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I have featured old people in this week’s posts as they are the only generation alive that will not witness the debilitating effect  climate change will have on this planet’s ability to make life habitable for humans. This is because they will be dead. Lucky them. When death becomes a good option you know you’re in trouble..

Too dramatic? Too depressing? Stay with me. Please. If you are already switching off because you can’t face reading this, please do everything you can to override your brain’s natural preference to turn away from calamitous news – its a defence mechanism which, ironically, will cause our destruction if left unchecked. We simply can’t ignore this anymore. So, just say to your brain..dear brain, (maybe you don’t need to be so formal) Yo brain! (if u iz bit street) don’t switch off! We need to know what’s going on here. Stop looking for dopamine hits and try to pay attention, just for a lil bit then if you’re a good boy I’ll show you a notification..

And so we’re back in the room, back on the doom. Please proceed ahead…

This is no longer about future generations, this will affect everyone alive today who isn’t old. And even if this was to happen to generations beyond the ones already here why don’t we give a shit about the humans on this Earth 100 years, 200 years from now? Are we that self-centric? They are the grandkids of today’s grandkids – why would we not be concerned for them as well?

All the scientific predictions, even the alarmist ones, are falling way short of what we are already witnessing, namely the increased acceleration of the warming of the climate as the domino effects starts to take effect. And still nothing is being done about it. Not in any significant way whatsoever by anyone. Nothing that will remotely prevent what is definitely ahead….

And not wishing to burst your bubble, but recycling your milk cartons and giving up on plastic straws or signing a petition is not going to do it. Doing our bit is no longer enough. Our bit has to be bigger. Much much bigger. So big you couldn’t even call it a bit. You would have to call it a ‘lot’ instead. We need drastic action now and yet there is no sign of it from anyone in power anywhere in the world. So now what?

I went down to one of the Extinction Rebellion road blocks this week to join in and to see the effect it was having. I wanted to know if the public were supporting the cause. After contacting a few mobile numbers I eventually found a very small band of protestors lined up against the oncoming traffic at a major thoroughfare in West Kensington. Were they being cheered on and applauded for their actions? No. They were being met with was utter hostility and anger. From everyone that surrounded them.

Cars and lorries beeped their horns relentlessly at them, passersby shouted abuse at them. Onlookers loathed them for what they were doing and they weren’t even affected by it. And all they were doing was stopping traffic for 7 minutes at a time and being very polite in the process. The police were actually the most cordial to them out of everyone present but they have worked out that what the Rebels want is to be arrested so they are doing anything but that.

I listened to some of the people standing around…

One guy said: “There are much more important issues than this right now”.

Ironically, there aren’t. Not one. This is the only thing that matters now and it seems to be the only thing that no-one is bothering to do anything about. Everything else needs to be shelved until we deal with this. It is not for tomorrow. It is for now. This is urgent. We are rapidly running out of time. If you are focussing on your career, your kids, your digital love or even supporting other causes, it will all be moot if we render large chunks of this planet uninhabitable. Everything we are focusing on right now will be irrelevant.

Another woman said: “they’re just disrespecting people and pissing them off. Its not these drivers fault. They should get the government to sort this out. I know it will take longer but this ain’t the way forward”

Maybe not, but they are only doing this because all other avenues have failed and there are no other options. Marching doesn’t work. Lobbying doesn’t work, petitions, celebrity campaigns, documentaries, decades of corroborated scientific research and yes, even writing about it, doesn’t work. The Rebels think that civil disobedience is all that is left and they might be right, but based on the amount of animosity they received from everyone around them, it’s going to be a seriously uphill struggle to get the people on their side. This movement has received a lot of support and has already succeeded in raising the issue and galvanising action and is making traction through the treacle of public paralysis but you can see how resistant and unwilling a lot of folk are to face up to the realities of this threat and seem to resent anyone who shoves it in their face. (guilty your honour)

The funny thing is we are all technically part of The Extinction Rebellion because we are all against extinction right? Its a given isn’t it so why isn’t it worth fighting for? And we should be supporting anyone who has got off their arse to try and deal with this shitstorm that is looming ever closer? And how can you really be in favour of inaction over action? We need to realise it is down to us and no-one else. There is no knight in shining armour coming to save us, no magic wand that will fix everything. No future bit of carbon capture tech is going to be invented in time that will save us. And interplanetary travel is just fiction folks. We ain’t ever getting off this spinning rock. Sorry.

