Existential Terror, or, How Do I Keep Going When I Feel Like I Can't Keep Going

PLEASE NOTE: This post is my attempt to work through a very bad patch with a bit of black humour. It contains references to SELF-HARM & DEPRESSION . This is my truth, but it may trigger, offend or depress others. If you choose to read it anyway, and that happens, I am truly sorry for your pain. But I did warn you.

Last October, I shared a Facebook post about Roger Hallam, one of the founders and presiding mastermind of the Extinction Rebellion movement. Roger was giving a talk here in Cambridge, with the title Extinction and What to do About It. Unfortunately, the talk clashed with a screening of a short film I'd made, and in the battle of ego versus duty, ego won out. I went to the screening, and then rushed straight over to the David Attenborough building, hoping to catch the end of the talk. But even as I panted my way up the stairs, the doors opened, and the audience came streaming out. And there at the front was a colleague from my other life, as a comedy improvisor, along with her partner and another friend of hers. A jolly colleague, and a young one. A person I'm used to being silly with. Playing games with. Forgetting my worries with. Of course, she knew I was into this climate change stuff, but I don't think we'd ever had a serious discussion about it. I was surprised to see her there.

I had a pretty good idea what the Roger Hallam talk was going to be about. I mean, the title kind of said it all. And since I became involved in my own little form of climate activism, in 2015, I've read every book and article I could get my hands on and attended or watched every lecture (if you're a part of the movement you probably know what I mean here – once you pop, you really can't stop).

I know that the scientists have been getting increasingly anxious. I know, from Gwynne Dyer's excellent book Climate Wars, that the military arms of most nations on earth have been actively preparing for climate disruption for decades. And I know that most of the predictions the scientists have been making have played out accurately – or faster than they believed possible. I had come across the chilling phrase, near term civilizational collapse. I knew that some serious thinkers believed that humanity had put the earth's biosystems under such extreme pressure that they were near breaking point, and that if they do break, a cascade of losses, scarcity, and conflict could destroy the natural and human created systems which allow us to live our comfortable, "civilized" lifestyles. End of.

Try putting that into your comedy improv.

So I winced when I saw my friend's little white face. She and her friends looked shell-shocked. She said something about it being horrible, horrible, and that she would never come to a talk like that again. Since I've already taken a lot of flak from members of my family, about how "depressing" my posts and tweets tend to be, I felt bad. I felt especially bad because she and I had had a recent casual chat about whether she and her partner might be thinking about a baby in the not too distant future.  That she now knew might not exist. The future I mean.

 Fast forward to April. Look, I don't want to bring anyone else down, but so far 2019 has been the worst year of my life. Well, the worst since I was a spotty, self-harming 13-year-old who thought she would never be loved. It's been bad for a lot of important, geo-political reasons, but what’s come on top of that and impacted me more than anything else in real terms has been poor health. It's true what they say to people who are having hard times – "At least you've got your health!!" – because without it literally everything else ceases to be enjoyable. I mean, I always used to say that as long as I had good food (and traditionally for me that's almost any food), books to read, and a notebook, I could be happy. But five weeks of nausea, fatigue and headaches have made all three of those almost impossible to enjoy.

I'm sure it is possible to be sick and happy. I've seen many inspirational stories of people way worse off than me who manage it. But this particular bout has come at a really bad time. For one thing, my dog is sick too. For a few weeks we thought it was cancer, but it turns out he just needs to have his hip replaced. This will be horrible for him (8 weeks of crated rest), and it has meant that for now and for months to come I've lost my incentive to get out and do the bit of spirit-lifting exercise that walking him made me do. Plus, I just feel bad for him. He's such a jolly, happy-go-lucky chap, and his near future is now going to be bafflingly uncomfortable and dull. I won't be able to explain to him that it's temporary, that by the end of July he can kiss that crate good-bye forever…I will just have to face his sad eyes every day as I keep him from everything he loves.

Being stuck at home without the energy to read or eat has also left me far too much time to stew about the state of my adopted country, the UK. I loved it here. I loved the history, of influence beyond physical size, of stubborn wrongheadedness that still, often, arrived at the right decision eventually, of four distinct countries uneasily joined into one nation. I loved the culture, which created people, I thought, with just the right mix of outward polite mistrustfulness and cynicism and inward loyalty, tolerance, and courage. And I loved the countryside. The trees, the light, the flowers, the thatched cottages. The whole shebang.

