A November 15 protest in Mexico – driven by a right-wing social-media operation – has been miscast as a mass uprising against President Sheinbaum. In reality, the march was small, elite-backed and part of a wider attempt to sow unrest, argues DAVID RABY
“WHAT we have on our hands is a species problem. None of us is exempt … People — communities, castes, races and even countries — carry their tragic histories and their misfortunes around like trophies, or like stock, to be bought and sold on the open market.”
(Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Penguin, 2018)
I spend my life trying to fix things. It’s a character defect. But it has struck me that “things” are not the problem. The problem is “us.”
Humanity faces a massive, existential, ecological crisis. If we were serious there are (still) numerous ways in which society can repair its soils, restore its rivers and forests, clean up the air, deliver food security and shift into clean, renewable energy systems.
The collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation poses an existential threat — but do today’s politicians have the capacity to deliver the more resilient and sustainable economics of tomorrow, wonders ALAN SIMPSON



