Challenging Patriarchy, Championing Planet: The Journey of Mother’s Rebellion

How can a simple protest sign spark a global movement? Today's podcast episode takes us all along the inspiring journey of Sara and Kristine, the founders of Mother’s Rebellion, who are standing up to the patriarchal system and calling for a collective fight against the climate crisis. This grassroots initiative born in sunny California has now spread its wings across 21 countries in six continents, uniting mothers, caregivers, and allies alike to save  our Mother Earth's precious resources.

Straight into the heart of Mother's Rebellion: the Climate Circles. These poignant gatherings have not only expanded organically, reaching those previously disengaged in the climate change battle, but they've also become a powerful platform for individuals to voice their concerns about our planet’s future. Sara and Kristine highlight the profound effect of shared emotions, the sense of community these circles foster, and the push they provide for individuals to step out of their comfort zones and commit to saving our planet. 

In the latter part of our discussion, we focus on the impacts of climate change on children and youth, emphasizing the critical role adults play in this fight. 

Sara and Kristine offer a fascinating perspective on how the climate crisis can be a catalyst for a more equitable world, discussing the potential benefits of changes in energy production, diet, and transportation. 

They invite everyone to join the Mother's Rebellion movement and collaborate to paint a hopeful picture of the future. 

Prepare to be inspired, enlightened, and learn how you can contribute to this vital cause. Let's rebel for Mother Earth, shall we?

Transcript

Sara: 0:00

Okay, so we have made a podcast.

Kristine: 0:05

It's fantastic. I hope they can use it and edit it and stuff. It's lovely talking to you, Sarah.

Celeste from The View: 0:12

Today we are breaking our normal weekly podcast schedule to bring you some rather special mammies. Mothers Rebellion is a global movement uniting mothers, caregivers and their allies across six continents. Their unwavering commitment to forge a sustainable present and future for the generations of today and tomorrow truly touched our hearts at The View. We want to share their courage and bold ideals with you on this special climate action podcast so we can all support them during this week of activism that starts today, Friday 15th of September, and continues till Friday, the 23rd of September. We spoke with Sara Nielsen and on a night when technology refused to work for us, so please excuse the grainy sound in parts of this podcast. We believe its content is far too important for you to miss.

Celeste from The View: 0:56

Of late, we have witnessed life-changing floods from Libya to Louisiana, uncontrollable fires from Greece to Australia and an unprecedented heatwave in London. This begs the question, " am I doing everything within my power to stop this ecocide for our collective futures? The decimation of our planet can be directly linked to FemmeCide and, ultimately, matricide, as the patriarchal system protects transnational corporations, oil and gas companies, as well as governments exploiting our Mother Earth's precious resources. Bill Gates continues to hoard the DNA of seeds under the guise of agro philanthropy. With Google's new AI company's stated their mission is to quote unquote destroy Mother Nature, we have to join forces, literally hold hands and stop the massacre of our Gaia. In solidarity, we hold out our hands to Mother's Rebellion.

Celeste from The View: 1:47

The genesis of Mother's Rebellion can be traced back to California,USA, where it sprang into existence. Simultaneously, a cohort of Swedish mothers initiated their inaugural sit-down circle protest in August 2022. This spark ignited a series of protests in 20 different Swedish towns and cities. By the autumn of 2022, demonstrations had spread to Germany and the United States. By winter, women from Zambia, Sweden, the United States, Uganda and Germany came together to orchestrate a joint initiative. On May 13th 2023, a synchronized protest unfolded in 21 countries across six continents, marking the inaugural Global Mother's Rebellion event.

Sara: 2:31

So, christine, tell me a bit about yourself. Who are you?

Kristine: 2:35

Well, I am a mother of four young boys age three to eleven. I am also an NHS doctor in the UK. I work in medical education and obstetrics. Sara, do you want to tell me about yourself?

