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at the core that is this uh this debate is it individual change versus system change and and uh on where the work I've been doing it's like uh well it's a bit of both
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um and uh you know the individual really is as an important role to play and eventually you know and ultimately what I'm trying to get the point of trying to make in the book is there's no such thing as the individual and that that is
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a basis for action on climate change is a failure we'll continue to fail okay well thank you very much for joining me Chris uh today I'm joined by Christopher Shaw Chris is over 15 years
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of experience researching climate policy and climate Communications and is the head of research at climate Outreach Chris is a contributing author for the ipcc working group one uh sixth
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assessment report is the non-executive director of the award-winning environmental news organization D Smog and is an associate at the Tyndall Center of climate change research and a research associate in the school of
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Global Studies at the University of Sussex and today Chris will be discussing your book that you recently wrote called liberalism and the challenge of climate change which I'm very excited to jump into but thank you
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for joining me Chris thanks Xavier really looking forward to this chat today I'd love to hear the story behind the book behind climate change and liberalism how you came to write about it and what was the
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Inception of the book thanks Javier it's a long story I'll be as brief as I can where does one stop the there's two elements too that is my uh
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interrelated elements I think there's the anxiety about climate change um which is rooted back in my teenage years uh so there's that and then related to
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that is the political system that seems to be margins towards this uh awful outcome and actually for the vast majority of
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humanity what they get in return for this risk or this almost inevitable outcome seems very little um and so that sort of sense of Injustice in um being lied to is kind of what is
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motivating me for a long time and really I grew up in the uh late 70s early 1980s and that's time
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saw the Advent of in the UK uh Margaret Thatcher but more broadly in the US Ronald Reagan but Bertha sun has been called neo-liberalism and I felt as I came into adulthood at that time I
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it was uh creating a world where all that mattered was money achievement status and the individual the entrepreneurial individual out for everything they could get for
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themselves and nothing else mattered trampling on other people trending on the world to get that so I entered adulthood uh entered a world that I didn't feel at home in felt very alienated from this world that was being
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presented to me in the options that were being presented me the markers of success and the life well lived but remember in the early 80s anything of discussion of living sustainably living
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in harmony with the world living harmony with each other it's just happy nonsense it was there was no room for it so it's carrying that anxiety and that person out of the place a Stranger in a Strange Land uh for a long time
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and uh I think climate change emerged onto the agenda in 1989 1992. so at this stage I was a rebel looking for a cause and that and climate change was that cause immediately failed okay this is
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huge it just made sense I could see the gung-ho attitude that uh irreverent attitude to the Natural World the dismissive attitude to Natural this high-risk strategy of just get
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everything you can to help with the consequences climate change seemed to me to be uh the epitome of where this would take us it just seemed inevitable in
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1989 1990 this is going to be a huge crisis it just made so much sense I could see it so I kind of hitched you know myself to that wagon but it wasn't really a wagon there I don't there was not you know no one was talking about it
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if I spoke about it to people they didn't know what I was talking about they didn't really understand there was no work there was no options yeah so for the next few years was a search for a
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way to uh be do something about this issue um and eventually uh so that involved uh going back to University to do a teacher training course uh to teach about uh
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climate change to young people thought that might be the way to contribute to a better future and then I moved into marketing and so I can learn how to communicate maths uh messages to mass
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audiences about climate change and so spent some time doing that and then one reason I went back into uh Academia uh did a PhD
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um and have worked in research for um various organizations uh universities and uh most recently in this this NGO but the the other thing that happened
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during that time to reinforce my concern and my anxiety was um liberalism appealing to be and at this point I was really up to about 2 000 I was really on board with liberalism it
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was I felt um not neoliberalism but liberalism I felt very identified but you know that the ideas of progressiveness um reason rationality Etc and then what happened what happened
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was uh and this made for like a bit of a Tanger but it's not 9 11 2001. I read a Time Chomsky her um Hermann chomsky's uh manufacturing consent so I
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was reading that and around about that time and I said no right so the meat is here isn't um that position isn't actually that you know that what good and reasonable people should uh adhere to necessary there's something going on here and then
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911 2001 happened and when I woke up the next day I thought okay this would the West would be contrite saying yeah the things would be the way that the West has been interfering in other countries in the world um has blown back and we need to
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reconsider and be more humble the West you know the work but no but the next day the headlines were This Is War you know the response was aggression it was intensification of this imperialistic
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violent um attitude patriarchal attitude to the world and to others and then the Iraq War happened and you had all the lies about weapons of mass destruction so
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something really happened there and then that was a 2003 and in 2003 as you in heat wave and that was celebrated in the media's wonderful you know it's a decent weather
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long last in the UK this is wonderful so the combination of not the media not being able to understand what that European heat wave of 2003 met which at the time was the biggest natural
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disaster ever to hit you and the media was celebrating it's only in the UK and the Iraq War in 2003 that was either trigger and then from then on I uh I just you know
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actually it was like um if you're with a lover who's being unfaithful but you love them still and you keep going back to them they still keep being unfaithful they still keep kicking you in the teeth they still keep hurting you still keep
