Remember at the start of the year when bushfires were ravaging Australia and the prime minister was missing in action? It seemed like the climate crisis had come to a head, and that popular belief in the immediate need for truly global damage control was gaining the critical mass needed for change. Driven by our future, schoolchildren the world over followed the lead of teen activist Greta Thunberg in striking from their schools, demanding that the grown ups do something, anything, like, yesterday.
And then a very different global crisis came crashing in and stole all the oxygen. Sure, we had to prioritise. But as we all reverted en masse to disposable coffee cups and added one-use masks to the discarded pile polluting our planet, the real extinction-level event did not go away. Fewer cars on the road right now will not cut it.
If you find yourself worrying about the future of our world and our place in it, then David Wallace-Wells – The Uninhabitable Earth is the event for you. Part of the second series of online debates hosted by the Festival of Dangerous Ideas (FODI) Digital, it’s sure to be gripping stuff.
New York Magazine deputy editor Wallace-Wells is one of our brightest minds writing on the subject of climate change, with his feverishly shared essay-turned-bestselling book lending this digital talk its name.
He will explore what solutions might be possible with the state of disaster already here. From increasingly destructive floods and bushfires at home, to rising sea levels devastating island nations, and the mass migration driven by their effects worldwide and exacerbated by global conflict, it’s a lot to take in.
What world will we leave for our kids right now, let alone future generations? Can we stop the clock and build a better future together? One thing’s for sure, it’s imperative we all try harder. As Wallace-Wells argues: “A state of half-ignorance and half-indifference is a much more pervasive climate sickness than true denial or true fatalism."
Wallace-Wells concludes the FODI Digital series this weekend. Don’t miss your chance to catch this important conversation as it will not be available On Demand. You can find out more at festivalofdangerousideas.com or follow the festival on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
Ready to dive into more dangerous ideas? Here's the full FODI Digital line-up.