Transcript Facing climate change - Climate Psychology Alliance

Outriders of the coming adversity: how
climate activists and climate scientists keep
going
Paul Hoggett and Rosemary Randall
The scientists
Interviews with six leading climate
scientists from four UK universities
Experiences of attack from:
• hostile media
• denialist lobby
• policy makers
• colleagues
Social defences against anxiety
Scientific neutrality
Many [scientists] say…it’s just
my job to chip away at the
frontiers of knowledge…and it’s
up to somebody else what to
do with it.
…a lot of scientists convey the
impression that they have no
feelings at all about these
issues.
Specialisation
Climate science is very
vulnerable because virtually
nobody knows first-hand all the
pieces of the argument
You pick a bit of the jigsaw and
work at it in the hope that
other people…are working on
other bits of the jigsaw and in
the end in some way it will be
put together…
Current study: aims and methods
Aims
To understand the nature of the
stresses and dilemmas encountered by
climate activists and climate scientists
in their work and examine how they
respond to them.
Method
Single interviews of 1-2 hours exploring:
• biography
• values
• journey
• emotional and ethical challenges encountered
• responses to these challenges
The interviewers
Both interviewers are experienced
psychoanalytically oriented
psychotherapists
Current study: the sample
The sample
• 10 interviewees
• all but one in their late twenties to late thirties,
• three men, seven women,
• most from white middle-class backgrounds, three
from BAME backgrounds, one from a working class
background
• all educated to university level
• older participants active since 1990s, younger
participants since 2005.
Range of work
Climate change and...
You can’t make progress without some
component of acting against, in opposition
to or with disobedience to the authorities
fundraising
divestment
carbon reduction
food
migration
economic policy
health
behaviour change
public engagement
media relations
energy policy
work with minorities
community energy
Direct action against:
•
•
•
•
•
•
airport expansion
financial institutions
arts sponsorship
oil companies
coal mining
coal-fired power stations
Direct action’s not sufficient...everybody
has to come along behind you, otherwise
the progress can easily be lost.
Values
[I have a] fundamental distrust of the big
corporate interests…a great belief in
grassroots organisations...ordinary
peoples’ capacity to do creative things
together.
Environmental justice
became my frame, not
climate change.
Equality, equity,
injustice, fairness,
sharing, resource
sharing and all those
kinds of things.
I’ve always been very
aware of injustice. I
think that’s the value
that I feel is most
prevalent in me.
What really got me was learning
about the impacts in parts of
Africa, being able to see what’s
happening already and the
impact it’s having on lives and
livelihoods.
It’s injustice...I remember the
exact moment. [I was] sitting
amongst medics...many of whom
had flown there...not recognizing
our own role in it...I was angry.
Even if I don’t look back with an awful lot
of fondness on the Catholicism I was
brought up in there was a great sense of
being taught that you should care for
other people.
The activist journey –
awakening, immersion, crisis, sustainability
I decided to apply for
a job at x. The
evidence about
climate change was so
compelling.
We used to work crazy
hours…often didn’t have
enough time to think,
literally.
I realized that there was a
closing window of
opportunity to act and if I
was ever going to do
something about it, it
needed to be now
I just burnt out…it was
life, everything in life
overwhelming me…I just
couldn’t cope with all of
my commitments quite a
lot of which were unpaid.
It was galvanizing. I was becoming
more and more like - right, we’ve
got to do something that feels
proportionate to this urgent
threat.
I was really
lost…I was
pretty fragile.
To sustain yourself
politically, actively, you
need to do it in a way
that you can manage. I’m
still doing stuff...at a
much quieter level
The impact of knowledge and involvement
I couldn’t
come to
terms with it
It was an epiphany...it
became the primary
thing I worried about.
I was suffering terrible
insomnia and real
fear.
The process of the
UNCCC...ended up
making me feel very
depressed
I sometimes feel
overwhelmed
and quite
pessimistic
There was a lot of pain and
a lot of impact on people’s
health and mental health
that...was never really
discussed.
I know if I let open the floodgates
it’s there...I know what the
depressive, overwhelming, ‘I feel
lost’ feeling is. I’ve had it. It’s not
something I enjoy
There was this
creeping feeling that
the thing was just
insurmountable”
Relationship of climate change to personal life
For me, not flying was
part of aligning
behaviour with values
and aligning different
parts of my life
I really
neglected my
family and
friends for two
years
I’ve drifted from my school
friends...a difference in values
has become very clear and
that was quite painful to start
with, but I think I’m more
accepting of it now
There’s definitely a danger
of tying your whole sense
of worth and purpose to
this challenge that is so
much bigger than you and
is never ending
My Mum was like ‘Don’t
do this’... I just didn’t talk
to my parents for quite a
while until I sorted out
how I felt, until I felt
like...I’m OK now
It’s very personally disruptive...direct
action is a major sacrifice in your own
life...you can’t leave the country while
you’re on bail, it affects your job
prospects...you can’t get house
insurance.
