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Activism

January 2, 2008 – tiresome (but sound) “Green Fatigue” warning is made.

Fifteen years ago, on this day, January 8 2008, an article appeared on the IEMA website (the article now seems to be missing) under the headline Green Fatigue and Ambivalence in an Overloaded World?

“Analysts say few people are taking action to deal with the threat of climate change, although over the past 12 months the vast majority have come to accept that it poses a real threat to the world. Opinion polls reveal much confusion among the public about what Britain should do to combat the problem. A backlash is now a real threat, said Phil Downing, head of environmental research for Ipsos Mori. ‘There’s cynicism because on the one hand we’re being told [the problem] is very serious and on the other hand we’re building runways, mining Alaskan oil; there’s a lot going on that appears to be heading in the opposite direction.’

http://oldsite.iema.net/news?search_api_views_fulltext=&page=128

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 385.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 417ppm. .

The context was that for the previous year and a half, basically since “An Inconvenient Truth” and Climate Camp and so on, the Western media had been having one of its periodic ‘gosh, let’s pretend to care about climate change’, periods, without actually naming any of the root causes because that would be awkward for our owners and advertisers’ waves.  And, sure as night follows day, about 12 to 15 months in the “fatigue” pieces start to be written…

What I think we can learn from this

The fatigue is ‘real’, but nobody (to my knowledge) ever says

“gee, it might be that if you present scary information to people and tell  them it is their fault, but don’t make it easier for them to find other like-minded people so they can form into sustained and sustainable social movement organisations, that help them make sense of the world and channel that anger, grief and fear into political action, then, you know, after a while, people who are busy, depressed, defeated will in fact stop paying attention to bulletins from the real world. Go figure.”

What happened next

The wave peaked and crashed, as it has done so before (Downs, 1972). By early 2010, the numbers of articles about – and protest activity about – climate change had dropped right off. It would come back in 2018. And then be reduced again by 2022…

See also

AOY post June 26, 1991 “environment is not flavor of the month any more”

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Do comment on this post.

References

Downs, A. (1972) Up and Down with Ecology: The “Issue Attention Cycle The National Interest.

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All Our Yesterdays – climate histories for the future

Hi,

at the start of the second year of “All Our Yesterdays – 365+ Climate Histories” here’s a few basic facts.

Please do ask questions, share this post, comment.
Best wishes

Marc Hudson

What it is

A website (and associated twitter feed) with at least one entry for every day of the year about something that happened on that day – stretching back to the 1950s but especially from the 1970s onwards – around climate science, politics, protest and technology. I’ve already done it for all of 2022, with some great guests posts from various friends (see here).

Why it is

Generally I am very curious about how much we knew, when (i.e.. before the great Thatcher Awakening of 1988) and how little has been achieved since then.  All Our Yesterdays is one way of coping with that pathological curiosity, while also (fingers crossed) making what I have found out useful for other people.

What is different about this year

This year I’ve decided to orient the posts more to “what we can learn from this?” – whether it is a tactic used by the opponents of action, or a bit of the science that is worth remembering, or the backstory to some of the technologies and policies that are still getting a lot of attention (lookin’ at YOU, carbon capture and storage).

I’m also keen to expand beyond the relatively “three country”  focus – many many posts have been about Australia (where I am originally from), the United Kingdom (where I now live) and the United States (in the words of Leonard Cohen, “the cradle of the best and of the worst”). In the first month of 2023 there are posts from  New Zealand, Canada and South Africa, but these of course are also part of the Anglosphere….

How I want people to use it

My dream is people learn about a tactic that has been used in the past, and then when they see the same tactic being used now by denialists or delayers they can say (and tweet!) “oh, this is just a re-tread of what they did [twenty five/thirty years] ago. ” Or that people use the site to think – on their own and with the friends and colleagues – about how protest groups around climate have tended to go up like a rocket and come tumbling down like a stick.

If you have a date you think is worth writing about, please check out to see if I have (see here),and then if I haven’t email me.  (I may already know about it, but I’d rather get repeat suggestions than not at all).

If you want to write a guest post about something, do get in touch.

And, as I write on every post What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Do comment on this post.