Climate-crisis anxiety denial is everywhere. But this week it's impossible to ignore our worries | Zoe Willliams

With the country melting I can no longer distract myself from my fears about global heating. But speaking to activists has shown me how to counter this terrorI was chairing a Zoom event last week about carbon bombs, and how to defuse them. All over the world, as governments broadcast warm words to a warming planet, corporations are planning and lobbying for fossil fuel projects, which, if they get off the ground, will sail us casually past our carbon targets - almost as if democracy itself were just a beach-body diet that everybody talked about and nobody intended to stick to. How to stop this nihilistic corporate greed? Legal avenues, direct action, political routes, or everything all at once?As I was doing this, a message popped up in the chat from Kjell Kühne, an academic and activist and one of the panellists: "Stop biting your nails please." "Huh," I thought, "weird thing to say to 846 people. How does he know they're all biting their nails?" Then I realised it was a private message just to me. I considered messaging back: "Chum, when you stop making this incredibly compelling case about the climate apocalypse, I'll stop biting my nails." Then I remembered I was supposed to be chairing and got my head back on task.Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...