Eric Holthaus, climate scientist, journalist, & meteorologist, on why we need stories of collective action to mitigate the reality of climate change:

Centuries of evidence have shown that storytelling can change the course of history. Radical imagination, a term used by US author and social movement organiser adrienne maree brown, describes the power visionary fiction has to change the world. “Once the imagination is unshackled, liberation is limitless,” she writes.

Our story of the 2020s is yet to be written, but we can decide today whether or not it will be revolutionary. Radical imagination could help us begin to see that the power to change reality starts with changing what we consider to be possible.

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During the 2010s, climate science grew increasingly dire, pointing toward planetary tipping points arriving more quickly than previously thought. A big part of why this crisis has spun into an emergency is that there has been too much of a focus on numbers – 1.5C, 350 parts per million, 12 years – and not enough attention on collective stories of a better world.

Still, the most important number is easy to remember: zero. Get to zero emissions globally as quickly as possible. Zero is revolutionary.

There are an infinite number of possible paths ahead of us, and what follows is just one of them, gathered with the help of friends from around the world.

This is a story about our journey to 2030 – a vision of what it could look and feel like if we finally, radically, collectively act to build a world we want to live in.

In 2030, we ended the climate emergency. Here’s how | The Correspondent