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One Simple Reason for Hope in the Face of Climate Change
Some call it a dream.
Once upon a time, Britain without coal was unthinkable. While Costa Rica running entirely on 100% clean energy was a bizarre thought.
One more photo of a stranded polar bear, and you may believe we are on the fast-track for environmental catastrophe. And we could leave it right there, if it was true, but it does not hold up to how history happens.
Even in my life, I have seen social and environmental justice happen in relatively short periods of time, to name a few:
- McDonald’s trashed its foam containers in 1990 to help the ozone layer
- Marriage equality in Catholic Ireland
- Smoking bans
- Fur farming banned
- Renewable energy overtook fossil fuels in the UK.
The idea we are too late to avert the climate crisis is flawed.
Nigel Topping is an upbeat man with an astonishing job title: UN high-level climate champion.
The biggest change he saw this year at COP26, he told the New Statesmen, is that companies no longer see climate action as a cost or an opportunity, but simply as “an inevitability”.
