Uncomplicating Things

The latest episode of the climate podcast Outrage + Optimism, with Lorraine Whitmarsh as special guest, shows just how simple and how complicated it is for people to change their behaviour.

The conversation starts with the story of the carbon footprint, a concept created for BP to shift the target of behaviour change from themselves onto individuals. Looking back to its origin in the early 2000s, the ‘personal carbon footprint’ is the greatest trick the devil ever pulled.

Clearly, it’s not only about individual choices but also about bigger systemic changes. But if systemic change requires public consent and public consent requires systemic change, how do we break the climate Catch 22?

It’s difficult to reconcile two extreme scales of action and the dichotomy between individual agency and systemic change. We need both and collective, place-based action is the bridge where they meet and we can escape the trap.

At an individual level, it’s helpful to recognise that we play multiple roles, as consumers, citizens, professionals, community members and more. Too often our role is relegated to consumers but we can also do lots of positive things to improve the world around us in our other roles.

A citizen is literally a person who belongs to a particular place. A role that you and everyone around you can play and one that shapes collective behaviour locally.

Reflecting on this podcast discussion, the big step is not so much to impose policy and regulate change as it is to encourage more people to make changes together where they live. And for that, we need a new narrative.

Most of the things we can do to address climate change have tangible benefits that improve our quality of life, from better health outcomes to cost savings to being more in touch with nature. These are known as ‘co-benefits’ in eco jargon. They are better looked at simply as the main reason(s) why someone will do something different.

As Wayne Dyer said, if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at will change. At Carbon Copy, we’re changing the way we look at the benefits of climate action by talking about a Changeprint instead of a carbon footprint.

If that’s helpful for you too, repeat it. If people repeat it, behaviours shift. If behaviours shift, systems change.