As far as I can see though, that's all yesterday's news. In divorcing Europe, in favour of our old flames the US and other former colonies (who, frankly, are so over us), we have lost the respect of the entire world. This is one wrongheaded decision that we seem determined not to overcome, and it's led to a breakdown of tolerance and civility on both sides of the divide. It seems reasonably likely to lead to the breakup of the UK. And meanwhile, as the news and the time and attention of the public and the politicians is sucked endlessly into the Brexit vacuum, our precious countryside is being sacrificed, hedge by hedge, verge by verge, wood by wood, meadow by meadow, to an ethics that puts economic "growth" ahead of every other consideration. Fun times.

Stuck at home. Of course, unlike invalids of yore, I have some windows on the world. Specifically, social media, YouTube, and the web. But due, I guess, to the clever algorithms by which these tools force feed my face, those windows have grown increasingly dark, vile, and terrifying. How I wish I could erase my on-line identity, pretend I'd never heard of Trump, climate change, or insectageddon, and subscribe exclusively to feeds about Seinfeld, West End Musicals and baking. Who knows where those might lead me? A Julia Louis-Dreyfus style guide? Sing-along-a-La Cage aux Folles? Grow your own brownies? What do other folks get fed?

Because until recently, as my experience with my improv friend revealed, other people – shall we call them normal people? – weren't seeing the shit I've been seeing. And another, big part of my recent woe is due to the – little white face – worry that normal people are getting smacked by reality a bit too quickly recently. The Extinction Rebellion and Youth Strike 4 Climate movements seem to be succeeding beyond my wildest dreams in getting the reality of climate change in the news and on the political agenda. And I know, from personal experience, that once you start discovering the probable future that awaits us and our children and, good lord, our poor grandchildren, not to mention the bears, the bats, the badgers, and every other living creature on the planet, the foundations of your world will totter. As Naomi Klein so eloquently put it, This Changes Everything, and the point at which you find yourself seeing an advert for Easyjet or the Moroccan Grand Prix or frigging McDonald's and feeling physically sick is the point of no return. Life as you knew it is over. Change is coming, one way or another, and it will be soon and it probably won't be pretty.

Fatigue. Lethargy. They really suck the motivation right out of you. And the more you sit, stewing in your hole, the more paranoid and hateful and angry you feel. Paranoid, hateful, angry…and ashamed. Because now that everything has changed, I’m having to question every value I lived by. Strive for learning and advanced thought? Why? It’s the so-called “uneducated” indigenous peoples of the world who knew how to take care of it. Have a useful career? What for? I’d have been better off composting and learning how to bottle tomatoes. Better myself? What’s the good of that, in the face of what’s coming for all of us, and the ugly fact that through sheer luck I was born in the place and with the parents that mean I got to live a life where bettering myself was possible, and may continue to be for a time, while others are pitchforked into starvation and homelessness. Help others? I don’t know how to build compost toilets or grow large crops of organic veg or develop community energy schemes, and I’m in indifferent health. How? Bloody how?

It’s ugly. And you know what really sucks? Now, looking out through my grimy windows, almost all I can see are scared, shamed and ugly faces like mine.

But heck. Maybe I'm more like Fred, my dog, than I think. Maybe, like him, I can at least continue to be a loving heart. I can be there for those around me, glad to be alive for as long as I am alive, living simply, doing my best to do what I’m told and be…good. It’s possible that my time in the crate is almost up, the door's about to open, and there are beautiful days to come. I might think of something useful I can do. You never know, right?

What are YOU giving up?

by Michelle Golder

Yes, you. You may have noticed; the world is facing an existential threat called climate change. It's the dragons and the white walkers together from Game of Thrones. It's the death star zeroing in on our planet. It's Sauron, reborn, with ten thousand benighted Saruman's (Sarumen?) carrying out his apocalyptic agenda. This is real, it's happening now, and you, since you're reading this, are probably a hobbit (the wizards are busy magicking up new renewable technologies and trying to re-invent nuclear). That is, you're a mostly harmless and well-intentioned person, but you feel small and helpless in the face of a scary and confusing problem. You don't want to be a hero, you feel ill-equipped and unready, and if you're honest you've been trying not to think about it, but you're starting to realise you really don't have a choice. It was your fate to be around at this crisis point in human history.  As in all the best stories, the path has chosen you. Your job is to travel it with a good heart.

