Russell Brand speaks the truth to wide applause.

Yesterday’s post here on Learning from Dogs looked at the utter insanity, the greed, the short-sightedness of extracting oil in greater and more varied ways; as if the future for all of life on this planet just didn’t matter.  I guess the truth is that for those who stand to benefit from this wealth, the future of the planet just doesn’t matter.

The recent interview on BBC Newsnight by Jeremy Paxman of British comedian Russell Brand has gone viral.  At the time of writing this post, YouTube report 7,661,280 viewings!  It’s not surprising because what Russell Brand is saying is obvious to millions of people all around the world.  What Brand is expressing is as clear as a lone, lighted beacon at midnight on the darkest Winter night one could imagine.

The UK’s Guardian newspaper published an article about the interview last Friday.  It was called: Russell Brand takes on the crisis of civilisation. But what now?  Here’s how that article opened:

During his Wednesday night interview with Jeremy Paxman on BBC Newsnight, comedian and actor Russell Brand said what no politician or pundit would ever dare say: that without dramatic, fundamental change, the prevailing political and economic system is broken, and hell-bent on planetary-level destruction:

With Dr Ahmed, the author of that Guardian article, concluding:

And in doing so, we might begin to realise that it is precisely the lack of a single, top-down manifesto that is our greatest strength – because, unlike the old, dying, fossil fuel dependent paradigm of endless growth for its own sake for the corporate few, the new, emerging post-carbon paradigm will be co-created by people themselves from the ground up.

That is why Brand’s answer for the way forward is so compelling:

“We shouldn’t destroy the planet. We shouldn’t create massive economic disparity. We shouldn’t ignore the needs of the people.”

If we want our children to inherit a habitable planet, rather than bashing Brand for not having a more coherent solution, we need to start being part of it.

Dr Nafeez Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development and author of A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It among other books. Watch his film, The Crisis of Civilization, for free. Follow him on Twitter @nafeezahmed

“We need to start being part of it.”

You know what!  The incredible response to that Paxman-Brand interview shows the millions of us who are already “part of it.”  Yes, it really does feel that the time is now.  That time that so very many of us, in a myriad of different ways, are fighting for our beautiful planet from the ground up.

Finally, if you want to read that interview between Paxman and Brand in detail, then over on Corrente there is a full transcript of the exchange between them.

Long may this run!