The cracks start without you noticing. You hadn’t been paying attention: you’d been looking at problems elsewhere, at more immediate emergencies. You hadn’t realised the dynamics had shifted at home. Things had been gradually eroding beneath the surface. Sure, there’ve been good things too – month by month, and year by year, you’ve been making...

“What’s COP?”, asked my friend last week. It’s a bit unfair of me to quote him: he lives abroad, where media coverage is likely to be less blanket-like than in the UK; I didn’t use the full acronym “COP26”; and I gave no context (in fact, he was asking about my health). But it’s a useful reminder that other people’s worlds are not revolving...

You’re tired. You’re burned out. You don’t know how you keep getting up in the morning, keep switching on the news, keep looking after everyone around you – or asking for help, again and again. What keeps you going? Maybe it’s the friend who sends you just the right message at just the right moment. Maybe it’s seeing the tireless efforts...

  In an instant, my life is no longer under my control. I become a little institutionalised at home, reluctant to leave a soft, comforting bed. I try to get out for exercise, but some days it just feels too hard, the world too threatening. I work a few hours a day, listless and distracted. I feel vertigo at the fragility of life – the coin toss of...

  GRETA, says the text, and two hands grip the pigtails behind the girl’s naked body. What clearer threat to girls and women who speak out about climate change could there be than the cartoon sticker carrying the logo for Canadian oil company X-Site Energy Services? Greta’s response: “They are starting to get more and more desperate…This shows that...

  Tonight the Royal Geographical Society hosts the launch of the book Culture and Climate Change: Scenarios, as part of their Geographical lates: COP25 climate talks. Do go if you can – they have wonderful speakers, including Prof Corinne Le Quéré (recently awarded a CBE for her work, including leading the Global Carbon Budget). Below is my contribution,...