The Precariat

The property workTWO The 2017 programme FlaT-TyreWeeKS – July 29 - augusT 12 eCONOMICS MoneyOF eCO p22 foodeVeNTS SCOTTee: IT'S eaSIer TO be eCO-FrIeNdly IF yOu're pOSh aNd p0ag8e Well OFF our way of life is destroying the earth and our ability to live on it. should we start getting ready for a very different future?In a polItIcal culture dominated by spin, about our chances of succeeding in achieving a for the disruptive effects of climate change. in industries that will support adaptation,and in which we’ve become accustomed to vital target of preventing the world from “people came up to me and said I was taking including desalination.politicians “burying” bad news, it’s unlikely we warming by more than 2°c by 2100. In fact,will see a party manifesto saying “game over” 2016 was the first year that the concentration what is normally said over coffee and in the bar adapting to a future that could be of anfor our way of life any time soon. of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere stayed or pub after conferences like this, and actually entirely different order to the present will also above a key threshold of 400 parts per million putting it onto the stage, saying what people had require people and communities to alter those But away from the public gaze, a growing for the entire year. at this rate, the world is on been saying for the past five years,” said Bendell. expectations, behaviours and beliefs that havenumber of scientists and experts no longer track to reach the 2c rise by 2030, according to the potential to make matters worse. a growingdiscuss if climate change is happening, or even australian researchers. Some of the questions being asked are number of people in the Degrowth movement,what we need to do to prevent it. Instead they practical ones, such as how to ensure that river for instance, argue that we need to weanhave been asking what changes we need to When Jem Bendell, professor of sustainability catchments can better cope with heavy rainfalls, ourselves from our addiction to growth andstart making now to deal with its inevitable leadership and founder of the Institute for the type of housing and other buildings that are start looking at sustainable levels of productionimpact in years to come. leadership and Sustainability at the University more resilient to floods. the implications and consumption. (See page 18) of cumbria, spoke to scientists at one of the extend beyond our physical environment, this shift is based on “bad news” Queensland universities that produced the impacting other areas of our lives, including the decision to “turn away from very of the kind that doesn't research, a number said afterwards that they industrial policy, requiring us to rethink our destructive, dominant ideas in society make the headlines, were already addressing issues of how to prepare dependency on fossil fuels and develop such as doubts renewable energy sources, as well as investing (continued on page 4) exhIbITIONS, TalKS, perFOrMaNCeS, STreeT arT, COMMuNITy pICNIC Plus!! WaTCh OuT FOr 'The beaST' aS IT MaKeS ITS jOurNey ThrOugh The CITy! p1a4ge

Planet B is a two-week programme of events, performances, film screenings, workshops, artist commissions, conferences and debates – all focused aroundsustainability. It runs from 29th July to 12th August 2017. The programme is led by PECT, Metal and The Green Backyard. Full programme details can be foundat www.pect.org.uk/PlanetB. The project is supported by funding from Arts Council England.The accompanying newspaper is produced by Julie Tomlin and Paper Rhino. Printed on recycled paper.

The precariat 03AnalysisChris ErskineIs it possible to think and plan reality, yet without making adaptations, there tools we need to do this? means those who are the most invested in for a future in which we can see is little difference between them and climate household debt; breakdown in change deniers. Although they are still worth Scientists warn of huge changes to our the way things are may feel they face the social care networks; lack of doing, many of the relatively modest changes to affordable housing; time poor habits we can make, such as recycling, growing planet if the average global temperature rises hardest challenges. In reality, most of the lifestyles; zero hour working some food, using public transport, cycling – arecontracts; increasing reliance on food banks simply not going to cut it by themselves. above two degrees. However, many are now vested interests that we all have are producedand the rise in domestic violence all come toan end? This publication explores ideas from climate also starting to express huge concerns that through economic systems, which have bias change theory and 'deep adaptation' that Jem Most Western responses to these challenges Bendell and others are exploring (see pages 1 & this target will be broken. This is not a green against most of the developing world.are reliant on an ongoing growth in the 4), suggesting alternative ways of responding toeconomy. However, in the last 40 years, the the challenges we all face. Three core ideas agenda, but a life agenda, with the future of However, in a sense this misses the point.global economy has grown by 380 percent. Yet suggested by Bendell are woven throughout thisa total of 1.1 billion live below the extreme newspaper. us all at stake. There is simply no other way If the scientists are right (and we believepoverty line. Relinquishment: of putting it – we “Many have accepted they are) this is not We remain addicted to the idea thateconomic growth will be our salvation, Involves people and communities letting go have to act. a time to try andhowever. This has led us to terrifying and of certain assets, behaviors and beliefs where Deep Adaptation hold onto Westernprecarious environmental situations. At the retaining them could make matters worse.time of writing, Donald Trump has indicated How do we let go? does not seek to climate change is a lifestyles. We allthat the USA will withdraw from the Paris hide from these are looking atclimate accord. President Trump’s main Restoration:arguments for this U-turn are rooted in his realities, but seeks reality, yet without levels of environ-aim of encouraging growth of the domestic Involves people and communities rediscov- to prompt thoughts mental disruptionUSA economy. ering attitudes and approaches to life and organisation that require less management, and actions, which making adaptations, that will change all This belies the hard truths we have to face, or increased community-level productivity will make us more eco-systems.because Western lifestyles are the biggest and support. How do we rebuild?problem. Europeans currently live as if there prepared for the there is little difference This paper is aare four planets and North Americans as if Resilience: consequences. I between them and small contributionthere are seven. repeat this is not a into such a huge Considers how people and communities can green agenda – it’s a challenge. No single Many have accepted climate change is a better cope with disruptions. What are the people’s agenda. It action can stop the climate change deniers”is an issue that cuts current patterns of consumption across class, gender and ethnicity like overnight. We hope no other, although that is not to say that its that it will at least encourage those who have changes will not affect some more than already started to make changes, but also others. disrupt those who say that there is nothing we Deep Adaptation requires a relin- can do. The truth is every day we get up and quishment, a letting go of how we are make a contribution to our future - the question currently doing things. Obviously, that is what kind of future are we contributing to?

04 The precAriATAnAlysis(continued from page 1) as the current refugee crisis has shown, definition, it's not going to go on indefinitely. “one of the critical things is that people who really wish to play a conscious roleabout what is progress” could prove “more people are capable of great kindness and Sooner or later, we are going to have to find going forward in this emerging reality needimportant” than other decisions we have to to allow themselves to drop their certaintiesmake about the devastating effects of climate hospitality, organising to provide support other ways of living, and this will involve and be more comfortable in not knowing,change in years to come, Bendell argued. and even respect despair, don’t just rush outchange of this magnitude has implications for those in need. But also evident is a letting go of things we grew up of it,” said Bendell. “We can be scared offor how we structure our communities, despair, but if we can have some faith thatsocieties and political systems, as well as our tendency to retreat into self-interest and taking for granted,” he said. “My question is, ultimately there is some meaning that willeconomic priorities. be found that will be in some way beautiful. narrow nationalism in order to protect can we roll forward into that process of letting If you have an innate sense of that you can “one of the effects that the realisation that let yourself stay in the despair, knowingdisruptive climate change will be upon us soon against the perceived threat that mass go, rather than carrying on as normal until it that you will emerge from it with newwas to see that this label of what is environ- meaning.”mental is really not very helpful,” said Bendell. migration represents. smacks into us?”“We need to look at the fact that we have an the potential for reconnecting to valueseconomy and a political system and a cultural the disaster at Grenfell tower in there is a deeply personal element to and ways of being that we have jettisonedsystem in the UK which will not help.” in our pursuit of growth and consumption West london in June laid bare the profit- letting go in this way, which Bendell is something author Sharon Blackie has Bendell’s growing conviction that we need explored in If Women Rose Rooted, ato move away from our “individualist, materi- driven system in the provision of housing. But said he began to experience three years ago: book that suggests that women have analist, consumerist, status-hungry culture” important role teaching us ways “to betowards “social solidarity, compassion and it also exposed how “The way we “It's the horror, it's the differently in the world” that are not allcaring” prompted him to work with the far we’ve moved away trauma, it's the grief ,the about achievement and “mad” progress.labour party in the lead up to June’s election from a welfare culture live now is doubt and confusion, (See page 9)as a strategic communications consultant. in which people can wondering what do I do “recycling and all of that malarkey “Jeremy corbyn was the only politician who expect to have not now?’ he said. and sustainability is all very well, and I'm notwas wearing that language on his sleeve,” saying we shouldn't do it,” she said. “Buthe said. “My hope is that politicians like only their basic needs unsustainable, so those people who are nothing is going to be any different until weJeremy can help us understand ourselves for housing met, but consciously working on find different ways of being in the world, abetter, to help communicate the fact that different way of approaching life.”British people admire care and active receive help and by definition, it's environmental issues,compassion, and are proud of the fact that we support in difficult whether in government, If we are prepared to bite the bullet andare a nation that cares.” face up to an emerging reality that could be times. What will be not going to go on business or local commu- very different from our present one, allow a shift towards more caring and compas- the impact if we nities, may need to go ourselves to grieve and face the despair, wesionate values is by no means guaranteed, might find that for once, it’s the good newshowever. Some climate change experts have continue to deal with indefinitely” through this process first, that has been buried.already warned of widespread migration large-scale problems not only in order to beginbrought about by climate change and of by looking for scape- planning constructively, Julie tomlingrowing antagonism among communities as @ julietomlinresources become more scarce. goats? In the case of but to facilitate others. the referendum over european Union “they should ask themselves what it might membership, arguments that getting rid of mean to accept that disruptive climate change “red tape” or stopping migrants taking ‘our’ is coming in their lifetimes, said Bendell. jobs would solve our problems obscured the “people who know about these things need to deeper economic and political issues. do their own grieving and their own reconfig- Writer and co-founder of the Dark uring of their own sense of purpose, perhaps Mountain project Dougald Hine said that the before being useful to others. If we don't have challenge goes beyond “individual consumer many people who have done that, then we are decisions” and is instead about what we do not going to have the wise counsel of people to together in our households, streets and help others work out what this means.” communities, “all the way up” to international It also suggests a different approach to negotiations. leadership, one that doesn’t sidestep painful “the way we live now is unsustainable, so by realities and helps others cultivate resilience.

The precAriAT 05The stories we tell“Our working lives reveal a lot about what we have in common with other people, says Ben Rogaly tHere Were olDer girls and older women and that and they were going out with the americans and thethings they were telling each other and that andthey used to say, ‘Sssh don’t say things like that,she’s not old enough to know.’ ‘She’ll know soonenough,’ they said! <laughs>” It was the laughter and gossip that octoge-narian caroline cooper recalls most vividlyabout her first job, when, then aged 14, and thewar just over, she and her co-workers werebeing driven out from Walton in peterboroughto harvest flowers for a Dutch-owned horticul-tural company in the Fens. alicia Vandenthoren,who moved to england from Belgium with her‘tommy’ husband in 1946, also laughed whenshe remembered a later period of work – in the1960s – a time when she was being bussed eachday from cromwell road to Farrows vegetablecannery in Huntingdon. In the pea season itwas hard work fulfilling the minimum numberof cans to qualify for the daily rate. aliciaremembered one particular day when she gaveone of the managers a ‘beautiful name’. “I stood on the machine and the belt was “Memory is alwaysrunning… but I didn’t get no peas in mehopper… and I was waiting. and he stood from fallible and thehere to my front room from me, the manager,and he went, ‘oi!’ I couldn’t have the machine way we rememberworking so I never said nothing. So about fiveminutes after he went, ‘oi!’ I still didn’t have no and talk about thepeas, I couldn’t work. the third time he did itagain and I got down off the steps for the past is inevitablymachine I said, ‘ere, I’ve got a bloody name!You either call me by name or you fuck off!’ Idid… and the name, in Italian is Mr Fangula selective”[roughly equivalent to ‘fuck off ’], and the namestuck till the factory closed, everybody knewhim as Mr Fangula.”like alicia and caroline, today’s horticul-tural, food factory and warehouse workers in emergence of the gig economy and, since the dismantled… in the “mother country” itself the people from all backgrounds who have beenpeterborough, as elsewhere in the country, have 2008 financial crisis, a stagnation in wages. colour-bar emerged as a more visible feature of employed in food factories, packhouses, fieldsstories to tell about workplace relations. the according to the 2016 edition of the organi- the urban landscape.’ He argues that this was and retail distribution centres in and around thecontext has changed. large retail corporations sation for economic cooperation’s employment rooted in a process of forgetfulness about the city. this project goes further than the last one.have more power over the companies in their outlook, real wages declined by 10.4 percent ‘long historical entanglements’ that the growing this time we intend to involve the people whosupply chains. this in turn has contributed to a between 2007 and 2015. number of ‘dark-skinned migrants’ (and their will appear in the films as much as possible in theworsening of employment conditions in food one of the reasons such trends continue is forbears) had with Britain, a forgetfulness that creative process of making them. We will workproduction. one example of this is the use of that corporate power effectively remains was ‘incubated' in what he refers to as ‘the together to explore people’s creativity in makingpiece rate payments, with ever-increasing effort unchallenged, a situation that is aided by divide higher reaches of the national culture.’ intensive work manageable, or at least bearable,being required from workers to obtain the and rule within and beyond the workplace, Memory is always fallible and the way we for example through humour, forming friend-minimum threshold of output (a certain including in parts of the national media. this remember and talk about the past is inevitably ships across ethnic or national social boundaries,number of punnets of strawberries to be might be on the basis of nationality – people selective. Yet sharing memories of work in the or getting one over on the boss. rather thanharvested in a particular time period, say) to seen as ‘migrants’ pitted against those claiming way that caroline and alicia and over 100 other relying on ‘the higher reaches of national culture’qualify for the national minimum wage. to be ‘locals’ or ‘natives’. In peterborough, the people did with a group of us in peterborough to shape collective memories, the filmsanother is the system of fines and associated idea that ‘migrants’ are some distinct group over the last few years (see www.placesforall. will develop a bottom-up critique of the degra-threats of disqualification from work that are belies the city’s long history of inward migration, co.uk) is one way of countering collective forget- dation of employment conditions in the foodused by some companies to enforce the precise including, most dramatically, the doubling of fulness about workplace relations. Moreover, it production, packing and retail distribution‘quality’ requirements supermarkets insist the population in the 1970s and 1980s when the can remind the wider public that, although sectors. Importantly they will also draw attentionon for fresh fruit and vegetables. Such condi- new towns were built. Divide and rule on the employers may seek workers, what they get are to the everyday creativity of factory andtions come with stricter supervision aimed at basis of skin colour and presumed faith identity people. the stories we tell about our working warehouse workers outside the workplace thattighter control of work-places, which in food also have long histories, and are connected to lives reveal much both about our individuality is often unnoticed or undervalued yetfactories and packhouses has often taken the previous colonial modes of rule and economic and our common human condition. as Writer- is part of what makes peterborough suchform of harsher policing of toilet trips and extraction as Stuart Hall shows so lucidly in his in-residence at Metal I am currently a vibrant city.statutory breaks in the working day (or night), posthumous memoir Familiar Stranger. Hall collaborating with peterborough-born formeras well as prohibition on work-time conversa- recalls that in the post-war period, when ‘the factory and warehouse worker Jay Gearing of Ben rogaly is professor of Humantions between workers. Meanwhile, across the tide of international opinion’ was ‘turning paper rhino Films on a series of 10 short films to Geography at Sussex University's CentreUK economy as a whole there has been a against colonial rule’ and ‘the colour-bar in continue this work. for Migration research.national increase in zero hours contracts, the Britain’s overseas possessions began to be the films will evoke some of the diversity of @rogaly

