom.

Auckland Anniversary Day is usually an enjoyable day off, but in 2023 it turned into harrowing floods. Instead of a hot summer day, Cyclone Gabrielle (February 2023) saw Hawke’s Bay residents trying to keep muddy water out of their homes and praying it would just stop raining. In Christchurch, fires in the drought-stricken Port Hills (February 2017 and 2024) meant that families watched their homes go up in flames. These are just three of the recent disasters we have faced, because of climate change, that have left their victims clinging to their last sparks of hope. Climate change played a huge role in the devastation of Cyclone Gabrielle which left 10,000 displaced, 1720 injured and 11 dead, and so many with severe PTSD and stress.

Eco-anxiety is not just in New Zealand. A 2021 survey of 10,000 young people aged 16 to 25 from across the globe showed 59% of the participants were very worried about climate change. ¹

Eco-anxiety is higher in youth because we will bear the brunt of the environmental effects, and it’s our futures that will be most affected if we don’t act. It can feel like we can do nothing about it because we are not in a position to influence law or policy change, even when the outcomes will affect us the most.

The decision-makers have 20 years of consequences – we have 70.

Last term [April 2024], hundreds of school students across the motu turned up to School Strike Climate marches to ‘raise awareness about the urgent need for climate action and to demand meaningful policy changes to combat the climate crisis’ – desperately trying to spark hope in others through a mass movement. With so many students showing their support, you would think the government would listen. Instead, the Associate Education Minister, David Seymour, said it was ‘unacceptable’ for students to protest during school hours saying: ‘If students feel strongly about sending a message, they could protest during the upcoming school holidays.’ As though climate change is a scheduled event that can wait for a free week.

Green Party Co-leader, Chloe Swarbrick, who was with the students, said: ‘The world doesn’t stop where the classroom door stops, and as you can see here in the energy from our young people, they want a healthy planet.’ At least one minister is with us, as is Pope Francis who has stated: ‘As stewards of God’s creation, we are called to make the earth a beautiful garden for the human family. When we destroy our forests, ravage our soil and pollute our seas, we betray that noble calling.’

So, what can we do about eco-anxiety?

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the tragedy of our climate that we forget that worrying about it will achieve nothing.

We need to take action – not just studying it, not just thinking about it, not just writing it down on paper and hoping that the right people will see it. Action, real action, needs to happen now.

The Pope has urged us to protect God’s earth; activism is the perfect way to do that. We can blame our government all we want, but it won’t change the state of our whenua.

‘Whatungarongaro te tangata, toitū te whenua | As people disappear from sight, the land remains.’ We must spark hope in each other to start a blazing fire of action – not just protesting, but also actioning changes in our daily lives. Changes like having the courage to broach the topic, however uncomfortable it makes people, discussing climate change honestly and without downplaying the urgency, and educating yourself and your peers about it.

At Sacred Heart College, Napier, we have initiatives such as a litter challenge – running around the school with buckets, picking up litter, trying to get the most – proving that sparking hope can be both fun and vying.

Pressure, disaster, and tragedy are what climate change has become; something that we avoid thinking about. But climate change is on our doorsteps and we know we need to act.

Action is the antidote for anxiety. There are sparks of hope everywhere. If we know where to look, and with the right mindset and like-minded people, we can spark hope in others too. However, to do this, we need to change from complaining to cultivating, from denying to defending our earth, and from eco-anxiety to eco-action.

Poppy McCaskey’s article was published in the Nathaniel Report, Issue Seventy-Three, August 2024. It has been republished with permission in WelCom|NauMai, September 2024.

1 Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey. See: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00278-3/fulltext. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(21)00278-3

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