My name is Daniel and I’m writing this from prison, after being sentenced for conspiring to take part in the Just Stop Oil protest at Manchester airport. I’ve been here for almost 10 months and should be released shortly.
Over my time at HMP Fosse Way my thoughts on the nature and environmental crisis have ebbed and flowed and crystallised on one specific point: climate collapse so severe as to threaten the existence of organised society is basically inevitable at this point. Yet, the other week at my sentencing (May 27th 2025) I staged a protest with my co-defendants. Interrupting court proceedings, all four of us risked extra prison time for contempt of court holding up signs reading “4 Billion Dead”. Though I think it’s all rather hopeless, I staged my protest anyway. So, why?
Well, I think it’s important to unpack the total severity of our collective situation. Currently, 1 in 8 bird species and almost 1 in 4 mammal species are threatened with extinction. The rate of extinction is so steep that it will be clearly visible as an event in the fossil records for millions of years to come. Five such events are visible in the earth’s geology and are called mass extinctions. When these happen, about 75% of the earth’s species go extinct within a short period of time.
For humanity, 600 million people stand to lose their homes by the 2050s through sea level rise alone. At that point, parts of the world will be exposed to temperatures that are literally unlivable. Knowing human beings, on a planet where many nations are armed with nuclear weapons, tough times will inevitably come with conflict . Current projections say the world will hit at least 2.7 degrees of warming, smashing the 1.5 degree limit [5]. Of course, if everyone got their act together tomorrow, if all nations cooperated, there would be a chance of weathering the storm. But come on – how likely is that?
The Paris agreement is dead in the water. The hedge funds are saying prepare for a +3C world. In fact, they’re recommending investors buy shares in the air conditioning industry. The Hail Mary, all nations act, bullshit feel good movie ending is not going to happen. Pretending like it will isn’t being hopeful, it’s being dishonest. No one’s going to thank you for sugarcoating their abject misery. They’ll have expected you to tell them the truth. They’ll be furious about your lies.
So, in the face of all of this, what’s the point of doing anything? Let’s just party till the world ends, right? Wrong! What a ridiculous question to ask. First of all, the idea that this is somehow a unique situation you find yourself in is a laughable suggestion. People have found themselves in hopeless situations throughout history. How many people have had their homes taken away, watched their families blown to bits by bombs? How many people have lived and died as slaves, how many genocides has this world been witness to? People lived through the Black Death, the rape of the Americas, the Holocaust, unfairness, misery, death; these are all quite standard for the human race. People watch their world end all the time, is our world ending any different?
Ok, sure – you might say. It’s a messed up species we’re all part of. If anything, that’s more evidence that the worst is going to happen, the world is going to end. So what’s the point of me doing anything? Well, all those people I spoke about in their hopeless situations, a lot of them chose to fight back, knowing it would probably just end in their death. Of course, many of them basically had no choice, but I like to think they were also aspiring to live, not just to survive. And essentially that’s what we’re being told when people say it’s pointless to act when there’s so little hope of stopping the worst of the climate crisis. We’re told, you won’t win, so just scamper off, survive, lead your measly existence day by day, and wait until something finally kills you off. Well I simply don’t see the point in that. This is what’s pointless to me. Why work in some meaningless job, while everyday temperatures rise and people die? How sad.
I want to be proud of every day I live. I want to fight for every inch of land. I might lose in the end, but goddamn it, I’ll have given it a good go, and I’ll have had a good time doing it. To me, my fight is the only thing that means anything. Probably the most important thing I’ve learned in prison is people end up in all sorts of situations in life. We label some of them as “good”, and some of them “bad”, but everyday is just as beautiful as the next. Prison was supposed to be a “bad” situation, but I met people I’d never have spoken to otherwise in my life. I read more than I’ve probably done in the last 10 years, I’ve learnt so much. I mean, I’d never otherwise have written this article. I’ve certainly been happier in this “bad” situation than in many supposedly “good” situations throughout my life.
So our world is ending – there’s no two ways about that. We can choose to be miserable and carry on like nothing is wrong, or, we can lead our lives to the fullest and embrace that things are going to change more than we can possibly imagine and that the capitalist system will likely collapse but we can have a part to play in what comes next. I know what I’d rather do.
I’m grateful for my time in prison, and I pray I’ll be involved in this fight, come what may, for years to come. Yeah, it’s pointless, but it’s the most meaningful thing I’ll ever do.
