Liam Kavanagh is a Cognitive & Social Scientist devoted to using his understanding of human motivation, ideology, and economics to aid more effective responses to the climate crisis. He has worked on three continents over 20 years doing applied social research, co-founded Life Itself, a community for responding to the poly-crisis, and written a book on how Western ideology contributes to climate change inaction.
The UK can’t debate its way out of climate impacts. It needs a Plan B now
As climate impacts intensify, the UK remains dangerously unprepared for systemic shocks, from global heating to biodiversity collapse. Instead of waiting for consensus on long-term solutions, the focus must shift to resilience.
April 22, 2026
Isn’t it time we had a back-up plan ‘just in case’ things do go catastrophically wrong?….
We need a plan B. In case society starts to, erm, collapse… We need to be prepared…It won’t do to plan to WAIT til we win intellectual debates such as that around growth/degrowth before we get together to prepare…Theo Cox, Liam Kavanagh and Rupert Read outline their new OSF-funded report, just launched this week…
March 13, 2026
Climate and the Revival of Political Hope
A transformation of climate politics will come when the majority on the margins becomes a self-aware political force. The approach sketched here—combining adaptation, emotionally literate education, and campaigns that awaken collective efficacy—offers practical, hopeful steps toward that outcome.
November 26, 2025
Bill Gates repeats an apocalyptic error
Bill Gates made news last week by challenging climate advocates to accept the ‘hard truth’ that temperature rises will not cause enough deaths to justify the priority placed on them. Perhaps the real story is Gates’ use of a very old tactic to dismiss new targets – Gates implied that the grave concerns of even global institutions and science are doomsday fantasies.
November 11, 2025
Depolarisation and adaptation create serious change together
Adaptation is a chance to gather almost everybody around the table. The hard facts can be laid out on that table for all to see and, around it, the possibility of a future can be negotiated. Please let’s invite everybody who is operating in good faith to sit at it.
August 4, 2025
This hopeless COP is the most hopeful in years
Now it’s so obvious that the system is failing, progress is finally possible.
November 30, 2023








