Raising Our Voice

It’s Spring and a fair few of us are beginning to enjoy the extra hours of light, perhaps considering what seeds we might plant, perhaps these might be seeds for vegetables  or flowers but perhaps could also be the seeds for ideas.

In 2016, a group of  forty Swiss women had the seed of an idea and let it germinate.  This week it flowered.  You may have seen or heard about it.  The flowering happened at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).  The group is called  KlimaSeniorinnen and it has grown quite a bit from those first forty women, there are now over 2,500 members. 

Read about them on their WEBSITE or click on the image below to watch some of them on You Tube.

KlimaSeniorinnen took the Swiss Government to the ECHR,   demanding that the federal authorities correct the course of Swiss climate policy because the current climate targets and measures are not sufficient to limit global warming to a safe level.

The ECHR agreed finding that that "there had been critical gaps" in the Government’s policies to tackle climate change including failing to quantify reductions in greenhouse gases.  This judgement cannot be appealed, and has the potential to affect policy in the 46 EHCR member states … including our own.

One member of the KlimaSeniorinnen, Elisabeth Stern, 76,  reported on how she had seen how the climate in Switzerland change since she was a child growing up on a farm.   She was asked about her commitment to the case, and responded saying: "Some of us are just made that way. We are not made to sit in a rocking chair and knit.   We know statistically that in 10 years we will be gone. So whatever we do now, we are not doing for ourselves, but for the sake of our children and our children's children" 

That’s some seed the KlimaSeniorinnen planted back in 2016.  Let’s sow some more in 2024. 

If you want to learn more about the process of challenging Government, Greenpeace has advice here:

P.S. If you want to reach for some collective inspiration by joining the

Funeral for Nature in Bath on April 20th

just one of the events to mark Earth Day, please do. 
All are welcome to participate as Mourners in the Funeral for Nature, simply by coming along dressed in black. 
There’s plenty of information on the Code Red For Nature website