Thanks Echo, for making a space where peacemakers and eco-warriors can ‘keep breathing, slowly and gently’ as Jo Immig puts it in her op-ed article in last week’s Echo.
Her column sits next to Aslan Shand’s editorial urging readers not to be defeated by hysterical accusations of climate science being ‘fake news’ from the blustering right. And both writers invoke other female voices in their reflections – Aslan cites climate scientist Dr Nerelie Abram, and Jo, the saintly Jane Goodall.
Jo’s message is unashamedly emotional and poetical, as she draws attention to the urgency of the ‘betwixt and between’ moment in which we are all trapped, in the opposition between the overwhelming self-aggrandisement from various oligarchies on one side, and on the other side, the expressions of increasing compassion and sharing among many ‘good’ men and women – notably here in our town.
The distance between the two opposing forces seems to be getting wider and wider, so starkly illustrated by Trump’s ‘hate your enemies’ war cry against Goodall’s simple message to ‘open our hearts’ to the continuity that can be fostered between all species that ‘transcends’ divisiveness and selfishness.
And a few pages on in The Echo there is the redoubtable Mandy doing battle with the ‘manosphere’ in social media where some male respondents express outrage at her post showing a photo of an ocean wind-farm off the coast of the UK, creating an atmosphere of menace with their taunt that belief in climate change is ‘effeminate’.
Shock horror!
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
