Having grown up in Malawi, witnessing the devasting impacts of climate change, I was drawn to attend an evening event about Mike Berners Lee’s new book – A Climate of Truth. With the support of CDEC and alongside other young people, we travelled to the Rheged Centre in Penrith for an evening of thought-provoking discussion about the climate crisis.  

The evening consisted of a talk from Mike Berners Lee, followed by Q and A session. There were three main points that I took away from the talk. Firstly, humanity is heading towards – or have arguably started – to experience a polycrisis which is a crisis combining issues of climate change, biodiversity, pollution and food security. This means that efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change need to take a social and economic lens as well as an environmental lens. Secondly, there is a need for truth when discussing issues related to the climate crisis. Too often people in power manipulate the truth for economic and political gains or we personally don’t own up to the fact that we are contributing to the problem, leading to high levels of dishonesty. Finally, we have come to the point where we need a structural upheaval to occur in order for us to really make a difference. COP meetings and global agreements have not made any noticeable difference to the continual CO2 rise so there is now a need for a monumental structural trigger to create meaningful change if we are going to address the climate crisis. 

Whilst I came away feeling like we have a long way to go in addressing the climate crisis, I felt happy that the truth of our situation was being portrayed and presented more honestly.