Caroline O'Donoghue: We can change our society

Last I checked, we were not all dead - enough of us changed our behaviour, didn't travel, and we are still functioning as a civilisation

'If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that the world actually can radically change for the common good.'

I have had about six false starts at starting this column today. It’s Monday, and the climate change report just came out. It has once again been confirmed to the avoidance of all reasonable doubt that the planet is rapidly dying, and that we will be dying along with it. 

There’s absolutely no two ways about this: if we do not cut carbon emissions, the global temperature will continue to rise, and vast numbers of people and wildlife will lose their lives. But how do you write about that? How do you sit at your laptop as a columnist, neither an expert in the environment nor the economy, unable to think of anything else yet equally unqualified to give an original thought on it?