Letters to the Editor: Ecosystem degradation threatening civil society

Without radical change, we face increasing uncertainty as to whether civil society in its current form will survive in our lifetimes

This week, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned that the global economy needed to move away urgently from GDP and its rewarding of pollution and ecological destruction. File picture

In recent weeks, both the US and Europe have been hit with extreme weather which has wrought havoc and destruction in communities in both regions. Everywhere people are having to react to what were once thought rare occurrences, but are now the new normal.

Decades of inaction by governments, in the face of intense lobbying by fossil fuel companies, and the recent rise in populist climate denial-laden politics, have meant that much of the early momentum that led to the Paris Accord has been wasted. Instead of prevention, we are now in mitigation mode, and it is becoming increasingly apparent that we are far from prepared for what is coming.