Action like this is possible. We have an existence proof. It will just be remarkably unpleasant to everybody despite their favorite mechanism being not just used, but 10x more intensely than they are used to.
But there’s good news: there’s one way this is easier than Covid.
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Covid has been a weird collective action problem, one aimed squarely at America’s weakest point: minor constraints on individual freedom that utterly destroy the sense of self of 1/3 of this country 🙄
Fortunately climate action does not call for that type of constraining
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Stopping a virus unfortunately at least for Americans requires individuals to act in highly socially disruptive ways (masks, distancing).
Fortunately, decarbonizing the economy largely requires action from institutional leaders on backend matters, not last mile/last inch.
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- Cities electrifying bus fleets
- automakers shifting to EVs
- Utilities switching to renewables
- CEOs okaying WFH, killing commute
- Real estate devs, urban planners driving densification
All this on a war footing only requires coordination among 1000s, not billions of people
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In the 5 years since I wrote that article, I’ve been involved in a half dozen climate-action type consulting gigs, ranging from national-government-level initiatives (not US) to huge corps to startups. Learned a lot. It’s about half my consulting practice now.
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I know from actually having been involved that “WW2 like mobilization” is not just possible, but is actually happening. It’s just unevenly distributed. It’s been utterly amazing to witness some of this from the ringside. Like a switch being flipped and suddenly huge things move.
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And I hate to say this, but one of the biggest obstacles is penny-ante activist types who have NO appreciation of the challenge of actually operating at the scale and urgency we are talking about and getting in the way of us doing bigger things, faster by screaming about it.
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People who have never organized anything larger than a parade. Who usually have zero appreciation for the engineering, numbers, or proportions involved. Who obsess over plastic straws and about dragging extraneous social justice goals under “big tents” so the whole thing stalls.
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Replying to
I totally agree on the big tent point, except for one nagging doubt: is decarbonisation of the economy and stopping climate change compatible with consumerism, or do we have to build a different economic reality? (If we do, I feel like you end up with the biggest of big tents…)
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Replying to
"Consumerism" is a strawman. People live, they consume and produce. The only way we know how to balance the two so far at 8 billion scale is with industrial mass production connecting the two. I've never yet seen a meaningful alternative suggested. Localism is just innumeracy.
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Can you sustain 8 billion people in lives they consider worth living in a new way of matching resources to desires without coercion? If so, let's do that. If the idea is to scare, preach, and shame them into consuming less... it simply doesn't work. Never has, never will.
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