Hey everyone, welcome back to Looking Outside, or if this is your first listen, a warm welcome.On this show, we explore familiar topics for a fresh perspective.
We've explored climate and sustainability here from a few different angles, from architecture and how we design buildings to food.So on this episode, we're looking at what sociology can tell us.
and what role rebellion plays or disobedience plays in shaping change for environmental action.Joining me to share in a truly insightful and educated exploration of this is Dr. Dana Fischel.Welcome, Dana.Thank you so much for having me, Jo.
Thank you so much for coming on.I've been so excited about this.I just finished reading Dana's book.It's incredible.It's right behind me for anyone watching on video.Dana, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Great.So first and foremost, I'm a social scientist.I'm a sociologist.I work as an academic.I direct the Center for Environment, Community and Equity at American University. And I'm also a professor in the School of International Service there.
I have been studying climate policymaking for 25 years now.
And I actually, it's funny because I started out in climate, not because I wanted to be in climate, but because I was looking for like a good case to understand decision making and the ways that the different actors involved made the sausage, right?
And because that's what I study is sausage making really, the social sausage making. And so I ended up getting this grant for my dissertation that was specifically to do international work studying policymaking in Japan.
And I got assigned somebody who was working on climate, and he made this whole case about how this is a great case.And so I actually started working on climate pretty early on.My dissertation was written during the end of the 90s.
So I was doing it following the Kyoto Protocol, which is now like ancient history. And since that time, I have written a number of books that touch on climate politics.I also study activism, which historically I studied kind of one or the other.
But what I realized as I was moving forward in time, and the world was getting warmer, and we really weren't doing enough to stop it, and activism was evolving and becoming more confrontational, is that there's a story to be told.
that is a combination between the two and the ways that the climate crisis is motivating people to become specific types of activists, but also how the activism can help.
And I actually was tapped with the last round of the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to write a specific section for Working Group 3, which is the Working Group on Mitigation, around civic activism and engagement to bring in kind of the citizen perspective.
And so when I wrote that, I was like, yes, there's a space here.And so that's why I wrote this book.
And so that's what I spent a lot of my time doing these days is thinking about how we're going to get to the other side of the climate crisis and what role we all have to play in getting there.
Yeah, a very big meaty topic.And what's really interesting is you started by saying that this wasn't necessarily the area that you were like, this is definitely what I'm going to do for the next 25 years of my life, but you stuck with it.Why?
Well, I kept coming back to it, honestly.My first book, which was my dissertation, was called National Governance in the Global Climate Change Regime.And it compared response to the Kyoto Protocol in the US, Japan, the Netherlands.
And then from there, I actually shifted and my second book was called Activism Inc., which was all about activism in the United States.And then I shifted back.
And so I kept returning to climate change and climate policymaking, because it kept getting worse, right?And because we were not The policymaking was not getting us where we needed to be.
And so like I talk about in the book, I used to go to all the climate negotiations and we would sit there and feel like we were there on this plight to save the world and everybody was there.
civil society and NGOs and business groups and the policymakers and everybody got to interact it used to be an extremely transparent regime so people were all there and you invariably stay up all night waiting for that final text to come out that was going to stop the problem and then everybody would go home be like we did it that's it climate change done
And then, unfortunately, next year around, it was no better.In fact, it was worse.Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere kept growing up and up, which is just really problematic, and it's particularly problematic now.
I think that the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the new one, just said that we're on path to surpass 2 degrees Celsius warming, and by the end of next century, 3 degrees of warming, which everybody thought we were never going to get to.
and we're only this year we're around 1.5 degrees but this is just for this individual year and things are on fire it's terrible so that's why i kept returning social scientists we study social processes but it's really important to understand the background and the natural science like in this case we're going to see a lot of social conflict we're already seeing social conflict that's climate driven as areas become uninhabitable
resource scarcity grows and people move to get away from the effects of climate change.And that's going to continue.And as that continues, I know as a sociologist, that causes trouble.
It's a kind of an unfortunate thing that you have to keep studying this topic because it's not improving.It's an interesting case study, but also a little bit A little bit sad.
