We don’t often share videos on Writers Rebel, but this one is special. You probably know Louise Harris as the young woman from the JSO gantry protest over the M25 motorway. Here’s what Brian Eno says about ‘We Tried’: “This beautiful and moving song is a powerful weapon. We need to wake up to […]
I hold this fragile sphere of earth and sit up on the long barrow to see myself a minuscule speck on the sphere at the end of the day at the end of the world and tell myself there could be more time and the waters of the Severn promise me they’ve always been […]
1st Snow was a kind of hand-wringing heat; mine burned psychedelic red with it. Where your footsteps trod, it cast blue shadows like a methane fire. Crystals, so many I couldn’t get the maths straight in my head, falling feathery, light … FeatherLite, my nan’s eiderdown, all put away now inside some cupboard. We […]
In your 2016 book The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable you take contemporary literature to task for failing to address the climate and ecological crisis. Have fiction writers woken up since then – and if so, what are the most important changes you’ve seen in the literary landscape since 2016? Has the […]
Read More… from On Writing the UnthinkableAmitav Ghosh and Liz Jensen
When I feel overwhelmed by what we’ve caused—biodiversity loss, climate change, ecocide, hunger, migration, pandemics, poverty, war—I find solace in the beauty of the living world, especially in trees. Trees are truthful. They fill me with joy. The simplicity and quiet wonder of trees, whether alone on a city footpath or together in a […]
First we laughed with prickly legs and stubble beards at police in polished riot vans. Then we laughed shivering like candles at the Prime Minister’s heated swimming pool. We carried our laughter like The Big Issue and hurled it at the Education Minister and his ten-thousand- pound Rolex. When they took our right to […]
Who or what do you personally blame for the crisis? The twin problems of ecological and climate collapse now seem to overlap so profoundly with our many other issues, such as the cost of living and fuel crises, that many are just calling the whole entangled mess the polycrisis. The finger definitely points at […]
Today is Halloween. Or at least, that is what it has come to be known by. Yet, hidden beneath the commodification and consumerism, this celebration has deeply-winding roots in paganism (as is often the case, such as with Christmas (Yule) and Easter (Ostara)). I’d like to invite you, if you haven’t already, to meet […]
I’m not an academic. I’m not a scientist or a geographer. I can only give you the broad brushstrokes of an observer, a reader, a poet. Bear with me. How do we see the Earth? Imagine her from space. Describe her. We’ll probably say mostly blue, random areas of green. We won’t mention the […]
In March 2023, the independent oil company Perenco’s Wytch Farm plant caused toxic oil solutions to leak into Poole Harbour. XR Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole have since been organising protests against Perenco’s ecocidal activities locally and around the world. This is the letter it delivered to Perenco’s chairman last month. Dear François Perrodo, What […]
Read More… from DEAR MASS POLLUTERXR Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole
In case you haven’t heard, the romcom is back. I read the other day that thirty-six new romantic comedies are coming out this year. To quote Meg Ryan, “Yes, yes, YES!” In an age of existential despair and geopolitical turmoil, a time when coverage of the Israel-Palestine war is interrupted by the breaking news […]
Read More… from WHERE ARE ALL THE CLIMATE ROMCOMS?Alix O’Neill
We all know how the story goes. It’s Episode 5. We know who’s guilty, and the central character’s hunch has hardened into certainty, but there’s still not enough evidence: their every lead has petered out in a wilderness of brick walls, red herrings and dead metaphors. Colleagues have lost faith; they think the hero/heroine […]
LITERARY INDUSTRY WORKERS CALL ON BOOKS FESTIVAL SPONSOR BAILLIE GIFFORD TO DIVEST FROM FOSSIL FUELS Over 170 literary industry representatives – including booksellers, literary events staff, and authors such as Naomi Klein, George Monbiot, Robert Macfarlane, Emma Dabiri, Rebecca Solnit, and Ben Okri – have signed Fossil Free Books’ statement calling on Baillie Gifford to […]
On 28 May 2008, a mass of ice about three miles across and a mile deep broke off the Ilulissat Glacier in western Greenland. Over the course of seventy-five minutes, huge chunks, many of them 1,000 metres or more from top to bottom, slid away and rolled over, thrusting their undersides hundreds of metres […]
Read More… from The Sounds of Climate ChangeCaspar Henderson
People need drama, they need wildness, and they need nature. And the BBC’s Springwatch provides it all. Set over an hour an evening four nights a week for three weeks in May in the UK, Springwatch transmits live from a variety of locations where wildlife scientists give scientific insight into the soap opera-like goings on […]
Jail has taught me a lot. But it’s not what the government hoped. During the 17 years I practised civil engineering I wrote a steady stream of reports and journal papers, alongside occasional industry magazine articles. All of that was dry compared to most things, especially to the issues raised by civil resistance and […]
There is nowhere that climate chaos will not harm. We’ve heard this, again and again, and yet we cannot seem to grasp it. Even those places we call Paradise—whether it’s a town called Paradise, like the one in California, destroyed by fire in 2018, or places we find so perfect we call them Paradise, […]
Fresh-water springs come up through bitter brine. – Tennyson Arriving in Portugal in the spring I met a painfully familiar challenge – Covid. The once ubiquitous, now furtive flu hurled me into isolation and despair. I have chronic migraines and fatigue from the last time I caught Covid, so I was seized with the […]
Read More… from The death of the Ocean is the death of magicRobin Boardman
Behind us the castle: the ragged keep rises from the scarp like a giant’s stumpy tooth. Nearly every day I pass this magnificent pile, but its magic never pales: the way it nestles on the hilltop of Corfe, ringed in fortifications of ‘burr’ stone and the broken circle of its defences. It’s the magic […]
Imagine that during the London blitz, the British debated whether the country was at war with Germany. Imagine that some peoples’ response was this: “History is full of wars, so this is nothing special. This kind of thing happens all the time.” Imagine others saying: “Sure, a bomb lands from time to time, but […]
Read More… from Where is Climate’s Winston Churchill?Carsten Jensen
It can be hard to keep going when the environmental crisis is ongoing, and worsening as the years go by. It’s easy to turn away. Of course, sometimes we need to watch a funny movie, go for a walk in nature, or have a nice meal. Self-care and resilience are part of the work. […]
Read More… from The Exhilaration of Everything Change Cath Drake