From “A Gift for Conversation. Let’s discuss Climate Change: Why it matters. What to do about it.” A Book by Dr Louis Keal

Previous Chapter 5: What’s going to happen

Chapter 6: What do I do about it?

“From this moment, despair ends, and tactics begin.”

We’ve arrived at the point where we can start to make our own decisions. This chapter will give you some ideas, a bit of a launch pad, for how to take genuine, impactful, meaningful action. This is the new ‘doing my bit’. No matter what action you take, the following principles will always apply:

Think Big: Our ambition for bringing about change can know no bounds. To quote Nelson Mandela, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

Think Collaborative: Involve everyone you can in what you do. Bring along your family, your friends, your colleagues, neighbours, and local community. This is vitally important for your success, and could be deeply enjoyable too.

Think Forward, Not Back: We must let go of our attachment to our fossil-fuel-polluted past, along with the materialism of our current society that objectively and measurably causes us unhappiness^1,1. What truly do you need in life? What truly makes you happy?

One final note on ‘lifestyle changes’: you may, like me, already have come across instances where the same old advice is given. Ditch plastic straws. Recycle. Switch to energy saving bulbs. You can make a difference.

If you’re anything like me, hearing advice like this after learning about the horrifying scale of the crisis is not remotely encouraging or empowering. True, these changes are necessary^2,2, and you may feel ethically bound to make them. But this is far too big a problem to be solved by saying ‘no’ to single use plastic cutlery.

Story Four: It’s never too late to make a difference

At age 57, retirement home manager Sue Peachey hadn’t expected to become a climate activist. But then, she was selected as one of the 108 ordinary citizens to take part in the UK’s first ‘Climate Assembly’¹. Over four weekends in early 2020, experts presented evidence to the group on Climate Change and environmental issues. Then the group debated what should be done about it, sending their report to the Government. Previously knowing little about Climate Change, Sue approached the topic with an open mind and a willingness to learn². The evidence shocked her.

“The first weekend changed me really. I thought, ‘Oh my God, [Climate Change] is really going to happen.’ It made me want to learn and to live my life greener.”

Sue made significant lifestyle changes to cut down on carbon emissions, including buying a second-hand electric car. But she knew that wouldn’t go far enough. She wanted to help spread the word, and help other people learn what she had – especially older people, who wouldn’t have learned about Climate Change in school. So, she started campaigning.

“I probably thought this time last year my days of going to meetings and discussing and debating were over, and here we are a year later, I’ve done the climate assembly and I’m now on the parish council. Who knows what’s next? But it’s definitely awakened me.”³

Once elected, Sue was instrumental in the parish council declaring a Climate Emergency. “I champion now, as much as I can, for people to understand and recognise why we have to change.”

Can ‘Lifestyle Changes’ and ‘Personal Carbon Footprints’ make a difference?

This is perhaps most people would think of first for “taking action on Climate Change” – making lifestyle changes, like energy saving light bulbs and recycling. I salute you if you’ve already made changes. But this can’t be our focus in the face of this threat.

In fact, the fixation on solving Climate Change being “our responsibility” to fix only through our lifestyle and consumer choices has an unexpected source. The same is true of the idea of a “personal carbon footprint”, i.e. calculating how much carbon you personally emit by living your life. These ideas were invented and marketed by Fossil Fuel company BP, to cleverly distract from their own enormous emissions¹.

Similarly, in the early 2000s the governments of Australia, Canada and Ireland launched expensive publicity campaigns urging the public to “do your bit for Climate Change”, shortly after deciding to shun the international community and not enact policies to counter Climate Change on the country-wide level².

But does that mean we shouldn’t bother making these changes? Absolutely not – taking responsibility, making what changes are possible for you is important for your own sense of ethics and integrity, in light of the desperate crisis we’re facing. Most positive changes for climate also lead to a more fulfilling life.

I’ll briefly explore the most significant contributions from lifestyle changes, and why they make a larger difference than most. Finally, remember that anything you do can be amplified in its power simply by talking about it honestly with the people in your life.

