We’ve been given quite a substantial reading/watching list for the “Climate Activism 101” course, so let’s start with two things that aren’t actually on it, but maybe should be, before actually digging into the list. My summary of all of it here!

Let’s get started with the

“Having Climate Change Conversations” Skill-up

which isn’t actually on the reading list, but the title spoke to me so I had to have a look. This is a training on the online self-training platform 350.org. It starts out with a call for more conversations about climate change because every voice is needed. But, they stress, it is important HOW we have conversations, so here is a list of things we shouldn’t do. It is indeed a great list of things to avoid:

• Focussing only on examples from far away, like polar bears that don’t have ice left to live on (which reminded me of another great resource, the 7 principles of climate change communication which I actually once wrote a scipoem about! They also have a bank of pictures that they have tested for effectiveness in climate change communication that you can use! And I was also reminded of a really great, open-access science communication book, which I review here. I really recommend you check out both!)
• Presenting scientific facts without making it personal (personal to whom, though? Myself, so someone else can experience vicarious relevance through me, or to them? Or to whom?)
• Focussing on getting the message scientifically accurate without making it also understandable (which is, I think, how many new teachers and science communicators start out, because they still feel like they have to prove their legitimacy through showing that they know the facts and the scientific language for them. In academic development terms, that would be Kugel stage 2…)
• Talking about the extent of climate change but without offering things people can do. Yep!
• Offering only tiny solutions, “like changing light bulbs” (or, I am assuming, the whole list that students always mention as if learned by heart, like take your bike to university! Don’t eat meat every day! Buy second hand! All of which are obviously desirable, but none of them actually challenge the status quo and system)
• Not speaking from own heart, with own emotions and passion (interestingly, that is something that someone in the first meeting mentioned they wanted to unlearn, since it seemed unprofessional to them!)
• Avoiding conversations out of fear of how someone might react. That is a very common thing at least in sustainability teaching (see the Spiral of Silence), that teachers are afraid to unleash a classroom full of emotions. But also a very common thing in everyday life, because who wants to bring down the mood all the time?

After checking boxes on those points above for what we wanted to self-report as something we had done, there was an overview over how people typically answer that question. But no resolution in the sense that it was really explained why each of those was a mistake to make, which I had hoped for.

Now we are offered a step-wise “script” for talking about climate change:

1. Start with an impact that we can see directly “looking outside the window”, that the audience can see themselves and relate to
2. Make climate change discussions about something the audience cares about
3. Then explain the science
4. Invite to join a larger movement where they can feel self-efficacy and community, and actually do something good

All those steps are then gone through with more examples, and the option to submit your own texts to each.

And I have to say, I was not so sure about the second point in its summarised version in the four-point list, because should we not be more compassionate then to care only about ourselves and how impacts affect us? What about “reverence for life”, “Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben” (did you know I went to an Albert Schweitzer Gymnasium? Now you know :-D), shouldn’t that be a guiding principle more than egoism? But in the longer explanations, it becomes clear that this was meant as the opener for a conversation, and that we should move on from that and try to elicit empathy and a wider view.

Next, they go on into explaining processes in the climate system, feedback loops, etc., which I didn’t think was so relevant for me to read since that’s kinda my background, but that is definitely good to have there, and it is very nicely presented!

Here are some helpful ideas I am taking away:

• Explaining the difference between shocks and slides (shocks are the sudden catastrophic events like floods or mud slides; slides are the slow, gradual changes that you can only observe comparing over a long time, like sea level rise or early seasons). Many changes in the climate system are slides, and even though they are harder to observe, they are there and can lead to catastrophic outcomes even though they change things so gradually
• Using a picture of a street in a city to show how climate change shows up in everyday life even there. They show 12 examples in that one picture, for example the impact on birds (bird migration, nesting season, …), how potholes in streets are caused by extreme weather, or the impact that coffee has on the climate. Those are the type of things we could observe “looking out of the window” to relate climate change to people. This is also something that could maybe be crowd-sourced / co-created in different locations, so we can use a postcard of our city and have a dozen of climate-change related talking points marked on it? Next idea for action!
• I really liked the end, which is a call to action with different suggestions of what you could do next. Each is given with several options (for example “will you join the next …?”, “will you bring 3 people to next …?”, “will you help me organise the next …?”) which I think is super helpful because it is so concrete.

So in a nutshell: very nice resource, worth checking out!

