Climate Movement Cliff Notes — Part One
An Annotated Table of Contents of my posts on The Climate Movement
I thought it would be helpful to provide something akin to a photo album of my posts on The Climate Movement thus far, a narrative of snapshots. Or, switching metaphors, Climate Movement Cliff Notes or Spark Notes, if you will. In this Series I will summarize each post in the order in which they were published, an annotated Table of Contents.
1. The Climate Movement and Our Olympian Fields of Action: Introduction
The Climate Movement can be thought of as analogous to the Olympic Games, and its offshoots, the Paralympics, the Special Olympics, and the Senior Olympics. Where we are active are our “Fields of Action.”
Just as in the Olympics, where there are larger categories such as athletics (or track and field), aquatics, gymnastics, wrestling, skiing, and ice skating, so too with the Climate Movement. What is your Field of Action?
Our Fields of Action are fields of hope. Coming together creates hope. Taking action together creates more hope. We are making hope happen. We are the hope we’ve been waiting for.
2. Kairos-Climate-Time: Now is the Time
Kairotic time are the moments when life presents you with a decision, such as accepting one’s deliverance. Expressions like “when the time is right,” or “strike while the iron is hot,” or “the time is now,” or “timing is everything,” or “seize the day” capture this sense of time. Kairos is when life opens up windows of opportunity or danger that may appear for seconds or hours or days or years, but will not stay open forever. For The Climate Movement, we are in kairos-climate-time.
3. The Climate Movement Itself
There are 4 Catalytic Sources of Transformation — The Catalytic-4 — that are making it possible for us to overcome climate change, and are thus profound sources of hope. The first and the most indispensable is The Climate Movement — we ourselves. We push the other three to achieve their potential.
We are hope in action. We are hope incarnate.
4. The Climate Movement’s 7 Characteristics, Imperatives, & Movement-building Goals
This post begins a major 36-part Series on The Climate Movement’s 7 characteristics/imperatives/goals.
Since the climate challenge calls for speed, scale, and longevity, we need a moral movement:
big and broad and active enough
passionate enough
deep enough
dynamic enough
organic and strategic enough
together enough, and
long enough.
These seven characteristics are simultaneously seven Movement-building goals: to become what we need to be, we must become these seven to be set free from climate tyranny.
These seven characteristics are also seven imperatives. We must become them together to become what we are being called to do.
We must become them to fulfill our climate calling to make the impossible possible and the possible actual and the actual beautiful and our future come faster.
5. Big and Broad and Active Enough: The First Characteristic of the Climate Movement
To overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything, I believe we must recruit:
5% of the world’s population or roughly 400 million by 2030, and
10% by 2040.
This means:
We simply can’t grow fast enough.
We cannot be ignored.
We will transform the world.
We must become big and broad and active enough so that we achieve message saturation and values engagement within our cultures and societies. This means that leaders and the average person are reminded regularly of the necessity of bold climate action now and that everyone has a role to play — 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.
We make hope happen with every person who joins us — so join us!
6. The Climate Movement Must Be Passionate Enough
Without passion climate action won’t become what it needs to be: a defining cause of our lives, something we fight for even at personal cost and risk. Passion must drive us to give ourselves to something greater, something worthy of the sacrifices we make. Passion must awaken within us and bring forth who we really are. It fires our creativity and propels us into lives that are meaningful.
Passion pushes us to changes our ways, to do what it takes, to join the struggle, to fight for what’s right, to find our Olympian Fields of Action and make our unique contribution to victory.
When passion becomes action we make hope happen.
7. Deep Enough — Our Third Characteristic
To keep ourselves on our Olympian Fields of Action for the long haul, to make the impossible possible and the possible actual and the actual beautiful, our future come faster, and our world more just, we must understand and embrace how climate action is connected to what we cherish, to our deeply held values and relationships. We must tap into deep reservoirs of support and motivation.
The deepest source of both passion and perseverance, and what binds them together, is the L-word — easily spoken by some, hardly ever uttered by others.
Love contains hope; love sustains multitudes; love carries us forward; love lives in the hard places; love is the wellspring of justice; love is a promise to the future that we will create a better world. Love is the ultimate source of power that creates and sustains us as a moral movement.