And leaving it to our government as the woman suggested is not only an utter dead end but they are actively worsening the situation with fracking and the building of a 3rd runway at Heathrow. And just so we are all clear this is what green policies the Tories have abandoned, axed or removed funding for since they have been in power…

support for onshore wind

green home schemes

solar subsidies

green investment bank

incentives to buy green cars

zero carbon homes

green tax targets

tidal power

So why do we think they are going to fix the situation when everything that might potentially help they have ditched, given up on or sold off? I was pretty depressed at the reaction of the public to this protest. It very well might not change anything but this is last chance at the saloon to wake people up to what’s ahead and has been born out of utter desperation following the exhaustion of all other avenues. I’m sure everyone present would be rather doing anything  else than be relentlessly honked and shouted at but were there because we are now entering desperate times which require desperate measures.

The effects of climate change (fires/floods/droughts/desertification/pollution/mass species annihilation), which are already in full swing and already wrecking havoc and destruction are accelerating as domino effects of a warming climate come into play. This is not some apocalyptic sci-fi future we are talking about. This is right now. It is already here. And still we do nothing. What has to happen for us to wake up? How many need to die before we shake ourselves out of our slumber. Will it need to be millions? Billions? How many before we do something?

The only real way out of this mega shitstorm is to have strong governments in every country take the situation as seriously as is required and tell the public what needs to happen. Not dress it up so they don’t upset anyone. Just tell us what we can and cannot do anymore and we’ll just have to accept it. For example…

If they told us we couldn’t have petrol cars anymore, it would suck but we would get over it

If they told us we had to stop flying everywhere, it would suck but we would get over it

If they told us we couldn’t have meat 3 times a day anymore it would suck but surely we would get over it (being a smug 85% indoor vegan I am obvs ok with this one)

If they told us we couldn’t have  avocados in march, it would suck but surely we would get over it

If they told us to give up all our tech, all our comforts, all our toys…it would suck but what the fuck else can we do?

basically everything that makes our lives better and easier and more fun would have to be drastically reduced or given up completely…they would all have to go until we get this shit under control…yes, it would totally fucking suck to high heaven but I’m pretty sure existence of any kind is better than no existence at all. Would you rather be alive and not eating a burger or dead and not eating anything? Hmmmm….

(NB: I don’t actually know if avos need to be imported in march but you get the point, take any fruit or veg, find out when its hard to get and then imagine not having it during that period. Is it really that terrible?)

Whatever we would have to do without we would have to be ok with it, whatever is necessary, because the alternative is  longer an option. The alternative to all this is to wait and watch as we make this environment impossible for us to survive in. It took the earth billions of years to get to this stage where life can exist as it does. Do we want to remove this capability in under 200 years?

Is that what we want on our species tombstone? “Here lies homo sapien. Fucked life forever in a really short space of time…”

 

 

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SPOILER ALERT: Harsh facts and grim forecast only ahead…

Tough talk from the streets this week…feels like they’re trying to rile us up. As if we weren’t riled up enough..we maybe need a bit less rile in our lives or maybe we need more? These are a call to action. To shake us out of our apathy. It  feels we are sleepwalking along the path to doom, incapable or unwilling to deal with anything that the future might hold. We are really on just getting on in the hope that it will all go away. It won’t, and with this total lack of urgency or action…not a chance in hell, which is kinda where we’re heading if we maintain this ‘can’t deal with it’ attitude…

In London this week The “Extinction Rebellion’ , a new eco movement group  are mounting a series of protests trying to pressurise the energy dept of this country to start seriously implementing the policies that are essential to  stop us from heading into climate meltdown. Will they listen? 500 or so protestors are willing to get arrested for their actions. Will they pay attention? Unlikely. But what if it was 5,000? 50,000? 50 million? What if the entire country went down there? Would they do anything then?

Even with mounting public pressure it seems unlikely because they are already fully aware of the facts, they’re not stupid but they are corrupt. This accounts for the lack of any credible initiatives as they are essentially in the pockets of the oil industry and energy firms who, by the way, will never get out of the way whilst they have power and money; two things they have spent the last few decades stockpiling in abundance.

