The world’s in a pretty bad state.

Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit 411 parts per million units of air in May. That’s the highest level ever recorded. NASA predicts that unless drastic action is taken, we’ll enter a “new geologic era” of rising temperatures and extreme climate events caused by our own consumption.

This past August, Australian National University professor Eelco Rohling told The Monthly that if we don’t rapidly reduce our CO2 emissions we’re going to make Earth “unliveable”. The 2016 Paris Agreement was supposed to be a positive step toward reducing those emissions, but according to a report published last year by Climate Action Network Europe, “no country” – not even Aotearoa New Zealand, especially not Aotearoa New Zealand – “is doing enough” to meet their Paris targets.

Almost ninety percent of the world’s fisheries are fully-fished or overfished. Sea ice is melting at a massive rate and sea levels are rising with it. Our oceans are stuffed with plastic – eight million new tonnes enter the ocean each year – and ocean acidification, fuelled by climate change, threatens to destroy our marine ecosystems....

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