The Catalytic-4: How We Will Overcome Climate Change
Introductory Series Post #8
The Four Catalytic Sources of Transformation
I believe that together we can overcome climate change. But why? Why do I have this hope? After all, this is the greatest, most complex challenge humanity has ever faced requiring a transformation the likes of which the world has never seen. What is the basis for my hope?
As I said in my very first post, my Invitation to all of you, I believe there is still hope to overcome climate change because I believe in us — in all of us who want to do something about climate change.
Humanity can overcome climate change because of what I call the Four Catalytic Sources of Transformation:
1. The Climate Movement
2. Climate Action Supporters
3. ARTC, or the accelerating rate of technological change
4. Governments-and-Markets.
Strong, beneficial interrelationships must be forged between these Four Catalytic Sources — the Catalytic-4 — for us to realize the transformation needed.
I will be discussing the Catalytic-4 extensively throughout this Climate Hope Together Substack. Here I will only touch on each one briefly.
1. The Climate Movement
The first thing to know is that we are indispensable in making hope happen and overcoming climate change. We are indispensable for making the other three Catalytic Sources become what they need to be to play their parts, and for pushing our societies to make change at the speed and scale necessary. Together we will become the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world. Together we will be big enough and broad enough and active enough not to be ignored. Together we make the impossible possible and the possible actual and the actual beautiful. Together we will turn our vision-hope into action-hope as we make our future come faster.
What does it mean to be a part of the Climate Movement?
No one is in charge of this Movement. No one has the authority to say who is in and who is not.
But for clarity sake I will offer my own description.
Here is what I mean by The Climate Movement:
those who have made a sustained commitment to collective action over time to overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything.
We make this commitment to all we hold dear.
To join: make a sustained commitment to collective action over time
Not everyone will understand at the beginning the full nature of overcoming climate change. Many will start with the notion of stopping the bad stuff, the climate pollution. That’s ok.
But what everyone must affirm from the get-go is a sustained commitment to collective action over time.
We can’t do it on our own. We must join together: collective action.
Nor can we think that this is a short-term campaign. Our commitment must be over time. The Climate Movement must last for decades, well into this century and even beyond. Not all of us will make it that far, but together we will.
While the Climate Movement is indispensable, we are not the only Catalytic Source of Transformation making the impossible possible and the possible actual and the actual beautiful — all at the speed and scale necessary. We are indispensable, but we have help. And such help gives us hope.
The Climate Movement is indispensable, but we have help.
2. Climate Action Supporters
Climate Action Supporters provide the bulk of the popular support for needed actions, and as such they are essential. They are the closers, the clinchers, the calvary.
Climate Action Supporters are the closers, the clinchers, the calvary.
Without them we won’t take things at the needed speed and to the needed scale. But to be strategic they must be guided by the Climate Movement. As the name implies, these are individuals who support action but have not made a commitment to collective action over time, or if they have, don’t see themselves as part of a movement; they self-limit in this regard.
For those of us in the US, the good news is that 64% say climate change is personally important to them according to the latest Yale/George Mason poll. That’s a starting place. We must turn these folks into pro-action types and boost the combined number of Climate Movement Members and Climate Action Supporters to 80%.
3. ARTC
I will be making the factual case that technological change is accelerating and that Climate Movement Members and Climate Action Supporters can and must channel the Accelerating Rate of Technological Change (ARTC) towards overcoming climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything. We must help to make ARTC strategically catalytic.
ARTC: The Accelerating Rate of Technological Change
I know that many of us are justifiably wary of ARTC, of recognizing its strategic potential, because it has been used and abused in the past to justify inaction. However, we must not let such past abuse by opponents of action steal the hope from us inherent ARTC’s potential to aide us in our cause. We must not let past abuse stunt ARTC’s potential for climate action and leave this rich source of hope on the table.
Given that we are in kairos-climate-time, given the speed and scale of the transformation required, we must fulfill ARTC’s potential to make our future come faster, a brighter future that is the birthright of every child born on this Earth.
4. Governments-and-Markets
First, I know that many think all of the serious action is here.
It’s not.
Governments-and-Markets will not come close to achieving its potential without the Climate Movement and Climate Action Supporters. It won’t achieve its climate action purpose if it is not doing everything it can to have ARTC achieve its potential.
Second, you are probably wondering what’s up with the hyphens. They’re crucial.
Governments and markets must be in sync, working together. To play their crucial parts in overcoming climate change we must think of them as joined together even as they remain distinct, another symbiosis: Governments-and-Markets.
Governments-and-Markets must be joined together in sync even as they remain distinct.
Most of the actual activity of overcoming climate change will take place in and through markets. But that won’t happen at the speed and scale necessary without significant government direction and incentive. And governments won’t provide that without significant and sustained pressure from the Climate Movement and support from Climate Action Supporters.
In solving society’s problems, in achieving society’s goals, some think it is all about governments. Others think it is all about markets. Given the climate challenge and the speed and scale of change that is necessary, these go-it-alone, one-or-the-other, either/or approaches just won’t do. We must have a both/and approach combined with the other three Catalytic Sources.
In general, I believe it is best to use the least amount of government power necessary to get the job done. But it is well past time — and I doubt there ever was such a time — to have climate change solved by market dynamics alone. That means we cannot be shy about using government power. But we should use it to harness, shape, and steer the power of markets, with a lightness of touch whenever possible and a strong hand only when necessary.
Governments-and-Markets, working together, have achieved great things at speed and scale, and will do so again.
With these Four Catalytic Sources of Transformation, the Catalytic-4, working together we will make the impossible possible and the possible actual and the actual beautiful as we make our future come faster. And that is why I have hope that we can overcome climate change.
Remember to check out all the posts in this Introductory Series.