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Worldwide, millions of students are facing unprecedented disruptions to their education. Exams have been cancelled, enrolment dates pushed back, key events postponed, and the delivery of lectures and course content changed radically and indefinitely. The promise of post-graduate employment (a key sales pitch of universities in recent decades) no longer offers the same reassurance. The National Union of Students (NUS) recently surveyed nearly 10,000 students and found 95% ‘exp

In the age of the Anthropocene, we urgently need new ways of thinking and acting. Economists are predicting that biophysical limits will determine the post-growth world and, as things stand, this will be characterised by mass migration, profound natural hazards, and huge discontinuities for human and natural systems (Crownshaw et al., 2018). Epidemiologists warn how climate change will create a world of unprecedented new diseases. The current pandemic is sending disruptive s

Windows of opportunity & good actions in a time of crisis Today is Earth Day. Around the world, people are uniting for the sake of a healthy planet: millions of individuals applying their combined weight to keep social and environmental progress mobilised and moving forwards. In 1970, the first Earth Day was a co-ordinated display of activism in response to the alarm bells which had been ringing, louder and louder, about dangerous levels of pollution. The event proved to be

The global response to coronavirus has had significant socio-economic ramifications. Whilst the UK government has pledged considerable sums towards supporting employment and boosting out-of-work benefits, it remains the case that thousands of employees have been made redundant or put on currently unpaid leave in the airline, tourism, retail, hospitality, education, and entertainment industries. This is leaving many people in difficult situations. Here at Change Agents UK, ou

The response to the spread of COVID-19 has made strides towards reducing global climate emissions, or so it would seem. Carbon dioxide emissions from China declined by 25% in February compared to a similar time last year, due to the drastic reduction in industrial processing and output (1). Vast improvements in air quality have also been measured in Hubei province (2). This trend can also be seen in the Italy’s industrial north and in other polluted cities, where both traffic

So far 245 local authorities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have declared a climate emergency. And, these represent...