Sara: 2:52

Well, my name is Sara Nilsson-Lööf and I'm a mother of two children, two boys six sorry, seven and twelve years old they grow so fast and I'm also a clinical psychologist and I've been active in Extinction Rebellion for a couple of years and now in Mother's Rebellion since it started last summer. You can say Mother's Rebellion is a coalition of mothers across all six continents joining in kind of protest, where we sit down together in circles in a public space and use our emotions, our climate emotions, like our despair over the lack of strong climate action, and they're worried about the future and they're angry about the lack of action, and we try to use those emotions like showing those emotions, coming together and trying to helping each other to connect to those emotions and actually like using them as a tool to reach out to other people. Because in some way, when it comes to the climate crisis, everything has already been said. The facts are out there. People already in some way know what needs to be done, maybe in some way what part they should take to, but then it can be so hard to take this step from knowing that somewhere inside of you and actually starting to act on it. So we know, I'm a clinical psychologist myself, and I have studied quite a lot of climate psychology too, and I know that just getting more information is not what gets people to start to act on the climate emergency, but if we in some way manage to reach people in an emotional level. So you go from just feeling that acting is something that you like you should do it, and go from there to making it something that you want to act on it. You actually want to do everything you just possible can to save as much as possible and to protect your children and your family and to make something maybe something even good out of this crisis. If you manage to reach people on that emotional level, then quite a lot of things can happen.

Sara: 5:37

So that's like our method. That's what we're trying to do, so we're not coming with a lot of facts or asking people to do anything. We're just taking place with ourselves, with our bodies, in a public space, which in some way, it signals that it is an emergency, because it's not something you do Every day. Just sit down in a pedestrian street for many most mothers, and so I think that that feels quite odd to do, and I think that's helpful too, because it signals that this is something out of the ordinary to do, and also we have quite simple signs that we bring with us. I've had a sign that said, like Alice and Louis, that's the name of my children, alice and Louis. I'm sitting here for you, and I think on the next one I will have a sign that says our children deserve to see us act on the climate emergency. So it's like very short messages no new information, but something that might reach into the heart of other people. So that's what we do, and now we started to do it on a global level.

Kristine: 6:58

And really, how did you come up with the idea of sitting in a circle, because it's very unusual. I haven't seen them done anywhere else. How did that come about and how did you get people to join in with it?

Sara: 7:10

Yeah, that's a good question, Like the history of the circle is because I got this idea of doing this manifestation with mothers and using our emotions in this way and having these two main messages of that we refuse to look away and we refuse to give up. Because that's kind of my analysis of what people, what's behind the lack of action. And then when I shared this idea, and then just to a group of climate-worried mothers that I had been seeing for a while, also with just some friends and acquaintances, and so other people join, and there we started to work on this first idea that I had and talk about how were we going to sit and were we going to block the way for people or not? But we decided quite fast that we didn't want to disturb anyone. I mean, this is connected to Extinction, rebellion. There it's quite common to do things to disturb and use that kind of emotions that comes up from that. But that also makes people angry. And here we thought we're going to make something where no one can use anger just to say like I won't listen to those people. So then we decided we're not going to make it hard for anyone to pass us. And then we thought like how are we going to take place? And then someone came up with the idea just sitting, as Extinction Rebellion's logo, which is a circle. With this it looks like an X, but also is this symbol of time, to symbolize that time is running out.

Sara: 9:03

So in Sweden, where the first circle was made last summer and then just started to replicate really fast, we sat and lay down as the Extinction Rebellion logo type and then when we connected to other mothers across the world that also had this vision of a mothers' rebellion, then we decided to just make it a circle to be able to include also mothers from other climate organizations Like quite early we connected to warrior moms in India, for example.

Sara: 9:38

So we wanted to make it like inclusive and that's like the history of the circle. We wanted to face the people that were passing by. So if you sit in a circle you are like looking at together, like we are looking at everyone at the same time, and you can't pass us without like facing us. And we're quite like interested in that, like what happens in people when they go by a circle of mothers sitting there showing their despair, having these kinds of very simple signs. And also often we, at least in Sweden we use a lot of music that helps you connect to climate emotions. So what does it do to someone to pass that? If they actually look at us, what happens in other people then? Or if they choose to look away, which they might, it takes some effort to look away and then we actually sit there with these big banners saying we refuse to look away. So what happens in someone who looks away from that? That's the kind of processes that we are also interested in.

