{"id":1359,"date":"2018-08-29T19:14:08","date_gmt":"2018-08-29T19:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickysinger.com\/new\/?page_id=1359"},"modified":"2018-09-10T19:02:40","modified_gmt":"2018-09-10T19:02:40","slug":"survive","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/nickysinger.com\/new\/survive\/","title":{"rendered":"Choose Love For Survival"},"content":{"rendered":"

My latest book The Survival Game<\/em> is a road movie (and already optioned for a real movie!) about a girl and a boy trying to get to safety in a world ravaged by climate change. The scenario of the book might seem futuristic \u2013 and certainly I push the envelope a bit. But not by much. In fact, my friend Tom Burke (who heads up the independent climate change think tank E3G) thinks the \u2018terrifying\u2019 world I depict could be with us in about 30 years. If we do nothing, that is. And nothing is pretty much what we are doing.<\/p>\n

Terrific. So, we might as well all just lie down and die, right?<\/em><\/p>\n

Wrong.<\/p>\n

Together – we can change things. The Survival Game<\/em> and the #ChooseLovetoSurvive campaign is my attempt to start a conversation about that. Especially with young people.<\/p>\n

Why with young people especially?<\/em><\/p>\n

Because, at the end of these next 30 critical years, today\u2019s young people will be in their 40\/50s. They\u2019ll \u2013 you\u2019ll – be in charge. And those of us who are in charge now will mostly be dead. So, it\u2019s your future we\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\n

So why have we done either nothing or not enough to date?<\/em><\/p>\n

Because climate change is a planetary problem and it\u2019s difficult for us to breach our national interest silos. However, no one country can make itself climate secure acting alone. That\u2019s because we\u2019re all interconnected. Our rivers, the sea, the air we breathe, these things don\u2019t recognise borders. We have to act together to make a difference. And persuade our politicians of this.<\/p>\n

Why are young people going to be able to rise to the challenge in a way that the older generation has failed to do?<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the big one. Because you can. You really can. You have a power that you\u2019ve known and exercised all your life and which you\u2019re really good at \u2013 the internet. The internet does NOT respect borders. The internet takes hashtags from your front room to any place in the world in an instant. There\u2019s a whole book about this (New Power<\/em> by Henry Timms and Jeremy Heimans<\/a>, if you\u2019re interested) but it basically goes like this: in contrast to \u2018old power\u2019, which they define as closed, inaccessible, held by a few and operating like a currency to be hoarded, new power is open, participatory, peer-driven and operates more like a current of water, particularly powerful when it surges. So, for old power, think Harvey Weinstein, and for new power think #MeToo. High School kids in America harnessed this power when they said enough-is-enough on school shootings and created #MarchforourLives. That coming together got them a meeting with the president and the first serious ever questioning of the (old power) National Rifle Association. That job isn\u2019t done but it is how big change starts.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s with this #ChooseLoveforSurvival hashtag?<\/em><\/p>\n

Well \u2013 it\u2019s a new power idea that arose from a meeting I had recently with the people at @HelpRefugees. If you want to know more about Help Refugees you can check here: https:\/\/helprefugees.org\/<\/a> But the important thing is that this organisation (which has now helped over 722,500 people across 12 countries) began with a couple of friends deciding to drive to Calais with a van of blankets. It\u2019s new power in action. Ordinary people like you and me acting to make a difference. One of the hashtags associated with HelpRefugees is #ChooseLove. And choose love is really the central message of The Survival Game. Or, as Mhairi puts it: \u2018I know now that staying alive is not enough. Not the only thing that matters. It\u2019s how you stay alive. What you do \u2013 or do not do \u2013 to stay alive.\u2019 So, working together, we have come up with the hashtag #ChooseLovetoSurvive which we hope will be a banner under which we can mobilise for a brighter and more sustainable future. One where humanity matters.<\/p>\n

Hang on – what does today\u2019s refugee crisis have to do with tomorrow\u2019s potential climate catastrophe?<\/em><\/p>\n

Lots! Right now, about 65.6 million people have been forcibly displaced (about the population of the UK), most of them being hosted in developing countries. Yet the 200,000 or so getting as far as Europe have apparently given us a \u2018migrant crisis\u2019. When\/if climate change kicks in for real, there will be millions more people on the move. Possibly hundreds of millions. So, if we\u2019re not going to have Mhairi\u2019s world of barbed wire borders and guns, we need to start doing some thinking. And also some acting. Right now.<\/p>\n

So, what can I do?<\/em><\/p>\n

Start asking questions and coming up with ideas. And using your power.<\/p>\n

You might go local and practical:<\/p>\n