10 Billion,
and why we’re f**cked.

I just finished Stephen Emmott’s 10 Billion book (also adapted to a play) and have been sitting in stunned silence since.

It’s a blunt, unapologetic, and terrifyingly clear picture of what we are doing to our planet. Presented in beautiful, bite-sized minimal design.

In crisp Helvetica, the book tells us that if we don’t change and change fast, then as a species, we are so screwed we won’t know what hit us. 

There’s no sugarcoating. Emmott lays out the hard numbers—population growth, resource depletion, climate breakdown—and the conclusion is impossible to ignore. We’re consuming too much, wasting too much, and pretending that our crimes won’t be held to account. 

It will. And most probably, it will be our kids and grandkids who will have to settle our outstanding account with Mother Nature. And it’s gonna be a big bill. 

This planet has finite resources and those resources are being depleted. Fast. 

Everyone should read this book. Not to sink into despair, but to wake up. We must rethink how we live our lives, how we consume, and how we treat the only home we know.

Because time is running out, and if we don’t change, the planet won’t be the one paying the price - we will.

In my own work, I have addressed climate change. My new short film There Will Come Soft Rains deals with a scenario where a daughter is so haunted by rising sea levels that she decides to dig up her own father’s grave.

As creators and storytellers, we must find more ways to include climate and the urgent climate narrative into our stories, but in an organic way that isn’t preachy. We must all do our part to help.

I will end this post the same way the book ends. 

Unless we change, 

we’re fucked.