Direct action – excitement and proportionality
Everyone
who does
it, loves it
It was very
exciting...we had a
great time...there was
complete trust...I had
no fear
It’s just really fun...if you don’t
have fun day to day, you are
going to burn out way quicker
It was really about
doing something
audacious that would
allow us to talk and put
it on the agenda
It feels commensurate, it feels
really lively, I’m doing something
which actually meets the scale
of this challenge
Putting your whole body in the
way of what’s happening feels
quite cathartic, you’re actually
doing something because your
whole body’s involved
This feels very real,
this feels where it’s
happening...we are
challenging things that
are quite fundamental
I was becoming more and
more like – right, we’ve got
to do something that feels
proportionate to this urgent
threat
Trauma
It was a transformatory
experience but it was
terrifying...it was very,
very traumatic...I think
I’m still processing that
fear
It was absolutely
upsetting to lose...to be
found guilty...I just
couldn’t stop crying
You can’t sustain that kind of activity,
being arrested, the fear of the police,
your house gets raided...
Mark Kennedy was a good
friend of mine and it was
devastating when I found out
that he had actually been a
secret police officer for ten
years
My friends
were really,
really distressed
The police have come round and they’ve
fucking walked on our bed in their boots
and emptied all the cupboards and drawers
out...that’s traumatic and the neighbours
seeing the police pouring into the house
I was really lost, I remember coming out of
the court and saying I don’t know where to
go from here, I literally don’t know which
city to travel back to...I don’t know what to
do...I was pretty fragile
The struggle with painful and negative feelings
I was suffering
terrible insomnia
and real fear
I know if I let open the floodgates
it’s there...I know what the
depressive, overwhelming, ‘I feel
lost’ feeling is. I’ve had it. It’s not
something I enjoy
There was a lot of pain
and a lot of impact on
people’s health and
mental health
that...was never really
discussed
Burnout manifested in anxiety
and panic attacks and then
boredom and not taking
pleasure in tasks that were
pleasurable
Ways of coping creatively
• the culture of the
movement
• prefiguring the future
• thinking positively
• proportionality
• personal support
systems
• self-care
The culture of the movement: trust and
solidarity
The building of
communities made a
big difference to what
was happening
There’s an incredible
sense of solidarity
that comes out of
doing a direct action
That feeling of trust
with other people was
quite exciting
Activism is a
really nice
home
Climate camps were
really something
special, friends I made
then are still friends
now
We have so much
support for each other
The culture of the movement: organisation
People you’ve been in
a cell with are people
you’re close to in a
way that you never
get to be close with in
others.
We build into it after the
event doing something
where we talk about the
emotions of how to deal
with that.
We have Activist Trauma Support, we
have medical support, we have
debriefings, we have a really good
way of helping people. We know what
burnout is now. We know what posttraumatic stress disorder is.
The need to create a
sense of belonging,
for me and for others
was really important
The downside of consensus work and
democratic decision making work is that
you end up only surrounded by people
who are like you because it becomes
easier to make decisions...we’re
recreating cliques because it becomes
easier to talk to people who are alike.
Movements that are exclusive and are
mainly full of people with privilege
[are] replicating the patterns...we’re
just replicating capitalism in our
movements and it’s like we’re being
co-opted.
Prefiguring the future
Ultimately, solutions are going to look
like more active citizenship...more
democratic forms of decision making,
decentralised everything really from
energy generation to food production
I want to work on new
forms of love...that don’t
require the family to
become the nuclear unit
around you
Can we make [capitalism] redundant,
create our own local economies, our own
automonous spaces, our own Community
supported Agriculture schemes, our own
community renewables...systems which
little bit by little bit just show that we don’t
need this capitalist system
The thing that I have tried to
hold onto is...that there will
still be relationships and
love and community
A plethora of places started
up...showing that there were other
possible worlds...[we’re] trying to
actually see if we can actually do
them.
...[if]...you’re really focused on the
impact of your own government and
the extent of what it causes abroad,
suddenly it doesn’t feel comfortable
to think well I could grow my own
food...suddenly it doesn’t feel OK to
bury yourself away into small scale
solutions.
Thinking positively
I got fed up with
banging on negatively
The sort of work I do is
about positive
change...getting money out
of oil and putting it into
positive projects
There’s a
strengthening feeling
from finding new
paths to solve
problems
I find inspiration
We need to have ways
thinking of new tactics
of achieving success,
experiencing
successes
We run a project for young marginalised
people...what I see there is a whole
energy of political organising which is
completely alien to me...a whole way of
political organising that we probably
haven’t anticipated. And that’s quite
exciting
I’m at my best on the
edge slightly. I loved the
idea of going and trying
something.
Short-term wins are a way of staying
optimistic...but to me there’s something
quite neo-liberal...in the achievement
oriented ‘we’re going to win this
campaign’
Proportionality – limiting one’s involvement
I am capable of
standing back from
it.
I certainly felt that I needed to
put a limit on how long I was
going to do that for...you can’t
stay in that place forever...we
need to make sure that the
way that we’re pursuing it has
other benefits along the way.
If it’s not fun, if you’re
not enjoying what you’re
doing, stop doing that do something different,
that also helps, that you
do enjoy.
