The Empathy Revolution

It’s easy to think the world’s a trash fire. But there’s a new wave of empathy sweeping society – and you can get on board

I DIDN’T THINK I KNEW anyone who thought climate change wasn’t real. That it’s the most pressing global issue of our time is universally accepted in my world. Admittedly, that world is comprised mainly of women, and we all get our news from the same places, listen to the same podcasts, follow the same people on social media, drink coffee from the same brand of eco-cup and, on not-rare occasions, turn up in versions of the same outfit.

But at a family party recently — a lunch served on plastic plates, eaten with plastic cutlery, washed down with wine in plastic cups — I discovered that one of my closest relatives, a beloved uncle in his early seventies, still believes global warming is a myth. I’d happened to end up next to him at the table, and as all the plates were being collected and dumped into plastic rubbish bags, I blithely mentioned what a shame it was to commit such a gross act of environmental terrorism to avoid washing up.

Whatever response I was expecting, it wasn’t his similarly breezy remark about my lefty generation getting all worked up about “the planet” — air-quotes, his — based on bogus science. Suddenly tense, I said something flatly unkind about the fact that baby boomers would just like climate change to not be real since they’re responsible for it in the first place. I may or may not have added that if he had to choke a dolphin with a disposable fork himself, perhaps he’d be more amenable to a bamboo alternative.