Inspired by a post by the Waltham Forest group entitled 'Confessions of a bad hippy', I decided to mercilessly plagiarise the idea - not just because it's really well written, but also 'cos it makes some really important points...
If you rummage around in the blogosphere and online media, you could quite easily form the opinion that Greenpeace activists are all paid-to-protest (or unemployed layabouts), that we all live in trees, wear tie-dye, and only eat mung beans and tofu. This is untrue. Almost none of us live in trees. Only some are veggie, let alone vegan - and tie-dye is pretty thin on the ground. I don't even like drumming circles at festivals - not one bit. Yes, we do have a small number of paid staff in the main office, but almost everything is done by volunteers in their 'spare' time between going to work, raising kids, paying the rent/mortgage - yup, all normal life stuff. Why? Well, because when it comes down to it, we are actually fairly normal people - we've just made the choice to try to actively stop the destruction of the natural world (which we all rely on) rather than saying la-la-la and hoping it'll all go away, pretending it doesn't matter, or that changing to efficient light-bulbs (wonderful as they are) is all that's needed.
So, not only aren't we even close to the media image of hippies, some (all?) of us are pretty bad at being hippies, and some really aren't hippies at all (for example, it is well known that I'm actually a Viking, though I admit that might not be considered 'normal'). Like everyone else, maybe we eat the odd takeaway (agghh, food miles, non-organic!), drive cars when there's no public transport (wot, really, no solar-powered teleport?), watch rubbish telly - you know, normal stuff. We try to be green, but we do have to go to work, live our lives, have fun and relax a bit, even if we try to be mindful about how we do it.
So, if you've thought about joining your local group but didn't feel 'green enough', do not worry - there's no application form, no panel of 'eco-warriors' (media term, not ours) scrutinising your lifestyle, fashion and entertainment choices, and we really don't care who you work(ed) for. Everyone is welcome - we just want people to come along, get involved and help out - and hopefully have a laugh while you're doing it - we can't do huge-but-essential things like Save the Arctic without you.
The next Southampton meeting is on Dec 6th, and if you want to find a group elsewhere in the country, you can look here. Oh, and should you still feel the need to confess your hippy failings, we do have an 'eco-confessions' box at some festivals, or feel free to comment below... you're welcome whatever :)
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