Climate Change History: Pushback and Victories in the United States. And today’s Worldwide Strength for Climate Action.
Our Story Together Series Post #1.5
As I mentioned in the previous post, for efforts to address climate pollution, we still have the three basic anti-pollution actors we’ve had since the 19th Century: (1) pro-action types — regular folk activists and supporters; (2) experts — scientists and engineers, and; (3) government-affiliated decisionmakers — politicians, regulators, and judges.
As I recounted, non-industry scientists were raising alarms in the 1960s and 1970s for a pollution problem unlike any faced before, one that transcends all previous categories.
In earlier efforts regular folk activists and environmental organizations led the way for problems they could see, smell, taste, touch, and experience. They didn’t need to trust an expert telling them there was a problem caused by an invisible gas we all breathe out, which was the case with climate change. To top it off, the problem was located in a part of the atmosphere hardly anyone had ever heard of, and its consequences were not yet being felt in any significant way by most people.
Even so, by 1980 in the US there was significant public concern about climate change. Many regular folk listened to and trusted the warnings of the scientists.
Regular Folk Were Left to Figure Out Who Was Right: The Truth-Tellers or the Deniers
But when opponents of action struck back beginning in the Reagan years, when they lied and said there was no scientific consensus and put forward their own experts, when they played the media for suckers via its standard, misapplied “both sides” formula, regular folk were left to adjudicate which experts were correct. Support took a nosedive — especially when opponents cited bogus studies touting all pain and no gain from climate solutions, with lies about dire economic costs for families to address a problem that they claimed may not even be real.
Climate Became Partisan
Climate change also became politicized in the US, with many Democrats in favor of climate action and most Republicans opposed. Facing the bogus “both sides” framing and presentation in the media, many people, in effect, left the adjudication of the truth about climate change to political leaders and partisan loyalty. The whole subject of climate change, let alone acceptance of the need for climate action based on scientific facts, became “political,” and thereby controversial and out of bounds in many human interactions.
Climate Impacts Worldwide Help Us Believe Our Own Eyes
It has taken some time, but now regular folk around the world are not only concerned but have been aroused for action and are supporting action.
We have noticed the change and experienced the destruction, seen it with our own eyes. No longer do we have to rely solely on scientific experts to tell us there is a global problem with local consequences caused by an invisible gas we breathe out. No longer does the opposition’s message ring true in the face of climate reality. No longer do their efforts to forestall action by spreading lies and sowing doubt and confusion stop us in our tracks. No longer does the absence of experienced evidence tilt our playing fields against action.
Acceptance of our climate reality brings with it the need for climate action at speed and scale. And with this must come the recognition that the Climate Movement is indispensable for all we need to accomplish. Simply put: No Climate Movement, No Speed and Scale, No Overcoming Climate Change.
In 2020 The Climate Movement in the US Brought Victory
Yet in the US it was only in 2020 that the Movement began to play its essential roll by impacting the political process in a major way, leading to the passage of the most important climate legislation to date, the poorly named Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) two years later.
That was a tremendous victory.
But Hardly Anyone Noticed
Sadly we failed to have this victory recognized by a majority of the people in the US. Even many of those who care about the environment had not heard of the IRA. As an experienced brand strategist, Britton Taylor, put it:
“I take in tons of political media. And whatever Democrats did to message this or talk about climate, even I didn’t see it. Or if they did do stuff, nothing resonated with me.”
Time to Get Woke About Our Strength For Climate Action
This is in keeping with the fact that we don’t know our own strength.
We don’t know what has been done; we don’t know what we can do.
Another recent global research poll found that 89% want strong political action on climate, with China at 97% and the US at 74%. This is quite good news, since our goal for Climate Action Supporters in a population is 80% or more. In other words, for many places around the world we’re already there.
However, there’s a perception problem holding us back.
People around the world “systematically underestimate the willingness of their fellow citizens to act.”1 This in turn dampens their own action, becoming a self/group fulfilling prophecy.
When respondents were asked what they thought the percentage of people would be who would willing to contribute 1% of their income to climate action, the average came to 43%. Yet in this poll/study the percentage of respondents willing to do so was 69%, a 26% gap between perception and reality.
They thought it was 43%, but really it was 69%.