06 The precAriATTrAvelA one-way ticketWhen she arrived from Poland agnieszka Coutinho was determined it would only be for a year.Now almost 12 years later, Peterborough feels like home.iWaS at a university in poland themselves would say sorry to me. now many more cultural and I hoped to be a journalist one to themselves, it’s become such a habit for me differences than some of us day… Journalists, including but older people that whenever I go to poland a would think. aspiring ones, are usually curious seemed to be more open and friend of mine laughs that I keep saying While at that job I’ve met two very and keen on meeting new people keen to talk. one man who used to 'sorry' and 'thank you' so often. special British people, carol Browne who is and travelling. So in 2005 when work in management in journalism before an author, and Ben rogaly, who havemy sister decided to move to peterborough he retired told me not to make assumptions While working in a medical centre some helped me a lot and we’ve become goodand suggested that I could come here for a based only on people I met in factories, British receptionists told me they thought friends. I’m incredibly thankful I’ve metgap year to learn english and save some which made me think how important it many eastern europeans are rude because such genuine and open-minded peoplemoney, I didn’t think twice. “It will be just is not to make assumptions about others they don’t say 'could I have?' or 'May I?' here because without them, I surelyone year. I wouldn’t be able to live abroad for too quickly. and, vice versa, it may be when they ask for an appointment. wouldn’t be where I am.longer.” – I thought back then. My father very damaging if British people base their I explained that many people who speak although it was hard at the beginning,bought me a bus ticket to england only opinion about foreigners purely on one or basic english are not yet aware of those and sometimes still is, the time has shownbecause I promised him that I would two immigrants they’ve met. words which are more polite. In our culture, that the ticket to england which I boughtcome back after a year to finish my people are a lot more direct and can nearly 12 years ago was priceless…degree. I decided to change my work in order to say “I want” instead of “I’d like to”. there are learn more english and be able to get a I got my first job in a factory a few days better job and perhaps do a course one day. Iafter I had arrived. on my first day a man went to one of the restaurants for anwho claimed to be a taxi driver from a interview three times before I got a jobrecruitment agency turned out to be an there. However, if I thought that working inimpostor. the previous day at the agency I a restaurant would be easier than being awas told to wait in front of my house and warehouse operative I was wrong.someone would pick me up. the next day at restaurant jobs can be even more stressfulthe agreed time, a car stopped and when I and exhausting than working in a factory,asked if he was from the recruitment agency with no time for proper meals, a lot ofhe nodded. I got into the car but after a few pressure, stressed managers, demandingminutes I realised he had no idea where the customers… I worked in a few restaurants,factory was and managed to jump out of his in a hotel and in a bar before I went back tocar. to this day I don’t know how he knew, factories as a supervisor for a while.that I was waiting for a taxi, but I think itwas a coincidence. later, I found out that a few months later I got a job in a medicalthe recruitment agency hadn’t sent anyone centre as a receptionist and thanks to myto pick me up because they decided they manager I also became a Stop Smokingdidn’t need so many workers that day and adviser. During my time in the medicaldidn’t even call me. I got work in a different centre I’ve managed to complete two degreesfactory two days later. this time there was a in International Business english andproper taxi with a few other workers already psychology. I then worked as a receptioninside it. the only problem was that I was supervisor in the nHS, a customer advisorthe only girl and I was given hard physical in an IKea call centre and as an agencywork including lifting and carrying heavy manager at amazon. In the past year I'veboxes all day, while four young men who been working as a Senior administrator/went with me there got easy and light tasks Business Support to several managers in theto do. nHS and I'm starting a Masters in applied positive psychology soon. even though I got a job quickly and I wasliving with my family, the first three months in What I like about British culture is thatthe UK were horrible. I knew very little people are often polite and behave profes-english and my whole life consisted of work sionally in the workplace even if they have hadand home, home and work. It was the end of a bad day. people in my country don’t sayautumn and it was dark, cold and rainy. thank you or sorry on so many different occasions, so I had to get used to that. even if I after a few months, things started to step on someone’s feet in a supermarket theychange. I went to english classes, began tomake friends at work and started to go outand joined a local gym. a few months later Imet a Brazilian guy who is now my husbandand we have a three-year-old daughter. I’ve worked in many different places –firstly, in factories and warehouses. What Ilike about these places is that you can meetso many different and interesting people ofvarious ages, backgrounds, passions andbeliefs. Different nationalities often sticktogether, so if you go to a factory usually youwould see separate groups during breaktimes, such as polish, lithuanians, asians,portuguese and english workers sitting andchatting. every workplace was different insome way but I quickly realised that youngerenglish people would prefer to keep

The precAriAT 07poliTics The brexiTThey don’t megAphonecnojomoiuechberrkse To People who voted to leave the European Union did so for many reasons, not just to stop migration, and it’s time Westminster politicians started listening, writes Katie garner.andrew Burgess is director of agriculture for Produce World, a at tHe tIMe of the General election underfunding to the nHS, people feeling farming business in East Anglia, with a farmhouse 2017 (Ge17), I was away from london, ignored, and unconnected to the decision in Yaxley that has been in the family since spending three weeks in Middlesbrough, makers who influence their lives. 1898. He is also a member of the National a place which has become famed as a post Farmers’ Union Horticulture & Potato industrial, dispersal area for asylum a common motivation was anxiety about Board and the NFU Organic Forum. He seekers. I was there to talk about significant change within communities. talks to Julie Tomlin about the impact migration, and yet all of my conversations Migration has certainly impacted commu- of Brexit on the agricultural industry. were Ge17 and Brexit. nities in the north, where there is a disproportionately high dispersal rate ofWhat changes have you What problems do you see up Middlesbrough and its neighbouring asylum seekers per person.seen among people who ahead if migration is banned? town of Stockton on tees voted to leave thework on the farm? european Union in 2016. as two of the Yet many other influences are changing there aren't enough unemployed people to highest asylum seeking dispersal areas in the shape of communities across the UK.We used to have a lot of romany travellers fill all the jobs. In peterborough, we have the country, they are in contention with over and over again, people wanted to tellwho used to travel around doing all the about two percent unemployment, which nigel Farage as the poster boy connecting me how they felt, about their homes that hadseasonal work. they'd come to us in the in practical terms is full employment. So if Brexit to immigration. Fifteen of the top been demolished because of development,autumn and stay with us doing the carrots. all our european friends have to go home, 20 asylum dispersal areas in the UK voted that they couldn’t get a job because theythat stopped in the 1970s. who is actually going to do the work? to leave the european Union - the five that were considered too old and out of touch. there's more jobs than there are people. didn’t were all major cities. they wanted to talk about surviving on My Dad or my Grandad used to drive benefits, breakdown of community, and askaround in a minibus in the morning to pick With things like weeding organic carrots, a certainty about the link between how they could meet neighbours who don’tup local women for work. then, some time we go from needing nobody to needing 120 migration to the UK and Brexit was evident go to the church or the pub. these weren’tin the 1980s, early '90s we couldn't get people for four weeks and then back down in the Ge17 campaign. When the presented as insurmountable obstacles, orthose people any more. to zero again. Finding people to do that kind government said they would reduce xenophobic statements, but grief to be felt of work in the UK is almost impossible. immigration to the 10s of thousands, the and challenges to be considered.Who are your workers today? response was that it couldn’t be done, not We are only 60 percent self-sufficient in that it shouldn’t. any opposing voices were Meena, who has lived in MiddlesbroughWe’ve got 450 employees, and about two vegetables. We obviously need to improve quickly silenced. for 30 years, told me “It’s not that peoplethirds of them are european. they mostly that, but it could go the wrong way if we have a problem with asylum seekers… butcome from poland, portugal, Spain and latvia. can't get people to come and do the work. However, three weeks in Middlesbrough they feel an anxiety about large-scale and Stockton has roundly disproved this changes in their community and they don’tWhy do you employ migrant What are the wider assumed link. andy from north ormsby, feel able to vocalise it”. the Brexit votelabour? implications? an area with the second highest child provided that megaphone and was a poverty rate in the country, said many seismic shift in the political landscape.We don't advertise for migrant workers, we the reality is that we have got to have some friends who had voted for Brexit, had also What the calling of a snap general electionadvertise for workers. Finding people to do immigration, otherwise we are going to voted labour. Middlesbrough, Stockton by the prime Minister theresa Maythat kind of work in the UK is almost have the biggest recession we have ever had north and now Stockton South are all ultimately revealed was fresh division inimpossible. people want permanent in our life time. lack of productivity, lack of represented by labour Mps, some of whom the country and the catastrophic absencepositions and want reliable work, and field people to do the jobs. If 4.5 million people have a pro-migration stance. of an investigation into the nuances of thework is not reliable. the cheap food go home, that's going to be the biggest Brexit vote. there has never been a moreeconomy doesn't help either, everybody shrink to the economy we've seen since the In my short time in Middlesbrough and important time for politicians to get outwants cheap food. 1930s. those 4.5 million are not just Stockton, I learnt that Brexit had multiple of Westminster and start listening. workers, they are customers too. motivations. Genuine fears exist aboutIs it cheaper to employmigrant labour then? “There aren't polling day in middlesbrough.there's nothing winds me up more than enough unemployedpeople saying they come here to nick ourjobs, they don't. people to fill It's nothing to do with cheap labour. all the jobs”they get treated and paid exactly the sameas UK labour. they are people just like us.they come here to work, make a living,pay their tax.

