The fridge (whose name is Terry) is gurgling in his characteristic way, a cross between a gut and a lawnmower. The gurgle becomes a rumble, which becomes an angry splutter, which exhausts itself into silence, which becomes a gurgle again. And here I am, back in the winter grip. Someone up there’s laughing at the little circles we cycle in. I’m sitting in a Brixton kitchen listening to an old UK mixtape, Mud Fam and Digitek sounding hungry in times gone by, while a traffic warden scuttles past the window, eyes darting for cars to pounce on.
Cars cars cars. It occurred to me recently that given how much time I spend ranting about action, inciting people to move and do, I do very little myself but rant about it. I mean, I live in a way I think of as conscious; I eat vegetarian, I don’t fly. But these are personal, insular choices in a way. Where’s the Big Do? With this in mind, on Saturday I’m going to take part in the Wave, a demonstration taking over the streets of London, to demonstrate to the Public Eye (and therefore the People Who Control Stuff) that we are awake, and we do give a shit, and we’re Watching the leaders who are gathering in Copenhagen in the next week to come to agreements about action on Climate Change.
Come to the Wave. If you’re thinking, “well what good does that do, walking around the streets yelling slogans, pointing fingers at stuff?”, think again. We live in a world of media power- most of what we understand, think and do is in some way mediated by TV, internet, radio, press. If we can make large, loud statements in those arenas (and a demo is a loud statement, times ten) we affect the way the world of humans understands, thinks and does. Symbolic acts matter.
If you’re curious, follow this link:
http://www.stopclimatechaos.org/the-wave
And I’ll see you in the Capital.
Shut up, Terry.