ONE PLANET
INTRODUCTION ‘One Planet’ is the perfect theme for the 2020 Alumni Day of Action. It’s a poetic image (our beloved blue and green globe suspended in space), a statement of fact (yes, everything on earth is connected) and a call to action – a clear imperative: if we don’t take our responsibilities to each other, the planet and all her species into account, we will miss the deadline to keep carbon emissions down to a safe level. With the certainty of many deaths on the other side of it, this is not just powerful language – it truly is a deadline.
There are plenty of questions here, not least what do we want to leave behind for future generations? Asking questions is a sign of humility, admitting we don’t know all the answers and acknowledging the relative simplicity of our needs, the importance of home and community, which is essentially ‘one planet’ in microcosm. The Climate Crisis, Mass Extinction and related environmental and health disasters are happening on a scale it is hard for us to grasp, live with and alleviate. But if we don’t, life on earth is in mortal danger and there will be further suffering. Poems are small forms that speak loudly. Writing or reading them, we can carry lines around in our heads, hearts or pockets: One Planet becomes portable, open to inquiry and exchange, a sustainable way of living and thriving.
All the poems collected here are a source of hope. These writers understand connectedness. From all over the world but linked to Newcastle through their studies (across all disciplines), they know we live on One Planet. This is a good place to act from. Between them, the poems present different strands of a still-unfolding story. In the face of environmental loss, Nature consoles, but how can we not look in uncomprehending grief and anger as glaciers melt, forests burn and cities and oceans become choked in plastic? How not regret the failure in human imagination that stole our sense of wonder and vision, while we were seduced by endless growth and consumption?
Linda France Climate Writer in Residence Newcastle University and New Writing North September 2020
2
