I didn’t want to be a climate activist
A few years back, I co-founded a non-profit organization called the Climate Focus Society, dedicated to covering stories about practical climate solutions. Our flagship activity is Climate Stories Atlantic, an online platform with professionally written and edited articles about positive climate change projects in Atlantic Canada.
In the comments to one of our articles was pasted the image you see above. Whether human, semi-human troll, or anti-climate bot, it had me rifling through my stack of mortgage statements, power bills, and used car repair receipts looking for the deeds to my yacht and private jet and multiple mansions. I’d have been content with just one mansion, but alas, that deed went undone.
Not too long ago, someone asked me when it was that I decided I wanted to be a climate activist. I reflected on the question, remembering the much, much younger me who wanted to be in turn a photojournalist or theatre set designer or documentary filmmaker.
Like many people who started off in different directions, the state of the world – both the planet and the people on it – set me on a different path. (What is the purpose of art, I thought, as an idealistic young person is wont to do, when there is poverty out there – even though it was political and social theatre that in many ways changed my worldviews.)
After a volunteer posting abroad, I returned to Canada and switched a half-finished university degree from Theatre to International Development. I then spend three decades in the non-profit sector working on global, environment, and climate change issues. As a consultant, I continue to work in climate and community development spaces.
However, there are many in the climate change sector, like me, who wish they didn’t have to be climate activists. This sentiment isn’t because of a lack of environmental commitment, but because we would prefer that the problems no longer existed and we could get back to our regularly scheduled programs. Climate work is generally born of necessity rather than desire. This is especially true of climate scientists (of which I am definitely not) who may face the dilemma of balancing traditional scientific values and approaches with a belief in the urgent need for climate political action.
There are psychological burdens of climate concern and associated burnout risks from activism of most kinds. Some describe climate workers as experiencing “pre-traumatic stress” as they try to brace for the climate-related disasters they know are coming. And young people, born to a world where they see climate-worsened weather before their eyes, are far too often told ‘it’s up to you now to solve the mess you’ve inherited.’
This is in no way an employment complaint. Climate work is creative, challenging, and fulfilling; I’ve received more than I could ever give in terms of working relationships, job satisfaction, and windows into different cultures and communities. This also isn’t to say there aren’t holier-than-thou activists who are hypocrites (it’s very hard to be a purist in this world) or who use guilt rather than connection and persuasion as their main tool.
Maybe some people feel they are being told too often that they are the ‘bad guys’ and it affects how they view climate activists. Or maybe the algorithms led them to the same destination. Climate change does engage our moral brain, and so many look for ‘enemies’. Yet simplistically (and to different degrees), we all contribute to this problem and all stand to suffer the impacts (again, to different degrees). The truth is that climate change is a more complicated and intertwined topic than most other issues, and the solutions won’t always be easy.
Life can be hard, and life can be expensive. Maybe some skilled, hard-working people in so-called ‘polluting industries’ want to be called in to the transition to a cleaner economy rather than called out. I’ll try not to assume intent just as I hope others don’t assume why I am in the climate solutions game.
However, if you’ll excuse me, I have lobster to eat on my yacht.
-SK