What we normalise – from Monopoly to climate denial

[The two articles featured here were first released to my newsletter subscribers earlier this week. To get access first, do please sign-up to my newsletter by clicking the button to the top right of this page].

At first glance, these two new pieces could not look more different. One begins at the Christmas dinner table, with a battered Monopoly box and an argument over rent owed on Park Lane. The other surveys the state of the planet at the end of 2025, asking whether the story we’ve told ourselves about climate “optimism” has quietly become part of the problem.

The first is domestic, seasonal, almost cosy. Suitable Christmas reading. The other is global, urgent and unsettling. And yet they belong together, asking the same underlying question: what have we normalised that should worry us?

What habits, stories and assumptions feel so familiar that we barely notice them anymore – even when they are quietly doing harm?

Monopoly – and the Monopolies Commission

The first article, available here, starts where many of us will recognise ourselves: Christmas Day, plates cleared, conversation dipping, someone suggesting a board game. Monopoly appears, as it always does. We roll the dice, buy property, charge rent, bankrupt one another – and laugh it off as harmless tradition.

Why do we find enjoyment in rehearsing behaviour that we officially claim to oppose? We set up regulators to prevent monopolies in real life because we know they distort markets, entrench inequality and hollow out society. And yet for fun, we compete to become monopolists, celebrating the very dynamics our public institutions exist to restrain.

I also explore the deep irony of the history of Monopoly as a board game; it was originally a critique of capitalism, not an exercise in it! Its original form, The Landlord’s Game, was designed by Elizabeth Magie and was meant to feel unfair. It was meant to frustrate. It was meant to teach.

Somewhere along the line, the warning became entertainment.

The end of 2025 must be the end of the inane rule of climate ‘optimism’

The second article, for Resilience and available here, takes aim at climate optimism. My view is that we are too far gone now for optimism to get us anywhere useful.

During Extinction Rebellion’s marches, we called for the UK to be net zero by 2025. This was ambitious, yet it was what the science demanded. Now, as 2025 comes to a close, the UK is nowhere near that net zero target. What’s more, the planet has sailed past the 1.5 degrees C of overheating that was deemed ‘safe’. We are now, unavoidably, unsafe.

We must come to terms with this and the consequences that follow. What does not help us do that is climate optimism: putting on a happy face for the sake of presenting good news where none can be found. Indeed, a culture of mandated climate optimism has actively delayed serious preparation.

This is not an argument for despair, nor for giving up on emissions reduction. Quite the opposite: It is a call for realism, for maturity, and for a shift in emphasis.

Adaptation, the article suggests, is not a retreat but a way back into effective action. When people can see concrete steps – retrofitting buildings, reducing flood risk, cooling neighbourhoods, securing water and food locally – engagement deepens. Climate action becomes practical, shared and harder to dismiss…

I hope these two articles interest you and thank you for your continued interest in my work this year.

In 2026 I will continue to push for stronger climate regulation, a greater emphasis on adaptation and a community-centric approach to confronting climate breakdown. I will also focus more on the beginnings of adaptation to AI – and hope you will join me.