Following on from the Mark Lee presentation i posted earlier,this article (titled provocatively Save us From our Timid Selves) from Peter Lewis at newmatilda.com stuck a chord for me. It’s about the need to reframe the climate conversation around positive opportunities rather than the negative reactionary approach so favoured over the years by those attempting to resist the tide of (neo-liberal/rampant consumerism/unsustainable/add your negative trend here) change.

Attempting to say ‘No”‘ to climate change is of course absurd but even saying no to cars for instance misses the point. What we need is positive alternatives and hence we should focus on developing and promoting those. Mobility services for instance, like our company bike fleet and the Go Get car share service we offer staff, actually deliver a better alternative than owning a car with it’s various costs for inner city eskimos. The result; none of our staff drive to work regularly.

Great examples of what can be achieved when you look for the practical and positive rather than the fundamentalist and negative can be found in Ezio Manzini’s Sustainability Everyday project. Manzini posits that the great shift we need (the revolution) like the seismic demographic shifts that have gone before it (the agrarian and industrial revolutions) will only occur when a critical mass of people see a better future for themselves by behaving radically different.

Climate change? Just say ‘yes’ (to positive alternatives) and we might just start changing people’s behaviour.

Peters Article can be read here