08 The precAriATcommenTeA dcifoferWenAt crlasrs oiforChances are if you are reading this you probably think this isn’t about you. But are you reallydoing enough because you recycle and buy eco products? asks scottee.mY MUM tHInKS I’m how and why to recycle because my husband like it or not, eco-mindfulness is something has been diagnosed with skin cancer is tricky posh, in fact she thinks taught me - he was brought up in a house people like my parents think people with enough, asking him to use lush products I’m middle class. She’s where they did that sort of thing; yes, I’m money do. because they are vegan and not tested on come to this conclusion clumsily trying to demonstrate that if you animals is a whole ‘nother kettle of fish. because my husband are posh and/or if you grow up in a house oK, there's an argument that not all However, my brother, a 19-year-old football and I don’t have a telly. where ecology is on the menu, it will be eco-products cost more, not all methods of loving bloke, has recently turned vegetarianthe fact we cycle, grow our own food and bake something you will unquestionably bring reducing our outputs mean we need money, but with vegan aspirations - perhaps my genderbread has nothing to do with it, it’s purely into your adult life. the choice of cheapest is first and foremost for argument is generational.because I’ve made the decision to buy out of what the tories call ordinary working families.Britain's Got talent. I now live in a working class area of the I’m willing to lay a bet that the fact you’re essex seaside - every Wednesday we separate Without a decent education in self-suffi- reading this article, in a paper about ecology, My husband and I are working class our rubbish into four different bags for ciency, without eco-familiarity, without Vat promoting an eco-awareness festival means youmillennials - we have no kids and we like to Southend council - red bags for plastic, blue exemption and sizeable tax breaks for already recycle, you already buy so-calledthink we are doing the world a favour by for paper, white for textiles, black for anything low-carbon business, rigid regulation on those eco-friendly stuff made from plants, sold inshopping at co-operatives, bringing our own else. as I leave for work my road is awash with pumping chemicals into world ecology, it will recyclable bottles. You’re reading this thinkingbags and buying cleaning products that mountains of black bags, part of me wants to always be something someone else with the this is about someone else.smell of eucalyptus - we shop at Waitrose. knock on each door and tell them off, the other luxury of time, land and wealth will do - it’s whyBefore you think I’m holier than thou, half wants me to sort their rubbish for them - prince charles is seen as a smug Duchy arsehole. But you can buy as many eco-reusable-because we don’t have a car, my Dad drives but neither help, neither change anything biodegradable things for your solar poweredus to the edge of our town in his diesel truck. because next Wednesday is just a week away. We must also accept ecology is gendered - home as you like, eco-socialism will never beHowever, to alleviate the guilt of emissions, blokes like my Dad (by blokes I mean working achieved if you’re not willing to share your privi-my parents shop there too. If we’re going to effect change greater than class men) are less likely to buy these soft, leges - and that includes your wealth, knowledge just the usual long haired, flip flop wearing, namby-pamby, ‘enrich your life’ products - it’s and power. My Mum and Dad shop at Waitrose because Glastonbury-going eco-warriors saving the why the market is saturated with brutal,they grew up in post-war poverty in social planet we must accept a few eco-truths - aggressive, chemical shower gels, supposedly Scottee is an artist and writer.housing. the fact they can shop at Waitrose is, recycling is a classed and gendered activity. designed ‘for men’. @ScotteeIsFatI suppose, a mini victory - reminding themthey survived, life changed a bit, they can join asking my Dad to wear sun cream now hein with the Joneses, even if it’s only for an hour.their money goes on satellite tV, keeping theheating on and the fridge full - this is somethingthat will never change, the result of growing uphungry and cold. Mum always remarks how different ourtrolleys look: “yours is full of colourfulthings, ours is full of shit”. We both lovecleaning, we take pride in our homes beingas presentable as possible. Whilst traipsingthe cleaning aisle, I trolley all of Waitrose’sown-brand eco-range - bathroom cleaner,kitchen cleaner, multi-surface cleaner, fabricconditioner, even the washing up liquid - Ibuy two of some things. Mum reaches for herstaples - Vanish, bleach and Flash, each withchild safety locks and hazard warning. I tell Mum she should consider using theeco-line, that it’s better for the planet (I’mbasing this on nil personal research, but itsounds about right). I tell her it would better forher skin (again, no evidence to back this up),that it would be better in general, because theproduct tells me so - it’s “eco”. She asks “does itgo very far? Is it any good? Is it very dear?” Instead of convincing her otherwise, Irealise that perhaps the reason I’m able tobuy, gloat and elevate my impression of mycarbon footprint is because I can afford to doso. I can afford the extra £1 per bottle, I canafford uninformed ethics. eco-ignorance wasn’t something I wasborn into, grew up with or has beensomething I’ve practiced for very long. likemy parents, I grew up on an estate - recyclingwasn’t a thing until about five years agothere. composting is something I’m stilllearning to be able to stomach - like myparents, food is a tricky one for me. I learnt

The precAriAT 09Womenprotectors of the landDo women have a particular role to play in recovering a relationship to the earth and to each other, asks Julie Tomlin.iS tHere a story we could tell when faced with the intransigence of the management is the same is mine, and ours runs over the centuries,” says performance artist about ourselves and the world that Jo Bushell. “We are living such a disconnected offers an alternative narrative as we authorities because they have learnt to confront counter to what is the mainstream vision of it, existence severed from our heritage, myths, face up to the significant challenges community from the cycles and seasons of that lie ahead? it in their lives. “Women have found creative and I would put that down to us being creative nature that we have become dysfunctional, In her book If Women Rose displaced and isolated and the natural worldRooted, author Sharon Blackie found in ways to win that didn't involve physical force,” people, and used to being lateral thinkers, is suffering.”forgotten celtic myths and legends stories ofwomen’s agency, creativity and capacity to she says. “they have found an ability to endure, problem solvers,” she says. Bushell, who in her work creates space forrestore and mend. In line with many indig- people to reconnect with the natural world,enous cultures around the world, the stories just in life's challenges. With women, the more this willingness to challenge conven- and their community and heritage, suggestsfrom Ireland, Scotland and Wales suggest women have a significant role to play shapingwomen had a particular, although not you push, the more they stand strong.” tional wisdom also drove lee to run new ways of being that extend into how weexclusive, connection to land, from which organise our communities, our political prior-they derived authority and a mandate to the stories in Blackie’s book offer “different projects aimed at encouraging girls to ities and economy. Similarly, the threat to landguard and protect it. that fracking represents is itself a “symptom” of ways of being in the world” that include work in forestry, an industry traditionally a wider malaise at the heart of our system of “It's not that women have more responsi- government, argues rothery, who believes thatbility, but I think that because of the nature of activism, but more broadly encourage women dominated by “white blokes” that it is a natural progression for many womenWestern civilisation, it's always been assumed who see it as their role to protect the land tothat it's men's role to fight, it's men's role to to discover their “unique gift” and use it in is experiencing a recruitment crisis: begin to look at what changes are needed inprotect,” she says. “I think my whole perspective our politics and our society:in writing If Women Rose Rooted was to say, no relation to a particular “A significant “If the peopleit's very much our job as well.” “Fracking is quite useful, as it reveals so place: “If you can step having the conver- much: a system that puts profit ahead of a significant number of women, and older back a bit and say oK sation are all white people, where lobbyists have a bigger voicewomen in particular, have joined the ongoing in the government than we do, where there’sprotests against fracking in the UK. Many call what about my place, number of women, men, what could we a revolving door of government andthemselves “protectors”, among them tina whatever it might be, if potentially be missing industry,” she says.rothery, a founder of the lancashire nanas, agroup of women taking on the fracking giant you start to build a and older women if we're not having a this idea that some women may be on thecuadrilla. currently part of a protest at a site in relationship with that, female voice in that frontlines of activism, while others mightpreston new road near Blackpool, rothery seek to fulfil their role as protectors thoughsays she’s driven by her determination to think about protecting in particular, have conversation, if we're other means, is at the heart of Blackie’ssafeguard the future of her grandchildren: that, then I think a lot of not having the black argument: “as a grandmother I’m protecting something things will flow from it.” joined the ongoing voice or the eastern “I don't think it matters, I don't think there'smore valuable than anything they can throw at the desire to connect protests against european or asian any one way to do it,” she says. “But the oneme, so I am unstoppable,” says rothery, adding voice,” asks lee. thing I would stress is that it all starts at home,that women seem to have a different capacity with a place was behind it all starts in the place where your foot steps Katy lee’s decision to Including different when you walk out of your front door.” move to a woodland in voices and perspec- fracking in the UK”north Devon with her tives becomes all the more vital if the husband Vince and two teenage daughters. dominance of living and working there, they focus on “masculine” values traditionally defined by restoring the forest by replacing conifers with powerful white men and the suppression of broad leaf trees, and finding related ways to different ways of being has shaped a society earn a living. lee is reluctant to describe the that is doing increasing harm to both men affinity she has developed for the woodland as and women, as well as the earth. 'feminine' seeing them rather as creative “the severing of the connection between qualities both she and her husband developed women and their role as protectors and in previous careers. guardians of the land has had a profound “I would say my husband's view of woodland impact on the way society has been governed

10 The precariatPlanet BWhat will futureinhabitants of the planetmake of our way of life?For the Future Museum of Now, items including some that are moreconceived by artists Claudia Friend, relevant to Peterborough as part of thea collection of objects from the 21st Planet B Festival:century will be curated and displayedfrom the perspective of a museum in “I will be making some new pieces,the year 2525. It is a time when life is beach combing, picking items fromvery basic, and much of the information the street, squashed tin cans and bitswe currently have at our disposal is no of plastic,” she says. “Then everythinglonger available. As a result, knowledge is put together in a certain way with aof how things worked or what they may description that won't be completelyhave meant is limited. The objects on clear, as language has been destroyeddisplay are therefore as mysterious to a certain extent, or forgotten.”mysterious as ancient finds are to usnow, says Friend. The objects will be displayed in the museum in ways that reflect how “In 2525 the world is almost having people of the future would interpretto start again from scratch, so all the their significance and intended use.concepts that we have of the objects Without the language and conceptsthat we cherish are mysterious and of today, all they have to draw uponindescribable,” says Friend. “It’s is the rituals and ideas that havetrying to create a starting point. The survived, but only as disjointed parts,world that you see through the hearsay and distant culturalmuseum is a very post-apocalyptic.” memories. The Southampton-based artist and It’s a bleak vision of the future,workshop facilitator works almost Friend admits, but there is humour inentirely with recycled materials and the way that items we come acrossfound objects to highlight issues of on a daily basis are framed in thewaste and environmental change future.and damage and puts into a widercontext the value of what is usually “My hope is that people will engagethrown away. as they want with it, and have some sense of their own perspective on The work builds on an earlier Future how things are going and why theMuseum of Now in Southampton that exhibition may be presenting itself inwas conceived with fellow artist the way it is, but also to do that in aSteph May. Friend will be adding more humorous way, and for it to be quite light and not to browbeat. I suppose that's the hopeful side.” The writing The work of John Ruskin, who Pioneers, young people, residents, cityis on the wall... encouraged people to explore the leaders and civic figures in Westraven beauty of nature and humanity at a Community Cafe, along with the time of large-scale industrialisation Women’s Institute and a group at and mechanisation, has inspired the mixed prison there. visual artists Kate Genever and Steve Pool’s project. “It's not just about the screen print, it's about bringing a group of people Working together as The Poly-Technic, together into a space to have a Genever and Pool will be staging conversation and out of that mobile radical screen-print poster conversation comes the statements workshops that will explore Ruskin’s for the screen print,” says Genever. statement There’s No Wealth But Life. “It's about the discursive space, and the generation of the prints. It's “The John Ruskin statement points about small groups of people coming to the fact that we need to revalue together, to think, talk, make and share.” what is important, whether it is our individual life or the life of the whole Along with a continually updated planet,” says Pool. “We hope to archive and temporary ad hoc explore what is of value, ideas about displays, this mobile projection is a the collective and individual good and key aspect of the project, enabling the idea of wealth not being people who take part to see their associated with money. I think we are slogans across the city. saying there is also hope.” “If what we do is allow somebody to Genever and Pool, who have worked have a say and then screen print it collaboratively for 10 years, will host a and it gets put up on a telephone box series of two hour participatory and they photograph it and send it sessions over two weeks during the around the world and they feel proud, Planet B Festival. then that's a lovely thing to do in a small way,” says Genever. “The slogans originate in people's “If we bring a group of people handwriting, and are then carried into together with differing opinions and repetition, they can then take them there's a conversation, and people home, they are archived and get start to think again, then that's a good projected,” says Pool. thing.” They will be working with Interviews by Julie Tomlin Bretton-based group The Pyramid

The precariat 11 Programme of events Peterborough is home to one of the longest-running and largest Green Festivals in the UK,and this year it takes on a new life as ‘Planet B’. See www.pect.org.uk/PlanetB for more details. Image credit: teddybaden.co.uk _aveaskeg_Planet B encompasses a two-week invited to consider the objects we each have team will be on hand to offer advice and recipe smiled deep into me, his lips made the shape ofprogramme of events, performances, film in our homes and perhaps donate one to the ideas for using leftovers and cutting food bills. the words ‘I Love You’. Intrigued? Thenscreenings, workshops, commissioned artworks, project yourself. Claudia Friend welcomes the theatre performance Generation Zero,and a conference – all around encouraging you to the Museum of Future Now, set in Brexit is never far from our minds and about our ambiguous future world, is a must.discussion and debate on sustainability. 2525, viewing objects excavated from 2017. several events and activities explore the role What might our future generations make of of migrant workers in the city. You can climb Over the last month, artist Eric McLennan The environmental charity PECT, in our waste? aboard the Pickers, Packers and Pluckers has been inviting residents of the city to takepartnership with arts organisation Metal bus with poets Keely Mills, Charley Genever out shares in the Earth. The shareholdersand The Green Backyard will be running Often, the best conversations, even the and six new female Peterborough poets for a convene for a performance called ‘A Drop inPlanet B from Saturday July 29 through to best ideas, come about whilst sitting together look at seasonal work in the city. The poets the Ocean’, harnessing the collective effort.Saturday August 12 2017. over food. Scottee invites you to his commune at will also perform at a Planet B-themed Chauffeurs Cottage for any of four meals Write Club at the Stoneworks. Francis Taking a more hands-on approach are Poly- Planet B kick-starts with the Peterborough exploring the housing crisis, perceptions Thorburn’s The Beast procession embodies Technic who will help you to make your ownInternational Friendship Day and of Peterborough, Brexit boredom and whether or the romance of epic journeys, depicting tribes protest poster. Join PHACE for a creativeSmugglers Festival, a day of connectivity, folk not we should stop having children. Scottee will of travellers, yet highlighting the reality of workshop for 15=19-year-olds, Soul Happy formusic, workshop activity and discussions on help us navigate some tricky but pertinent issues. the immigrant experience. litter picks or Drink and Draw at the Ostrich inn.climate change that take you through into theevening. It also turns out that there is such thing as a free In Question Time Cabaret Talia Randall Rounding off the fortnight is ‘Relin- lunch. In Feed the 1,000, PECT has been brings us an evening of hilarious, gut-wrenching quishment: A Planet B Day Gathering’ at If you are more of a film buff then there are chosen to be a Sainsbury’s ‘Discovery Community’ performances slammed together with a panel of Anglia Ruskin University, Peterborough. Lessseveral peppered throughout the fortnight, as part of the supermarket’s Waste less, Save Britain’s foremost journalists. of a conference, more of a gathering, withmany of which have discussions afterwards, more campaign. PECT invites you to a lunch contributions from Tony Juniper, professorfrom I, Daniel Blake to Beasts of the Southern made from items that often get thrown away ‘They Dragged us through to the cells Dom Kniveton and Maddy Harland, the eventWild. For the hoarders amongst us, visit from our homes. The Waste Less, Save More one by one. Sitting opposite each other will be a mix of talks, world café style sessionsEmily Tracy’s Clutter Bank where you are on the cold floor, his eyes found mine and and panel discussion.

