Climate Mobilization and the Transformative Truth

My article draws from my experience coupled with that of Margaret Klein Salamon’s as a Clinical Psychologist, her studies of social movements and anthropology, and her experience leading The Climate Mobilization (TCM).

Salamon and her team decided to found a new organization, TCM because they identified a crucial element missing from the U.S. climate movement : an organization that was promoting a comprehensive solution to the climate crisis at the scale and speed required — a solution that could fundamentally reshape the economy at wartime speed — a Climate Mobilization. Their mission is to initiate a World War II-scale mobilization that protects humanity and the natural world from climate catastrophe. This means eliminating greenhouse gas emissions in less than 10 years and drawing down a massive amount of CO2 from the atmosphere. 

The Climate Mobilization strategy to Move the Movement centered around “inception” and “pollination,” meaning that if their could be out front, “de-risking” the aggressive approach and proving its viability, then other larger groups would begin taking it on. For the first three and a half years, their language, vision, and timelines were relatively marginal in the broader climate movement, though their stance inspired fierce devotion among their volunteers and supporters.

The theory of the transformative, galvanizing power of climate truth is now being demonstrated in real time.

The Power of Truth for Individuals

In the field of science, there are processes — such as double-blind trials, replication and peer review — that check the human tendency towards distortion. As individuals, we must take charge of this process ourselves. Socrates advocated the active search for and discovery of personal truth in his statement, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Gautama Buddha, a near contemporary of Socrates, created a spiritual system that also emphasizes seeking personal truth and staying in touch with reality. This might sound easy, but distinguishing reality from fantasy is a life-long developmental challenge.

Adrienne Rich calls truth “an increasing complexity.” The child, for example, must learn that monsters and fairies are not real. As she grows up, she must determine what is true about herself, her family, and the world a near contemporary of Socrates, created a spiritual system that also emphasizes seeking personal truth and staying in touch with reality. This might sound easy, but distinguishing reality from fantasy is a life-long developmental challenge.

The second reason was discovered by Freud, and used during the past century for psychoanalysis and related psychotherapies to relieve suffering and enhance the lives of individuals. The truth is inherently energizing to the person because the truth is often known, but defended against — repressed, dissociated and denied. This avoidance of the truth takes continual effort and energy. Take, for example, a woman who finally admits to herself that she is a lesbian after years of fighting this knowledge. When the truth is finally embraced, a weight is lifted and a new level of personal freedom is accessed. The woman feels as though she has a new lease on life — and indeed she does, because she has freed herself from the constant effort of defending against the truth and has opened up new frontiers of possibility.

The Power of Truth in Social Movements

Vaclav Havel championed “Living in Truth” rather than complying with the corrupt, repressive actions of the Soviet Union. His work played a major role in starting the non-violent Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, after which he became the first democratically elected President of Czechoslovakia in 41 years. Havel described the strategic power of truth:

[The power of truth] does not reside in the strength of definable political or social groups, but chiefly in a potential, which is hidden throughout the whole of society, including the official power structures of that society. Therefore this power does not rely on soldiers of its own, but on soldiers of the enemy as it were — that is to say, on everyone who is living within the lie and who may be struck at any moment (in theory, at least) by the force of truth (or who, out of an instinctive desire to protect their position, may at least adapt to that force). It is a bacteriological weapon, so to speak, utilized when conditions are ripe by a single civilian to disarm an entire division…. This, too, is why the regime prosecutes, almost as a reflex action, preventatively, even modest attempts to live in truth. (1978)

Gandhi pioneered the movement-building strategy called “Satyagraha,” or “Truth force”, which also has connotations of love and inner strength. Rather than using violence to create change, practitioners of Satyagraha used their inner resources to march, fast, and otherwise withstand suffering to demonstrate that colonialism was inherently degrading and that India needed to govern itself. Once again, the truth won out; Satyagraha was critical in helping India achieve independence.

This truth, while deeply unwelcome, has the potential to be the most powerful, transformative truth of all. Climate truth has the potential to be more powerful than any country’s independence; more powerful than overthrowing authoritarian states; and more powerful than civil rights or any group’s struggle for safety, recognition and equality. Climate truth contains such superordinate power because all of those causes depend on a safe climate.

The Truth Allows Us to Grow

Facing the truth makes us, as individuals and societies, healthier and more resilient. It allows us to approach problems with rationality, creativity and energy that would otherwise be sapped by denial and avoidance.

Social movements invite us to put truth into practice — to live our lives in accordance with the truth, and to share it with others. This takes dedication and courage. Successful social movements provide the support, camaraderie, and sense of moral purpose that liberate these traits in individuals. When people become agents for truth and vital change, they are elevated, enlarged, and lit-up. The truth, and their role in advancing it, affects how they view themselves, what matters to them, and how they conduct their affairs. The power of truth allows them to transcend their limitations and redefine what is possible.

