Dear Human of Planet Earth,
I didn’t make it to the Big One in the end. But the gathering went ahead without me. While each of us matters, not one of us is needed for the world to keep turning.
Last weekend, ninety thousand humans made themselves loud and present around the UK’s centre of political power. All the coverage is waiting for you on XR’s YouTube and Facebook page, if you missed it!
Best not to look to the mainstream media for coverage, as it was minimal and superficial, despite the strong turnout and the creative range of actions and notable speakers.
Here’s author Zadie Smith throwing light on the dark arts of Tufton Street Anti-Net Zero propaganda, and as we’d expect from a novelist of her calibre, giving us a massive dose of empathy for those resistant to the need for system change. I think I caught a glance of Trini-writer Monique Roffey towards the end of this speech and I highly suspect Roffey made a speech of her own as well. If you happen to have footage to confirm this, please drop it in the comments!
Peaceful actions don’t get media attention but 30p Lee Anderson still wanted the lawful, peaceful, festive gathering stopped!
The civil disobedience of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil gets real experts onto the airwaves as well as activists. Obstruct a motorway and you have talk show radio inviting calls about it for days. Some callers will be delighted to hear you’ll be locked up for six months or three years but hey-ho, history will be kind to you - if there’s going to be a history.
Today, more than 50% of the UK population believe their government isn’t doing enough about the climate emergency. Today, people casually refer to climate and sustainability in their daily conversations. That’s progress. That’s a cultural shift.
Raising consciousness is essential for system change, so that policies can take people willingly, even enthusiastically, with them. Protest groups like XR and JSO are doing meaningful work in raising consciousness, especially among those who say, ‘We sympathise with your cause but not your methods.’
Mind you, despite the peaceful, lawful actions this weekend, we had idiots like Member of Parliament ‘30p’ Lee Anderson rudely suggesting to the head of the Metropolitan Police that he shouldn’t be allowing the peaceful picketing of government offices!
Because the truth is, he doesn’t really believe in peaceful protest if the protest is critical of his government. And if we keep his government in power, we’ll continue sleepwalking into authoritarianism.
Mark Rowley, Head of the Met, had to argue back that the law allows for some disruption to be caused by protest action, at least in its current form.
Meanwhile, elected MP Lee Anderson displayed arrogance, delusions of grandeur, threw around insults like he was bantering on Twitter and didn’t hide his clear disregard for the rule of law. His stunning display can be found here. It lays bare the character of the Tory government for all to see.
https://twitter.com/Haggis_UK/status/1651154689587572736?s=20
I lost my aunt last weekend
Last week my aunt came to stay with me, so I could take care of her. She wasn’t well enough to live alone and her partner had just been taken to hospital. A few days later she passed away unexpectedly.
I’m distraught but I’m going to say a few words about my aunt.
She had a big heart and a loyal spirit. She was a sensitive soul, always on the lookout for hearts that needed consoling. She’d call me every weekend. I’d bought tickets for us to see the Tina Turner Musical for her birthday next month. She never missed my birthday or her grand niece’s and nephews’. She influenced my musical tastes and took care of me when I was little. She was my first reader - reading my journals without my permission - and encouraging me all the same. She was intensely private and seemed to carry her own unspoken sadness locked in places we could never reach.
I wanted her to get better and I’m sobbing as I type this. She wasn’t supposed to die on my watch. What did we miss? What did I miss? Maybe the autopsy will tell us.
But this is a newsletter about sustainability and I want to keep focused. There will be other spaces and opportunities for me to write about, and remember my aunt, to celebrate her life.
So I’ll tell you this instead: she was no environmentalist.
When as a teenager I learned about the greenhouse effect and began to vigilantly switch off house lights that weren’t in use, she’d laugh at me and remind me I wasn’t paying the bill.
“Do you think one light can make a difference?”
In more recent years, when I’d take the bus and train to visit my mum - reading a book on the way - she was equally unconvinced.
“See all those cars piled up on the motorway? What makes you think you, as one person, could make a difference, with your one car off the road?”
Well, what if everyone thought that way, I’d ask her.
I’ve always believed I can make a difference. When I brought her home to stay with us I believed our family could make a difference for her. I believed we were making a difference, up to the day before she passed.
I can barely believe she’s gone. She used to say, ‘Here today, gone tomorrow.’
Yet it was she who taught me that one person can make a difference, that everything each of us does matters.
My aunt made a difference in my life. She a light in my life when I was a child and she will continue to be till I die. Maybe she didn’t use her agency to switch off electric light bulbs but she used it to make a positive difference in the lives of those she loved.
She was a comfort to many, especially her beloved partner. Together, in recent weeks, their intimacy taught me a lot about love. Their lessons have impacted me to my core.
Grief is the other side of love and I’m in grief now, having loved.
Our world, our communities and our families are full of people like my aunt. Not everyone is an environmentalist or an activist. Many people only pay attention to the issues that impact them directly, immediately or imminently. My aunt’s heart was with the people she loved.
She read the British tabloids and was swayed by their propaganda. Sometimes her mind was on all the things the tabloids told her she should be worried about.
She wasn’t a climate denier but I’d be surprised if it ever occurred to her to vote on green issues.
My aunt and I didn’t agree on much politically but we listened to each other without being demeaning or unkind, so our differences never lead to hurt or resentment.
She wasn’t politically engaged in the future of humans, or planetary life in the age of the Anthropocene. She probably never heard of the Anthropocene.
There’s a tendency among the more educated, socially liberal and environmentally conscious to be condescending and despairing when they think of people like my aunt.
Our political and policy task isn’t to convert people like my aunt into environmentalists. It’s to offer them a sustainable future that also embraces and speaks to their needs, a vision that takes them with it.
There’s something else I want to say about my beloved aunt:
She lived a low-emission lifestyle.
She only ever took a plane to see family - and she hadn’t flown since 2016 or so. She never owned a car in her 66 brief years on this earth. She was frugal and possessed little.
The future we want is one that builds new systems to include and support people like my aunt. Climate activists and scientists want a future for all of us.
If I’ve learned anything from my aunt’s life it’s that love is the basis of everything good.
For ambitious new imaginings of a world beyond individualism and cut-throat competition, one in which we consider planetary boundaries and throw high-consumption out the window, join Douglas Rushkoff on the Team Human podcast. His latest episode interviews co-founder of Greenpeace, Rex Weyler.
Doug is like an antidote to Elon Musk. His work re-vitalises my faith in humanity. Like my aunt, he reminds me that humans are loving, social creatures, and what matters is how we live, not what we accumulate.
Leaving you now. Till next time.
With Love,
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Radical,
Croydon,
London,
That patch of earth known today as the United Kingdom
Lat +51.51 Long, -0.118
Great article, sorry for your loss but I'm glad you learned so much from her. I appreciate your positivity on this issue. And you are right, one person can make a difference. I don't think we will choose as a society to voluntarily stop until a big tragedy happens (or there's some chaos), but when that happens, those people like you who decided to live a simpler, more frugal life are going to lead the way out of the mess and make the difference. Check also these podcasts: The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens(he has an episode with Douglas Rushkoff and Rex Weyler) and Planet Critical with Rachel Donald(she also lives in London I think).