Over the course of the latest Great British heatwave, you will have seen a whole armada of punts travelling down the Cam. One particular punt, though, will (hopefully) have caught your eye.

I’m talking about a punt draped and placarded in green and white, topped off, at the front of the diminutive boat, with a clumsy but charming polar bear trying her best to dance.

A stunt on a punt – what a spectacle!

Oxcam (that’s the Oxfam Cambridge Society, and not an indie rendition of Oxbridge) was putting on its second campaign since its creation in January, this time to raise awareness of climate change, and I had the honour of being the wonderfully fluffy face of it as the polar bear.

“The clock is ticking on climate change, and we need to act now to make the largest difference possible”

Needless to say, we had a number of memorable experiences on the boat. When you combine a lack of hand-eye coordination with a mask which hugely restricts your field of vision and a wobbly punt, it’s nearly impossible to stay upright for two hours, and I lost track of the number of times I almost fell into the river.

I lost track, too, of the number of people who stared at us or talked to us, ranging from cute kids who adored the cottony polar bear (I did say I was charming) to people who were downright confused by our punt, from people who cheered and applauded our endeavours to people who vehemently denied climate change, and whom we couldn’t tell if they were joking or serious about it.

The laughter around us too was immeasurable. Were they laughing with me? Were they laughing at me? Does it really matter in the grand scheme of raising awareness on one of the most pressing issues facing our generation? I’m only asking the important questions here.

Overall, I hope we were eye-catching enough to get our message across. We need to act to solve climate change, and we need to act now: ‘Don’t miss the boat on climate change’. (Do you get it? ’Don’t miss the boat! In a punt! Isn’t that clever?)

The symbol of a polar bear forms a reminder of shrinking ice caps and rising sea levels, which threatens our climate patterns and ecosystems. Yet, the impacts of climate change far surpass the physical changes we are causing the environment. For every second that has passed since 2009, someone has been displaced from their home because of one climate disaster or another.

On top of that, think about forced evictions and displacements to allow for deforestation and mining, directly contributing to the destruction of landscapes and ecosystems. This often affects the world’s poorest people: the people who don’t have the resources for improving infrastructure in their communities, the people about whom there isn’t enough awareness or enough representation, the people for whom Oxfam works to help the most.

Some of you will also have seen our stand outside Great St Mary’s Church – a giant clock with countries affected by climate displacement acting as second markers, with some biographies of those displaced by disasters such as flood and drought. The clock is ticking on climate change, and we need to act now to make the largest difference possible.

So what did I learn from our stunt on a punt? I learned that you should never, EVER, try to dance while floating on a punt, that it’s surprisingly difficult to communicate with people when you can’t see them properly because of wearing a mask.

Most importantly, though, student groups can make a huge difference in raising both awareness and funds for worthwhile causes. Oxcam is supporting a number of fantastic causes, from refugee and LGBT+ rights to a fairer system of wealth distribution, and I’m excited to take part in even more Oxcampaigns, regardless of whether I have the opportunity to dress up and dance again