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going back more and more and more that was like me and liberalism right and then when I realized that that was not there for me there was not looking out for me there was nowhere to turn you know what I thought was my Ally was no longer my Ally that is really the
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Genesis of the book that is really the Genesis of my uh journey to critique um the liberal constructions of climate change so my PhD was about how did two degrees which was being marked as the
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scientists tell us we mustn't go above two degrees warming uh and to avoid dangerous climate change how did that get established how does that idea get reproduced in the media clear to me two
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degrees was a very high risk strategy but you looked at a science it was disaster um and eventually I guess science caught up and thought Oh no better go one and a half degrees was 66 chance one and a
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half degrees so my PhD was about um how the idea of two degrees centigrade is a dangerous limit um is manufactured and reproduced and legitimized in the mainstream discourse
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and this book is kind of an extension of those ideas it's drilling down a bit further into actually um so it moves Beyond two degrees and that whole Global North construction of
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what kind of crime problem climate change is is what I'm trying to address in the book um absolutely well I mean thank you for the the uh the journey the riveting Journey from how you got to the book I
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think to begin with uh I think a few listeners may be wondering what liberalism is um so I'd love to get an understanding of what do you mean by liberalism or
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what does it generally mean by liberalism and how does it relate to to your book in terms of climate change why is it such an important why does it warrant a book
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essentially thanks Javier so I think if you are anyone you've asked will have a different definition of liberalism so in the book I sort of quite quickly recognize this that um
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so for the purpose of the book I've got to stick my flag somewhere so this is my my claim or this is my definition of liberalism that informs the uh development of the book and the core of
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that is the idea of the individual that the individual as um kind of mistress or Master of the Holy Destiny um the individual as as God
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um individual as overseer um and that all actions all social organizations should be geared around the facilitation of the free association
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of individuals and this was um I came into the book and I was uh really with the idea of Bourgeois liberalism and so I think here on you know referring back to say the work of amative gauche um in uh the great
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Arrangement um and uh really and also like a Marxist perspective of this so the Bourgeois um I mean a break from feudalism but it's
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all about the individual it's all about um the accumulation of capital at the individual basis but it's also about ideas of order and what order means in the search for order
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uh that lies within that and um so I I use definitions around Bourgeois liberalism and I really focus in on this issue of the individual and why that um
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and that really evolved as I did the reading for the book and what the individual sort of emerges really the the concept of the individual and why this is important so the work I've been doing for a long time is
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around the communication of climate change in in an effort to affect Behavior change and so what that what lies at the core of that work is um the idea that people must voluntarily
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come to the table and choose to lead a low-carbon life it mustn't be imposed on people they must choose uh to do it so everything must be done to facilitate an
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environment in which the choice that person makes is the one that supports the Net Zero transition upgrades which are particularly in the book and a concept a particular in the book and
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that to me has got you know I can see that's got nowhere um I think it's it's and so it says like the individual so at the core of that is this uh this debate is it individual change versus system change and and uh
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on where the work I've been doing it's like uh well it's a bit of both um and uh you know the individual really is as an important role to play and eventually you know and ultimately when
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I'm trying to get to the point of trying to make a book is there's no such thing as the individual and that that is a basis for action on climate change is a failure we'll continue to fail uh we are not individuals we are
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um features of uh no man is an island as the uh as the phrase um goes so that's really what I'm looking to unpick and then and to extend that why right a bit what's the point of
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writing a book about it what I want to do in the book is as climate change becomes more of uh more widely discussed in our culture becomes a more prominent feature of our culture so more people
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will come into that debate and we'll cut big form ideas about what should be done about climate change what I want to do with this book is demonstrate how uh the language we use the liberal language
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climate change apps actually encapsulates incorporates um power certain power um
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structures certain ideologies it's been and it's so effective as an ideology because it seems like it's just natural and it could be impossible to think about who we are and the world and what we want in any other way and that's how
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why the other do so effective so what I'm trying to do with this book is unpack our power Works through the liberal language of climate change so that when we talk about it we can be
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more aware so run the points again I'm making the book and I'll take this from someone else and I can't remember who it is um but obviously a society in weapon said probably in the book but what I'm
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playing with here is I think what a radical idea is that there are we are not individuals we're simply nodes in the circulation of discourses and capital
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that's all Sciences is when it is and so and the ideas of agency are a middle class liberal fantasy and they're not the basis fraction or climate change what's my evidence for
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that well look around us so um so I mean just to summarize if I'm understanding your book correctly in terms of the intention it's really to
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bring in a way a collective awareness to the idea that liberalism is an ideology one and two the way in which we speak about climate change but even how we conceptualize the
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world how we how we act in the world how that all manifests us in a way that puts the individual as uh the premises of the individual the individual is sacred it's all about self-driven choice and it's
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about if change if you want change to happen you have to be the change you want to see in the world it's about the individuals the center of the universe right so I mean this is very interesting there's a
