Dear ministers, I am a climate crisis campaigner: nationalise me right now
George Monbiot
Why have politicians outsourced the most important issue of our time to private agencies and individuals? We can’t do it all - this way lies disaster
Wed 28 Aug 2024 01.00 EDT
There are several services and assets I would like to see nationalised. But at the top of my list is neither water, nor trains, nor development land, much as I’d like to see them brought under national or local public ownership. Above all, I want to see the nationalisation of my own business: environmental persuasion. I love my job. But I’m not very good at it. None of us is.
We face the greatest predicament humankind has confronted: the erosion and possible collapse of our life-support systems. Its speed and scale have taken even scientists by surprise. The potential impacts are greater than any recent pandemic, or any war we have suffered. Yet the effort to persuade people of the need for action has been left almost entirely to either the private or voluntary sectors. And it simply does not work.
Why? The first reason is that we are massively outgunned. For every pound or dollar spent on persuasion by an environmental charity or newspaper, the oil, chemicals, automotive, livestock and mining sectors will spend a thousand. They snap up the cleverest and most devious communicators to craft their messages, offering salaries no one else can afford. Among others, they pay a BBC in-house content studio to make their films. The BBC’s offer of “our century-long pedigree as the world’s most trusted storytellers” can be used to massage the reputations of the fossil fuel and pesticide companies it now works for.
The second is that, however inclusive we try to be, we will always be seen as a faction. Who are we to tell anyone else how to behave? We are, for many, antagonists, regardless of how we frame our messages. Business and the media see us as enemies of aspiration, seeking to limit the consumption they are trying to boost. Despite the best efforts of sincere organisations such as the Conservative Environmental Network, we will generally (in most cases, correctly) be perceived as leftwing. Our endorsement of a cause will automatically trigger some people’s rejection.
And our instruments are limited. Whenever environmental persuaders start making progress, their most eye-catching methods are prohibited: for instance, by the 1986 Public Order Act, the 1994 Criminal Justice Act, the 2000 Terrorism Act, the 2005 Serious Organised Crime Act, the 2022 Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act and the 2023 Public Order Act. Between them, they criminalise even the tamest and most traditional attempts to generate public interest, such as marching slowly down a street or chaining yourself to the railings.
When we fail, we blame ourselves or are blamed by others. But we might as well chastise ourselves for an inability to levitate parliament. There are certain things the private sector does well, and certain things it cannot do. As a private trader in environmental persuasion, I feel obliged to state that my profession is, when it stands alone, futile.
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Full article:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/28/dear-ministers-i-am-a-climate-crisis-campaigner-nationalise-me-right-now
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