Kristine: 10:56

Yeah, it's very interesting concept. I came to this a bit later in the UK in May this year and it sort of fell into it by sort of coincidence. I'm quite new to the climate space. Life has been very busy with four young boys and I'm an NHS doctor in the UK and we've been through COVID, I think. A couple of years ago I suddenly woke up to the climate disaster. I just always been in the background. I always had this idea in my head that well, surely if it's such a big problem, somebody will sort it out. Then I finally have some headspace to actually probably read about and realise what was going on and what was being done about it, which was very little. It was literally like it just hit me like a ton of bricks that this is really serious. It's my children's future, it's the world as we know it.

Kristine: 11:54

It's changing completely. You almost can't believe it. So then, what I did? I changed everything in our personal life and that made you feel a bit better.

Kristine: 12:04

But then you look around and the world is still the same. Everybody else is still doing the same things. That's when I realised, ok, I've got to do something else here. I've got to join something and get together with other people. I joined Health for Extinction Rebellion in the UK at the end of last year, which was a natural fit, being a doctor, so I'm very new to the climate space. It's only since the end of 2022 I've been part of a climate movement. I've been anxious before joining it.

Kristine: 12:33

Then I sort of took part in some actions. We had a big climate protest in April and in London this year which wasn't reported very widely by the press, very disappointingly. And then I think, as part of this, I saw on social media your circles that you did in Sweden. You get so much in your feed, but that it really stood out to me. And I saw these circles like whoa and there was just something that really connected to me as sort of, as you say, on an emotional level. I knew all the data, I've been reading all these things, but this really hit me, those messages, the emotion that you saw in people. And then an email and message was sent out in one of the groups I was in, as anybody was interested in organizing a circle in the UK, and I was sort of sat there waiting hoping that somebody would, because I really wanted to join the circle.

Kristine: 13:20

But then it became more apparent that this was just after our big protest. Everybody were very tired, nobody wanted to take on the organizing and I thought, okay, maybe it's my time to step up here. So I sort of tried to get a few other women together to organize this thing, and a man left to find a group of four of us in London that said, okay, we're going to do this. We send out some messages and suddenly other people heard about it too, and then other people in the UK said are we going to do a circle too? We're going to do a circle too.

Kristine: 13:50

So we ended up having six circles in May this year, which was, I think, we only had a week and a half to organize it. That's so impressive, yeah, but I think so many people must have seen this thing. I thought this is something we really want to do and there was a lot of people that hadn't organized things before that actually took this on. So we had then had our first circle in May this year and, yeah, it was a great experience for all the reasons that you say that the interest or the people that joined in. I was quite sort of surprised by the people that came and sat down and wanted to be part of this yeah, so sort of taking on a life of its own, and I'm so pleased we did it.

Kristine: 14:35

And, yeah, it's been a very sort of steep learning curve and it has created so much attention in the time because, just going from May to now we have it looks like we're going to have 11 circles in the UK in September this year and you keep having people that contact you. Oh, I want to do a circle in my area too. I want to do a circle too and, as you say, it really reaches across lots of different groups. So this started an extinction rebellion, but we are now seeing other parenting groups join in, as you say, parents for future, people that haven't been in the climate movement before. I certainly say this really resonates with me. I want to be part of this. I want to find that space. I think it's about finding that space with other people and actually share how you feel and show the world how you feel.

Sara: 15:27

That's so amazing to hear it because it sounds a bit like in Great Britain you're having kind of the same history as we had in Sweden, like we did the first circle and it really started to resonate with people and people were like I want to do this again, when is the next circle? And this thing about people, just strangers, just reaching out and asking and saying like I want to do a circle too and that's quite amazing to be part of, because I understand you just as me have noticed it can be quite hard to activate people. So it's so great to hear that in Great Britain you're also in this mode of just growing and very organically.

Kristine: 16:17

Yeah, yeah, and I often wonder how some of the people that approach us is that. How have they heard about this? Where have they heard that this is happening? But it must be from social media. They've seen things and that has really stuck in their mind and they've actually thought I'm going to make an effort to find out how to be part of this, and that's a big step for people to you see a lot of things but actually said, okay, I'm going to try and find out who to email to connect with the right people.

Sara: 16:47

Yeah.

Kristine: 16:48

It's been very remarkable, yeah, and it's still growing, and I'm now seeing myself sort of in the centre of all this.

