The Green party's 'unrealistic' ideas are the only realistic response to reality

I hear this criticism often, usually from people who consider themselves pragmatic: the Greens have nice ideas but they are not realistic. I understand the instinct. Some Green proposals do sound ambitious. A four-day working week. Universal basic income. Net zero by 2035.

But consider what is actually unrealistic: continuing to extract fossil fuels at current rates while hoping the atmosphere will somehow not notice. Building an economy predicated on infinite growth on a planet with finite resources. Pretending that the floods, the wildfires, and the crop failures happening right now are not connected to policy decisions made in this building.

The Green party includes aspirational targets precisely because they establish the direction of travel. Not every proposal is intended as immediate legislation. Some are there to pull the centre of gravity. And the policies that are intended for immediate implementation, insulating homes, investing in renewables, reforming agriculture, are not radical at all. They are the minimum credible response to the scale of the crisis.

The truly unrealistic position is pretending we can carry on as we are.