I love the realness of Ben Okri’s poem (Earth cries! We are the gods that must step up to the biggest crisis in history, 5 August). As a green living coach, I frequently encounter a defeatist attitude that there is nothing we can do about the climate crisis – that it is the fault of big corporations who pollute our planet for profit. While this is true, I want more of us working on the crisis frontlines to point out we give those corporations our money to do what they do.
We choose to participate in the disposable lifestyles they push on us. We were manipulated by those corporate polluters to live a wasteful life, and if we’re going to have a liveable planet we must recognise this and fight against it at an individual level. We need to stop paying corporate polluters to do the damage they are doing.
I would like to see more poems like this, which open people’s eyes to their individual impact and get real about where the money comes from that causes the damage.
Jen Thilman
Huron, California, US
• Ben Okri says: “We are the gods that must do it.” He’s right, we now have to do all we can to avert a global catastrophe, but the reason we’re in this mess is because we thought we were gods. And we still think we have a god-given right to take whatever we want from this already ravaged planet.
We must recognise we are not gods, just one of the myriad forms of life on this earth, albeit the one with the greatest intelligence, but with little thought for the responsibility that entails. We need to recognise we must surrender some of the privileges, which have done such harm to our fellow creatures and now to ourselves.
Yes, as Ben says, we’ll need intelligence, passion and sacrifice, and I would add to that, generosity and, above all, humility.
James Pertwee
Malvern, Worcestershire
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