But moving on to a really great example of climate change communication, with another really simple recipe of how to structure a message:

Kimberly Nicholas’ amazing book “Under the sky we make: how to be human in a warming world”

I read this before moving to Sweden. As soon as I was here, I reached out to my then suddenly colleague Kim, and she has since been the keynote speaker at pretty much all events I organise, and continues to inspire! So I really recommend you check out her book!

The book is structured in three parts: “It’s warming. It’s us”, “We’re sure. It’s bad”, and “We can fix it” (which, together, are also the key message that she suggests we communicate when speaking about climate change). “It’s warming. It’s us. We’re sure. It’s bad. We can fix it!” sounds like a very straightforward message, but in the book, Kim shows one example of how it can actually be expanded into an engaging and very personal narrative of what this can mean, and how communicating in this way can touch people, and change how they see themselves in relation to the climate catastrophe.

This book, and Kim’s work in general, has been hugely influential for me. She talked about how at some point in her career, she decided that all she was going to do in the future would be work for a sustainable future. When she said it, it sounded equally awesome as unattainable, but I have since managed to equally shift my focus to include working for sustainability in everything I do. And that did not mean that I had to suddenly drop everything I was doing and start over from scratch, but it was a shift in mindset that helped me bring in that perspective into many ongoing projects (plus in addition starting up some new projects, true…).

The book is narrated beautifully and just a pleasure to read, and really the first time that I have read a climate change communication text that made me feel hopeful and energised, rather than feeling that we are all doomed anyway, and where reading about science that I am very familiar with neither felt boring nor like a condescending scientist talking down on a stupid reader. Strongly recommend checking it out!

One last point I want to add to this collection of resources that aren’t on the reading list (but maybe should be? :-)):

Using “Liberating Structures” as a method to empower and unleash everybody

Liberating Structures are a collection of methods to structure meetings in a way that everybody gets a chance to speak, that control of content and process are with the whole group and not just one or a few participants, and that points are evaluated based on their merit, not who said them. I have used several of them before (see blogposts on them here) and they are a lot of fun and great to build a supportive community with constructive conversations. Very much worth checking out, and starting to use in meetings of all kinds!

But now on to one thing that actually is on the reading list:

Martinez-Alier et al. (2014): “Between activism and science: grassroots concepts for sustainability coined by Environmental Justice Organizations”

I found this article quite hard to read because there was so much in there that I had never thought about in those terms and under the same umbrella of eco justice. A ton of concepts are presented together with their stories of origin and links to each other, but I will just recap a few here:

Environmental justice organisations (EJOs) are formed, ad hoc or planned, as a reaction to an observation of a human-made threat on people’s health or livelyhood, for example through chemical pollution or resource extraction, which is distributed in such a way that the sacrifice zone, and thus the burden of dealing with the threat, is placed in areas where the population is often poor, indigenous, or a minority of some sort. Internationally, it is often non-white countries that are exploited (environmental racism). Injustices like health threats often only get noticed through popular epidemiology, when people in certain areas observe disproportionate levels of diseases or deaths, and relate that for example to oil wells. EJOs aim to stop the injustice by bringing awareness to the problem, which is not yet present in mainstream research at the time. They also fight for the ecological debt, which can be intergenerational in one location or intragenerational worldwide, or both, to be repaid. EJOs are often driven by the groups who are most affected: Women, the poor, working class people.

What I found interesting is the mention of water justice (no surprise here). Water is the foundation of all live, and water also makes it very obvious that what we do in one place affects all the others: If we dump something in the river to get rid of it, we just move the problem downstream for other people to deal with, and in the sea, where it accumulates. If we build a dam to collect water, we might make farming downstream impossible and/or flood other people’s livelyhood just upstream of our dam. If we use water for our crops and cattle, other people cannot drink it.

There is way too much new information in this article for me to process all at once, but the next point I found interesting is that the concept of greenwashing comes from this context, and how most of the EJOs are grassroot movements that, together with the topics they deal with, typically only appear on the academic radar a while later. This is quite a healthy reminder to the ivory tower thinking, where we (as in Western academics) are used to believing that we are central in diagnosing problems and then fixing them.

Hunter, D. (2019): “Climate Resistance Handbook: Or, I was part of a climate action. Now what?”