Last week, over in America, a bill designed to initiate the first big wave of environmental policy and bring in serious carbon taxes for all polluters was destroyed by the Fossil Fuel Fucks who pumped millions into lobbying and advertising to sway the minds of those that continue to be bought. We need to find a way to eliminate their stronghold on societies and governments all over the world and The Extinction Rebellion is maybe just what we need right now to shake things up a bit although honestly am not very hopeful.

I don’t wish to sound defeatist to the efficacy of  action as apathy is what has got us to this point in the first place but what we would need to do as a species is a gi-normous gargantuan and immediate unified effort. Every country across the entire globe would have to agree to radically change everything almost overnight and be 100% together in their commitment to removing all the activities that cause emissions. We would need total human harmony across the board. Which is clearly in abundance everywhere. Unfortunately as there doesn’t seem to be a country on the planet whose population can agree on anything right now, especially this one, and what actual chance is there of that? Answer: slim to none.

The only way would be to fire everyone in government and replace them with politicians strong enough to turn down their cash which would mean finding/ growing (accelerated cloning) morally impregnable human beings devoid of self-motive & greed. Once in place they could then ditch fossil fuels entirely. This is obviously utterly in the realms of fantasy and sci-fi and pretty pre-tay unlikely. The saddest thing is renewable energy sources could sustain us, all the know how is there and it would work. We might just have to go back to simpler living for a while, but that might not be such a terrible thing. But those who stand to lose from their implementation will not get out of the way. They would rather everyone lost everything. They would rather render this planet uninhabitable for humans than suffer a profit drop. That’s how fucked up it is.

It was never about saving the planet, it was about saving ourselves and we are doing a really shit job of that currently. I saw this doc on vimeo recently called “earth rise” which was about the photo taken of Earth from the Apollo 8 mission in ’68. They were told to photograph anything of interest on their journey but didn’t realise that the most mind-blowing shot would be of the planet they had just left.

As they looked back they saw it in all its beauty. Watching this film (link) made me realise as I’m sure it did those astronauts that Earth is actually paradise. This is it, its not elsewhere, not after this, paradise is here and now. This floating spinning blue marble is an oasis in a massive sea of nothingness. There is nothing else around for light years and there might not be any other life out there. The fact that life exists here is a miracle. In the film, Gravity, the opening tagline is “In space, life is impossible”. We cannot make life impossible here. It doesn’t matter if we don’t survive as a species as long as  life is able to continue after us. Desertification is increasing at the rate of 130,000 sq kilometres a year which means at this rate we are going to turn this functioning eco system into another Mars. Maybe Mars was once like Earth and something similar happened. We cannot let that happen here.

So what’s left? Keep your head down and your eyes on the screens in your hand and wait for the storm to hit? Umm, yep. That’s about the size of it. One of the main reasons that we are big on talk but lack the ability to engage in action is that we have been spoonfed our existence. We don’t know how to fight for anything anymore. Everything is given to us on a plate so maybe when the shit hits the fan we will return to survival and maybe that is exactly what we need. We currently live in a world ‘beyond survival’ and it has clearly made us all crazy trying to fill the void of not having to fend for our lives. What we have filled it with is really utter nonsense and so spending our days trying to hunt and not get eaten in the process could actually be the best solution for the human race.

I personally won’t be engaging in such activity. I ain’t killing anyone or anything for my dinner. I’m a peace baby. And an 85% indoor vegan. What the fuck do I know about fighting for food? And we’re definitely going to have to breed a generation tougher than the snowflakers…they’re hurt by words so fuck knows what sticks n stones are going to do to them..

So what do we do in the meantime? We could all join the Extinction Rebellion, more productive than watching netflix and at least we’d feel we were doing something…otherwise you have to choose between total denial and abject fear and neither are great options lets be honest…

Apologies (ish) for the negative take on current situation but realism and pessimism seem now sadly to be the same thing. Soz. I have been saying for a while that there was no point wasting a perfectly good present on a perfectly hideous future but the future has come to find us…and by our actions, or inaction. we will get to choose what it looks like.

 

 

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Tough talking window with a bold, confrontational and rather aggressive question yet clearly didn’t want to upset anyone too much by writing FUCK out in full..so considerate.

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Millenial angst graffiti.