Thousands of people are already trying, in lots of different ways.  To give one small example, I belong to a group called Zero Waste Heroes, set up in the UK by Rachelle Strauss. Their goal is to aim for a zero-waste life, and some determined souls take it as far as “family cloth” toilet hygiene (yay them?)

Many of the members though, including me, are nowhere near that level of zero-wastiness. Still, everyone in the group has made steps to reduce their consumption of the energy and goods (because unless it grew in your back garden it cost fossil energy to make) which are destroying our world.  I've given up flying, and significantly lessened my use of single-use plastic, factory-produced foods, meat and dairy, cleaning stuff and hygiene products, like fabric softener, hair conditioner and anti-perspirant (who knew? I never needed them).  I switched to a green energy supplier, guard the thermostat beadily, wash clothes in lower temps, and take fewer and shorter showers.

I'm not looking for kudos. Through sheer luck, I was born into one of the two regions (USA and Europe) which have contributed almost 50% of the atmospheric carbon currently blanketing the planet. If you’re now saying, wait, China, remember that carbon dioxide lasts at least a hundred years in the atmosphere. Though China is currently the biggest single emitter, due to its large population and rapid industrialisation, we started spewing fossil fuels a long time ago. Worse, the US still emits on average more per person than almost any other country, thanks to big houses, big cars, big office spaces, and an addiction to factory produced foods including way too much meat.

Given what we’re up against, my little sacrifices are clearly not enough.  Which is why I felt so peculiarly sad when I saw the example of this young couple, with their impressively meagre 30 days of waste.

Marcel and Blanca with all the waste they produced in 30 days. Picture used with their permission.

They tell me this wasn’t a sacrifice, it’s their normal routine, and saves them time and money, and I know that’s true, because anti-perspirant is freaking expensive. But there are other worlds of heroism they and their little piles represent. Worlds of beautiful, young faces, radiating kindness and resignation, who don’t know if they should have children, even if they want to. Who devote their free time, as these two do, to organising for systemic change. Whose "hope" for the future is that there is one. What more are they going to have to give up, years after my generation is gone? That’s what makes me sad.

Sigh.

But, the road goes on, and we were talking about you. I'll be honest, the title of this post is clickbait, because I don't really care what you're giving up right now. I’m sure you are doing your bit, but the truth is, it's what you and I are prepared to support in the near future that's really going to make a difference. Groups like the Extinction Rebellion and the UK Green Party and America's Green New Deal and many others around the world are gathering popular support and demanding political action and very soon, I hope, you and I are going to be asked a big question. That question is going to involve, in some form or another, a complete revolution of our economic system. It will involve a vote. It may involve changing your job or the way you do business. It will almost certainly cost you money and time. It will probably require a lot of additional and unfamiliar work – including any or all of:  local food production; participating in community energy schemes; changing how we travel; or becoming involved in new forms of public decision making.

It will also demand a complete rethink of our notions of fairness and justice, both within and across nations. Because if the better off among us try to shrug away our own share of the burden, know what others will say to that question? No.

And it's essential that we all say yes. Yes to a new,  circular, regenerative economic system, where everything  produced can be repaired or completely recycled. Yes to a massive, fair, global investment in climate change mitigation and preparedness, include funding research into all the technologies and regenerative systems that can help us. Yes to valuing the natural world as it should be valued - as the source of all life, the weaver of the web we live in and on, our father and mother.  

The writer Mac Macartney recently visited Cambridge to talk about his book The Children's Fire, based upon an indigenous peoples' concept that decision making should focus on protecting the children to the seventh generation. "A civilization is doomed," Mac said, "when it stops caring about its children." If we say no to the changes our world needs, that’s just what we are doing. Telling our children, and our children’s children, that we just don’t care.

I can't tell you the shape of the future. We're all in the process of making it. My personal (thanks again, Tolkien) dream is something between the Shire and Rivendell – a world where birds, bugs, children and animals, wildflower meadows and mushroom scented forests, all co-exist with beautiful green cities where art and positive (like magic!) technology flourish. To get there, I believe, we have to pass through a difficult and painful transition, like the one women go through when giving birth. But I remember how I felt when I'd passed through that transition and held my only child in my arms. I'd have done anything to protect him. So I’ll tell you what I’m not giving up. Hope.

You?

