
Image: Gilet Jaunes protests began as a protest against tax increases on oil products. Toulouse, 29 December 2018. Credit: NurPhoto/SIPA USA/PA Images, all rights reserved.
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you always get what you’ve always gotten.” Is there any better explanation for our collective failure so far to prevent climate breakdown and social division? As another year passes with global greenhouse gas emissions still rising, it’s time to shake up what we’ve always done.
2018 was a thunderous year for the climate which gave us a glimpse of the new normal: record-breaking heat, a blazing Arctic, the northern hemisphere seemingly on fire. These, alongside a clanging alarm about the disastrous impacts of 1.5°C of global warming from the UN in October, contributed to growing public recognition that climate breakdown is very real and its effects serious.