It’s so easy to get me to read something: Talk about water in some way. In this case, Hunter (2019) describes social movements as waves, bundles of energy made up of many parts. Usually a little bit messy when looked at close up, but when you take a wider view, you can see order in the chaos, understand that the sea surface is the interference of countless individual waves, each of which you can understand in itself — was it the wake of a ship, the wind forcing ripples on the surface, or a reflexion on a sea wall? And as waves, movements can be small until they run up on a slope and become a tsunami. Ok, and most of this is taking his analogy too far…

But now that we have established that I like this book, Hunter (2019) debunks a lot of myths that all locate the power over the success of movements outside ourselves:

• Movements don’t just pop up out of thin air. They start small, build skills and find allies, and grow over time
• Movements might, but do not have to iconic leaders, but they always consist of a strong network
• Not everybody within a movement is always on exactly the same page about everything, internal disagreements and discussions are normal
• Movements require lots of different tactics and actions, not just one isolated one
• No, not even when it is a really big action. Movements need to build and keep up pressure over time
• Movements can work no matter what the political system is like
• Media coverage helps, but is not enough

One way to imagine how power works is the typical triangle: A head of state over a bunch of ministers over lots of administrators over the people. But Hunter (2019) suggests that we should imagine the triangle upside-down. This way it is unstable in itself, and only held up by supporting pillars, like laws or cultures, which are put in place to stabilise it. If we look for the pillars of support that hold a bad system in place, we find where we can do work to destabilise it, for example by civil disobedience.

Applied to a world that relies on fossil fuels, this system is held into place by pillars like conventional agriculture, car industries, obviously the fossil fuel industry, governments that profit from the status quo, and many more. But rather than trying to fight on all fronts at once, we could focus on one pillar at a time, bringing it down, until eventually the system is so destabilised that it falls.

In the next part, Hunter (2019) talks about campaigns. Campaigns follow a simple recipe: Research, find allies, set goals, put pressure on the institution, identify the target, and act! There are examples for what each of these steps could look like, and more explanations, for example on the continuum of active opponents over passive people to active allies (similar to Torgny’s — to ++ people), and to focus on the passive neutral to positive people to create change (Torgny’s +- people).

One image that I find very useful is visualizing politicians as balloons tied to rocks. They can swing a bit around depending on where the wind blows from, but they cannot drastically move elsewhere. That is — unless you move the rock they are tied to, too.

Then, there is a chapter about growth. Movements or campaigns can only grow if there is some structure to delegate work to more and more people, and they need to act-recruit (while the iron is hot)-train more people. As part of the training, people learn what, in the structure of this organisation, they are allowed to do without or only with permission. Being very clear about this can avoid a lot of frustration on all sides!

Another really important point is about identifying the core values of “us”, and sharing them. Then, getting new people to step up so that current leaders don’t burn out from taking on more and more, and starting to sacrifice sleep and socializing. We should organize instead of doing everything ourselves, and support others as they step into engagement.

When recruiting, it is important to realize that only few people join a cause because of a flyer or a social media post they read; people join because someone who they know and trust invites them. So think about social circles and where to find already existing groups that might all be interested in joining you!

Lastly, tactics! One super important point in this part of the book is that the same tactic can have very different tones, and therefore very different impacts. This is illustrated by many real-life examples to stress how we really need to figure out which tone we are going for in order to have the intended impact, and very likely also adapt tactics to our context (obviously!), what we want to achieve as well as to what external events are happening at that time (Shoutout to the database of methods for non-violent protest and persuasion that I discussed in an earlier blogpost for inspiration!). And, importantly, plan several actions ahead so you don’t end up in a situation where you have a lot of engagement and people are looking for the next thing they can contribute to, but you have to tell them you don’t know what will happen next and when, and to wait. Use the momentum while you have it! (Also, he suggests announcing actions far ahead to give opponents time to worry. But on the other hand, that also gives them more time to prepare?)

One tactic that really spoke to me is to — in order to shut down far right marches make them “involuntary walkathon” by donating money for every meter they walk towards organisations that work against them. Love it!

The book ends with a call for community, focus on relationships, and focussing on looking after oneself in order to sustain energy to keep going. And to “keep loving deeply, widely and bravely.”

So: very strong recommendation to read this book! Lots of practical tips, but also so many inspiring examples, love it!

Moving on to the next resource on the list:

Interview with Roger Hallam (on youtube)

This interview was super interesting! I don’t know what I was expecting, but my expectations were completely off. Roger Hallam is the founder of Extinction Rebellion, and I really don’t know much about them as an organisation or even what they do beyond what you occasionally see on the news. And of course, I still don’t know how things work in practice, but the theory sounded great, and I just ordered his book to continue reading, and I also see a lot of googling and research in my future!

