FIFTEEN. July 8th 2021
A couple of years ago when enthusiasts like me were first putting our energies into building structures for our climate activist movement at the local level, I remember that we talked a lot about Tipping Points. The notion was an important concept, used in the talks given in church halls and such like, to recruit new activists; because it helped to drive home the urgency of action on the climate and ecological crisis. As the earth heats up and weather patterns are disturbed, certain tipping points are bound to be reached, after which it will no longer be possible to halt climate breakdown. Ice-bergs melt, sea-levels rise, ancient permafrost thaws, forests die, deserts grow. Worse still, there are feedback loops – for instance, the sea-ice melting means that the water surface is dark and so absorbs sunlight rather than reflecting it back so that heating is accelerated. Unless you’ve been living in a cave for a couple of years, you know all this now, at least in general terms. The point is, the process becomes unstoppable. The planet heats up to unmanageable levels and becomes inhospitable and ultimately uninhabitable for humans
Another way in which we talked about tipping points was in terms of the growth of our movement. A certain small percentage of society (3.5% was a figure quoted) would need to become active in undertaking acts of peaceful civil disobedience in order to force change. It seems likely that the social science behind this supposition – simply because it is social science – was bound to be less reliable and well-founded than the physical science upon which the climate forecasts were based. Nevertheless I think it was reasonable to set some sort of a reference point for what was required, and the basic principle – that the movement would grow, as with all epidemics (as we have all been learning lately), at an exponential rate, until it too became unstoppable – was sound enough.
Such evidence as there is – which is quite a lot if you’ve been reading the right publications and listening to the very many experts and representatives of international panels and whatnot who have been talking about it – suggests that the postulated climate tipping points are continuing to approach and, indeed, that some of them are approaching faster than was previously feared and, according to at least some people who appear to know what they are talking about, may already have been reached. Numerous of the same sort of people are saying, furthermore, that the statements being made by political ‘leaders’ about what they intend to do about this are insufficient; and that the actions they have actually taken so far anyway fall well short of their promises. In other words, notwithstanding greatly increased noise about how concerned our ‘leaders’ are about the situation, and how allegedly ’ambitious’ they are to address it, in fact we continue to hurtle towards our own destruction. We know that a catastrophe is approaching but we are doing very little to try to prevent it.
It’s hard to express quite how upsettingly disastrous this is. There is surely nothing else – not the horror of the pandemic nor the myriad secondary problems caused by it, not the restrictions on social life and travel, not the loss of work or income, not even the illness or personal difficulty of a loved-one – which can come anywhere near to the climate emergency in terms of a serious and distressing problem needing to be addressed right now. And yet we are evidently not yet anywhere near the social tipping point at which enough people become sufficiently alarmed and outraged that they will take the action necessary to force governments to act.
Why is this? It certainly isn’t for lack of trying on the part of those who are already in our movement. As the pandemic restrictions ease we are entering our own eighth or ninth ‘wave’ of manic activity, trying everything we can think of to do things in such a way as to create pressure on the government and others with power in society (like banks and oil companies) which need to change and also to attract new members. According to most anecdotal reports, the public and even some of the institutions we are pressuring are increasingly sympathetic, and there is always a trickle of new interest; but where’s the surge, where’s the exponential epidemic growth that we last saw signs of 2 years ago but which surely ought, given all the circumstances, to be bursting through again now?
The journalist Malcom Gladwell, as you may have read, offered an interesting model for exploring this question some years ago in a book called The Tipping Point. As with the 3.5% figure referred to above, I think it has to be remembered that social science theories (of which Gladwell’s is one) aren’t really testable or provable in the way that theories based on physical science are; and anyway it is only one perspective. But, again, Gladwell’s theory seems a reasonable enough hypothesis and I think if offers a good enough starting point to take us beyond the standard platitudes like “people can’t be bothered” or “people are lazy and selfish” or “people are stupid”, all of which may be true but none of which really gets us anywhere.
Broadly speaking, Gladwell proposes 3 factors which will make or break something becoming what he terms a ‘social epidemic’. The first of these, the ‘Law of the Few’ . talks about the importance of the kind of people to whom he refers as connectors, ‘mavens’ and salesmen; having the right people, in other words, to get the message through. I’m aware that our movement has its fair share of odd characters and a few of those who have emerged as spokespeople at times really aren’t that charming, at least in my book. But we are generally an articulate, educated, thoughtful, creative and determined bunch and I think we have plenty more than a few who are able to carry the message effectively. In addition, we have been careful to leverage the influence of aligned influencers like Greta Thunberg, and Chris Packham and (even though he’s said he doesn’t actually support our movement) the revered Attenborough. Most people would agree, I think, that we can tick number 1.
