Courage is the virtue of acting when we would rather not. This chapter looks at some of the classic situations where courage is needed, such as war and emergency response. It suggests that we need to show the sort of courage that comes from treating climate change as an emergency. Drawing on specifically Christian examples, we also consider the courage of the martyrs.

Prudence is the virtue of seeing things clearly. It has been notably central to Christian accounts of what it means to be a virtuous person, and to live a virtuous life. At the foundation of that lies the idea that to act well we have not only to understand the sorts of traditions that help us know what is good, but also to work on having an accurate account of the concrete situations we face. Much of what is offered as convenient solutions to climate change fail in the second way: these easy fixes simply aren’t realistic or accurate, as they cannot be implemented at the speed or scale we need. Drawing on the work of the philosopher Iris Murdoch, we call this sort of techno-optimism ‘fantasy’, and contrast it with the sort of imaginative response to the world as it really is that Murdoch championed, and which any successful response to climate change demands.

The virtue of temperance, or moderation, is central to a discussion of responding to climate change by showing restraint. In this chapter, we discuss the idea that temperance is not about despising goods or pleasures, but about ordering them, being willing to forgo lesser goods for the sake of greater goods. Attention to the need for temperance helps us to be realistic that the climate challenge we face does require some sacrifice, some letting go. Approaching that in terms of the ordering of goods helps us to find motivation: we do it for the sake of the things we love most, among which we might list God, the earth, human societies and other people, not least those who will come after us.

Justice is about giving people what they deserve and not depriving them of what is properly theirs. Justice enjoys a commanding position among the cardinal virtues, as that which is to be sought. Applied to human life, it might seem that justice is rather a weak aim: that we certainly would not want injustice, but that other things seem necessary for a flourishing human community, such as kindness and love. That is true, but justice is a necessary backstop, and one at which we are failing, when we think about how climate change is already depriving people – indeed some of the poorest people – of land and homes.

Love holds the most exalted place in the Christian account of the virtues. In this chapter we propose that our actions are most of all determined by what we love. If we want to find the motivation to make changes to how we live, in response to climate change, we can do that best by thinking through what it is that we love, and what that might require of us. We think about how love often involves some sort of restraint or letting go (as in marriage, where we ‘forsake all other’), not out of any cold disdain, but on account of the warmth that characterises our attitude to what we love most.

Leadership on climate action is about demonstrating change in reality, not about having a senior position or being ‘in charge’. We are all involved in leadership. At work, at school, in retirement or in our leisure activities, we can demonstrate leadership by questioning default decisions and demonstrating our enthusiasm for alternatives compatible with zero emissions. Leadership could involve the four actions of Chapter 9, or speaking out among our work and community groups, or writing letters, or asking difficult questions at school. We can all show leadership, like that demonstrated by the two women who created the ‘flight-free’ movement in Sweden, and our leadership is urgently needed.

Action at scale on climate change is urgent. It is unavoidable that such action must for a period of some decades include restraint, because we do not have time to construct enough emissions-free substitutes for all today’s emitting activities. Leaders in politics and businesses cannot promote restraint without losing their jobs, so leadership must come from us, individually and collectively, making decisions to live differently. We can all act, at home and at work or in other teams. We can prioritise our most emitting activities, make changes where possible and, where it is for now beyond our reach, we can promote change through raising awareness of what matters and what help we need. These choices and actions are virtuous. Not ‘virtuous’ in the sense we parodied in the opening, of something admirable but prim and outdated, but a joyful, life-enhancing virtue that expresses the best of what we hope to be. The virtue of restraint in climate action is an act of leadership, an expression of faith and charity, and above all, an act of love.

It would be ‘convenient’ to have a climate solution, where technological innovations fix the problem without any change to current institutions, structures, and lifestyles. However, even though we have some interesting options at lab scale, innovation must be scaled up to make a difference, and it is impossible between now and 2050 for the ‘convenient’ solution to be built at the necessary scale. In addition, there can be no physically meaningful offsets because trees take too long to grow and there are no realistic emissions-negating technologies. This book’s journey to zero emissions reduces technological risk to a minimum by assuming that only technologies that already exist at scale can help, and that they will be deployed only at rates comparable with recent history. This is not ‘convenient’ in that it involves some societal change and therefore we must find the courage to act. However, we can still have a high quality of life, and expand many of the activities we most value.

In this chapter, we consider hope as the supremely political virtue, which is to say one that helps us to venture great things in the business of building a shared life. We also consider questions of scale, and the idea that we should be happy to ‘start small’ and attend, first of all, and even mainly, to the challenges and opportunities that lie closest to hand, in our homes, localities and places of work.