Sara: 16:57

Yeah, it's quite hard to get a grip of what we are like being part of here, and me too, I don't think this isn't the end. It's the beginning, and then it's a new beginning again, and on and on. And if we were to talk a bit about our intentions, then one intention for me really is to activate more people, and we know that the majority of the people take climate, the climate crisis, seriously and they want politicians to act more, but they don't really signal that, and quite understandably. Actually, I can understand that some politicians are a bit afraid to actually go forward with a really strong climate and politics because, I mean, there is resistance too. So my ambition is to really activate this worried group to show that and maybe also in that process, I think when you connect, when you start to talk about that, you are worried and maybe frustrated that not enough is happening. When you start to talk to other people about that, I think both you can start finding solutions to that together and also you might become even more aware, because maybe you take that step like, okay, so maybe I should take a look at the EPCC reports and what does it actually say? And when you read them yourself, or some kind of summary, it might go into you in in another way.

Sara: 18:53

Or just being around other people that you know, like and just share and talk about, like this is actually for for real.

Sara: 19:02

It becomes more real for yourself and I think when we take that into ourself and like admit it for ourselves that this is really a crisis and it is really real and it starts to feel real we can connect to.

Sara: 19:16

I mean, there's a lot of fear in that and a lot of sorrow and frustration, but I really think in those emotions there are also a lot of energy and something that could help you like find the direction and and act according to your values. And when doing that together with other people, you come into connection to other emotions too, because I think most people in the beginning they feel like very helpless and overwhelmed and hopeless and so on. But when daring to face these emotions and connect to them and do that as a collective and at the same time, like use the emotions to, to communicate to other people and to leaders, I think it's something very empowering and I think that's why people want to like keep doing the circles, because it means something. It's not just like going to a protest it's, I think it's become something more for for people.

Kristine: 20:26

Yeah, I agree with what you're talking about in in terms of doing something, and I think we we can't be individuals in this.

Kristine: 20:35

We've got to work together.

Kristine: 20:36

It's the really important thing and that's what I've really found strength in when I felt, when I was on my own I was just an individual, I didn't feel that there was much I could do. But being in that community with other people and you work together, things happen. You see, we've seen now a growing movement, that sort of getting people more involved, and I think I've been quite surprised actually, with what I've been capable of, of achieving through working in these groups and some changes and conversations that we've started, and also another sphere and a sort of influencing in other aspects of my life, my work, in my sort of when my children go to school, and for me these circles they give a lot of energy and a lot of power to to take that with me in my other aspects of life, my other climate actions, to feel I'm not alone in this, I've got connection. I've got back up from this group. I don't feel, then, in people's way trying to push this forward, because there's a lot of people that support this and that's that.

Kristine: 21:48

I think that's quite powerful more than that, in that, in that sort of community you've got.

Sara: 21:55

Yeah, and that's really great to hear, and it's very according to the experience that I have too, that I can see that because there's so many people who have joined that have never been active in the climate movement before, and then it's like just starts spiraling like the first.

Sara: 22:13

They join a circle and then they share these stories that they are like taking climate initiatives at work or talking with friends and family in ways that they haven't done before, and then there's just like this loop of action, and so that's that's very amazing to to witness and both like all the change that it creates, but also what it makes with with people, and I've talked to so many people who had said like they've just been feeling like hopeless and a lot of just despair and being very close to this giving up mode, and then, since joining Madis Rebellion, there's so much like hope and then joy and and much more more positive emotions too, and that's that's nice to witness to. Yeah, so what are we going to do now the? We have like an action week from the 17th of September to the 23rd of September. In Sweden. We will do most circles on the 23rd. When will you be doing them in in the UK?

Kristine: 23:32

we will be doing them on the 16th and 17th. Yeah, the reason for that is we wanted it to coincide with the the other big sort of climate protests that are happening that weekend. Fast fair together, fossil free future, they're calling it. So it's kind of linked to that, and there was also meant to be another sort of big health protest the weekend after, which has now been cancelled, so it's sort of more for practicalities, but we're having most of our actions on the weekend coming up now great, yeah, we'll love to to follow.

Kristine: 24:10

Follow that we will be popping. Yeah, I'm excited about the London one. That would be quite interesting. It's slightly different to what it was last time, but it should be good. Okay, yeah, this place and so and also very interesting to see how much it's grown and how, because you can't this is also the thing you don't really know who's gonna turn up until you're there yeah, exactly, exactly so there's always a bit of trepidation that how, how many people would want to come and join our circle?