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I mean uh if I don't know where the praise is from but there's a phrase where awareness precedes control and I think I very much like the idea of bringing to the foreground things that
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we're lurking in the background so there's the famous quote from David Foster Wallace about you know the story about the two fish they're at there's two young fish swimming in a pond and all the fish comes by and says hey kids
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how's the water and then the other two fish are like what's the water I suppose the water in this story or in this uh in in in life right now is liberalism would you agree
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for us in the west yes and I was almost going to use that quote in the book and I think it dropped out in the end so thanks for introducing that exactly right yeah yeah sure sure so I'm before we get on to
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some of the guard rails or perhaps some of the uh the argumentation I wanted to push back so you said we are not individuals and so essentially positing the idea that we are as in society if we
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are at least in the in the in the global North and the West if we are going to help resolve climate change we can't rely on individual decision makers we can't rely on people like Greta thundberg or activists of these nations
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to sort of uh snap us out of it sort of so to speak um if that's the case I just thought a very the first challenge I would give is that throughout history there have been multiple movements for Progressive
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rights whether that's civil rights whether it's women's rights there have been several movements that have been led by a group of people which are formed a collective but perhaps started at the individual level do you not would you say that this is
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something that we can do at climate change it can just be a matter of the case that climate science as a as a field of study is very new its Inception was in the 60s or I guess in the 1890s but more like you said it
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came to the public awareness in the 80s and the 90s perhaps it's just not been that much time and perhaps if we let time go by although we don't have a lot of it with climate change in mind eventually we will get our act together
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what do you say to the challenge so obviously I see uh I've come across this idea before looking to other historical instances of when there has been changed how has that come about
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um and can we replicate that for climate change so the claim I make in my book is that we can't uh that liberalism has no answer to the
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crisis of climate change and so uh many of those uh examples that do emerge whether that's around um sort of identity colleagues politics
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whether it's around sort of civil rights Etc uh you know the form of what Martin Luther King uh said that got carried forward all the anti-capitalist stuff
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are stripped out right so so all of those movements have been able to sit within the framework of liberalism and not challenge liberalism they've been incorporated into the framework of liberalism liberalism is made stronger
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as a result because look is more about this progress this progress been around within liberalism that's been great I'm a big I'm From A working class background I'd write this book it doesn't say well it's a love of
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liberalism or what it could be it's allowed me from a working-class background to be sat here talking to you today and it is a very stimulating conversation very interesting stimulating but I'm blessed you know I'm
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one of the lucky ones so I have a lot of love for liberalism there's a say um it keeps uh you know sort of kicking me in the teeth so to come back to the point that I was trying to make and hopefully
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I can um uh get back there so the the point is that climate change cannot be resolved within liberalism right so to look to those other examples I claim uh is a misnomer because
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actually I mean liberalism will Triumph there's no one's going to overturn liberalism I can't see it hurt me but it hasn't got the answers to climate change the best is at the moment we are looking the the discourse uh that examining the
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book talks about solutions to climate change around Net Zero by Twenty about 1.5 C I think we're uh what's a 1.1 1.2 degrees Centigrade at the moment and
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certainly when I go on Twitter all I see is is images of drought and um floods and hurricanes and fires um across the world
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and Net Zero by 2050 is a strategy to continue increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases out to 2015 to give us 66 probability of
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warming not exceeding 1.5 C that's the best deal on the table sat here today I look at that and I say well we you know that so I can't see how societies and Food Systems Etc function if we continue
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with the next 20 odd years to increase huntersburg concentrations [Music] so no one can predict the future but I'm just you know just from what the science says Etc that seems to me really my risk strategy and that's what's on offer for
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liberalism and to look beyond that which is what I'm trying to do with this book there's two types of people apparently you know we're all deniers or we're doomers or deniers so one people the one set of people who challenging at zero
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because they want anything with no policy on climate change is all you know over overblown and exaggerated and then there's a few again on the margins not heard um get denigrated as doomers but well
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I'm just trying to base it on the empirical and historical and political analysis available to me um that says you know that liberalism cannot do this cannot deliver it you know we're not going to get made the progress the solution on offer from uh
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liberalism for climate change Net Zero by 2015 is it it's not what I would call a solution I don't know it's a solution too then I'll finish what it does how it gets how it gets legitimated by liberal
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commentators is to say it allows us to avoid the worst impacts of climate change what the worst impacts are I don't know I don't know if they're Extinction termination what they are uh but if in actual fact what liberalism is
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offering us is the best thing to offer us is survival mere survival then perhaps it's time to rethink what liberalism means and whether we need a
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different way of being in the world so it seems like as well uh if what you were saying in terms of 2015 did you say it was a 66 probability of not meeting
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yeah if we do everything laid out in the policies for 1.5 C uh that will by 20 uh by 2050 there'll be a 66 probability
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that warming will not exceed 1.5 degrees Centigrade that's what this policy is that's a solution that's the ambitious action right and as you as you talk about in your book from from what I've read as well is that 1.5
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degree Centigrade warming is not a happy place the current as we see right now with heat waves with floods with droughts the current scenario at 1.1 degrees Centigrade which is what we are
