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Why Rebel
'If bravery itself could write, it would write like she does' John Berger
Why rebel?
Because our footprint on the Earth has never mattered more than now. How we treat it, in the spirit of gift or of theft, has never been more important.
Because we need a politics of kindness, but the very opposite is on the rise. Libertarian fascism, with its triumphal brutalism, its racism and misogyny - a politics that loathes the living world.
Because nature is not a hobby. It is the life on which we depend, as Indigenous societies have never forgotten.
Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars, and they are lining up now to write rebellion across the skies.
From the author of Wild , this passionate, poetic manifesto for urgent rebellion is also a paean to the deep and extraordinary beauty of the natural world.
'Jay's writing has reduced me to hot throbs of grief; through beauty and subtlety, to the depths of the hurt of these times . . . and what a liberation to express this, to free the space in my chest to feel the love that propels me forwards.' Gail Bradbrook
'Chewy, erudite, filled with this is a dazzling book, urgent without ever being worthy, a book that crackles. Why Rebel is a Tardis, to read it is to enter the massive, a deep interior that hydrates vocation in a time of trouble.' Martin Shaw
'This short book is beautifully written, and packs a powerful emotional punch. I found myself welling up as I reached the end. At this desperate moment in human history, Why Rebel is surely part of the wake-up call we need.'
Prof. Rupert Read
'There's a book called Life and Fate and in it, it says that when surrounded by death and destruction the most human thing to do is to engage in an act of kindness. Jay's book is such an act.' Roger Hallam
Why rebel?
Because our footprint on the Earth has never mattered more than now. How we treat it, in the spirit of gift or of theft, has never been more important.
Because we need a politics of kindness, but the very opposite is on the rise. Libertarian fascism, with its triumphal brutalism, its racism and misogyny - a politics that loathes the living world.
Because nature is not a hobby. It is the life on which we depend, as Indigenous societies have never forgotten.
Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars, and they are lining up now to write rebellion across the skies.
From the author of Wild , this passionate, poetic manifesto for urgent rebellion is also a paean to the deep and extraordinary beauty of the natural world.
'Jay's writing has reduced me to hot throbs of grief; through beauty and subtlety, to the depths of the hurt of these times . . . and what a liberation to express this, to free the space in my chest to feel the love that propels me forwards.' Gail Bradbrook
'Chewy, erudite, filled with this is a dazzling book, urgent without ever being worthy, a book that crackles. Why Rebel is a Tardis, to read it is to enter the massive, a deep interior that hydrates vocation in a time of trouble.' Martin Shaw
'This short book is beautifully written, and packs a powerful emotional punch. I found myself welling up as I reached the end. At this desperate moment in human history, Why Rebel is surely part of the wake-up call we need.'
Prof. Rupert Read
'There's a book called Life and Fate and in it, it says that when surrounded by death and destruction the most human thing to do is to engage in an act of kindness. Jay's book is such an act.' Roger Hallam
169 pages, Paperback
Published April 8, 2021
12 people are currently reading
445 people want to read
About the author
Jay Griffiths
32 books134 followersJay Griffiths was born in Manchester and studied English Literature at Oxford University. She spent a couple of years living in a shed on the outskirts of Epping Forest and has travelled the world, but for many years she has been based in Wales.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
June 22, 2021
I am awake now. This book is essential and everyone should read it.
October 2, 2021
"I wish that everyone who said they believed in angels would actually believe in insects. Thanks to the insects, we have food, but it is also insects who, tactfully and quietly, remove the dead. Without them, we would be wading through corpses at every step.
We need the living world, that truest of worlds, both in death and in life: thanks to other animals, human life is vitalized. Animals, their senses alert to every scent and whisper through their paws, antennae, wing- tips and noses, are our guides and our healers.
Mindedness surrounds us: in air and water, on land and in the soil under our feet where the lovely, holy worm, in sweet complicity with the dreaming Earth, quickens death itself to life. In the transforming dark, trees are messaging each other through their roots and, where tree roots link with fungi, the network of underground awareness is able to respond differently to the presence of different creatures. Awareness surrounds us. Tingling.
