Don’t give up!
With this short story we want to cheer you up, climate activists, when the news today is depressing and you might feel frustrated and down.
Finland’s largest newspaper Helsingin Sanomat organized a rhetoric competition for candidates in the municipal elections. The last short speech was supposed to include one quote from our former president Mauno Koivisto and one quote from this year’s Finnish Eurovision Song Contest song, Erika Vikman’s “Ich komme”.
The winner of the competition was MP Saara Hyrkkö, Greens. Her winning speech is for all of us who day after day continue to work for a better future:
“If we don’t know for sure, how it will go, let’s assume, it will go well (Mauno Koivisto). Well, quite often this world makes us think that: fuck, what a shit! The climate is getting warmer and species are disappearing and Temu junk is filling the earth.
But then: I look around. I listen to the blackbird and say hello to the Climate Grandparents, who are campaigning on the stairs of the parliament.
I think about our unique planet and think: that’s what it’s like, when you fall into a heat (or into a rut, “Ich komme”).
Hope. It comes from action. And yet it can happen that everything can go quite well.” (translation PH)
Find the original here
Country Overshoot Day Finland: April 6 2025
On the weekly demonstration on the 4th of April the Finnish Climate Grandparents wanted to make noise and remind that our overshoot day is way too early for sustainable living.
Finnish people need almost four planets to cover their consumption and that is not good at all
Election Sunday in Finland : April 13 2025
Municipal elections and council elections for welfare areas responsible for health and social services have been held in Finland last Sunday. Early voting was from April 2nd to April 8th. Some Climate Grandparents went to the party election tents to discuss with the candidates about environment and climate issues.
Grandparents were wearing yellow vests with the text “Grandparents demand climate action”. They handed over bulletins explaining the climate grandparents’ proposals on how municipal councillors can influence environmental and climate issues. Our activities are already widely known and have received recognition and praise.
Many candidates from different parties had good suggestions for influencing environmental and climate issues if elected. There were also discussions about traffic emissions in central Helsinki. Not all candidates agreed on the idea of a car-free Helsinki city center however.
The Great Finnish Dialogue about Forest 2025
A big Finnish foundation Koneen Säätiö – Kone Foundation – arranged on the 1. – 2. of April at least 100 dialogues about our forests all over the country.
Finnish Climate Grandparents had their own dialogue among them. All dialogues were recorded and Kone Foundation will compile a summary and publish it later at the autumn.
Background
In Finland we are used to say that we live from our forests, that the forests are our “green gold”. We thought that our forests are our saviours in climate change, because they will absorb the CO2 from our consumption and we can go on almost business as usual.
A couple of years ago new results with better methods revealed that today our forests have turned from sinks to emission sources. Moreover we have too heavy loggings and drainage of bogs and the soil emissions are much bigger than they were thought to be.
In our dialogue
We tried to find explanations and solutions in the current situation. Forest researchers, biologists, visual artists and climate grandparents came together and stated that there is a lot to be done and it needs a lot of work and willingness:
- Many forest owners understand the value of their land and want to protect their forests but voluntarism alone isn’t effective enough
- Forest industry, agriculture and forestry have a significant impact on our nature and should also be subject to the “polluter/destroyer pays” principle
- The EU Biodiversity Strategy, the Nature Directive and the EU Nature Restoration Law will help and give us hope
- Unfortunately, our government today is not the best possible to take care of this issue, but the next one in 2027?
- Young experts and researchers have better solutions and understanding, they know what is at stake.