Factor 2 is described as ’stickiness’. It’s hard to see how a message which basically says “The end of the world is nigh” could not be ‘sticky’, I really don’t think anybody who has heard it has forgotten it and anybody who has let the message sink in even a bit has surely become gradually more convinced of its importance. Really, one only has to look at the collective picture to know that this is true: the climate emergency was hardly talked about by politicians and journalists a coupe of years ago. Now you would find it hard to go a day of normal exposure to news and information channels without hearing something about it. Commercial companies, even the bad ones (especially the bad ones) seek to leverage it in their marketing. Organisations of all kinds have ‘climate’ or sustainability policies as a matter of course. Generally, people do not question the fact of the climate emergency or the desirability of doing something about it and the large majority of people are quite aware that movements and organisations exist, which they could join, to protest about the fact that not enough is being done about it. Tick 2.
The third factor, ‘Context’, could, I suppose, be seen as Gladwell’s get-our clause, because the notion of context can be seen to cover a multitude of sins. As I understand this, he means “Are there things not covered in factors 1 and 2 about this particular message which this particular group of people are unable to integrate at this particular time?” Well, it sounds a reasonable question on the surface but actually, again, it’s really quite hard to see what the problem could be. We could speculate about all sorts of things here, to do with the inevitable difficulties of gearing up for mass collective action, an impoverished political and social culture, the evils of consumerism, the problem of the crisis being viewed as not imminent (although it is – witness the current unprecedented heatwave in northwest America, only the latest in a series of unprecedented weather events around the globe which should have been raising the level of collective alarm) and not immediately visible.
Could such ‘contextual’ considerations explain the failure of authorities to take proper action and the failure of ordinary people to rise up against them for not taking proper action? The evidence of the pandemic, I think, rather negates this view. As a lot of people remarked when covid-19 first kicked off, it’s actually quite amazing how good-willed, self-sacrificing and community-spirited people can be when they are moved by the sense of crisis and, notwithstanding the many distressing cock-ups and missteps by government, it’s actually pretty remarkable how effective and even coordinated (although not equitable) the actions of governments have been. When the chips are down, it tuns out, we can pull together, just like we apparently did in 1939, and make a massive collective effort to overcome a frightening and very challenging problem.
The thing is, though, that the climate crisis chips are down now, they are really down and in grave danger of being swept off the table by the croupier at any moment, and we are still not acting appropriately. What happens when climate breakdown hits properly will be unimaginably worse than the pandemic, and actually almost certainly much worse than having your country invaded by a hostile foreign power. So if this ‘context’ thing is the issue I think it must be pretty deep, hard to unravel, basically unfathomable.
In fact I’m quite sure that the issues must be largely unconscious. How else can you explain a failure to take steps which you could take to save your own life, especially when some people have been working so hard for quite a long time to point them out to you? So with apologies to Malcom Gladwell (whom I generally consider a good sort), I think we may need a different approach, which focuses less on the collective factors (are there enough good messengers with ’sticky’ enough messages and have we got the sales environment right?) and a bit more on the question of individual will. The fact that even beginning to say this feels somewhat riskily challenging makes me think that it’s probably the right call; so I’ll set our my own alternative 3 factor model about Tipping Points.
New Factor 1 is Inertia. You don’t want to get up off your arse and do something. You feel anxious and possibly depressed about a range of things, including perennial personal and professional issues and concerns and probably including the climate crisis but also how shit the government is, how awful the newspapers are, and how uncertain the future looks (except that you are going to die, which is the worst thing). We all know what this Inertia feels like. I feel it most Monday mornings, even though I don’t have a job anymore. The best antidote is to do something reasonably active, Almost anything. Then you feel more able to do things about the stuff you are worried about and you start fo feel better. You become, perhaps, a ‘reluctant activist’.
New Factor 2 is Fear / Courage or Courage / Fear, whichever way around you prefer it. Having got active, there are some options about what to do with your energy. The fear of fear guides us towards doing only things which keep us relatively comfortable; courage takes us out of the comfort zone and enables us to be bolder. A couple of months ago I sat in the middle of a busy road on my own wearing a sandwich board saying “I am terrified because soon it will be too late to stop climate breakdown”. About two hundred people across the country (and hundreds of others in Europe) did the same thing, (with their own personal slogan, along a similar theme, on their sandwich board). The lead-in to the action was about 8 weeks, For the first 6 weeks I felt anxious nearly all the time, then I felt simply very scared for a fortnight, then I did it and I felt alright. Lots of people told me I was very brave, which sort of makes sense and I know and appreciate that they meant it as a compliment. But in a way I’m a bit uncomfortable about that because it seemed to me that at least some of the people who said I was brave were saying that I was somehow innately brave and, by implication, that they weren’t. Actually I’m pretty clear that I’m innately quite cowardly, and this has been obvious to me for most of my life; I’m aware of numerous ways in which my cowardice, my fear of fear, has held me back and disadvantaged me. On this occasion it didn’t because I worked to overcome it.
The point I mean to make is that bravery means doing something which you really want to do and are determined to do even though you are afraid to do it. It means making a conscious identification to be courageous rather than fearful. Staying with the fear allows you to believe that you “can’t do that” (but that perhaps other people can). I think this is neither fair nor true. Eight weeks before the action I couldn’t have done it because I was too fearful. I was convinced I should do it and so I worked, during the time I had available, at overcoming the fear so that I could. (There was nothing very fancy in this process, by the way, it was largely simply reflection, visualisation and practice – acclimatisation to an idea which initially seemed out of my range but gradually became more familiar and acceptable.)
