⌛ Revolution in Our Time
We’re not waiting for a revolution—it's already begun, and it starts within.
You can also watch this as a video essay
Outside my prison cell, I can see a large stretch of grass. It’s going brown. Somewhere here in Norfolk, it’s only rained once in the last two months. This morning I read that this spring is the driest on record. Farmers are warning that if it doesn’t rain in the next 10 days, they’ll lose their cereal crops. These crops are grown in vast, open fields—they can’t be irrigated. Britain is entering a farming crisis for the third year in a row.
As a former farmer who grew commercial crops for 20 years, I know what this means. Every May, I’d walk the fields and think, If it doesn’t rain in the next week, I’ll lose the crop. You reach a point where you just know. You’ve seen it before. Once you pass that line, you can’t plant again—it’s too late in the season. And unlike the supermarket, where you can just buy more food, nature doesn’t give you that luxury. It’s now or never.
We’re living on the edge of chaos, year after year. Sooner or later, we will fall.
The Calm Before the Storm
Food shortages. Social unrest. Starvation. This is supposed to be the 21st century. How can this be happening?
You might have heard people say something similar during the recent blackouts in Spain. But nature doesn’t care that it’s the 21st century. It doesn’t care what we believe should or shouldn’t be happening. It doesn’t care about our values or our economic systems. It has no mercy. It’s physics.
Meanwhile, nothing seems to be happening. The climate movements have collapsed. Everyone is frozen. No one is moving. It feels like nothing is going to change.
But that’s completely wrong. In truth, everything is about to happen.
This stillness is not calm. It’s fear. Suppressed terror. Deep anxiety. We all know what’s coming. And that knowledge paralyses us.
But what happens in the mind of the individual also happens on a social level. We freeze—and then we explode.
It’s like your brain flips a switch: from fear to fight, from stillness to storm, from pre-revolution to revolution.
We’re Not Heading Into Crisis—We’re In It
After looking out at the brown grass this morning, I read the latest paper by James Hansen—one of the world’s leading climate scientists. He and his team are 99% certain that doubling CO₂ in the atmosphere will lead not to 3°C of warming, as the IPCC suggests, but to 4.5°C. Remember, the IPCC also said we wouldn’t hit 1.5°C until 2050. We’ve already hit 1.6°C.
When a scientist says “99% certain,” it’s not a warning. It’s a forecast.
We are now accelerating into the greatest catastrophe in human history—within the next decade.
Hansen says so with 99% certainty. So it’s going to happen.
Take the floods in Valencia last year: 200 people died. 100,000 cars destroyed. Thousands took to the streets. Do you think that’s the worst it will get?
We’re at 1.6°C now and rising 0.4 every decade. By 2035, we’ll be at 2°C. Next time it won’t be 200 deaths, but 2,000. Whole towns will be swept away.
Do you really think people will just accept it?
Of course not. In Spain, there’ll be a million people on the streets. The government will wobble.
When the next wildfire in Los Angeles burns down 100,000 homes instead of 10,000, do you think people will just go back to work the next day?
No. There’ll be chaos. And from that chaos, revolution.
Revolutions Are Not Started by Revolutionaries
This is what revolution in our time looks like. And it’s not ideological. It’s not based on personal belief or political theory. It’s physics. It’s 2 + 2 = 4.
But don’t think the people of Spain or California are revolutionaries. They’re not.
Revolutions aren’t started by radicals. They’re started by conservatives—by people who want to go back to the way things were before the collapse.
Revolutions are revolts against the revolutions already being imposed on us—by the chaos elites have created through their greed and failure.
The Russian Revolution didn’t begin with the Bolsheviks. It began with the Tsar’s decision to prolong a war that was killing millions and starving the rest.
People don’t revolt because they want to. They do it because they have no other choice.
As the sociological saying goes: “Revolutions are not made. They come.” But once they come, it matters where they go. And going back is no longer an option.
