In 2019 the public woke up to the climate crisis. When will the politicians? | Stephen Buranyi

Poll after poll shows that people now want action. But at the international level progress is being deliberately stymiedIn 1988, Time magazine selected "The Endangered Earth" as its person of the year. This December, 21 years later, the honour went to Greta Thunberg. The point of the Time exercise is to take a complex issue and locate a person through whom we can better understand it. Twenty years ago the magazine's search for a human environmental story stalled in orbit; now it is easy to locate.That wouldn't have been possible even this time last year. The biggest story in climate in 2019 is the way in which, after years of languishing outside the mainstream, climate activism has finally broken through. It seems obvious in retrospect that the kids were the key. Self-organised, serious, heartbreakingly frank about their anger at seeing their futures foreclosed by politicians who won't even live to see the consequences, they have lent a powerful moral drive to the entire movement. Continue reading...