Older New Zealanders Join Climate Change Fight

On his early morning bike rides to school, David Yockney would deliberately seek out the crunch and splash of the ice-hardened puddles. It was a winter joy he loved, and one he took for granted. Now, 60 years later, he is surprised when ice forms a thin crust in the bird bath at his home on the Kāpiti Coast, Eva Corlett writes for The Guardian. The 74-year-old climate activist has become increasingly disturbed by the changes to his environment wrought by global heating and he is not the only one.

New research from the University of Waikato shows that younger and older New Zealanders are becoming concerned about the climate emergency, Corlett reports.

As part of the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Survey, the 10 year study asked 56,000 citizens across different age groups two main questions – whether they believe climate change is real, and whether they believe it is caused by humans.

In his retirement, Yockney, a former teacher and video producer, began reading extensively on the topic and with that came a chance to reflect both on the changes he needed to make personally, and the changes he wanted to see societally.

“You have to make changes. You can’t sit on the sideline,” Yockney says.

Original article by Eva Corlett, The Guardian, July 6, 2021.

Photo by Eva Corlett.