The Revolution Within
I got an email from a close friend last week. He wrote:
“I know the planet’s burning. I know 4 billion people are at risk. I know it’s happening now. I also know we are tiny players in a global catastrophe, driven by monstrously evil men with bottomless pockets. I’ve done nothing for a year now. And I think I know why: We need to frame this in terms of what difference I can make.”
This is the trap of rationality. People choose inaction because they believe their action won’t make a difference. Because no one else is acting. Because it’s not “rational.”
But no one ever joined a revolution by weighing up cost-benefit ratios. People act because they feel. Often, they act because they feel mad.
Thinking, in moments like this, is our greatest enemy.
Why do you think the most educated, powerful, and wealthy civilisation in history—fully aware of its destructive path—is still marching off a cliff?
It’s the ego. The endless “what’s in it for me?” calculations of neoliberalism. The belief that action must have a return. The myth that self-interest is supreme.
When Churchill faced Hitler’s invasion of Britain, he didn’t offer a strategic ROI. He said:
“I offer you blood, toil, tears and sweat.”
Because it’s not about you. Life owes you nothing. The question isn’t “How do I make an impact?” It’s “How do I want to live?”
A Life of Beauty
Your life is not a project to complete. It’s a piece of art. Not about productivity, but about beauty. Not about results, but about truth and goodness.
When you die, you won’t care how many spreadsheets you ticked off. You’ll care how you lived. Whether you acted with dignity. Whether your life had meaning. Whether you were proud of it.
And no, the universe won’t care either. You’ll be forgotten. And that’s fine. You don’t act because it “matters.” You act because it’s right.
This is why the Zen masters say: Kill your ego and you can fly free. Only then can you be of real service.
Martin Luther raged against the idea that “good works” would get you into heaven. Life isn’t about calculating your chances. It’s about acting from faith. From grace.
Trying to work out how we will be saved—how we’ll save the world—is way above our pay grade.
Our job is to act. Not to think about whether it’s worth it. That kind of self-obsession is idolatry. And it’s killing us.
Finding Freedom in Prison
I know some of you might feel miserable reading this. You're trying to think your way through it. But don’t think—imagine.
You are free, but unhappy. I am unfree, and yet happy.
Why? Because after six months in a cell staring at the wall, you realise the only things you truly own are your consciousness and your time. Nothing more. Nothing less.
They can take your TV. Your books. Move you to another prison. But they can’t touch your consciousness.
And when you’re out in the world again, you’ll still only ever be in one room at a time. One moment. Nothing real can be given or taken away. Possessions are a cultural hobby. As my mum used to say: You can’t take it with you when you go.
Why did Jesus say:
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth”?
Because the poor, the humble, the broken—are the ones who’ve already let go of ego. And from that humility comes real power.
I recently read Grace and Power by Dominique Barday about Christian communities in 1980s Brazil. In the slums of São Paulo—amid disease and death—people found God. They found solidarity. And they created political miracles—not despite the suffering, but because of it.
The same will happen again. In Western cities. In the 2030s. When our egos are shattered, we will finally be open to remaking the world.
A Leap of Faith
The old faith in reason will collapse. A new faith will emerge. One that calls us to beauty. To truth. To goodness. Not because they’re useful. But because they are glorious.
They are the colours with which we paint our lives.
When you’re asked to donate that £10,000—you’re not losing it. You’re freeing yourself.
When you’re asked to leave your job and work for Rev21—you’re not losing status. You’re escaping it. For a life of freedom, not fear.
And here’s the twist: you’re not behind. You’re ahead. You are preparing the ground. Others will follow. When the old world collapses, you’ll be ready to show the way.
You’ll be the one flying the flag of love, while others reach for hate.
This is your calling. This is revolution in our time.
Stop thinking. Open yourself to grace. It will be OK. Trust me. You’ll have your down days—don’t we all? But this is the real revolution: both the external, and the deep internal shift.
You do not make it. It comes. And it is coming.
Thank you.
Find out more and get involved at https://rev21.earth/.
