Yesterday the international protest movement Extinction Rebellion staged an event in Amsterdam in which costumed mourners transported a coffin, on foot and by boat, to the Amsterdam city hall. This was one effort among many of theirs to pressure the city to declare a "climate emergency." Using the rare declarative power bestowed on me by Father's Day, I insisted that my family join me in supporting this effort. To that end we rented a boat and set off in search of the protesters. We found them, we borrowed from them a very large banner, and we then toodled around for a couple of hours displaying that banner with great success (the second boat in the video above is us!). The banner made it difficult to see while steering and served as a very effective and generally unhelpful sail, but one can hardly expect the path to a clean and just economy to be entirely free of obstacles. Felix took the helm and helped raise and lower (for bridges and near collisions) the banner. Gideon, occasionally (though not in this video) revisiting his opossum imitation, was our symbolic child robbed of a survivable climate. Talia, clutching a bouquet, stood as mourner and lookout. And our visiting friend and long-time activist, Catherine (hidden behind banner), provided helpful moral backbone and additional banner handling expertise.
It feels very good to do something.
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