@GreenFire @susankayequinn ban it.

Chris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸

Oh I haven't written that off at all. We do have to try, but citizens changing reducing their consumption can't change the food system, can't change the fuel industry... etc. Only governments can do that and that is going to take massive movements of people to demand it.

It's not that consumers have failed, I actually believe consumers have done as much as they can and exactly how much they have been *allowed* to do.

People are dying now (over 70 in Valencia today) and losing their livelihoods from climate disasters. I haven't given up, I've just changed my focus to the place that can do the most good the quickest to avoid further loss of life.

Susan Kaye Quinn 🌱(she/her)

@chris I think it's actually self-deception that any one of us knows "what's the most good"—a million things need doing, pick one and get busy.

Consumers have *not* done as much as they can--I know because I started years ago & find new things every day. I'm not trying to be "perfect" just trying to find the roadblocks: what *can* I do, what are my limits& what must I demand from the government. So I'm very clear individuals can do more and very clear there are limits.

@GreenFire

Chris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸

@susankayequinn @GreenFire Oh me too! I have this chart behind me. I have had it in my multiple offices since 2003! I’ve checked off most of the list.

And yet, even though I've done so much personally, and helped others to do the same, it has only been a drop in the bucket.

The COVID-19 Pandemic made me realize the ability that *democratic* governments have to make very quick, very impactful movements on society and the economy when the population is united behind a common threat.

It's not a snap of the fingers, but it would be heck of a lot closer to that than what we've been trying to do from the ground up in the past 20 years.

We need a wartime, pandemic-like response to climate change/GHG emissions. That’s what will really move the needle with the speed we require.

Susan Kaye Quinn 🌱(she/her)

@chris what strikes me re:the list is it emphasizes personal decarbonization over activism, movement building, electoral politics.

There is a wide wide range of things you can do that are working for collective change.

Ex: speak at county council meetings about FF regulation, write OpEds re:bills to reduce pollution, grow community gardens, support activists, be an activist, lobby politicians, help neighbors get solar, buy nothing group<--things I've done in the last month

@GreenFire

Susan Kaye Quinn 🌱(she/her)

@chris Don't get me wrong, I like the list, but if you've been working off the list, you're definitely skewed to personal action.

And the way we get to a "wartime, pandemic-like response to climate change" is not some kind of linear switch that will flip once things are "bad enough". Movement building is far more complex than that, and this is a much more vast movement than any previous.

@GreenFire

Chris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸

@susankayequinn @GreenFire for sure it does. I've also been a City Councillor, I've been part of a local activist group since 2009. I've done all those things and will continue, but I've come to the conclusion that the thing I really need to demand from my government, is wholesale action. The piecemeal approach is literally killing us.

Susan Kaye Quinn 🌱(she/her)

@chris I'm not actually averse to you taking that approach (as long as you're taking concrete action to make it happen) even if I disagree that that's "the only way" — as I said before, there are a million jobs that need to be done, pressuring government for wholesale action is one, as long as you're working on that actively, that's good. We all need to work in the sphere that calls to us and that we're most effective in.

@GreenFire

Chris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸

@susankayequinn @GreenFire absolutely. And likewise, I'm not suggesting that everyone stop the actions they are doing to try to make the change in a different way. It's all part of the whole.

But if I had a Crystal Ball, I think the end game here is going to be mass protest and likely, in some jurisdictions, civil disorder and revolution (think China, Russia, and other non-democratic places) forcing their governments to make drastic changes.

I believe Social Media will be the avenue for the global movement that will make the change happen.

Susan Kaye Quinn 🌱(she/her)

@chris as long as we're future-casting (which is my actual job):

there is no end game, there will be no revolution, no mass protest. Eco-radicals will blow up some pipelines, eco-fascist movements will rise w/more climate refugees, but most will quietly be trying to survive. But the social mores will shift: billionaires will get taxed, people will demand governments support their food sources, replace their houses washed away.

1/2

@GreenFire

Susan Kaye Quinn 🌱(she/her)

@chris

Family structures will change. Collective living is more resilient, so it will rise. It will be "common sense" to vote in people who will "do something" re:climate. People will live local, shop local, travel less, and a lot of that will be climate-driven poverty, but not all. It will be fashionable to upcycle, reuse. Some tech innovations will help. Climate disasters will exact costs so large it will cripple governments. People will survive anyway, working together.

2/2

@GreenFire