I told my sister that incrementalism won’t kill us slowly

We romanticise what we don’t have, of course, and the possibilities afforded by older brothers and sisters – the board games, the sharing of back seats, the sounding board for your household’s abnormalities – occupied my only-child’s mind more than candy or toys or trips to Disney World.

Technically, however, I have an older sister, and she’d be understandably insulted at that qualifier. What I mean is that neither of us had the experience of living with a sibling. We were both mistakes, fostered by biological parents (and in my case a stepfather) who didn’t think carefully about the demands of parenthood. Born eleven years and seven days apart, we never lived in the same house.

‘I was a latchkey kid.’ My sister doesn’t expand on it, but for years there was no one around when she walked her tiny little self home after class, and then she was shipped off to boarding school. First in Canada, then briefly in England, then back to Canada. (The class action lawsuit charging the school’s administrators with abuse hit the courtroom in September. Want the short version? It happened.) The first time my parents left me alone for a whole weekend, I was 11, maybe 12. They asked me if it was okay before they left. I can’t remember what I did for food.

Without a shared history, it’s a boon to me that I can collaborate professionally with my sister now. From her home office in Toronto, Ontario, she makes video calls to my flat in London, England. Sometimes she apologises for not wearing make-up, and I don’t know whether it’s indecorous to say that I scarcely notice. Besides, I always think she looks nice. Canadian-style, I throw an apology back her way for answering the call in pyjamas.

Despite bypassing business casual for sleepy-time casual, I’m tightly wound about work, fussing about execution in all things, while she’s pragmatic, always putting energy into getting the work monkey off her back. To stretch the metaphor, I want to ground that monkey, understand what constitutes a well-executed monkey, and then spend slow human brain-hours turning out an enviable monkey. Employed by a bank, my inclination was to make our equity reports sing! But it was a bad fit. No, the walls whispered, reports are just a tool. Slap ‘em together and let’s sell some stock.

<Sigh> So when my sister asked me to develop her website, I detected a little aggravation from her as I demurred. To her the website is just a means to an end. Why couldn’t I throw some acceptable content on there for her and be done with it?

She finds her brother weird sometimes, and so she dropped it. She turns easily to other matters, telling me about her plan for inserting sustainability into the platforms of up-and-coming politicians. She knows who to call, and though she finds it tiring, she’s gearing herself up for it anyway. She chatters enthusiastically about Green Circle Salons, a B Corp that does something about that industry’s waste. I’m cynical, so I’m not listening too carefully. ‘Hey!’ she says brightly. (Does she see me flagging?) ‘You should write a short article about how individuals and small businesses can be more sustainable.’

I feel something mildly untoward in my chest, but my instincts have me instantly pulling a non-committal smile and nodding. She’s interested in the personal choices my friends are making to be more green. ‘Just easy, simple ways to change,’ she insists, ‘and no guilt!’

My sister, my lovely, kind sister – certified kind as she’s a bloody kindness advocate, which is a thing – is so off base here that I stay quiet. I’d once professed to her that humanity has less than a 50% chance of survival – if the emotionally driven, plucked-out-of-the-air number of a finance professional means anything. With no history of stridency, I’d hoped that the quiet power of my words would be enough, but they aren’t – at least not yet, or not only them.

We’re retreading old ground here. I’ve already put to her that incrementalism is killing us. So when she asks about the ways my friends are doing their bit, I feel like the subject of a puff piece in the lifestyle section of a weekend newspaper from 1993.

You’ve been tricked, my dear sister. ‘The big polluters’ masterstroke was to blame the climate crisis on you and me’ writes George Monbiot for the Guardian. Twenty oil & gas companies have produced 35 per cent of the CO2 and methane since the 1960s, he explains. In a system that prioritises consumerism, altering your consumer habits is just shifting the deck chairs.

In discussions where I’m believed, these are among the most important words I’ll ever say: we have to change the system. Right now. And system change is so difficult that real sacrifices of time and freedom and livelihood are in order for the brave. ‘The power of consumerism is that it renders us powerless,’ Monbiot continues. ‘It traps us within a narrow circle of decision-making, in which we mistake insignificant choices between different varieties of destruction …’.

Exxon knew about the risks as far back as 1977, but then it did what American companies whose profits are based on negative externalities do: it sowed doubt publicly. Scientific American reported this paraphrase from the fossil fuel companies’ incipient misinformation cabal: ‘Victory will be achieved when the average person is uncertain about climate science.’

Epidemiologist Maria Saavedra of Public Health England isn’t uncertain, so she puts her energy into Extinction Rebellion. But, she notes, ‘it took me some time to get to the point where I am.’ Despite her academic background and comfort with the scientific literature, the idea that the climate emergency wasn’t just another challenge that the world would work its way clumsily through wasn’t integrated into her worldview. ‘I need to relate to that when we talk to people, because to me now it’s crystal clear, but maybe it wasn’t so much a while ago.’

Maria’s wisdom is a lodestar for me these days. Personal psychologies are complex, and being presented with the facts hasn’t worked since the IPCC issued its first report warning about ecological disaster in 1990. But the tension is real and I feel it daily. Overcoming our plight isn’t a given; we’re moving too slowly to save ourselves, and yet I lose people if I tell them as much. My sister isn’t hearing my dire predictions; she prefers my climate activism to be dainty.

And yet her supportive words about my work with Extinction Rebellion are welcome. I don’t experience any warm fuzzies about it, though; we’re facing an existential threat. While I prepared for the October Rebellion, my sister took her daughter to march in solidarity with the Global Climate Strike in Toronto. She was taking steps like this to help people long before I ever did. It’s not genetic.

So, dear Stephanie, individuals and businesses can do a lot to be more sustainable, I admit, and I love you for asking. Your own household is a riot of consumerism, for one thing, but no guilt, right?

You’ll allow a little brotherly sarcasm, I hope, but I don’t revel in it. Switching to bamboo toothbrushes will not save us. Cycling to work on Mondays, however noble, will not save us. Nothing less than a massive retooling of our society’s power structures and economy will be enough, and if we don’t manage it – to put it daintily – your grandchildren are dead meat, and your children aren’t gonna like it much either.

You did ask.