• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: No Public Finance for East Coast LNG Projects, Wilkinson Says July 4, 2022
‘Climate Math Gets Harder’ as Radicalized Supreme Court Upends U.S. Carbon Regulation July 4, 2022
Dire Living Conditions, Climate-Driven Heat Wave Produce Deadliest Human Smuggling Event in U.S. History July 4, 2022
Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta June 29, 2022
London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty June 29, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Climate & Society Climate Action / "Blockadia"

Pace of #MeToo Movement Hold Out Hope for Rapid Attitude Shift on Climate

October 2, 2018
Reading time: 2 minutes

Alec Perkins/Wikimedia Commons

Alec Perkins/Wikimedia Commons

1
SHARES
 

The rapid spread of public campaigns, most notably the #MeToo movement, creates hope that the climate crisis will produce a sudden shift in public attitudes and behaviour, UK climate campaigner Andrew Simms writes this week in The Guardian.

The latest science shows that “nothing short of rapid, transformative change in our infrastructure and behaviour can prevent the loss of the climate we depend on,” and the world’s “political and economic gatekeepers” have been slow to take action on that reality, notes Simms, who is planning to launch a new Rapid Transition Alliance later this year.

“But are we better at society-wide changes in attitude and behaviour than we give ourselves credit for?” he asks. “And do recent cultural shifts relating to everything from diet to plastics, sexism and attitudes to gender and identity suggest that we might be entering a phase in which more rapid behavioural changes are possible?”

Simms cites the change in smoking habits since the 1970s as “a huge success against the odds concerning a highly addictive product, promoted by a powerful industry that knew about, but publicly denied, knowledge of the harm it caused.” In that case, “Change was achieved with a comprehensive approach of awareness raising, tough regulation, pricing, and support.”

The decline in impaired driving rates since the 1950s was another change process that involved “challenging people’s perceptions of risk about their own behaviour, raising awareness of the resulting harm to self and others, persuading people to leave their cars at home and take different forms of transport if they planned to drink, and changes to vehicles themselves and the physical driving environment.”

While these and other examples provide grounds for hope, “there are signs that something else is happening that might bring even faster shifts in attitude and behaviour closer to what is needed to meet vital climate targets,” Simms writes. “A mixture of new social movements and social media now seems capable of transforming gradual background shifts into defining moments of change.”

In a distinction that is crucial for campaigners, he notes that while change can often take decades, “these days new social norms can become established almost overnight. From the shift around single-use plastics, to the #MeToo movement and the rise of the vegan diet, things are moving fast. The male-only charity fundraiser went out of business following a single investigative report,” and “the tide turned rapidly against male-only conference panels once they began to be named and shamed online.”

After a summer of lethal, extreme weather, Simms suggests conditions are right—or soon will be—for the same pace and depth of change on climate solutions. “Rapid shifts in how we live, work, and run the economy have to be made,” he writes. Yet “we should be optimistic that changing our behaviour—to the extent required—is possible.”



in Climate Action / "Blockadia", Climate Denial & Greenwashing, Culture, Heat & Temperature, Media, Messaging, & Public Opinion, Severe Storms & Flooding

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Wikimedia Commons
Oil & Gas

BREAKING: No Public Finance for East Coast LNG Projects, Wilkinson Says

July 4, 2022
123
EdmondMeinfelder/flickr
Environmental Justice

Dire Living Conditions, Climate-Driven Heat Wave Produce Deadliest Human Smuggling Event in U.S. History

July 4, 2022
35
opinion polling gender green recovery climate action
Media, Messaging, & Public Opinion

Conservative Women Far More Likely Than Men to Support Green Transition, EcoAnalytics Research Finds

July 4, 2022
80

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

angela n./flickr

‘Climate Math Gets Harder’ as Radicalized Supreme Court Upends U.S. Carbon Regulation

July 4, 2022
122
Wikimedia Commons

BREAKING: No Public Finance for East Coast LNG Projects, Wilkinson Says

July 4, 2022
123
U.S. Navy/picryl

Montreal to Host New NATO Climate Centre as Military Analyst Confronts Global ‘Hyperthreat’

July 4, 2022
81
opinion polling gender green recovery climate action

Conservative Women Far More Likely Than Men to Support Green Transition, EcoAnalytics Research Finds

July 4, 2022
80
Maurits90/Wikimedia Commons

San Francisco Commuter Train Derailed by Scorching Track Temperatures, Extreme Heat

July 4, 2022
49
EdmondMeinfelder/flickr

Dire Living Conditions, Climate-Driven Heat Wave Produce Deadliest Human Smuggling Event in U.S. History

July 4, 2022
35

Recent Posts

Adrian Grycuk/Wikimedia Commons

Youth Climate Case Moves to Top Tribunal in European Court

July 4, 2022
34
Seci/wikimedia commons

Saudi Aramco Talks Net-Zero, Plans to Boost Production Through 2035

July 4, 2022
21
Keith Weller/Wikimedia Commons

U.S. Methane Plan Gives Big Ag a Free Pass

July 4, 2022
28
Fadi Hage/wikimedia commons

Indoor Farming Revolution Comes with Significant Carbon Cost

July 4, 2022
37
Mont SUTTON snow terrain

Southern Quebec Towns Scramble for Solutions as Water Sources Dwindle

July 4, 2022
37
Pxhere

Marine Stewardship Figures Prominently in Latest Project Drawdown List

July 4, 2022
24
Next Post
Melora Purell/Wikimedia Commons

Species Diversity Determines Forests’ Resilience Against Drought

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}