Engaging People in Climate Change Work
I’m thinking about why most people around me don’t appear to be facing the climate crisis or acting to prevent catastrophe.
I think of three key reasons: (1) people lack information, (2) they need a personal invitation to participate in solutions, and (3) they need concrete suggestions for how they can participate—including, ideally, suggestions for at least one organization to work with and support financially.
Isolation (no surprise!) seems to be an important obstacle to people understanding what’s happening and taking action.
We can compare the global crisis to a family health crisis. People facing a loved one’s health crisis might throw everything they’ve got at solving it and prolonging the loved one’s life. A parent might dedicate most of their financial resources to keeping their child alive.
First, they need to understand that there is a serious problem. Then they need information about how to address it. Then they look for resources to solve it.
So far, most people around me don’t appear to be aware that climate change threatens everyone’s life—including their own life and, especially, the lives of all the younger people to whom they are connected. And they don’t seem to be spending either time or money on helping to solve the crisis.
Instead they appear to be living their individual lives and spending time and money on their children, housing, and other needs. They don’t seem to see the need to spend time and money on sustaining life itself, or know how they could participate in solving the problems.
Although I live in a low-income community with many people who don’t have enough resources to meet basic needs, there are significant numbers of middle- and upper-class people here who post on social media about their vacations, special events, new purchases, and so on.
THINGS WE CAN DO
Here are some things we can do:
Get the word out [inform people]. We can give people around us basic facts. For example, there’s a commonly circulated list of five simple things about climate change; I added it to one of my e-mail signatures:
- Climate change is real.
- It is caused by people.
- Experts agree it’s happening.
- It’s harmful to people—not just polar bears. All people are at risk, but especially people who are already vulnerable—children, elderly people, low-income people, people with disabilities and health conditions.
- There are solutions!
Request funds and volunteering. We can help our friends and contacts budget a little time and some of their money or other resources for sustaining life on the planet. We need to talk about it as one of the necessities we budget time and money for, alongside food, housing, transportation, health care, and so on. People in my county typically spend thirty to eighty percent of their income on their housing. I’ve started talking to them about dedicating a small amount per month for their “planet home.”
Personally invite people. We can talk with people about the climate crisis, listen to them about how they feel and how they want to “plug in,” and refer them to local organizations where they can volunteer or donate money. The personal invitation to join in is really important—people usually feel insignificant and don’t know that their participation would make a difference.
Launch a campaign? I’d like to see a widespread campaign that invites people to give $5.00 (U.S.) or more each month, and two hours or more each week, to stopping climate change. We would need organizations in every community to lead the campaign, organize volunteers, and receive and allocate the funds.
Any ideas about how to launch a campaign like this? Ideas for its title? What would it look like where you live?
Watsonville, California, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders in
the care of the environment