Why I Am Still A (part time) Climate Activist

 It still matters to me to resist an oppressive system that is debasing and killing most of the living things on Earth.

So why continue to be an activist, when it has changed so little and has few prospects of doing so? My decisions on what to get involved in are based on what feels possible for me to do at the time; what sounds interesting; what stands an outside chance of having an impact; what lifts my spirits. I avoid Saturday protest marches, because most of the powerful people who need to hear our messages have beetled off to their country retreats for the weekend. I do join weekday gatherings outside international oil conferences, or the headquarters of banks and insurance companies that finance or underwrite fossil fuel exploration and the giant pipeline that is being built roughshod across East Africa. I draw attention to the erosion of UK democracy, inherent in new laws restricting protest rights that have led to lengthy prison sentences for climate activists. Increasingly, the focus of the climate activism I hear about is the inextricable links between all kinds of social ills and the corrupt systems that perpetuate injustices. It feels worthwhile to inconvenience and disrupt the institutions that hide behind ‘net zero’ and ‘sustainability’ mission statements whilst continuing business as usual, however much it resembles a David and Goliath faceoff. 

Importantly for me, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jnr (leading lights in movements that must often have thought they were getting nowhere) are our guides to the power of nonviolent mass participation in disruptive, sometimes law-breaking resistance. And yet, many of the climate activists I know today have no illusions of ‘winning’ some ultimate goal, are not attached to outcomes, and do what they are doing because it is the right thing to do. Many of them, of whatever age, know that collapse looks inevitable. From its early days, XR UK wrote that their actions were intended to “minimise the risk of social collapse that will follow if sufficiently urgent action is not taken.” In 2023, XR ran the slogan “Act Now, Because It’s Too Late.” In late 2024, activist organisation Just Stop Oil (JSO) wrote in a newsletter “It might already be too late to fully prevent the crisis, but every life we can protect matters. Every drop of oil matters.” Some of those activists are pivoting towards mutual aid community work, others towards citizens’ assembly experiments in participative democracy. A twenty eight year old told me “I have changed my online dating profile: I was meeting too many optimists.” These are not people who are high on Hopium.

Equally importantly to me, XR & JSO try very hard to maintain a “regenerative culture” of caring for each other, encouraging contributions according to each person’s skills and capacity, saying ‘yes’ to tasks slowly, rather than in haste, and getting to know each other socially. Any type of meet-up includes shared food. Training and planning sessions address the psychological as well as the practical aspects of being involved in climate actions. Everyone involved is invited to post-action emotional debriefings. If someone gets arrested, much effort goes into having people waiting outside police stations for their release, and supporting them at court appearances. Through activism, I now know a much wider age range of people than I would otherwise expect to in my seventh decade. We feel able to rely on each other. If any of them live within walking or cycling distance from me, I keep their addresses on paper. That will be handy when the internet goes down. This is community building as activists, finding and nurturing relationships with allies who understand the mess we are in. It doesn’t always work, but it is a social model with equal potential relevance for collapsing well. 

Activism is by no means the whole of my day to day life, even though many of my activist friends are great fun to be with. As we are always reminded at Collapse Club, “glimmers” of joy are important. I do a lot of gardening, running, dancing, going to art galleries, drinking tea and beer with friends. There are inevitably times when I feel overwhelmed about what is going on in the natural and the political world. I try to hold onto the memory of a photo I once saw of a tiny flower bed in the rocky soil of a refugee camp, a reminder that beauty is possible in the most unlikely settings. 

I have a couple of perhaps surprising guiding stars for continued activism. The first is from a film, “Django Unchained” (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2012), in which a freed slave wants to liberate his still enslaved wife. Just before the breakout of the carnage they hoped to avoid, Django’s accomplice ruefully says he had thought they might just get away with it. I no longer believe we will “get away with” the consequences of collapse, but it still matters to me to resist an oppressive system that is debasing and killing most of the living things on Earth. 

The other inspiration is an Australian pop anthem, “You’re the Voice” (John Farnham, 1986) with its stirring chorus:

“You're the voice, try and understand it

Make a noise and make it clear, oh, who-o-o-o-o-a; oh, who-o-o-o-o-a

We're not gonna sit in silence

We're not gonna live with fear, oh, who-o-o-o-o-a; oh, who-o-o-o-o-a…… “

As a citizen of an over-developed country, I notice with trepidation our moves towards a way of life that has been the norm for millions of people, in other parts of the world, for a long time. Meanwhile I’m not going to sit in silence or live with fear, whilst my social circle and support system has been widened by some inspiring, energetic and adaptable people, building physical and emotional resilience where we can. 

If you play this video recording of “You’re the Voice”, I defy you not to feel feisty whilst you sing along:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbkOZTSvrHs