As often happens my day began with a call from Mr X…

The call continued:  “Dipper i was slowed down getting to work today, a real mix of people were on the bridge, waving banners, talking and singing,…something called Extinction something or other, could you drop all this world saving business and look into it for me, i’m afraid it could affect my interests…”

“Sure thing Mr X”

Mmmm where to start. Feeling bit lazy this morning a little browse on line, E, X…..Exxon….is that who i want?? what’s this?? A story that this oil company knew about climate change, and it was informing their own policies, but were promoting misinformation in relation to it??*….”Exxon’s Ceo was chosen as Trump’s secretary of State???” What’s was his name? Rex Tillerson??….., Rex T, T Rex?? Oh my God he’s a dinosaur, no wonder he worked in fossil fuels!!) ….well I’m beginning to understand we need to work with others, but this policy of giving jobs to those who are directly denying what is needed,* and in this case what sounds like a dinosaur – who let’s face it don’t have a great record of adapting to climate change, is hideously undermining of the direction we need to go. Perhaps it should be exoff and divest, not exonn, particularly if it’s true they are going to deliberately misinform  their customers and share holders in relation to the planet’s conditions**…now if a TRex was appointed in a government, can we trust that government??***

….come on focus Dipper, E, X, T……extinction…..what’s this? “Earth’s sixth mass extinction,” this one evidently caused by humans, up to 50 % of all individual animals lost in recent decades, 40 % of global insect species in massive decline….

hold on a minute if the insects go that effects pollination, and all the things that eat and depend on them, and that eat them in turn, like we do….this could mean total collapse of life, not just human life…

Hold on a minute will that effect football??? If we don’t have even have food how we can play and watch football?…this is looking serious…

Come on Dipper back to the case…

EXTINCTION R, E, B….aah here it is Extinction Rebellion…..my god these people are talking about all the above, well may be not the football.

I’d better report to Mr X…..”morning Sir i thought i’d give you a quick report. It seems Extinction Rebellion are a movement of ordinary people who think not enough is being done in the face of all these well researched calamities that threaten All of Our Lives, not just hoped for future generations….

It seems they’ve trained in non violence so they can make peaceful protest to help everyone wake up to the situation so we can begin to solve it together…..”

“Bally hell, Dipper but do they have to block the traffic, can’t they doing something more positive???”

“That’s an interesting question Sir, I’ll get on to them straight away.”

And so i gave them a call, first of all i shared that me and Mr X (actually i’m not convinced about Mr X) but still that I, having read the information feel right behind them, still as gently i could i broached Mr X’s question….

“Thankyou for asking” was the response. I didn’t expect that usually when you ask such a question you get your head bitten off. Anyway the person i was speaking to who i think was called Elly ( i can be a bit forgetful around names) continued…”Many of us do. As best we can we live close to the land, reduce our fossil fuel use, choose carefully what we consume, and our own family do this more than most, but still as you can tell from the scientific information coming in, it just is not enough. We need others to wake up too.”

In summary from what I understood many of the obstacles to lower impact living, and reducing carbon reside in the way things are done and thought of in Parliament, the city, and even rural corridors of power, where despite the overwhelming scientific information of growing cataclysmic climate change and incredible species loss (eg insects and coral), investments, laws, regulations and policies carry on business as usual as if there were not, even subsidising or promoting and legally protecting counter productive policies (eg fracking) and entities and behaving as if we could eat and breathe money, but we cannot. All our children, like most species (at least the general diversity we favour)****, need healthy conditions to live with in, clean air, water, healthy soils..and the condition of all of these appears at tipping point….it seems for all our sake’s we need to put our heads, hearts and bodies together to begin to make the Great Turning (as Joanna Macy calls it) away from an completely unsustainable industrial growth society to one that cherishes and works with and lives within the bounds of glorious planet which is our home…. It seems many of those within Extinction Rebellion are making enormous positive efforts to live well (and i will be glad to feed that back to Mr X), but considering the severity of the situation our government and many power holding others, can gain from attention drawn to the circumstances so that they too can find the courage to more boldly act, for All our Relations, not just short term selfish self interest. All of us must ask the question, and will be asked it by future generations, what did we do to support a healthy Great Turning towards the Earth and away from actions that destroy our the very conditions that support life??

So though my own leaning is to positive creative living – low impact ways need to be pro-actively supported at a government level not blocked (as is so often currently the case), and when not nearly enough attention is being given to the state of our ecology on which we all depend, though direct protest may not be everyone’s cup of tea (“the frontier is long” as Arne Naess said and i mention in an earlier post), it feels fair enough.

I think I’ll let Mr X know i might be a bit later in to work today…

• https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/ & also see paper by two Harvard researchers — Naomi Oreskes, a professor of the history of science whose work has focused on the energy and tobacco industries, and Geoffrey Supran, a postdoctoral fellow — published their peer-reviewed paper that “found that Exxon’s climate change studies, published from 1977 to 2014, were in line with the scientific thinking of the time. Some 80 percent of the company’s research and internal communications acknowledged that climate change was real and was caused by humans.

  But 80 percent of Exxon’s statements to the broader public, which reached a much larger audience, expressed doubt about climate change.

• * Tillerson has moved onnow, but for more on Trump and others deliberate strategy of jobs for the unsuitable, listen or read Naomi Klein’s “no is not enough”
• **deliberately misinforming us about our planet’s condition is not something i warm too, though we may all warm for it.
• ***incidentally the uk government did something similar a decade or so ago in relation to the ozone hole….though from what i understand ozone has thickened now, at that time it was particularly thin in March/the Springtime over the Uk, to the extent that the army and perhaps all military personnel were given instructions to wear long sleeves (they already wear hats) to reduce the chance of skin cancer. Ordinary citizens were not given this information…I’m glad whoever had this information looked after the army, but how about us, those the army are surely here to defend and protect?? “Well you look after what you value,” as someone said at the time. I was working free lance at an English Nature reserve at the time and wanted to feel a bit more valued by my government (incidentally English Nature, which is the government arm protecting nature, has been cut 50% since the banks were being bailed out) – I cant remember if I pulled my sleeves down…
• **** there are some species cock roaches, rats, disconnected speculators which will thrive as the conditions for a more diverse life deteriorate, but as is happening thousands that are more sensitive to environmental conditions – like those who are affected locally by London’s air pollution, and thousands through out the world who are impacted by pesticides, and habitat loss, will not.