Ian McEwan says pessimism ‘a bigger problem than climate change’

Ian McEwan spoke at the Hay festival alongside the former NFU president Minette Batters (right), who also discussed climate breakdown and its effects on farming. Photograph: Sam Hardwick/Hay Festival/PA

Pessimism is probably “a bigger problem than climate change”, said the novelist Ian McEwan on Monday afternoon, as temperatures broke May records in the UK.

McEwan “constantly” hears people say that they don’t “expect their children to have as good a life as they did”, but suggested that optimism is a “moral duty”.