Buy less new stuff – buy second hand

Half of the UK’s emissions come from imported goods³. For many products now you can search online for how damaging they’re likely to be. Clothing in particular is a heavy emitter⁴. Challenge: Go 3 months without buying new ‘stuff’

Fossil-Free pensions & banking

Make sure that none of your savings or pension is being invested in Fossil Fuels. HSBC and Barclays are particularly bad for Fossil Fuel investments. Find more at campaigncc.org/timetoswitch and bank.green Challenge: Completely rid your finance of Fossil Fuels

Reduce home energy use

Energy-saving bulbs and efficient appliances are a wise investment that will save money in the long run. You can also switch to a renewables-only energy provider. Challenge: Save 25% off your usual energy bill

Eat less meat, fish and dairy

This is one of the most powerful changes you can make due to the massive deforestation for meat production – and your health will improve too. Compared to those following a vegan or plant-based diet, those who eat meat are more likely to suffer from our most deadly health conditions: cancer⁵, diabetes⁶, and heart disease⁷ to name just a few. One study even found meat eaters are four times more likely to develop moderate-to- severe COVID-19 infections than vegans⁸. Less meat and dairy is better, none at all is best⁹.

Challenge: Make 4 days each week ‘plant-based days’

Avoid frequent flying and reduce car journeys For many Westerners, most of our carbon emissions come from air travel. Learning to love the journey and take the train whenever possible will have a large impact for those who fly or drive long distances.

Challenge 1: Take a holiday without flying.

Challenge 2: Halve your annual car mileage.

The Target: Where are our biggest sources of emissions?

Where do emissions actually come from? Which industries and practices cause the most damage? On the opposite page is a breakdown of our current worldwide emissions by source¹. How much does each area come within your personal or professional influence?

One thing to note is that in the UK, half of our carbon emissions come from goods we import². Though the Government has previously refused to add imports to our official totals, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Imported foods, textiles & clothing, vehicles, electricals, construction materials etc. often carry even greater carbon footprints than locally-produced goods.

Working out exactly what causes how much emissions is quite a tricky subject, too large for this book – but this gives us a starting point to target our real actions to counter Climate Change.

What are CASaV’s members trying to do about it? What are their stuggles?

What are you trying? What are you struggling with? Remember nobody is perfect. We’re part of a system that makes our choices feel very small compared to the challenge – but every action counts in this battle against our own apathy and fear, and against Climate Change.

Read what are members are trying to do – here.

Activism

Activism takes a huge range of forms. For some, it means reaching out to friends and neighbours to organise writing together to their local politicians. For others, such as the members of the Suffragettes campaigning to allow women to vote in the 19th and 20th centuries, this meant hunger strikes and locking themselves to public buildings, amid mainstream public disapproval of their tactics¹. For Martin Luther King Jr, and hundreds of fellow protesters for racial desegregation, activism meant marching in the streets and blocking roads. They were arrested en masse².

For many people now and throughout history, changes in society are so desperately needed that it is felt there is no choice but to stand up and act in every way that is available, even if that means personal risk.

Discussion Points

1. Is there any injustice or cause that you would stop at nothing to set right?
2. Do activists need mainstream support?

Activist organisations

The most effective way to make a difference is typically to organise together with other people to achieve a larger goal. Here are a few organisations to consider.

Extinction Rebellion, extinctionrebellion.uk: If you study the science of successful social movements throughout history, what tactics and approaches have the highest chance of success? The answer is to follow in the footsteps of Martin Luther King and Gandhi^1,1 in Non-Violent Direct Action, or NVDA². In 2018, the group Extinction Rebellion (XR) was founded to use these tactics³ to demand that the science of Climate Change and its threat be recognised by the Government, the media, and the public.

Although controversial, Extinction Rebellion protests were almost certainly the cause behind the UK’s time as world leader in pledges for action on climate^4,4. They continue to be the loudest, clearest voice speaking truth and shifting perceptions of what is possible for action on Climate Change^5,5. But non-violent direct action is as polarising today as it was in the day of Martin Luther King⁶, and as unpopular in the mainstream press. One reason for its effectiveness too is that it does introduce some personal risk for the participants. Public sacrifice is powerful, but may not be viable for everyone.

Fridays for Future, fridaysforfuture.org: Started by Greta Thunberg, leading to over a million young people all over the world taking part in the ‘School Strike for Climate’ in 2019.

