ten years

There is a song by David Bowie 'Five Years' and its been frequently stuck in my head recently in that vague half concuss kind of way for a while now... and it finally surfaced as I connected it to the fact I keep hearing from many people around me that to stop runnaway climate change we have 10 a years.

Ten Years.

Ten Years?

TEN YEARS

As part of the Rising Tide US Tour I am currently on I explain feedback loops which are the damnedest scary doomsday part of climate science. Its freaky stuff and its real.

The facts are all there, and as people working actively on climate we speak about them every night. Live with them every day. It so often feels like we are breaking the 'bad news' to people which, when you think about it, its really absurd that with all the structures of so called 'education' and 'information' that this vital to the continuation of life on earth, message is not getting across..

So what about those structures eh?

Many peoples of the world know things are broken, their lives, communities and ecosystems have already been torn apart to support our fragile bubble of wealth & consumerism. But the privileged world needs to move on from collective denial - a manipulated, anaesthetised by tv, media & consumerism, controlled collective denial we are stuck in.. but how would the news be broken?

Bowie wrote 'Five Years' in 1972. I doubt climate change specially was at the forefront of his mind back then.. But I sat today and really listened to the song that had been bugging me, that I've heard many times, and never really listened to. I realised that so much of it resonated with me and individual lines that had sounded like Bowie randomness suddenly became sharp & clear about human reaction to despair and powerlessness. "Five years - "And I thought of ma and I wanted to get back there" "I never thought I'd need so many people".

How would the privileged word take the news? Can we visualise a day like bowie did 36 Years ago when the Newscasters all announce the earth is really dying - and we have 10 years. Would denial jump straight to despair? Is it better that this news flows from person to person, community to community so everyone can have that moment to wonder why we don't know this? Why this news has been suppressed or ignored? To not hear it from the governments & corporations and then turn to them for false hopes and answers? To challenge those systems that have been repressing reality?
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The big difference for me is with the 'Ten Years' is... yes we have 10 years.. Ten Years to halt runaway climate chaos. Ten years to save the planet.. Ten years of work to do before its really to late. Better get busy then.

How about starting with that structure?

xx cookie

pssst.. 'Ten Years - pass it on'