Rupert Read: Ready for the whole truth? The surprising rewards of facing up to climate breakdown

On climate, we may like to think that there is a 100% contrast between a righteous ‘us’ on the one hand and the corrupt/failed/denialistic political and media class on the other. But this is actually very misleading, self-exculpatory in a dangerous way. The truth is that only now are even a minority of scientists and activists actually beginning to fully face up to built-in failure of the CoP system, the true extent of climate breakdown, the likelihood consequently of civilisational collapse, the imperative to transformatively adapt, and the increasing irrelevance of outsourcing-demands upon the existing system to change. In this talk, Prof. Rupert Read will speak about how we are still mostly not being told — nor daring to tell ourselves — the full story on climate breakdown and its consequences. He will explain how that whole truth, from which we sometimes shy away, is in fact our salvation: only facing it, in all its danger, can unleash the full power of our grief, our anger — and our love. He will urge those who are the gatekeepers to this truth, including climate scientists, to come fully clean – and suggest to the audience ways in which they can facilitate this epochal process. Rupert Read is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, former spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion and co-founder of the Green Activists Network, GreensCAN. His latest book, Why Climate Breakdown Matters, is out now. A Cooperation of Helle Panke, Brave New Europe, Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung and Oxi.

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