What information should environmental campaigners make widely known? And how should they share it in order to achieve the large-scale societal and behavioural changes that are now needed?
Too much doom and gloom leaves people feeling overwhelmed and powerless: but softening the bad news with talk of ‘by the end of the century’ simply encourages complacency. And scientific facts don’t change minds – emotions do. The powerful emotions of fear and anger have historically been the biggest drivers of major societal change.
However, we’re up against the billionaire-owned, partly fossil fuel-funded mainstream media that has long shaped the climate narrative, promoting denial and delay through a steady stream of mis- and disinformation.
To challenge this, campaigners took to the streets in huge numbers, seeking to persuade the politicians to treat the issue with the urgency it requires. Unfortunately, the politicians have learned that peaceful protests can be ignored – the UK joined the disastrous American invasion of Iraq in 2003 in spite of more than a million people marching through London to protest against it.
So environmental campaigners have been forced into disruptive protests that can’t be ignored … but the government is responding with anti-protest legislation – attacking the messengers, instead of paying heed to their message. It’s another example of how dark money has corrupted our democracy.
While he was prime minister, Rishi Sunak boasted about the government’s anti-protest laws having been guided by the Policy Exchange … that’s a right-leaning think tank which is reported to have received funding from fossil fuel interests, and where Sunak himself worked before his 2015 election to parliament.
Ex-Labour MP John Woodcock, now Lord Walney, acted as the government’s ‘independent’ advisor on domestic extremism. Unsurprisingly, as a paid advisor to the arms and oil industries, he specifically called for bans on groups protesting against defence and energy firms.
Some will inevitably view disruptive protests as an unjustifiable disturbance to businesses and the public – but all other efforts to push the government to act on the unfolding climate and environmental crises have failed – so far. Campaigners cannot give up – but time is short, and the clock is ticking ever louder.
Ken Huggins
North Dorset Green Party
