Spring is in the air, the flowers are blooming but love is maybe a tad more complicated than pollination…
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I cannot think of anything in my lifetime that is comparable to the events that I have witnessed and been a part of last week and into this week with the Extinction Rebellion’s shutdown of London. I tried to return to normality this week both in my posts and in my everyday life but it has been hard because everything feels different and I now know we will have to keep up this fight to have a chance in hell of instigating genuine systematic change. We cannot carry on the way we have been and we cannot go backwards. The only path ahead that is not a dead end for our species is one where we alter everything we do and the only way we can do that is, not by individual choice, which will only get us so far, but by the Governments of this world acknowledging the climate emergency and telling the truth of the severity of the problem to its citizens before instigating a genuine assault on our collective carbon footprint.
In all honesty its pretty scary stuff but there is no longer time to switch off. In the words of Greta Thunberg: I want you to panic. But that is not to freak out and hide with our head in the sands. It is so we can act accordingly and join together to demand a different world that future gens will be able to live in. And I know it feels impossible when you consider how and what we consume and what resistance there will be but to do nothing seems more impossible to me. We must replace anxiety with action. We must tackle this head on.
As a species we are the most resourceful and adaptable and intelligent beings to ever walk this Earth, why now, when we have wrestled and conquered every adversity we have ever encountered along our way, are we now ready to just lay down and be defeated? It is out inability to give up that has got us this far, why not use it to go the distance?
Despite trying to show a return to everyday existence in my selected photographs this week (and give you a mini break from the rebellion) I ended up choosing shots of concerned and troubled looking individuals. They are from all walks of life as wanted to highlight that this will affect everyone no matter what. The rebellion against a society driven by profit over people is a movement that goes beyond race, religion and politics. You might convince yourself that the XR aren’t your ‘sort of people’ or you don’t agree with their methods but that is not a reason not to join as long as you agree something must be done. And you don’t have to be arrested to be a part of this. There are many other ways to get involved…
On May 24th they are organising a general strike to show solidarity with the youth strike movement. That is something we can all do. As commendable as the pupil’s actions have been we all know that kids should not be having to deal with this at all. They should be at school and studying so they can have a good life ahead of them. But they aren’t because they know this is urgent and needs to be dealt with otherwise they won’t have one. Are we really going to stand back as adults and let them get on with it? We need to all join them and all strike together. Go to your colleagues and your employers and discuss how important this is and how you must all get involved. In this society, we try to protect kids from so many things which we think are detrimental to their lives yet for some inexplicable reason, not from the one thing that is a genuine threat to their existence and ours. Let’s change that now…strike on May 24th and let’s make this is a rebellion that includes everyone!
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#MYLDN (1260) – EXTINCTION REBELLION LONDON SHUTDOWN (PT 4)
XR YOUTH
The XR youth, as the junior division of the Rebellion are known, took over Piccadilly Circus and made their presence and their feelings known. Out of all the different sections of the XR, seeing the youth galvanise and join the fight has been the most heartening, and in some ways, the most depressing aspect of the protest as they really shouldn’t have to. They are just kids but they can clearly see that the grown ups are not doing what is necessary to fix this ever-worsening situation. They now see they must take action themselves and have no alternative but to try everything they can to convince them otherwise. From the youth strikes started by Greta Thunberg to the kids in the U.S who begged Senators to sign the Green New Deal to the very determined kids of the XR, they must all be terrified for the future that potentially awaits them and probably can’t understand why nothing is being done to solve it. They are the future, the least we can do is give them one.
My generation and previous ones inherited a working planet with an atmosphere, temperature and weather system that meant we could breathe and eat food and drink water. The least we can do is pass these very basic but very essential requirements of existence onto them and ensure that life on earth can continue for future generations beyond them. If no action is taken they will not have this. It is not a given. A total lack of response will mean all these elements which are essential for living will disappear. But they are not taking it lying down (except when the flashmob above descended on H&M – see above). They are going to fight. And we must support them and encourage them so that there actions might sway the leaders of this world to take this seriously and stop cow tailing to companies who do nothing but pollute the fuck out of this planet which will ultimately render it uninhabitable.
