When will environmental campaigners think beyond 20th century environmental messages like "BE VERY AFRAID AND VOTE BETTER?!?!"
A friend and colleague asked me to read a recent Quarterly Essay article by an apparently well-respected climate scientist. So I did - with a certain degree of reluctance. I was disappointed - but NOT surprised.
You would think that with 50 years of human systems change know-how widely available, sustainability campaigners would have noticed the 20th century Theory of Change that basically says "be terrified, use less and lobby your political representatives" HASN'T produced great results.
You would think that when those passionate environmental campaigners (particularly the scientists amongst them trained in the scientific method) recognise the ineffectiveness of the common communications strategies of the past 50 years (since THE LIMITS TO GROWTH), they would try something different.
Some more experienced and enlightened veteran campaigners have moved beyond fear, shame and blame – including Paul Hawken and Al Gore and Bill McDonough and Kate Raworth and Dame Ellen Macarthur and L Hunter Lovins.
Unfortunately, way too many still seem to be ignoring Einstein’s definition of insanity. (Doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.)
My colleague pressed me for my thoughts on this article, so I wrote them down. But first…
Who am I to have an opinion?
I’m a veteran supply chain systems consultant (30 years) turned coach (5 years) turned writer and podcaster (ongoing). My accumulated formal qualifications include Psychology, Information Systems, eCommerce and Ontological Coaching.
I got hooked into the solutions side of “this sustainability thing” in 2002, when I read NATURAL CAPITALISM and CRADLE TO CRADLE and BIOMIMICRY and CONFESSIONS OF A RADICAL INDUSTRIALIST within a 4-week period during post-graduate studies. I’ve been researching the development and implementation of regenerative solutions ever for two decades.
This portfolio of business-based innovation experience gives me a VERY different perspective than academia – particularly on the high growth field of Innovation Delivery. (What IS my perspective? Check it out here: Think Act Regenerate.)
Based on that experience, here are my specific, sequential responses to that essay, followed by some more general concerns.
A disclaimer up-front
At NO point in this post am I suggesting that government action - including substantive policy change - is unnecessary or unimportant.
What I'm questioning is whether it's the most effective, engaging way to communicate about the 6 major, global ecosystem boundaries that our industrialised society has already exceeded. Particularly if your goal is to accelerate the implementation of today's rich smorgasbord of regenerative, commercial solutions.
My specific, sequential responses
I wasn't prepared to read the essay more than once - so I captured my thoughts sequentially as I went.
...too complicated and overwhelming...
p.2 “For most people trying to get on with their lives, climate change feels too complicated and overwhelming, especially in an era of war, pandemic and financial pressure.”
My first response was a primal "Well, der! That's how humans are."
Next was "OK, so what else is there? What OTHER motivators can we apply - other than piling on fear and anxiety and blame (including of politicians) and demands for politicians to change policy (even though they haven't for DECADES)?"
What Professor Martin Seligman (founder of the Positive Psychology movement) proved decades ago, and documented in his 1975 book LEARNED HELPLESSNESS is that when humans believe a problem is permanent, pervasive and personal then that is likely to generate HELPESSNESS- unless they have access to immediate, practical, personal action options.
30 years on from the 1990 GPCC report, is it really useful to keep repeating and repeating the message that: "our political leaders have failed us so far - you uncaring, over-consuming citizens have to vote better and use less"? Without any mention of the wealth of actions available today that make the world better today?
By contrast, here’s what Paul Hawken said in his latest global best seller REGENERATION: ENDING THE CLIMATE CRISIS IN ONE GENERATION (2021) Hawken acknowledges this human reality in the book's introduction, and the Project Regeneration website catalogues today's accessible actions (visit the Project Regeneration Action Nexus).
p. 10 “If we want to get the attention of humanity humanity needs to feel it is getting attention.