12 Planet B – ProgrammeFri 28th July, 7.30pm, Chauffeurs Cottage, 1 St Peters Rd, Peterborough PE1 1YX Weds 2nd August, 7.30pm, The Stoneworks, 8B Church St, Peterborough PE1 1XBPlanet B warm-up event:Film Club Frame: Beasts of the Write ClubSouthern Wild (2012) The first rule of Write Club...Film girl, Hushpuppy, exists on the brink of tell everyone about Write Club. orphan hood. Buoyed by her childishFour-time Oscar-nominated film optimism and extraordinary imagination, POETRYabout human resilience in the face she believes that the natural order is inof environmental disaster. Featuring balance with the universe until a fierce Teaming up with Planet B, Write Clubstunning performances from first-time storm changes her reality. Desperate to promises you and your ears a night ofactors, including 6-year old Quvenzhané repair the structure of her world in order excellent poetry and spoken word allWallis, this film is a brutal but beautiful to save her ailing father and sinking wrapped up in a never-before-seen format. Three team captains, Mark Grist, Charleyeco-fairy-tale. home, this tiny hero must learn to Genever and Keely Mills – each with an army of poets – will compete for ultimate survive unstoppable catastrophes of epic glory… and a pint.In a forgotten but defiant bayou proportions. FREE event, no need to book.community cut off from the rest of the Each team will have 20 minutes to fill in on a theme and this will be set by a veryworld by a sprawling levee, a six-year-old special guest. So that means each poem/performance will be a response to that theme and of course Planet B. The best team wins by audience vote. Think Fight Club meets a Pokémon battle meets a poetry slam. This is a FREE event, no need to book. Thurs 3rd, 1.30pm-4pm (young people ages 8 - 16) & Fri 4th August, 10.30am-1pm (16+), WestRaven Community Café There is No Wealth But Life The Poly-Technic Workshops & ProjectionsSat 29th July, 11am-5.30pm, Cathedral Square, Peterborough PE1 1XH What does it mean to be a responsible we need to revalue what is important, citizen? What does it mean to be an whether it is our individual life or thePeterborough International activist? What does it mean to be a life of the whole planet. Thinkers likeFriendship Day social sculpture? What does it mean Ruskin encouraged people to explore to feel powerless? the beauty of nature and humanity, facedOrganised by Extended Hands with with large-scale industrialisation and thesupport of Peterborough City Council Everyday some people wake up and ask mechanisation of people and production. themselves these questions, fill the carFestival up with 200 million year-old sunlight and Poly-Technic invite participants to drive to work. People are faced with a develop and design a protest posterA day of performances and food, bringing dark dread, a growing feeling of alienation, relating to a personal concern. Thepeople together to celebrate cultural a fear of failing, a fear of being afraid. posters will be displayed or seen asdiversity in Peterborough. International part of a large-scale projection. BookingFriendship Day celebrates friendship We quote John Ruskin, because his is essential. To find out more visitacross the world and embraces love and simple statement points to the fact that www.pect.org.uk/PlanetBunity across our great city. For furtherdetails contact Bernadetta Omondi [email protected] 07967 310 800. FREE event, no needto book.Sat 29th July, 12noon-10.30pm, The Green Backyard, Oundle Road, Peterborough PE2 8ATSmugglers FestivalThe Green Backyard and The Smugglers FestivalFestival the Land For What collective, ceilidh Thursday 3rd August, 6.30pm for a 7pm start, Chauffeurs Cottage, 1 St Peters Rd, dancing, a real ale bar and delicious Peterborough PE1 1YXThe Smugglers Festival is set to be a local food will be on sale all day.fun-filled day of live music, arts and Workshops and craft demonstrations Tomorrow (Demain)crafts, discussions and activities at The will also be available, giving you theGreen Backyard. opportunity to learn a new skill on the Peterborough in Transition day too. Tickets: £10. Age 12-17: £5.International folk and roots musicians Under 12s: FREE. Filmincluding The Odd Beats and the Mikey Booking required, visit Join Peterborough in Transition at Kenney Band will join local performers www.thegreenbackyard.com. Chauffeur's Cottage to watch Tomorrow to provide live music throughout (Demain), winner of Best Documentary the day. There will be talks at the 2016 Cesar Awards. Filmmakers and discussions hosted by Cyril Dion and Mélanie Laurent meet the pioneers who are reinventing agriculture, energy, economy, democracy and education. Demain is a positive, affirming and inspirational film, exploring creative solutions to the world’s multiple problems. FREE Event. Book a place by emailing [email protected].

Planet B – Programme 13Interview with Planet Bartist Emily TracyEmily makes artworks and installations that engage, amuse and re-interpretthe places we live and work in. The work aims to allow the public to review afamiliar place or activity through the intervention of an artwork or atransformation of the space. This can be through an event, participation,spectacle, and audience collaboration.Q. What do you want people to take looking, framing and questioning. Fri 4th August, 8pm, Serpentine Green Sat 5th August, 8pm, City Gallery,from your work on Planet B?A. I would like the work to start Q. How can art have a positive impact? Peterborough Museum, Priestgate, Peterborough PE1 1LFconversations amongst friends, family A. If successful it can bring a difficultand households about the objects that subject out into the open in an open Generation Zerocome into their living spaces. How do ended way. It can get people involvedthey get there, what’s our relationship to through stealth. It shouldn’t preach or By Becky Owen-Fisher, presented by Lamphouse Theatrethem and do we need to re-think any of explain but provide a place and space tothese items in the context of tackling question and reflect. Theatre company from Peterborough,climate change? We all collect and presents this new play. Directedcurate objects in our lives and it is these Q. What attracted you to this One young couple. One changing world. by Tom Fox (National Theatre,familiar languages and activities which I commission? She’s certain she knows the man she Royal and Derngate, Eastern Angles).would like to explore. I would like to A. I love objects, I love the stories that loves, but he’s hiding a disturbing For more information and to bookstart conversations about giving up get attached to objects and am secret. A look at our future through the tickets, visit www.generationzero.co.uk.things, how does it feel and are we intrigued by their magical qualities, eyes of the first generation to tackle it @LamphouseTheatrprepared to relinquish any of our habits? which are often hard to define. As a head on.And how can we stem the flood of consumer, a mother and an artist I have \"They dragged us through to the cellsobjects that enter our homes every day become more aware over the last few Using poetic language, striking one by one. Sitting opposite each otheraccidentally or intentionally? I don’t years of the amount of possessions in physicality and a soaring soundtrack, on the cold floor, his eyes found mineknow the answers but maybe by having my household and their impact on the Generation Zero will transport audiences and smiled deep into me, his lips madethe conversations we can find ways. environment. Mostly I have become very into an ambiguous future world in the the shape of the words I love you.\" aware of the difficulty of reducing my shadow of imminent climate change.Q. Why is the combination of art and impact on the climate change with asustainability an ideal one? busy life. I hope that the participatory Lamphouse Theatre, a vibrant theatreA. I’m not sure that it is an ideal one. and interactive artworks that I make canSustainability is difficult for all of us and make a contribution to the debate andartists use resources to make new awareness of our lives, lifestyles and thethings, but they can bring a new way of choices we make. Fri 4th August, 7pm-7.40pm, Peterborough Cathedral Square PE1 1XH Fri 4th-Mon 7th August, 12noon-5pm, Vivacity Shop, Exchange Street,Pay it Forward - Flash Queensgate Centre PE1 1NTMob Mass Meditation Clutter BankSoul Happy Wellbeing Centre Emily Tracy people to drop by and take our gigantic,Group Meditation Interactive exhibition friendly and non-scientific questionnaireSoul Happy is changing and upgradingthe energy of Peterborough one positive meditation at a Do you sometimes wonder why you have to confront the truth of our clutter. Choosetime! Mass meditation has been shown to reduce stress so many possessions and why it’s hard toand crime rates, as well as there being many benefits of give them up? This project is calling for one of our pre collected objects or bring inmeditation for yourself too! Please bring something to sit the people of Peterborough to let us in onon if you wish and waterproofs if needed. The event will how much stuff they own and to reflect a small item to add to the collection. Addlast for 30 minutes, with some optional ommmmm-ing and on what these objects mean to them.group-hugging at the end! FREE event, no need to book. your thoughts, feelings and stories and have If we all cleared the clutter from our a cup of tea! FREE Event. No need to bookInterview with artist lives, could this have an impact on theEric MacLennan environment? We are asking for people “We all have a relationship with of Peterborough to reflect on the objects objects and an understanding of curating,Innovative performance that occupies a unique space between theatre, in their lives and take part in assembling valuing, arranging, systemizing, rejecting,movement and the visual arts. Bold, cutting-edge with a clear focus on its a strange new shop. articulating and reasoning why certainaudience, challenging, provocative but always entertaining. Inspired by objects are important to us. It is thesephilosophy and comedy, Eric MacLennan’s work questions our unconscious Clutter Bank will be filled with small very familiar activities which this projecthabits, challenges conventions and isn’t afraid to say the unsayable! rejected objects. We are inviting local will re-frame within issues around climate change.” – Emily TracyQ. What do you want people to take Art... and yet... and yet, Art certainlyfrom your work on Planet B? makes life better! Sustainability,A. It's very important to me when I whilst necessary for our survivalmake work that there is some space can seem dry and well, a bit dullleft for the viewer to add something but with Art we have an accessible- to bring something of themselves means to talk about it in an- to interact - to join the conversation engaging way.- and to complete the picture. In thiscase there is an invitation for people Q. How can art have a positiveto pledge to do one thing to help impact?the planet. What I hope is that that Art changes lives. Art enhancesone thing will be something they our experience and understandingcontinue to do long after the of life.project is over. Q. What attracted you to thisQ. Why is the combination of art commission?and sustainability an ideal one? A. Not the money! I was working onA. Art is not necessary for our an environmental idea that was in itssurvival (in the way that food and early stages when the opportunityshelter are) we won't die without for Planet B came along.

