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Is the environmental movement ageist?

<span>Photograph: Alamy</span>
Photograph: Alamy

Anne Karpf writes about the “unthinking ageism” that she thinks has crept into the climate movement. (Ageism must not pollute the climate movement, Journal, 18 January). As an older, active member of Extinction Rebellion and of Doctors for Extinction Rebellion, this absolutely has not been my experience. Retired colleagues and I have regularly shared ideas and actions with young people and learned together how to take the movement forward.

An example: at a recent Reforesting Scotland gathering, one of the workshops was on XR and how a group of 70, mainly young, XR activists had responded to a call for volunteers and joined experienced foresters to plant trees at Gameshope, a Borders Forest Trust rewilding project in the south of Scotland. After the workshop a set of instructions for effective tree planting and care was devised and shared. Energy and expertise is a powerful combination.
Dr Lesley Morrison
Peebles, Scottish Borders

• I admire Greta Thunberg, I fear enough for our children’s future and have supported every move for an arms-free world. My generation have protested since 1936, when I marched with my father against poverty, the Spanish civil war, and the rise of fascism. We were the politically-aware children of the unemployed, grandchildren of first world war casualties, and very well aware of where fascism leads. Not an age of selfish innocence. Like many women of my age, I spent time at Greenham. Protest was part of our lives.

It is disappointing to be judged as a “threat to the young”, as having “had it all”, by a generation who should see us more as the generation of Spirit of ’45 and Cathy Come Home, not Downton Abbey nostalgia freaks. So thanks to extinction rebels, but remember where you come from.
Maureen Wilsker
Witney, Oxfordshire

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