{"id":20180,"date":"2018-12-21T12:08:58","date_gmt":"2018-12-21T11:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/?p=20180"},"modified":"2021-09-07T11:15:32","modified_gmt":"2021-09-07T09:15:32","slug":"hope-is-an-act-of-courage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/story\/20180\/hope-is-an-act-of-courage\/","title":{"rendered":"2018: In difficult times, hope is an act of courage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Flooding in Japan, unprecedented <\/span>monsoons<\/span><\/a> in India, a nearly 30% increase in <\/span>rainfall<\/span><\/a> throughout the Americas and 40% across Europe. Africa is seeing deadly <\/span>droughts<\/span><\/a> across Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya. Australia, Greece, Sweden, Portugal and the American Northwest\u2019s horizons glowed red with <\/span>wildfires<\/span><\/a> because of heatwaves and drier seasons. The Philippines and Fiji were battered by some of the worst <\/span>cyclones<\/span><\/a> in history and the Maldives and the Marshall Islands are gradually drowning by <\/span>sea level rise<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

This was our reality in 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\"California
A Super Scooper firefighting plane makes a water drop during the Holy Fire near Lake Elsinore, California.
\u00a9 David McNew \/ Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

The reason is simple: burning fossil fuels creates climate changing emissions. Climate change exacerbates extreme weather events. Yet, we continue to burn fossil fuels like <\/span>never before<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Our <\/span>forests are disappearing<\/span><\/a> at a rate of roughly 27 football (soccer) fields a minute. In real and frightening numbers, that\u2019s 18.7 million acres to create more farms to feed more livestock and plant more palm oil. <\/span>Cutting down trees<\/span><\/a> not only deprives us of a natural way to absorb carbon dioxide, it decimates local communities who rely on the forest for survival.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Coastal populations are being pillaged by industrial fishing fleets, hell-bent on catching anything that moves in the sea. 127 million tonnes of fish \u2014 not to mention bycatch, like dolphins, sharks and sea-turtles \u2014  was <\/span>taken out of our oceans<\/span><\/a> in 2016 alone.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\"Fathers
Due to industrial and illegal overfishing, Senegalese fishermen now have to venture farther and farther out to sea, risking their lives in the process.
\u00a9 Cl\u00e9ment Tardif \/ Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

The science is crystal clear, <\/span>we have 12 years<\/span><\/a> to turn things around.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

We need to ask ourselves, as a species and as part of a global and interconnected planetary ecosystem; what is our role in all of this? Suicide by consumption, or stewards of a healthy and prosperous future for all species?<\/span><\/p>\n\n

If it\u2019s the latter, we will need to accept three grim but simple truths:<\/span><\/p>\n\n