In a social movement, one does not face the need for change alone, nor does one need to take action alone.

The Most Powerful Truth of All

We are living in a state of planetary emergency. We are already witnessing increasing droughts and drought-exacerbated agricultural failures, refugee crises, epidemics, political destabilization and state-failure. In the medium term we face global collapse of governance and food systems, costing humanity billions of lives.

The fact that we have warmed the world to this extent, and show little sign of stopping, is evidence of widespread institutional failure. Trump will not lead this necessary mobilization. Rather, he will supercharge extractivism, attempting to delay the bursting of the carbon bubble and he may well move to use authoritarian measures to silence dissent and calls for emergency action. However, we were careening towards catastrophe long before his rise. We cannot expect anyone else to save us. We must do it ourselves.

This truth, while deeply unwelcome, has the potential to be the most powerful, transformative truth of all. Climate truth has the potential to be more powerful than any country’s independence; more powerful than overthrowing authoritarian states; and more powerful than civil rights or any group’s struggle for safety, recognition and equality. Climate truth contains such superordinate power because all of those causes depend on a safe climate.

If we do not stop climate change, we will never be able to build a just, free, healthy, loving society. The arc of history will be abruptly cut off. It will be “game over” — the experiment of humanity organizing into civilizations will have failed. This will almost certainly mean the death of billions of people and chaos, deprivation, and violence for the rest. It will be a miserable, deplorable fate.

If we allow ourselves to feel this reality, then our survival instincts can kick in. The vast majority of us don’t want to die in a civilizational collapse! Margaret Salamon describe how facing existential crises can galvanize individuals and groups to great feats in her paper, " Leading the Public into Emergency Mode: A New Strategy for the Climate Movement". We can be like the mother who lifts a truck to pull out her baby; a man who comes perilously close to drinking himself to death, but emerges from rock bottom, resolved to courageously face his problems rather than flee them. We can be like our grandparents, who, when faced with the threat of global fascism, rose to the challenge and embraced victory as their common purpose. We don’t have to panic, and we don’t have to deny. We can look straight at the climate crisis and resolve ourselves to do our best to stop it.

The fact that climate change threatens the collapse of civilization is not only known to scientists and experts. It is widely known — but surrounded by silence, pluralistic & willful ignorance, and defensive distortion

A recent poll by Randle and Eckersley investigated how people from the US, UK and Australia evaluate the current threats facing humanity with some staggering results: Overall, a majority (54%) rated the risk of our way of life ending within the next 100 years at 50% or greater, and a quarter (24%) rated the risk of humans being wiped out at 50% or greater. The responses were relatively uniform across countries, age groups, gender and education level, although statistically significant differences exist. Almost 80% agreed “we need to transform our worldview and way of life if we are to create a better future for the world.

While the fossil fuel industry has spent more than 7 billion dollars on a misinformation campaign to create doubt about whether the climate crisis is actually happening, and to make it appear much less drastic, these findings indicate that these bad-faith efforts have not been able to fully obscure the truth. Further, the cultural explosion of doomsday movies, TV shows and video games indicate that some level of awareness of the climate crisis pervades much of society. However, this awareness is kept diffuse, silent, and inert.

Allowing climate truth in, to borrow Naomi Klein’s phrase, “changes everything.” Despite what American consumer culture has told you — you are not an isolated actor, living in a stable country on a stable planet, whose main purpose in life is to pursue personal success, familial satisfaction, and constant gratification. Rather, you are living in a country, and on a planet, in crisis. Your primary moral responsibility is to fight for your family, your species and all life on earth. You didn’t ask for it, you didn’t cause it, and you probably don’t like it. But here you are.

Climate Groups, Scientists, and Activists Avoiding Climate Truth

The Climate Mobilization is dedicated to bringing climate truth into the mainstream. Today, it is rarely spoken about plainly, even by climate scientists or activists. As leading environmental analysts Jorgen Randers and Paul Gilding, TCM Advisory Board Member, put it in 2009.

Climate scientist Kevin Anderson commented during the COP 21 Paris conference that scientists are afraid of the radical economic and policy implications of their findings so “We fine-tune our analysis so it fits within the political and economic framing of society.” The result:

The whole setup, not just the scientists, the research community around it that funds the research, the journalists, events like this, we’re all being — we’re all deliberately being slightly sort of self-delusional. We all know the situation is much more severe than we’re prepared to voice openly. And we all know this. So there’s a collective sort of fa?ade, a mask that we have.

These are incredible, crucial statements. Even leading scientists and thought leaders aren’t being completely candid. Instead of frank discussions of the crisis, conversations are steeped in confusion, denial and irrelevancies.