Paul Hawken, REGENERATION
If we are going to save the world from the threat of global warming, we need to create a world worth saving. "
...the most powerful thing we have to influence society – our vote...
p2. “squander the most powerful thing we have to influence society – our vote”
1 What's focal is perceived as causal!!!
Studies of human psychology and neurobiology tell us that “what’s focal becomes causal” (Read PRE-SUASION by Dr Robert Cialdini)
The human brain simplifies and generalises the messages it receives. This can mean that if we constantly and insistently reiterate “use less and vote better” then we risk our listeners thinking that this is "enough". They could well think that if they protest and vote better, then they can get on with their busy, complex lives.
Perhaps "voting better" is the most powerful thing an academic researcher who believes in top-down command-and-control innovation can imagine doing. However - given today's rich smorgasbord of commercial solutions and design frameworks - anyone who works in any sort of business role could vote better AND take direct solutions action:
- Industrial engineers may be usefully employed in accelerating Circular Economy innovation while they wait for the next election.
- Chemical engineers may benefit from spreading Green Chemistry and Biomimicry-based solutions into their industry wile they wait for the next election.
- Community development workers might more productively explore Doughnut Economics projects and the 70+ Project Regeneration action lists while they wait for the next election.
- Entrepreneurial thinkers and ambitious professionals may benefit from exploring Project Drawdown's online catalogue of 93 evidence-based commercial solutions while they wait for the next election.
- Sales, HR and purchasing professionals might find useful action to take in Project Drawdown's Job Function Action Guides while they wait for the next election.
There could just be more powerful and positive things to be done today - such as the work done by Steve Morriss of the Close the Loop Group; and Andy McCarthy of Gippsland Solar. And the actions of the citizen entrepreneurs behind Totally Renewable Yackandandah probably made more immediate environmental impact that they did voting an independent into Indi.
2 Who LEADS disruptive economic innovation at scale?
In my observation of the last 30 years of business innovation and technology change (most of them working in project delivery) politicians and their policies don’t LEAD disruptive economic innovation at a global scale. Yes, they support research and incubators. Yes, they build infrastructure when the demand gets high enough. Yes, they influence majority, status quo industry and investment decisions.
BUT do they truly and effectively direct and lead disruptive economic innovation at industrial scales? Who's landing and recycling rocket launch boosters. (Hint: not NASA).
Studies of Diffusion of Innovation and the Psychology of Persuasion and Systems Thinking over the last 50 years tell us the process of smarter solutions delivery is VERY different.
...industry has a strangle hold on government...
p.3 “...f ossil fuel industry has a strangle hold on our federal government”
That's politics in the 21st century. Those at the top of the status quo will ALWAYS fight to sustain it.
Given this essay acknowledges today's observable reality, is it reasonable to claim that voting as “the most powerful thing”? (Again, what I urge concerned citizens to do is vote at every opportunity AND act on their choice of today's hundreds of no-regrets solutions today.)
Maybe smarter lobbying in a range of sectors would be more useful?
Is more stronger, more informed sustainability policy “the whole answer”? Is that how the Information Revolution started (or earlier tech revolutions like cars) happened. Or did entrepreneurs build cars and smartphones and social media, whereupon politicians met the demands for infrastructure like roads and broadband.
...all of us must vote...
p.4 “All of us must use our vote to deliver more people to our parliament….” “What happens next is up to all of us”
Absolutely. Of course – vote at every opportunity (but is that REALLY an issue worth hammering endlessly in a country where compulsory voting).
We are super-short on time. What can “all of us” do TODAY – while we wait for the next federal election?
Keep in mind – "what’s focal is perceived as CAUSAL". If all our messages are about voting, then we may risk people believing that all they can do is vote.
What if the message was VOTE AND TAKE LOCAL ACTION TODAY.
What about accelerating the rich smorgasbord of 93 evidence-based commercial solutions scaling globally catalogued by Project Drawdown?
What about the 70+ actionable solution sets in the Project Regeneration Action Nexus?
