We must transform our lives and values to save this burning planet | Susanna Rustin | O... - 0 views
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global carbon emissions last year rose to a record 37.1bn tonnes.
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In October, UN scientists warned that within 12 years a target of 1.5C of global heating would be out of reach
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f taken to extremes, the focus on personal habits can even become a distraction. Turning vegan or giving up flying are good and important things to do. But they will not save the world
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temperature increases are predicted to cause colossal disruption: 10 million more people displaced as a consequence of higher sea levels; greatly increased risk of fires, drought and extreme weather of all kinds; shrinkage of plant and insect habitats with massive effects on agriculture as well as nature; the extinction of coral.
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It is extremely difficult to see a safe way through the next few decades that does not involve a drastic reorientation of global priorities, towards wildlife and away from consumption
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If the world is to come together as we need it to, human values will have to assert themselves over the forces of capital
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Richard Powers’ recent Booker-shortlisted novel The Overstory focused on the immense psychological challenge, for humans, of making wildlife a priority above the struggles between ourselves that so preoccupy us all.
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US activist Emily Johnston takes as a starting point her sense of “despair” about the state of the oceans, but goes on to argue that “the only sane thing to do is to radically change our agriculture and our forestry to help stabilise the climate”
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everyone who is serious about addressing what Thunberg rightly calls an “existential crisis” must be honest about what the process of getting there will entail.
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the number of British adults who regard climate as a priority remains small: only 27% see it as one of the top three issues. That figure doubles among 18- to 24-year-olds.
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when it comes to the environment, as the Indian writer Arundhati Roy has argued, imagination is at the heart of it; and the question of whether we can see the future clearly enough to prioritise it over short-term gain