Infighting is really not productive

The age old question... how do we most effectively and efficiently stop the world from utter collapse (both socially and environmentally)? That is essentially what this debate about the WWF report - Our Common Cause - is about.  The title says it all - it truly is a common cause, and we are all in this together. But people like to fight fight fight about how we deal with our issue.

And I'm so sick of it.

I find myself only able to sympathize with those who are suggesting that we need a variety of solutions and strategies. Because there are 7 billion people on this planet.  There are numerous cultures, languages, beliefs, emotions and so on to contend with.  So how could one approach possibly work?  How can someone suggest that their way is THE way?  It just doesn't work for me...

I liked Renee's comment from the online debate (found here).  She says a few things that resonate with me, but I'll draw attention to the last part of her comment - "My point is that we need both views; and to present them as antithetical is not constructive. However, I take issue with Graham's comment; it is not about the either-or of ideological evangelism of some environmentalists or going with the green consumption game. These issues are more nuanced than this. If we neglect to draw out and foster values that will inform deeply ecological behaviour, we are truly barking up the wrong tree. As I said before we need all approaches, all the time."


Ed (from the "other" side of the debate) suggests a similar sentiment in his response to the issue. "So we’re agreed that our cause and our aims are commonly held…it is our respective methods and approaches on which we differ."  But it seems like he is still suggesting that their (Futerra's) way is the best way and the only way that will work within the time frame that we have.  Sometimes I do worry about time.  If I take this climate change issue completely and totally seriously, then I worry.  But I guess I don't see green marketing, green business or anything of the like being the fast and furious answer.  It might work faster than appealing to people's deeper intrinsic values, but I still don't think it will be fast enough. And for any lasting change to happen I think we need to work at the level of emotions and values that have created the paradigm we are living in.  


In a recent Globe and Mail article David Suzuki said that they didn't do any environmental education for kids when they started the Suzuki Foundation, because they honestly thought there was only ten years to save the world.  And so what was the point of engaging kids?  We have moved past that now and think of kids as the future and a huge part of the long-term solution.  If we don't assume that we will adapt and carry on, then why would we bother? We have to work and live under the assumption that things can change and improve and that we can appeal to people's more intrinsic (and perhaps hidden) nature. 

I don't think it is about talking to people where they are at, because I don't think that people always know or accept where they are at.  And to assume that people have gotten to where they are at without being blasted by tons of highly powerful media and messaging (often telling them that they aren't good enough and need various products to be whole people) would be naive and misguided. 


Mombiot points out that marketers and politicians play to the extrinsic values of society and use messaging as a way to manipulate culture and engineer our society.  This was very clear with the advertising around cigarettes, and now climate change.  


I went to a talk by Jim Hoggan (author of Climate Cover Up) once and was horrified to learn about the PR strategies that were employed by the people trying to create confusion around climate change (turns out it is some of the same individuals who did the PR for cigarettes).  Anyhow, I spoke with him afterwards and said, "I don't get it - if this is how powerful PR is, then why don't we just fight back with PR??"  Of course the answer was money, and I felt slightly naive and silly for asking.  The environmental side does not have the money to launch the same scale of a PR campaign.  

As a result we have to turn to other methods as well.  And everyone who cares needs to join the "common cause".  I like Mombiot's sentiments at the end of his commentary. He says that we "must lead this shift ourselves. People with strong intrinsic values must cease to be embarrassed by them. We should argue for the policies we want not on the grounds of expediency but on the grounds that they are empathetic and kind; and against others on the grounds that they are selfish and cruel. In asserting our values we become the change we want to see." 


I like the idea that we can appeal to people's intrinsic values and that change will result.  Maybe it is wishful thinking, but I think it is one of the necessary ways we have to try.  Not least because I think that if we don't believe that this is possible, then we might as well just all go home.  And I'm not willing to do that yet.