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Desire, Duty, and Dynamite

April 1st, 2019 | 7 min read

By Matthew Loftus

As it becomes clearer and clearer that global climate change is dangerous and will require enormous efforts to protect human lives from its effects, the debate about how our individual choices and corporate efforts affect us has only gotten sharper.

Take, for example, this recent discussion from David Roberts (expanded with this Twitter thread) about “climate hawks”: while concern for Earth’s climate has traditionally been linked to environmental identity and environmentalism as an ideology, ameliorating climate change will require a lot more involvement and support from people who don’t identify as “environmentalists”. The policy solutions required are orders of magnitude larger than anything like recycling; getting them into practice requires the support of people who couldn’t care less about things like protecting endangered species.

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Matthew Loftus

Matthew grew up in a family of 15 children and completed his medical training in Baltimore, Maryland. Since 2015, he and his family have lived in East Africa, where he currently teaches and practices Family Medicine at a mission hospital. His work has appeared in outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Atlantis, and Mere Orthodoxy and his first book is forthcoming from InterVarsity Press. You can learn more about his work and writing at www.matthewandmaggie.org.