Climate change is the greatest risk and challenge of our time. The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached 415 parts per million – the highest in almost three million years. And the past five years have been the warmest on record since the 1880s.
The British scientist Brian Cox says that politicians “often make the mistake of viewing society as a series of groups competing for finite resources”. But this mistake is the very premise of most of the world’s free market economy, that has different stakeholders compete with each other to make the biggest profit with complete disregard for any negative externalities.
Now this amoral competition has brought us to a tipping point, where the Earth is gradually experiencing devastation. Impacts include the acidification of oceans, rising sea levels and, among others, displacement of people. According to a study by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, an estimated 60 million people were affected by extreme weather conditions in 2018. Through this devastation, nature is forcing us to mend our ways.