What's also not improving that struck me when you were talking was social cohesion.
So social norms shifting, social division, climbing, polarization, climbing, and all of these things growing to a point where we're seeing this kind of decline of global peacefulness.
as the Global Peacefulness Index shows, this rise of protests, which is kind of like what we'll dive into later, whether, you know, that's a good sign or a bad sign, but social cohesion seems to be also much more fractured now.
Well, I mean, I guess there's that question of whether social cohesion, or I like to think about, I think about this, the other side of that, which is political polarization, which, you know, is the flip of that.
It's hard to say which came first, right?Certainly climate change is one of the topics that has been most politically polarized for the longest period of time of late.And it is a great place to look if you're looking for political polarization.
So it provides a wonderful and interesting case, but I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.
So it's interesting to be working on it and being like, look at these exciting opportunities to do research, which I find interesting and terrible all at the same time.
It's interesting also, I guess, like when you study the social sciences, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're studying a combination of human behavior, social life, societies, how people come together, how they come apart, I guess, and what they're governed by or willing to be governed by.
That's exactly right.I look at social actors that can include state market actors, but also civil society, civic groups, and then how they create kind of patterns of engagement and connection, and what explains those things.
Patterns of engagement and connection.Yeah, that's really beautifully put.
So I guess engagement with the planet and with sustainability is a really interesting part of that because is this accurate to say that most people don't feel as connected to the planet and to environmental issues as they should?
Like we feel very connected to how much my coffee costs me or what kind of car I'm going to be able to afford to buy.
And then the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, like all of those other factors that are doing the right thing, seem like a second order or third order consideration.
Absolutely.I mean, I think that unfortunately, the drive with regard to protecting the environment or making decisions based on it really ends up coming after we feel threatened by it.Like, it's one thing to save to pay a lot for a cup of coffee.
It's another thing to say you can't get coffee anymore, right?And the question is, at what point will people actually act to protect the things that they care about?And will it be too late at the point?
And so that's kind of what you explore in the book a little bit is like, when is it going to get to that point where people are forced to act?
And I think a central hypothesis in the book is that it's going to be accumulation of disasters, essentially, that get to a point where people are forced to take action, or maybe, hopefully, the government takes action first and forces people in their local nation or communities to take action.
Yeah, that's very well put.
I mean, basically, the argument is that unfortunately, having done years of research collected mountains of data from policymakers and business representatives from activists, it is very clear that the social change that is needed, the systemic change that the scientists have made very clear is necessary to get us through the climate crisis without without too much harm being done, will only be driven by people experiencing personally pain and suffering.
And so the question that remains is how much pain and suffering?How many lives will be lost to the climate crisis before people mobilize and push back to get policymakers to do what's necessary?
Because the policymakers, unfortunately, are well documented to be under the thumbs of fossil fuel interests. They have privileged access to resources.They have privileged access to power.They pay for it.
So it's bought and sold by fossil fuel interests.And as long as that's the case, it's very hard to imagine those people are going to make decisions explicitly against those who are paying for their campaigns.
Yeah, so this is one of the things that's really baffling for me as an Australian living in America, is how much your political campaigning is bought for, essentially.
So not just from fossil fuel, but a whole number of organizations or corporations that essentially fund these candidates, that then their policies are reflective of some of the interests that they've committed to, pre-committed to, before they were elected into positions of power.
And I think one of the reports that I read said that basically whichever presidential candidate has had the most campaign funding is more likely to win, which to me is just scary in and of itself.
But it also speaks to like, where's that funding going?It's going to local community messaging, to media.And so it also then puts the onus on the media and some of the local communities and
maybe regulating or pushing back or being objective around some of those things that they're getting.
Particularly because we know that a lot of that money is going towards misinformation in communities.
I mean, take for example, right now, so countries all over the southeast of the United States are reeling from Hurricane Helene, which hit a week and a half ago now. There are areas that are still devastated and still recovering.
They're still looking for bodies in some parts of the country.