In the interview, there is the very clear message that a collapse of the system, the world as we know it, is coming. That will mean a large reduction in emissions, but with that also a collapse of agriculture and other infrastructure that we currently rely on, which then comes with lots of other problems like raise of fascism, wars, hunger, etc.. Since we know a collapse of the system is coming, this means that any kind of green strategy we are working on in the current system, right now, will be not working then. Therefore, we need to focus on the “after” and on building systems and solutions that will work then. Activists and activism need to redefine their role to prepare, both to bring the current system down, and to build the “after”: Instead of taking on that identity of almost being an outcast from society because of their super special and extreme perspective on things, they need to claim mainstream. Survival of the planet should not be controversial?

He also makes the very good point that revolution is about balance. It is NOT just about overthrowing; but there needs to be a lot of thinking about what is going to happen after, and how we can install an ethical and leadership in service of the people to lead the way after the revolution. He says there is research that if people are chosen randomly rather than self-select as leaders, they make better leaders than the people who become leaders because they want to be in a position of power because of their egos. We need leadership that is ethical and in service of the community, and they can be supported by ordinary people who have read the literature, or are otherwise well-informed. He describes how this already works within the Extinction Rebellion culture: being engaged in service and based on radical trust in each other. Being able to step back and trusting that someone else will do the right thing, carrying the humility of “what do I know?”.

Also, he stresses the point that protests and revolutions should not use violence as a tool or tactical matter. Violence degrades the space, as soon as there is a threat of violence, everything falls back into patriarchy and stops being about arguments. Also, when you use sabotage, plan it in secret, do it, but then do take accountability so as to not churn on fascism.

The main question, according to Hallam, is how do we go into communities to create mass action (not individual sabotage “male bollox”), organised by women, by young people, by old people, (“blokes get out of the way”). We need a plurality of participation, and then we win through the moral force of mass power. For that, go into communities, listen, be of service, build trust!

What we need to do then is to learn from revolutions all throughout history. We are not as special now as we think we are!

And one last point he makes that resonated with me: Education typically gives us this entitlement that we are important and can fly around the world and use all these resources (and especially combined with doing oh such an important job in the government or climate negotiations or climate science…). But what can we do about that?

Brilliant interview, I definitely need to listen to it again to probably pick up on twice as many interesting thoughts next time that went right over my head this time around.

Now on to more 350.org tutorials: 

350.org tutorial: Climate Change Science 101

Ok, I did not actually click through the whole thing because I have the background already. But judging from the other tutorials on this platform, I am pretty sure it’s a good introduction!

350.org tutorial: How social movements win

Seems to be based on the Hunter (2019) handbook above, except it includes “interactive” parts, for example that you are asked to identify pillars yourself and decide what you might want to focus on. Did not do the whole thing, either, because I just finished reading the Hunter (2019) handbook this morning…

350.org tutorial: Introduction to campaigning

And this is now the second part of the Hunter (2019) handbook. Nicely done in an online tutorial, but again, I just finished reading it, so I am good.

And that is it, I am done with the reading list!

Now the task is to reflect on “How do you think about activism, after reading/listening to the material? And how do you think about society and power structures?”. Let’s start with the second one. For me, the most important idea is the upside-down triangle of an unstable system, that is held in place by pillars that can be removed one by one. This is a really powerful image that helps with the salami tactics of slicing down a huge task into chewable bites. Once those pillars are identified, each one of them can be brought down with its own tailor-made strategy and theory of change, and likely in different alliances, too.

How do I feel about activism? I don’t know. I feel that with my job, I am sitting in a very good position to have conversations that can influence many teachers, and through them as multipliers, many many students. Using this position to work for a sustainable future seems to be the most impactful thing I can do right now. Is it activism if I do it inside my job? I don’t know. But does it matter whether it meets some definition or not? Not to me, at least not as long as I feel that I am doing the best work with the largest impact that I can. On the other hand, as long as we are working within the system, can we push for changes that are large enough, or are we just like those balloons tied to rocks, just swinging in the breeze? Maybe this is a good image to keep in mind, and to, if I feel that I am tied to a rock that is sitting in the wrong spot, always keep the option of kicking that rock some place else, or cutting myself free…

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Hunter, D. (2019). Climate Resistance Handbook: Or, I was part of a climate action. Now what?. Lulu.com.

Martinez-Alier, J., Anguelovski, I., Bond, P., Del Bene, D., & Demaria, F. (2014). Between activism and science: grassroots concepts for sustainability coined by Environmental Justice Organizations.

Nicholas, K. (2021). Under the sky we make: How to be human in a warming world. GP Putnam’s Sons.