Sara: 24:40

yeah, yeah, I'm hoping there, and so it's still possible for for both countries and new cities and new people to to join in. I think we got Kenya, like two days ago, joining in. So I think we are now 26 countries, but there might be, might be more, and I think we're about 66 cities or something like that, but I don't think India has reported their number of cities just yet. So things might be happening. But if anyone listening wants to take part, then you can just go to our homepage, maddysrubbellioncom, and there there's information like how to do a circle, and also you can take contact through Instagram on our account there, maddysrubbellion Global, and then it's actually quite easy to make a circle. So, and I mean it's powerful.

Sara: 25:48

Last time in Malmö we were almost 200 sitting in this. We had like double, triple circle because there was not enough room for us on the biggest pedestrian street. So that was very powerful. But I also have seen these like small circles of like just five maddys maybe sitting together, and that's that's powerful in in another way too, and I think when doing a small circle like that, I think it means a lot for many people to know that it's not just those five. They are like in that moment connecting to mothers and grandmothers and aunties and so on across the world and people who are just trying to do something.

Kristine: 26:36

One of the most striking images from the May Mother Circles was the woman on her own in Poland that she was sat on. I think she was sat on a coal mine. She was certainly sat on a big pile of coal and she had her one woman circle or demonstration with her placard and I just remember seeing the pictures of that thing. How brave was that, how powerful was that that she sat there on her own. I have a voice and this is important. What I do, yeah.

Sara: 27:12

I can really identify with that when you just feel like this need to do something, so it's like, ok, other people are onto something else. I think there was some other big climate thing in Poland then but I can really identify with that feeling like, ok, but I just need to do this. Yeah, that was really great to see.

Kristine: 27:39

Why is this so important? To fight for the future of the next generation.

Sara: 27:44

It's almost hard to answer that question, because it's just so. Could there be anything more meaningful in life than fighting for the future of the next generation and also for me? We've had for about five years, children and young people protesting on the streets and I mean that's been amazing. They have made such a change and they have helped to awaken a lot of us adults. But now I really feel like we as adults, as mothers, as parents, we just can't put the biggest crisis that humanity have faced on the shoulders of our children. We need to step up now. We need to be in the front line and fight and also just showing our own children that we aren't looking away or giving up, Like they really deserve to see us do everything we can. I mean, no matter how things turn out, it will always be meaningful to like being that parent that shows your children that you are fighting for them and their future. They really really deserve that and it's like never too late to start doing that.

Kristine: 29:16

No, yeah, I think that that's important, isn't it? Yeah, I remember somebody sort of comparing it to that. The adults had had this big party and they trashed the house completely. One room was on fire, another room was flooded, there were holes in the walls, doors had fallen off, and then the adults just walk out and say to the children you tidy this up. The children don't have the skills, they don't have the tools to tidy this up and they haven't made the mess, they haven't been part of the party. And that was a comparison to what was going on, with our generation, older generation, saying this this is the children's problem to sort out and you have.

Kristine: 30:01

It's not fair. It's not fair. We've created the mess. We need to sort it out for them.

Kristine: 30:08

Also, if you look at sort of in terms of children's health worldwide and there's some really sort of stark figures we often talk about climate justice between the sort of developing world and the developed worlds of rich nations compared to the poorer nations, and how the richer nations have created most of the carbon emissions whereas the poorer nations are suffering. But there's also climate injustice in the generational gap, so that the children are the ones suffering the most, not just in the future, but already now. So currently, 85% of the climate burden impacts fallen children under the age of five. So they're already much harder hit by any adults by the climate crisis and the about sort of half of all the children live in the world. So one billion out of 2.2 billions are in areas where the countries that live in are classified as extremely high risk of climate impacts. And I think it's just devastating to think about all these children that grow up in a really unsafe environment and they're much more vulnerable to the impacts of the climate change. So they're more vulnerable to malnutrition, infectious disease, sort of diarrheal disease. They don't have access to to food in a lot of areas where you already have drought or flooding as impacting the food security there.