10 Ways Tackling Climate Change will Make Your Life Better

Last night I attended a great, packed meeting with three inspiring speakers and one clear message: the problem of climate change is looming faster and more dangerously than ever. Our planet is in the condition of a gravely sick patient.  It's too hot, its circulatory systems are full of toxins and its bloodcells - plants and animals - are dying off in droves. Unfortunately, the vector for this disease is us - humanity.

The planet's immune system is kicking in, with storms, sea surges and droughts threatening almost everywhere. The consequences are terrifying, but the fear doesn't seem to be working - the UK government has just made inexplicable cuts in renewable energy resourcing while at the same time reducing tax for the oil and gas industry, while the average person continues to stick their head in the sand and carry on as if nothing was happening.

But it doesn't have to be this way. We do know what we need to do to tackle climate change, and step one is revolutionising our economies. And you know what? That will lead to all sorts of amazing and exciting things that we can all look forward to. So here's my go at listing 10 fantastic results that will follow from taking on climate change.

1) It will restore huge parts of the earth to a state of beauty and peace we can all enjoy

It turns out, planting forests, restoring wetlands and fenlands, cleaning rivers and lakes, and protecting the ocean, are just what we need to do to prevent further climate change. These are the planet's vital organs and given the chance and a bit of time they will heal the damage done. Too much carbon in the atmosphere? Give that job to the trees and bogs, which pull carbon out of the air and fix it in their tissues. We could make the world like we imagine Eden to be again. Green, quiet, teeming with life. And wouldn't that be cool?

2) It will make the earth into a giant wild animal park

Well, maybe not exactly. But if we get number 1 right, it turns out that will encourage all forms of life. Imagine going to your local wetland, forest or rewilded meadow - and everyone will have one of those, because we can make little havens even in the middle of cities - and spotting critters like otters, kingfishers, foxes, hawks and butterflies by the score.  We might even get some species that have died out back - imagine if lynx, elk, beavers, maybe even wolves - once again roamed the UK!

3) It will make the world more equal

One of the problems of our current economic system is that it relies on a widely spread-out method of making stuff. Raw materials are bought cheaply from one place, shipped to another and with huge amounts of energy changed into processed materials, which are then shipped elsewhere (more energy lost) to be made into parts, which then go to a new place, and even the eventual finished product is often sent elsewhere for packaging before it's finally shipped and trucked to its point of sale. This wasteful process has allowed businesses to shop across the globe for the cheapest labour they can find, and that's resulted in economic disaster for many communities.

What's more, that labour is often cheap because the people involved live in unregulated societies - societies that have not yet solved the problem of protecting workers or the environment. So by exporting labour, companies move their manufacture to places where they are freer to pollute. And that's not good.

Once we tackle this problem though - and there are lots of ideas on the table for that - it will create new jobs in ALL communities. We'll have new, more localised ways of making stuff that give more people meaningful work and control over production. Big companies won't be as free to make money hand over fist without any regulation and the rest of us willl be much better off.

4) We'll be healthier

Pollution is deadly. Air pollution is one of the biggest killers in the world, and water pollution is just as bad. But it's not just those that will be better once we tackle climate change. We'll also need to change the way we eat. We'll all eat less meat, and no factory farmed meat or dairy, cause, sorry folks, those are some of the biggest contributors to climate change. Funnily enough, though, eating more veg, and healthy proteins like beans and pulses, nuts and mushrooms, is just what the doctor ordered for reducing rates of cancer, heart disease, and scads of other conditions. And the added bonus here will be:

5) Fewer domestic animals will suffer

We need to face the ugly facts. Factory farming and many other commercial farming practises are cruel. Someday we will look back at the things that were done to domestic animals like cows, sheep, pigs and chicken and be as shocked as we are now at medieval torture or burning at the stake. We'll never eliminate all suffering, for humans or animals. But revising the way we produce food will help an awful lot.

6) There will be lots of amazing new technologies

Renewable energy technologies like solar and wind power are improving almost every day. And that's going to drive prices down down down! So, in the long run, power will be cheap, and beautiful (I just don't understand people who don't like a windmill), and quiet, and fun and timesaving (no more battery changes once little solar panels are on all electronics) and clean. What's not to like? 

And that's not all! Technology can potentially help us produce more organic food, or grow building materials or even electronic devices in our back gardens. And transport? Imagine no lorries on the roads - they've all been replaced by giant, silent airships that can transport massive payloads for relatively tiny amounts of energy.