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right now is not great 1.5 is going to be far worse and so to say that 1.5 is the goal it's almost as if liberalism is complacent with catastrophe in a sense
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or perhaps it's a bit agnostic to catastrophe as long as liberalism is maintained would you is that would you say that's your argument essentially yeah and it's been uh brought down to a very few words by a number of authors I
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don't know different authors get cited as the originator for this very common statement it's easier to imagine the end of the world is to imagine the end of yeah right yeah some liberalism whatever you know so that's what motivates me how come when I speak to people and I've
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done a lot of workshops people no one wants what's coming and yet we are all shuffling mutantly so what was this very strange is it that this is the most advanced civilization we're reasonable rational this is the
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epitome of human development Evolution and this is where we're at what how could that possibly be yeah I mean this is just a quick anecdote but uh I've recently joined the
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workforce or would you say as a as a graduate so I'm working in the corporate world doing my corporate thing which I'm uh which uh I'm agnostic about and but
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uh what I find very interesting is the So Korea is roughly 80 000 hours roughly over the span of your whole life uh the what I find very bizarre is that
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people can select careers that have the careers exist sort of independent of climate change existing so people can work I don't know doing random jobs for their whole life not contributing towards
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mitigating or assisting with climate change in some way even if it's very very marginally and albeit there are some essential roles that you need to sort of work in to help me to get climate change but for all those that
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are working in I guess non-essential Services what I find very strange is someone that's doing that is why aren't people dedicating resources towards mitigating climate change given the scenarios that we have in place why
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aren't businesses reorienting towards mitigating climate change with all that we know that is in place and even though everyone acknowledges that it's going to happen or it is happening and that we need to be moving faster we aren't
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moving faster and I suppose that's a sort of strange maybe guilt that we are complacent to in being in the liberal Society we just have to expect individuals to arrive at
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the conclusions whenever they arrive at them even if the world is burning um so I I feel uh I've gone the transference of I guess uh anger or at least that's what I'm
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feeling from just like even just talking about it um but I mean just to jump back to the your previous point it seems as though previous movements
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uh they've succeeded not because not because of uh they've been able to succeed not because of liberalism but in spite of it in a way uh and perhaps I'm not framing that correctly but essentially liberalism's blind spot is
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climate or climate yeah liberalism blind spot is climate change and it's a problem that's so big and encompasses so many stakeholders so many players that no amount of individual changes going to
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mitigate it requires something that's much greater agreed agreed and I think and to extend that point that the idea that we are all agentic is the term
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individuals with agency is a middle is a middle class fantasy and I could kind of uh go down that path probably but yeah extrapolates right so everyone I've got
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you know I was brought up by I don't know baby you can edit you can be a bit facetious I was brought up by mummy and daddy to um you know do I'm an important person and I should be able to shape the world according to my wills and what I want I
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will have and so and then it gets extrapolated by these middle class actors who dominate the ngos and the disciples out to everyone what everyone's agency well I spend a lot of time uh I've come from working loss
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background my friends are working class I don't hang around with activists right that's not my world and um all there is is despair a turning back uh there's worry but that's not oh no I'm gonna you
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know do something about it is worry and it's a turning inwards as a result of that worry and uh a doubling down on the uh you know the search for short-term immediate gratifications
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yeah something I I feel I feel a bit of tension and with the argument about liberalism and climate change and perhaps having non-liberal arguments or Not Sorry non-liberal
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solutions to climate change something I feel uh perhaps the inner cynic in me is that perhaps this is an argument that only someone left of center could make because this is sounds like a
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right-leading person's worst nightmare oh no it's a global government where like everyone comes together and it's one big huge party uh I'm is it would you and I actually I I
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there are arguments I've seen to this degree it's sort of conspiratorial arguments I'm not too sure if you've seen uh people uh there's groups online that say that organizations like the
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world economic Forum uh sort of engaged in a huge a mass sort of coordination of trying to trying to take away your beef they're trying to put implants in you to track all your data with all your information with iot devices you know
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there's all this sort of conspiracy but I think the underlying essence of the argument is global control uh some sort of global entity controlling us is scary um what would you say to sort of a cynic
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on who's maybe right of Center who may say say that anti-liberal Solutions are sort of a dog whistle for communism some Global form of Communism or something like that perhaps that that is the
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argument the perhaps that is a solution but what would you say to that sort of view yes so um it's a great question I I pulled back I was had I was talking to someone earlier this week uh for a
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podcast and and I I kind of pulled my punches a bit towards the end of the book you know so what's the alternative because then one starts to say uh what is it anti-reason
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anti-intellectualism is it communism that you are suggesting so many of the critiques of liberalism uh that I draw on come from Marxist and communist thoughts
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um and research um and for me they are compelling the arguments obviously wasn't put them in a book about uh the idea of the individual as uh being unhelpful
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um and then so yeah you have these people who say um and I know that my my mum is one of them who gets all her well views from Facebook and these these groups I've encountered it and and you know it's a
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world view right so as much as no one's going to shift me from my world view and I say well I've done my research and I you know I've read these books and so you should listen to me I think what I would get to that have you end up
