You are alive at just the right moment to change everything

Hi,

This year, 2020, is unlike any year in history. By now, I think we all feel that.

We’re crossing irreversible tipping points Read about this year’s fires in the Siberian Arctic, from New York Magazine. in the climate emergency. We’re in the middle of a major uprising in the centuries-long struggle for social justice and racial equality. We’re bending the limits of society as we know it to combat an incurable disease. And we’re doing all this in the liminal space of late capitalism, Read a review of The Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-eun, a satirical eco-thriller published earlier this year. where each day feels like a caricature of a Hollywood disaster film.

Times like these feel too big, too complex to grasp. But we know from history that times like these are exactly when radical change is most likely to happen. Read this essay from historian Rebecca Spang in The Atlantic on what it looks like to be in the middle of a revolution. That’s where you come in.

This week’s good news on climate

This is a truth that could change your life: you are alive at just the right moment to change everything.

Climate scientists have been saying for years that only "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society" will begin to repair the harms already underway in the climate emergency. In plain language, that means political, cultural, economic, and technological revolution. For revolutions to succeed, they have to keep moving once they’ve started.

This is what it looks like to create systemic change from your own individual action: joining the crowd demanding justice. Doing everything you can to rest, recharge, lend aid, care for loved ones and strangers. And then heading back out into the streets again tomorrow. It looks like modelling the world we are trying to build together.

Don’t be silent. Don’t wait for a better moment. This is the best moment you’re going to get. This is the moment you’ve been waiting for.

It’s OK to be nervous, even scared. I am, every day. But there are billions of people on your side, and they’re depending on your courage and your moral clarity to utterly transform your tiny corner of this big broken system we’re all a part of.

This is the work you were meant to do. You are perfectly qualified for it. In fact, we can’t do it without you.

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