How can we resist the sixth mass extinction in our imaginations? What kind of cultural shift does it take? In this latest post for The Vanishing series, Rupert Read considers the future of human societies, following in the wake of whales.

What would one mean, and how do we achieve it?

For the last few years, and certainly for the readers of this newspaper, there has been little that matters more to this country than membership, or otherwise, of the EU.

But there is another issue of greater importance. Far greater importance: the global eco-emergency, of which the long climate emergency is only the most pressing part.

Rupert Read launches a new campaign, #WeWontSpeakToMurdochRags, to boycott the Rupert Murdoch-owned media by not speaking to these publications until they take the climate emergency seriously and convey the gravity of the crisis to their readers.

Following his arrest at a recent Extinction Rebellion protest, Rupert Read sets out his new “David versus Goliath” campaign for change by example.

The climate and ecological emergency consuming the world, usually, defies the imagination. It is so life-altering yet so gradual – exploiting the human tendency to ignore things that are radically outside our own experience.

Yet, thanks to the Coronavirus, we have been given a small taste of what is to come. The short COVID-19 pandemic is like an accelerated version of the long climate emergency. The UK’s vulnerability has been exposed, along with the incompetence of its Government, and the generosity of its people.

When I heard that Culture Declares emergency was organising a series of ‘Letters to Power’, I thought to myself: “Rupert, you should probably write one”. You see, I have spent much of my life attempting to talk to, persuade, even beg those with power - our elected leaders, heads of banks and businesses, big organisations or media companies, for example. I have written many, many letters to power before.