You don’t have to be
on duty the whole
time
Now I’ve got kids I can’t
do the 24/7 don’t sleep,
just drink black coffee for
days on end and organise
things.
Part of what we’re doing is
a long, long struggle...and
burning yourself out in a
couple of years is not the
way to do it.
Proportionality – limiting what’s thought
about
I barely think about climate change
now. It’s in the background of my life all
the time but I rarely sit and actually talk
about climate change or read very
much about it.
There are articles that
pop up in my newsfeed
that I found myself
actively avoiding.
I haven’t thought about
2 degrees for years...I
don’t click on it.
I haven’t had a conversation about
climate change really for a
while...I’ve got a limited amount of
time and energy and I need to feel
that I’m making progress with
something
There’s a psychological element - like what
would it be like if everyday you got up and
thought about were we or weren’t we likely
to stay within 2 degrees - whether you
could sustain that.
I tend to avoid
dwelling on that
because it’s not
productive
I think I don’t think about it...I’ve
accepted it, found my own kind of path
of how I live my life with those kinds of
things going through it.
Personal support systems
I feel very, very blessed to have
really good solid friendships with
people who have similar political
values, have similar experiences,
who can empathise, who can
support.
My parents have just been very
loving really and provided me
with a lot of security and love
consistently.
“Does your Mum support you
now? “
“She does, she does, she’s very
proud.”
There was the choice to live in
intentional communities as
well. I’d go off and do this
demonstrating and protesting
but I was going back to an
environment where that was
totally supported
I have a really strong, close circle
of female friends who I got to
know through activism...then
there are other activist friends of
colour...and an international
network of friends who have the
same analysis as me.
At every court appearance my
Dad was there with a home-made
banner of support, in his best suit
and,...that helped me.
Self-care
Being out of doors is
really important to
me
I do a lot of
gardening
Literature and
poetry, spending
time with
nature...just being in
the park
I have a
I feel spiritually
nourished waking up
and seeing the trees
and the countryside
profound
relationship with
nature
The things that create resilience
are just the fairly standard
things...just making sure you’ve
got good support around you and
having fun when you can
I live near the sea and the
mountains. You can
spend a day reading
about Eritrea, the Congo
or the Med and turn the
laptop off and go for a
walk.
I’ve developed quite a
lot of inner practices to
support my work like
meditation and yoga.
Social defences against anxiety
Organisations have rules, practices and systems which operate both formally and
informally. These can have an unconscious function as ‘systems of defence
against anxiety’ and we found evidence of such defensive systems amongst the
climate scientists. We were also interested to discover:
• Do the looser networks and groupings of activist culture also contain rules,
practices and systems that can be used as social defences?
• Do environmental NGOs exhibit social defences?
Individual and social defences
Individual
Individual emotional
management
Individual defence
Conscious
Unconscious
Collective emotional
management
Social defence
Group
Individual emotional management
Self-care practices
• Spending time in nature
• Using meditation and yoga
• Looking to family and
friends for support
• Taking holiday and time off
• Maintaining other interests
Individual defences
Keeping busy
“Would you have been able
to stop at that point?”
“No. Basically no, I wouldn’t
have. It would have felt
wrong.”
I was incredibly busy all
the time
People like overwork,
they work to distract
themselves.
Apocalyptic thinking
It’s clear that it’s hopeless,
we wont stop runaway
climate change at this rate.
I was an armchair
apocalyptarian at that point
Collective emotional management
Organisational practices
•
•
•
•
•
Preparation
Debriefing
Support practices
Consensus decision making
Non-hierarchical organisation
Social defences – the bubble of the movement
I suddenly realised I was in this bubble and if I
couldn’t understand what this person was
saying who was very mainstream (then) how on
earth did we think the general population could
understand what we were saying?
The first sign that
public opinion just
wasn’t with us...was
very upsetting.
It felt like a very comforting
bubble to be in because everyone
there is an environmentalist,
everyone believes in climate
change...but there was no
challenge to that.
Social defences – toxic NGOs
….there is a bit of a macho
element, like how late you stay
at the office or how long you can
stay at your laptop…
It’s got more corporate...full of
bureaucracy and ideas of
efficiency and marketing...
NGOs disempower radicals...having
a secure wage and having these
hierarchies and...targets in your
appraisal and people get
deradicalised very quickly.
[Now] I feel more senior in my position [I’m]
able to say I’m burning out whereas I
recognise how impossible that is for people
who are early on in their career both to
recognise it as a problem and then feel
confident in asking for time off.
Conclusions
• Generational and cultural differences between the scientists and activists seem
to be influential in how they cope with the stresses and dilemmas of their work.
• Activists were more aware of and more engaged with the emotional impact of
living day to day with climate change.
• Some members of both groups had suffered psychological trauma in the course
of their work.
• The social defences available to the scientists were not available to the activists
and this may relate to the activists’ capacity to develop more creative solutions
to the difficulties of the work. However there was also some evidence that
problematic social defences were also operating in the larger NGOs where
bureaucratic structures predominated.
Outriders of the coming adversity: how
climate activists and climate scientists keep
going
Paul Hoggett and Rosemary Randall