What #MeToo Means For Climate Change

Why the #MeToo movement gives me hope we can fix climate change; These days new social norms can be swift and profound. It could be our saving grace

Andrew Simms, 1 October 2018 (UK Guardian)

“…The latest science tells us that nothing short of rapid, transformative change in our infrastructure and behaviour can prevent the loss of the climate we depend on – yet the message is only now being officially endorsed at the highest scientific level, because the implications are terrifying for today’s political and economic gatekeepers. It means real change, which incumbents always fear…[But work from the Rapid Transition Alliance shows] we might be entering a phase in which more rapid behavioural changes are possible…[I]n the early 1970s, more than half of men and over 40% of women smoked… Today in the UK fewer than one in five adults still smoke… Car use in the UK was 20 times higher in 2016 compared with 1949, but the risk of being injured or killed fell almost every year from 1949, from 165 deaths for every billion miles driven, to only 5.4 such deaths in 2015…

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Other examples of successful behaviour change can be found in responses to the HIV/Aids crisis, the dangers of an unhealthy diet and antibiotic resistance…[T]here are signs that something else is happening that might bring even faster shifts in attitude and behaviour closer to what is needed to meet vital climate targets. A mixture of new social movements and social media now seem capable of transforming gradual background shifts into defining moments of change… From the shift around single-use plastics, to the #MeToo movement and the rise of the vegan diet, things are moving fast…Things change. It’s the one thing that is reliable. The climate is changing faster than the attitudes and behaviour of the people most responsible for causing its disruption – but we now know enough to speed things up if we choose to…” click here for more

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