Climate change is a weird kind of emergency. On the one hand, we hear terrifying headlines about heatwaves, fires and floods, but on the other, nobody seems to be doing anything to avert the disaster. Sometimes it makes me so anxious that I want to stick my fingers in my ears and pretend that climate change isn’t real.
Of course, it is real and it is serious, very serious. Humanity has put such a lot of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that the thermostat of the planet has been turned up. But what the headlines about the hottest day or the worst storm or the melting ice don’t tell you, is that this is a problem with solutions: we can change our wasteful habits and use less energy; scientists are inventing new technology so our machines work more efficiently. Perhaps best of all, we are learning more and more about how nature is our strongest ally in fighting climate change – forests and marine plants, peat bogs and soils can soak up carbon dioxide and keep it safely out of the atmosphere.
It isn’t a quick fix. We are going to have to change the way we do everything: how we grow crops and heat our homes, what we wear and what we buy, how we transport goods around the planet. But another thing the headlines don’t tell us is that these changes will make our world a much nicer place to live in. Less pollution and less traffic, healthier food and greener cities are just some of the benefits that shifting to a “low-carbon economy” will bring.
Getting to our new, greener, fossil-fuel-free world is going to be tough. It’s going to take hard work and determination; there are going to be times when it feels scary and dark. But there are already millions of people all around the planet working on things that can get us there. No one can do it alone, but everyone can help. Working together is what is going to make us succeed.
The stories in this book are about people working in all sorts of ways to get us to that brighter future. People who are doing their bravest best to be part of the solution to climate change. You can be part of the solution too, and once you have started to do something to fight climate change, you won’t feel quite so scared. You can start in a small everyday way, by doing something like putting on an extra jumper and turning the heating down, or deciding to walk to school instead of going in a car. As you grow up, you could choose to become an engineer who invents a new kind of solar panel, or a biologist who helps to safeguard tropical forests, or a clothes designer who invents jeans that never need washing. What better or more exciting thing could you do with your life than to be part of this enormous project of planet-mending?
But one of the most important things you can do to help, you can do right now. That is to imagine what you want that better, greener world to look like. What would your house be like in that world? Your street, your town, your nation? Talk about what you imagine, share your dreams and tell the story of the new world you want to build, because dreams and stories are the seeds of real change.