If you think they shouldn’t be involved in civil disobedience and it is irresponsible to let them, then maybe you can think of and propose an alternative…this shutdown of London and everything the XR are doing is to bring climate change to the forefront of conversation and to get the media to report the severity of the situation and to inform the public of the real threat. In this respect, the movement has already succeeded incredibly in achieving that goal. People are now finally talking about it. This is not about disruption, this is about education and we need to let everyone know how bad it really is so at least with the knowledge they have a choice whether to join the fight or not…
This is now Day 5 and the rebellion it still going strong. The politicians and the media are clambering for the police to disband the bloackades and the protests so that this can end but if the Government just listened and responded to their demands then all this would end immediately. All they are trying to do is create a conversation that will lead to the solutions that will hopefully save us…
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WATERLOO BRIDGE – ACT NOW!
It is quite incredible to walk down Waterloo Bridge in the middle of the day with no traffic. You can actually breathe the air and not feel like you are choking so the occupation of this major thoroughfare (same for oxford street) demonstrates perfectly how chronically bad the air pollution is in this city and how we urgently need to remove fossil fuel vehicle fumes from our lives. It is even more amazing to see this bridge adorned with trees and pot plants. The Green rebelution is truly under way…
The occupation of Waterloo Bridge by The Extinction Rebellion has survived another night despite a lot more arrests. Me and Mrs Romero were there last night and the police were swooping in on random individuals amongst the crowd and telling them they have to leave within 2 minutes or they will be taken away. We were approached by policemen and told exactly that. Under Article 14, we have the right to remove you…blah, blah, blah…we chose not to get arrested and had to leave the bridge. For me, I didn’t want to be taken away because it would mean I wouldn’t be able to document anymore and I think I can make a much greater contribution to this cause doing that than by being in jail.
For those that refused to move, they were carted off and put in the waiting police vans as the crowd cheered and chanted “We love you! We love you!” to each and every person that was arrested and carried off. I have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for every single individual that has and is willing to be arrested by the police for this cause. It is the most selfless act anyone could do.
You might have been reading about this in the news and you think you might not agree with these methods but this is all we are left with as all other alternatives have failed. These people do not want to be arrested. They are just willing to do what is necessary to try and illicit the change in our society that is needed for society to continue. If you live in London and have been affected but the disruption you must realise that not a single person involved wants to be doing this. And as soon as the government starts to implement measures to combat the devastating consequences of climate change this all ends. The XR are not a thing in itself, they are just a means to an end.
The right wing press have brandished this a far left movement but it is way beyond politics. These are just humans screaming out for the establishment to actually deal with the situation with the seriousness and severity required. What I think this movement represents is a need for us no longer to think of our own personal concerns, desires and ambitions. To survive we have to kill the cult of the individual that has separated us all and made a lot of people miserable in the process. We are pitted against each other in an endless battle of status competition focussed on how well we are doing in society rather than how society is doing as a whole. To have a chance in hell we must now all work for the greater good, to go fowards as a community and change what needs to be changed, to fix what we have broken and to pave a path for future generations rather than taking them down an ecological dead end to disaster.
Waterloo bridge has been occupied under the banner “Act Now” and is probably the most pertinent statement of all. As I keep saying the time for ignoring this is over. We cannot carry on as we have been. Delay has cost us dearly already. We cannot shunt this anymore. We have to put everything else on the back burner. But this is not about individual acts of conservation. Our own personal choices will not make a difference. This has to be implemented from the top down. The leaders of the world must step up and do what is necessary and do what is right and we will comply. There is no other way.
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And so concludes this spatial sci-fi week of shots, from the fake, to the surreal, to the po-litical to the tenuous, all photos have just about clung on to the theme in question. As for the above, I must confess, it is not a real alien. It is a window display’s impression of what an alien might look like. What are the chances of a creature from outer space actually looking like that? Probably slim. What are the chances of there being creatures from outer space full stop? Its a very big area that has been around for a very long time so chances are actually very high. Will we ever meet them? No, chances are extremely low. Not only would we need to be relatively close to them, in universal terms, we would also need to exist within the same time frame as them as well and the chances of these two factors converging in a gargantuan space spread over billions of years is microscopically low.
