Local greenie grandma Rosemary Penwarden was found guilty of forgery by a recent Dunedin High Court trial. Rosemary sent a fake letter in 2019 to attendees of an oil conference in Queenstown telling them it had been postponed due to the climate crisis. Though the letter was meant to be satirical, she now faces up to ten years for forgery. Apparently the law doesn’t understand sarcasm.
Rosemary is considered something of a legend in the Ōtepoti climate scene, especially for budding young climate activists like Zak and Jett, describing her as a “household name”. As a grandmother, she was quoted by her close friend Bruce Mahalski saying that she wouldn’t think of anything more useful to do than “try to save a liveable future.”
Zak met Rosemary while he was involved with School Strike 4 Climate. “She’s been around fighting this fight for generations,” said Zak, “She’s totally an inspiration.” Jett was in complete agreement, calling Rosemary a “role model as to what fostering a relationship with Papatūānuku looks like.”
Likewise, she appears to draw inspiration from students like Zak, having told Bruce that, “despite all of the doom and gloom of the scientific projections I do feel some sense of optimism for the future and that’s mainly because of all the amazing young people I work with in the climate movement.”
Zak described his reaction to the verdict as being like a “call to arms… I just want to do more to just show how absurd this is, especially in the context of being in the climate crisis. What she did of course was to raise awareness and attention, and now she’s being treated like a common criminal and that’s kind of insane.”
“Honestly I think it was pretty poor from the Court,” said Jett. “The letter was clearly sarcastic. The ruling shows that we value corporate interests over climate interests and the right to expression of speech.” He added that young activists might be likely to be scared off of humorous protest based on her situation and turn towards more disruptive methods. “That’s a poor outcome for all involved.”
Rosemary was unable to comment on her situation until her sentencing on September 8 where she hopes to be discharged without conviction.