What about citizens taking their concerns to work and getting involved in proven, profitable Circular Economy innovation?
What about communities getting involved with Doughnut Economics Action Lab projects?
Or if you truly think the answer is in the political system - what about new forms of political campaigning growing today (quietly)? Consider taking action such as the Voices movement that put Cathy McGowan and then Helen Haines into the "safe" coalition seat of Indi.
...renewable energy limitations
p.7 “The situation is too far gone for renewable energy alone to save us…”
Renewable energy was never going to be enough for a sustainable future. According to the Stockholm Resilience Centre, we've breached 6 of 9 planetary ecosystem boundaries.
Project Drawdown alone has identified required solutions in sectors from construction and materials to education and agriculture.
Climate is one of multiple ecosystem symptoms created by the extractive, high-waste 1-way industrial models inherited from the 20th century.
Three decades of smarter design solutions - Circular Economy, Cradle to Cradle Product Innovation, Biomimicry, Systemic Design, Blue Economy - have spawned hundreds of specific solutions that multiply each others' benefits.
...stare into the abyss...
p.18 “they want us to feel an appropriate level of alarm and outrage so we can get on with the job… We need you to stare into the abyss with us and not turn away.”
FFS! There's a whole world of solutions actionable today! Why so much emphasis on "alarm and outrage" - the same addictive, thought-killing emotional responses so beloved by today's toxic social media!?!?
Alarm and outrage ALONE will not empower people to get on with the job. Remember the lessons of psychological research from LEARNED HELPLESSNESS to Neuroeconomics. Without access to practical, personal action options, endlessly demanding alarm and outrage will likely DIS-engage people.
Every public health educator knows to finish their “dire warning” messages with a QUIT link to immediate, personal action and support.
So why write 64 pages about politics and problems and less than 1/2 page about today's wealth of actionable, opportunity-rich, benefit-rich, no-regrets solutions?
Particularly when what’s focal get's perceived as causal - why keep on and on and on about the action required from “our failed political leaders”?
...complicated dynamic processes...
p.19 “…there area lot of complicated dynamic [climate] processes that are hard to represent…. It’s a bit like trying to reduce the functioning of each part of the human body down to lines of computer code….”
The massive industrial supply chain web and it’s supporting community/social infrastructure is equally complex – why limit the required action to single-focus government-led "get out of fossil fuels"?!
...people to wake up...
p. 22 “How many disasters does it take to wake people up to the fact that….”
People take action when they know there's effective action to take - not when they're endless told that "it's up to our political leaders".
How many communications failures does it take for environmental campaigners to wake up to the failure of their fear/disaster/vote communications strategies - and the idea that there could be more powerful options? What about telling people about the wealth of no-regrets solutions they can act on today, while they wait to vote?
...scientists ... know exactly what we need to do...
p. 30 “Scientists know the situation is very bad, but we also know exactly what we need to do….”
Really? Where are the hundreds of concerned scientists explaining today's evidence-based actionable solutions?
Are the scientists who "know exactly what we need to do" basing that "knowledge" on a Theory of Change that assumes top-down, command-and-control, government-led policies will successfully generate effective, global business solutions?
Are scientists “assuming” government capabilities and competencies that don’t actually exist?
Given examples from Pink Batts to Snowy Hydro 2 and COVID lockdowns to Robodebt - are scientists convinced of the delivery capability of government to effectively deliver solutions as their ongoing demands for citizens to "vote better" imply?
Are you ready to go beyond the failed 30-50 years of: “we have to tell the people to tell the government to tell industry to stop doing bad things…”
…our political leaders are still failing us….
p36 “…our political leaders are still failing us….Polite incrementalism is getting is nowhere fast.”
