Climate Action: Are Hope and Fear Compatible? Yes.
Our Moral & People Power Must Make Our Foes Afraid of Us
As I will discuss below, the US clean energy industry is finally waking up to the fact that they must actively defeat their political foes like Chip Roy (R-TX).
But what about us? Must we also do the same? As I said in one of my first posts, the answer is yes. This brings up the question of hope and fear: opposites? compliments?
Hope, Fear, and The Climate Movement
Fear can be devastating for current and future Climate Action Artist-Athletes and Climate Action Supporters. The fear that it’s too late to overcome climate change becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Such fear destroys hope. It can be one of the worst hope-stealing emotions. This dynamic was a driving factor in why I have worked for 15 years to create the message of this Substack.
But when we look at the two Olympian Fields of Action we all must be engaged on — (1) growing and improving The Climate Movement and (2) engaging policymakers — we see that hope and fear are not opposites. They are complements.
The question is: who has hope and who is afraid?
Here’s the answer. We have hope, and our foes and fair-weather friends are afraid of us. That’s the winning formula.
Some might think: “Isn’t making others afraid run against the grain of all your hope happy-talk? Isn’t hope “nice”?
First, I don’t do happy-talk. I do the opposite. What I offer is realistic hope from actions we take together and founded upon justice.
Second, people striving for justice will never be perceived as “nice” by others who benefit from the status quo or those uncomfortable with conflict. That said, our Movement Value of love must shape how we work for justice even as it presses us to achieve it. Thus, on the one hand, seeking justice isn’t an excuse to be a jerk, and on the other, the negative perceptions of others must not stop us.
Our Two Forms of Power — a Needed Symbosis
Ok, how does our hope-fear winning formula happen? From our two forms of power:
moral power
people power.
Our moral power comes from the fact that our cause is just, from the feeling in our gut that this is just plain wrong and must be made right — and the acknowledgement of this by most of our contemporaries.
Simply put: climate action is the right thing to do.
This plants the seeds of hope. When people acknowledge the rightness of our cause it bends the possibility of success in our favor.
At the center of this rightness is justice. Without justice we aren’t a moral movement. And if we aren’t a moral movement, we aren’t a movement at all.
Moral power provides an incredible advantage over our foes. If you need convincing, just watch how they try to make arguments against our moral power.
“All that moral jawboning and posturing doesn’t really matter in the real world.”
And then out of the other side of their mouths —
“Actually, we have the moral high ground. We’re the ones who have moral superiority! They are the ones who are really harming people, not us.”
Those doing wrong desperately try to convince themselves and others that they are in the right. But we know they are wrong, and in their hearts those who know right from wrong know it to.
Our moral power is the beating heart of The Climate Movement. Without it we don’t exist. With it we begin to hope.
Yet the honest truth is that without people power our moral power won’t get us very far in the political space. It can bend voters in our direction, and even a few politicians. That’s valuable, but for many our moral power won’t seal the deal.
Concomitantly, without our moral power we won’t achieve our people power. That’s at the core of our moral power, its potential to make people power. With it we can grow our first two Catalytic Sources of Transformation:
The Climate Movement, and
Climate Action Supporters.
The former is indispensable, the catalyst of catalysts.
The latter provide the bulk of the popular support for needed actions, and as such they are essential. They are the closers, the clinchers, the calvary. We need them to become 80+% of a population. Most of these folks support climate action because they believe it’s the right thing to do.
Thus, our moral power and people power are a needed symbiosis. Together they can help us grow The Climate Movement to our goal of 5% of the population by 2030. Worldwide we’re talking 400 million. In the US we must grow to 16 million.
It is The Climate Movement that will drive the other three Catalytic Sources of Transformation forward at the speed and scale needed as we overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything.
This is why the most strategic thing we can be doing right now is growing and improving The Climate Movement. We must become big and broad and active enough, our first movement characteristic/imperative/goal, so that our story and efforts cannot be suppressed, missed, or ignored as we achieve message saturation and values engagement.
In this case we have two audiences:
potential movement recruits, found mainly in Climate Action Supporters, our second Catalytic Source of Transformation, and
politicians and those running for office, a strategic constituency making up a vital part of our fourth Catalytic Source of Transformation, Governments-&-Markets.
We must be active enough so that these audiences are reminded regularly of the necessity of bold climate action now — so much so that this is at the forefront of their hearts and minds and engages their values and connects to what they hold most dear.
Phew! We’ve got a lot of work to do. The good news is that we will do it together.
We Must Create Political Power Via People Power
Striving for what’s right combined with our people power must now include defeating our most vociferous political foes. We must put the fear of our political power into the nervous systems of such opponents.
We must make foes fear us.
But, frankly, not just foes. We must make politicians whose support for climate action blows with the political winds fear us enough to act like champions. And we must vote out those who are too unreliable.
Precisely because climate change is causing extreme weather, the time for fair weather friends is over; we can’t afford them in the political space.
The US Clean Energy Industry Is Finally Waking Up
And so I applaud a new effort by the clean energy industry in the US and their allies to defeat their political foes like Republican Chip Roy of Texas pictured at the top, who is now running for Attorney General in Texas. In Congress Roy led the successful effort to destroy $600 billion in federal incentives for clean energy signed into law by President Biden. (Mr. Roy does not oppose all the $$ support for the fossils, because he somehow doesn’t think they’re subsidies.)
Roy’s response to the campaign against him is pure Trumpian vindictive bravado:
“You want to come after me? Then I’m taking two of your guys. We got a good chunk of your subsidies removed last year. Just wait until the next go-round.”
Honestly, it’s well past time for such a campaign against our foes to happen, and the clean energy industry has got a lot of catching up to do. As the NYT reported:
Renewables have a long way to go before they approach parity in political spending with fossil fuels. Oil and gas interests donated $75 million to elect Mr. Trump in the 2024 election, and the fossil fuel industry spent a total of $450 million on a combination of donations, lobbying and advertising.
The renewable energy industry, by comparison, donated about $2.5 million in the 2024 cycle.
$450 million versus $2.5 million. You do the math.
So Can We Be Allies?
The Climate Movement doesn’t have the $$ to make our political foes afraid like these folks do. But once we become what we are meant to be — 16 million strong here in the US and 80+% of popular support as measured in polls — we will have the people power to make them afraid and our allies strong.
It is helpful for the political calculus of politicians to include the financial power of the clean energy industry.
If along the way towards our vision we can create alliances of integrity with the clean energy industry, then we should do so.
But, frankly, the industry’s major goals are different than ours. Theirs are primarily financial and market-driven.
Our vision, purpose, and Major Goal is to overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything. To do so requires speed and scale, and we must be the ones to push for this and for justice.
The industry’s interests only partially overlap with ours. Some in the clean energy industry may recognize that we are pulling in the same direction, but want us to do so independently — no coordination; no relationship.
Furthermore, our moral message could make some uncomfortable; they could even see it as counterproductive given some of their customers and political allies aren’t in favor of climate action. Worse, it could be that some in the clean energy industry oppose our efforts.
Where our interests do overlap we must go into this clear-eyed with the courage to do what’s right, guided by our Movement Values of love, justice, freedom, creativity, wisdom, pragmatism, sustainability, and success. With love driving us forward, we must have wisdom guide us in how to combine pragmatism, justice, sustainability, and success with any allies where we have common ground.
It is this combination of our moral power and people power with our Movement Values that helps to give us hope. And if all of this strikes fear in the hearts of our foes and fair weather friends, then we hope that such fear can propel them towards stepping into the light and changing course and doing what’s right.
Join us in creating our people power!
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