We write as Spring temperature records are being pulverised across the northern hemisphere. We all know it: the situation is profoundly scary, out of control. It demands an effective response. 

The Government’s own Climate Change Committee has recently said it plain: This country is completely unprepared for the coming climate impacts. Unless we start to prepare, then within a generation half our roads and rail links will be threatened with inundation. And that’s just the start of it.

Meanwhile, the dust is settling over a major change in the UK’s climate landscape: Just Stop Oil has just stopped. The roadblocks are gone, the hi-vis jackets folded away. For three years, they shouted what many were too afraid to whisper: this is an emergency and we are not acting nearly fast enough.

But now, with their departure, a space has opened. Not just for new tactics but for a new story.

From Extinction Rebellion and Greta onwards, protest shook us awake. It widened the conversation and demanded we look at what’s coming.

Yet for many, protest was a language they didn’t speak. Too loud, too risky, too polarising.

And so a silent majority remained: watching, waiting, knowing.

Knowing that climate breakdown isn’t just a future threat but a growing reality.

Knowing that the system we live in cannot hold as it is.

Knowing that something must change and soon.

But still, they stayed quiet.

Not because they didn’t care but because they didn’t know how to respond.

Not because they didn’t have enough information but because they didn’t feel emotionally safe enough to act – they felt too alone and therefore too worried about what others might think of them.

The truth is: they are not alone. YOU are not alone. Research shows 89% of people want stronger climate action, yet most believe they’re in the minority.

This spiral of silence has kept us stuck. Now, with protest paused, there’s room for something different.

The oil-fuelled supertanker that is climate breakdown isn’t going to be stopped for a very long time. You and I are as yet definitely not powerful enough even to slow it down much.

Adapting to our emerging, dire climate reality is not failure; it’s the honest, necessary response to decades of delay. It’s about facing the truth and choosing to care anyway.

For most people, the thought of what will be needed to stop climate decline is completely overwhelming and leads to fight, flight, or freeze.

But the thought of doing something they’re good at to try to protect the ones they love is both compelling and essential.

This is about legacy. The steps we take now will shape the world our children inherit. What we build today is the foundation for their tomorrow.

Adapting isn’t giving up. On the contrary. It’s stepping up to the reality we face. It’s honest, practical, powerful.

And it’s something we can all do.

In every street, every town, people can come together and ask:

What does our place need? What will our children wish they had? What can we do to prepare?

This isn’t just about surviving. It’s about creating community, joy, and resilience.

It’s about finding beauty and meaning, even as the world changes. Growing food locally, making homes resilient (lowering bills in the process), building stronger networks of care.

This moment belongs not just to activists, but to all of us as citizens, as neighbours, as people who care.

Not waiting for leaders, but being the leaders we need now.

If you see what’s coming, you’re not alone, you are already ahead and with that foresight comes the chance – and the responsibility – to help shape what comes next.

Adapting doesn’t stop at the community level either. We don’t leave our climate awareness at the door when we go to work.

Whether in insurance, healthcare, transport, planning, food-growing, finance, media, or government each of us affects the future. Of course we do. Let’s do this now in a more conscious way.

Adapting to climate decline is not fringe. It is a mainstream, strategic response to the greatest challenge of our time. When it’s done right, it’s strategic ultimately in that, by making our predicament both psychologically real and agentially tractable, it makes climate breakdown at large both real and tractable: and this means that ultimately it can reboot the drive for decarbonisation too.

And it is wise navigation, not hypocrisy, to enjoy life today while preparing for tomorrow.

Living well now, while building resilience, is an act of courage and of caring.

We must reshape the systems we’re part of: in boardrooms, classrooms, surgeries.

This is the invitation: not to protest, but to participate.

Not to resist, but to reimagine.

Not to fight against what we don’t want but to champion and create that which we do want.

Despite the best efforts of billions of pounds being spent on misinformation and disinformation to encourage you to believe otherwise, you are not alone. You are the #climatemajority.

This is what comes after protest: a movement, a wave built on action, not disruption.

The Climate Majority Project is a home for those ready to step forward, not by blocking roads but by building what’s needed.

There’s no single path forward, only the questions that help you find your own, along with everyone else: What does your place need? What are you good at? What brings you joy?

What can you offer?

According to the Soviet writer Alexei Yurchak, revolutions happen in two stages: the first stage is when everyone realises that something is wrong; the second stage is when everyone realises that everyone else realises it as well…

That second stage is the opportunity presenting itself to us all at this moment.

As soon as the false belief that each of us is alone in our deep, deep concern vanishes, the sense of relief and release will be palpable, and the #climatemajority will be heard loud and clear.

The Climate Majority is already here. It’s you. It’s me. It’s all of us — stepping forward with courage and care, finding joy in connection and standing up for what we believe in and what we love, together.

Rupert Read and Rob Harrison-Plastow can be found at www.ClimateMajorityPrject.com/SAFER . #Safer will launch publicly this July.

Teaser image credit: Sims Hill Shared Harvest Facebook page.