For me, we need to look more to how we won fundamental battles like those to form the NHS or bring into being the welfare state than we do to post 60’s campaigns that have been more focused on individual or part issues.

Would love to write more but have got to rush! See below article for some interesting thoughts:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/12/clicktivism-ruining-leftist-activism

But there was a P.S.

I meant to paste in this ‘Gramsci Beat’ update courtesy Rupert Read:

Gramsci updated: ‘Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will, realism of the intervention’. We need to ACT,realistically, pragmatically

David Wasdell talks about progression from denial, through despair, to *doing*.

And i think most of us spend a bit of time in each of these three places?

Denial isn’t exclusively the province of Monckton and co. We all go there, time to time. We have to, to cope, to give us a break!

And a bit of Despair, given the reality we face, isn’t really so inappropriate either?

The fun bit, the real bit, the tangible sexy physical bit, the ‘be here now’ bit, is the Doing. The Be the Change bit. The Cut The Carbon Crap bit. This is where the ripples of the carbon we cut can run deep. Just Do (b)it.

It’s obvious and it’s an old idea, but there can be tremendous (almost infinite) power in a ‘futile gesture’. (e.g. The Starfish on the beach rescue story.)

Every time we demonstrate, in our own life, without fuss or ceremony, that we take the subject of avoiding this carbon stuff deadly seriously, we send out truth ripples.

And sadly of course, every time we don’t, we send out the opposite signal, undoing all our good work.

One of my hopes is that we can soon bring to an end the era of ‘flying to climate conferences’ :o)

There are some people on this planet whose message is so compelling, and whose physical bodily presence so inspirational, that I would fight for their right to keep on flying. e.g. Gandhi, Mandela, Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Anita Roddick, Bill McKibben, Satish Kumar, … the list is long.

And me, I am *not* on it! So I chose not to fly (and haven’t flown long haul since 1981.)

Don’t be disturbed by your reaction to this :o) I am *not* saying it’s ‘wrong’ to fly - far from it. But I am saying that if one’s words are ‘extreme’ then one’s actions need to be congruent for any authenticity and integrity?

Once we’ve cleaned up a little at home, then we can clear the air and talk down and dirty about the heart of the matter: the carbon story. And our part in it.

- There isn’t a right way or a wrong way to talk about climate change - it totally depends on the audience.

- Can we bypass climate change altogether by talking about things which have a daily relevance (and also an impact on the climate), like food? I think this is a really exciting avenue - and linking the impact of our relationship with food to health, body image, community, family, animal rights, workers rights, food production, self-sufficiency etc.

- I think we’ll be able to talk about the ins and outs of carbon etc, and the enormity of the problem, once we start properly talking about the enormity of the solution. I haven’t found many people doing that yet.

I was really encouraged when I read Bills blog - because it reminded me of a talk I went to by a famous (in the global health world)HIV expert called Dr Elisabeth Persani, she’s an author, journalist and wonderful communicator, and even so,she has recognised the same problem in the HIV/AIDS movemente. Through its hayday the HIV movement began get comms savvy with the way it spoke about the issue: soon we saw major NGO’s and pressure groups communicating HIV in as many ways as they could : HIV is a gender issue, HIV impedes development, HIV requires access to essential medicines, HIV is a driver of poverty - and lo and behold - HIV worsened by climate change! She pointed out that we as public health experts had stopped communicating what HIV actually was - a virus which spreads through contact between two peoples bodily fluids. So by breaking down the issue of HIV and bypssing its fundamental elements we had actually weakened/diluted what it is that we were trying to say: HIV sucks, HIV can be prevented, Let’s prevent the spread of HIV.

I wonder if the same can be predicted for the climate movement? Tackling climate change reduces extreme weather hazards, gives us energy independence, brighter futures, healthier living,happier children etc etc

I’m all for clever idioms - but I also don’t want to trivialise the issue. I’d actually welcome returning to the tough talk of climate change - it makes the conversation more difficult, but it’s the right discussion to have.

Plus I think people already in this movement who are committed to creating change know its a hard sell, and we can’t be fooled into thinking there are quick fixes to getting round that.

Maybe we need to come back to that fact that climate change is caused by increased CO2 emissions and we need to massively reduce them. Yes we need answers and yes we need to inspire people through positive action - but we can’t shy away from what we’re ultimately discussing, after all, isn’t that what unites us?