COPE VCC News
[Oct. 24, 2024] Hope: the promise of the future instead of focusing on the challenges of the present: Jonathan Watts asks an important question in his article published in the Guardian today: “Would abandoning hope help us to tackle the climate crisis?” He continues to ask “But what if it is hope that is the problem? What if hope is the antidepressant that has been keeping us all comfortably numb when we have every right to be sad, worried, stirred to action or just plain angry?” Watts finds that “Hope is at best a motivating belief, a tool, a commodity. It should never be rammed down other people’s throats, especially those who are suffering the consequences of the wish fulfilment of wealthier, faraway consumers.” Based on the overwhelming evidence, he concludes “If you are not alarmed at what is happening to the forests, oceans, ice-caps, cities, farms and supermarkets, then you are not paying enough attention. That may be due to fear, doubt or ignorance. Or perhaps you are enveloped in that insidious, complacent long-term form of hope that has been diverting our gaze, giving us pause, slowing action and normalising the degradation of our home planet. Essentially this can be boiled down to the fact that we are leaving our problems to our children. Where is the hope in that?”
[Sep. 23, 2024] Humanity seems to have pushed Earth across seven of the nine boundaries of the 'safe operating space': The Guardian reports today in an article by Damien Gayle that a new report from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) indicates that the industrialized civilization has pushed Earth close to, or already across the seventh planetary boundary, that is, the boundary for ocean acidification. The oceans face ‘triple threat’ of extreme heat, oxygen loss and acidification.
[Sep. 21, 2024] We need a new approach to biodiversity loss: Olivia Nater published a highly relevant blog in May 2024 titled “Everything is connected: We need a new approach to biodiversity loss.” Reflecting on on humanity’s failure to halt the extinction crisis, she comes to the conclusion that we need a new approach to conservation: we need to tackle what she identifies as the root cause: overpopulation.
