This is a plea. This is a desperate plea that we, humankind and adults in particular, reverse back in time and take onboard the lessons both formal and informal from school and take on a new ‘everyday is a school day’ approach to life. Those moments where we had to do group work with people we didn’t know or get on with but we managed need to come back.
I am 40. School is a distant memory, but I remember thinking how much I looked forward to leaving that scenario and heading off to a more mature and less annoying life. Actually what I did was make choices of who I associated with – those with similar interests: Sport Studies students at university and friends who shared the same hobbies, outlooks on life and aspirations.
At the various primary schools I attended in Essex, Gutersloh and Hong Kong, the playground was a place to find your place, begin to consider your popularity and strive to be seen as ‘a cool kid’. The music you liked, the clothes you wore, your aptitude for sport, your witty remarks in lessons, your hairstyle and using the latest youth culture language. It was pretty care free for me but I would notice others mocked for their interests, bullied even for being introverted or unique.
In Essex at secondary school a hierarchy was established on the playground and animalistic fights between alpha males and alpha females were regular – there were those who avoided such idiotic activities and relished the chance to be a prefect, seeing that as a status superior to others and there were the bright minds who negotiated school cleverly, avoiding trouble, making strategic friends and getting high grades. School established the future sports people, politicians, scientists, tradespeople, public servants and of course those who go into the business world intent on making money living an adult life to make up for their unpopularity at school! For me it was a relief to leave and make choices for a while, but then when you enter the world of work, once again you are stuck with people you do not want to be with, with opposing and different opinions, cut-throat emotionless competitiveness, content unambitious people happy with small talk and managers who clearly did not ever develop good people skills at school. You meet those who went to Private , Boarding or Grammar schools who lived a childhood so alien to our own with so little family connections but so much privilege and opportunity. And equally you meet the people who learn from life, whose parents are community minded, caring and lived in the 1970’s at a time of radical change and activism. So many views and so many people trying to prove a point, trying to dominate others, trying to claim they see the bigger picture when in the background, hidden behind mansion doors and skyscraper office security, private jets and incomprehensibly large bank accounts you find the people, often born into power and money (but some who are or claim to be self-made) who dictate what the media tell us, who pretty much decide what the government do and who grin, corrupt Godlike as if in the latest Thor movie, as they watch the battles on social media fizzle out in cyber space.
This situation, this very western life, may explain why the dedicated scientists who found concerning evidence a long time ago (much more than decades now) about the climate and fossil fuel use and the carbon dioxide causing a greenhouse effect and warming the planet, but also alongside that the human waste, the plastic pollution, the dangerous industrial chemicals and the destruction of natural parts of nature that can balance these evils out like rainforests, coral reefs, peatland and savannahs, (DEEP BREATH) why they are not only ignored, but ridiculed, mocked, shamed and even blamed. The playground antics, the pecking order, the arrogance of the ‘alpha white males’ is a live and kicking.
So it has become a fight. Peaceful intelligent protest is ignored as if the politicians do not have children or care for anyone beyond the date of their deaths – so simple disruption occurs and they are criminalised – in a world where no one can afford to lose their jobs, the police have to arrest the people trying to save them and their children.
In history there have been revolutions and unions have been formed. The proletariat fought for workers rights and women fought for the right to vote (and still do) and equal wages, Black Lives Matter seems recent but Britain, the Dutch, the Germans, the French, the Portuguese, the Spanish etc etc all were guilty of slave trading, whaling and brutally colonising peaceful and ancient civilisations. And now it is those people we call indigenous who speak up because not only did the west come along with their weird Christianity and strange diseases but hundreds of years later their pollution and greed is destroying the land and lives again. Tuvalu’s minister, almost dejectedly but with real feeling and urgency you never see from western politicians, gave a speech from the sea, in an area that recently did not get covered in sea water. Additionally, whilst scientists study, research, conclude, predict and measure, a lot of the answers are with people whose culture and way of life is so much more advanced than our ‘social media obsessed, image obsessed and driving everywhere obsessed’ culture. Amazonian tribes (tribe seems to be a word that is patronising and used to make people seem primitive), South Pacific islanders, Himalayan villagers, Berber nomads even gypsy travellers know how to live with nature and maintain balance. Our petty playground antics, disagreements and corrupt politics are delaying our own demise.
What is the alternative? Well we have this wonderful thing called a brain. It can help us adapt to the unexpected like COVID and like when war strikes. The gradual nature of climate change in the northern hemisphere has not jolted our brains into action and adaptation. The heatwave was even described by multiple new agencies as a glimpse into the future whilst it was presently happening!!! The rich and powerful turned they air-conditioning up and pumped more Co2 into the atmosphere.
But what if nature became the new social media. What if litter picks became the new Pokémon go? What if the new big business opportunities were green projects and the City slickers in their suits swapped loafers for wellies? What if every new building needed a solar panel and biodiverse and semi wild parks won awards? What if the poor were given employment to green up their communities? What if we used technology to link schools in climate affected areas with western cultures? Children making friends and hearing first hand what our actions do to other parts of the world? What if Green policy and government was the foundation of election campaigns instead of economy, economy. economy blah blah blah. Climate justice is economic justice. It is Human Rights. It is animal welfare and protection. It is more therapeutic and connecting than any app or chat room, nature is a better classroom and the phrases growing our town or city should mean trees and meadows not houses and business.
As I said at the start, we have to see a bigger picture relating to the planet, nature and climate, we have to see beyond our comfortable or struggling lives, and work together. That way we can continue to be ourselves and follow our passions but in the knowledge that we can. Time is ticking and the world does not wait. We are in control of our output – pollution and lifestyles – but we have no control over the weather, the temperature, the earthquakes and volcanoes and no control over time. We are in a race against ourselves and we have put ourselves right at the back with chains around our legs…where is that key?
tavstravels 