Letters to the Earth

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com

This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2019

Original content copyright © Emma Thompson, Daniel Joyce, Tilly Lunken, Jenny Ngugi, Laline Paull, Ottilie Neser, Kayden Van Veldhoven, Sally Jane Hole, Jem Bendell, Niamh McCarthy, Simon Jay, Agnes Homer, Cate Chapman, Ella Crowley, Liz Darcy Jones, Simon McBurney, Ollie Barnes, Jackie Morris, Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, Tabitha Ravula, Stuart Capstick, Nicola Espitalier Noel, Jessica Taggart Rose, Elliotte Mitchell, Joanna Pocock, Daniela Torres Perez, Tyrone Huggins, Haydon Bushell, Rob Cowen, Christopher Nicholson, Isobel Bruning, Saibh Da Silva, Justin Roughley, Clare Crossman, Mary Benefiel, Jessica Siân, Lindsay Clarke, Veronika Schmidinger, Anna Hope, Blythe Pepino, Jo Baker, Katie Skiffington, Jay Griffiths, Ann Lowe, Polly Higgins, Claire Rousell, Nathan Bindoff, Emma Cameron, Alex Morrison Hoare, Tia Khodabocus, Tamara von Werthern, Bridget McKenzie, Harriet Hulme, Dr Rupert Read, Steve Waters, Molly Wingate, Bob Langton, Eva Geraghty, Kerala Irwin, Mark Rylance, Mairéad Godber, Renato Redentor Constantino, Nivya Stephen, Luke Jackson, Toni Spencer, Ashby Martin, Dr Gail Bradbrook, Hannah Palmer, Marian Greaves, Mike Prior, Minnie Rahman, Tamara Ashley, Casper Taylor, Professor Julia Steinberger, Luca Chantler, Caroline Lucas MP, Megan Murray-Pepper, Silvia Rodriguez, Lilli Hearsey, Trilby Rose, Eve Houston, Fiona Glen, Dulcie Deverell and Edi Rouse, Bishop Rosa dos Santos Bassotto, Farhana Yamin, Claire Rousell, Harkiran S. S. Dhingra

Cover design by Jack Smythe

Swallow illustration by Jakie Morris

The authors assert their moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008374440

eBook Edition © November 2019 ISBN: 9780008374457

Version: 2020-01-02

1 Cover

2 Title Page

3 Copyright

4 Contents

5 Introduction

6 Dear Reader

7 In the Beginning

8 LOVE

9 Earth

10 In the Climbing Hydrangea of my Neighbour’s Fence

11 Dear Mr Walnut Tree

12 Milk

13 All the Trees

14 But the Greatest of These Is Love

15 Help Me Catch Our World

16 Letter to the Worms

17 Insects

18 I Love You, Earth

19 Now It Is Our Turn

20 Stories of You and I

21 Extinction Redemption

22 A Break Up Poem

23 We Don’t Shop at Waitrose

24 Be Kind

25 I Don’t Know Where I’ve Got This Balance Wrong

26 A Love Letter

27 Oh, Arrogant and Impudent Beloved Child

28 The Act of Naming

29 Everything

30 Everything Is Connected

31 LOSS

32 False Alarm

33 What Have We Done to the Planet?

34 Finding Dory

35 Cruise control

36 We Humans

37 The Act of Incremental Vanishing

38 Dear Animals

39 Nichollsia borealis

40 A Place I Call Home

41 Small Islands Everywhere

42 Why Should We Care?

43 Letter to a Starling

44 A Frog Shrivelled in the Dust

45 A Letter to the Dying

46 I Didn’t Even Know!

47 Amnesia

48 The Night Toby Denied Climate Change

49 The First Earth Day

50 A Letter to the Earth (If It Can Read?)

51 Sorry

52 On an Ancient Carving

53 Patient E

54 Fracture

55 Womb

56 For Aoife

57 Procrastination

58 Letter to an Endling

59 anything

60 EMERGENCE

61 Emergence

62 We Are in the Underworld

63 The Hospital

64 Trusting the Spiral

65 HOPE

66 A Scientist’s Dream

67 The Hawthorn Tree

68 Corrections

69 Thirteen

70 Active Hope

71 I’m Seeing Changes

72 Sleeping in the Forest

73 Hope in the Darkness

74 A Daring Invitation

75 An Apology/A Prayer

76 I Believe in You

77 2082

78 We Already Know the Answers

79 I’m Still So in Love with You

80 A Great Non-Conformity

81 A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square

82 Discontinuous Change

83 An Island Travelling South

84 ACTION

85 Ancestors

86 The Future

87 YOU

88 Galvanize

89 No One Is Exempt

90 A Massive Pink Vagina in the Middle of Oxford Circus

91 Put Your Head in the Sand

92 Use Your Voice

93 Correspondence

94 Dear White Climate Activists

95 From Broken to Breaking

96 Liveable

97 A New Civilisation

98 The Sixth Mass Extinction

99 A Failure of Imagination

100 Waymarkers

101 There Is No Excuse

102 Johnny from Sainsbury’s Checkout Begs

103 Last Generation

104 Enterprise

105 After the Rebellion

106 Turning

107 The Time Is Now

108 Samaúma

109 The Age of Restoration

110 What We Do Now Matters

111 Sea Change

112 The Time for Action is Now

113 Acknowledgements

114 Credits

115 About the Author

116 About the Publisher

Landmarks CoverFrontmatterStart of ContentBackmatter

List of Pages v vi 1 2 3 5 6 7 13 14 15 16 19 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 4748 495051 525354 5556 5758 5960 61626364 65 6667 69 71 72 7374 7576 7778 79 80 8182 8384 85 86 8788 89 9091 9293 9495 9697 9899 100101 102103104 105106 107108 109110111112113 114 115 116117 118119 120 123 125 126127128129130131132 133134135136 137 139 141 142143 144145 146 147148 149150 151 152153 154155 156157158159160161162 163 164165 166167 168 169170171 172173 174175 176177178 181 183 184185186 187188 189 190191 192193194195196197 198 199200 201202 203204205206 207208 209 210211 212213 214215216 217218 219 220221 222 223 224225 226 227228 229230231 232233 234235236 237 241242243245 249250 251

All humans know somewhere deep – somewhere like our spinal cords, somewhere we are not used to communicating with – that our planet is suffering. We know at a cellular level and it is causing us huge distress. It’s like being in a sci-fi story where we are under attack from the Martians – except in this story we are the Martians and there is no spaceship out there poised to save us from destruction. But let’s remember that because we are the authors of the story we can also be the authors of what comes next.

So many of our inventions – miraculous at the time – gas, coal, planes, cars, smoking (I loved it) are now the agents of destruction. It’s hard to let go of our addictions, so hard. But let go we must if we, and the greater web of life of which we are, after all, only a part, are to survive.