The Value of Disruption
Why the in-action on climate change
For a long time, the urgency of change has been globally known. So, it’s reasonable to ask why changes haven’t been made on the scale needed. We have a system of society that has evolved over thousands of years which has a balance of power that is always slightly shifting as people and organisations are always jostling for control. In many ways this is human nature, and the world has ever been thus from the great conquerors of antiquity to tech billionaires of today.
The issue with where we are at now is that to reverse the trends of ecological breakdown and climate emergency means a huge change in how we operate and to that power structure. Our societies in general have not evolved to allow levers for immediate drastic change and in fact in most democracies the system is designed to resist change in order to avoid radical to-ing and fro-ing as rival factions in society gain power. Likewise big businesses exist solely to make profit. For the majority of businesses to do so requires ‘growth’ i.e. that continually more and more wealth is exchanged for more and more goods and services. Services aside, more and more goods mean extracting more and more from the earth (farmland, metals and minerals, fossil fuels) which hastens our demise. It’s not feasible to expect companies to change how they operate, and more fundamentally why they operate, without a fundamental change to this system. However, the balance of power between governments and commerce is so tightly bound together, governments rely on income through taxes from commerce in order to operate as well as for providing means and wealth for the population. Businesses have a huge amount of influence over democratic governments because they can contribute financially to the huge election campaigns required in order to win elections. So, while companies and governments might not want to perpetuate the catastrophe they create, they’re locked into a system neither feels empowered to escape, and of course power is what it all comes back to.
This is why people talk about the need to disrupt the system, or to force the system out of balance to allow for other influences to have a stronger influence. To break the inter dependency between governments who need to radically change regulation on businesses and those businesses who control their access to the levers of power…
Ultimately this will come down to ‘political will’. The idea that a way forward on climate change has a popular consensus and is the dominant political issue of the day. So much so that governments will loose elections, or in deed be over-thrown, if they fail to act on it. Disruption, in the main, only fulfils part of this requirement by keeping the issue in the news and on the political agenda day after day. It attempt to also work towards a consensus in that what is disrupted is generally linked to ideas for what the changes need to be – but in general I’d say it’s not so good at building that consensus.
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In general protesters are chastised by the media, governments and companies who have an interest in not having their power structures altered in a way that would reduce their influence. There’s an easy line of attack here for them, as there is not a consensus yet on the way forward in the general global population. It’s such a complex world and it needs complex solutions with a new complex balance of powers, and it is unreasonable to expect the average person looking to survive day to day to spend hours researching and building an understanding of the ideas in play.
Disruption is by design an annoyance on people’s status quo existence… which is annoying… and at some times destressing. Common stories in the press focus on the negative effect on individuals because of a protest. A recent example focused on a driver couldn’t get to see a dying relative because of a road blockade. The other angle of attack focuses on the mistakes of protesters: picking the wrong target or failing to execute their protest effectively. The ability to state that these protesters were “stupid” allows the insinuation that their cause must also be stupid.
This leads to a situation where polls show that while the majority of the public believe climate change is an emergency, a majority also believe protests hinder these issues.
People are entitled to criticise protest. However, bad faith actors are easily identified when their criticisms are not accompanied by an opinion on the way forward for the core issue and/or an equally vitriolic criticism of inaction by companies and governments.
I believe disruption is a vital part in the fight to save our planet and our species given the speed of change required. I’d far rather see annoying and occasionally misguided protest now rather than violent revolution when it’s too late and the full effects of the disaster are being felt.
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If you want to get involved in protest and disruption, there are many organisations you can get involved with. There’s a spectrum from one’s local green party who tend to work from within the existing political structures, to organisations like extinction rebellion who are willing to risk prosecution and potential jail time for their actions.
If it’s not for you, don’t feel guilty everyone has different environments in which they’re comfortable and there are lots of other ways to help. You can still help disrupters by challenging those who might deride their actions by using it to engage discussions around the core issues.
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Al of the above is my opinion as a non-expert but interested human. I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas and you can get in touch here or via our social media channels.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/27/un-global-climate-poll-peoples-voice-is-clear-they-want-action
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/09/17/six-ten-brits-oppose-climate-change-protesters-blo
https://globalgreens.org/
https://extinctionrebellion.uk/