The landmark report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) paints a bleak picture for our planet’s future. For this article five climate change experts were asked how they are staying strong.
Rob Law is the CEO of the Central Victorian Greenhouse Alliance: It is often said that action is the antidote to anxiety and despair. We can all lift our ambition on what we can do, some of us in small ways, some of us in big ways. We are continually seeing the ripple effect of small actions. This can be the decade that these ripples combine into a tidal wave of change – before the real tidal waves claim us all. Let’s ramp it up.
Dr Joëlle Gergis is a climate scientist and writer based at the Australian National University: As one of the scientists involved in the report, I want to say that humans have the inherent goodness to turn this around.
Rebecca Huntley is a social researcher and consultant: Hope is other people. Read the IPCC report, put it down, and connect with others like you in communities of common interest and concern.
Joseph Moeono-Kolio is Greenpeace head of Pacific: As a Samoan, the IPCC findings weren’t surprising, but no less hard to stomach. The warning for the Pacific could not be more urgent.
Bill Hare, a physicist and climate scientist, is managing director of Climate Analytics: The strength of the IPCC’s Code Red for Humanity report is sobering; its dire warning could not be clearer. Yet at the same time, it confirmed that the Paris agreement’s 1.5C warming limit is not lost, and with strong global action, we can still achieve it.
By Rob Law, Joëlle Gergis, Rebecca Huntley, Joseph Moeono-Kolio, Bill Hare. Guardian. August 10, 2021.
