I heard the other day that before a Greenpeace street action, campaigners were told by the organiser “Don’t mention climate change”. This was apparently because, according to the organiser, “The Public are not interested in climate change”.  This latter might be true and one can understand the organiser’s reasoning  – but it does rather raise the question of what Greenpeace – and indeed the broader Green movement – exists for, anyway.

There was a time, not long ago, when ‘global warming’, or ‘climate change’ as it became more frequently labelled, was purely a theoretical construct, a thing of the future. Disturbing, spine-chilling even, for those who understood it, it was still something quite remote, something that had to be constructed out of scientific principles which only quite a concentrated effort of intellect and imagination could convert into meaningful consequences – and those a safeish distance away, in the future.

Why? Because we are teetering on the brink of climate catastrophe.