Perhaps nowhere is so full of life as the forest of the Amazon: bursting, writhing, tickling and rotting. Death itself is merely matter requickened into something else because everything is a part of the shapeshifting metamorphosis at the green core of life. In the Amazon I felt, as never before, that I had touched the quick of the thing, had put my finger to the pulse at the heart of the world, in an experience of empathy with that wildest of creatures, the jaguar. Indigenous societies in the Amazon have never forgotten the mindedness of life, honouring it with a way of thinking that is empathetic, willing to cross borders, linking with other species, a way of walking immersed in the true world, sensitive to its ethic.
How we walk the Earth has never mattered more than now. How we treat it, in the spirit of gift or theft, a bill or a prayer, has never been more important, not only for the intrinsic value of the living world, but for humanity’s health and well- being. In a startling demonstration, the Coronavirus that has so traumatized the world was unleashed by our destruction of forest habitat and the slaughter of wild creatures.
Where were you when the music stopped? Everything ceased. Schools closed. Churches were shut. The pubs were silent. Friends could not meet. We cancelled everything to fight the virus: weddings, work, exams, football and theatre. We stopped doing everything except the very thing that had caused the virus in the first place: annihilating the living world.
Forests have been destroyed for cattle to feed the insatiable appetite for beef: wildlife is slaughtered for tamelife as soya is grown on previously forested land to feed the chicken industry. Bereft of their seclusion in the forests, wild creatures were forced into contact and the virus jumped to humans. Astonishingly, the cause was quietly noted, and yet nothing was done.
Although humans are just 0.01 per cent of all life, we have destroyed 83 per cent of wild mammals, and we have done so without awareness. Now, aghast, we begin to see and to name.
The saddest word I know in any language is the word endling. It refers to the last individual of a species, final and forlorn, at whose death the species is extinct. An endling is the very epitome of tragedy, and the word was coined, appropriately, in this age of extinction, this strange age of our dawning knowing, seeing the unhallowed horror that is approaching.
The human conscience needs to be corroborate with the natural world and aligned to its ethic, furthering a politics of kindness. But a political stance that is the opposite of kindness is on the rise: libertarian fascism with its triumphal brutalism, its racism and misogyny, the politics that loathes the living world. Tonally fascistic in many countries, it is openly so in some countries and, in the case of Brazil, where it launches its assault on the Amazon and the peoples of the Earth who live within those forests, it is a chiaroscuro of cruelty.
Here, then, the causes for rebellion: survival and awe; beauty and necessity; grace and grief. There is an uprising of life in rebellion for life, those who are griefstruck and furious for the tawny ones, the creatures of feather and fur, demanding that media and governments tell the truth about the emergency we are in, fighting for life in this shared, wild home."
We need the living world, that truest of worlds, both in death and in life: thanks to other animals, human life is vitalized. Animals, their senses alert to every scent and whisper through their paws, antennae, wing- tips and noses, are our guides and our healers.
Mindedness surrounds us: in air and water, on land and in the soil under our feet where the lovely, holy worm, in sweet complicity with the dreaming Earth, quickens death itself to life. In the transforming dark, trees are messaging each other through their roots and, where tree roots link with fungi, the network of underground awareness is able to respond differently to the presence of different creatures. Awareness surrounds us. Tingling.
Perhaps nowhere is so full of life as the forest of the Amazon: bursting, writhing, tickling and rotting. Death itself is merely matter requickened into something else because everything is a part of the shapeshifting metamorphosis at the green core of life. In the Amazon I felt, as never before, that I had touched the quick of the thing, had put my finger to the pulse at the heart of the world, in an experience of empathy with that wildest of creatures, the jaguar. Indigenous societies in the Amazon have never forgotten the mindedness of life, honouring it with a way of thinking that is empathetic, willing to cross borders, linking with other species, a way of walking immersed in the true world, sensitive to its ethic.
