Credit: Lisa Zahrobsky

The first event of our series 42_analog “Looking North, Going South: Facing the Realities of Climate Change” is over but we are still thrilled by all the new impulses we got from our expert panel discussing and reflection on climate change – we hope so are you who came by to listen and contribute. During this insightful evening at Waterstones Gower Street in London, we witnessed a nuanced discussion on the perspectives on climate change and its dimensions, based on the consensus that climate change is happening everywhere on the planet at this very moment and that it will affect us all. Steadily increasing temperatures will increase the occurrence of extreme weather phenomena and therefore change our perception and attitude towards the natural environment we are so familiar with.

However, as Friederike Otto, Acting Director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford put it: “Climate change is not going to have us all drown tomorrow, but it will intensify conflict. That is the real threat.” As habitats all over the world become less liveable, the differences in wealth distribution become more visible, as wealth is the most important factor for protection against the effects of climate change. Considering the social dimension of climate change allows emphasizing questions of inequality. Action is needed, on a personal as well on a structural level. We have to raise our voices, raise the volume of the public discussion so that the need for structural changes becomes evident. That’s what we do at 42.

Please find some impressions of the evening below.