According to Einstein, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
Al Gore moved beyond "fear and politicians" years ago
“We are in the middle of a technology-based sustainability revolution with the scale of the Industrial Revolution and the speed of the Information Revolution…”
Al Gore, 2021
Paul Hawken set up Project Drawdown in 2014, and the foundation's first independent report in 2017 listed 80 quantified solutions. Their research is ongoing, with their 2022 count of ninety-three evidence-based commercial solutions capable of being scaled globally.
Hawken moved on from Project Drawdown to launch Project Regeneration in 2021, offering 70+ action lists of actionable solutions today.
...not the private sector...
p37. “Governments – not the private sector – must play a leading role in setting the direction of fossil fuel reduction”
Governments world wide can't even get big corporations to pay appropriate taxes - what mechanisms will "governments" use to do this direction setting? Especially in the Australian context? Particularly given the power this essay indicates that incumbent industry lobbies exert?
Is this exhortation in any way realistic?
"We've got to get the people to tell the government to tell industry to stop doing harm"
The changes we need to deliver a sustainable future are fundamentally about upgrading the design principles underpinning Industrial Era business models - outdated assumptions that boil down to "ecosystems have infinite capacity and resources".
How does that not require private sector leadership and engagement
...remove the social licence...
p41. “… [when we vote] we need to ask ourselves if we are going to be the ones to remove the social licence for the continued exploitation of Australia’s coal, oil and gas reserves…”
What's the evidence that individual voting patterns has substantively change Australian government policy at either state or federal level in the past 30 years?
What's the evidence that government policy initiatives drive disruptive business innovation at a national or a global scale?
Australia has a primarily 2-party political system, with both major parties heavily influenced by lobbying. It's an interplay of the national federation and multiple state-level elections.
Voting once every 3-4 years, then waiting for next election seems woefully slow and ineffective.
...our political leaders need to be brave...
p. 50 “Our political leaders need to be brave enough…”
The first job of "our political leaders" - the senior players in the two major Australian political parties - is to get themselves re-elected. In Australia that means ongoing campaign funding.
Systems Thinking tells us that systems are fundamentally and powerfully self-conserving.
.... IPCC Sixth Assessment finding... there are solutions available right now...
p. 53 “One of the key findings of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report that seems to have gone unnoticed is the fact that there are solutions available right now across all sectors of the economy…”
Great. What are they? Why aren't you talking about them in this article? Why aren't you naming them and the links to them IN THE BODY of this essay?
Why did it take until page 53 to even mention there's a list?
...creating new manufacturing opportunities...
p. 57 “Australia could instead become one of the biggest exporters of green steel, creating new manufacturing opportunities that will not only reduce emissions domestically and internationally, but would also create jobs needed for a zero-emissions economy.”
Page fifty-seven and we have an opportunity - even if it is an opportunity for big industry.
However, this is still reflective of an extractive, 1-way mindset - which is the root cause mental model behind today's multiple ecosystem threats.
What about the trillion dollar Circular Economy savings? What about today's massive Cradle to Cradle Product Innovation opportunities?
...entrenched fossil fuel lobbyists will fight tooth and nail...
p. 57 “Australia’s political history show that entrenched fossil fuel lobbyists will fight tooth and nail to preserve the status quo.”
Response:
This isn't just a recent, Australian political phenomenon that's shown up today or in recent decades – it's a standard human systems response over centuries/millenia. The status quo has opposed all sorts of innovation, from freeing slaves to women's voting rights.
The human species comes with it's own predators built in - and those sociopaths, psychopaths and Machiavellians LOVE the hunting grounds of today's global, hierarchical organisations.
So what strategies (besides "voting better") do we need in order to counter this major human reality?
Politics is an industry in its own right - how to we use today's knowledge of human behaviour and human systems to out-think it?
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
― W. Buckminster Fuller
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
...since the first IPCC report in 1990...
p. 62 “Since the first IPCC report came out in 1990, the Australian government has [spent money] subsidising fossil fuel consumption and production that has made the problem of climate change worse. Instead of responding to the repeated warnings of the scientific community, our elected leaders are still making decisions that are doing harm. As a scientist, it has become increasingly hard to know what to do.”