How we walk the Earth has never mattered more than now. How we treat it, in the spirit of gift or theft, a bill or a prayer, has never been more important, not only for the intrinsic value of the living world, but for humanity’s health and well- being. In a startling demonstration, the Coronavirus that has so traumatized the world was unleashed by our destruction of forest habitat and the slaughter of wild creatures.
Where were you when the music stopped? Everything ceased. Schools closed. Churches were shut. The pubs were silent. Friends could not meet. We cancelled everything to fight the virus: weddings, work, exams, football and theatre. We stopped doing everything except the very thing that had caused the virus in the first place: annihilating the living world.
Forests have been destroyed for cattle to feed the insatiable appetite for beef: wildlife is slaughtered for tamelife as soya is grown on previously forested land to feed the chicken industry. Bereft of their seclusion in the forests, wild creatures were forced into contact and the virus jumped to humans. Astonishingly, the cause was quietly noted, and yet nothing was done.
Although humans are just 0.01 per cent of all life, we have destroyed 83 per cent of wild mammals, and we have done so without awareness. Now, aghast, we begin to see and to name.
The saddest word I know in any language is the word endling. It refers to the last individual of a species, final and forlorn, at whose death the species is extinct. An endling is the very epitome of tragedy, and the word was coined, appropriately, in this age of extinction, this strange age of our dawning knowing, seeing the unhallowed horror that is approaching.
The human conscience needs to be corroborate with the natural world and aligned to its ethic, furthering a politics of kindness. But a political stance that is the opposite of kindness is on the rise: libertarian fascism with its triumphal brutalism, its racism and misogyny, the politics that loathes the living world. Tonally fascistic in many countries, it is openly so in some countries and, in the case of Brazil, where it launches its assault on the Amazon and the peoples of the Earth who live within those forests, it is a chiaroscuro of cruelty.
Here, then, the causes for rebellion: survival and awe; beauty and necessity; grace and grief. There is an uprising of life in rebellion for life, those who are griefstruck and furious for the tawny ones, the creatures of feather and fur, demanding that media and governments tell the truth about the emergency we are in, fighting for life in this shared, wild home."
April 29, 2021
Everyone needs to read this. It's beautiful and terrifying and devastating and if it doesn't light a fire of rage in you, I don't know what else could.
January 29, 2025
crying, in fear and in hope, this is the only fight that matters and if we do not fight we will lose everything, this book is poetic but deeply informative.
I am grateful to have this on my required uni reading list this year, that to me must be a good thing, it should be on top of everyone’s list
I am grateful to have this on my required uni reading list this year, that to me must be a good thing, it should be on top of everyone’s list
January 30, 2025
arm the Lorax, save the Puffins
February 22, 2023
The blurb said this was a 'manifesto' but it was really a collection of essays about the environment, activism and politics. The later essays about Griffiths' own involvement in Extinction Rebellion protests flowed well and painted the vibes for me. But her other essays, while I agreed with most of her points, fell into that purple prose of humanities academia that really makes it difficult to sympathise with the argument at hand. I say that as an insider! Still, her discussions of climate narcissism and the links between Italian futurism, fascism and contemporary right-libertarianism were insightful.
Griffiths isn't a politician or economist or ecologist so I know this book is more informed and 'inspirational' journalism than anything. I can cut her some slack. Still, often I wish she'd been more specific than just saying things like "Indigenous people do X" or "Indigenous Australians believe X". Problematic territory. And often Griffiths' perspectives were just plain middle class. I can totally relate to... treks through the Amazon and coral reef dives off Indonesia? Granted, I might get similar opportunities in the future. But it is a helluva privileged place to be coming from when commenting on issues like farmers' insecticide use.
Griffiths isn't a politician or economist or ecologist so I know this book is more informed and 'inspirational' journalism than anything. I can cut her some slack. Still, often I wish she'd been more specific than just saying things like "Indigenous people do X" or "Indigenous Australians believe X". Problematic territory. And often Griffiths' perspectives were just plain middle class. I can totally relate to... treks through the Amazon and coral reef dives off Indonesia? Granted, I might get similar opportunities in the future. But it is a helluva privileged place to be coming from when commenting on issues like farmers' insecticide use.
