Thoughts on climate, feelings on safety

“It doesn’t feel great to live on a cloud while the rest of the world goes under”: the feelings under the surface of climate safety

If your friends say insightful things that you wish you’d written down, you’re not alone. I guess the problem usually is that you’re not a pollster, nor an anthropologist—at least not while you’re talking to your friends. People around you might have incredible thoughts on the climate crisis and strong feelings on their safety, but you’re unlikely to be writing them down or to have a list of survey questions.

I have this problem too, so I asked as many people as I could get hold of to sit down with me and talk about the climate crisis and their own physical safety. I haven’t been systematic about the results—these little extracts are just highlights from the transcripts. They’re presented vertically to slow your eyes down and give the words some space.

This is going to be a regular format at the sonification, with a different set of questions each time—we’ll be covering all kinds of feelings about this crisis, not just climate safety. We want to speak to as many people as possible, so if you’re up for a chat, please get in touch. The people I spoke to for this piece are all quite similar to me and I hope that will change over time. Some things you just can’t speak about, and some things you have to.

If these thoughts resonate with you, that’s great, and if they don’t, I hope they at least offer a way to clarify your thoughts by process of elimination. Take some of them, discard some others, and I hope you end up with something useful.

Each set of quotations reads top to bottom as they were spoken.

I’ve
always
worried

a
little
bit

about
the
idea
of

being
in
a
city

like
London

that
is
so
polluted

for
such

a
long

time.

I’m
so
young
for
this.

I
don’t
think
about
it

because
it
makes
me
really

anxious
.

If
I
were
to
have
kids
and
I
knew
that

things
weren’t
going
to
get
better,

it
would
be
a
massive

cognitive
dissonance

moment.

if
I
did

start
worrying

about
it,
I
don’t

think

I’d
ever

stop

.

if
I
think
about
it,

I
don’t
really
expect
to
die

from
natural
causes.

But
I
prefer
not
to
think

about
it,

really.

I
mean,

when
the
weather
is
bad,

I
feel
sh*t.

but
like,

Jesus,

you
and
your

six
Teslas

are
going
to
be

fine.

if
all
that
infrastructure

falls

away

and
all
they
have
to
do

is
watch
me
struggle
to

protect
them

it
doesn’t
feel
great

to
live
on
a
cloud

while
the
rest
of
the
world

goes

under

I
think
I’m
too
comfortable
and

I
can’t
imagine
that
comfort
being
taken

away
from
me

because
it
hasn’t

yet.

if
you
see
what’s
happening
in
Siberia,

it’s
just
becoming
desert

Death
is
such
an
intangible
concept
anyway
that

sometimes
I’m
just

vibing
out,

like

what
am
I
supposed
to
do,

am
I
supposed
to
be

scared
all
the
time
?