The Useful Approaches to Climate Change

I initially tried to record this as a podcast but the audio got deleted, so be eternally grateful you didn't hear my weird child voice trying to do a Radio 4 impression.

Essentially, there are 2 useful approaches to climate change:

1. Trying to do something about it
2. Partying while the world ends

You can mix and match these approaches as you wish:

• Go vegan during the week and hold fondue parties on the weekend
• Alternate writing letters to your MP with writing erotic fanfiction
• Stop flying and unicycle to Switzerland

I don't actually know what the most effective way to fight climate change is. I hear going vegan and not flying are the biggest impacts you can have with your lifestyle, and the rest is legislation. Exactly what legislation we need is hotly debated and to be honest you can hotly debate it somewhere else, because what I'm driving at here is: do something, or make the most of doing nothing.

Because the least helpful response is to lie in bed knowing that the world is on fire, and neither enjoying yourself nor doing anything useful. And I say this as someone who just lay in bed not doing anything useful (including resting) for the past 3 hours, because I'd already almost fallen asleep at work. I have now eaten some cereal, which is not a perfect solution but did provide me with enough energy to write a blog post, after which I will change into my pyjamas and let a lovely Irish doctor tell me that I'm in lovely calming place where all I need to do is heal.

Yes, the seas will rise at 2 degrees. And yes, we might be too late to stop ourselves getting there. But limiting ourselves to 3 degrees is better than spiralling into tropical dinosaur hell.

And really, even if we do go full Jurassic (@ me, paleontologists), we can only do so much damage. Extinction events happen regularly, and crocodiles and cyanobacteria don't really give a shit about them. And once the human population dwindles, we'll stop burning as much stuff.

That is the pessimist's view, of course. I like to take the optimist view, which is that the ozone layer fixed itself and the carbon levels can too, so long as we occasionally remind politicians that we don't want cornwall to become the next Atlantis.

I'm now very tired, so I will end this blog post and hit send. Now I've tried to help, I'm going to have a little nap, because that is how grown-ups party.