Kristine: 31:41

And a really big thing that we also see in the western world is, of course, the impact of air pollution, which is worsened by the climate crisis. But the things that cause the climate crisis also causes air pollution. So you burn fossil fuels, you get air pollution and you get worsening greenhouse gas emissions, and now this is one of the things that really hit hit home for me. So the the numbers are that approximately seven million people die from air pollution every year across the world, and the official death toll from covid since 2020 to now is also around seven million. And when we think about how, how massive effort we made to compact covid across the world, how that became the priority and rightly so but how little effort is made to tackle air pollution at the moment, that that contrast really sort of hit it home to me about how serious this is and how we're not doing enough for it. So so, yeah, I think it's very hard to see that the children are suffering these health impacts.

Sara: 32:51

Yeah, and as I mean, you're a doctor and I'm a psychologist, so for me it's also just thinking. I mean we have this big study with the 10 000 youth being interviewed and and the results there showing that there are so many young people like feeling betrayed by grown-ups, and what I'm just thinking of what. What does that do with someone who is, who is growing up and and these feelings of of hopelessness and despair and also like feeling all of that and seeing or feeling that grown-ups around you look away, like just leaving you with those emotions on your own. That I mean that that really touches me, really really hard to to think about. So so there it also feels like really important just to to step up because, as you say, children are much more vulnerable in in every ways here.

Kristine: 34:09

So there's so many levels of injustice here I think I remember when I was was young, a young teenager and growing up, and that was back in the 1990s, and at that time there was a real sense of positivity in the world. We we weren't really talking about the climate crisis yet, but wealth in the world was going up, there was less poverty, you had more equality. Um, it wasn't perfect, but it was improving and there was this real sense that the world was becoming better. We weren't there yet, but we were. We're getting there, we're building towards a better world and and that gave me sort of a hope and positivity for the future, which gave me the space to enjoy my youth and grow up feeling safe and and have hope.

Kristine: 34:59

But, as you're saying, I think it's a very different world to grow up in today for young people, because they don't have that, um, that's apparent. You just want, you love your children more than anything in the universe and you just want them to have a better life than you had, or at least as good as the life as you've had. But I think I look at this now and the only thing I know that's certain it's so uncertain what's going to happen with the climate crisis, but I know for certain that their life will be much, much worse than the life I've had and they're going to face really hard things in their lifetime and it's going to get harder and harder and I will probably be dead by the time a lot of the really difficult things are gonna gonna happen. I may not be, but it will be harder and that's very difficult as a parent to to accept and not being able to like be there with them all the way through.

Sara: 35:55

And and I mean I guess that's like a new task for us parents now to to like help help our children to to come around in in the world like that and to to be able to, to find a sense of meaning and some kind of feelings of of hope also in in the world, where a lot of things are are changing and changing to the worst. But also, I mean when, when talking about uh covid, it makes me think about like what actually would be possible if, if people really came together and I mean you've had a Churchill in in your country who said something like I have nothing else to offer like blood, sweat, tears and soil, or something like that. Just imagine if our leaders, fueled by our us as citizens, could start talking like that and showing that climate leadership and doing like that really big uh turn and and shift so that we at the same time as we I mean we will see more extreme weather and conflicts and so on but if we at the same time also could see like people all over the world just coming together and like starting to to, to adapt and to protect the world. I mean, just imagine the day where we don't have to protest anymore because everybody is like already working on the problem. I mean now we're protesting because there's so few working on the problem, but when, when that shift has come and people are like countries are are doing everything they can and cities are doing everything they can, and like companies and organizations and sports clubs and churches and mosques and families and all these unities are just changing the way they live and out, maybe restoring nature and inventing new things and so on, I mean, if that is happening at the same time as these bad things, it might not just be a worse world that our children will experience.

Sara: 38:28

In some way. It might be like the kind of the worst now because we know what the consequences can be but we are like still quite stuck with our head in the sand, not really accepting that. So if we can just have that big shift or social turning point and actually really start to handle the problem, it might not feel as terrible as it do now, because it can be a lot of more things.

Kristine: 39:01

Yeah, I think it's really important that you say that actually in the crisis, there's also really there's an opportunity to create a better world and a more just world.

Kristine: 39:11

It's quite a big opportunity and again, if I look at this sort of with my health glasses, working in health care, I can see a lot of the things that we can do to combat climate change can also be really beneficial for people. So if we have more clean renewable energy that's produced locally, we get cleaner air. We get cheaper energy, so you can get less energy poverty. You will have countries that have been reliant on the energy from further away from fossil fuels can now produce their own, so they could have more prosperity. So everybody will have better health because you don't have the impacts of air pollution in that too. If we all change to more plant based diet, which will help the climate, will help our planet, will also make people healthier.