Euphemism

There is a lack of courageous truth-telling on the part of environmental organizations and leaders, who chronically distort the situation to make it seem less dire, and the solution less drastic.

We are told to worry for “our grandchildren,” implying that we, ourselves, are not in danger. Sometimes we are given the baffling message that climate change is an acute, global crisis — the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced — but that the solution will be– must be cheap, easy, and painless! We are told that changing our individual consumer decisions is a meaningful response to the crisis, and that gradual carbon-pricing policies can solve climate change on their own while allowing business as usual to continue.

Distorting the truth and severity of the climate has long been consciously embraced by some advocates for climate action — but that is starting to change. For example, Columbia University’s popular CRED Guide to Climate Communications, altered its approach, “Beware the Overuse of Emotional Appeals” in which they caution presenters to avoid telling the whole truth about the climate crisis, as this would cause “emotional numbing.”

Americans have been considered too weak, ignorant, and ideologically rigid to be able to handle the truth. Instead, messages are tested on focus groups and refined in order to achieve a desired level of comfortable acceptance. Pope Francis decries this attitude and communication style, which he calls “the rise of a false or superficial ecology which bolsters complacency and a cheerful recklessness.”

However, this hegemonic attitude is starting to change. The tide is turning rapidly towards truth.

Carbon Gradualism, a Tranquilizing Drug

For decades, carbon gradualism — advocating that emissions should be phased out over decades — has been the reigning ideology of the majority of the climate movement, and the Democratic party.

Even groups such as 350.org, Greenpeace, and the Solutions Project champion reducing or eliminating emissions over decades — suggesting, for example, that the United States should end emissions by 2050. In other words, the U.S. should continue emitting heat-trapping gases for the next 35 years!

In other words: “Climate action” such as a carbon tax, or the Clean Power Plan, or even reaching net zero emissions by 2050, are no longer sufficient. Perhaps if we had implemented these measures 20 or 30 years ago, they would have made a sufficient difference. But that time has passed, and only emergency action — a mobilization of our entire economy and society — will protect us now. Continuing to advocate gradualist policies misleads the public to the true nature of the threat, and actually prevents the public from entering “emergency mode.”

The Civil Rights Movement also struggled against the forces of gradualism — which Martin Luther King Jr. called a “tranquilizing drug.” King went so far as to wonder whether the gradualist, the white moderate, was the greatest obstacle in the struggle for equality:

“(The white moderate is) more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”

Carbon gradualists have been devoted to not disrupting the prevailing political and economic order than they are to providing effective protection against climate change. They advocate political and financial “realism” over scientific and moral responsibility. They paternalistically believe that the public “can’t handle the truth” and choose euphemism and false optimism over honesty. Gradualists live by a “mythical concept of time” in which we have decades left to continue emitting greenhouse gases.

Bending the Truth

The fact that this manipulative communications approach has become normative in American politics does not make it less harmful. Philosopher Harry G Frankfurt describes this way of relating to the truth, which is the premise of his book, “On Bullshit”:

“Bullshitters, although they represent themselves as being engaged simply in conveying information, are not engaged in that enterprise at all. Instead, and most essentially, they are fakers and phonies who are attempting by what they say to manipulate the opinions and the attitudes of those to whom they speak. What they care about primarily, therefore, is whether what they say is effective in accomplishing this manipulation. Correspondingly, they are more or less indifferent to whether what they say is true or whether it is false.”

This patronizing approach is doomed for failure. While acknowledging that people who discuss climate change in this truth-bending style probably mean well, we must also realize that they are making a critical error. These cheerful, euphemistic communicators are unintentionally perpetuating pluralistic ignorance, and inhibiting the public’s entry into emergency mode. It is as though these “bullshitters” have noticed a fire and are coaxing others in the building out by saying “It’s getting hot in here, let’s go outside where it’s nice and cool?” Their calmness has led many to stay calm and focus on business as usual.

There is another fundamental difference between telling the truth and distorting it. The difference can be heard and felt by the listener. Even if one’s intentions in bending or avoiding the truth are good, subtle dishonesty is perceived by the recipient, whose “bullshit detector” goes off.

Further, the prevailing political order is no longer “gradualism” but outright denial. “Moderate” policies like a revenue neutral carbon fee and dividend have no hope of success in this political climate, if they ever did. It is time for the climate movement to start 1) telling the truth and 2) advocating a solution — an emergency climate mobilization — that could actually solve the problem. We need a transformative social movement in this country, and only climate truth can spur that.

Truth in Action

In the final months of 2018, the Climate Emergency Movement exploded.

In November, 2018, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined with the Sunrise Movement to demand a “Green New Deal” that reaches zero emissions by 2030 across sectors and guarantees every American a job. The Sunrise Movement, a millennial-led, grassroots pressure group, is supporting the Green New Deal, demanding that all Democratic Presidential candidates support this transformative approach.