14 Planet B – ProgrammeThurs 3rd-Tues 8th august, 11-4pm (5th aug also open after generation Zero), Saturday 5th august 2017, 11am & 4pm, Tours will start from st John's Church in Cathedral squarest John’s square, peterborough pe1 1XB pICKers, pluCKersThe FuTure museum aNd paCKersoF NowClaudia Friend Charley genever and Keely millsexhIbITION pOeTryThe Future Museum of Now is a look at might have been, based on the Poets Keely Mills and Charley Genever haveeveryday objects of the early 21st experiences imagined possible in the been mentoring six new female poets fromcentury, presented as an exhibition of the distant future. Peterborough. Together they have beenfuture conceived by Claudia and fellow writing their stories of Peterborough’sartist Steph May. Language and concepts of the present backbone of seasonal workers; pickers, are largely incoherent to the inhabitants pluckers, and packers.In the year 2525 the world is a very of this future, although some rituals anddifferent place and much has been lost ideas have been survived, but only as The poets will explore the role of the– the purposes of the objects on display, disjointed parts, hearsay, distant cultural seasonal and migrant worker in the city –from the viewpoint of a future memories. Free, booking not required. how this has affected them as individualsarchaeology, are as mysterious as ancient and as a community over the last 100 years.finds are to us now. As memory has been “We wished to create a darkly humorous They will write poems on what Peterboroughlargely lost in this imagined future, vision of the distant future based on our will or could be post-Brexit, and how theinterpretations as to the use and sense of the world as it is now. We hoped female role is represented in all of this.significance of objects are free from the it might generate some reflection on whatpresent and are open reflections on what the future could look like and why that The work created from the residency will might be.” – Claudia Friend result in a one-off installation that the audience can experience at two different events. Will you notice the t-shirts, tote bags, and a mini-bus? Come and jump on board the Pickers, Pluckers and Packers bus as it parks up in St Johns Square and listen to their stories. Or, join us on a special bus tour at 11am or 4pm. Free entry, booking is essential for the bus tour – visit https://pickerspluckersandpackers.eventbrite.com. The Pickers,Pluckers and Packers poets will also be performing at Planet B events: Question Time Cabaret and Write Club. INTERvIEW WITH PLANET B ARTIST ClaudIa FrIeNd Claudia works with recycled materials to highlight issues of waste and environmental damage, creating unusual objects and installations with found objects to put into a wider context the value of what is usually simply thrown away.Saturday 5th august, 11am-3pm, Cathedral square, peterborough pe1 1XB , Ne1 3pe Q. What do you want people to take Q. How can art have a positive impact? from your work on Planet B? A. Art can speak to us as individuals‘Feed The 1,000’ A. A wry take on the present in the with starkness and with humour andCommuNITy pICNIC light of the future, that is presented in perhaps give us a space, a moment for the Future Museum of Now. reflection on what we already deeply know but perhaps don't always want Q. How can art have a positive impact? to admit. A. By dispensing with dry facts and figures and tapping into our Q. What attracted you to this imagination, which is where change commission? can take place. Art can take concepts A. I saw it as bringing together art and around the themes of sustainability and 'activism'. make them interesting and accessible, allowing for a wider view.peCT, Cross Keys homes, Foodcycle, westraven Big local,COMMuNITy pICNIC Sainsbury’s ‘Discovery Community’ as part Sat 5th august, 12noon-4pm, various routes around the city centre culminating in of the supermarket’s Waste less, Save more Cathedral squareTurns out there is such a thing as a free campaign. The Waste Less, Save Morelunch - and one with extra tips to take team and volunteers will be on hand to The BeasTaway too! serve up advice and recipe ideas for using leftovers and cutting food bills. Francis ThorburnThis community picnic in Cathedral Squarewill attempt to feed 1,000 people to visitors will be encouraged to share their prOCeSSIONhighlight how much food is wasted by the own ideas on reducing food waste. There’saverage family each year. The event will no need to book, just turn up on the day! The Beast is a large scale mobiledish out portions of delicious food - performance through the city. Operated byall created from ingredients that are often people from across the globe who chose tothrown away. live and work in Peterborough, The Beast celebrates the vital role these workers play PECT has been chosen to be a in keeping the city’s ‘machines’ working. Concerns about a post–Brexit future are the people as to what deliveries need at the forefront of many people’s minds, to be made. To witness this spectacle, particularly for migrant workers and their keep your eyes peeled on Facebook families who have built a life here. Francis’ @PlanetBPeterB. processions embody the romance of epic journeys, depicting a tribe of travellers “My wife is Polish as are many of my friends. from another place exercising their There is a real possibility that we may face freedom of movement. This fictitious separation as a result of Brexit. Should this narrative of the nomad is present in the happen the social fabric of my life would be work, but it also highlights the reality of torn, which is exactly what would happen in the immigrant experience and their Peterborough and nationally, if communities unpredictable future in the UK. and loved ones are prised apart by Brexit.” Francis Thorburn The route of The Beast is shrouded in mystery – bound by the needs of

Planet B – Programme 15Sun 6th august, 1pm-3pm, Sun 6th august, 3pm-5pm, Thurs 10th august, 11am-4.30pm, allia, Future Business park pe2 8aN, behind the poshThe green Backyard, oundle rd, Fletton lakes (Car park), leTs phaCe IT, where wIll we Be lIvINg INpeterborough pe2 8aT off Fletton high street, peterborough The FuTure?peTerbOrOugh pay IT FOrWard phaCe There will be two follow up workshopsIN TraNSITION – lITTer pICK on other Planet B themes in August.debaTe WOrKShOp visit www.phace.it for further details. soul happy wellbeing Centre Booking essential. Free event.peterborough A creative workshop for 15-19 year oldsin Transition lITTer pICK using photography, sound and architecture to explore:debaTe Welcome to another • Who will we be living with in the future opportunity to 'Pay itJoin Peterborough in Transition for a Forward' and to give back and how?coffee at The Green Backyard, where to your local community • Will our houses look the same?we will be discussing what the group is (whilst getting some fresh • How do we ensure that we still haveand how they are encouraging resilience, air too), this time in therelinquishment and restoration in our form of a litter pick! green spaces?area, now and in the future. People Litter pickers, glovescan book a place by emailing and bags are [email protected]. Call 07814 393099 if you want to get involved. Thurs 10th august, 3.30pm, John Clare Theatre, peterborough pe1 1sQ aNImaTIoN: prINCess moNoNoKe (pg) peterborough arts Cinema FIlM Essentially a statement on the ecological devastation brought on by human On a journey to find the cure for a advancement, the story follows the battle Tatarigami's curse, Ashitaka finds himself between Princess Mononoke and a mining in the middle of a war between the village. The film's strength lies in its refusal forest gods and Tatara, a mining colony. to paint either its arguments or its In this quest he also meets San, the characters in black and white: There are no Mononoke Hime. Directed by renowned pure heroes, no clear-cut villains and no pat animator Hayao Miyazaki, this animation answers. £6 adult, £4 under 16. Family ticket has broken a number of box office (1 adult, 2 children £12). Pay on the door. records in its native Japan.Mon 7th august, 7pm-9pm, metal at Chauffeur’s Cottage, st peter’s road pe1 1yXwhaT housINg CrIsIs?scottee & Queer peterboroughCOMMuNITy dINNer social housing, right to buy schemes, Thurs 10th august, 6.30pm-8.30pm, Thurs 10th august, 7pm, The ostrich Inn, homelessness, homeowners, travellers,Three caravans* will claim their place luxury flats and property developers. st John’s green (near Cathedral square) peterborough pe1 2raon Metal’s car park for one week thisAugust. Six queer artists will live, work Come listen to a bunch of artists, local VegaN brINg aNd drINKand make together. Trading their art people and estate agents talk about the Share pICNIC aNd drawfor home grown fruit and vegetables the crisis politicians keep banging on about. (helpINg Thegroup will invite Peterborough’s people PLUS! Free vegetarian dinner! Made from hOMeleSS) draWINg SeSSIONto eat, talk and debate social issues home grown vegetables, allotmentwith them across four community producers and back gardens across soul happy wellbeing Centre A special Planet B themed Drink andmeals. The commune will be open to Peterborough! To book a Free place at Draw. Everyone is welcome to come tothe public from 8am-8pm each day - the meal visit www.pect.org.uk/PlanetB COMMuNITy pICNIC The Ostrich Inn for a drink and a draw –drop in for a cuppa, some free art or call 01733 893077. we welcome all skill levels! So don’t beand punchy conversation. Come along to this wonderful (bring shy! Meet fellow artists in a welcoming, *If you’d like to donate your home- and share) picnic on St Johns Green non-judgmental, chilled environment. You are invited to a community dinner grown produce to the meal in exchange and meet fellow vegans and Free. No need to book.at Metal to discuss the UK’s ‘so-called for art for your home, get in touch vegetarians. Bring a couple of veganhousing’ crisis. Over dinner we’ll discuss [email protected] items or a dish to share and, together, we feast and socialise! Here is theWeds 9th august, 7pm-9pm, metal at Chauffeur’s Cottage, st peter’s road pe1 1yX twist... We will be inviting the homeless to join us for the picnic... AND giveBored oF BreXIT? them all the surplus food at the end ofscottee & Queer peterborough the event too! This event is free to attend. (Suggested donation of £1-2COMMuNITy dINNer Come listen to a bunch of locals, artists, each to cover the Soul Happy Wellbeing Europeans and English folk chew the fat Centre venue (PE1 1NA - if it rains) andAre you bored of hearing about Brexit? over the continent. the tea and coffees provided too.Does Brexit actually mean Brexit? Orhas this Brexit malarkey brought some PLUS! Free vegetarian dinner! Madeinteresting topics to the forefront? from home grown vegetables, allotment producers and back gardens across We want to hear from all - whether Peterborough! To book a Free place atfor, against and confused about what the meal visit www.pect.org.uk or callhappens after we leave. 01733 893 077. *If you’d like to donate your home-grown produce to the meal We want to get past talking about in exchange for art for your home,politics and talk about what post-Brexit get in touch [email protected] looks like. Will we all befriends again? Will we have to stopFrench kissing?

16 Planet B – ProgrammeThurs 10th August, 7pm-10pm (incl post show discussion), John Clare Theatre, Interview with Planet B artist Francis Thorburn Peterborough PE1 1SQI, Daniel Blake (15)Peterborough Arts CinemaFilm process, he begins to develop a strong Francis is a Glasgow based artist working with performance and sculpture. He bond with a destitute, single mother creates mobile, processional performances, which use sculptural devices to headDaniel Blake (Dave Johns) is a 59-year- (Hayley Squires) who's struggling to the journey. He wants to fascinate and capture the audiences’ attention with theold widowed carpenter who must rely take care of her two children. I, Daniel absurd and the extravagant, through ritualized action and epic machines.on welfare after a recent heart attack Blake is a 2016 drama film directed byleaves him unable to work. Despite his Ken Loach and written by Loach's Q. What do you want people to take Q. How can art have a positivedoctor's diagnosis, British authorities frequent collaborator Paul Laverty. from your work on Planet B? impact?deny Blake's benefits and tell him to £6 adult, £4 under 16. Pay on the door. A. When I make a project, I often use A. Art can have a positive impact,return to his job. As Daniel navigates his the work as a tool to playfully stretch but it does not have to. Theway through an agonizing appeal mainstream models and encourage incredible thing about art is its alternative options and choices. diversity and its ability to haveFriday 11th August, 7pm- 9pm, Metal at Chauffeur’s Cottage, St Peter’s Road PE1 1YX For Planet B the focus is to challenge significant impact. In the case of our consumption habits and our Planet B, it is being used for ‘green’Should we stop current social and political landscape and ‘social’ agendas. In my opinionhaving Children? in an attempt to re-humanize the it will have a positive impact if theScottee & Queer Peterborough conversations about climate change, event manages to deepen these future migration and immigrants conversations in any way.Community Dinner vegetarian dinner! Made from home living in the UK. grown vegetables, allotment producers Q. What attracted you to thisThe world is getting crowded; people and back gardens across Peterborough! Q. Why is the combination of art and commission?are living longer and it has become the To book a FREE place at the meal visit sustainability an ideal one? A. I applied for this commissionnorm to have three or more children. www.pect.org.uk or call 01733 893077. A. People respond to art. Some people because I was attracted to theWith food poverty, global warming and *If you’d like to donate your home- love it and some people hate it. But activist side of the festival. It’sour oceans full of plastic we ask - is it grown produce to the meal in exchange it’s an open, challenging, playful and a rare opportunity to be overtlytime we stopped having children? Come for art for your home, get in touch with diverse space to discuss any subject. political in my approach to ajoin a bunch of artists, parents and those [email protected]. The problems we will face in climate project. In my opinion it’s aswho’ve chosen to not have children for a change will require active engagement important as ever for artistscommunity meal at Metal. PLUS! Free on the global scale. Art is a good way to engage with social and to get people thinking about the political issues. issues realistically and creatively.Fri 11th August, 10am-4.30pm followed by drinks, Anglia Ruskin University, Guild Fri 11th August, 7.30pm-10.30pm, The Undercroft, Serpentine Green Shopping Centre,House, Oundle Road, Peterborough PE2 9PW Hampton, Peterborough PE7 8BERelinquishment –A Planet B Day Question Time CabaretGathering Talia RandallPECT, Metal and The Green Backyard, supported by Anglia Ruskin Cabaret her work focuses on UK politics,University immigration, gender and 'race’. Question Time Cabaret is a fun, rowdy,Day Gathering political knees-up. Pickers, Pluckers, Packers: Brand-new poetry from Peterborough’s wordsmiths.Join us for Planet B’s Day Gathering to explore A night of hilarious, naughty and gut-together ways we can adapt to the realities of wrenching performances from some of Sybil and Phylis: Mischief fromclimate change and think in new ways about the UK’s hottest talents, plus an interactive Peterborough’s surrealist cleaning ladies.what this means for us and how we live. Question Time style panel with Britain’s foremost journalists and activists. All artist Free Entry (booking essential, donationsLess of a conference, more of a gathering with headline input from Tony and speakers will be responding to themes on the door). To book, visitJuniper - by film - (campaigner, writer, sustainability advisor and leading British of climate change, migration and protest. www.questiontimecabaret.eventbrite.comenvironmentalist), Professor Dom Kniveton (Professor of Climate Science & Society Acts and speakers include… or call 01733 893077.- Geography, Sussex Centre for Migration Research, International Development) #questiontimecabaretand Maddy Harland (Editor and co-founder of Permaculture magazine). Timberlina: Glamorous bearded wonder who sings songs of joyous “Question Time Cabaret will be nothing There will be a series of World Café style sessions throughout the day culminating eco-woe fused with alt-drag, blues like the actual Question Time. Instead ofin a panel to be decided by the flow of the day and the input of the gathering. and good old rock n roll. shouting loudly in a room full of people who disagree with you we will showcase With a tour of The Green Backyard, lunch provided and participatory artwork Bridget Minamore: Poet, journalist, some of the most exciting artists andfrom the Planet B artists, this free event will seek to bring together the thoughts pop culture lover and loud talker. activists who are actually changingand feelings of the two week Planet B programme. To book your place, Maya Goodfellow: Writer and researcher, society for the better.”visit www.planetbdaygathering.eventbrite.com.Interview with artistTalia RandallTalia Randall spans theatre, poetry, cabaret and comedy. An inventive, adventurousand thoughtful artist, Talia’s work has been called “playful and fascinating” (SabotageReviews), “absolutely sublime” (dig.com) and “distinctive” (The Upcoming). Taliahas performed at The Roundhouse, The Southbank Centre, Battersea Arts Centre,Bristol Old Vic, Glastonbury, Latitude and The Edinburgh Fringe.Q. What do you want people to take Q. How can art have a positive impact?from your work on Planet B? A. We need humour, art and integrity inA. I want people to enjoy seeing order to be able to deal with difficultmadcap, heartfelt, insightful thorny issues. Art should be a mirrorperformances and debate at Question that reflects society. Artists aren’tTime Cabaret. I want us to get in a necessarily the ones to come up withroom together, have a knees-up and the answers to our big problems, butchat through some of these big issues we should reflect things that are happening and we should facilitate people engaging with these things. Photo: Mike Massaro