It's an interesting case because those areas that were most hard hit are also areas that tend to be particularly conservative and red areas in swing states, particularly around North Carolina.
So I was just reading an article this morning about this, saying that because of this disaster, there's been a whole bunch of misinformation and people pushing for misinformation in these communities, so that the people who have experienced these disasters don't recognize the fact that historically, Democrats are the ones who tend to provide funding and support for the kinds of programs that they are going to need.
Take, for example, FEMA, which is the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
So FEMA is currently working on a budget that was capped thanks to the Republicans in the Congress and the continuing resolution that they passed, which basically means that the president wanted to put more money towards FEMA's budget.
Because he knew that we were living through one of the hottest years on record.
We were coming out of an El Nino into a La Nina, which means that science says we're supposed to have a very bad hurricane season, which is made worse because of how warm the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Oceans are right now.
All those things are well documented.So none of this is a surprise, right?
however the money was capped and now we're running into we're less than 30 days from a national election where congress is going to be determined as well as the president united states and there's all this misinformation going into swing states particularly areas that have experienced disaster recently because we know that those people are going to be like wow who's here to help me
It tends to be that the Democrats are the ones that come out and support, which is absolutely necessary after a disaster.
So there's a whole bunch of information coming out about how the Democrats seeded the weather and created the hurricane to try to hit red areas.I don't know if you've seen it.It's trending on TikTok.
It's horrible to watch because it's so it's, it's, you know, it's the kind of stuff that the media environment that we're in right now makes possible because it's so decentralized.
And on one hand, it's nice to have the ability for people wherever they are to be able to create their own media, right?That's representative.But it also means that misinformation can thrive and it's thriving in a really dangerous way now.
Yeah, definitely.And, you know, I think it's also the media loves sensationalizing things because they get more clicks and more views out of it.So it's the endorphin hit that they want from us, but the consequences are worn by the individual.
So I know that in the book you write about this quite a lot is the action that's taken by the Democratic Party or the Republican Party and driving action for climate change.
But you do kind of objectively say that Joe Biden's actions have been, I think you gave it a C, so they're okay, but they're not quite as good as they can be.
So is it really going to be changed from the federal government and from the president's office that's really going to drive the U.S.to a better place when it comes to climate change?
Your country of Australia is another great example where the government just announced three big new coal plants this past weekend, I believe.And yet they're talking about how they're going to protect the environment and you can't do both.
And they're trying to get the COP 31 round of the negotiations to be housed in Australia. So it's like, hey, we're going to we're going to extract more coal and burn it or send it to other countries to be burned.
But we should be the ones who lead on climate decision making.This is a perfect example.The United States is doing it to the United States right now is the number one oil producer and number one natural gas producer in the world.
And if you've listened to anything from the debates between Kamala Harris or the vice presidential candidates, what you hear is that both parties talking about how we're going to continue to extract.
That is the exact opposite of what we need to be doing.And that's the reason that I gave President Biden a C. I've been studying climate policymaking since the 1990s.I have studied every failed policy that has gone through the Congress.
I've studied a bunch of executive orders that have failed.They've all failed until now. So I applaud the Biden administration.I applaud the Congress for passing the Inflation Reduction Act.
But I also can tell you that the Inflation Reduction Act is a first step in a very long and difficult process to address the climate crisis in the United States.And it is absolutely insufficient to get us where we need to go.
The United States won't even meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement, which are seen to be not enough to cap global heating.That's why I give them a C. It's a good effort.It's a good start.We need more.
And the way to do that is not by extracting more resources and certainly not by sending them to other countries, which is what a lot of people are talking about doing.
I feel like this is the common conversation, unfortunately, when it comes to environmental commitments and action, knowing that we're only, according to the fact check I did yesterday, about 17% on track with the SDGs by 2030.
I mean, that's pretty abysmal.And it feels like we keep giving everyone a bit of a like, It's okay.Pat on the shoulder.You're getting there.You're doing something.I guess something is better than nothing, but we all know that it's not enough.
