Her brief stint as Prime Minister is representative of the general state of UK politics at the moment – short but not so sweet. Case in point, look no further than the examples of Boris Johnson, former Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng and Suella Braverman who were shown out the door recently.
Our focus is very much trained on what’s next on the political scene as the unthinkable becomes reality. Understandably so, but we must not forget about the ever-present, ever-looming and ever-potent risk that threatens us all: climate change.
Just not long ago, two young women from Just Stop Oil, a coalition of groups that all share the aim of halting and reversing climate change, threw a can of soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in the National Gallery. It poses the question, “What is worth more, art or life?”.
Chief adviser on climate change at World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) described us as being “on the brink of irreversible harm” last year
Introduced two weeks ago, the Bill hopes to implement penalties for protests that obstruct major transport works, cause serious disruption and involve “locking on”, a technique used to make it harder for protesters to be dispersed from their place of demonstration.
A survey conducted last year across the world shows that as the climate crisis worsens, concerns about global warming shrink. An inverse relationship, so to speak.
With only 48.7% of the global population believing climate change poses a “very serious threat” to the planet, the creators of the survey suggest that more current issues such as the Covid-19 pandemic or the turbulence of our political system could be behind the seeming lack of interest in our environment.
Chief adviser on climate change at World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) described us as being “on the brink of irreversible harm” last year, emphasising the urgent need to keep global warming below 1.5°C, as supported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The political situation that’s currently unfolding, having tomato soup poured on our beloved works of art, being late to work because protesters have stopped traffic – all of this is insignificant if we no longer have a planet. Activists don’t protest for the hell of it; they do it because there is simply no alternative.
The message is clear: we speak out and change. Else, we die.