The Fermi Paradox explores another angle, which is that intelligent civilisations will destroy themselves just as they would be reaching capacity for interstellar travel and that is a possibility that might relate to the developments occurring on our own little planet Earth right now. If you want a glimpse into what life on earth might be in the future watch Wall-E. The human race ends up filling up the planet with garbage and relocating to the stars. First bit check. Second bit, not so much. In the film Gravity, the opening line is: “In space, life is impossible”. And it really is. Despite what movies will tell you, colonies on other planets is an incredibly difficult thing to achieve. Think about how much the H2 fast train is costing to get from London to Birmingham. Its in the billions. We can’t even afford to keep our youth clubs going in this country. What chance have we got to fund interplanetary travel?
We have seriously taken for granted that a breathable atmosphere with a temperature that is conducive to our species is a given but as the effects of climate change take hold of this delicate eco-system we live in and are apart of , we see that it is anything but. It will be up to us to try to undo what has been done and prevent this living organism spinning through space from shaking us off like a bad cold.
I look up at the stars, well not in London obviously, you can’t see shit, but i have some luminous ones stuck to the ceiling of my bedroom, and I look up at them and I don’t really care what aliens would look like, but I do wonder if they are fucking up their habitat and destroying everything same as us. Are they arguing and fighting and waging wars or are they at one with themselves, each other and the Universe? If it is just us, and we are making a mess of the only place that holds life in our galaxy and in the other hundreds of billions of galaxies as well, that is truly a horrendous thought. I just hope there are some species, somewhere up there, doing a better job because if we are the guardians and sole providers of existence in a sea of darkness that would be really tragic because we are clearly not cut out to do it successfully. For all our advancement and technological creations we can’t live sustainably which means we are not evolved at all. We are actually less evolved than our ancestors because they were at least able to do that.
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Fork lift truck evolves and acquires consciousness. First act of artificial intelligence? Pose for a selfie. The human race might have nothing to fear after all…
Pareidolia is the scientific name for seeing faces in things that don’t have them. It is a condition I have. Apparently the brain is hardwired to see faces above everything else as we are social animals that require the process of facial recognition and comprehension to survive in the group so no wonder there is a bit of spill over. Apparently even babies can recognise faces in the womb. Article here if you don’t believe me…
I actually follow two Insta accounts that document this phenomena ( @pareidoliapic and @iseefacesinthestrangestofplaces if you are interested but there are tons more) and its like watching a Pixar version of the universe. Every inanimate object they show has its own little personality, just like the little fellah in this photograph. My only real question is, am I just seeing it or was it intentional? I look at the vehicle in this shot and I can only see the face. I see nothing else. So did the person who designed it do it on purpose? That we will never know.
This is a bit of a stretch on the space theme but it does look like a robot to me. If you aren’t happy with the inclusion please contact the Theme Police…
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Angry and frustrated by the relentless nonsense masquerading as democracy, the Maybot’s circuits heated up so much they melted her skin suit, revealing to the House her true form. Realising she was in fact an intelligent killing machine hellbent on human destruction the MPs duly agreed to back her deal. As she declared death to our species they cowered in fear and begged for mercy and she realised that she should have probably done this a long time ago. Bolstered by the success of this tactic, Maybot now plans to continue with her domination of our race and bring about Earthxit. You have been warned.
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And just to clarify, yesterday’s pic was an April fool’s joke. The photo was real but the planet was not. The shot was taken at the Despacio Sound System at the Roundhouse and they had a bunch of planets made as mobile decorations that hung above the dancefloor as part of their space theme disco and that was one of ’em so there you go. Full ‘fess up!
And to follow on with this spacey theme, here is a photograph of someone who looks like he came from outer space, and might see if I can continue this angle for the whole week…
In reference to this gentleman, I have seen him on one other occasion, years ago and got a shot of him then and he was wearing exactly the same glasses so I can only assume that he never goes out in anything else which makes me believe maybe he is a visitor from beyond…no joke.
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