7) We'll be more connected with our communities

One of the most exciting ideas I've come across is the Circular Economy, which is beautifully described by the Ellen Macarthur Foundation here: www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circular-economy

A circular economy is based on the idea that we reduce waste to zero. Everything that's made is either re-used, repurposed, repaired or recycled. How do we do that? For one thing we expand on things that are already starting to happen. Heard of Repair Cafes? They're get-togethers where you bring your broken toaster or laptop or trousers with a broken zipper and some local genius fixes them for you. For free. The idea is that at some other time you might share a skill or some goods of your own. Can you help someone make a website? Cook cupcakes? Learn a language?  Join the sharing economy and start reaping the benefits. **

8) We'll be fitter

I actually think the bicycle is one of the most amazing inventions humanity has ever come up with. They make you fit and burn calories! They're fast! They're quiet! They can be made inexpensively, or tricked out to become ultra-hi-tec wonder machines. They come in shapes and sizes to fit everybody, of almost every degree of ability. Bicycle cargo innovation keeps getting better and better. And you can make them from bamboo!

And don't even get me started on the mental health benefits. The carbon neutral world of the future is going to be full of gorgeous people on gorgeous bikes and personally I can't wait.

9) We'll be happier

Folks, we got sold down the river. Too many of us have become wage slaves, tied to mountainous debt we've taken on to buy expensive junk we don't need and that isn't making our lives better. Just by buying less stuff, and being part of a new culture that doesn't value somebody by their car or their bling or their taste in handbags, we're going to resdiscover all the beautiful things that humanity is so good at. Like conversation. Storytelling. Music and dancing. Creativity. Togetherness. Growing stuff. Falling in love.

10) We'll reduce conflict

Global warming is not going to hit all the places on the earth equally. But it's wrong to think that places like the UK, which may find its growing season extended and enjoy warmer summers, have therefore dodged a bullet. It's the countries which currently have the least developed infrastructure and in many cases some of the world's biggest populations that will be worst hit, and if you think we have a refugee problem now imagine what it's going to be like if somewhere like Bangladesh becomes unlivable. And the conflict that outcomes like that will cause is already rearing its head and is not going to wait for the worst effects to escalate. So if we want to avoid war, and all the unimaginable horror that goes with it, we need to act now. For a more equal world. A more beautiful world. A new world.

Guys, I could go on. There are many other benefits to tackling climate change. But we won't see them unless we all make the commitment to change NOW. Commitment to pressuring our governments to make zero carbon now policies, to start big, positive conservation programmes for our forests and wetlands and oceans. Personal commitment to eating less meat and NO meat that isn't sustainable, to using renewable energy where possible, to reducing our consumption and eliminating waste. Commitment at our workplaces and social places to speaking up about what's going on and how we all have to be on board.

Be brave. We had the good fortune to be alive at a time of revolution. Our lives, and what we do with them, really do matter.

Michelle Golder, Pivotal Director and Ordinary Person

** Other ways the circular economy is happening:

• Swishing groups - people get together to swap clothes.
• Toy, tool or sports libraries - you don't really need the drill. You just need the hole. So why does everybody on your street need to buy a drill? Community resource libraries will save people money (see number 3, above) while saving the planet.
• Find out more about Cambridge's own Circular Economy here: circularcambridge.org/

A message from Steve Waters

Steve Waters joins Pivotal on the 8th December at Cambridge Junction with his monologue, In a Vulnerable Place, and in conversation with Dr David Sneath. Here Steve explains how that monologue came about and about the "wicked problem" of climate change -

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Six years ago I wrote a duo of plays about climate change  called ‘The Contingency Plan’ which debuted in the year the world met in Copenhagen to – as it turned out – fail to reach substantial agreement on reining in global carbon dioxide emissions.  Now as COP 21 is convened in Paris to address that unfinished task, I’ve too returned to re-examine these questions in my show ‘In a vulnerable place’.

 In the intervening time there’s been a raft of plays ‘about climate change’.  I don’t especially like that phrase as it feels ludicrous, a bit like saying ‘this play is about capitalism’ or that play is ‘about life’. Climate change, however we talk about it, is far too complex and multifarious to be spoken about as if it were an issue.   Perhaps that’s why it interests me; it’s what the philosophers call a ‘wicked problem’, defying definition and simple solution.  It can’t be voted away or solved by decree.  It is happening whoever sits in Westminster.   It can be made a hell of a lot worse, of course – and George Osborne leads in that respect if in none other.

