Writing about climate change: my professional detachment has finally turned to panic

Michael Slezak.

Until recently, like a sociopath might have little feelings when witnessing violence, I’ve managed to have relatively mild emotional responses to climate change.

For five years I’ve been covering climate change – the science that underpins it, the things that are driving it, the devastation it is wreaking, and the desperate measures we need to urgently put in place to mitigate it. (Not to mention the reporting I’ve done on the pathetic politics surrounding it.)

But for most of that time I’ve been able to maintain a wall between the objective facts I report, and my emotional response to those facts.

Intellectually I’ve understood the things I’ve been reporting and the inevitable disaster that is looming for much of the world’s population. But somehow, I didn’t feel the deep sense of panic or dread that is obviously appropriate when facing such a serious crisis.

Read Michael Slezak’s thoughts in The Guardian - “Writing about climate change: my professional detachment has finally turned to panic.”