Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
Embracing the unthinkable
In the era of climate chaos, we need the courage to build a new, greener world right now, says ALAN SIMPSON

IT WASN’T the 130 forest fires raging across the US that got to me, nor Britain’s moorland fires, the torrential storms hitting Belfast, with two months rain in two hours, the lightning strikes that took out train signalling systems across the north of England or the gales causing widespread travel disruptions.

What stopped me in my tracks was something far more subtle.

I’ve come to accept that politics will struggle to address “climate” until the public translates it into “weather. 

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Cartoon: Lewis
Features / 18 November 2025
18 November 2025

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

Prime Minister Keir Starmer leaves the end of a press conference on the Immigration White Paper in the Downing Street Briefing Room in London, May 12, 2025
Features / 19 May 2025
19 May 2025

ALAN SIMPSON warns that Starmer’s triangulation strategy will fail just as New Labour’s did, with each rightward move by Labour pushing Tories further right

Franklyn Roosevelt, November 1932
The Futurue / 2 May 2025
2 May 2025

ALAN SIMPSON warns of a dystopian crossroads where Trump’s wrecking ball meets AI-driven alienation, and argues only a Green New Deal can repair our fractured society before techno-feudalism consumes us all

US President Donald Trump stands in the presidential box as
Features / 20 March 2025
20 March 2025
As the ‘NRx movement’ plots to replace democracy with corporate-feudal dictatorship, Britain must pursue a radical alternative of local food security and genuine wealth redistribution to withstand the coming upheaval, writes ALAN SIMPSON