8. Dynamic Enough — Our Fourth Characteristic
To be dynamic enough is to combine and balance four things: (1) the tried-and-true and (2) discipline with two of our Movement Values — (3) freedom, and (4) creativity. As we bring about this dynamic 4-part combination we must employ another of our movement values: pragmatism. It is the dynamic tension between these, brought together with our passion and what makes us deep enough, that will propel us forward. We must lean into the future, guided judiciously by the past even as we are ever open to a better way to make our future come faster and our world more just.
9.1 Organic & Strategic Change, Part One
Plants don’t grow in straight lines as they seek the light. In the same way, movements are messy and non-linear. Why? Because they’re made up of people! Geez.
When a group of individuals come together at a specific time and place to focus together on our vision, purpose, and Major Goal (i.e. on being strategic), it is something that has never happened before. What flows out of such experiences cannot be planned for; rather, it must be given the opportunity to come forth. Organic change is endemic because of who we are as individuals, our personalities, our gifts, our passions, our values. Organic change doesn’t stifle or suppress these qualities, forcing us into a standardized mold; it sets us free.
It is the dynamic constructive dialogue between organic and strategic change that will help fuel our journey, making hope happen and our future come faster.
9.2. Organic & Strategic Change, Part Two
By strategic I mean developing and implementing a plan where we deploy our resources at targeted times and places to maximize our gains towards achieving our purpose and goals. Our resources include ourselves, our time, our energy, our influence, our relationships, our moral standing, our values, our money, our numbers.
We are not posers or prophetic narcissists; this is not a vanity exercise. We are not just about checking boxes to make ourselves feel better. Busy-work that gets us nowhere is no friend of hope or victory. All of our Movement Values propel us to our final value, success. Achieving success requires us to be strategic enough.
9.3. Organic & Strategic Change, Part Three
Curvy and messy, organic change arises not from a strategic plan, but from the creativity and courage of the group’s members responding in real time to changing circumstances — like the Civil Rights movement did in the 1960s, especially the Birmingham campaign.
Without the new tactic of including children and youth in non-violent civil disobedience this campaign could have easily become a failure.
Simply put: No Children’s Crusade — no 1964 Civil Rights Act.
But these children didn’t spontaneously walk out of school and head downtown to face Bull Connor and attack dogs and fire hoses. Weeks of training preceded their participation. Their actions were a part of a strategy the Civil Rights Movement had been implementing for years, and they practiced Gandhian tactics that had been around for decades. Birmingham was both organic and strategic.
10. Together Enough — Introduction
Being together enough is our sixth characteristic/imperative/goal. By its nature it will require the largest collection of posts by far, 27 in all.
When I say we must come together, or we must join together, or we must work together, etc., I mean three things simultaneously that are mutually reinforcing.
We are unified as a Movement by working to achieve the same or similar goals on all of our Fields of Action, as well as our particular, tailored objectives designed to meet these shared goals.
We engage with others in strategic actions.
We meet with other Climate Action Artist-Athletes on a regular basis.
To sum it up: shared goals, action events, meeting together regularly.
Being together enough gives us hope as we draw strength and encouragement from each other, from the simple, experiential, lived reality of not being alone in overcoming this monumental challenge.
11. Environmental, Conservation, & Climate Organizations
Environmental, conservation, and climate organizations have vital roles to play in the Climate Movement in ensuring we are strategic enough, dynamic enough, and have the expertise we need. They are indispensable in helping to keep us going long enough.
But they are not enough for what we are called to become: the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world.
We must complement their strengths with those of other nonprofit non-governmental organizations or NGOs and Climate Action Teams (CATS).
12.1 Civil Society Organizations & Professional Associations
Another vital part of the Climate Movement is and will be the participation of civil society organizations, professional associations, and faith communities (covered in 12.2), whose primary focus is not on environmental, conservation, or climate issues. Rather, these NGOs have come to recognize that climate change intersects with their broader missions.
12.2 Faith Communities
For Climate Movement Artist-Athletes who also are a part of a faith community, they help us to be all seven of our characteristics:
Faith communities are where people can learn, experience, and practice our Ten Movement Values: Love, Justice, Beauty, Freedom, Creativity, Wisdom, Pragmatism, Non-violence, Sustainability, and Success.
I believe the world’s faith traditions, when properly understood and put into practice, will help us run the race with perseverance, will support our efforts as Climate Artist-Athletes on all of our Olympian Fields of Action.
Stay tuned for more in this Climate Movement Cliff Notes Series!
If you are new here, check out our Intro Series. If you like this post, please “like,” comment and share. And thanks for all you’re doing.