Outriders of the coming adversity: how climate activists and climate scientists keep going

1. Outriders of the coming adversity: how climate activists and climate scientists keep going Paul Hoggett and Rosemary Randall

2. The scientists Interviews with six leading climate scientists from four UK universities • Experiences of attack from: • hostile media • denialist lobby • policy makers • colleagues

3. Social defences against anxiety Scientific neutrality Specialisation Climate science is very vulnerable because virtually nobody knows first-hand all the pieces of the argument Many [scientists] say…it’s just my job to chip away at the frontiers of knowledge…and it’s up to somebody else what to do with it. You pick a bit of the jigsaw and work at it in the hope that other people…are working on other bits of the jigsaw and in the end in some way it will be put together… …a lot of scientists convey the impression that they have no feelings at all about these issues.

4. Current study: aims and methods Aims To understand the nature of the stresses and dilemmas encountered by climate activists and climate scientists in their work and examine how they respond to them. • Method • Single interviews of 1-2 hours exploring: • biography • values • journey • emotional and ethical challenges encountered • responses to these challenges The interviewers Both interviewers are experienced psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapists

5. Current study: the sample • The sample • 10 interviewees • all but one in their late twenties to late thirties, • three men, seven women, • most from white middle-class backgrounds, three from BAME backgrounds, one from a working class background • all educated to university level • older participants active since 1990s, younger participants since 2005.

6. Range of work Climate change and... You can’t make progress without some component of acting against, in opposition to or with disobedience to the authorities • Direct action against: • airport expansion • financial institutions • arts sponsorship • oil companies • coal mining • coal-fired power stations fundraising divestment carbon reduction health migration food economic policy behaviour change public engagement energy policy media relations Direct action’s not sufficient...everybody has to come along behind you, otherwise the progress can easily be lost. work with minorities community energy

7. Values [I have a] fundamental distrust of the big corporate interests…a great belief in grassroots organisations...ordinary peoples’ capacity to do creative things together. It’s injustice...I remember the exact moment. [I was] sitting amongst medics...many of whom had flown there...not recognizing our own role in it...I was angry. I’ve always been very aware of injustice. I think that’s the value that I feel is most prevalent in me. Environmental justice became my frame, not climate change. What really got me was learning about the impacts in parts of Africa, being able to see what’s happening already and the impact it’s having on lives and livelihoods. Even if I don’t look back with an awful lot of fondness on the Catholicism I was brought up in there was a great sense of being taught that you should care for other people. Equality, equity, injustice, fairness, sharing, resource sharing and all those kinds of things.

8. The activist journey – awakening, immersion, crisis, sustainability I realized that there was a closing window of opportunity to act and if I was ever going to do something about it, it needed to be now It was galvanizing. I was becoming more and more like - right, we’ve got to do something that feels proportionate to this urgent threat. I decided to apply for a job at x. The evidence about climate change was so compelling. To sustain yourself politically, actively, you need to do it in a way that you can manage. I’m still doing stuff...at a much quieter level We used to work crazy hours…often didn’t have enough time to think, literally. I just burnt out…it was life, everything in life overwhelming me…I just couldn’t cope with all of my commitments quite a lot of which were unpaid. I was really lost…I was pretty fragile.

9. The impact of knowledge and involvement I couldn’t come to terms with it I sometimes feel overwhelmed and quite pessimistic It was an epiphany...it became the primary thing I worried about. There was a lot of pain and a lot of impact on people’s health and mental health that...was never really discussed. I was suffering terrible insomnia and real fear. I know if I let open the floodgates it’s there...I know what the depressive, overwhelming, ‘I feel lost’ feeling is. I’ve had it. It’s not something I enjoy The process of the UNCCC...ended up making me feel very depressed There was this creeping feeling that the thing was just insurmountable”

10. Relationship of climate change to personal life For me, not flying was part of aligning behaviour with values and aligning different parts of my life My Mum was like ‘Don’t do this’... I just didn’t talk to my parents for quite a while until I sorted out how I felt, until I felt like...I’m OK now I really neglected my family and friends for two years There’s definitely a danger of tying your whole sense of worth and purpose to this challenge that is so much bigger than you and is never ending I’ve drifted from my school friends...a difference in values has become very clear and that was quite painful to start with, but I think I’m more accepting of it now It’s very personally disruptive...direct action is a major sacrifice in your own life...you can’t leave the country while you’re on bail, it affects your job prospects...you can’t get house insurance.

