Ed. note: This post is an excerpt from the book Any Human Power, (pp. 447-449), Kindle Edition, by Manda Scott and published by September Publishing.
Leah said, ‘Let’s spell this out. Our entire culture is addicted to fossil fuels and it’s destroying not just us, but the entire planet. We’ve burned more oil since 1995 than the whole of the rest of human history, and the whole “net zero” thing is the most monumental greenwash.
‘But it’s not all about the carbon. There are Forever Chemicals in the rain, and microplastics in the clouds, dead zones in the oceans and mines you can see from space that are polluting whole continents as we try to dig up enough minerals to keep the wheels of consumption turning.
‘Our politicians tell us we live in a democracy when what we have is a kleptocracy devoted to finding ever-better ways to monetise the apocalypse, and yes, we all know things are bad. There is not a single person on the planet who thinks that we’re on our way to a better world. What we argue about are the ways to fix it. You’d think it was obvious, but let me spell this out, too: cutting taxes on the ultra-rich isn’t going to help anyone heat their homes, or pay for good, nutritious food in a world where the seasons are beginning to break down. ‘Rounding up everyone whose skin isn’t white—’ her gesture swept from herself to the few in the audience who fitted this— ‘and weaponising infantile culture wars isn’t going to suck the carbon out of the air or make the water safe to drink.
‘Did you know there are now dozens of toxic chemicals in women’s breast milk? It’s still the best possible food for new-born infants, but we have no idea what this is doing to them. Nobody does.
‘Locking up protestors while you drill for more oil isn’t going to stop the epidemic of depression and suicide or heal a health service that has become a sickness service because we live in a system designed to make the rich richer and keep the poor running like hamsters to do work that’s never going to pay the bills. We were not born to pay bills and then die. You know this. I know this.
‘So why do we let the system keep us running on a treadmill that everyone hates? ‘I’ll tell you: we do it because nobody’s ever asked us what we really want.’ She raised her head to stare straight into the big lens of the central camera. ‘What do you want?’ She answered her own question. ‘I think at heart, everyone wants to wake up in the morning and feel safe. We want to look forward to the day without having to worry about whether there’s enough to eat, or our job’s just been axed, or the cost of heating has just tripled again, or some dictator with abandonment issues is about to nuke another dictator to prove their virility and tip us over the edge into a global war nobody can win.
‘We want to wake up and feel that we’re useful, that we’re leaving the world a better place for our children and their children. I hate feeling that I’m making everything worse because I’m locked in a system I can’t change, that’s destroying the world I love. I want to feel that I can do what I’m good at and be valued for it. We all do. Human creativity is absolutely f-ing amazing. There are people all round this country – the whole world – with ideas that could make things better if we could just agree that we all want to be safe, to be respected, to be loved, and then work out how to get from where we are to where we want to be.
‘Now is the time and we are the people. We’re being pushed over the edge of extinction by people who don’t get it and don’t care and we—’ she surged to her feet— ‘we are better than this.’ A hand slammed hard with each word. ‘So let’s bring the best of ourselves to the table, agree where we want to go and find ways to make it happen. Thank you.’