But when we talk about what is enough, enough means pretty significant sacrifice as well in our way of life and what we're comfortable with.If we turn all of the oil off today, it would have pretty dire consequences on people's livelihoods.
their health and well-being or the economy like everything has a trade-off.So is that why this topic feels so overwhelmingly complex?
I think that's a good summary.I mean, I think though that I mean nobody is realistically saying and turn off the oil or the natural gas today, but there are ways to start to turn the tides, right?
Turning the tides means no more building of new fossil fuel infrastructure.Fossil fuel infrastructure has a lifetime of 30 to 40 years, right?
So we are currently building infrastructure today, which we expect whoever's building it and whoever is invested in it is expecting to make money off of it for the next 30 to 40 years.
And that's what we call stranded assets if they then are told they can't extract natural resources or burn natural resources to fuel them and make their money off of them.
And then they have an argument to say that we can't do the transition that needs to happen.So that's why people constantly are dragging their feet.There's constantly challenges to the minimal efforts that have come through.
But that's what that's where we need to go.
I mean, and that is why in the book, what I say is that it really is going to have to be on the pain and suffering is what we call climate shocks, which are going to hit and they're going to hit faster and they're going to be more severe.
A week and a half ago was Helene.This week, it's Milton. who strengthened to a category, I think he's a category five now, hurricane in record time.
There are all these meteorologists I know down in Florida who are talking about how this is unprecedented.It may or may not hit Tampa at that level.But the thing is that this kind of Climate shock is going to wreak havoc all over.
It'll be people in the United States, it'll be people in Nepal last week, before that it was in Europe.And as people start to come to terms with the fact that we're going to continually see and experience the effects of climate change,
There's going to be pressure because, as the research shows us, windows of opportunity open for policy making that people would never consider right now.And that means the kinds of systemic changes that are needed.
For example, getting natural gas out of buildings, requiring that we start to only sell and transition to electric vehicles like they did in Norway.
Some of these things are not that, they're not that terrible when you look at them one at a time, but they will require life changes.But most of these changes are systemic and not individual.
I mean, there's also a very, very good case to be made, and there's a lot of people talking about this, particularly in Europe, to transition to plant-based food.
at least to some degree, because if we look at the agricultural industrial complex, particularly around meat production, it has a huge carbon footprint, not only producing the meat, but also transporting it and then people's consumption of it has a very substantial effect on the climate crisis as well.
The really interesting thing about this topic for me is that we have a lot of really great solutions or alternatives or, you know, what we often talk about in our business in McDonald's is we don't have to change our entire portfolio right now to plant-based, but people are wanting the option every once in a while to eat something different.
And we have this in a lot of our European markets, these plant-based products.So.
Well, I could tell you as somebody who has had to go to Burger King to get an impossible burger, I would love to be able to go to McDonald's and get a plant-based burger.Alright, let's see what we can organize for Dana.
We'll get a client out of it.I can guarantee it.
My kids would love to be able to go to McDonald's again.
Yeah, I can imagine, of course.
But I think that's a really interesting example of where people can vote with their wallets and the more that we act on the things that we believe are right for us or right for the planet or are aligned with our values or maybe those shifting cultural norms that we were talking about, the more that the systems that govern us and that enable massive market shifts
we'll pay attention and we'll start to invest in new and different areas, right?So it's our individual actions matter.
Oh, no, I completely agree with you.I think that's very important.
I do think, though, that a lot of businesses, particularly fossil fuel companies and fossil fuel interests, have historically focused on redirecting all of this to the consumer level, right?
And there is a bunch of ways that our energy system must be changed from the top down. unless we all go off the grid and generate our own electricity and just live off of whatever we produce, we are plugged into a system that is determined for us.
And so in that way, we need to recognize that we can't just do it ourselves, which is why first of all, we all need to work together.And one of the best ways that we can work together and create power is by pushing back and pushing
elected officials to actually follow through on what they say they're going to do when they run for office rather than following through on whoever gave them the most money which is how it's been of late.
And that's you know it's an unfortunate reality as you mentioned earlier to the American political system and it's gotten a lot worse since Citizens United passed.
