The UK Government recently carried out a consultation on its Statement of Environmental Principles. The Statement will have legal status through being referred to in the Environment Bill, still slowly making its way through Parliament and now in the House of Lords. This Bill is supposed to repair the damage done by Brexit pulling the UK out of the shared EU arrangements for environmental protection.

For more than a generation of economic globalisation, to turn the old adage on its head, it seemed to many that “wealth is health”. In the bargain, as everything, including health, came seemingly to rest on the willing shoulders of money, huge fortunes were not only made but universally sought, in what has come to be called an “aspirational world”.

Whereas there was a period at the start of the year where some ‘climate experts’ were criticising some of us for discussing how to prepare for or soften potential societal breakdown due to environmental strains, the return of rapid rises in carbon emissions after last year’s Covid stutter means that more scientists are beginning to consider the implications of a failure to meet climate targets. That painful reflection is still mostly done in private. With this book we are helping them explore what it could mean to prepare for failure.

“…there’s a very real possibility that the latter part of the lives of most of you in this room will be grim or non-existent.”

It wasn’t exactly the Baz Luhrmann-style address many of the first year students starting their incredible adventure of a university education in 2016 were expecting.

Some laughed, nervously. Others looked confused. Some looked worried, as well they should.

Rupert Read and Joseph Eastoe consider the limits of Extinction Rebellion’s radical growth and outline why organisations with greater public appeal, capable of putting significant pressure on politicians, are now needed to capitalise on its success

Have you heard about the frogs who will doze till they die in water that is gradually heated up?

You probably have. One place you may have heard about it is as a metaphor for climate: are we going to be as lethargic as those frogs? Are we going to just let the Earth (and the oceans) heat up and heat up, til we’re fried?