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uh trying to to make the point of this relevant to the book is that um what we're talking about here is control okay so and and when you said you know earlier you were saying about like what's the story of the book so George
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Orwell um said well and a famous essay why do I write and the first reason was vanity I write out about I want to be heard okay um I want to be someone in the world
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etc etc now so these um the great reset and all this uh stuff this comes from marginalized groups who have lost control lost control over their lives through Ai and and the discourse is
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you're going to lose all control over your life so they've been de-skilled they have found that board has been broken down and their ability to negotiate you know decent wage decent way of look way of life with a lot of
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unions and globalized Workforce has been undermined they see this credentialed classes who um uh they have no connection with their lives telling them what they're going to do
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um there's a book I haven't read it but they come across it in a review of it called why we drive and so it's and so so the car is so this idea of freedom is really key to it I think you really hit on something here Avion and I try and
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explore it in the book I don't think I do justice too because obviously it's complex but uh in the you know why we drive so when I'm in my car right that's my territory that's my you know I've got my it communicates a stages better where
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but I can drive where I want when I want I've got freedom of movement um I can take what risks I want on the road as long as I don't get kicked for it and you know that's the risk I take but I'm in control the car is almost at
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the last place for many people that I have any freedom or control it so it becomes a percentage in the UK at the moment where there's an effort to introduce low emission zones they speak
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the car car ownership has become the real Battlefield I just saw a headline today the conservatives are really so I think what for these people are sympathize with them right to sympathize that they've this is just another
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example climate policy of the middle classes the credential classes coming into their lives telling them what they can and can't do and I've got very little control left in my life very little room for maneuver and you want to
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come along and say that the last bit away from me now I you know I I that's what I think is happening here um what would I say I've got a compelling argument against them so I kind of got a lot of sympathy that's
00:33:29
exactly what's happening and I would say uh and um this and I think the Net Zero discourse when you looked at it is like uh yeah you know your life's rubbish you've got no control over your life
00:33:42
um and everything's the certainly not talking about the UK here where I think you know it's very much a declining country you know uh and um but look you can get an air source heat pump buy an air source heat
00:33:54
pump and everything will be great there's this Narrative of Net Zero has got nothing to offer the working classes right so the right this is the thing that people like Chris Hedges and others have said uh that liberals have kind of
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vacated a story of progression of a good life that means something to the mass of humanity and so what happens is the right and rush into that vacuum and populate it with these stories
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about you know cars Etc they can just reduce Freedom down to your ability to drive your car when and where you want and the left have got no response really I mean Roland bath said why is it the right I've always got the best stories
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and they have and I hear a lot of laments around brexit Take Back Control that was you know and that's honed in on in the UK is quicker than one the referendum for the right Take Back Control but of course you know in a and
00:34:45
again I draw a Marxist analyzes here in a you know in a capture site you've got no because once you once you've signed that contract for work you just talking about there that's it you know that that's um a heart um a third of your
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hours gone where you are not it's not a democracy it's not a control there the other third you're asleep and then the other third well ai's come to say what prison you've got there so you know this is why
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um it's no point just trying to solve the problem through air source heat pumps it's much bigger than that and after eight years of working on engagement and communication and seeing it go nowhere
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really you know it's uh you have to look beyond that you've got to look at the big picture I don't see any other way out of this yeah there's a I need to find this quote so essentially
00:35:34
uh how I sort of summarize what you're saying or perhaps have what I've taken away from it is that the freedoms that but well okay let me take a step back so
00:35:47
in response to the question about you know potential what a cynic would say if if uh what a response would be to a cynic who would say that this is an argument some sort of dog whistle for
00:35:59
communism is to say well first of all to point out something and to make an observation about the current set of Affairs doesn't necessitate some sort of solution following that so just because
00:36:11
we're saying liberalism is the water in which we swim in it is the way in which we conceptualize the world doesn't necessarily mean that we're saying because of this uh we ought to have this
00:36:24
solution so because liberalism is not solving it we ought to have communism the argument You're simply reporting is this is the way it is and this is how it has been so that's the first thing and then secondly in terms of actual
00:36:37
Solutions well I suppose that's up to that's up to your the people that read your book right and and and a viewers that listen to the podcast that think about what are the solutions
00:36:50
um and I don't know you've said that you mentioned some in your book but following your response how I sort of view it in this talking about sort of these conspiratorial sort of uh
00:37:01
um uh arguments about people taking away freedoms it seems as though it seems as though people are given freedom for it to be in the wrong places and for where it is
00:37:13
meant to be in the right places they don't have it so for example like you said right about workers being robbed of their livelihoods because of you know artificial intelligence because
00:37:26
the coal mine is closed and they can no longer work and then they're being appealed to by argumentation right leaning argumentation such as well climate change is all about taking away
00:37:39
your money either they don't want your interest they just want to reduce their missions but they don't care about you as an individual in a sense that is it it can be true and it is true in a lot of instances but
00:37:50
there's an argument that I think is well I think as you point out and as someone on our podcast pointed out Matt Huber he's a Marxist geographer which I didn't even know those two things could go together but he points out that
00:38:04
the Koch brothers and the right have correctly identified that the left have crap arguments with regards to how to appeal to people at climate change it cannot be about having a carbon tax and
00:38:18
then carb and then having the price affect the most disproportionate people in the country you have to have arguments of you have to show people why it matters and you have to give people value and so
00:38:32
I mean he talks about for example uh unionizing uh certain industries like the transport industry and then the electricity Industries so that workers are that work for when before wind
00:38:46