Planet B – Programme 17Saturday 12th August, 12pm-2pm, Metal at Chauffeur’s Cottage, St Peter’s Road PE1 1YX Interview with Keely MillsIs PeterboroughGood or Rubbish? Keely Mills has performed at 100s of events, and has been Peterborough Poet Laureate. Her work is sensual and deceptively confrontational. She is notScottee & Queer Peterborough afraid to transform how poetry is created, her poems include other voices and reach people who did not even know they liked poetry.Debate world you would like to grow up in - a Q. What do you want people to take that world and I see it having aWe’d like to invite children, young poor world? A rich world? Or a happy from your work on Planet B? positive impact all the time.adults and the taller people who are world? This event is open to anyone A. To be inspired by the peopleresponsible for them to a tea party at who identifies as a child - we think 4-10 around them and to be able to give Whether it’s the shy young man IMetal. Over banana bread, fizzy water, year olds will get the most from it. thanks to those people who produce met on Monday in a year 7 class whosugary tea and home made biscuits the food that goes onto their tables stood up and talked in front of hiswe’ll talk about the world! We’ll discuss To book a FREE place at the meal visit and to be proud of Peterborough's classmates for the first time, or thebig words like ‘economy’ and www.pect.org.uk or call 01733 893077. standing in production in general. people who have hugged me and‘environment’ and hear what sort of cried when I have read a poem about Q. Why is the combination of art and my dad, that has then made them sustainability an ideal one? call their loved ones. Or its people A. Many artists work in sustainable making pledges to fly less or to plant ways already, so recycling, reusing more food, after they have watched and sharing their resources and skills a play that looks at flooding. Or is it as it’s just a natural part of their tool just that without any art, whether kit. Most artists too want to point a that be The Beatles, soap operas or magnifying glass to what is affecting Grayson Perry, life would be very dull us today and what might impact on and for most people not a nice world us in the future and not being to be in. sustainable is one of the biggest subjects that artists want to focus Q. What attracted you to this that microscope on. commission? A. Having the chance to work with Q. How can art have a positive Charley Genever, focusing on the impact? themes of Planet B, Stretching the A. That is a wide question and I am poetry art form and helping to bit blinded by art because I work in support some new talent in Peterborough. Sat 12th August, 2pm, Peterborough Cathedral, Peterborough PE1 1XS Drop in The Ocean Eric MacLennan Workshop & PerformanceInterview with ScotteeScottee is an artist who lives by the seaside in Essex. Scottee's work is oftenabout outsiderness; race, sexuality, class, age and gender, creating spaceswhere the perceived underdog is celebrated, at the forefront and no longerignorable - allowing for uncomfortable conversations to happen.In 2010 Scottee won the title of Time Out Performer of the Year , his debutsolo tour The Worst of Scottee won Total Theatre Award for Innovation in 2013and in 2015 he was included on Independent's Rainbow List as one of Britain'smost influential LGBTQI+ people. Scottee is not easily definable; artist,troublemaker, loudmouth and attention seeker. His work is live, brash, clumsyand will often leave you a bit annoyed, overwhelmed but never impartial.Q. What do you want people to take Q. How can art have a positive Inspired by the results of a recent United Drop into the Clutter Bank to takefrom your work on Planet B? impact? Nations climate summit, which highlighted out your Earth Share - floated throughA. I want them to understand about the A. I don’t know. I don’t know it can. the fact that many of us have been the Peterborough Stuff Exchange.importance of togetherness and also It just feels like the right thing to do. carrying out small environmental actions, Not sold, but given to people. Oncehow alternative ways of living shouldn’t It feels like the only thing I’m good at, with little hope that it makes a difference. you have a share in the earth - yoube considered these ‘weird, scary so I’ll give it a go, and if it works then International Energy Agency figures show have responsibility to it. Earth Sharesthings’. Perhaps we – who are eco brilliant! that ‘billions of collective small actions add aim to encourage people to comeminded – could learn from some of the up to something massive.’ together to do something practicalsocial movements of the 70s and more Q. What attracted you to this for our environment.specifically learn from queer radicalism. commission? So if we all do our bit, small things can be Making work in Peterborough, I’m the difference. Drop In The Ocean seeks to Or, join shareholders for a celebratoryQ. Why is the combination of art and currently already in residence at harness the ‘collective effort’ idea and then performance, which features participantsustainability an ideal one? Metal Peterborough this year covering celebrate it. shareholders performing with twoA. Both are painting a picture of trying queerness and Peterborough and local choirs.to create a space of ‘utopisms’, that’s the curation of radical queer culturesdifferent from utopia, trying to strive in the city. And so it felt like it wouldfor ‘betterness’ for everyone, in the fit really well into the body of work,fairest, most ethical way. Sustainability be beneficial to the people inneeds to be able to tell the world, quite Peterborough and it’s a really nicequickly, how to sort itself out and art is way to spend a week in August,a really good way of doing that. to tell the truth!

Festival at a glance Information correct at the time of going to print. Please check event information online before setting off.PLANET B: Sat 29th July – Sat 12th August 2017Launch event: Sat 29th JulyDates & Times Project Title Artist Event Location PriceFri 28th July, 7.30pm Planet B warm-up event: Beasts of Film Club Frame Metal at Chauffeurs Cottage FREE the Southern Wild (2012)Sat 29th July, 11am-5.30pm Extended Hands with support Cathedral Square FREE Peterborough International of Peterborough City CouncilSat 29th July, 12noon-10.30pm Friendship Day The Green Backyard and The Green Backyard FREE The Smugglers Festival Smugglers Festival Peterborough in TransitionWeds 2nd August, 7.30pm Write Club Claudia Friend The Stoneworks FREE Metal at Chauffeurs Cottage FREEThurs 3rd August, 6.30 for a 7pm start Tomorrow (Demain) St John’s Square FREEThurs 3rd-Tues 8th August, 11- The Future Museum of Now4pm (5th Aug also open afterGeneration Zero)Thurs 3rd, 1.30pm-4pm (young There is No Wealth But Life The Poly-Technic WestRaven Community Café FREEpeople aged 8 – 18)Fri 4th August, 10.30am-1pm (16+) There is No Wealth But Life The Poly-Technic WestRaven Community Café FREE Emily TracyFri 4th-Mon 7th August, 12noon-5pm. Clutter Bank Soul Happy Wellbeing Centre Vivacity Shop FREEFri 4th August, 7pm-7.40pm Pay it Forward - Flash Mob Mass Cathedral Square FREE MeditationFri 4th August, 8pm Generation Zero Becky Owen-Fisher, presented Serpentine Green £8 or £5 student by Lamphouse Theatre and under 25s FREESat 5th August, 11am-3pm ‘Feed the 1,000’ Community Picnic PECT, Cross Keys Homes, Cathedral Square FREE Foodcycle, WestRaven Big Local FREESat 5th August 2017, 11am & 4pm Pickers, Pluckers Charley Genever and Keely Mills Tours will start from St and Packers John's Church in Cathedral £8 or £5 student Square and under 25s FREESat 5th August, 12noon-4pm The Beast Francis Thorburn Various routes around the FREE city centre culminating in Cathedral SquareSat 5th August, 8pm Generation Zero Becky Owen-Fisher, presented City Gallery by Lamphouse TheatreSun 6th August, 1pm-3pm Peterborough in Transition DebateSun 6th August, 3pm-5pm Peterborough in Transition The Green BackyardMon 7th August, 7pm-9pm Pay it Forward – Litter PickWeds 9th August, 7pm-9pm What Housing Crisis? Soul Happy Wellbeing Centre Fletton Lakes (Car Park)Thurs 10th August, 11am-4.30pm Bored of Brexit? Lets PHACE It, where will we be Scottee & Queer Peterborough Metal at Chauffeur’s Cottage FREEThurs 10th August, 3.30pm living in the future? Scottee & Queer Peterborough Metal at Chauffeur’s Cottage FREE Animation: Princess Mononoke PHACE Allia, Future Business Park FREE (PG) Peterborough Arts Cinema John Clare Theatre £6 adult, £4Thurs 10th August, 6.30pm-8.30pm Vegan Bring and Share Picnic under 16. Family (Helping the Homeless) Soul Happy Wellbeing Centre St John’s Green ticket (1 adult,Thurs 10th August, 7pm Drink and Draw The Ostrich Inn 2 children £12)Thurs 10th August, 7pm-10pm (incl I, Daniel Blake (15) Prin Marshall John Clare Theatrepost show discussion) Peterborough Arts Cinema Metal at Chauffeurs Cottage FREE (SuggestedFriday 11th August, 7pm- 9pm Should we stop having children? Anglia Ruskin University donation of £1-2)Fri 11th August, 10am-4.30pm Relinquishment – A Planet B Day Scottee & Queer Peterboroughfollowed by drinks Gathering PECT, Metal and The Green FREE Backyard, supported by Anglia Ruskin University £6 adult, Talia Randall £4 under 16 Scottee & Queer Peterborough Eric MacLennan FREE FREEFri 11th August, 7.30pm-10.30pm Question Time Cabaret The Undercroft FREESaturday 12th August, 12pm-2pm Is Peterborough Good or Rubbish? Metal at Chauffeurs Cottage FREESat 12th August, 2pm Drop in The Ocean Peterborough Cathedral FREEJoin in the conversation: #PlanetBPeterB • @PlanetBPeterB • See the full programme: www.pect.org.uk/PlanetBMetal at Chauffeurs Cottage, St Peter's Road, Peterborough. PE1 1YX. Fletton Lakes, off Fletton High Street, Peterborough.Cathedral Square, Church St, Peterborough. Allia, Future Business Centre, London Rd, Peterborough PE2 8AN.The Green Backyard, Oundle Rd, Peterborough PE2 8AT. John Clare Theatre, 36-40 Broadway, Peterborough PE1 1SQ.The Stoneworks, 8B Church St, Peterborough PE1 1XB. St John’s Green, (near Cathedral Square).Vivacity Shop, Exchange Street, Queensgate Centre PE1 1NT. The Ostrich Inn, 17 North St, Peterborough PE1 2RA.City Gallery, Priestgate, Peterborough PE1 1LF. Anglia Ruskin University, Guild House, Oundle Road, Peterborough PE2 9PW.WestRaven Community Café, Hampton Court, Peterborough PE3 7LD. The Undercroft, Serpentine Green Shopping Centre, Hampton, Peterborough PE7 8BE.St John’s Square, Peterborough PE1 1XB. Peterborough Cathedral, Peterborough PE1 1XS.





