Riders On The Storm

Alastair MacIntosh's Riders on the Storm: The Climate Crisis and the Survival of Being is a rightly challenging read, but worth it. He makes clear that climate change is a major issue way beyond others things that are happening - "The pandemic and climate change are not comparable. While the solutions for controlling the virus are simple and short term, those for getting to grips with climate change comprise a deeply entangled ‘wicked problem’: one for which there are no short, sharp shock fixes sitting on the horizon." 

However, he also recognises the value of a realistically positive approach - "Climate change denial is a waste of time. But climate change alarmism is a theft of time. We have no mandate to collapse the possibilities of the future, to contract and restrict our latitude for agency and action." 

And he adds: "What if we were to take climate change not just as a threat, but as an opportunity to deepen our humanity? What if we, who might be of the countries that historically have done the most to cause climate change, were to find it in ourselves to welcome climate refugees? And to do so not just as cheap labour, but as friends and fellow citizens? If we treat others like ourselves, they’ll come into the family. Who knows what gifts the welcomed stranger bears."

Climate change needs to be taken hugely seriously - and that means doing what we can.