Political Hope
“ A sense of urgency drives people to a better consensus. Now what we need to do is take all of those concepts we’ve come to understand – such as flattening the curve of infection – and apply them to emissions.”
I have distinct memories of New Year’s Eve 2019 in Manly. I was very conflicted that we had the fireworks, because we’d had such a long bushfire season and already terrible air pollution. I’d just been to all of the end-of-year ceremonies at local schools, where the air was horrendous and the kids couldn’t play outside. The bushfires brought the reality of climate change to our doorsteps and into our living rooms; we were confronted by the horror of it every day on the news and in the newspapers. It felt terrifyingly real. And it was just relentless: day after day, more bad news. Suddenly, we saw that this isn’t an issue that’s abstract and happening to someone else, somewhere else in the world. It is happening to us here and now.
