A personal climate change strategy - Part 1

I’ve been rethinking my personal response to climate change with the intention of rethinking my approach to a range of local and global issues.

This has involved:

🔹 updating my understanding of climate change

🔹 listening to those with views different from my own

🔹 deepening my knowledge of who we are and the nature of reality

🔹 researching local climate actions over the last decade

🔹 reading existing climate change action strategies


Below is an early summary of some key points from recent reading and thinking.

This is a living document which will be updated as I proceed to think about what personal actions might arise.


🔹 My understanding of climate change

Climate change is one of a number of long term and related changes currently impacting the planet and life on it. Many but not all are caused consciously or subconsciously by humans.

A key contributor to most of the adverse changes taking place has been a lack of respect for nature or the ‘other’. This was largely driven by the erroneous notion that humans are separate from nature and each other.

Climate and related changes are systemic in nature involving complex interdependence and wicked problems and solutions thinking.

All systems work to maintain themselves so a focus on creating the new may be more effective than fixing the old.


🔹 Listening to those with different views on climate change

Many of those with different views to my own on climate change have different world views based on different beliefs and assumptions about the nature of reality.

Most Australians are concerned about climate change.

Most Australians accept the same basic human values.

A few of the very wealthy choose to cloud discussion and democratic process with targeted and sophisticated disinformation.

Many people have other pressing survival and well-being issues to deal with.

Climate change can trigger a range of emotional responses such as anger, denial, grief, depression, panic, helplessness.


🔹 Knowledge of who we are and the nature of reality

Most people are still catching up with 21st century views on what it means to be human, the interdependence of nature and the planet, and the fundamental nature of reality.

Dominant 19th and 20th century thinking make it difficult to understand the nature or the severity of many current global problems and severely restrict the range of possible solutions that are considered.

Questions and proposed actions are often still embedded within older world views that caused the problems in the first place.

The potential for humanity to effectively address current global issues is restricted by adversarial approaches, the need to be right, the expectation that ‘somebody else’ will fix them, lack of empowerment or lack of compassion.

A deep sense of the sacred is emerging based on indigenous knowledge and ways of being in the world, ancient wisdom traditions or personal spiritual experience.


🔹 Researching local climate change actions over the last decade

There are a number of existing climate change organisations, groups and networks.

There are a number of existing climate change agenda, policies, projects and reports.

Local expertise in successful climate change mitigation has been building.

Climate change activism is changing as the limitations of previous adversarial approaches become evident, many long term activists suffer burnout, and youth join.

New questions are being asked as we learn from the climate actions of the past and the transparency of vested interests increases.

Climate actions should be effective as well as personally sustainable, meaningful and joyful.

Climate actions should focus more on creating the new rather than attempting to fix the old.


🔹 Reading existing climate change action strategies

A number of community, government and organisational climate change action strategies exist at local, state, national and global levels.

Future vision documents often contain climate change actions.

Community discourse and consultation on preferred futures often refer to climate change.

‘Futures studies’ and ‘social foresight’ organisations research systemic, sustainable, agile, integral, holistic and transformational change methodologies.