Find your role in the climate crisis

“So we are left with a stark choice: allow climate disruption to change everything about our world, or change pretty much everything about our economy to avoid that fate.”

— Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate

Naomi Klein's words penetrated by mind, and later, my soul. I was traveling through South America, fresh out of University, with a backpack full of dreams and a life full of question marks when I read her book 'This Changes Everything'.

I took three lessons from her book that I've held close ever since:

1. It's a privilege to ignore climate change. The climate crisis deepens existing inequalities

2. We need to transform society fully, rapidly and together with everyone. Not just scientists, not just those who studied environmental sciences and especially not just our current political leaders.

3. Only disruptive movements have a chance to disrupt.

I went back home. First, I optimistically ignored her advice. Focussed on myself. Tried to be the perfect ecological person. Counted my own CO2 impact. Blamed my own and other's behavior for this crisis. Got angry at people around me.

Where it took me?

Then, I connected with climate movements.

• Joined FossilFree Netherlands, the local chapter of global divestment movement 350

• Did an action to 'cut the ties' between my University, bank and fossil industry

• Went to Ende Gelande to occupy a coal mine

But realized these campaigns didn’t reach a lot with people around me.

CollAction summer without flying

Slow Fashion Season

Now, Slow Fashion Movement

Joanna Macy - Active Hope

Active Hope is waking up to the beauty of life
on whose behalf we can act. We belong to this world. The web of life is calling us forth at this time.

— Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone, Active Hope

Create your personal plan to move from climate anxiety to personal & collective action

This is written from the perspective of a 29 year old middle-class white person in the Netherlands, Europe. I am aware of it’s limitations, hope it’s useful for more people than me and I am happy to learn about my blind spots.

Stage One: Gratefulness

Gimme some concrete steps:

• Take a regular moment to write down what you are grateful for. You can do this solo by writing down 3/5/10 things in a notebook or starting a grateful calendar where you write down 1 thing each day.

• Practice collective gratefulness by sending a message every day to someone you are close to. This way you remind each other. You can also start a (Whatsapp / Telegram / Signal) group where everyone shares one thing every day

• Weave gratefulness into conversations . Start dinner by inviting people to share what they are grateful for.

Stage Two: Pain

Sadness

Grief

We have practices to talk about grief

Theater of the Oppressed

Gimme some concrete tips:

• Whenever you feel anxious, afraid, overwhelmed ask yourself: what do I not have to do / feel / think / say by creating this feeling?

• Dose your news time

• Bring up climate change when you talk about you. I used to get reminded of climate change when confronted with ‘unsustainable’ behavior like eating meat or flying. That’s not the best moment.

Stage Three: Vision

Active Hope Framework

A Richer Experience of Community

Four levels of community:

- Groups we feel at home in

- The wider community around us

- The global community of humanity

- The Earth community of life

A larger view of time

The Triple D’s:

1. Decarbonization

2. Degrowth

3. Decolonization

Decarbonization

Fossil Free

Renewables

Decolonization

Framing climate change as now

Audre Lorde

Pleasure Activism

My grandmother’s hands

Degrowth

Decoupling theory

Limits by Giorgos Kallis

Postcapitalism by Paul Mason

Slow Movements

Simple Living / Essentialism

Stage Four: Action

Active Hope Framework

Three dimensions

1. Holding actions. e.g. campaigns in defense of life on Earth

2. Shift in consciousness. E.g. change in our perception, thinking, and values

3. Life-sustaining systems and practices. E.g. devoloping new economic and social structures

Holding Actions

Naomi Klein’s research on social movements

Civil Disobedience

Organizing vs Mobilizing

Shift in Consciousness

Buddhism

Life-sustaining systems and practices

Turning Vision into Action

GRIP Rick Pastoor

Make a year plan

✅ Gimme some concrete tips:

• Join a group. Find a local group near you or check out the list below.

• Pick an area you like

• Get talking to your future self. I use the website futureme.org

• Put your money where your mouth is. Change banks

✨ Useful lists to get moving ✨

List of organizations & movements working on ‘holding actions’

• Movement: Fridays for Future

• Movement: Extinction Rebellion

• NGO: Friends of the Earth

• NGO: Greenpeace

• NGO: Climate Justice Network

• Training: The Ulex Project

• Funding & Training: the Guerilla Foundation

List of organizations working on ‘shift in consciousness’

• Theory U

• Presencing Institute

List of organizations working on life-sustaining systems and practices

• Transition Towns

• Climate CIK

• Climate Cleanup

• Impact Hub

• Degrowth Network

• Systemiq

• Slow Food Network

• Slow Fashion Movement

List of sustainable job platforms

International

Europe

Netherlands

GreenJobs

List of organizations working on climate change

• Drawdown

List of people and pages to follow

• Queer Brown Vegan

• Intersectional Environmentalist