Like most people, I was daunted by the scale of the emergency, but I now think the lifestyle changes needed to make progress are not that difficult
A change is desperately needed. I know it and you know it, but someone in this citizenry – most likely you – isn’t ready to make a vast adjustment to their lifestyle. This is a common fallback position among progressives. I’ve always felt comfortable in this territory and simultaneously aggravated by it. Nowhere is this position more routinely applied than in relation to the climate crisis.
The argument goes like this: people across the political spectrum broadly agree on the fundamentals and the urgency of the climate crisis, and yet we probably won’t do what we need to do because we’re just too useless. Society is too fractured for people to make altruistic choices; poverty is too endemic for many to be in a position to make changes; financialisation has subverted democracy, so even if the demos was able to make a good, collective decision, it would be thwarted. Even if, by some miracle, the UK managed to overcome these obstacles to make good on its net-zero pledges, the same problems would play out on a global scale to prevent other nations from doing the same.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
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