If you are truly prepared to open your mind and read the following account with care, attention and reflection, I believe it will pull at your heart strings and wrench at your soul. You will come to understand why ‘love and gratitude’ and ‘love and rage’ sit at the heart of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion. We are in existential times.

I post this writeup of Thursday’s panel discussion on the realities of climate action on the day that the ‘People Versus Oil’ march takes place in London.

You can watch the Fireside Chat discussion on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/live/aZAljG8kVyo?si=ycr8NrNO-VNDUvG_

In the writeup I’ve lifted 28 points into a summary but please consider making a brew and drinking deeply from the whole document.

My emotions are still stirring as a result of the moving contributions and wisdom from Zoe Cohen, Greg Marsden, Emma Woods, Robin Lyons, Hiba Khan and Steve Melia. I salute you as climate activists and may our numbers swell in the fight against injustice.

I’ll conclude with an extract from the writeup which if you watch the recording of the Fireside Chat, cannot fail to bring a lump to your throat:

“As regards the ‘what can you get out of it?’ [climate action], the answer to that is very personal but I’ll share just one reflection which is this….[Steve pauses and the strength of emotion as he reflects is palpable to all of us – powerfully so] … when you are in that situation where you’ve been handcuffed, being led away by the police, you feel this tremendous sense of peace coming over you – you’ve done what’s the right thing, it’s now out of your hands and it’s for others to do their bit”.

With love and gratitude, love and rage xxx