A compelling case for change: Baroness Worthington reviews "Earthshot"

The Arctic’s top predator, polar bears rely on sea ice for their survival | © Conor McDonnell

We are undoubtedly living at a crossroads in humanity’s history on this planet. Having become so dominant a species we are now drastically altering the finely tuned conditions that enabled us to flourish. To take a sharp about turn, toward a less risky, more harmonious way of existing, we need to apply the handbrake. In Earthshot the authors (one of whom, Colin Butfield, I know) are joined by HRH Prince William and other notable individuals, to present a compelling case for why and how things need to change, couched in an optimistic frame. 

Five challenges are set out – the need to cut waste, clean our air, restore our land and our oceans and stabilise the global climate. The book opens by describing the startling scale of the impact of climate change using a combination of well-presented data and anecdotal stories. As someone who has worked on climate change over more than two decades, reading this fresh account was still both sobering and daunting. But the book is peppered throughout with stories to inspire hope: individuals who have battled against the odds to deliver innovations, norms being transformed, signs of systemic change taking root and glimmers of hope that we can move away from the status quo. There is plenty to support the idea that having become powerful enough to threaten life on earth, we are also now capable of problem solving to save ourselves. 

Earthshot is as attractive and well written a book as the glamourous, televised awards ceremony that recently handed out the first five £1m Earthshot Prizes. But if I have a criticism, it’s that both embody a somewhat naive world view: “that individual effort can unleash exponential change”. There are plenty of nods to the fact that real change needs to come through collective action – and indeed two of the award winners were a country and a city – but the myth of the individual still permeates. Sadly the unprecedented scale and pace with which we need to see things turn around means we do not have time to rely on innovators, with just-out-of-the-lab ideas, and, more often than not, small scale solutions will lead to small scale outcomes.

Yes we can all do something – but the only genuine path to a safe future is via global agreements

As one prize-winning duo, commended for their efforts to reseed coral reefs in the Bahamas, pointed out, what we actually need is drastic action at a global scale to stop the things that are threatening the oceans. Across all five areas, but most pressingly in climate, we need internationally co-ordinated and enforced action. And that will come only if the politics of the short term can be put aside in favour of the long term, if individual national interests can be subjugated for the common good, if incumbents who have so expertly protected the status quo can be stood up to and overridden.

In short, we need a new politics for the planet – one centred around a true appreciation of the scale of the risks that we can neither collectively nor individually evade. Yes we can all do something, and yes the innovators and disruptors can offer hope and inspiration, but the only genuine path to a safe future is via global agreements, translated into national commitments, translated into large scale investments across the globe.

In that respect, we should be drawing inspiration from the post-war Marshall Plan and Bretton Woods agreement. Putting a man on the moon was a fine and noble endeavour, but it was largely symbolic and we do not have time for gestures. Each of us must work to change the politics such that collective action becomes unstoppable. Earthshot will hopefully reach a whole new audience and will inspire many to join the fight but we should not be seduced into relying on the individual – even if they are a future king with all the influence that may bring.

Baroness Worthington is a Crossbench peer

Earthshot: How to Save Our Planet by Colin Butfield and Jonnie Hughes is published by John Murray
 

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