May 27, 2022
This small collection of essays pack a punch. Some hard-hitting truths about the climate crisis. A breakdown:
Chapter 1 is very political (which I liked) and focuses on fascism. I binge-read it and didn't take any photos because the chapter should be read as a whole.
Chapter 2 (The Forests of the Mind) kind of lost me; it discussed shamanism and read more like poetry.
Chapter 3 was my favourite, as animals are at its centre.
Chapter 4 discusses insects and how vital they are to our survival.
Chapter 5 on the coral reef: Whilst I loved the intent (I personally saw beautiful corals and submarine life in Guadeloupe and Australia), I found this section too poetic and lyrical which distracted me from its point, eg coral bleaching is alarming and irreversible.
Chapter 6: "This England." Fascinating essay about Indigenous people and how/why the English may lack this authentic relationship with their land (it goes back to the Empire…)
Chapter 7: Another essay I skim-read but if you want to read about soil and worms in a poetic way, you'll love it!
Chapter 8 & the remainder of the book: this was what I was looking for - an account of the author's involvement with Extinction Rebellion and what can/should be done to avoid total climate collapse.
TL;DR? As a whole, this book was too uneven for me. I skim-read some of the more poetic chapters (highly subjective - you may love them) The more political and matter-of-fact essays were well-researched and shocking. I preferred This Is Not A Drill, but I'd still recommend this one.
Chapter 1 is very political (which I liked) and focuses on fascism. I binge-read it and didn't take any photos because the chapter should be read as a whole.
Chapter 2 (The Forests of the Mind) kind of lost me; it discussed shamanism and read more like poetry.
Chapter 3 was my favourite, as animals are at its centre.
Chapter 4 discusses insects and how vital they are to our survival.
Chapter 5 on the coral reef: Whilst I loved the intent (I personally saw beautiful corals and submarine life in Guadeloupe and Australia), I found this section too poetic and lyrical which distracted me from its point, eg coral bleaching is alarming and irreversible.
Chapter 6: "This England." Fascinating essay about Indigenous people and how/why the English may lack this authentic relationship with their land (it goes back to the Empire…)
Chapter 7: Another essay I skim-read but if you want to read about soil and worms in a poetic way, you'll love it!
Chapter 8 & the remainder of the book: this was what I was looking for - an account of the author's involvement with Extinction Rebellion and what can/should be done to avoid total climate collapse.
TL;DR? As a whole, this book was too uneven for me. I skim-read some of the more poetic chapters (highly subjective - you may love them) The more political and matter-of-fact essays were well-researched and shocking. I preferred This Is Not A Drill, but I'd still recommend this one.
September 11, 2022
A powerful, gut-punch kind of book that so clearly communicates the manifesto underneath it in a deeply poetic way. I think these sort of texts, that go beyond the science to talk about feelings related to environmental destruction - without slapping clinically-appropriate 'mental health' terms everywhere - are so important to explore the depths of grief and complexity that this issue brings out within so many of us. Recommend if you love your planet a lot and need to read a writer who is admirably (and inspirationally) unapologetic in their fight for climate justice.
April 9, 2022
This is a beautifully written polemic, a love letter to nature and an emotional call to arms.
This is a collection of essays, and at times this means the book can lack coherence as it swings between topics.
As an RE teacher, there was lots here for me to enjoy, links with anthropology and a fascinating chapter on Shamanism. Her focus on metaphor and the power of language reminded me of the feminist and eco theologian Sallie McFague.
This is a book of its time, reflecting on how nature carried many of us through the pandemic, literally helping us stay sane. This comes with a stark reminder that the natural world is not a hobby but core to our survival. Griffiths weaves together key events and characters from our time, Brexit, Covid, Bannon, Trump, Thunberg, UKIP and the space race of billionaires.
One of my few criticisms of the book is that it fired me up to take action, but I don’t know what the action is. But I am not sure any of us do.
This is a collection of essays, and at times this means the book can lack coherence as it swings between topics.
