Both anxiety and hope are increasing with the beginning of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow.
There is anxiety because, barring a handful of the willfully blind, we can all see the damage we are doing to the planet. Fires, floods and rising sea levels are creating havoc around the world, while environmental destruction and the resulting conflict are triggering large-scale refugee movements that evoke biblical images.
But there is also hope, because some — not least the climate activist Greta Thunberg, with her longstanding and heartening call for more ambitious action — recognize the scale of the challenge facing humanity. In that spirit, the European Union has launched the European Green Deal, which aims to make the EU carbon neutral by 2050.