Even though this might mean that essentially we are all capable of anything, I don’t think it means that everybody has to be willing to do everything. I’m aware of the possibility of doing things which are more radical (although not necessarily more scary) than sitting in the road on my own and which could land me with a short spell in prison rather that a night in a police cell. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t do them but it won’t be because I’m not “brave enough” or “too scared”. It will be because I’m not prepared to make that sacrifice, feeling convinced that I would find it a distressing and personally harmful experience and unconvinced that the outcomes would be worth it. We all have thresholds. Mine are further towards the radical end of the spectrum (but not all the way) than many other people’s because I’m an affluent old bloke with not that much to lose by getting a criminal record. Other people occupy different places on the spectrum of acceptable perceived risk and there are often very good and understandable reasons for that.
This brings me to New Factor 3, which is Choice. My contention here is that you need to know where you are on this spectrum and why. I don’t think it’s really good enough to say “I’m not brave enough” or “I can’t do that” anymore than it is to say “I can’t be arsed”. In my view, it’s necessary for your own long-term mental health and the well-being of humanity in general to make a very conscious reckoning about what you are or are not prepared to do; to discover where is your personal “tipping point’. This can probably be done simply enough by imagining some scales. On one side you put your motivations and reasons for doing something and on the other you put the motivations and reasons for not doing it. On the ‘Don’t Do It’ side you can include fear if you like, but this is not sufficient because, as I’ve just pointed out, it can be overcome. Much more importantly, you also have to include more substantial and significant factors – the things you would have to give up, the visibility and exposure, the financial and practical costs, the likely consequences in your personal / family / professional life, the sense of responsibility you would be assuming; basically the way it would change your life Something which should not be forgotten, amongst the things which must be forsaken, is the illusion that somebody else is going to do something so that you don’t have to.
And on the other side, the Do It side, there would be not only the personal rewards and benefits – some of which will come as unexpected but others of which, like the sense of freedom, and the relief that comes with congruence, are entirely predictable – but also the reasons why this must be done, the imperatives: because the planet is burning and your help is needed to put the fire out; because our systems of governance are dysfunctional, decadent, putrid with corruption; because Outrage, Indignity and Injustice scream at you from every source of news and information you glance at; because our so-called Leaders are, in the main, precisely the wrong people at precisely the wrong time; and because they are slowly but inexorably undermining our power to remove them through sinister attacks upon democracy, truth and freedom, so that before long it may become too late to stop them destroying everything
And this revelation, if it is one, that all these things are connected in one horrible mass of something that closely resembles an Evil which must be fiercely opposed, that it’s not just “the climate emergency’ that needs to be addressed but the social, political, economic and cultural diseases which have allowed it to go unchecked, is surely the final thing which ought to tip the balance of the scales so that you know you have no choice but to Act Now. Exactly what you do and how will inevitably be subject to a succession of similar more ‘micro’ calculations – likely costs on one side, benefits on the other.
There’s nothing really definitive about a process like this – it won’t answer all the questions you have about yourself and your life or anything like that – but at least it should make the unconscious conscious, so that if you are deciding to do nothing you will know why that is. If you do decide that, it might be for any one of a wide range of reasons: because you feel unwilling to give up certain aspects of your lifestyle; or you are worried that you would lose your job and be unable to manage; or that your friends and family would think you are ridiculous (or that they would be angry with you for making them feel confronted with uncomfortable truths); or that you feel too shy or awkward to join a ‘movement’; or that, even though you know things are going to get bad, you are calculating that you personally won’t do too badly; or that you are already too busy doing something which feels crucial to the well-being of others to give up the time; or that there is something else which you genuinely think is more important to address; or that you are ill or worried about becoming ill; or that you still think that somebody else is about to solve the problem or that it’s really not as bad as I’m making out; or that you really believe what political leaders are telling you, that it’s going to be alright somehow; or that you have given up hope; or that you actually can’t bear to think about it very much.
At the end of this process your activism will no longer be a question of whether or not the messengers are any good or whether their message is ‘sticky’ enough or what the contemporary ’context’ is, but of your conscious, rational decision-making process. It will be about your ’tipping point’, which is knowable and influenceable by you, rather than ‘the’ collective tipping point, the whereabouts of which is undeniably fascinating but completely beyond your control.
Some of the possible reasons for inaction might seem more or less acceptable to you than others, and some may be more or less open to moderation or change. That would be for you to decide. Whatever happens, if you decide to do nothing then you will know why and perhaps not do it with more ease and freedom. Or you might decide to do something, and who know where that might end. Or possibly you might decide to do something, but just not quite yet, in which case I think you should ask yourself a final question which will further clarify the location of your personal Tipping Point:
If not now, When?
A Reluctant Activist 