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Stop all the clocks

Everything else can wait. (Like Auden said.)

Hands up – who’s not seen The Age of Stupid yet? Well now’s your chance. But be quick. The film needs you to see it – and needs you to help boost early takings, by taking your friends – for one giant win–win–win: we have fun, the film succeeds, and the kids get a second chance of life!

See www.ageofstupid.net/weekone for a cinema near you. The opening weekend of (20/21/22 March) is monstrously important to the whole future of The Age of Stupid… and our planet.
There’s a fourth win that I need to mention. As I’ve said before, I’m very proud to be one of the film’s ‘crowd funders’ so I have both a tiny vested interest in its success – I could get my money back – and a far bigger vested interest – my children could get their home planet back.

It’s a few days since the people’s premiere of The Age of Stupid as I write this. It went well. It’s unbelievably heavy stuff we’re dealing with here, so it’s okay that we feel ‘all shook up’.

Species extinction, or not?

‘Game over’ for the kids, or not?

There are plenty of things I should be doing right now, instead of writing this, including:

• tidying up after myself, and not expecting my wife to do it for me
• earning some money for my children
• updating my website (it’s been untouched for over three years now)
• driving forward my next big low-carbon project and contacting my next celeb
• acting responsibly with finances, filing, and paperwork

Sound familiar? But it’s spring. Breathe, breathe in the air. Don’t be afraid to care. (Thanks Pink Floyd.)

Is it possible that Mother and Father Earth are giving us one more chance to listen to their cries? Is it possible that it’s not over until it’s over? That a miracle transformation of society will happen if we let it?

Momentous change has happened before. Is it really possible that tidying up our own back yard – carbon-wise – was all we ever needed to do? (And we need to do it!) Is it possible that now is the time for many simultaneous, seemingly futile gestures – the authentic power of symbolic action?

On yer bikes!

Pete Postlethwaite arriving at the premiere on his bike.

12,000 people enjoyed attending the film’s premiere with the stars – and mostly without the carbon. At Maidenhead, the Odeon was full. The audience included my lovely (and, to date, forgiving!) wife Jan and my four lovely kids.

Dave Hampton and Cindy Barnes of Transition Maidenhead, who hosted the premiere

It was full of clients, associates, potential clients, family friends, neighbours and even a top celebrity. My short speech included a spontaneous decision (inspired by Pete Postlethwaite’s brave pledge to hand back his OBE www.vimeo.com/3759992) to announce that I was never going to fly again. As the Carbon Coach, it’s right for me to quit flying. I don’t judge anyone who can’t – or won’t – make that same pledge. It just fits and feels right for me.

Mission Possible:
Sliding Doors and spinning turnstyles

Do you remember the movie Sliding Doors, where the affect of one tiny act, one tiny difference, one smile and a few seconds is multiplied within the universe and the whole world changes? Who is the one person who needs inviting to The Age of Stupid by you, as an act of kindness?

Invite people you know to attend The Age of Stupid during the opening week, ideally with you. I’ll have seen the film 12 times by next week, bought hundreds of tickets, and invited thousands (yes, you count!).

If you can – perhaps even if you can’t – buy a whole load of tickets and give them away to special friends you care about. Our mission is to fill every cinema, and every screening, in the UK, during this crucial week.

www.ageofstupid.net/weekone

Can we fix it? Yes we can!

That way the film reaches its tipping point and becomes the huge success that our kids need it to be. So, although I’m spending hours – and £100s – on tickets I just can’t afford right now, a little voice inside me tells me I’ll look back in later life and this will be one of the many crazy little things I did that I’ll regret… that I didn’t do more!

Until next time

Dave Hampton
The Carbon Coach