Science And Technology

Hannah Ritchie interview: ‘Eco-anxiety on its own is not that useful’

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WITH fixed headlines about floods, wildfires and record-breaking temperatures, it isn’t shocking that many individuals assume our present technology will go away the planet in a worse predicament than once we inherited it. However is that perception true? Hannah Ritchie doesn’t assume so. She is cautiously optimistic that we could be the primary technology to cross on the atmosphere in a greater state than we discovered it.

She reached this counterintuitive conclusion after a decade digging into environmental information as a knowledge scientist on the College of Oxford and lead researcher for influential on-line publication Our World in Information. In her new e-book Not the End of the World, Ritchie lays out the graphs that present the constructive steps we have now already taken to vary our behaviour and mitigate climate change, from chopping coal use to shrinking carbon footprints. She talks to New Scientist about her rising conviction that we will clear up the world’s environmental issues and picks out some key developments that give her hope about us turning issues round.

Alison George: I’m speaking to you on a day when it was reported that on-line searches associated to “eco-anxiety” have elevated dramatically. But you research long-term environmental developments and are considerably optimistic.

Hannah Ritchie: I nonetheless have anxiousness and fear, however I believe it’s now paired with some sense of optimism that we will change issues. The anxiousness is totally justified and I get why folks really feel it. I really feel it. However that feeling by itself will not be that helpful. It’s essential to mix a way…


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