Introduction to Part VII

Despite significant progress in our awareness, understanding and policy engagement in actions to solve global environmental challenges, we now face a planetary emergency. The human pressures on the planet fuelling this emergency are not only continuing to rise, they are reaching dangerous levels, putting us at risk of triggering irreversible loss of ecological functions and a manageable climate. Perhaps a central reason for this failure to reach only a minority of citizens in countries around the world, is our tendency to communicate the climate and nature crises as environmental problems, instead of talking about humans and solutions. The author of this introductory chapter to Part VII on “communicators†argues that a reason for this inability to engage the broader citizenry is not poor ways of communicating, but rather communicating the wrong narrative; that the collection of chapters in this part of the book should be a battle cry to amplify the positive story of the benefits and opportunities that a transition to sustainability offers.