I don't see that changing any time in the near future but citizens still are the ones who vote. And we have a say, we're going to have a say in less than a month at the ballot box to determine who gets to hold office, right?
We can require that the people we vote into office don't take fossil fuel money, so that we know that when they say they care about climate change, they actually do.Or they actually follow through on those commitments, right?
And that will be extremely valuable and a really important addition to making those changes in your everyday life in terms of your purchasing behavior, which we should absolutely do as well.
So a total side question for you, but just out of curiosity, why is it that we don't have stronger green voices in politics in America?
Part of the problem is that we have a two-party system in America, and historically, very moderate flanks have led these parties.
That's not the way it is right now in the Republican Party, and there's been a lot of research that's documented how the Republican Party has shifted more conservative in the past eight years or so.But in general,
What we see is more what we call a regression to the mean, which is those folks tending to be more similar because they then can compete with one another to get more campaign finance, which unfortunately is a necessary component of the way that campaigns work in the United States right now.
and there's a whole bunch of corporate money in politics, then if you opt out of that, and I still support and I believe that the best thing we can do is just only vote for candidates who don't take that kind of corporate funding, but the problem is that they have a very hard time competing.
For example, our Senate race here in Maryland this year is a huge one, and there are like millions of dollars being poured into the state from all of these PACs.
all of these outsiders who have opinions because they care about who's going to have control of the Senate, not because of Maryland politics at all.And so we're dealing with all this money in here.And so how much does my vote count?
We've got all these external folks throwing so much money into the political system.So that's the backdrop in which the deck is stacked against citizens today, which is unfortunate, which is why it takes even more to push back.
Yeah, and I guess it's a part of the reason why we're seeing this growth of protests and activism.
There are these groups that are coming together of like-minded people in these smaller communities that don't feel like they're being heard or that feel like a more confrontational approach.
violent or non-violence is the only way to make some change because at least then like you're almost shocking people into stopping, like just stop what you're doing for a second and look at the, you know, this other issue over here.So
I think when you mention these examples to people, they kind of get why they're doing it.They get the intention behind it.What they don't like is maybe the execution of it.
Like, why do you need to go and pour soup on a Mona Lisa painting to get this point across?
Like, you know, covering of a Mona Lisa painting BS.Yeah, protective coating.But I mean, what I would just say is, yeah, so, um,
So when I started writing this book, I was originally just going to talk about the ways that activists and environmental groups had been involved in discussions around policymaking because I tracked them within the debates around the Inflation Reduction Act, which is the climate bill that we have, which is the one that we were talking about, is a C.
And what was happening as I was doing my research is we were seeing a bunch of groups springing up which were engaging in what we call the radical flank of the climate movement.So this radical flank emerged.There are two options.
Either a social movement dies and people go, you know what?I'd rather just watch TV. Or instead, some people get more radical and get more confrontational.And this is very, very common.We saw it in the civil rights movement.
There are examples of it from women's suffrage.And historically, what happens is then the radical flank, which tends to be more young people originally, gets involved in confrontational civil disobedience that's peaceful.
So nonviolent civil disobedience.This is a very common trajectory. That's what we're seeing today in the climate movement.
But what's interesting, and I've written a bunch about this, and I talk about it a little bit in the book, but I've written even more about it in Nature Magazine and other places, is that at the moment, the radical flank of the climate movement is so not radical.
I mean, this is a very unradical group of people.I mean, sure, okay, throwing soup on a protective coating of a painting is a pretty, like, outrageous thing to do, for sure.And it is meant to piss people off, and it's meant to get media attention.
It is what I call in the book, shockers.These are folks who are shockers.They're trying to shock us into paying attention.
And the reason they're doing that is because research shows us that when the media continues to talk about climate change, even if they're talking about these wacky folks who are throwing soup on things,
It helps to keep the issue salient for the general population that reads the news or listens to news or finds out about the news.And it also helps to develop support for moderate components of the movement.So that's the whole way that it works.
Historically, during the period of the civil rights movement, when nonviolent civil disobedience was very common, we saw like the Freedom Riders, we saw sit-ins across the United States, these parts of the movement were extremely unpopular.
less than a third of the general population supported it.Most people were very unhappy with it.