As an RE teacher, there was lots here for me to enjoy, links with anthropology and a fascinating chapter on Shamanism. Her focus on metaphor and the power of language reminded me of the feminist and eco theologian Sallie McFague.
This is a book of its time, reflecting on how nature carried many of us through the pandemic, literally helping us stay sane. This comes with a stark reminder that the natural world is not a hobby but core to our survival. Griffiths weaves together key events and characters from our time, Brexit, Covid, Bannon, Trump, Thunberg, UKIP and the space race of billionaires.
One of my few criticisms of the book is that it fired me up to take action, but I don’t know what the action is. But I am not sure any of us do.
June 6, 2021
This is a must read for anyone wishing to understand the urgency and severity of the global climate emergency.
Jay is a long-time activist and her passion for nature, life and this planet comes through in her writing and has the power to move you - it’s infectious.
The book starts out very political with an overview of facism and and an exploration of racism. Parallels are drawn to past dictatorships which gives the feeling that our current political landscape is just the wheel turning full circle with past mistakes being wilfully repeated.
I actually thought the book was going to continue on like this the whole way and I started to lose interest a little (although I do love a bit of Tory-bashing).
However the next chapter starts with the author revealing very graphically and with honesty her struggle with depression and contemplated suicide. As I have had to deal with similar issues I mentally sat up and paid attention. I love hearing other people’s stories of overcoming depression and suicide.
I was immediately hooked and found myself relating with the subsequent chapters’ themes of peace, love, healing, nature and the planet. All things I have come to value above all else.
The author has a way of writing which poetic and full of reverie whilst remaining firmly rooted in educating. Logic and passion meet and form a persuasive partnership.
I found facts such as the Honeyguide rule (to do with inter species symbiosis), the microbe M. vaccae in soil releases serotonin, and just how important soil is and countless other fascinating facts make the book worth reading alone to just to be reminded how great nature is and how much we humans stand to lose.
And that’s what this book comes down to because the author makes her case (quite literally after having been arrested for peaceful protest and been to court) as to what we stand to lose if we don’t take action.
Through recounting her own stories from the front lines of the climate protest, particularly one involving a little girl, she highlights how important it is for future generations across the globe and especially indigenous communities that we all take whatever action we can.
What I took from the book is that the world is amazing and that we humans are raping the Earth and it’s indigenous peoples through our economic and political nihilism and that we need to reconnect with each other and with the planet and fight for the planet like our lives depend on it.
I’d recommend this book to everyone. Seriously go read it!
Jay is a long-time activist and her passion for nature, life and this planet comes through in her writing and has the power to move you - it’s infectious.
The book starts out very political with an overview of facism and and an exploration of racism. Parallels are drawn to past dictatorships which gives the feeling that our current political landscape is just the wheel turning full circle with past mistakes being wilfully repeated.
I actually thought the book was going to continue on like this the whole way and I started to lose interest a little (although I do love a bit of Tory-bashing).
However the next chapter starts with the author revealing very graphically and with honesty her struggle with depression and contemplated suicide. As I have had to deal with similar issues I mentally sat up and paid attention. I love hearing other people’s stories of overcoming depression and suicide.
I was immediately hooked and found myself relating with the subsequent chapters’ themes of peace, love, healing, nature and the planet. All things I have come to value above all else.
The author has a way of writing which poetic and full of reverie whilst remaining firmly rooted in educating. Logic and passion meet and form a persuasive partnership.
I found facts such as the Honeyguide rule (to do with inter species symbiosis), the microbe M. vaccae in soil releases serotonin, and just how important soil is and countless other fascinating facts make the book worth reading alone to just to be reminded how great nature is and how much we humans stand to lose.
And that’s what this book comes down to because the author makes her case (quite literally after having been arrested for peaceful protest and been to court) as to what we stand to lose if we don’t take action.
Through recounting her own stories from the front lines of the climate protest, particularly one involving a little girl, she highlights how important it is for future generations across the globe and especially indigenous communities that we all take whatever action we can.
What I took from the book is that the world is amazing and that we humans are raping the Earth and it’s indigenous peoples through our economic and political nihilism and that we need to reconnect with each other and with the planet and fight for the planet like our lives depend on it.