Greenpeace, greenpeace.org.uk: Greenpeace activists are veterans of non-violent direct action. But as a regular paying member there is less opportunity for making a real difference. Beware powerless petitions.

Friends of the Earth, friendsoftheearth.uk: Friends of the Earth lead wide-ranging pro-climate actions, from funding groundbreaking legal battles to on-the-street protests, alongside campaigning on local issues.

There will also be countless local causes near where you live. Some, such as protesting road developments, waste incinerators, and airport expansions can have big climate impacts. Local branches of the organisations above may be good places to hear about such causes.

Discussion Points

1. Do you support non-violent direct action?
2. If not, what will you do to bring about the rapid change needed through different means?

Decision-making, lobbying and influencing

Some of the biggest and most immediate impact we can have might be the closest to home. Do you work for a company or public organisation? Or perhaps volunteer in a community group, unrelated to Climate Change?

The first step is helping colleagues learn the scale of the crisis. Then, if you have decision-making power within such organisations, you could investigate whether your decisions have climate impacts. Or, you could press for climate commitments to be made in your organisation.

Multiple organisations exist that can help companies make the transition to drastically cut their emissions. One powerful route can be to ensure that a company’s default pension scheme does not invest any of the pension fund in Fossil Fuels. Divestment is already growing exponentially across financial institutions¹.

Reforest, rewild, recover

Go out and plant a tree. Spending time with our hands dirty, interacting directly with nature is greatly beneficial for our happiness and health¹. There’s a lot of work to do to recover our depleted natural systems, and every one of us can contribute.

‘Re-wilding’ is the term for restoring areas of land and habitats to a state as if humans hadn’t changed them. This approach leads to the richest abundance of wildlife, supporting species from fungi and tiny insects all the way up to predators at the top of the food chain².

Plant a wildflower zone or stop mowing your lawn to support pollinating insects. Make your own compost. Try ‘no-dig’ gardening to improve soil health³. Explore www.rewildingbritain.org.uk. Find local tree-planting and re-wilding schemes, and get stuck in.

Talk about it

This is the one most essential part of the new “doing my bit” for Climate Change. Each of us needs to normalise having realistic, honest conversations about Climate Change, so they become part of everyday life.

Professor of Sociology Eviatar Zerubavel describes our recent inability to discuss Climate Change as a meta- silence – not only do we not talk about it, we don’t talk about the fact that we don’t talk about it¹. But our actions and views are shaped by our peers and people we respect far more than we realise². Choosing to break the silence can have a massive impact.

Not sure where to begin? Here’s a summary of excellent research on having enjoyable and effective climate conversations from the organisation Climate Outreach. See the video summary and more at bit.ly/TalkingC.

Discussion Points

1. When did you last have a conversation about Climate Change before receiving this book?
2. Can you think of situations in your life where climate should be mentioned, but hasn’t been?

How to have a great Climate Conversation

The following advice is based on two decades of research from Climate Outreach, and the results of a mass “Climate Conversations” experiment^1,1.

1: Respect your conversational partner. Seek to understand them, not teach or persuade. Acknowledge where they are coming from.

2: Ask questions and listen, especially open questions like “What do you think about this?”. Often people just need a chance to share their viewpoint, before letting it evolve.

3: Avoid blame and shame. Even of companies and governments – tell it like it is, but we must forgive ourselves and others.

4: Tell your story. Why do you care about Climate Change? You don’t need to know all the facts – personal is powerful.

Below are the most common concerns about having climate conversations. Don’t let them stop you!

“I don’t know enough about Climate Change.” All you really need to know to talk about Climate Change are the five simple facts that open the introduction on Page 4. But if you’ve read this book, you know more than most!

“People don’t like talking about scary things.” Perhaps against their expectations, participants in Climate Outreach’s experiment found the vast majority of conversations highly positive and enjoyable. There may be tough moments, but practice makes perfect too.

Finally, I hope this chapter has helped with the number one concern: “I don’t know what to do about it”!

Discussion Points

4. Which of the suggestions from Climate Out‐ reach do you think is most valuable?
5. What could be the benefits for you of talking more about the climate?

What ideas do you have?

This may be the most important action. With what you now know, and your own unique place in the world, network of people, and combination of skills, what ideas could you bring to help our society take a step forward?

