By Chris Davey
One day in the second half of 2019, on a Cornwall For Europe street stall, I remember turning to one of my CfE colleagues and saying that I’d be relieved when Brexit would finally be stopped, so I could get back to campaigning on environmental issues.
Actually, getting “back” to environmental campaigning was a bit rich. My previous stint had been some forty years before when we lived in the West Midlands, with the local Friends Of The Earth group, for example accosting people in Wolverhampton town centre and asking them to sign our petition to end commercial whaling. To my shame, I didn’t do an awful lot after that, but I do remember hearing towards the end of the 1980s that the planet was warming up, and that this was not good.
Fast forward to this century, and noticing some people from a group called Extinction Rebellion (XR), who appeared from time to time, with faces painted ghostly white and wearing red robes, walking slowly and solemnly though town centres; and I seem to recall on one occasion, they stood in the sea at St Ives while the tide came in and the water rose around them, to remind us of rising sea levels caused by climate change (they did eventually get out). Then after that, there were the more direct protests by XR, Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil, with fake blood, glue, soup and orange paint/powder. Recently there has been a debate about whether disruptive direct action is the right approach to bring about faster and more effective action on climate change. In fact, some activists say that a big reason why we’re talking a lot more about climate breakdown these days is that direct action makes the news and so gets attention… whether you approve of the tactics or not.
Let’s be clear, we’ve already made some progress. We’ve begun to decarbonise the UK electricity grid, with coal almost disappearing from our power stations. Renewables, wind and solar, now account for about 36% of electricity generation (grid.iamkate.com) But climate scientists say that we need to do more, and do it faster.
Now there is an organisation, co-founded by former XR activist and professor of philosophy, Rupert Read, the Climate Majority Project, CMP, climatemajorityproject.com. The basis of this initiative is that many people share the concerns of the climate activists, but are not willing to take direct action or engage in civil disobedience. They realise that governments are not yet taking sufficient steps to reach zero carbon emissions. The CMP encourages concerned people to make these views known within existing networks, which will reveal the volume of serious climate concern in the community, and could therefore influence faster change to renewables via pressure on employers, societies, councils etc.. Once this happens, governments will feel compelled to act on the “will of the people” (forgive the expression!) and take more serious, concerted climate action. For me personally, this sounds like the approach I’ve been waiting for.
If you agree, please look at their website, and start your own approaches within your networks. The apparently endless series of extreme weather events on our TV screens demonstrates, along with the increasing erosion of our coastline here in Cornwall*, that we can’t afford to waste any more time. Climate breakdown is already with us. But it is not too late to take action to slow its progress. Let’s get to work as the Climate Majority.
*see Cornwall’s Climate Stories: Living On The Edge, YouTube.