I’d recommend this book to everyone. Seriously go read it!
January 20, 2025
“What has been set in motion is an ideology of monoism without plurality or otherness, furious for its own freedom, an idiot divinity unleashed upon the world.” Jay Griffiths’ new book of essays about the climate emergency, Why Rebel, was a perfect read for today; for starters, it picked up on many of the ideas in Mark O’Connell’s Notes From An Apocalypse, which I read yesterday, but also happened to be my hundredth read of 2021 — one of my favourite books, Griffiths’ Tristimania, was the 100th book I read in 2017 (these moments of serendipity always make me happy). In these essays, Griffiths explores such concepts as the endling, “the last individual of a species”; the modern Libertarian Alt-right’s roots in Italian Futurism and a pseudo-Roman fascism; the aims and methods and necessity of Extinction Rebellion, specifically for “The young, seeing themselves disinherited, [...] trying to sue for their right to live. May they win.” Alongside Griffiths’ distinct writing on the natural world and our humble place in it, a style perfected to run and rove like rivers and fields, comes Griffiths’ immediate and animated testimony of her part in the famous 2019 XR protests in London, for which she was arrested and, with compelling detail recounted here, stood trial. Her hope resounds: “And yet, and yet, and yet, it is also true that there is a honeyguide in the human heart that knows its true north.”
April 12, 2023
This book is many things:
- an ode to nature and the natural world, and particularly the nature we don’t usually think about but are integral and essential for life on Earth to exist as we know it: the soil, the worms, the coral, the insects;
- a wake up call for the consequences of the inaction by governments and corporations, particularly on indigenous communities - the least responsible for causing climate change, but those most affected by it.
- and most importantly a call to action, to rebel in the face of the climate crisis that severely threatens life as we know it.
The last couple of chapters are an essential read. Particularly, Jay’s court statement that closes this book, following her arrest while practicing civil disobedience with Extinction Rebellion, is incredibly moving and powerful. If you read anything from this book, read it, you will definitely not regret it.
It is imperative we act now.
- an ode to nature and the natural world, and particularly the nature we don’t usually think about but are integral and essential for life on Earth to exist as we know it: the soil, the worms, the coral, the insects;
- a wake up call for the consequences of the inaction by governments and corporations, particularly on indigenous communities - the least responsible for causing climate change, but those most affected by it.
- and most importantly a call to action, to rebel in the face of the climate crisis that severely threatens life as we know it.
The last couple of chapters are an essential read. Particularly, Jay’s court statement that closes this book, following her arrest while practicing civil disobedience with Extinction Rebellion, is incredibly moving and powerful. If you read anything from this book, read it, you will definitely not regret it.
It is imperative we act now.
April 21, 2023
I'm glad Extinction Rebellion protests are at least continuing through books. I don't want to be harsh on any climate activist book unless it's completely off. However, even as poetic as it is, it could be heavily edited to bring the ideas through without almost list like row of examples. Sure, be dramatic, but at this point it slowly turned into complaining about life.
Author gave endless ideas, often times just a sentence mentioning aspects of disaster. Great points, not gonna remember, if it's just a sentence somewhere between other text with no other context. Therefore, it turned into surface level poetic writing about global warming which has a potential to be interesting, but doesn't offer much explanations or hope.
Similarly to other Extinction Rebellion media, it had moments when it seemed like author was personally attacking people for not being involved in fighting climate change ignoring how at this point is a systemic issue.
Anyways I should go to XR protest tomorrow.
Author gave endless ideas, often times just a sentence mentioning aspects of disaster. Great points, not gonna remember, if it's just a sentence somewhere between other text with no other context. Therefore, it turned into surface level poetic writing about global warming which has a potential to be interesting, but doesn't offer much explanations or hope.
Similarly to other Extinction Rebellion media, it had moments when it seemed like author was personally attacking people for not being involved in fighting climate change ignoring how at this point is a systemic issue.
