Saving the World Little by Little

The world is on fire or drowning — actually both! No one can doubt that surely. And yet they do. Before we can save the world we have to persuade enough people that a problem exists, that we can create a plan to solve it, then persuade them to help with its implementation.

So, what is the plan? Do we wait for governments around the world to legislate for solutions? This hasn’t worked so far. The ruling party in many democracies around the world swings from leaning left to leaning right, with the consequent change in attitude to the global disaster we are facing. Note the differences between the G Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden presidencies. In other countries, ruled by authoritarian governments, e.g. Russia, Turkey, the Philippines, their priority is personal power and wealth with little concern for anyone outside the circle of power. And in some cases countries are extremely reliant on fossil fuels for economic reasons because they have not used the wealth generated by oil etc. to develop their economies.

First of all, we have to acknowledge that many people either do not believe there is a problem with global warming, or they do, but do not accept that human activity has contributed to it (Group 1.). There is, of course, another group, polar opposites of Group 1, that fully accept these conclusions and actively campaign to bring about change. (Group 3.) We do not need to concern ourselves with the former but we need the latter to help make the plan work.

In the middle, probably the biggest group of all accepts these conclusions but believe that they do not have any power to influence the situation and argue that it is a matter for governments and big businesses to solve (Group 2). If however, you accept that big business – and particularly oil businesses are able to use their extreme wealth to influence politicians then you also realise waiting for governments to act is futile. Very few countries in the world are sufficiently democratic to ensure that money and power play second fiddle to the will of the people. This middle group, Group 2, is the target of the plan and we need to persuade them that they can have influence if they work with others, and it can be very effective in a relatively short timescale.

We have to sidestep governments and do the work ourselves. Having said that, once a critical mass movement is established many governments will want to jump on the bandwagon and take credit for the movement. They could have a role at that point by…