Your creativity and your personal power may be greater than you can imagine. Nothing I can suggest in this book has more potential to change the world than your own ideas.

But the first step to unleashing those ideas is to learn to see beyond fear. When our mind is consumed by fear and anxiety, not only is that not much fun, but the part of our brain responsible for creativity literally shuts down¹. For me, without meditation to help me live with my emotions, this book would never have happened.

Learn more

This last action might be your first: to learn more about Climate Change, and learn more about preserving and increasing biodiversity. I’ve suggested some starting points on the opposite page. Then, the ‘Still have questions?’ sections throughout are full of fantastic resources.

But don’t think that you need to do this before taking action – at its core, Climate Change is very simple: greenhouse gases are bad. Let’s reduce them. Forest and natural habitats are good. Let’s increase them.

Book:The Future We Choose – bit.ly/3s2NuCE By Christiana Figueres, former Executive Secretary of the UN Convention on Climate Change, and Tom Rivett-Carnac. An essential brief introduction to action on Climate Change, expanding topics from this book.

Book: There Is No Planet B – bit.ly/NoPlntB By Mike Berners-Lee. How much carbon emissions do different foods, products and industries actually produce? For over a decade, Mike has been a leading authority on counting carbon, as shown in this guide.

Video: Union of Justice – unionofjustice.com/videos One vital part of action on Climate Change is that it addresses the horrendous injustice to those who are worst affected. Union of Justice, a people-of-colour (POC)-led organisation, offer excellent videos on this.

Book: This Is An Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century bit.ly/L27aPo3 By Mark Engler and Paul Engler. An indispensible guide to successful social movements, and how to achieve real change against the odds.

Netflix: Cowspiracy, bit.ly/CowSpir and Seaspiracy, bit.ly/SeaSpir – Powerful documentaries exploring how large a role industrial meat and dairy play in Climate Change, and how much of a danger industrialised fishing is to our future, and that of our oceans.

Summing up

We have a big task ahead of us, but an incredibly worthwhile one. Our psychology has made acting on Climate Change difficult – as has our history. But we’ve never been in a better position to face this task head on.

A world safely prevented from heating over 1.5°C above our pre-industrial past will meet our needs better than anything civilisation has yet achieved.

A 2°C warmed world risks mass starvation, disease and unrest. But worse, it borders dangerous tipping points and feedback loops that spiral us higher, into unimagin‐ able hellscapes and civilisational collapse. No child born today, whether it’s “Ash” or someone you know, should be forced to face this future by our decisions.

We can make the choice not to go there. This choice starts with talking to each other honestly about Climate Change. Then, instead of temperatures, it can be our actions that spiral into new heights. Let’s begin.

A pledge to act

You’ve made it to the end of the book. I hope you’ve already had a few conversations along the way, if not, there’s still time. But there’s one last thing I’m going to suggest – a ‘big finale’, a concrete way to say “I understand the threat we’re facing, and I will do what’s in my power to stop it. I pledge to do XYZ.”

On the following two pages, I’ve drafted a ‘pledge’. No- one will be watching as you sign it (unless you ask them!), it’s mostly for you, and perhaps the person who gave you the book. I’ve provided one for them to complete too – you can do this together or separately.

The pledge I’ve written is what I came up with – I fully suggest for you to cross it out, edit it, discuss it with the person who gave you the book, do whatever it takes to make it your own, and speak in your voice.

A Pledge for , the Giver of the book

I, , promise to take action against Climate Change: for the good of myself, for those I love and care about, for strangers, and for future generations I will never meet.

I will hold a positive vision of our future, and work towards it. It will not be easy. I will struggle and falter, and I will need help. But I will keep going.

For the first step, I will…

Finally, I promise to talk about Climate Change. Signed: Dated:

Read CASaV’s members pledges – here.

A Pledge for , the Receiver of the book

I, , promise to take action against Climate Change: for the good of myself, for those I love and care about, for strangers, and for future generations I will never meet.

I will hold a positive vision of our future, and work towards it. It will not be easy. I will struggle and falter, and I will need help. But I will keep going.

For the first step, I will…

Finally, I promise to talk about Climate Change. Signed: Dated:

Please send us your pledge – conversation@casav.uk and let us know if we can share it to inspire others.

Next: End Notes