But what we found was that this radical flank helped to develop and mobilize sympathizers to get more involved in the movement, but on a more moderate way.
And that's the point of these folks who were slow marching, throwing food, gluing themselves to things. causing what I think that people would call good trouble at this point.But this, again, is non-violent.
There is no evidence that anybody is talking about getting violent.There is a book called How to Blow Up a Pipeline, and I spent hours and hours talking to climate activists around the world.Nobody's talking about blowing up pipelines.
So it's the name of a book, but that does not mean that the climate movement's talking about it.The biggest risk for violence, I would argue, is actually violence coming from
from law enforcement and from political repression coming from the state, which is usually where repression comes from and where violence tends to come from.
I love all of the research that you've done on this, and it really opened my mind to thinking about this differently because I definitely was of the mindset of, first of all, it's very annoying, but also that it's vandalism and it's just maybe plain disrespectful.
But then when I look at the history of activism and that whole radical flank concept, how It's a little bit like anchoring, right?
Like you're trying to just create a different point of reference where you're moving people a little bit closer to one point over here.So I think it's really interesting.
One thing I did want to ask you though is, does this type of action naturally lead to greater violence and to a natural escalation pattern?
Not necessarily.I mean, it can take a long time for there to be a natural escalation pattern.It really depends on how law enforcement responds, as well as how counter protesters responded.
During the civil rights period, we actually saw violence happen because counter protesters, otherwise known as white supremacists, came out and started beating up the peaceful activists, most of whom were, you know, black and brown people.
In other periods of time, it took a lot longer for violence to escalate.If you think about period of time around the struggle for women's suffrage, it took a lot longer.
And actually there, there were some women who were very violent at the end, but it took a much longer time.So we don't know.I mean, I would just say that at this point, there's no indication that violence will happen.
There is indication that there will be repression. And we're starting to see that.
I mean, we're seeing some examples of that in Europe, in the UK, in the United States, where there is larger sentencing happening for very nonviolent moments or actions that are civil disobedience that are not destroying a lot of property.
And people are being sentenced to very long periods of time in jail.
Now, one thing I would just say to everybody that I think is worth thinking about is that if you tell somebody that you can go out, historically the idea is you go out, you block a street, you do it peacefully, you don't harm anybody.
It can annoy people, no question about it.I mean, I think to some degree the idea is annoy people enough that they pay attention.They go, why is that person doing it?Oh, because of climate change.It is hot, you know, etc.and so forth. Right.
But the deal is that you say that then you will be sentenced the same if you do that, or if you blow something up.That is a bad message to send to anybody.And that is basically the message that law enforcement is starting to send.
Maybe a common question that people would have, and certainly some of the comments that I've heard about these activists, is they're generally people that are more educated.If they're not younger, they're a lot older and they have more time.
They're more white, maybe in more privileged positions.If these people are the future leaders of the world, let's say the younger group, and they are in more privileged positions where they can enact change,
Why don't they, this is like I know a really flippant simplified question, but why don't they spend their time going and working in science or going into politics to be these people that can really shift how we do things as a bigger society?
Some of them are, but I think it's also worth noting that some of the biggest leaders who have been inside the political system started out outside of it.
Take, for example, our former congressman John Lewis, who was one of the leaders of the civil rights movement.He's famous for all the good trouble he got himself into during the civil rights movement.
And then he spent an amazing career inside the halls of power, trying to affect change from inside the system.You know, I wish that we had a chance to ask him before he passed about his reflections on being an outsider versus an insider.
What my research shows, and what a lot of research on policymaking and understanding the ways that civil society can play a role in policymaking, is that we need both.We need the insiders and the outsiders.
So one of the reasons that we see the most privileged folks taking this action
I mean, I wouldn't say they're the most privileged, but privileged, you know, highly educated, predominantly white young people, is because they're the least likely to be repressed for participating in nonviolent civil disobedience.
I remember when the Women's March happened in 2017, which was the largest single day of protest in U.S.history.