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Some surreal shots for you this week…when reality is too much to deal with staring at it straight in the face, take a sideways glance and get a whole other perspective. The news is not reality, its just one part of it. It is not the whole story. Not even close. We feel dominated and influenced by global events but most of them don’t have a bearing on our daily lives in any way at all and yet still they affect us more than things that actually are in our lives.

The human brain can’t really differentiate between what is real and what isn’t. The same areas in our response centres light up regardless of whether we are witnessing something or experiencing it first hand. So if you are watching horror shows, whether fact or fiction, you will feel as if it is happening to you. Its not so much a case of you are what you eat, but you are what you watch.

But its so hard to ignore what’s going on in the world when its being hurled at us every which way we turn and we feel if we don’t pay attention we are ignoring what is going on and that feels wrong. Just to give another perspective, another thing we are ignoring is that we are microbes clinging on to a planet spinning through space around a gi-normous exploding ball of energy and we are neither up nor down and we are travelling at 67,000 miles per hour. That is, in reality, is our reality. Its not news, you can’t see it or feel it but it is happening. Just saying…

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MYLDNites Special: Halloween at Annabel’s

Altogether now..they’re Creepy and they’re Kooky, Mysterious and Spooky, they’re altogether Ooky..its the Annabel’s family. Duh Duh Duh Dum CLICK CLICK

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This weeks photographs were taken at the recent celebration on All Saints Road to honour the Mangrove Restaurant. It was a hub for black activism led by Frank Critchlow from the late 60s. They were repeatedly raided by the police searching for drugs but nothing was ever found, so they eventually planted evidence.  Critchlow was sent to prison, for which he was later exonerated and received compensation for false imprisonment and battery and secured an early release but by the time he came back the restaurant had all but folded and the movement had suffered from his absence. The police had systematically been trying to undermine the black community and they succeeded.

The Windrush generation were invited over to Britain to work as so much needed rebuilding after the war and they came over only to find that a lot of people didn’t want them there and they were, for the most part, treated terribly by British citizens, its establishments and the constabulary. They should have been welcomed but they weren’t. Instead they were harassed and abused and attacked and made to feel anything but welcome. These first wave immigrants were suitably confused by this mixed message from the heart of their Commonwealth. They were told they were  needed but once they were here they were told they weren’t wanted.

The people of Britain should have been explained before they arrived by the leaders of the day that it was beneficial to this country to have them here and consequently we should be nice to them, they are our guest, give them hospitality not hostility.  Sadly that speech was never given, the message never sent. And so without guidance from the Top, a fear of ‘the other’ emerged which then manifested into aggression. They should have been protected by the Government that brought them here but they were left alone to deal with the hostility driven by small island mentality. They were left out to dry but if our representatives had only instructed everyone that these new additions to our country should be treated with the same respect as everyone else it might have been a very different story.

It was Black History Month this October and even though this is the story of the black community in the U.K it is the same for all immigrants wherever they come from and wherever they go.  And, as you can see by the way other immigrant communities are being treated here and all over the world it is still happening. We need to pay attention to the past and to stop repeating the same mistakes  so that communities that come over can integrate better and the public need to be informed  so there is less animosity towards the new residents but that clearly still isn’t happening. Although there has been massive improvements over the decades you can tell by the rise in hate crimes towards minorities and the blacklivesmatter movement in the U.S that we still have a long way to go.

In Dr Who’s recent episode about Rosa Parks it actually does a great job of showing how much progress there has been as a young black man from modern Britain has to deal with abuse and contempt in 60s Alabama but it has taken two full generations to reach a point where they are just treated normally rather than as 2nd class citizens and still it is not a level playing field for so many. And modern America, under Trump, now  seems to be regressing, not evolving in its racial tolerance. And that is because the message from the top down is fuelling this irrational hatred and driving division amongst the races. He has single handedly exacerbated racial tension in his country and you are now starting to see the ramifications with the Pittsburg shooting and the re-emergence of white supremacists.

In this country, racism has also been given a green light by Brexit as people are being led by its message of ‘we don’t want you here’ and they are running with it and using it to stoke their resentment at what they think is the problem in their country. Why do they think immigrants are the problem? Because right wing tabloids such as the Daily Mail are constantly telling them they are the problem.

