I hate the IPCC climate change reports and I’m kind of avoiding the latest one published today.

Why?

Well, firstly, getting told climate change impacts will be “severe, pervasive and irreversible” first thing on a Monday morning is no good start to a week of tireless working to avoid those impacts happening. I’ve only glimpsed the top headlines today and that was enough to make me want to go back to bed.

Secondly, doom is not an easy sell when you are trying to persuade others to act. As Anthony Giddens once pointed out, Martin Luther King did not stir his audience in 1963 by saying “I have a nightmare”. A survey of 700 businesses out this month from 2degrees found that the biggest two sustainability challenges are engaging the boardroom followed by employee engagement in general. We need to channel MLK and evoke the dream of a sustainable future instead.

And, lastly, the report will give all those poorly-qualified climate ‘contrarians’ another hour in the sun, trying to persuade us, in face of that avalanche of evidence, that there’s nothing to worry about as it was a bit nippy in Scunthorpe this morning.

Of course, I am only (half) joking. Later today, I will man up and wade through the main points of the report. But then I will go back to focussing on the dream, not the nightmare.