2023-10-26 20:00:44
After this extreme summer, climate change feels closer than ever. In this new season of the Climate issue we look at how all these changes do not make us doomsayers, so that we can change along with climate change.
In the wake of several heat records, floods and forest fires this summer, people sometimes feel discouraged. At least with us, podcast makers Nienke Zoetbrood and Hannah van der Wurff. When we heard that one of the chairmen of the UN climate panel IPCC wanted to tell a hopeful story, we knew: we wanted to speak to him.
Researcher Bart van den Hurk is very clear. The climate has already changed, he says, but it will take decades before we notice anything from the agreements that governments are now making with each other. We can and must do something regarding that, he says.
How does he want to do that? Van den Hurk wants to give people courage. From the policymaker in a ministry building to the neighbor on the corner, everyone needs courage to take the steps necessary to make society resilient to climate change. And whether we like it or not, climate change also changes society.
In fact, without us realizing it, society has already entered a completely new era. A time where everyone is gradually realizing that climate change is a major problem, but we are now mainly struggling with the question of what we should do, says van den Hurk. He wants to provide clear answers to precisely those questions with the IPCC.
Perhaps Van den Hurk’s most important advice? Although climate change can make us all feel like we are too small to really contribute to that change, he is crystal clear: “Social change needs you too. Don’t make yourself small.”
You listen the Climate Issue via trouw.nl/podcasts of via is a podcast app.
You can also listen via Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcast players
The climate crisis, the energy crisis, the nitrogen crisis: it can make you depressed, but we don’t. Every week we tackle one question, as part of the big picture: a planet that will last another few millennia, with people on it: how do we get there? In the Climate Issue Nienke Zoetbrood and Hannah van der Wurff will take you along.
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