So for 34 years, scientists have been repeating their warnings? Surely doing the same thing over and over in the hope of different results is what Einstein would call insanity?
As a scientist, would you not want to start to review and challenge hypotheses like “Fear and warnings change politicians minds about policy” and even “Politicians deliver innovation at scale”?
...ordinary Australians need to care...
p. 63 “We need our politicians to listen and have the heart and the courage to do the right thing. But for them to do what they know is right, ordinary Australians need to care about the future of our planet and vote for leaders who reflect the values of our local communities.”
So now its our fault because we don’t care enough to vote right?
Is this going to generate engagement? What if we CARE enormously - but we've been told for decades that "it's up to government to fix the environment"?
And again “what’s focal becomes causal” - if all you talk about in the media is venal, cowardly pollies and uncaring, greedy consumerist voters - then neuropsychology tells us that many people could believe that voting and protesting is all they CAN do.
... the most useful thing I can do is warn the public...
p. 64 “The most useful thing someone like me can do at this fraught moment in human history is use the time I have left to warn the public.”
There are many more useful things to be done than spend even more years acting on flawed theories of change that say things like “fear changes human systems behaviour” and "governments have power over industry" and "governments are competent to deliver supply chain innovation at scale".
It could be more useful for you to study how human systems change and innovation actually works - and in the mean time, focus on communicating today's actionable, commercial solutions (You can still tell people to vote better AND act.)
“The number one cause of human change is when people around us change. Research by Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman upends the idea that beliefs determine what we do or what we can do. It is the opposite. Beliefs do not change our actions. Actions change our beliefs…. Not only do actions change your beliefs, your actions change other people’s beliefs.”
Paul Hawken, REGENERATION: p. 11
Why not talk about the solutions we have today that communities and individuals and SMEs and regions can ACTION today? Which would come with authority from an expert researcher.
Why not talk about the multiple ways that the solutions we have today MAKE THE WORLD BETTER TODAY!!!!!
Or consider a change of speciality - to human flourishing. Transfer to Oxford University's Centre for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing at Linacre College.
...the next 5 years is critical...
p. 64 “what we do over the next 5 years is critical”.
If the next 5 years is critical, then why tell people to wait for the 3-yearfederal election cycle to grind around - which is essentially going to present them with the same 2-party status quo dilemma they always face?
If the answer is political, then we don’t have time to simply wait to vote in the next elections (in 2025 and 2028).
Why not advocate for other politically-oriented action today – even if only Regeneration’s US-oriented Politics Industry strategies?
Why not advocate for today’s commercial solutions that create “jobs and growth” today? (Which worked for Andy McCarthy from Gippsland Solar.)
...we can do this if we have the political will...
p.64 “We have world-class knowledge and know-how right here in Australia; we can do this if we have the political will.”
We have world class commercial solutions right here in Australia – why the !@#$%^ do we have to wait for political will? Surely entrepreneurial will is equally (if not more) important.
Disruptive innovation at industrial scale happens when innovators and adopters find a niche and get their solutions into the hands of the Early Majority. (Read up on Diffusion of Innovation, starting with CROSSING THE CHASM by Geoff Moore.)
Which disruptive industrial/economic innovations of the past 30 years have politicians LED? What research and industrial innovation have they consistently and financially supported?
...when the benefits start to be realised...
p.65 “When the benefits of a green economy start to be realised, we won’t look back.”
Absolutely, YES. But why are I reading this on page 65? What are these benefits? Why didn't you speak to them in this article - in detail? And discuss who’s going to gain from them?
If you’re not competent to write about them, who’s doing it that you need to support? Beyond Zero? ClimateWorks?
BTW, why talk about the benefits as if they haven't arrived yet? Many are already being realised in communities across the country? Some are in fits and starts? Many have experienced setbacks from fluctuating policies and economic conditions.