Kristine: 40:04

The Lancet published a study and that if we all change and eat more plant based across the world, fitting in with different cultures, we can save 11.5 million lives a year. That is just such a massive health gain and this food is still delicious. It's the wonderful food you can eat. Also, if we have greener spaces, it's better for physical and mental health. We know that people are healthier if they have lots of green around them. Then we cover more quickly from surgery or acute illness, they feel happier and healthier. More active transport again will leave to better health and also a cleaner environment. All these are sort of co-benefits win-win.

Sara: 40:46

And if we can just start to really like just not talk about that but experience that around us, that will be amazing to actually be part of that.

Kristine: 40:59

Yeah and it's what keeps me motivated too. Sometimes, when it's very difficult, you hear all these stories and the news about things that are happening. But actually sometimes just stepping back and just imagining what the world can be makes you feel more positive, and it makes gives you something worth fighting for, because it's not. It won't just happen. You, we have to fight for it.

Kristine: 41:20

But I also see more and more people coming around to this talking about these things and and that's the shift it's not such a far reach for a lot of people and it's that sort of social tipping point that we can see it and it's, and maybe one of the challenges is also to show people what the world can be like.

Sara: 41:45

Yeah.

Kristine: 41:45

Ain't this picture in their imagination?

Sara: 41:48

that is something worth fighting for, and it's what we're doing, and I think that's something that happens in the circle, too, when, when you meet other people who are just have decided just to do everything they can like, you get more of a hope for humanity too. So, christina, do you have like a last message that you would like to share with our listeners?

Kristine: 42:13

I think the most important thing for anybody who feels concerned about the way the world is about the climate crisis is to join up with other people, to join something, to connect with other people. That would be my main message.

Kristine: 42:32

Yeah, and a mother circle is a fantastic way of doing that. It's a great way to connect. We it's called mothers rebellion mother circle, but you don't have to be a mother to be welcome, we welcome. We have health care professionals that come in our circles that care for the women, that care for the children. We've had fathers, grandfathers, young people, children joining us too. It is, it is for everybody. It's to connect with that sort of emotion about young people's future, about children's future. So it's very inclusive, very welcome.

Sara: 43:06

Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah. I can really just like really agree on that and just like ask people to. If you think I mean it's very natural to feel a kind of resistance to doing something new and maybe like raising your voice in public and stuff like that, and then our brains are like just so great at finding all the excuses that where we, why we can't join, maybe just saying things like I'm not the kind of person who does something like that, or you find some kind of detail like I'm not really comfortable with that. But if we just like zoom out and say, ok, but maybe if this really is real, as the scientist says, and that this is the decisive decade, maybe I could join anyway, even if it doesn't feel like a perfect match. And if it really doesn't feel like a good match with Mother's Rebellion, then just join something else.

Sara: 44:08

But it's like really start. It's time to start acting and I don't think anyone will will regret that they have started doing that and you won't like if you really take this crisis in, it won't destroy you because it will also feel your, feel your life with so much meaning and purpose and your relationships. So don't look away. Don't look away and don't. Don't give up. Join us and let us do everything we can together with Mother's Rebellion. Thank you very much for having us in this podcast. It's been really great to to be here and talk about this together and, yeah, I will hope to see you again and hear a lot more from you also.

Kristine: 44:58

Thank you, yeah, thank you for the opportunity to come here and talk about what we do, and I hope that we will see many more people with our Mother's Circles in the near future.

Sara: 45:09

Bye, bye.

Celeste from The View: 45:10

Bye. How can you join Mother's Rebellion in their global protest? You can find protest dates and locations on their fact filled website at mothersrebellioncom. For more on the Vue magazine, please check out our website at wwwthevuemagorguk. On Instagram, we are the Vue Magazines and on ex formerly Twitter, we are Rebel Justice. We'll be back on our normal schedule with Tanya Bassett, a former probation officer now working with Naipo. Join in on Wednesday for the Inside Skinny on the decimation and deliberate defunding of the probation service, as told by Tanya. Thank you for listening. We will be out there protesting with Mother's Rebellion, will you?