Furthermore, when pro-action types are informed that they are actually a part of a strong majority of nearly 70%, their willingness to do more increases by about 50%. Using the study’s measure, instead of giving 1% of their income for clean energy for poor countries they are now ready to give 1.5%. Or let me extrapolate with a different measure: instead of giving one hour a week to climate action they are willing to give 1.5 hours.
And what would happen if they took our Climate Action Promise (“To all I hold dear, I make a sustained commitment to collective action over time to overcome climate change”)? I bet their efforts would double. What would happen if they joined a Climate Action Team, with, say, seven others who also supported each other in doubling their climate action efforts? I bet Team Member-Artist-Athletes could get to 5 hours a week.
In other words, the world is sitting on deep, untapped reserviors of support for climate action and willingness to act. But our skewed perception of such support and willingness has us underperforming, sometimes to the point of absence.
Time to wake up, see we are in kairos-climate-time, and turn our potential into reality!
We Cannot Lose Momentum
The current pathetic situation in the US, with unprecedented efforts to roll back climate action, degrade our scientific capabilities, and actively promote pollution, demonstrates that we are needed now more than ever — and so is our story.
This current meltdown shows that the Climate Movement cannot lose momentum and also fail to have the widest possible audience hear our story when important victories are won. We cannot rest and say our work is done. We cannot let our fellow action types and action supporters remain unfulfilled in shadows of doubt, a fog of self-deception that hides our true strength.
We must become so strong that this current assault on our future will not stand. We must become strong, stay strong, and get stronger still. We must fulfill our potential and our destiny to be the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world — a story that writes itself and cannot be suppressed or missed or ignored.
We Have a Great Cloud of Witnesses, A Heritage of Heroes Known and Unknown Seeking Justice
And as we move forward, we must keep in the forefront of our minds that we are a social change movement seeking justice through the exercise of our freedom to stop bad stuff, set wrong right, and make things better. Our past is not just those who have been engaged on particular Olympian Fields of Climate Action.
Our past also includes all those seeking justice that have come before us. Our heroes include Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Jane Addams, Ida Wells, Dorothy Day, Mahatma Gandhi, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Wangari Maathai — and those still doing so like Muhammad Yunus and Malala Yousafzai. It includes not just the well-known, but the lesser known and the unknown — whose role is just as important, because social change leaders cannot exist as such without a movement and supporters of the movement.
We have this great cloud of witnesses, this heritage of heroes, testifying with their lives and the exercise of their freedom that it is possible to create a better world, a better future.
We Are Not Alone — It Is Not All Up to Us
In addition to those from our past and the incredible untapped potential we have today for climate action, the Climate Movement and Climate Action Supporters have the other two Catalytic Sources of Transformation on our side, making up the Catalytic-4. Our story includes all those who are working to have the accelerating rate of technological change or ARTC make a difference, to make ARTC both just and strategic in our great cause. We are not alone. It is not all up to us.
The good news is that even without a Climate Movement there has been strategic ARTC progress. We wouldn’t have a chance in hell of overcoming climate change today without the creation of solar technology or advanced wind turbines or all of the energy efficiency improvements to date. And we wouldn’t have many of these inventions and innovations without those clean tech R&D advocates and creators and government leaders toiling for decades in obscurity around the world.
No, my friends. We are not alone. We have this great cloud of witnesses standing behind us, inspiring us, handing us the baton, urging us forward in our race towards victory. We have many more action-types and supporters of action than we have allowed ourselves to be aware of. And as the Catalytic-4 we have the other two Catalytic Sources of Transformation helping to make the change we need.
Victory Will Be Ours
Those against action will not win. Victory will be ours. The only question is, how long and at what cost? The longer it takes, the costlier we make it. How much injustice will we have to overcome?
When we wake up to our strength, when we get climate-action-woke, we will shrink injustice with a prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything.
Every step towards our vision, purpose, and Major Goal creates justice that in turn creates hope and beauty. That’s why we are justice-makers and hope-creators, and why we must make our future come faster. Join us!
If you are new here, check out our Intro Series, as well as previous posts in this Our Story Together Series. If you like this post, please “like,” comment, and share. And thanks for all you’re doing.
Peter Andre, et al., “Globally Representative Evidence on the Actual and Perceived Support for Climate Action,” Nature Climate Change 14 (Feb 9, 2024) 253-259.