Book club takeaways: It’s not that radical by Mikaela Loach
This article has been written by Lisa & Tash from AND THE FUTURE?, a bookclub and newsletter about solutions for the climate crisis
When Emilie Bellet asked us to facilitate a book club together with Vestpod (a community to financially empower women) we didn’t have to think twice. We strongly believe community and collaboration, especially in the face of the climate crisis, is what will save us.
We started brainstorming what book to read and were very keen to read something contemporary and it so happened that the date for our book club perfectly matched the launch of Mikaela Loach’s book a month before. Being huge fans of her work as a climate activist and soft black girl (give her podcast Yikes a listen if you haven’t done so yet) we knew her book was going to be the one.
As we began reading, we kept sending each other messages ‘wow, what a book’, ‘everyone needs to read this’. My housemate and I ended up reading each other chapters on a long car journey and discussing them afterwards. When we finally met to host the book club meet up and did a quick check in with everyone to see how they have found, we all shared one thing: we felt ignited.
The book is a brilliantly written, accessible, heartfelt plea to not give in to climate doom and instead get organised and shoulder the load together. As citizens and as communities. Wherever we are on our journey, there will never be a day where our contributions don’t matter, however big or small but we have to get up and get going. The time for change is now. The future is here and we are creating it. So without further ado, please dig into our takeaways from this amazing book. Or even better, go out, read it and join the movement. We need you.
All of the profits from this event have been donated to Green New Deal Rising.
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.
On a quiet day I can hear her breathing.”
Rather than painting capitalism green, we must challenge the system itself. We need to start imagining and fighting for a world without capitalism. Capitalism only exists because all of us have grown up in a capitalist system and don’t know any different. That doesn’t mean alternative models don’t exist or don’t work. We just need to first imagine and then implement them. There is plenty of inspiration out there.
Climate justice and racial justice are inextricably linked. We will never be able to solve the climate crisis if we don’t address and actively work to dismantle and take down white supremacist and colonialist behaviour. Eco colonialism is very much a thing today – e.g. there are huge areas of land in Kenya where indigenous people have been forcefully expelled to make room for tree planting projects to satisfy the carbon offsets from the West.
We are the people who will create change. Yes, that includes you reading this. Nobody will come to our rescue and quite frankly we don’t have the time to rely on politicians or lawmakers to make the necessary changes. It needs all of us to get up and do what we can and we have a responsibility to share the load with the people already doing the work. Mikaela quotes Mary Annaise Heglar, ‘as long as you have breath in your body, you will have work to do.’ page 217 and asks us to stand shoulder to shoulder with her and other activists.
In our fight for climate justice, we need to make room for joy. We can’t pour from an empty cup. But also, how are we going to inspire others to join our movements when all they see are burnt out activists? Mikaela highlights the fact that her ancestors surely wouldn’t have wanted her to live a miserable life considering everything they had to endure and fight for.
Fossil fuel giants are in bed with our governments. Not only do they receive subsidies, money that is so needed to tackle social issues and the climate crisis, but they are also calling the shots when it comes to law and policy. Policy is created based on what the fossil fuel companies request, or even demand. The only way out of fossil fuels is A Just Transition (page 123). ‘A Just Transition calls for a transition away from harmful fossil fuels to renewable energy that leaves no one behind; a transition that protects jobs and workers; a transition that can lead to enhanced workers’ rights.’ To dig deeper into the topic of a Just Transition read our previous newsletter on working-class environmentalism.
There is hope. There will always be hope. In the final chapter, Mikaela writes more softly, which is one of her many gifts. To speak so passionately while at the same time remain soft and joyful. She’s still terrified, like all of us, when there’s another heatwave, a decision by the government overturns some good that has been done and it feels like we’re taking steps back. We want to quote every single line in the last chapter because it resonates so fully with us. But Mikaela has hope. She hopes that we have joined our local climate action group, or started our own. That we will have the uncomfortable conversations and step out of our comfort zones, that we remember everything we have to lose and yet to still create to never ever give up the fight.
On the final pages of her book Mikaela asks us to write down what we would want the future to be, feel, look and sound like. Because we need to understand what we are fighting for. We need to imagine it. She asks us to dream big.
Here is Tash’s beautiful vision:
3 cows. A stocksperson to help me run those cows and the farm and learn how to use electric fencing in regenerative farming. A community. Shipping container houses. Allotment style market garden. Groundsource heat pump and solar panels for offgrid. Chickens. Camping and glamping in tiny houses. Tiny house shepherd’s huts, tiny house giant silos, tiny house old engine room with no windows but a glass ceiling in the woods. No dig. No fertiliser. Happy in a small corner of England. No travel except by bike. Own bread making. We grow wheat so have a mill. We grow barley so build a micro brewery. We grow rapeseed oil so get a press. Young adults learning change leadership courses. A trustee of a local wildlife trust. Run the farm as a charity. People.
What is yours? We’d love to hear it.