Environmentalist
Nobody should be under any illusions about how bad it will be for the lives of everybody if climate policy fails. As we have been told repeatedly in the recent days by people from all over the political spectrum, and from outside politics all together, this is the decade in […]
One of the hardest truths about the pandemic which so abruptly cancelled everyone’s future plans is that, even now, we do not fully understand what this means. Despite a colossal global effort we are still some way from being confident of being able to ensure public health as we release […]
This coronavirus has caused three shocks. There is a health shock the worst of which should be behind us by the end of this year if governments manage it well. There is an economic shock which will last for far longer. There is a psychological shock which we will never […]
Civilisation is the thin film of order we build around the chaos of events. Courtesy of a coronavirus we are now getting a chilling reminder of just how thin that film is. It would have been inconceivable a few weeks ago that a microscopic assemblage of lipids, proteins and ribonucleic […]
People really are beginning to get the message that this is serious, and for real, and it will need them to think about how to change. What individuals do will help, but it’s not where the solution lies. Individuals have got to do their bit, and actually, by and large, […]
This article was first published by the Oracle Partnership as one of a series of essays on climate change. 2019 is the year the global conversation on the climate changed. The children’s climate strikes, the arrival of Extinction Rebellion, the EU’s Green New Deal and the importance of climate change […]
Demands for action are outstripping political will. The diplomatic task of bringing the expectations gap falls to the hosts of next year’s climate talks. By Tom Burke This is the year the global conversation on the climate changed. It is no longer a marginal issue but has joined the political […]
by Liz Gyekye “Climate change is now acting as a locomotive pulling a train load of other environmental issues further up the political agenda particularly among highly connected millennials.” All the UK’s main political parties have focused on the issues of tackling climate change and single-use plastics in their manifestos. […]
Here are some excerpts of the interview with Sky News about whether Greta Thurnberg’s speech about climate change was overly pessimistic: The reality is that climate change is nastier, and is happening faster than we thought it would, the dangers that everybody on the planet are facing are worse than […]
REMARKS BY TOM BURKE CBE AT THE GAS TO POWER FORUM, CANARY WHARF, LONDON, APRIL 30TH 2019. The future will be different. We live in an age of disruptions. Not all of them welcome. The disruption accompanying climate change is the most unwelcome of all. This was made very clear […]