energy solar energy and whatnot can argue for better pay can get better livelihoods and then in uh and then following that emissions reduce and that's a legitimate way of saying this is why climate change
00:38:59
matters to you because it helps your livelihood it helps your family it helps the environment it helps everyone and it's not as simple as just saying well well if we have a client if we have carbon tax and everyone will want to do it because emissions are important
00:39:12
because obviously that's not the way to appeal to everyone um anyway sorry that was a long sort of summary and sort of uh point but yeah
00:39:24
yeah okay well with that in mind I think getting on track I think this could be interesting place to talk about maybe some non-liberal responses to climate change um do you have any at the top of your
00:39:37
mind that you think uh uh legitimate points that you think we can start at uh yeah I do I mean I think I see a lot of um
00:39:51
great ideas out there I'm always loathed to kind of try and step into this space because they uh the great if they don't come with a a strategy for resting power from
00:40:05
entrenched actors and power structures and they're not going to get anywhere um so I I do I just can I just preface this and see if this comes in with it
00:40:17
and then I'll come back to the question of what um there's a a quote in my book an African proverb uh when the music changes so does the dance right so ultimately I
00:40:31
think people generally would just do what they're told right and just you know we're born into the world so people just get on with it you know once they're gonna say well this change is coming this train's coming in they means you're you know if it's not aligned with
00:40:44
the interests of uh profit making the meaging a few people kick off and people soon get used to it and crack on um and um you know and and so within on those
00:40:58
um on those um I'm very influenced by the Russian Revolution okay and and how that came about and what that was about and you know I'm not saying there's necessarily
00:41:10
a highly environmentally sensitive transition it doesn't mean that um it always has to be that destructive of the world so I'm going to come to some solutions but I think what the core of it and I
00:41:23
think this is one of the challenges of liberalism is like what do we think of people do we fear people or do we love people do we have faith in the people I think liberalism talks about the individual Etc but actually I don't
00:41:35
think it's got any faith in the people um and I would um and I'll give an example I am I'm going to jump in a lump in a few points here on my journey to the point I want to make um
00:41:48
we hear a lot about the trust transition um and uh other climate Justice Etc but there's just pronunciation within the global law right it must be fair it must be fair but I didn't hear anything about that so there's your lady June protests
00:42:01
in Polaris and the working class kicked off in an uncontrolled way and I went shortly afterwards to a kind of a think tank thing in Brussels with influential people from the world of global um
00:42:14
you know really powerful neoliberal and liberal think tanks um in the heart of Brussels and it was apparent that that was you know are they a quote in my book from from the the kind of the the flyer
00:42:27
I had for it's only about 15 of us employed it I didn't get invited back but um you know it was they just themselves over that you know the work because some of that argument was about yeah we're up for this but you it's got
00:42:39
to be a socialist you can't just lump a load of costs onto us so you know you see this the the effort of liberalism to incorporate that within this discussion of just transition Fair transition no I turned my ear the working class ever
00:42:51
used by the way um and um so one last thing well what you know uh you know what do we think people are they're good have they got the capability to be part of a different world or do they have to be told what to
00:43:04
do or can they be actors in This Etc um and I would say this point and then I will move on to so what should we do I reason last weekend I went with my next door neighbor um we went to
00:43:16
um the football match local team uh who were in the Premiership doing very well and my sons are both into their football they support a different team at 24 and 22. um and through them and through that
00:43:29
experience I encounter um a lot of passion amongst the working class A lot of energy a lot of intelligence all directed towards something utterly meaningless you know
00:43:42
like a football result so you have all these podcasts you have all these Radio phone injury all these conversations on the train back on the football you know he did that he did that he should do this they should real engagement real
00:43:54
passion real energy directly towards something pointers so I think like Lenin has said this you know the better the people the liberal sort of the bourgeoisie uh fall back from the you know fear they fear the energy and
00:44:06
intelligence of the of the um of the working classes of the masses uh so for all their talk of agency and individualism and the love of people as we see this with the wars and everything
00:44:18
else ultimately they don't care they just want you know it's just another form of control and power and we know and we can see this I just seriously in France isn't it macron in Nigerian just saying well you're not having no Independence you know that this is all
00:44:31
this it's all strong as ever so what are we going to do what should we do about it so with all that in mind um I I think um I think the global construction of
00:44:44
climate change and I think you make the point it has or as I do quotes Isaac saying it has to be Global well it is global at the moment you're like liberalism is a global Creed um and there is a global Universal dangerous limit for climate change
00:44:57
Apparently one limit for everyone um one experience of climate change for everyone so we have that we've got Global Climate governance at the moment it doesn't work for Ordinary People it doesn't work in terms of reducing
00:45:10
emissions um so I and kind of I'm going to make the claim for the nation-state national identity under kind of a strong centralized climate state that
00:45:21
prioritizes whatever it means to build um to respond to climate change in a way that builds a truly sustainable and fair and equal future for all and that means
00:45:34
you know socialism in some form that means some kind of um critical analysis of the role of technology in our lives because at the moment that's a sacred that technology
00:45:46
will save us that uh and to try and challenge that is to bring down a whole heap of um a program on yourself um and it is to then print places structures that give people control
00:45:58
their lives like the old Soviets uh you know again I know it's all loaded with Lane uh with um negative uh connotations Etc but I believe in the people but I believe the structures need to be there to withdraw
00:46:11
from this sort of globalized Highly technical highly kind of integrated global system where I relying on my food from all parts of the world and I've got no I've got no way if everything broke down I've got nowhere surviving I don't
00:46:24
know what anything how anything Works around me I don't know how to grow my food I don't know how to get water I'm stuffed you know we all are really so I'm saying yeah in a way um and uncomfortable as it is
00:46:36
um to withdraw back from the dream of technological progress and etc etc the last 50 years um and think of a different way of living and I know that there's um
00:46:49
there's risks and dangers with that um but at least it might give us some time to work out a longer term way of living in the world because at the moment I don't think we've even got till 2050. yeah
00:47:02
um the the quote that zizak says is that disaster communism as is an antidote to disaster
00:47:13
capitalism the state must assume a much more active role it is through our effort to save Humanity from self-destruction that we're creating a new Humanity that is only through this Mortal threat that we can Envision a
00:47:26
unified humanity and uh in reference to unified uh the one of the only times I felt truly unified this year perhaps even in two years I mean that
00:47:40
sounds a bit so wild to say that but I was watching the Women's World Cup recently uh and Australia was doing very very well the Matilda's the team and we ended up the team ended up getting
00:47:53
