Parallel reality
The traffic flows past
The coffee is poured
The stock market flutters
The politician mutters
A tired defense of the indefensible
As the latest scandal pours across the airwaves
Sport, sport, there is always sport
The wonderful distraction of success and heartbreak
And that’s before the box sets, the streaming
Super TV - the infinite shows tailored to you
Life goes on, children, careers, dinner parties,
Holidays, treats, events, dog walks, family
The precious gift and radiant beings that
Are your children – if you have some of them
Who knows, who cares, who is aware
That humanity teeters on a knife edge
On a precipice of climate breakdown
Over an abyss of biosphere collapse
Some do, oh some do very much indeed
Salute the scientists, the activists, the journalists,
The concerned politicians and financiers and artists
And doctors and nurses and engineers and teachers and children
Some know and care and worry and act with all their being
Some are willing to be arrested, some quiet, meek, law abiding
Middle class good sorts are now willing to be arrested
But it is not the sort of bad news we like
It doesn’t really feature much in the papers these days
Its complicated and is it really going to be that bad
领英推荐
Even as heatwaves and fires and floods and droughts and storms
Break ever more records and have ever more impact
Even as insurers stop insuring, as ocean currents stop flowing
As icecaps melt, as species die, as crops fail and rivers dry
As we fill our oceans with plastic and eat all the fish
Is it really going to be that bad, that we should pay attention
That we should stop for a moment, that we should change for a moment
That we should demand for a moment that our politicians,
That our way of life, that our leaders, that our comforts
Should stop pushing us over this cliff abyss precipice
Should not take from our children and grandchildren their
Opportunity to breathe, to love, to laugh, to enjoy the planet
To have the chance to see a whale or a dolphin or an octopus
To share the planet with the dazzling array of life we do
A future that is not just us and the billions of animals we eat
Not even us or the animals we eat
For it is in our gift to collapse the great systems of the planet
To wipe the glitter from the bright jewel that is our home
To wipe out in a blink billions of years of life striving
To live and exist and thrive on a fiery rock in space
To preside over the sixth great extinction of millions of species
Just as it is in our gift to not, to change, to choose, to opt
To strive for a future worth living in
Surely we must, surely we must because in the future
When our children ask us why and what did you do
We must answer that we did all we could think of
Within the constraints of our lives – within the coffee, jobs
Traffic, friends, holidays, school, sport, films rhythms of life
Pensions Actuary and Climate Specialist at WTW
1 年Yes! I absolutely get that Parallel Reality feeling. It can feel hard to deal with at times. This is a beautiful piece of writing Sandy - thank you so much for sharing this and all your other excellent posts.
Co-founder Hag Films / Screenwriter / Climate Psychology Adviser
1 年Such a great way of expressing our socially constructed silence around climate disruption, thanks Sandy! Also that our environmental identity struggles to express itself over and above our human-centric identities like being a parent, or who we are at work. I'm just graduating as a climate psychologist with a focus on comms and storytelling, would be great to reconnect and have a chat soon.
Driving better, climate-risk-informed, investment decision making
1 年thank you Sandy - it's a massive puzzle - I'm truly grateful for you sharing how you are making sense of it
Head of Proposition Innovation
1 年So so true.
Actuary
1 年Thanks for this Sandy. It is so difficult to manage this balance the world we live in makes change so difficult. There are so many businesses want us to keep consuming and spending; so few politicians are prepared to honestly discuss the change required; and a press which acts in a way that makes no sense (unless you assume that they are deliberately trying to stop action on climate change). Every year things don't change the harder that change will be when it happens.