But real benefits are accruing today - thanks to citizen entrepreneurs taking action over decades.
And all the citizens who believe you when you advocate for "political action" could well be missing out.
...our vision for a safer and more equitable world...
p. 66 “It’s time to make our vision for a safer and more equitable world not just a reality but a legacy that future generations will be proud of.”
You have this platform in the Quarterly Essay and you haven't shared your vision! Why not?
By my estimate, less than one of the 66 pages of this essay was about vision and solutions and action today.
If you have a vision, but didn't share it here, where is it?
Some closing thoughts
Part of me was tempted to count the number of times that this article mentions “our leaders” and "our political leaders" and other forms of "them up there" thinking.
But I resisted the temptation. I'm really NOT interested in spending my time that way – but "leaders" seem to get a mention on just about every page.
Do you know what that reminds me of?
We're off to see the Wizard...
Dorothy landed in Oz and wanted to get home to a safe, restorative place. So she set off to see the Great and Powerful Wizard Oz - and took some other needy types with her down that Yellow Brick Road. She had a lot of hassle getting to the Emerald City along the way.
Unfortunately, when Dorothy and friends got to the Emerald City, they discovered that Oz wasn't actually an all-powerful wizard - just an ordinary, flawed mortal. In the end, Dorothy and her friends turned out to have all the resources they needed to achieve their dreams - themselves.
As the years go by, and more and more practical, regenerative solutions come to local and global markets, I feel increasingly sorry for those campaigners still living in stories about how "government action" is going to somehow deliver "the answer".
Yes, we need policy change AND a whole lot more practical solutions action today.
However, decades of fear-laden, blame-and-shame single-solution demands for "politicians to deliver better policy" hasn't delivered much in the way of results.
In the mean time, innovators, entrepreneurs and early adopters have spent those 30 years building solutions and bringing them to market. More and more of then are making it across the "innovation chasm" to the leading edge of the early majority.
(That's why I rarely read this sort of article any more. The solutions and the can-do innovators who deliver them are much more interesting.)
It's complicated - and about MUCH more than just energy
Why such a concentration on energy generation and transport? The full portfolio of fossil-dependent industries lobbying to preserve their status quo are much broader. The list includes: plastics, industrial agriculture, chemicals, construction.
Why are only “fossil fuel extractors” the baddies – are metals miners going to be any less resistant to Circular Economy than fossil industries are to renewable energy and regenerative agriculture?
Why such an UNRELIEVED problem/fear/catastrophe focus?
What about the rich smorgasbord of solutions across multiple industries. Inventors have been building solutions for centuries. (The first solar cells were tested back in the 1860s - yes, the 1860s).
Proven carbon capture processes go back millenia - look up solutions like Biochar.
Change the design thinking and kick start the innovators and entrepreneurs
Systems Thinking developer Donella Meadows put together a hierarchy of the most to least powerful places to change a system. She ranked the common leverage points from most powerful to least powerful, and documented it in the first draft of the book THINKING IN SYSTEMS that she circulated in 1993.
The LEAST powerful place (#9) that Meadows identified as leverage point to generate systems change was in "Constants, parameters, numbers (such as subsidies, taxes, standards)". That's where political parties and their policies sit!
“The most powerful place to change a system is in the mindset that created it”
Donella Meadows, THINKING IN SYSTEMS
Create a positive, inspirational call
The French Revolution was powered by the ideals of “Liberty! Eequality! Fraternity!” – not just “blame the king and find a better one".
Sustainability and solving today's multiple ecosystems harms isn't just about "stopping fossil fuels" and "reducing consumption" - we're way beyond that being enough to fix what's damaged.
Given the harm that fear messaging and calls for "the government to act" does - especially given the limited power of regulation and policy to create change - surely it's time for some smarter options?
What about some more fun, magic and impact?
What about calling for people to join together to Reimagine! Regenerate! Revitalise! their future AND spending most of our time telling them HOW!