Usually, one attends a Book Festival event, listens to the talk, plucks up the courage to ask your favourite author a question or get your book signed, and then it’s over. With Mikaela Loach, the first half an hour was proceedings as usual – then she led us forth into a mass protest outside, marching out of the building chanting, “hey-hey, ho-ho, Baillie Gifford’s got to go.”
This comes in the wake of the controversy surrounding Edinburgh International Book Festival’s sponsorship from Baillie Gifford, a company with a reported £5bn investment in fossil fuels. Loach, alongside other authors appearing in the Book Festival, signed an open letter before the Festival demanding either that Baillie Gifford remove their funding from fossil fuel companies, or that the Festival receive sponsorship from elsewhere. In protest at this funding, Greta Thunberg boycotted this year’s festival. In lieu of doing the same, Loach took the decision to walk out of the interview and stage a protest, accompanied by two of her Book Festival colleagues.
It made for an evening of surprises, to say the least. On one hand, one cannot help but admire Loach’s dedication to our futures. Her book, aptly titled It’s Not That Radical, argues that wanting to sustain the planet should not be considered radical! Desiring and fighting for a future with less exploitation, less suffering, less unearthing of the homes of indigenous communities, and more life and sustainability should not be radical. It should be seen as basic humaneness.
She is also right to point out the horrendous consequences of fossil fuel extraction, most notably for the communities in the Global South who potentially lose their homes as a result, as well as having entire water supplies rendered useless by contamination from unearthed raw materials. This is all despite the fact that the Global South are the least responsible for overall greenhouse gas emissions; they still suffer the most debilitating consequences of climate exploitation.
It is worth noting that Baillie Gifford have defended themselves by describing their investment style as “long-term growth”. Edinburgh International Book Festival claims that the company has made significant progress in investing in sustainable energy over the many years of their collaboration. While this is no excuse for getting complacent, if this is true and they are willing to further phase out their fossil fuel investments, that is surely the goal: keeping investment in our glorious book festivals and persuading them to finish divesting as quickly as possible! One wonders how willing they will be to cooperate upon hearing chants of “Baillie Gifford’s got to go”, especially as they provided the lead funding for the event that made this protest possible in the first place.
The future of the Edinburgh International Book Festival depends on its authors, and if the demands are met that authors boycott the festival next year, the question arises, will activist-driven annihilation of the Festival really provide positive change? Time will tell.
Meanwhile, however, all we can do is keep going and contribute in any way we can! As Mikaela Loach reminds us, activism can take many different accessible forms: some people can help climate groups with their press releases, or design leaflets for XR campaigns, while others can write articles to spread awareness. Something we can do at the click of a button is sign petitions: see the Stop Rosebank one attached here.
To lift a quotation from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “we can protect our futures. We just need moral courage.”
Image via Freddy Lowe