What we lost: writers on the climate crisis

As the planet heats, our natural world is rapidly changing. Seven leading names recall a loss in their lifetime.

In the 1970s Beijing was like other cities in China. There were no private cars. Bicycles formed a matrix in the streets, advancing slowly forward.

Just enough remains in Tasmania to remind me that we live in the great autumn of things. I still see swift parrots and spotted pardalotes.

I have lost the ability to talk to my grandchildren happily and hopefully about the world.

I hear baseball bat makers are stockpiling ash trees before their extinction.

In autumn now, brushing through bleached long grass, isn’t the raised cloud of dust-coloured living things sadly diminished?

In June, the beaches of Istanbul were shut down, like the sea snails and shrimp that had disappeared long before.

In the bush town where I started school, the dairy farmer’s kids had chilblains in winter. The chilblains are gone now.

This article appears in the 27 Oct 2021 issue of the New Statesman, Our Fragile Future