Friends in fourteen-day fast against fossil fuels
Hunger striker Angus Rose: ‘I’m willing to die on hunger strike outside Parliament until we are told the truth about the climate crisis’
Two Quakers took part in a fourteen-day vigil and fast to raise awareness of the climate crisis.
Jo Hindley from Cotteridge Meeting and Louise Scrivens from Solihull Meeting were part of a team of around fifty people who sat outside the Houses of Parliament and went without food. Other members of the coordinating group included people from Christian Climate Action, XR Buddhists and Muslims Declare.
Jo Hindley, a midwife, told the Friend: ‘There were at least two people there at a time and probably fifty on the WhatsApp group trying to cover and coordinate the twenty-fours hours. The phrase we chose was “Beyond Fossil Fuels Together”. We wanted to engage everyone and really try to get a sense of moving beyond fossil fuels. It’s Lent too, so it’s a good time to talk about giving things up.’
Members of Parliament passed by the vigil, as did peers from the House of Lords, including Jenny Jones, the Green Party baroness, who tweeted support. ‘There were school parties, tourists and workers of the world,’ said Jo Hindley, ‘and other people joined “‘in spirit”.’ Central England Quakers held a local vigil in Bournville with around twenty people in the middle of the fortnight from 6 to 20 March. A Birmingham church also held a vigil every Wednesday.
Jo Hindley and others are now supporting the hunger-striker Angus Rose, who was sitting alongside them. The software engineer from London has written to Greg Hands, minister for energy, clean growth and climate change, asking that all parliamentarians should be fully briefed on the climate crisis by senior scientific adviser Patrick Vallance. ‘I’m willing to die on hunger strike outside Parliament until we are told the truth about the climate crisis’, he told MyLondon news.
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