CNN did all of this news coverage about it, and I remember a leader of the Black Lives Matter movement posting something on Twitter at the time saying, ah, so you got a bunch of white women wearing pink hats blocking streets, and you call it a protest.
Or a demonstration.Or a march.But when you have, you know, black and brown people doing it peacefully in response to a young person being murdered by a police officer, it's called a riot.
But that really summed it up because it is true that people in privilege can take advantage of their privilege to affect social change however they think it's most effective.
And so some of these people, and we're not talking about a very large proportion of the movement, so it's not the majority of the climate movement, nor it is the majority of people who care about climate change.
It's a small proportion or small vanguard.
that thinks that the best way to do this is by calling out people in positions of power like CEOs of fossil fuel companies, elected officials who have been pushing very hard for expanding fossil fuel extraction, etc.and so forth.
And to some degree, I understand that decision because they are least likely to be repressed and most likely to get access.And in the end, some of these folks may be the ones who change the world from the inside eventually.
Is there something natural that you see happening from a sociological perspective where as we get older and as we get tied to the norms of the societies that we live in, we almost acclimatize and we repress a lot of the things that we feel are important when we're younger?
That's a great question.I love that you use the term acclimatize.But what I would say here is that there's actually a very, very substantial literature that talks about kind of life cycle of activism and engagement.
First of all, we know that young people who talk about politics with their parents are more likely to be politically engaged as they get older.
Also, young people who tend to talk about anything and have dinner with their parents rather than watching TV, or I guess like doing like this scrolling business at dinner, are also most likely to be politically engaged and vote when they hit the age when they're allowed to.
So there's that.The other thing we know is that people's engagement in politics tends to be a you.And this is just like over the life cycle because there tends to be a period where people have a lot of free time.
I realize that all of the students that I teach think that they have no free time, but they do a lot of fun things that I do not have time to do right now as a parent and somebody who is making sure that I can cover my mortgage.
I can make sure that there's food on the table for my kids. I can help my daughter apply to college because she's applying to college right now.And those are my priorities, right?
And then I have a certain amount of time besides work where I can do all those other things.
And it tends to be that the you is during a period of time while you're in university, graduate school, maybe before you have kids, once you have kids, you're like me, you have very limited time that's not for raising kids.And
making sure that the kids are comfortable, safe and grow up to be responsible and good people.
And then once the kids leave home and you know, you pay for college, maybe pay for grad school, maybe if they're lucky, then you have a lot of free time and you don't have to worry about running on the treadmill to make sure you can cover the bills.
People tend to get engaged again.And that's why right now what we're seeing is that
These ends of the life cycle are the folks who are most engaged, which tends to be what we see whenever there's a Democrat in the White House, that the people who stay involved in progressive politics tend to be people who are the most extreme, which are the youngest and the oldest folks.
It's nice that they're spending their time doing causal things that benefit others and not just doom scrolling, like you said.
I mean, and I think one of the things that I think is very cool, and I'm actually working on starting a new project on this is looking at how older adults are actually serving as kind of elders and advising young people who are in the climate movement right now.
which historically young people were like the hotheaded leaders, the vanguard.And what we're seeing is that those young people from the seventies are now older people and still want to be involved.
And they've gotten involved in groups like Third Act and now have been out in the streets with the younger people, you know, trying to cause good trouble and provide support and experience to the younger people.
So this is the like intergenerational transition or transmission of information, expertise.It's wonderful to watch.
Yeah, it's amazing.And some of the things that we've seen recently, like I made a note about the European Court of Human Rights ruling in Switzerland, that sustainability in action amounts to inhuman treatment.
And that really came about from these elder generations.
The climate grannies, those were the climate grannies.When I was in Switzerland presenting about the book, we were trying to get a climate granny to come to my talk.
Oh, nice.Yeah, it's amazing.It's amazing.And for whatever reason, maybe it holds a little bit more weight when it's coming from someone who is older and has lived life and has like more firsthand experience.Yeah, the challenges that you face.Yeah.
