“The Old Testament tells the story of a seriously miffed God flooding the world, and Noah building a wooden monohull to save each species. This time around it won’t be an act of God but a pickle of our own making, and the planet is the only ark we have. It’s time to find that hammer, fetch those blueprints, and get busy.”
This is an environmental book with a difference. Rather than pages and pages of written text interspersed with depressing images, here is the ultimate practical action kit. ‘Acme Climate Action’ isn’t actually a book in the way we know books, but a rip apart able, physical experience of an action pack: you should peel off the stickers (8 pages of them), pull out the postcards and mail them to everyone you know (all 10 of them), put the 2 posters up (at home and at work), fold and display the handy climate change ‘niggler’ cards (so-called as to niggle you into action when you see them displayed), do the home carbon audit, send off the antagonistic ‘letter to murky politicians’ (particularly as we here in Israel are in election week), make the notebook, wrap the bottle, and carry the climate change trivia cards!
Phew…I’m exhausted just looking through the pack, and there are at least 46 activities to do in there! (as well as 8 handcrafted manifesto commitments…)
“All the waking up, getting busy, rethinking, decomplexifying, making life better, feeling good and mouthing off will be for naught if we’re not joined by the bulk of the carbon-producing world. This is real. This is life. And we have to do this now. We have to enlist the world in order to save it.”
‘Acme Climate Action’ is the ‘Trainspotting’ of the environmental action books: it is big, bold and bright – in your face and active. It is telling us why we need to cut the carbon, and how to do it, and to make it a communal activity. Communities of friends, neighbours and arch-enemies worldwide need to get composting together, bicycling together, switching lights off together, planting trees together, and dreaming up ways of conserving water together. By seeing the glossy images in this pack (and the makers are upfront about the stickers not being recyclable, though the rest of the book is from FSC-certified and recycled paper, so it is easily compostable) and reading the facts about human exploitation of the earths resources and toxification of the air, soil and water, I’m inspired to up the energy filter in my head – and to drive a bit less, walk more, tighten taps, turn lights & this computer off more, shop locally….
Joshua Blackburn created ‘Acme Climate Action’, one of Britain’s dynamic young thrusters, who has worked for many socially minded organisations (including The Labour Party!) before setting up Provokateur, a strategic communications agency working for clients with a conscience. The action pack costs £15 and is a great resource to buy for a friend, family or community group that wants inspiration to act, or just as a great green treat for yourself.
Highly recommended. And you can watch a short film about the book on the book above or see more at Acme Climate Action’s website.
“From the moment you wake up, see what you can do – in how you live, where you shop, set up your home, and cast your vote. Every choice you make, every day, has an impact on this crucial endeavour, and its success depends on your decision to speak out, to work and energise your friends, neighbours and stray, sympathetic wildlife.”
Author: James Murray-White
Growing up in a green village outside Cambridge, UK gave me an eye into the natural world, and years later, after being an actor, dramatist, weary traveller and anthropologist, the environment fires me up the most – and the need to save and nurture it… while we live within it. I now live in the UK, with partner Tania and 2 pesky cats – writing and filming the world (slowly making a documentary about the Bedouin situation) take up my creative time. I do this while growing things organically and composting profusely take up the remainder. James can be reached at james (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