Anyways I should go to XR protest tomorrow.
dnf
August 9, 2021I ended up not finishing this, not because I really wasn't enjoying it, but because I borrowed it from my uni library and then term ended and I had to leave it behind. That said, though I like Jay Griffith's speech style, her written style I didn't enjoy so much. I'm not really sure how to describe it, but this book does kinda read like a speech, in a way that would sound good read out (given that spoken language can be a lot more free and loose with grammar than written language) but that just sounded odd and maybe a bit pompous as a book? I was deffo learning stuff about libertarianism and the modern right that I didn't know, and I probably would've finished it if I owned it, but as it is, I won't buy it just to finish it & yeah I wasn't sure about the writing style.
April 30, 2021
Her writing is exquisite, as always. This is a vital, urgent, humane, intelligent, fascinating, and impossible-to-ignore call to (non-violent) arms. When asked what we should do about the environment emergency, Greta Thunberg says: educate yourself. Reading this book is that education. But it is not dry or hectoring. Griffiths has a way of entwining stories and observations and questions in a way which is both highly readable, honest and vulnerable, and which re-opens our eyes to the interconnectedness of life on our planet and the simple ethics of caring for the soil and the insects and all the flora and fauna which in turn supports us. It is both a lovely and a very important work.
July 10, 2021
This is a thought-provoking read Whilst I agree with much of what is written about in terms of the environmental harm, it seems like a tirade to make me give up because it is so overwhelming. Also the stuff on XR misses an important point - the people don't have the power to do what they want. OK, blockading city centres gets publicity, but so what? I don't see many real changes. My suggestion is to employ positive campaigns where people can join in. For example, air miles in food supplies - boycotts of long distance food and buy local alternatives promoted.
XR got a lot of publicity butalienates the people it wants to support it.
XR got a lot of publicity butalienates the people it wants to support it.
June 24, 2023
This collection of essays is definitely a wake up call. There isn't necessarily a good flow between topics until the author writes about her experiences with The Extinction Rebellion.
Still, she paints a vivid, and terrifying picture of what we are doing NOW to our planet and especially to the insects - who are the unsung heroes we need for survival.
I wish that the author would have provided a list of resources and/or actions as a starting point for how we can join the rebellion. I know that we can always 'google' this, but it would make this book feel more complete. While this book does inspire action it can leave the reader feeling uncertain about how to start and what to do.
Still, she paints a vivid, and terrifying picture of what we are doing NOW to our planet and especially to the insects - who are the unsung heroes we need for survival.
I wish that the author would have provided a list of resources and/or actions as a starting point for how we can join the rebellion. I know that we can always 'google' this, but it would make this book feel more complete. While this book does inspire action it can leave the reader feeling uncertain about how to start and what to do.
December 15, 2024
A series of essays that captures the rage felt by all of us who understand the implications of our society, and who recognize the pathetic inaction of those both powerful and powerless whose self-obsession will become our despair.
Griffiths is delightfully British, both apoplectic and relentlessly polite, but her message is unambiguous: we are not listening to the voices (indigenous, animal and environmental) that could save us. She describes us as Narcissus, so self-obsessed that we don’t even notice that the birds, the and the insects are disappearing, and when they go, so too do we.
And admire her writing gift and her ability to express anger without losing the thread.
Griffiths is delightfully British, both apoplectic and relentlessly polite, but her message is unambiguous: we are not listening to the voices (indigenous, animal and environmental) that could save us. She describes us as Narcissus, so self-obsessed that we don’t even notice that the birds, the and the insects are disappearing, and when they go, so too do we.
And admire her writing gift and her ability to express anger without losing the thread.
February 21, 2022
Brave, brutal and beautiful
May 4, 2022
A beautiful wonderful polemic
July 6, 2022
Brilliant
Read
August 9, 2022"Each generation is given two things: one is the gift of the world, and the other is the duty of keeping it safe for those to come. This contract is broken, and it is happening on our watch."
January 12, 2022
An eloquent expression of horror at the crisis of our time and a call to action while we still have time.
March 23, 2023
I will try to love moths despite my fear of them
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews