In a downmarket flat in a comfortable English town there lived a shy grandma. She lived with the guilt of breaking her children’s hearts and she didn’t suppose it would ever ease. But now that she had grandbabies she was determined to give them all the love, fun and care her slightly creaky body […]
A week ago the world outside my window in Ottawa was covered in snow. But today—in the month when people make resolutions, seek to realize resolutions, or reject resolutions—it is raining. I can hear the rain as I write. It would be a soothing sound if it did not also sound like the chronicle […]
Although it looks quite slim, The Nerves and Their Endings: essays on crisis and response is a really big, ambitious, global book that speaks very clearly to lots of aspects of the present moment. It insists on an intimate relation between the individual body and the whole environment. It’s very moving and full of insights. How […]
Read More… from Q&A with Jessica Gaitán JohannessonToby Litt
A short while ago I cared for a patient who was admitted to the hospital with breathlessness. He’d developed heart failure, a condition with a cruel name which describes a state where the heart muscle ceases to pump efficiently enough to deliver blood and oxygen to the cells that need them, often leading to […]
Read More… from Why the Climate Crisis is a Health CrisisKatie Percival
7.9 inches of rain fell in Central Park last night dead cicadas on the crosswalk their bodies bunched in brittle knots sticky candy sky bright with grief branches submerged by the weight of our silence a letter unread a door closed firmly & […]
Read More… from The Month of Emergencies – poemRebecca Faulkner
It happened on the 8.10 from Euston to Manchester Piccadilly. It was a Tuesday in February 2019. The train was zooming through the outskirts of London. The carriage smelled of aftershave and Costa coffee, there was the tap-tap of laptop keyboards and pre-work chitchat as normal people headed to normal meetings. I was going […]
Can you tell us a little more about the anthology ‘Out of Time: Poetry From the Climate Emergency’ why and how did it come about? Was there any particular ‘trigger’ that compelled you to edit this collection? 2021 has been such a pivotal year for the planet, and it brought together many key events […]
Read More… from Out of Time: Poetry From the Climate EmergencyKate Simpson
On 22 April, XR co-founder Simon Bramwell and six other rebels appeared at the Southwark Crown Court, charged with causing 25K worth of criminal damage to Shell’s London headquarters. In a historic ruling, six of the defendants were found not guilty despite admitting to criminal damage, and the judge indicating that the law pointed to […]
Read More… from The shaping of History: THE PEOPLE VERSUS SHELLSimon Bramwell
This year for Remembrance Day for Lost Species, November 30th, Writers Rebel are bringing together 20 writers from around the globe including Margaret Atwood, Amitav Ghosh, Elizabeth Kolbert, Ben Okri, Homero Aridjis and others to each tell the story of one animal. Please join us for this free landmark event. Below, Writers Rebel member Alex […]
Read More… from READ: They All Run TogetherJoin us for On the Brink: Mon 30th Nov, 7pm GMT
It was the Prussian polymath, scientist and writer Alexander von Humboldt (1767-1835) who paved the way for biogeography – the study of species and ecosystems across space and time – becoming established as an empirical science. The publications that emerged from his many expeditions are recognised as foundational to our present understanding of nature as a single great […]
Paul Hilder was one of twenty speakers at 55 Tufton Street. His was the most forensic attack on Climate Change denial. After watching this, you’ll be left in no doubt how we’re being played, and who we’re being played by. If you feel strongly about the climate and ecological emergency, join us and help […]
Read More… from Watch: Paul Hilder lays out the facts of the matterPaul Hilder
I first got involved with Extinction Rebellion when I was researching a novel set in 2030. As I read the science, waves of emotion crashed over me: anger, dismay, grief. I had a lot of questions: why hadn’t I heard any of this before? Why wasn’t the crisis on the front pages? Why, too, […]
We were thrilled to get together with Amitav Ghosh to talk about his book The Great Derangement, a seminal work about colonialism, Climate Crisis and much more. It was published in 2015, pre-dating Extinction Rebellion and the Youth Strikes. There follows a discussion with Mothiur Rahman (XR Muslims, Guardianship and Visioning Circles), Ami Amlani (XR […]
Read More… from Listen: Writers Rebel Bookclub with Amitav Ghosh