That’s one reason I’ve returned to it in this monologue.  I realised my capacity to think about this new reality was waning.  Playwrights are in some ways condemned to superficiality on the questions they engage with; nobody wants to be a one-trick pony banging on again and again about their pet concern.  And yet I started to wonder whether there could be a more precise way of thinking about it which might merge activism and writing; whether it was time to look again at where we can detect this elusive reality in the lives and landscapes around us.

The new urgency comes from my sense of the rapidly worsening state of the natural world, a feeling compounded by a joint report by all the major UK wildlife charities, ‘State of Nature’, two years ago, which suggested even these sceptred isles are losing species at a terrifying rate.  Then I met some anthropologists, such as David Sneath who were working on the experience of environmental change in this country and in madly exotic sounding locales: Alaska, Tibet, Mongolia.  And I got embroiled in a controversy in one of our less well known national parks, the Broads in Norfolk.    I found myself within a story, a story this time I didn’t feel required the veil of fiction – a story I wanted to talk to audiences about, in my own person. 

I’m well aware a one-man show in Cambridge or anywhere else is hardly likely to make a dent on what takes place in Paris.  Yet, as the Pivotal festival suggests, a network of artists and activists can create a kind of public space away from the heavily policed conference chambers where we can stare down this future that’s heading towards us and forge our own way forwards.  In 2009 this felt like a lonely task – now there’s many more of us and whatever the politicians achieve, for me that’s a result.

Steve Waters, 2015

Pivotal - the first turn of the wheel

Pivotal began when environmental scientist Peter Daldorph loaned me his copy of Gwynne Dyer's 2008 book, Climate Wars. I think he felt bad about it afterward. The book had upset him, and it upset me too. It's a work of speculation, by a well-respected military historian and journalist, based on both the science, and interviews with world military and political leaders.

In a style as gripping as any spy novel, Dyer presents a number of possible future scenarios - and all but one are ghastly to contemplate. Unfortunately, the one that isn't - the one where the world's leaders, right now, agree that the threat is imminent and we must take immediate action to drastically reduce carbon emissions - is the one he also thinks is the least likely. There just isn't the will, the economic implications are too dire, we all have to agree, and so on, and so forth, to the end of the world, amen.

To a person like me, who lives almost entirely in a world of imagination, the book created a very vivid and unforgettable picture. But it didn't, for me, lead to further action - it just made me depressed. I'm a nature lover, and a humanist, I recycle, buy organic, and take the bus if possible, but what more substantive action could I take? The book's focus was very much on world leadership as the solution to the problem. And this was before the sweeping Jeremy Corbyn Labour leadership victory here in the UK (at this writing it is one day post that victory). Democracy really wasn't seeming up to the task.

“Gwynne Dyer is one of the few who are both courageous enough to tell the unvarnished truth, and have the background to understand, not misrepresent the inputs. This book does a superb job of detailing the emerging realities of Climate/Energy. These realities are not pretty.”

— --Dennis Bushnell, Chief Scientist at NASA

"If you think Dyer's bad," Peter said, "you should read Naomi Klein." But it turned out that Naomi Klein was "bad" in an entirely different way. Klein too starts from the position that climate change is happening and must be stopped or slowed or we face dire consequences for the planet and for humanity. But she makes a compelling argument as to why the world's worst offenders have failed to act, linking it to the neo-liberal agenda of privatisation, globalisation and free trade, and pointing out that it is those same policies which have led to increased global and internal inequality.

For me, this put the whole question in a new light. Now, I saw,"winning" the battle against carbon was not necessarily going to result in a depressed and depressing world in which the middle and working classes would suffer the most and the growing economies of the developing world would be stopped in their tracks. Winning this battle could also mean winning a battle against inequality. It could, eventually, mean a better life and a better world for nearly everyone (at least those for whom it's not already too late. I'm thinking of the polar bears now). And this was a world I could imagine without pain. Indeed, it was - potentially - beautiful.

But not everyone is going to want to read a radical book by Naomi Klein.

So what could I, a sometime scriptwriter and filmmaker, without any following or funding, without any skills in permaculture, or organic farming, or politics, or anything much except in creating events,  and those mostly for the sake of pure entertainment, what could I, and my friend Peter, do to get that positive vision across and make it real? To help ourselves and others turn and face the changes that are coming, one way or another, in a positive way?

And that's when I discovered Cape Farewell, and ArtCOP21, and their call for satellite events. And Pivotal was conceived.

This Post is by Michelle Golder