And now we are witnessing the return of the far right across the whole globe. We have just seen Brazil reaching for the facist hand to pull them out of their quagmire which is beyond depressing and utterly scary. In Europe we have seen it happen in France, Hungary, Austria, even Scandinavia as Islamaphobia takes grip in all of these societies. And now Germany, a country that knows only too well how this all ends is also visibly lurching to the righ,  directly because of Merkel’s open invitation to  the Syrian refugees. Many of the indigenous German population felt these foreigners were thrust upon them and they were not given a choice and so now want them gone.

A large demographic in all of these countries, including here, want a return to racial puritanism but truth is, they can want it all they like because unless they can get hold of a time machine they aint ever gonna see it. Single race countries are a thing of the past. Despite a desire to return to our tribalist nature, we have come too far to go back. Those that want to turn around don’t realise that path is no longer available. The past is the past, we must look to the future and to not allow things to go backwards within our societies. You really have two options..get on the hate train or the love boat. Your choice. Its pretty fucking obvious which is the way forward for this species but we clearly haven’t learnt a thing. We are still just dumb scared animals.

 

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#MYLDNites special – David Byrne is Utopia

I know a singer who has the anagram WWDBD etched on a stickie on her computer to inspire her as she works and it stands for ‘What would David Byrne Do’ and last night I saw what David Byrne can do and its off the chain. His gig at the 02, part of his American Utopia tour, was one of the most relentlessly inventive and the most perfectly executed show I have probably ever seen. It was also in some ways the simplest as all you are looking at are the band members and the instruments they are holding. And nothing else. No speakers, no monitors, no cables. Nothing except for them.

It really takes a few songs to get your head around. As you watch the band and DB move all around the stage in synchronized movements as they play you have to keep reminding yourself what is so weird about what you are watching. Oh, yeah, there is no equipment on stage. At all. Its mindblowing and such a massive game changer and just one of the reasons that DB is always ahead of the game, always pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and what’s established. They talk of pioneers but he truly is and always has been. In a world where everything has been trampled on so many times he is once again in unchartered territory.

And so you think, well, why doesn’t everyone do it like this? Its so much better. And there is no drop off at all, in terms of sound quality, to beam it remotely to the stacks hidden behind the stage. Not only is there no deterioration but the sound is exceptional. The band are incredible. It is studio clarity and so good in fact that you can’t help but think some of it must be a backing track. About half way in DB actually addresses this as he has obviously been asked this many times over the tour and he confirms that everything you are listening to is being performed by the musicians on stage. He then goes about proving this by introducing each band member and the part their instrument plays and one by one they literally build the layers of the track in front of you and its  jaw dropping how they do it. I had goosepimples all over. And a dropped jaw.

Musical craftmanship, composition, arrangement, choreography, visuals..everything about this show is pitch point perfect and it just gets better and better as the show goes on. He mixes in old classics with songs from his latest album and for once, there is also no drop off with the new material, it is as good as everything he has ever done, you just don’t know it as well but I actually preferred to hear the newer tracks as were fresher to me which is virtually unheard of when you go to see an old timer live. You’re normally always waiting for the ones you know. Even the old tracks felt new as they had been vamped up and re-arranged for the show. Blind and Lazy and This must be the Place were outstanding.

And as good as the band sound, the visual aspects of the show are as equally dazzling. The simple visual concepts they use  are so simple yet so clever and so effective – they do a silent break in the middle of one of the tracks and it makes your heart leap its so cool. The entire show is nothing short of mesmerising. the band all move in sync and do dance moves whilst they are playing their instruments and you wonder how they can do it all at once and excel at everything they are doing. And DB looks and sounds as good as he ever did. Same as he always was.

David Byrne is nothing short of a musical powerhouse, a sheer genius that was born to do this and makes everyone else look sloppy and staid by comparison. But we can’t all be David Byrne. Nor do we need to be. He is doing enough for all of us. And he is still cool as fuck and clearly a beautiful human being.  Now that the other DB has left us (RIP DB1) Byrne is all we’ve got and to have seen him deliver such an incredible show will stay with me forever. I didn’t want it to end as he made me happier on a Monday night that I had probably ever been.

Here is a link to his set list on spotify if you want to have a listen:

https://open.spotify.com/user/chaninmusic/playlist/0Yv4rJcKiX11SNOMrvYiqC?si=v0LkMWeWRjWLl_MuEwZscQ