New Ash Green mum to join Extinction Rebellion climate change protestors in London
15:12, 19 April 2019
updated: 15:29, 19 April 2019
A mum is calling for the government to take action to help climate change.
Laura Manston from New Ash Green is rallying people together to head to London tomorrow for a peaceful protest in connection with Extinction Rebellion.
The 38-year-old is hoping that the march through the capital will make the government pay attention to the changes that need to be made.
She said: "It is going to be very peaceful, Extinction Rebellion does not support any violence at all.
"It is just all about causing a disruption in daily life big enough to make the government take notice and meet certain demands."
The mum-of- four explained that there are three demands that they would like to be met my MPs.
She said: "The first is for the government to tell the truth abut how deadly this situation is and for them to reverse any of their polices that are not in alignment with that position.
"The second is for the government to make legally binding policies in the UK for us to become net zero with carbon emissions by 2025 and the third is for a citizens assembly to oversee all of these changes to make sure they are fair and well advised."
The full time mum from Knights Croft believes that the biggest change that needs to be made is in finding alternative energy sources.
She added: "The main the problem we have is the speed of climate change caused by burning fossil fuels and that's what we really need to address and we need the government to make policies that allow us to look at ways to make energy using other sources.
"People are aware of the issues but their pockets are bigger than their conscience..." Laura Manston
"People are aware of the issues but their pockets are bigger than their conscience and the message of climate change has been dulled to allow people's economic drive to continue and that's why we are at this point now.
"We need to take a stand now."
Mrs Manston explained that throughout her life she had always believed in doing her part but it wasn't until she read a report in 2017 that she realised she needed to do more to make a change.
She said: "There was a very strong key message that I heard that was a really powerful turning point to me.
"It was a quote after a report was published in 2017 that looked at low probability high impact scenarios, that may happen because of climate change.
"They pose an existential threat to the world and the scenarios that were looked at had a 5% probability of happening.
"The quote said people may dismiss it as small but it is equivalent to one in 20 chance that a plane will crash. We would never get on a plane knowing that there was a chance that it would come down but we are willing to send our children and our grandchildren on that plane."
The Kent Rebellion group will be heading down to Waterloo Bridge tomorrow morning. You can visit their Facebook page for more information or visit https://rebellion.earth/.
On Wednesday night, children pleaded with councillors in Canterbury to take climate change seriously.
