On 40 Degrees (some notes to self)
A few fragments on what we can do to tackle the Climate and Ecological Emergency.
These few fragments are gathered from conversations over the last few days about what we can do to tackle the Climate and Ecological Emergency, as well as from research I’ve been doing towards my new book, ‘Acts of Resistance’: thoughts that have stuck with me. I hope they might help if you’re trying to find your way forward in these hot, dark days.
- Future generations will thank us for taking on debt – blistering, eyewatering debt – if it means they’ll have a sustainable planet to live on
- Put it like this, if you need to: saving the planet is the ultimate ‘capital cost’, the definition of good debt. There is no conflict with resolving a day-to-day cost of living crisis
- Here’s something you can do easily, right now: move your money. Find out if your bank, energy company or pension provider are investing in fossil fuels and if they are, switch.
- You may not feel equipped to change the world but you can probably change your workplace, your street, your school, your sector. Start where you have influence and know the rules of the game: people taking this approach across society would be transformative
- The climate crisis may seem overwhelming but don’t knock small wins: they matter, not only for their own sake but because they are galvanising, demonstrating the possibility of bigger victories. Fight to save a tree you love or a tiny pocket of land where bees make honey. It matters.
- The change required is principally political. Before despair, learn about key proposals for how the political system can work to fix the climate. If you’re convinced, tell people about them. The Green New Deal and Citizens’ Assemblies are a good place to begin.
- The perfect is the enemy of the good. If you aren’t ready to be a vegan, cut back your meat consumption to once a week. If you aren’t ready to give up flying, reduce air travel to a meaningful trip abroad once every year or two, or travel overland one way.
- Protest WORKS. The suffragettes, civil rights, Gandhi’s salt marches: nonviolent direct action has tilted history over and over again. History proves that if only 3.5% of a population joins a movement for change, it is likely to succeed – and that nonviolent direct action is twice as effective as violence. March.
- In the UK, Extinction Rebellion is the major climate movement of our time. It is important to understand how the movement intends to achieve change before taking a view on it. Founder Gail Bradbrook makes the case here
- The Climate and Ecological Emergency is a social justice issue. The poorest suffer worst, first, the consequences of a crisis caused by the consumption habits of the richest. Working to tackle the climate crisis means working towards an equitable future.
- Net zero by 2030 is critical. But we are wrong if we believe there is a line in the sand we will either cross or not: this thinking can legitimise a sense of climate nihilism. The truth is that the planet is warming – the question is how quickly and by how much. Everything we can do to slow this heating matters, because it allows more time for scientific, technological and social advances towards a sustainable way of inhabiting earth. What this means is that none of us is off the hook: every decision we take really does count.
- A censorious culture promotes climate nihilism too. We’re all hypocrites trying to figure it out in a system that doesn’t have our best interests at heart. Rather than saints, the world longs for change by many flawed idiots doing their best
- In the future, there will be joy, and beauty, and laughter. ‘Environmentalism’ is a misnomer – because what we are really struggle for is people, for the loveliness of the extraordinary, complex relationship we have with the earth. Fight: alert to the astonishing accident that we are here; hope in your heart that the stay will be a long one.