These are from Danny’s book The no-nonsense guide to climate change (Oxford: New Internationalist, 2010).
1. Build the movement. “We need as many people as possible to get switched on, clued up and active”, says Danny. Well, you’re reading this, and Cambridge WDM gathers in members’ homes and lays on public actions, and national WDM keeps us motivated and informed.
2. Stop the worst stuff: get off the coal train, shut down the tar sands and end the biofuel boom.
3. Get the alternatives rolling. “Are there opportunities to pressure or shame your local government to put more sustainable solutions in place?”
4. Reclaim democracy and clean up politics. “This is a great opportunity to make links with other non-climate campaigners.” At the 30 January meeting, Danny held the attention of people from groups of all kinds. The event itself was a co-production between Cambridge WDM and Cambridge Carbon Footprint. We look forward to working together again.
5. Fight the growth myth. The growth being that of Gross Domestic Product.
6. Switch off the carbon tap. This is calling for tighter regulation and grassroots action to rein in polluting companies.
7. Stick a spanner in consumer culture. With art and music and creative writing and performance of all kinds!
8. Link to other local campaigns. Yes, this does need saying more than once.
9. Pick a fight.
10. Support struggles on the climate frontline. This has always been WDM’s way.
A bit different, those ten, from lifestyle recommendations about taps and insulation and cycling. But Danny’s book is like that. As he says in the introduction, “Climate change isn’t just a technical issue to do with putting the wrong amount of certain gases into the air. It’s tangled up with politics, lifestyles, economics, power structures, culture and belief. That is why it’s proving so difficult to solve, and also why it’s simultaneously disastrous, frustrating, fascinating, heart-breaking , and utterly relevant to everyone in the world.”
Were you there when Danny came and addressed us on 30 January? We didn’t record the proceedings, and we wouldn’t have got very far — a lot of it was quiz. But you’ll get the flavour from the book well enough — and a lot of science, too, made intelligible to non-scientists like me. Buy it!