Truth at Warp Speed

Social movements have long utilized cutting-edge communications technologies — which have not yet been fully controlled and co-opted by the powerful — to fight denial and spread their message. Martin Luther utilized the revolutionary potential of the new technology, the printing press, which paved the way for the Protestant Reformation. Back in 1518, printing hundreds of copies of your political arguments and distributing them was an innovation, and a very effective one.

Martin Luther King, Jr. — Luther’s namesake — used television as a tool to bring the violence of segregation into millions of American homes. Civil disobedience created hundreds of dramatic, suspenseful scenes, like confrontations during lunch-counter sit-ins. The public was captivated. What would happen? How would the owner and waitstaff respond to this protest? How would the protestors respond to abuse? Would law enforcement get involved? Would there be violence? Would people die? For many, these scenes unfolding on the news night after night was a spear in denial’s heart. Think the system isn’t so bad? Look what happens to those who challenge it. The brutality and oppression of the Jim Crow system, as well as the dignity and humanity of African Americans, were brought by television into Americans’ living rooms.

For climate warriors, the internet is our cutting-edge technology. Social media in particular provides new avenues for social movements to burst forth into the front of the public consciousness. The #MeToo movement offers a recent example. Sexual harassment has been a well-established but under-examined part of women’s lives in the U.S. and for which there was little to no accountability. But when women began sharing their individual stories of mistreatment on social media, it caused a lightning-fast transformation of the political landscape. An oppressive silence was broken, and powerful men finally began to be held accountable for sexual harassment.

The #MeToo movement illustrates, once again, the centrality of integrating the intellectual and emotional, the personal and political. Women sharing, en masse, their stories of sexual harassment made many men realize that this was a much bigger problem than they had realized. Imagine if a #nofuture movement started about the climate crisis, with first a handful, and then hundreds, thousands, and even millions of people sharing their personal reaction to the climate crisis — expressing their fears and revealing their dashed hopes for the future. An online movement like this, on the scale of #MeToo, could possibly break the dam of denial, and help provoke a great awakening.

Speaking Climate Truth

Climate truth challenges us. It makes us feel immense fear, grief, guilt and anger. Speaking climate truth means that we inspire these feelings, and defenses against them, in others. Climate truth has radical implications, for our society and for us as individuals. Personal change is best when it occurs gradually, so that a person can maintain their core identity, and “stay the same while changing.”

Climate truth challenges us to the core. It makes us rethink our sense of identity and morality. How can I be a good person in this historic time? What is my moral duty?

We worry that we don’t have it in us; that we won’t measure up; that we will lose.

Climate truth also offers interpersonal challenges. We are messengers of painful, challenging news. It elicits fear — even terror, grief, and a crisis of conscience. When we speak climate truth, we convey to others, “The life you thought you were living, with big plans and a bright future, a life in which your main responsibility is to pursue your own satisfaction, is over, or at least on hold until the climate crisis is solved. We are in a global crisis, and to live a moral life, you must respond.”

When we speak climate truth, we are sometimes met with blank stares, recoiling, or even hostility. The people we are speaking to might become anxious, which makes us feel guilty — as though the painful feelings the listener is experiencing are our fault, as though speaking climate truth is mean-spirited, rather than absolutely necessary. In order to stay in denial, some people might prefer to avoid us or ridicule what we are saying. We may find ourselves feeling alone.

The Rewards of Climate Truth

Further, taking on the mantle of climate truth gives individuals a strong, clear sense of meaning in life. It expands who we are and how we think about ourselves. It makes us feel alive, engaged, and gives our lives a deep sense of meaning.

Fred Branfman dedicated his life to humanity, and to truth. As a young man he exposed America’s secret bombing campaign of Laos during the Vietnam War. Decades later, he helped develop The Climate Mobilization concept, and would have been one of its co-founders had he not become terminally ill and passed away a few days after the People’s Climate March. The other co-founders of The Climate Mobilization, including Margaret Salamon, are in their twenties. We feel viscerally afraid of how climate will wreak havoc in the coming decades — we fight not only for “future generations” or for the natural world, but also for our own safety and security. Fred, in a totally different stage of life, did not worry about his own safety in regards to climate change.

Our “sublime opportunity” for heroism faces its next great challenge in the next two years. It is not enough to ‘play defense’ against Trump’s extractive agenda. We need to create a reckoning about the climate emergency and need for emergency mobilization in the American public through education, outreach, symbolic protests such as hunger strikes, funerals for our future, and escalating non-cooperation, particularly in the form of strikes. We will seek to put immense pressure on the government to mobilize. If the movement reaches sufficient growth, and the government continues to fail to protect us, we will withdraw our consent from the government through general.

Come together to take action and support communication that spreads and amplifies climate truth. Collectively we have the power to make it real.