The precariat 21Food orWghaynIicdaolilt yWho are the real ‘extremists’, the organic farmers or those who use toxic chemicals so liberally?W ith a degree in asks Guy Watson founder of Riverford Organic Farmers. science and tractors that are guided by death without the need for cultivation. GPS, I whole- In the 1970s glyphosate was twice the cost of heartedly embrace the IT revolution, I ploughing. Today, the cost has fallen to about ahate woolly thinking and I avoid hippies. But I fifth; it’s become a commercial “no brainer” for farmers. Maize needs a deep, fine, but loose seedbed, so those yellowing fields, dying in preparation for farmers to sow maize in latestill find that what feels right is a good aid to Spring, will almost all be ploughed as wellmaking good decisions. anyway. If done well, ploughing can give goodThe kiss of death control of most weeds in a crop as vigorous as maize. But why take the trouble and risk whenThroughout April, while most fields in Devon glyphosate’s so cheap.assumed the deep green lushness of spring In my early days as an organic grower I reallygrowth, some developed a different tinge. Itstarts with a shade or two off the surrounding missed glyphosate. All my training as a modern farmer suggested that burning diesel as Igreen, as if the crop is suffering disease or dragged weeds around the field while repeatedlynutrient deficiency, but over a week, as the beating up my soil in a war of attrition withpale green turns yellow and then brown, the perennial weeds was stupid, and possibly worsetell-tale slow kiss of death from the herbicide for the environment. I’ve always subscribed toglyphosate becomes unmistakable. the principle of working with nature, but I’m not Travelling through this landscape patch- a dogmatist or a luddite; based on what I was told at the time, the selective use of glyphosateworked with unnatural death disturbs my seemed a pragmatic compromise. Given avision of what it is to be a farmer: a custodian free rein to write my own organic standards theyof nature and the land. I don’t expect myunease to be shared by many hard-pressed would have included the occasional usefarmers struggling to make a living in of glyphosate.commodity markets; I acknowledge that it Forty years on from my days at agriculturalhas an emotional element, rooted in the same college, it turns out that my lecturers and theground that has sustained my determination chemical salesman’s patter were not strictlyto farm organically through 30 years of trial correct. There’s now strong evidence thatand tribulation. There’s nothing wrong with glyphosate is neither safe for users nor for theemotion as a guide for personal behaviour, environment.but it can be unhelpful or even dangerous History has told this story again and again –when used as a tool for persuading others, so-called ‘safe’ pesticides are later banned. To beforming policy or running a business. But organic sometimes feels extreme. Yet I amover those 30 years, much of what felt wrong completely confident that time will reveal thein farming has turned out to be wrong for ‘extremists’ are not the organic farmers, butvery tangible, logical and scientific reasons. those who use mind-bogglingly toxic chemicals with such casual abandon; that science will What brings me back to the debate and justify those who embraced ecology, rather thanmakes me such a big mouth is frustrationwith the tendency to select evidence to those who exploited incomplete knowledgesupport a commercial bias; something our of how to disrupt life without the humility toagrochemical industry are masters of. appreciate the risks. The true cost of two litresGlyphosate; usage & price of glyphosate simply isn’t reflected in that £5 price tag.At about £5 per acre for a 2 litre dose, the cost of Guy Watson founded Riverford Organicthe “world’s favourite herbicide” has fallen Farmers in 1987 and now runs a nationwidehugely since first being patented by Monsanto in organic delivery service.1974. Back then it was too expensive to useunless you had a very serious problem withinvasive, perennial weeds, which would require “There’s now strongexhaustive cultivation and a “bastard” (a three- evidence thatmonth summer fallow period followed byploughing). Not all tradition is good; excessive glyphosate is neithercultivation and the associated lack of ground safe for users nor forcover is bad for the soil, disrupting the delicateecosystem, increasing erosion and releasingcarbon dioxide. The wonderful thing aboutglyphosate is that it kills parts other herbicidesdon’t reach: the chemical is translocated to every the environment”active part of the plant, including the roots,where it disrupts protein synthesis, leading to

22 the precariat T he June election campaign and the unfoldingLifestyle of Brexit drove home what the scrapping of the UK's Department for Energy and promote the goal of stalling or shrinking Climate Change by the economies, at least in the global North. Conservative government revealed; that global ecological challenges aren't a political There is no blueprint for what a Degrowth priority. While the British economy is facing society could look like. The principal measure of great uncertainties, economic growth will a thriving economy is the extent to which citizens likely be presented as the panacea for coping lead good lives. The Gross Domestic Product with the bumpy road ahead. But is this may be replaced by wellbeing indicators which fixation with growth sustainable? are determined by research around human needs. Resource flows would be characterised by Recently I over-inflated the tyre on my regional interconnected circular economies that bicycle until the inner tube burst. Closely extend and regenerate product lifecycles. On a following the specifications printed on the societal level, the proposed changes would go far tyre, I was confident that I was operating beyond superficial fixes. For example, different within the safe margins. “Just a bit more air”, I work patterns and ways to organise time would thought, pumping hard. “The harder the tyre, allow citizens of a Degrowth society to increase the faster I can cycle”, I thought. However, I their self-sufficiency, tend to 'commons' wasn't taking into account that as tyres age resources, and engage in local democratic with wear and tear, the rubber becomes decision-making processes. brittle, and what was previously thought to be a safe upper limit, wasn't safe any more. The Degrowth movement is characterised by regional differences and priorities. In the The inner tube of a bicycle tyre is easily global South, the discourse tends to revolve fixed, which makes it a rather unsatisfactory around critiques of mainstream development analogy to the current state of the planet. We models. For example, Colombian-American pump oil out of the increasingly hard-to-reach scholar Arturo Escobar's post-development fossil layers, we pump greenhouse gases into theory holds that even new 'softer' forms of the atmosphere, we pump freshwater out of development constitute a form of cultural the ground faster than it can be replenished imperialism. Alternative pathways include and we pump money out of our communities the Ecuadorian concept of Buen Vivir ('the and into the one percent's financial strato- good life'), which is informed by indigenous sphere. With our lifestyles dependent on ways of life, and Indian feminist scholar extractive industries, planetary limits have Vandana Shiva's anti-corporate activism, been increasingly pushed or exceeded. While preserving and building up seedbanks to local decimations of forests and wildlife forced secure future food supplies. people to migrate throughout human history, we were blissfully unaware that there were Meanwhile, in the global North, a radical global limits until relatively recently. At the decrease of production and consumption is a Club of Rome meeting in 1972, the paradoxical priority. Current affluent lifestyles cannot be doctrine of infinite economic growth on a afforded or aspired to, as they lead to finite planet was brought into mass public ecological disaster in the long term. This awareness. Nonetheless, in the more than five view is summarised by Nico Paech: decades that have passed since, the prevailing economic paradigm has remained fixated on “Global justice ... can neither be a project growth. It has been perpetuated not only in of cultural homogenisation, nor can it be the global market, but also in the universities reached on the economic level alone. It is not and colleges that teach future generations of the South that has to be 'developed', but the economists. As a result, the global ecological North that has to be materially disarmed.” crisis is being exacerbated. In the United Kingdom, there is no Voices calling for an end to economic growth discernible movement or widespread public have become louder in the last few years, while discourse around Degrowth. This is perhaps advocating 'Degrowth', defined as the “downs- surprising, given that a governmental advisory caling of production and consumption that body, the Sustainable Development increases human well-being and enhances Commission, published the report 'Prosperity ecological conditions and equity on the planet”. Without Growth' not long before the The Degrowth movement gained momentum Commission closed down in 2011. At the core especially in several European countries, where of the report is the argument that in the UK, as international Degrowth Conferences in Paris in well as globally, the benefits of economic 2008, Barcelona in 2010, Venedig in 2012 and growth have been at best unequally distributed. Leipzig and Budapest in 2014 and 2016 respec- There is a need to redefine prosperity to guide tively, were key for enabling activists and the economy away from being fixated on academics to converge and discuss, develop and growth, and place well-being and flourishing refine the discourse. While there is a wide within ecological limits at its centre. spectrum of political positions and priorities, proponents of Degrowth argue for alternative Building a movement around Degrowth in models of organising society and the economy. the UK and its devolved countries could While some merely believe that a slowing down create counter-narratives in two important of economic growth is inevitable, others actively ways: challenging prevailing neoliberal economic doctrines that drive the global environmental crisis, and strengthening solidarity between European grassroots movements around eco-social values. On both counts, the timing is just right. @svaenj Degrowth Replacing flat-tyre economics Is it time to produce less and consume less, asks Svenja Meyerricks

the precariat 23The art of letting goIs hanging on to our way of life really an option, asks Dougald Hine.t he SUN IS out, the sky is a huddle, miserable in the heat. This is not the preceded the brutal war in Syria came on the think we owe ourselves a little sobriety, a cloudless blue and the kids future, not a warning about what happens if we heels of five years of drought. This is how climate willingness to look hard at where we find around me on the train are fail: this is how things are, already. If your life is change arrives, not as a clean case of cause and ourselves and get a sense of what may be at talking football. On mornings bound to the seasons, you don’t need charts or effect, but tangled up with the cruelties of stake. That last bit is tricky: one moment, we’re like this, it’s hard to hold onto projections to know that something is going dictators and the profits made from commodity urged to ‘Save the Planet’ - like the stars of a the sense that we are in trouble, badly wrong. market speculation, washing up in boats on superhero movie - and the next, there’s a posterlet alone that this trouble might be deep enough package holiday coastlines. behind the Marks & Spencer’s checkout thatto derail our whole way of living. Our lives are bound to other things. Where we says, ‘Plan A: Because there is no Plan B.’ And live, you can change seasons almost as easily as I don’t mean this as a call to guilt or despair. If the more times you look at that poster, the more Even the numbers involved are under- channels on the TV. Summer or winter are only you write about climate change, there’s a you have to ask, ‘No Plan B for who?’ For M&Swhelming: two degrees of warming by the end of ever an air ticket away. We see strawberries in pressure to be upbeat, to talk about changing and Tesco and strawberries in December andthe century, three degrees, four… We’ve heard all Tesco in December and the strangeness of this lightbulbs and the falling cost of solar panels. holidays in the Greek islands - or for liveablethe warnings, and still it is hard to equate these hardly registers. Our liberation from the Not long ago, Britain went a day without burning human existence? Or is that not a distinctionnumbers with disaster, when they are smaller constraints of the seasons is assumed to be coal for the first time since the Industrial we’re willing to consider?than the variations on the weather map from progress, but it might be wiser to call it an Revolution. These things are also part of theone day to the next. illusion. All that food in the supermarket is story. I want to tell you, too, about all the Don’t get me wrong: I’ll be stopping in at the coming from places where the seasons count. knowledge that is barely on the maps we were supermarket when I pick up my son from The year before last, I got a Facebook message We still live off soil and sun and rain. There is no given at school. Like how, even today, only 30 nursery this afternoon. It’s just that my Dad canfrom a Sami woman, a reindeer herder whose question of going ‘back to the land’, because we percent of the world’s food is produced within remember when the supermarkets arrived: myfamily follows the animals north each summer never left: we just stretched the chains that link the agro-industrial system, while half of it is Gran would ride half way across Birminghamacross the mountains from Sweden to Norway. us to it so far, we lost sense of what lies at the grown by peasant farmers, people who still have and back on the buses to claim the free frozenA few days later, we were sitting drinking coffee other end. one foot in ways of making life work that are chicken you got on opening day. I can’t pretendin a meeting room in Stockholm. older than the fossil fuel economy. A Somerset the convenience doesn’t suit me. But if we’re For now, a sharp tug on the supply chain farmer had three Syrian teenagers sent to him really saying the future of our 4.5 billion year old She talked about a journey to fix up her uncle’s means an unwelcome bulge in our grocery bills, on a scheme: the first morning, they cleared a planet is in doubt, then I’m not sure it’s wise tocabin in early May, travelling on a winter road, a corner to cut somewhere else in the household weedy patch of land in no time, then one lad stake everything on getting to hang onto a way ofthe kind that runs across a frozen river. The river budget. Elsewhere, the consequences cut deeper. picked up a handful of soil and squeezes it in his doing things that’s been around for less than ais always frozen until the third week of May - you The Arab Spring of 2011 started when Tunisian hand. ‘Good humus,’ he said. Those already lifetime.can count on it - but this time, when they get police confiscated the fruit stall of street-trader living with the consequences of climate changethere, it already thawed. There’s no getting Mohamed Bouazizi. He burned himself to death are not simply victims, they may yet be Dougald Hine is an author, editor andacross. Further north, the same summer, they in a desperate protest against corruption, but the carriers of badly-needed knowledge in the tight social entrepreneur who co-foundedcome to a mountain where they always store waves of protest that followed across North times ahead. School of Everything and The Darkfood in the ice of a glacier, but this year the Africa and the Middle East were fuelled by years Mountain Project, @Dougaldglacier is gone. In July, the temperature stays of sharply rising food prices. The uprising that So yeah, I don’t want to doom you out. I justover 30 for three straight weeks as the reindeer

