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12/02/25 - Merch within the Climate Crisis

Environmental concerns are huge for me. The climate crisis shapes my personal choices, how I choose to consume, and marks my gravest of fears. So, when designing merch, it felt horrifically wrong to create a load of items that wouldn't be used or useful, that would contribute to the crisis of overconsumption.

Ballad 4 (Second Nature) is all about the climate crisis. Written in the 40°C heatwave we experienced a few years back, it goes along a journey of impossibility and explores the sense of needing to do everything in the face of inaction. In this way I express how I myself have felt the weight of the world while simultaneously knowing the futility of my actions.

I'll catch the trees as they fall

The rivers as they become too much to hold

The people as they grow too vain to stand up

And, like second nature, our logic is fucked

When dealing with the climate crisis in this current moment, we're dealing with lots of stories that don't make sense. Companies claim to do good for the environment whilst pushing for overconsumption, ultimately acting in the pursuit of profit generation rather than the conservation of this earth. And as consumers in this system, it often feels like we have little choice but to feed into these same hierarchies of impoverishment and destruction. I myself have to generate profit to live and, whilst I'm not a major corporation, I struggle with the weight of my own decisions and my own hypocrisy.

I don't think there is a good answer here. I think it is ultimately a series of compromises, and compromise is at heart an uncomfortable thing. So my merch, too, is a compromise. Recycled card postcards that you can display, send, or re-recycle…but ultimately not a necessity…but a little something that you can buy that helps me out, too...

You can see why I haven't gone into marketing.

Anyway, they're finally available to buy online. I bought the packaging (for postal orders) from Scrap – a brilliant shop where things are sold that would otherwise go to waste. I've really thought about all of this and still I say this all as uncomfortably and as conflicted as before.

I’ll catch the world in one hand –

It's not like the weight is too much for one man

(Ballad 4 (Second Nature))