End Game | “Everything you hold dear”

End Game brings story, music and sound together to explore a local response to the global problem of climate change. It deals with the difficult and emotional side of getting our heads around being the heroes of this mess.

A mother facing the mother of all threats - Melanie Scaife shares her ‘head-cracking moment' - when climate change became a real rather than abstract part of her daughters future, and doing nothing ceased to be an option.

Kyla's notes:

I identify deeply with Melanie's story. It's not just that we are of a similar demographic living in the same rural shire, both with four-year-old daughters who are obsessed by rainbow unicorns - like Melanie, I too found myself switched on to climate change in the space of a moment that felt like forever. But I couldn't find the words until I sat down with Melanie, an audio recorder and a cup of strong coffee…

Rob and I have talked a lot about how to weave in and explore through End Game the more personal side of how we grapple with climate change - and the ‘big bang' seemed like a good place to start.

In this piece Melanie reads excerpts of a speech she gave at the Mount Alexander Shire Climate Change Forum held in December 2019; urging our local council to declare a climate emergency. Rob and I also spoke at the Forum, alongside 140 odd residents, business owners and community group leaders from our town and its surrounds.

I remember sitting in the audience and thinking - so these are the people I'll be sharing food, water and a leaky boat with as the impacts of climate change intensify. My interest was sparked in what they had to say and how they saw the world and our future.

Later I discovered that the forum was a key moment in the story of our shire's response to climate change - and it really did precipitate the emergency declaration that happened shortly after. [For more listen to End Game's ‘Problem Solved']. The forum was also an expression of a collective community voice on climate change and part of a long and rich history of climate action in our town [for more listen to End Game's ‘Bubbling away and rising']

But ‘Everything you hold dear' is not about the Climate Change Forum and our community response to the crisis - it is about a woman coming to grips with climate change emotionally - and then managing that realisation once it's out of the box. (read more on Kyla's blog about the story behind ‘Everything you hold dear')

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