through to the semi-final and uh on the night everyone went to the pub people that never go to the pub went to the pub
00:48:06
people that always go to the pub brought 10 extra friends and the atmosphere inside the pubs inside the stadiums was unlike anything I've ever felt before
00:48:18
because like any national sort of attendance if you've ever gone to a sporting event that's like a like a World Cup it is just everyone is on board everyone wants the team to win and
00:48:32
the feeling of knowing that a goal could happen or feeling as if it will happen or even an experience if you're lucky enough to experience a goal happening is one of the most electrifying feelings because
00:48:45
it is shared amongst everyone and to your point Perhaps it is channeled into something that maybe quote unquote not useful but I think it is a perfect example of what could be it seems like sport
00:48:59
is being sport is delegated uh oh no sport is not seen as something that we need that people of power or people with interest need to protect us against because it makes them money right
00:49:14
if Sport and celebrating a goal was to have a huge I guess net negative for those in power I don't think it is something we would have in a unified experience something to experience right so I suppose that uh what I'm wondering
00:49:26
is that this is a person a rhetorical question but how can we get to the point where we feel as though we are about to score a goal but the metaphor being when we can mitigate climate change in
00:49:40
such a way that it elicits that that sense of you know that sense of uh I guess I don't know Euphoria but it's a bit it's not exactly one for one
00:49:54
fair enough but um yeah anyways there's just a tangential sort of thing but uh coming back to the freedom I thought I found the kierkega guard quite so he says people def demand
00:50:07
freedom of speech as compensation for freedom of thought which they seldom use which I thought was a great sort of a great encapsulation of that but uh I
00:50:19
wanted to touch on an additional sort of pushback that I'm feeling so we sort of discussed a solution or the idea of liberalism why it's important
00:50:32
how can why why potentially is the reason for inaction or it is the primary reason for an action we've discussed the potential solution of uh climate State as you've said
00:50:45
which I which how I'm understanding you is it's a one unified body where I guess other nations are all participating to say this is what we want we want to clean climate we want clean environment
00:50:57
we want to protect biodiversity Etc this is something we'll all agree on and we've pushed back a bit but in terms of another pushback so if what if liberalism is such a fundamental value
00:51:10
of Western Society if it is something that we if it is the water in which we swim in and we don't even realize it is there is it is it realistic oh I don't even I don't
00:51:24
really like the word realistic but is it is it do you see it as a plausible solution to say we need to remove it or we need to not have it in this particular context or is that even not
00:51:37
the right question is can we replace the value or can we exchange it is that is that possible so one of the points I make in the book
00:51:52
is a great pushback and one of the points I make in the book is that and again I just mentioned it earlier you know my love of liquid is in a great regretitude for you know that freedom of thought that comes with it wonderful
00:52:04
it comes with downsides you know what am I going to do today who am I going to be today um but liberalism had the promise of kind of open um
00:52:17
examination of what we might do and how we might and it break with tradition we just do this because previous generations did it and that's why we do it we investigate into science we make we improve our
00:52:31
understanding of the world um and we can manipulate the world uh to uh to better um extract resources Etc but also to improve health care and you know a
00:52:43
number of other benefits and you know and and over the last 20 30 years liberalism is as what has it done it's um it's freed women from the oppression by men it's you know freed people to to
00:52:57
live their their identity without fear of attack or marginalization um so you know it's it's done many wonderful things that we would no one
00:53:09
would ever want to lose those uh things um but so what it what I think is happening is is that uh so that's what liberalism in theory the enlightenment Etc has always done it's been in tension
00:53:22
with conservative ideas small C conservative ideals progress and conservation always I'm industrialization and Romanticism there's always been that tension that dialectic and that's been productive at
00:53:34
times and here is another driver of change climate change a driver it I'm proposing a driver of historical change again liberalism as uh it is
00:53:47
ideal stepping up to the plate what how should we live in the face of this and that would include I think truly the liberalism looking at itself and you know it kind of um it becomes a
00:54:00
bit messy and difficult then saying well what are the elements of where liberalism has taken us that we want to keep what do we abandon how do we manage those tensions moving forward and I think and this is where the and
00:54:14
this is what I'm getting at actually liberalism has found itself it's become quite sclerotic and it's become unable then to fulfill its potential in the face of climate change because it's saying well whatever it is we do these
00:54:27
are the things we're not going to examine these are the things that are not up for debate uh and but these are the very things we should be examining so this is what and um so this is what I'm on about really
00:54:39
like the limits of liberalism in the face of climate limits and they were at this impasse why would I speak for a billion people but liberalism should say right okay you
00:54:54
know re-examination of everything because we're reaching this impasse what comes next yeah I I feel from the based on what you're saying is sort of a I think it's
00:55:05
a psychoanalytic idea I don't really know but the idea that certain okay so I'll use a personal example just to make it more clear and less abstract
00:55:18
so when I was younger I wasn't the brightest sort of kid I had fun did random thing didn't pay much attention in school but eventually this led to me sort of developing some sort of neuroses
00:55:30
about not being good enough not being smart enough exactly anyways you get the you get the idea yeah yeah yeah and because of this Neurosis I had learned
00:55:43
ways to adapt so I became someone that was highly ambitious someone that strove to do the best in everything that they did and it worked in some ways because I ended up doing really well in school got
00:55:57
into a good University he got a good job Amos but the mechanism of the trying to be trying
00:56:09
to avoid the feeling the Neurosis or whatever uh was useful to a point and then it stops becoming useful it starts becoming something that actually holds you back
00:56:21
it starts becoming something that essentially is causing you more harm than good and even though it did cause it it in some ways saved you or at least uh alleviated a lot of hardship at the
00:56:35
time it no longer does so and it is causing the inverse effect now so like like using the example liberalism has brought us many good things it has allowed us to uh it allows us to to bring rights give
00:56:48
rights to people Civic civil rights the rights to women the rights to indigenous peoples the protection of the protection of Rights for certain uh individuals and and whatnot and it's been very very good
00:57:01
and it's without it we probably uh well we know because in certain societies where liberalism is not a key value there are certain things we can say well this is the value liberalism brings and
00:57:14
now we've met a new challenge that we have to rise to which is climate change which we are not equipped to deal with and so the solution is to like you said liberalism has reached the time to
00:57:26
examine itself there's a really good Steinbeck John Steinbeck quote which I it reminded me where he's looking at a horizon in this book it's called the book's called Cannery Row and he says
00:57:40
he looks at the Horizon the character says it is the hour of the Pearl it is the interval between day and night where time stops to examine itself now this is uh this is so beautiful I've
00:57:52
