It’s the waiting that is the hardest. The not knowing. The frustration. If we admit it, the fear. But what overrides it and what prevents you from giving up when facing even the darkest of times, is the hope.
Hope for better things to come. Hope for a better world. Hope that with enough people doing the right thing then – in time – everything is going to be alright.
But it needs a collective effort, shoulders to the wheel and just one more person than the next to take a chance and a leap of faith in you.
As we write this Joe Biden is knocking on the door of the White House. Hope writ large not just for half an American nation but the world.
A chance and a desperate need to remove the climate denying incumbent President Donald Trump from office just 48-hours after he took his country out of the Paris Agreement.
To create a window for them to re-join in time for a new accord – The Glasgow Agreement – and lead the world.
Like it or not, where the US leads many other nations will follow so in Biden we have to trust to act on facts and not fiction.
The alternative just doesn’t bear thinking about.
Hope is what is driving us through this global pandemic too. Hope that it will end, hope that we will find an effective vaccine, hope that by working together we can overcome. That facts and science will protect us from greater harm.
Again to think anything else is almost too much to comprehend.
For us here at Kaitiaki Consulting, hope is what drives us forward too. For the past 18 months we have developed our plans, created a world class team and taken our vision for a better climate future to the people.
We kicked-off our Billion Trees Scotland campaign – a vision of planting the right trees in the right places, but on a massive scale.
A billion new growth, native species trees on our doorstep to take a billion tonnes of carbon out of the atmosphere.
We launched the Centre for Strategic Climate Solutions with our friends at Smart PA – a new model created specifically to enable organisations to plant trees as part of the campaign without the worry of funding or managing the process.
Our team have made representations to the Scottish Government on the importance of making sure that nature and the environment remains to the fore of their thinking, regardless of COVID-19 – if anything it is now more important to do so.
We have engaged with more around a dozen Scottish local authorities so far to set out a vision of how they can lead our tree planting revolution with all the economic, educational, well-being and ecological impacts for their citizens.
Fighting climate change together.
Our message has also been amplified thanks to the Scottish media – a crucial voice in the battle for hearts and minds and how we as a nation view our individual and collective environmental responsibilities in the run up to COP26.
In the coming weeks we are launching a podcast dedicated to the climate, conservation and ecology in Scotland – giving a voice and a platform to all those who are involved in this fight for survival.
For that’s what it is.
We have done this and more in the face of all the challenges a global pandemic brings. The timelines have grown longer than initially predicted, planned income has yet to come on stream as contracts understandably take longer to realise, it has been a long hike.
But our efforts here continue.
To try and mitigate this we even launched a share issue to raise £100,000 to fund us through the next stage. To date we have realised around a quarter of this target thanks largely to people we know who respect and have faith in what we are doing.
We will need to close this offer by the end of this month and we hope still that others will be compelled to join our cause and support us further. If you believe in campaigning, climate focused ecology then we are asking for your help. Please invest in or give what you can. Today.
We are so very close to making this work. We are hugely buoyed by the inspirational enthusiasm being shown by all those we speak to about our vision. We are grateful for the advice and support we are receiving in abundance.
And as the world watches America, as the world spins a little closer to COP26 and while another tree is planted in an awe-inspiring Scottish hillside we take comfort in the knowledge that everything is going to be alright.
Because this November 6 morning, we have hope.
COP26 is an opportunity for new hope
