Facts matter, but stories can persuade us to change our world | Brigid Delaney's diary

Without the cooperation of our imaginations, we cannot tell stories about what is happening to our planet. This may be why we’ve been so slow to act

The most terrifying read of my year so far (amid stiff competition) goes to New York magazine’s piece this week on climate change.

It’s all there, all the gruesome ways our planet is going to die, sooner than we think, and that people who are children now will, in their lifetime, face the unbearable misery of rising temperatures. Crops destroyed, ancient diseases trapped in icebergs, farm workers whose kidneys will cook as they work the tundras of our warming world.

Related: Missy Higgins: how an obsession with apocalyptic climate fiction changed my life

Related: Amitav Ghosh: where is the fiction about climate change?