Leverage Point #8: The strength of negative feedback loops, relative to the impacts they are trying to correct against

Leverage Point #7: The gain around driving positive feedback loops

 

SustainUS delegates (and climate justice rockstars) Dyanna and Laura taking some time to laugh at COP yesterday.

I recently had my First Term Review for my Senior Fellowship (proud to say that my fellowship is now approved through the year, B”H!) – in it, I spoke about my research methods, what I’d accomplished so far, and how I intended to interview the activists, scientists, and policymakers I would be meeting.

One question was immediately asked of me by a member of the Faculty Committee: “You’re asking people who work on these issues to identify weaknesses within their work. Don’t you think people will be biased and speak only positively about what they do? How will you account for this overly optimistic view?”

I held back a laugh. The reality of it is, I’ve had the exact opposite problem. Almost all of the climate justice organizers I’ve spoken to had trouble giving me examples of campaign and policy successes. There was never a shortage of failures, though.

It made me realize that we don’t celebrate nearly enough in our movement.

We are quite the misanthropes when it comes to climate change. We tell ourselves that this problem is too urgent, too complex, too heavy. We tell ourselves that there is no time for celebration, no time for congratulations – we must keep moving forward, onward, to the next campaign, to the nest mission requiring our urgent attention.

I agree. I recognize that this problem is so epic – we will never be done working. I know that pats on the back won’t directly solve climate change. But here’s the thing: working on these issues is heartbreaking and, quite frankly, absolutely terrifying.

By dedicating our lives to climate change, we can oftentimes forget to take care of ourselves and of each other – by extension, a part of our planet.

We need to celebrate! We need to rejoice in our successes, acknowledge our efforts, support each other, and – most importantly – we need to remember to feel the deep love we have for the world. We must have the audacity to dream of a better world – and the audacity to love ourselves enough to work toward making it a reality.

Looking at past successful social justice movements, a common thread has been their sense of positivity. The civil rights movement, for example, had a commonly held belief that success was on the horizon. I can’t say the same about the climate justice movement – to be honest, most of us at COP21 are too busy dreading failure.

This needs to stop! We can be successful if we believe that it is possible. We can be successful if we love each other, if we take time away from COP computer screens and sterile conference centers to reconnect with the earth.

We need to celebrate how hard we are working here (even though it never feels like there are enough hours in the day). We need to rejoice in our media hits, our interventions, our actions, hugs, the incredibly awesome movement we are working to build within these halls and back home.