I first heard songs from Victoria Hume’s new album Radical Abundance at the launch of East Lothian Climate Hub launch earlier this week. With another storm raging across the country – the second in a week – Victoria’s haunting melodies and empowering lyrics offered a quiet moment of thoughtfulness.

Nine atmospheric songs are written for this disrupted time when economic growth seems imperative and insatiable. For Victoria, capitalism is the Bad Lover whose shadow “casts every way”. We don’t need it. We can’t tear ourselves away. We’re left believing, “one day you’ll fall”.

Supported by Creative Scotland, Radical Abundance was inspired by Jason Hickels’ 2021 book, Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save The World. It’s on order to be collected this weekend.

Over the years, I’ve read lots of books about capitalism and climate and I’ve spoken about John Naish’s Enough : Breaking Free from the World of More before. First published in 2008, it’s the book I return to time and again. Highly recommended.

I skated over East Lothian Climate Hub’s launch event this week. It’s an important, government-funded initiative. Good things can happen when there are local people shouting about climate action. Still, I mourn the passing of 16 years since I first attended similar Transition events, green festivals, sustainable food talks, bike repair days and film screenings. It’s 18 years since An Inconvenient Truth was released. 15 since I first saw The Story of Stuff. And 11 since we planted apple trees with Musselburgh Transition Toun as part of Incredible Edible. It seems the same people are having the same conversations except now, time is really running out. Things have to change.