'10 Years Remaining' by Lauren-Marie Kennedy A poetic response to the idea that we (at the time of writing) had approximately 10 years to reverse climate disaster. Inspired by the Climate Clock in New York City. (spoken word performance)
10 years remaining. We didn’t listen. The hottest year since records began! Animal agriculture was responsible, more so than all transportation combined, but we wouldn’t alter our lifestyle, wouldn’t keep an open mind. We kept consuming animals, we bred more and more and more, ‘til it came back to bite us,
when a zoonotic virus began to soar. Extra pressure on the NHS. Extra pressure in our veins. You’d think we’d learn our lesson, right? But some things never change. We were forbidden from the outside, socializing and being close, the things that any human being would surely miss the most. It gave us a taste of life in a zoo, a coop, a pen, or a cage. We watched our families from a distance as they started to gradually age. 5 years remaining. We didn’t listen. The hottest year since records began! More plastic than fish in the ocean, sea levels are quickly rising, we can’t see what lies beyond that ever scorching horizon. More forest fires to put out, more natural disasters, World Leaders tried to palm us off with empty-word-bandages and plasters. But it wasn’t us who needed healing, it was the earth beneath our feet. We stripped her of her resources until there was nothing left to eat. 10 months remaining. We didn’t listen. The hottest month since records began! Here we are, I suppose, on a planet unimaginably hotter, ten years of doing nothing has led to wars over water. They warned us all those years ago, we didn’t protect our environment, now children will not grow to see their own fucking retirement. 10 weeks remaining. We didn’t listen. The hottest week since records began! With an aging population, one that’s rapidly growing, 8.62 billion humans ignorantly roaming. In the age of information we really had no excuse, attitudes remained the same there was no way to defuse. 10 days remaining. We didn’t listen. The hottest day since records began! Most species have died off, we’re the only ones remaining. Ten days is all we have now but time has lost all meaning. The landscape is a desert: no water left or trees, no seeds, no flowers, no pollinators, most importantly… no bees. We really should have seen it coming they warned us all along. We called them extremists but we were in the wrong. 10 seconds remaining. We didn’t listen. And I’m afraid that you won’t either. Unless you can change your lifestyle now, you habits, your attitude, your behaviour. If only we’d acted sooner, if only we’d changed a few features, if only we acted like we actually cared for other living creatures we may not have found ourselves in this mess we’re in today. Time is running out, believe me. You have to make the next ten years pay. I ask you in these last few seconds to protect your mother nature. Realise how truly precious her resources are and escape this alternative future.