The last question on this topic that I wanted to ask you is, I know you said you, obviously you've studied this for over 25 years, and you do call yourself an apocalyptic optimist.
So thinking maybe a little bit on that optimist side, from a human behavior study perspective and a sociology perspective, what's something positive that you've seen over that 25 years in this movement?
Well, one of the things that I think has been great is watching more and more people pay attention to climate change.I mean, when I started, people really didn't know much about climate change.
In fact, there was like this small group of us who were paying attention and were involved in the meetings.And most of it was like the international relations, international policy folks who were involved in treaties.
And now, it's kind of interesting.I mean, in some ways, it is kind of apocalyptically optimistic, because Now, we see a lot more people who are paying attention and know what's going on and understand it.
But the unfortunate reality is that is because many people have experienced the effects of climate change firsthand.
When I started doing this, we would go to meetings and folks would say, this is all about what we call the precautionary principle, which is trying to make sure that the science predictions don't come true.
And we need to worry about, you know, the polar bears. We've kind of given up on the polar bears.We've seen horrible pictures of them starving.
And instead, we're now worried about our friends and neighbors and the communities next door, the communities hundreds of miles from the water, which are being inundated and experiencing landslides because of the amount of rain that's falling on them.
So, you know, I am optimistic because people are paying attention.It's just unfortunate that this is what it takes to get people to pay attention.
It's an important reminder as well around some of those predictions that we did flag or were paying attention to and maybe going back to those and saying, where have we had success and where does action really make a lasting impact?
There's some things that can be case studies of further action for the future.
For sure.And there are wonderful examples if you look at places that have experienced extreme weather and come back and recovered from it and the ways that they've rebuilt their communities to be more resilient.
There are wonderful, really heartening stories about that and the ways that citizens help their friends and neighbors. And I think that's what we should all be focusing on right now, because that is absolutely necessary.
And we're gonna have to lean into one another a lot more.And you know, as much as you know, some people including my daughter would like to say get it all on TikTok.TikTok doesn't work super well when the phones go out and when the power goes off.
You can't count on TikTok to get you clean water.
I mean, I'm not even sure you can count on TikTok really to get people out to vote.
Yeah, I think it just reaffirms how we need to be more connected to the natural world.Because, you know, after TikTok, it's going to be something else.
And, you know, it's the world that we need to maintain a relationship with, not a social media platform.
Yeah, so it's about making real relational connections in our communities to people as well as the environment.
Yeah, absolutely.Love that so much.Super insightful.Absolutely adored this entire conversation.
Dana, one last question for you before I let you go, which is what your go-to is when you're trying to get your head out of all of this environmental sustainability stuff.How do you look outside?
Well, the way I look outside actually is that I put it all away and I be a parent to my kids, right?And I play a lot of checkers.My son is really into games right now.So we play a lot of checkers.
We're really into playing James Bond right now, which I now can win, which I'm proud of.I don't know if you've ever played this. Nice.Anybody who has kids out there, you know what I'm talking about.Um, but so I basically I walk away from the work.
And I spend time because you know, is as crazy as it sounds like, you know, the kids are a future.
I know from the research that being a loving, supportive and present parent is part of what I need to do to make them the kinds of adults that I would like them to grow into.So there you have it.That's what I do is I spend time with my kids.
This weekend, we're going to a pumpkin patch.
I love that.Full, kind of connected to what you do, but full disconnection at the same time.Super insightful.Thank you again.Good luck on your TED talk.If it's available online, we can add it to the show notes.
They should release it in time for the climate negotiations, which are at the end of November.
Yeah, for the climate negotiations, the COP21 negotiations.So that's what I'm pushing for, but I am competing with all the other talks.And they basically told me it's like a, it's a chess match.
But I have to do the first thing I have to do is do a really good job with my talk.So that's what I'm preparing for now.
I'm sure you're going to do an amazing job.I can't wait to listen to it.And thank you for taking the time to share a little bit of that insight with us today.And thank you for coming on the show.
Well, thank you for having me.It's so great to chat with you in person.
Thanks for listening.If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review, or share the show, and I will see you next time.Until then, keep looking outside.
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