Climate Action: Self-Herding CATS!
Olympian Fields of Action #16.7; Climate Action Teams Together
I hope to have many more posts about CATS as we journey together — especially about what particular CATS are doing, maybe even yours!
But this post marks the seventh and final one in my introductory CATS Series, which, while it stands alone, is also a subseries of my broader Olympian Fields of Action Series. That’s because CATS help those of us in The Climate Movement be together enough, our sixth movement characteristic/imperative/goal — as well as our other seven characteristics.
If we aren’t together enough we won’t achieve all we must. And CATS are essential for helping us to be together enough.
CATS Must Be Strategic
As we all know, CATS are independent. They are one of the greatest expressions of freedom of our time. CATS can do vital things just by themselves, like helping with the most important action we can be doing right now — growing and improving The Climate Movement, helping us create the moral and people power and staying power we need to have our nations play their parts.
But if all individual CATS do is their own thing, if they aren’t connected to other, larger, strategic actions, then their ability to help us achieve success will be severely limited.
Bottom line: if the moral and people power of CATS are not brought to bear in strategic efforts that help create national policies in keeping with our vision, purpose, and Major Goal and help bring about speed and scale, then our power and our efforts will be squandered.
That’s why CATS must look for ways to be a part of larger strategic efforts. Such efforts can be created by organizations and coalitions. They can be in the form of a nation-wide march or day of protest, or a campaign with strategic goals. These are other ways we must be together enough.
But with CATS I see something more. I see the potential for something ever greater still.
I see a miracle of sorts — CATS herding themselves!
Self-Herding CATS
We look out from our CAT and we see CATS, then more CATS, then even more CATS, then even many more CATS, then CATS as far as the eye can see …
From our CAT we see that these CATS are forming ever larger circles of CATS working together. CAT circles within CAT circles.
Your individual CAT helps your CAT members to do and become more than they ever would on their own as you become both organic and strategic together. Each CAT is valuable in and of itself.
But what about bigger strategic efforts?
Here’s the thing. CATS don’t have to wait for someone or something to organize them into larger strategic efforts. You don’t need to ask for permission. You were born with permission!
Your CAT is free to join with other CATS! Here are some initial thoughts on how this might be organized.
CATS Community
The first circle outward is made up of CATS Communities that have something in common. These are CATS that share a connection and join together to help one another. That connection could be geographical — other CATS in your neighborhood or city or region, or, in the US, your state. The connection could be your school or place of business. Other connections could be a common profession or trade — CAT doctors, CAT plumbers, CAT teachers, etc.
CATS United & CATS Council —
After these rings of various CAT Communities, the next expansion outward would be to make connections with all participating CATS in a country, or “CATS United!” To be successful, this would likely require paid staff either in an existing organization or a new “CATS United!” organization. Respecting the freedom of CATS and the voluntary nature of all CAT activities, such a program or new organization’s role would be to facilitate and coordinate, not dictate.
Within a country ihere could be a CATS Council made up of representatives of CAT Communities that creates collective CAT efforts — campaigns, coordinated local events nationwide on a single day, etc. Each individual CAT would be free to decide what to participate in.
I’d love to see all CAT activities displayed online on dynamic maps of each country (another task paid staff could implement). You could simply click on the pin for each upcoming action giving you the pertinent information needed to participate. Once the action is finished, clicking on the pin would give you info on what was accomplished, an “after-action report.”
CATS Worldwide and a Council of Councils
The outermost ring of CATS joining together would be CATS Worldwide, made up of all participating CATS around the globe. Its leadership could be made up of all of the CATS Councils from individual nations — a Council of Councils. Such a worldwide Council could organize marches, same-day local events globally, campaigns, and statements of agreement. Just as with CATS United, this would probably require some paid staff and/or organizational support.
We Must Be Ourselves, Not Somebody Else
To play its strategic role, one thing all of these concentric circles of organized CATS must strive for is not to duplicate unnecessarily the function of other existing entities, e.g., the Climate Action Network (CAN) or 350.org. We must be aware of what other climate action entities are doing, and if they are doing certain things well, then let them do them!
Our job as CATS is to be ourselves, not somebody else. That’s especially the case when we start self-herding into organized CAT communities and councils. We must focus on what we can do that they can’t, such as herding our CATS into coordinated actions, whether such actions are organized by entities like 350 or by CAT councils. In some cases it’s a “the-more-the-merrier” situation where we organize similar complimentary actions. But what we don’t want is competing actions and potential discord. That’s wasted time and energy, and the climate-clock says we don’t have time for that.
So, in a nutshell, what’s the bottom line? Teamwork!
Each of these concentric circles of self-herding CATS could accomplish great things and become, together, the greatest power in The Climate Movement.
Whatever organized structures we end up creating, our job as individuals and as CATS his to help The Climate Movement become the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world as together we overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything. Join us!
If you are new here, check out our Intro Series, as well as other posts in this CATS Series. If you like this post, please “like,” comment, and share. And thanks for all you’re doing.