memorized but the idea of examining oneself is something that I think is a very useful metaphor to say or personifying liberalism uh and
00:58:06
uh and perhaps I'll just finish off on that one last Quick story as well and I I've been trying to read a specific not really successfully but a book called The existentialist Cafe and it's about
00:58:19
uh John Paul satra and Simone de bevoir it's sort of like a semi-autobiographical sort of book but they the author talks about how these two philosophers they arrived at the
00:58:32
time in which World War II was occurring where they felt as though there wasn't any freedom to be oneself there was a war and then after the war there was chaos there was disaster and their sort of philosophy allowed them to embody a
00:58:45
life of Freedom it was their circumstance was and their philosophy was a response to the environment around them and so I suppose this is an invitation to listen as an officer to to
00:58:57
earlier there's a response to listeners to say well this is the perfect ground fertile ground for new philosophies for new ideas for new solutions to come about and they don't have to be within the
00:59:10
liberalism I suppose that's that's uh how I would put it I don't know if you have any thoughts on that that would be a very liberal response to our problem yeah I know oh yes okay you
00:59:23
know so it doesn't have to include limited exactly but um of course uh that just doesn't you know it is just not really of ease you know people on very few people are ready but I think I just thought through the book starting to
00:59:35
make some connections with people perhaps you know it's some glimmer of yeah right to start to you know emerge the willingness to start that difficult self-examination is a great analogy you
00:59:47
make support on yeah and and I think they'll make and I can't I can't think of the quote now as a quote in the book but an ideology by the time it becomes entrenched has already outlived its usefulness and that the
00:59:59
task then and this is from the historian wife w-h-y-t-e who um uh you know the most urgent task is to uh deconstruct that ideology name it's train you know uh
01:00:13
expose it deconstruct bit yeah yeah I said but you know name it know it for what it is because that's the thing but this is it is it my geology is the water in which we swim in right so it is successful because it doesn't even
01:00:25
appear as ideology so Net Zero is not ideology any critique of Net Zero is ideological that's how it gets presented that's the what one finds in the decibels
01:00:37
[Music] well I think I mean that being said I think we've arrived at a very good point to sort of start closing off and I'm curious to see if you had any
01:00:54
final points or any uh final thoughts you'd like to leave listeners with uh whether that be new ideas from your book or a continuation or a summation of what
01:01:06
we've just discussed thanks well I will take that invitation I think the most important um ethical imperative the primary ethical imperative at the moment and this is where
01:01:19
um I'm looking to move forward to next with my work is uh to take the idea that uh societies cannot organize effectively to live with
01:01:32
the risks and impacts of climate change without at least to some level a shared understanding of what those impacts and risks are I feel the liberal discourse of climate change has failed to do that
01:01:45
and I see that most Express most clearly in the imagery of our Net Zero future which I see uh corporations you don't have imagery about like in 2015. governments have it research
01:01:58
institutions have it and it's a world pretty much like now it's liberalism minus the emissions um and um and we're all going to be like that wherever you are in the world you know
01:02:11
this is the vision for us all you know whether you know whatever continent you live in whatever your culture uh and climate change impacts have disappeared from this 2050 there is no climate change and you look at I can share them with it so the work I'm doing at the
01:02:24
moment of moving into is a research agenda to build a new visual vocabulary of our 2015 future which is scientifically more accurate because the current representations are
01:02:39
almost a former science denial as as strong as you'll see anywhere so scientifically accurate are based on what people want from their 2050 future and
01:02:52
what is actually possible within where we are and what uh impacts we're going to have to live with so it's building a new more inclusive more diverse and more realistic set of images of our 2050
01:03:07
future to build a shared understanding of the risks we face and that feels to me an important starting point for um uh delivering better outcomes for us all
01:03:20
and why imagery why imagery and this is my final point and I'll go back in time to three little times back in the Medieval ages of churches in say UK uh you have stained glass windows you have pictures all along the walls people were
01:03:33
not literate and people are not literate about climate change right and people were not literate about we're not literally Full Stop in those days and so how did you tell the story of the kingdom of God and how did you tell people how to live it was through
01:03:45
imagery and that and so you have this very uh image Laden uh sort of architecture and discourse of Christianity uh in the UK and that's
01:03:58
what we need again now we need it's not about talking about emissions about parts per million about 20 50 about 1.5 C it's a build of visual vocabulary of what's possible what is available to us
01:04:12
and through that to build that shared understanding of the risk we've faced which doesn't exist and environment where that leads to I don't think it's a solution to everything but that appeals to me the Gap in where where we need to
01:04:23
move to next so that's for me where uh The Next Step where I want to LEAP on from from the book The Next Step song from what the arguments laid out in the book absolutely and I suppose just to tag on
01:04:36
to to that line of thinking um I would say also stories are very uh a very powerful tool of communication when climate denials or even people that believe in climate change have not
01:04:49
really looked at any evidence when they're determining whether their belief that when determining their belief in something a huge Factor at least what I've seen in my personal life is someone's told them about something and that someone that they trust and the
01:05:02
story in which they've told is very compelling and they feel well I mean this person this person just told a great story how could I not believe them so it's that visual sort of uh that Vision the visuals along with
01:05:14
the storytelling which you could say create the mental visuals um in a way I think are very powerful and I suppose one example of a society which they were able to do that perhaps
01:05:26
most I would say the most successful Society is the indigenous Australian society which has the longest continuing uh people on on the entire planet as I
01:05:39
understand about 50 to 60 000 years and a really provocative idea I've come across within indigenous thinking in Australia is the idea that the use of
01:05:50
artwork so listeners may be very familiar with indigenous artwork looks like dot paintings to craft a much bigger painting um what the first thing is quite interesting to know is a lot of the
01:06:02
painting indigenous paintings are from a bird's eye point of view so it gives you a much it gives you a very different idea of of what things are as opposed to looking
01:06:14
them as if you're looking at them straight on but the second thing is is that our conception of the of what they're doing is Art is an incredibly Western lens and so
01:06:25
the idea that art is a commodity one is a very Western idea but two how the indigenous people view what they're doing it is not
01:06:37
conceived as art it is conceived as story it is conceived of finding meaning in their surroundings in their world if I understand correctly which are perhaps I'm not 100 right but in essence it's
01:06:51
about storytelling it's about communication and so I think those two sort of ideas in terms of the most successful in terms of lifespan longevity uh peoples using
01:07:05
visuals storytelling to pass on stories from for Millennia I think is a good example what you're talking about but I think that's a a good place to uh wrap up thank you I've enjoyed this conversation
01:07:18
immensely thank you so much for the chance to appear on your podcast
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