24 The precariatPropertyProperty is Theft!Private landlords “The city needs tural markets, terraced housing was built nately, Peterborough’s New Town dream wasputting profit over to provide during the next 50 years, often by employers. never completed and a proposed township atsafety, gentrification suitable housing ‘The Barracks,’ built by the Great Northern Castor was never finished. Perhaps some of theand tearing up green for everybody Railway Company on Lincoln Road, is an building proposed today, such as the 2,500space to build new before looking at example of this. As a result, housing in Peter- home estate proposed for Castor is the finalhomes - Hazel Perry ways to attract borough was thought to be plentiful by 1900 extension of this, although such a project wouldtakes a look at the better-off with lots of space for recreation grounds and impact on the protected site of Castorhousing in from the London allotments. And in the 1920s, with the drive for Hanglands. How long can we continue toPeterborough and and Cambridge homes fit for heroes, the first Council Houses sacrifice our green spaces?finds we’ve been over-spill” were built in Dogsthorpe Road. Many more followed, encroaching on the green spaces. In this article I have identified two problems:Where before. However, Council Houses provided a home not enough social housing, not enough green hen and security for the masses over the following space. How do we fix this? In the past five years Pierre- decades and have been an important part of there has been a resistance to the state of Joseph urban community life up until recent years, housing in Peterborough as policies have Proudhon when policies of selling-off social housing turned back to those of pre-1920s. We have declared ‘property without providing replacements have left the seen among other things: the campaign to save is theft’ in the door open to private speculators. So, once again the community garden The Green Backyardmid-nineteenth century, he was referring to the we have people buying up properties and from development; the St Michael’s Gatecapitalist ownership of the product of renting them out as private landlords for profit, Campaign against tenancies being sold out forsomebody else’s labour. But ‘property’ also at the expense of the less well-off. profit and Peterborough Squatters Auton-included housing. This refers to the ‘property’ omous whose occupation of public buildingsof the capitalist who exploited the labourer Peterborough’s development as a ‘New Town’ looked to draw attention to the plight ofthrough high rents for profit and controlled all in the 1970s and 1980s came at a time when homelessness in the city. These actions showaspects of the building. We only need to look at standards of living were generally higher, the growing awareness of a need for decentwhat happened at the Grenfell Tower to see people worked to buy more consumables and housing for all in our communities and that isprofit-driven exploitation still applies to to secure an economic stability for their families similarly being acknowledged across thehousing in the 21st century. Grenfell Tower is a in suburban areas. The plan looked at linking country. But this acknowledgement came tooLondon tower block, where the owner made satellite towns with their own industries, late for the people of Grenfell. Let’s hope theprofits from rent and controlled all aspects of housing and shopping facilities to the city tide is now turning and our councils canthe building, in this case, cladding the outside centre by the Parkways. The New Town idea concentrate on providing decent housing forto make it easier on the eye for the owners of came from Ebeneezer Howard, whose theories all, for the many, not just the few, beforeproperties in ‘gentrified’ areas nearby. The about social and sustainable cities were another tragedy occurs.safety concerns of the less well-off residents developed in the late nineteenth century. Newwere ignored, leading to the devastating fire in Towns provided a place for communities with Hazel Perry is co-ordinator ofwhich many lives were sadly lost. enough green space to benefit society. Unfortu- Peterborough Radical History Group Peterborough has not escaped the currentcraze for ‘gentrification.’ Empty office blocksand other buildings are being turned into‘luxury flats.’ This is not good for Peterborough,a small city with a low-wage economy. Itspopulation rose by 17.7 percent between 2001and 2011 according to the BBC, and netimmigration into the city was 14,670 between2007 and 2013. No matter what your opinionon immigration, the people who have made ourcity their home need decent and good jobs. Thecity needs to provide suitable housing foreverybody before looking at ways to attract thebetter-off from the London and Cambridgeover-spill. Peterborough has been a place of populationgrowth and expansion for the past two hundredyears. During this time, Peterborough’s urbangrowth has followed the national pattern ofchange. As a consequence of the IndustrialRevolution, the population doubled due tomigration from rural to urban areas between1801 and 1841. Consequently, people werehoused in the cramped buildings occupying thespace between Westgate and Cowgate. Awayfrom the centre, speculators built new terraceswith space for market gardens and semi-detached houses, one to live in the other to rentout for profit. With the arrival of the railways,associated engineering companies and agricul-

the precariat 25GardeningWhy on earth would anyone work for Lottery Fund’s Local Food programme invested £60 million into local Volunteering free? We’re all living for the weekend and food growing projects. Far from pouring cash into something fluffy Facts striving for the perfect work-life balance, but ineffectual, a social return on investment study completed by the right? But people do, an awful lot of University of Gloucestershire found that for every £1 invested through • Roughly a quarter of the population people, it turns out. Something like 21 the programme an average of £7 was generated in social value. ‘Social volunteers regularlymillion people in England volunteered value’ is a term that’s sometimes hard to define, but what it means is • Volunteering in England alone is worth an estimated £45 billion per year intheir time for free at least once in 2015 - 2016, with almost 14 people eating better and costing their local NHS less money, lower donated timemillion of these volunteering once a month or more. That’s roughly rates of re-offending, reduced childhood obesity, improved mental • Regular exercise in a natural environment can cuta quarter of the population, all working for free, every month. health and better community integration. Social value looks like the risk of suffering from poor mental health by 50 per centAt The Green Backyard, a community garden in central Peter- prevention rather than cure. • Research by the Universities ofborough, we are almost all volunteers. In the years I’ve been there At The Green Backyard I’ve seen this first-hand. As individuals I Westminster and Essex suggest that just 30 minutes a week spent tending to anI’ve met people volunteering their time for hundreds of different have witnessed people opening up, coming off their medication, allotment can boost feelings of self- esteem and mood by dissolving tension,reasons, but the thing they all have in common is a desire for making friends, in some cases transforming their whole lives because depression, anger, and confusionchange. That might be change in their own life or for other people, of what they found there working (for free) on the land. Collectively • Gardening can lead to better physical health through exercise and learningchange in the street they live on or change in the world, but these efforts add up to something big, in our case something that how to use or strengthen muscles to improve mobility and help to reducewhatever the reason they are using their time to make a difference somehow managed to resist the relentless bulldozer of redevelopment. obesity. It can also provide opportunities to connect with others – reducingbecause they want to and they can, not because someone pays In 2011 we were told that we would never, ever, get a lease on the land feelings of isolation or exclusionthem a few coins to care about it at the end of the month. The Green Backyard is on, that sale and building work were imminent. • Gardening can help dementia sufferers, improving attention, lessening stress andThis desire for change, these hopes for something better, they’re By the time this goes to print we will have signed that lease, the one we agitation and even helping with sleep patternsnot the naïve or futile musings of a bunch of out-of-touch dreamers were never going to get, and it was entirely volunteer dedication that • A report published in February 2016either, because they’re doing it. We’re doing it. Volunteering got us there and kept that small corner of the city green. shows that taking part in nature-based activities helps people who are sufferingcontributes billions in donated time each year and that time is a Volunteering is not just passive do-gooding, it’s one of the most from mental ill-health and can contribute to a reduction in levels of anxiety, stress,powerful machine that generates tangible, real, actual change. It effective forms of activism there is. It is using your time to and depressionflies under the radar so often because so often that change is at a empower yourself and those around you; it’s showing that we are • Reducing physical inactivity by just one per cent a year over a five-year periodhuman, and therefore non-headline grabbing level. It’s at the level defined by more than how we earn our crust; it’s shaping the would save the UK economy just under £1.2bn. If this happened over thiswhere it’s felt, at the grassroots, where the change is seen on world for the better. Your time is the most precious thing you five-year period it could save local taxpayers £44 per householdpeople’s faces rather than on spreadsheets. have, so make it count! • Time among trees has a proven positiveLots of small changes, inevitably, add up to some bigger ones, and impact on reducing stress levels and lowering blood pressure. Researchthe social value of volunteering is increasingly being recognised. To Sophie Antonelli is co-founder and vice-chair of undertaken in Japan, a country of long working days and high suicide rates,head back into the community garden (where volunteers are so often The Green Backyard. reveals that people who immersed themselves in the natural worldDoingthe driving force) for a moment, between 2008 and 2014 the Big @greenbackyard significantly reduces stress levels andthe Maths wards off depression Every £1 invested in local food growing projects that rely on volunteers yields significant social benefits, says Sophie Antonelli.

26 The precAriATpoeTryBrexit Poems by Charley Genever and Keely Millsno title tHe pHLeGM wordSI have a stomach the size of a Queen. I am every tory.Strong and stable, soggied into gloop. I am the richest toddler at the party, dressed all in blue.from the bloating. you see, there's so much filth in our food. My head is still attached by a slither of muscle,It has to be sterilised, its all rotting, but we need to eat, and stretched into fillet steak.my veins are still red...white and blue. I burn down our summer fetes,english through and through. As the gore spills into inhumane mandates.what does it mean to be British? the meagre pay colours their skin to other,where is our value? so I sent them back to their own countrydunk your Brexit in your tea, its hotter than you think. with gambling scares of political fracking.you don't mean to but you watch it melt anyway. I kept filling in the gaps with venom-filled molecules.tell europe these trees are yours and will be yours again. I can sleep in a stone-built village of distrusttell them they were spoilt. they need to be spoiled. where limbs are worth more than our currency.tell femme fatale farage change is coming. I will pray for their snot-nosed children as they become gallowstell your sons and daughters, you did this for them. at each of the executioner’s clumsy strikes.you've seen the future. you've been the future. people are still dying,Look them in the eye and tell them you have gifted them catastrophe. but it’s staggering how safe I feel.tell Gove I can see he's been shaving his nose hairs. I am not the light that is coming in the morning,that's good, we'll need them to tie together. I consume every sky.rafts when we lose england to the water. I am a guarantor for the graves of your brothers and sisters,rising, the water floods, its full of lies, everybody get into the water. we need you so much more than we don’t,we are all fucked. I mean, where else will the budget go?words by Charley Genever and cut up edit by keely Mills. words and cut up edit by keely Mills and Charley GeneverJune 14 2017 June 14 2017Britannia, the martyr of BrexitBritannia's body is pox-marked.Slick with the afterbirth of identification.those who claim, own country, steer us all,to fight an imaginary dragon.they toll on her hips, blinding us with flags in the ballot box.Britannia knows they are cutting off her neck.Her children spill out of her guts.they take no tax to ease the hands, now thick with Britannia's blood.that frack-frack-frack-strike-strike-strike.Spit God save the Queen into factories, fields and care homes.Cut their opinions off at the knees.placing our blunted swords in their heads.red spills into newspaper ink.Chants of go back to your hard walls.Hopes dissolve, that is better,Her hands are under the water, wets their language strange till it breaks openher core.words by keely Mills, cut up edit by Charley GeneverJune 14 2017

The precAriAT 27opinionCfUIttUryeIMAGInInG A How can we create a different way of living? asks Carly Leonard.iF I pIctUre a future city that I which is that no city exists in a vacuum. If we Future generations will look back at this need is strong action to accompany the would like to see, these are the carry on increasing global temperatures, defining point in history when we had the strong words. things that come to mind. there is a using up resources and losing species at the knowledge needed to attempt to create a lot of green space and wildlife is rate that we are globally, then the future for sustainable future for life on earth. What accepting the enormity of the position we abundant. It’s clean and people are the whole planet would look pretty bleak. We happens next is up to all of us. I am heartened are in is one (huge) thing, working through healthy and enjoying themselves. are already locked into a period of climate by the global reaction to the US stating its what we all need to change in order to createpeople have what they need, they don’t appear change from the historic release of green- wish to withdraw from the paris climate a different way of living is another. none ofto be materialistic and they are sharing more. house gases. the effects of global increases agreement. leadership has been shown from us are immune to contributing to environ-It’s a diverse community and people are in temperature are already being felt across those in elected positions around the world, mental and societal problems through thetreating each other with fairness and respect. the globe and will become more extreme and from businesses, individuals and commu- ways we live. I am looking forward to planetSo, that’s the utopia. unpredictable. In our part of the world we nities who are not willing to accept this B being a chance to learn and talk more are currently cushioned from the worst of morally inexcusable stance. What we now about what we can do collectively for a more except, there are two factors to consider. many of the primary effects, such as hopeful, but still messy, future. heatwaves and flooding, but the secondary “Future the first is that humanity is messy. How and tertiary impacts, such as spread of generations willwould we cope if all of our needs were met disease, famine and conflict are likely to look back at thisand there was nothing to fight against or impact upon us for decades to come.fight for? there is something a little eerie as a definingabout a vision of a place that feels too perfect. this reality is chilling. However, I do have point in history”I think that people need a purpose in order hope that we are at a turning point ofto mobilise and spark ingenuity, so perhaps collective understanding on this. For toowe need a society in the future where long the discourse has been that the economycollective societal and environmental comes first and the environment is somehowchallenges are understood and shared. separate and less important. this is aeveryone has something different to offer ludicrous position given what humans needand we have an inbuilt competitiveness that to survive and that everything in ourhas been exploited well in our current ‘man-made’ world is made from and poweredindividualistic society. by the environment. respect for differences of opinion and attributing cash to ecosystem servicesworldview would continue to be important. is one way to ensure the environment isHowever, if the priority was that people were valued within the economy. not countinggenuinely sharing the responsibility of being the costs of environmental ‘externalities’custodians of their place (from household, in the economy has got us into this positionstreet, town, city, country, continent and in the first place! However, I think it isplanet) then perhaps there would be more vital to also consider the intrinsic value ofthat unites us than in our current society. nature which we have a duty to protect and, to me, is a big part of what makes life this leads on to the other consideration, worth living.