Being A Mother in A Time Of Climate Crisis

An Interview With Actress, Playwright and Activist Lily Lowe Myers

Being a parent in 2023 is not easy. Something very close to my heart and how I have spent a lot of my free time over the last few years is in climate activism. Whether that be in planning local grass roots events or attending protests with and without my kids.

In this candid discussion with Actress, Playwright and Climate Activist Lily Lowe Myers of Hat Stand Productions we talk about the challenges, grief, sorrows and unexpected joys of being a parent who is deeply concerned about the climate crisis. Lily wrote and starred in an award winning radio play called A Mother's Voice a 35 minute audio drama exploring a mother's power to change the world.

It was interesting having this conversation because afterwards I was reflecting with Lily that I felt a bit of a fraud having this chat because whilst there have been times in my life where i have been deeply busy in climate activism, I haven’t done much lately but I think this is one of the themes of our chat is that we find seasons where we can put a lot of our energies into things wider than ourselves and our families and then seasons where we need to rest and recover. The Climate Movement needs us to be sustainable and I’m confident I will find something soon that tugs me back.

A few months ago I went to a protest outside the Oil and gas Conference and was really close to Gretta Thunberg I was a bit star stuck. Such a tiny woman but such an influence upon my life. Her speech at the UN in 2018 shook me to the core in a way that changed the course of my life. I was on Maternity leave with my second child and I went through a period of quite intense climate anxiety and I knew needed to do more. Action soothes anxiety and activism helped me to temper the heat of my fears. I mention in the video that climate activism has been like therapy for me and I stand by that. Finding solidarity with others who feel the acute grief that comes from fully facing the climate crisis. Grief for all we have lost, grief for what we will lose and grief for my children’s futures.

We talk about our own grief and path to feeling empowered to take action. We reflected afterwards that it had been quite a tough conversation to just spring into as it's something that brings up a lot of emotion for both of us. We talk about finding our voices and how we involve our kids in climate activism in a way that feels empowering.

You can listen to A Mother’s Voice by following these links

APPLE https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...

SPOTIFY - https://open.spotify.com/show/6whvSzU...

YOUTUBE- SUBTITLED https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xboo1...

And Lily at https://www.hatstandproductions.com/

https://www.instagram.com/hatstandpro...

Here is the link to the Book Lily Mentions The Lightmakers Manifesto

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...

And here is the link to the wonderful course we went on Active Hope We would both very much recommend https://activehope.training/