The Sound of the Stars | By Joe Herbert

The Sound of the Stars

written by Joe Herbert

2nd Place

I glance up at the dusty TV clinging to the wall above me. I can just about hear its low volume murmuring over the dying embers of the evening’s conversation. Not that I need to hear it to know what is being said. The evening news reports have been telling the same story for months now. Each day, a different middleaged white guy in a suit lamenting the latest dip in economic growth, before packing up and driving his flashy car back to his five-bedroom suburban home, an automatic gate guarding its front entrance, or something like that.

The economy hadn’t recovered — not here, or anywhere — since the pandemic back in 2020, when I was too busy playing video games and flunking online school work to appreciate the severity of the situation. It seems crazy now, thinking about how that crisis changed everything. Well, maybe not everything. The politicians and corporations didn’t learn much. Of course they didn’t. They tried to restart things exactly as they were before. All the support measures they put into place during the pandemic were stripped away at the first possible instance, like candy from a baby. They said ‘savings’ had to be made, ‘difficult decisions’ had to be made. Again.

Yet the fossil fuel companies got bailed out, the airlines got bailed out, and the same people that always suffer, suffered once more, even worse than before. The big polluters were allowed to continue inflicting their ecocide upon the world. And look where it got us. The IPCC’s 2030 deadline for limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees passed, and the target was missed. Now we’re staring down runaway climate breakdown, like a freight train heading towards us. Every year is hotter, more hurricanes, more flooding, more droughts. I dread to think where we would be if the people hadn’t woken up. Us, the normal people, the 99%.

Because, sure, maybe the pandemic didn’t change everything, but it changed a lot. Whilst governments around the world fought month after month, year after year to keep their dying neoliberal dream alive, praying to the gods of growth to resuscitate their precious 3% annual rise in GDP, the rest of us grew tired. Tired of seeing the future of our planet sold for profit, millions sentenced to death so that the billionaires could have a good party whilst watching our world burn from their space bunkers. Those who previously had faith in that regime began to lose it, joined the ones who had been shouting from the sidelines for far too long. The pandemic smashed the myths of infinite growth and a high tide lifting all boats. Though the rich couldn’t admit it, we knew those days were gone. Now, the tide literally was high, and we were about to start drowning.

And that’s how the movement started, started like all good movements, on the streets, in classrooms, over dinner tables, in coffee shops and bars. The elites wouldn’t save us, wouldn’t save the planet, so we would have to do things ourselves. At first, people started talking to strangers rather than simply walking by. Then people started sharing: food, skills, labour, books, whatever was required. We stopped going to the supermarkets, stopped going cap in hand to the local authorities, what little evidence of these still existed. The movement gradually displaced them. After a while, whole towns and cities were meeting most of their own needs. Verges and parks were filled with vegetable gardens. Colour, even animals, returned to previously grey, concrete consumerist wastelands. Buildings vacant since the recession were commandeered, becoming shelters for the vulnerable, community centres, libraries, neighborhood assemblies. People became happier living a simpler life.

And I guess that’s where we are now. Don’t get me wrong, the storm is still coming, but we are stronger by the day. As they lose their dream of infinite growth, we are gaining something powerful. We are gaining each other, gaining hope.

And when the storm does come, we will face it together. As I wander out into the clear night, I swear I can hear the stars, humming with the sound of change.

About the Author

Joe Herbert is a PhD student in human geography at Newcastle University, United Kingdom. His research is on young environmental activists and their narratives of socio-ecological crisis and transformation. Joe is active in the international degrowth movement through his research and as a blog editor for the website degrowth.info.

Why Joe wrote this story:

“In my PhD research, I write about ecological crisis and visions of alternative futures, but writing about these topics through fiction is something less familiar to me. Whilst research and science are clearly crucial in addressing our ecological crisis, fiction is a massively powerful tool which I believe also has a huge role to play in helping us to envision alternative futures and inspiring action.”