How We Win To Save The Climate

tl;dr: Covid-19 shows us that we can change. Now let’s make it work for saving the climate.

We all make new experiences these days. And that “we” is an estimated 1.7 billion strong, around 20 percent of the global population. We spatially distance ourselves and adapt our everyday practices in a grand social experiment on a scale unimaginable only a month ago. Some of these changes might revert back once the Covid-19 pandemic is over, depending on how long it lasts and how long we have to participate in this experiment. But it is probably safe to say that a lot of these changes, in the way we go on about life and work, will have a lasting effect. Economically this pandemic will very clearly have long-term effects, being as severe if not more than the Great Recession of 2008/2009, and also extending to geopolitics in a profound way.

But let’s focus on the changes in social practices and what can be learned from those for other challenging situations humanity is facing in the 21st century. According to practice theory, social practices are the building blocks of social life. They can be understood as a composite of three interconnected elements: ideas, skills, materials. Ideas shape our understandings of practices, what they are and why and when we should perform them. They are both individually known and realized, as well as widely shared and socially acceptable. Or in Anthony Giddens’ words: we can draw on them, like we draw on social structures. Skills are needed to carry out a practice, they are learned and individually performed. The practice of cooking seems to be on the rise and, in the case of the Covid-19 pandemic, there is a surprising amount of people buying flour to make bread at home. In fact, people are reskilling themselves and learn to cook and to bake via means of food bloggers, Instagram, and YouTube videos. Which leads us to materials as the last element of a social practice. Materials are all things physical, tools for example, cars for driving, but also food for cooking.

Just now while sitting at home, doing my research and my teaching as well as typing this blogpost, I use materials – my laptop, my internet connection – while exercising a certain set of skills (including following a new daily routine) and find a new understanding why this is important now and that (meeting someone offline) is not. Sometimes practices merge and reconnect, e.g. skills for driving a car can be used for the social practice of individual automobility just as much as for the social practice of carsharing.

Coming back to the pandemic and how we all have changed our practices, this is happening across the board, across the globe. People are creating new practices when working from home, when learning to cook or make bread. The materials might have been there all along, the skills dormant, but now there is a new understanding (out of necessity) and thus new ideas and images reorient our skills and materials. This reorientation, reskilling and, at times, buying different physical stuff, to make bread or have a good online lecture delivered from home, is extensive – and could probably shift our ideas, images and understandings of certain practices in a fundamental way. Personal anecdote, and you might have the same experience: in my social surroundings I often hear these days that a lot of meetings that are now done online could’ve been done so in the first place. They would’ve been shorter, more effective, and didn’t involve the hassle of people having to commute around for hours. At the same time, the same people become aware what offline interactions they do miss, who they miss, and what activities they cherish. There is a reevaluation taking place in the ideas part of a lot of social practices, what practice is truly relevant (and meaningful) and what not. Suddenly we become aware what really matters and what is just a distraction or a waste of our time.

All of this is happening with 20 percent of the global population and it will have long-term effects. Now let me be the devil’s advocate, or Winston Churchill for that matter, and pose the question how we can make good use of this crisis. I’m talking of course about the lessons learned for combatting the multiple ecological crises, especially human-made climate change.

First, we learn that if politics takes a crisis serious it can implement strong measures in a surprisingly short amount of time. It can also communicate these measures in a way that people understand and accept them. This is the opposite of authoritarian rule by the way, quite on the contrary it is deeply democratic when democratic governments consult experts and both explain again and again what they do, what the options are, why they choose this over that, what they don’t know, and how they will reevaluate. This sense of urgency while being very careful and constantly explaining every action is crucial here. In the case of the pandemic it is absolutely necessary because these measures are cutting into your very personal freedoms. And democracy rests on giving good reasons, valid reasons, sensible options and permanent efforts of staying legitimate.

Again: people are accepting this and that is so interesting. I never had any politician explaining climate change to me like they explain the pandemic and the measures taken. They never come in front of the press with renowned experts on climate science and tell us: “This is a big problem and we have to face it, it will mean this and this for you and we are asking for your support and sacrifice.”

Now, I’m not advocating the pandemic measures for combatting climate change, no shutdown of the economy and public life until the problem goes away. What we do need is to fundamentally rethink economic activity and also our consumption choices. There is no easy technological fix to keep global temperature increases well below 2 degrees, a guardrail that is international law since the Paris agreement. What doesn’t help is to behave in a way as if it is not a problem, as if the solution is already there and it just takes a bit of innovation and the magic of the market and then we can have our climate-neutral lunch for free. No, people will change if they are honestly told that there is a problem and that we have to make sacrifices. We need this conversation. And once we have it, I have every faith in the world that people will listen and will react.

If we can take something with us from the pandemic for these other crises, then it is that we can change, fundamentally change and that we can learn what really matters to us and what was just a distraction. This is the essence of freedom to me, what Ivan Illich called conviviality: individual autonomy realized in inter-dependence with our human and non-human environments.

Second, we see that there are people in a privileged position that can manage very easy with such drastic changes (including myself) – and that there are people who are much less privileged, who struggle. And they need our help as a society. They need good social policies enacted by strong governments. We cannot have weak governments. With weak or strong government I don’t mean how much money you can throw at a problem. Money will of course be an issue, but strong government in my view is competent government, effective government, and to use a broader term: good governance. Political leadership can do something about that, especially when it comes to creating trust, by having that conversation with the citizenry, by bringing forth experts who know a thing or two about climate change.

There is something else I see and I’m speaking again from my German perspective, but you might have similar examples from where you’re from. In these times we experience how lively and active civil society is, how much people are engaged in their communities, how they help those in need and volunteer. We need these active citizens, people willing to change things and help each other. Competent and effective governments in an ongoing conversation with their active citizenry who’s engaging in their communities helping each other is how we win. This is how we win.

And for business, let’s not forget about those, we need a new form of innovativity, of adaptability, of radical change. And we see that as well right now, it can happen and it can happen fast. Automotive companies making respirators? Yes. Fashion companies making protective masks? Yes. Given the technical readouts, companies can do all of that and more. If we share our knowledge and if we take the situation serious, nothing is impossible. If we have failed in the past in doing so then it was just because of an insufficiency of our imagination. Ideas and images, skills and competences, materials and tools. We can change all of that. There are rich opportunities here, to reimagine how we live and work, who we are and who we want to be, as individuals as well as a society.

I feel so much hope when I think and write about this. Yet I also know the worries and the despair and the frustrations. Can we really manage? Can I personally really manage? No. And yes. No, you cannot do it alone, no one can, and no one has to. Yes, we can do it together, that is not a problem at all. If all of this reads like me asking you to jump into the unknown then yes, that is exactly what this is. Let’s make this jump but let’s make it together. That’s the important thing. We have to make this together, as individuals and as a society. Those societies that can foster good government (and governance) in combination with an active and lively civil society, and truly and radically innovative companies will persist. They will not only survive but thrive in this new age. That’s what I believe.