11. Direct action – excitement and proportionality Everyone who does it, loves it It was very exciting...we had a great time...there was complete trust...I had no fear It feels commensurate, it feels really lively, I’m doing something which actually meets the scale of this challenge This feels very real, this feels where it’s happening...we are challenging things that are quite fundamental It’s just really fun...if you don’t have fun day to day, you are going to burn out way quicker Putting your whole body in the way of what’s happening feels quite cathartic, you’re actually doing something because your whole body’s involved I was becoming more and more like – right, we’ve got to do something that feels proportionate to this urgent threat It was really about doing something audacious that would allow us to talk and put it on the agenda

12. Trauma It was absolutely upsetting to lose...to be found guilty...I just couldn’t stop crying It was a transformatory experience but it was terrifying...it was very, very traumatic...I think I’m still processing that fear The police have come round and they’ve fucking walked on our bed in their boots and emptied all the cupboards and drawers out...that’s traumatic and the neighbours seeing the police pouring into the house You can’t sustain that kind of activity, being arrested, the fear of the police, your house gets raided... My friends were really, really distressed I was really lost, I remember coming out of the court and saying I don’t know where to go from here, I literally don’t know which city to travel back to...I don’t know what to do...I was pretty fragile Mark Kennedy was a good friend of mine and it was devastating when I found out that he had actually been a secret police officer for ten years

13. The struggle with painful and negative feelings I was suffering terrible insomnia and real fear There was a lot of pain and a lot of impact on people’s health and mental health that...was never really discussed I know if I let open the floodgates it’s there...I know what the depressive, overwhelming, ‘I feel lost’ feeling is. I’ve had it. It’s not something I enjoy Burnout manifested in anxiety and panic attacks and then boredom and not taking pleasure in tasks that were pleasurable

14. Ways of coping creatively • the culture of the movement • prefiguring the future • thinking positively • proportionality • personal support systems • self-care

15. The culture of the movement: trust and solidarity There’s an incredible sense of solidarity that comes out of doing a direct action Climate camps were really something special, friends I made then are still friends now The building of communities made a big difference to what was happening We have so much support for each other Activism is a really nice home That feeling of trust with other people was quite exciting

16. The culture of the movement: organisation We build into it after the event doing something where we talk about the emotions of how to deal with that. People you’ve been in a cell with are people you’re close to in a way that you never get to be close with in others. The downside of consensus work and democratic decision making work is that you end up only surrounded by people who are like you because it becomes easier to make decisions...we’re recreating cliques because it becomes easier to talk to people who are alike. The need to create a sense of belonging, for me and for others was really important We have Activist Trauma Support, we have medical support, we have debriefings, we have a really good way of helping people. We know what burnout is now. We know what post-traumatic stress disorder is. Movements that are exclusive and are mainly full of people with privilege [are] replicating the patterns...we’re just replicating capitalism in our movements and it’s like we’re being co-opted.

17. Prefiguring the future Ultimately, solutions are going to look like more active citizenship...more democratic forms of decision making, decentralised everything really from energy generation to food production A plethora of places started up...showing that there were other possible worlds...[we’re] trying to actually see if we can actually do them. I want to work on new forms of love...that don’t require the family to become the nuclear unit around you Can we make [capitalism] redundant, create our own local economies, our own automonous spaces, our own Community supported Agriculture schemes, our own community renewables...systems which little bit by little bit just show that we don’t need this capitalist system ...[if]...you’re really focused on the impact of your own government and the extent of what it causes abroad, suddenly it doesn’t feel comfortable to think well I could grow my own food...suddenly it doesn’t feel OK to bury yourself away into small scale solutions. The thing that I have tried to hold onto is...that there will still be relationships and love and community

18. Thinking positively I got fed up with banging on negatively I’m at my best on the edge slightly. I loved the idea of going and trying something. The sort of work I do is about positive change...getting money out of oil and putting it into positive projects There’s astrengthening feeling from finding new paths to solve problems I find inspiration thinking of new tactics We need to have ways of achieving success, experiencing successes Short-term wins are a way of staying optimistic...but to me there’s something quite neo-liberal...in the achievement oriented ‘we’re going to win this campaign’ We run a project for young marginalised people...what I see there is a whole energy of political organising which is completely alien to me...a whole way of political organising that we probably haven’t anticipated. And that’s quite exciting

19. Proportionality – limiting one’s involvement I am capable of standing back from it. Now I’ve got kids I can’t do the 24/7 don’t sleep, just drink black coffee for days on end and organise things. If it’s not fun, if you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, stop doing that - do something different, that also helps, that you do enjoy. I certainly felt that I needed to put a limit on how long I was going to do that for...you can’t stay in that place forever...we need to make sure that the way that we’re pursuing it has other benefits along the way. You don’t have to be on duty the whole time Part of what we’re doing is a long, long struggle...and burning yourself out in a couple of years is not the way to do it.

20. Proportionality – limiting what’s thought about I barely think about climate change now. It’s in the background of my life all the time but I rarely sit and actually talk about climate change or read very much about it. There’s a psychological element - like what would it be like if everyday you got up and thought about were we or weren’t we likely to stay within 2 degrees - whether you could sustain that. I haven’t thought about 2 degrees for years...I don’t click on it. There are articles that pop up in my newsfeed that I found myself actively avoiding. I tend to avoid dwelling on that because it’s not productive I haven’t had a conversation about climate change really for a while...I’ve got a limited amount of time and energy and I need to feel that I’m making progress with something I think I don’t think about it...I’ve accepted it, found my own kind of path of how I live my life with those kinds of things going through it.

21. Personal support systems I have a really strong, close circle of female friends who I got to know through activism...then there are other activist friends of colour...and an international network of friends who have the same analysis as me. “Does your Mum support you now? “ “She does, she does, she’s very proud.” I feel very, very blessed to have really good solid friendships with people who have similar political values, have similar experiences, who can empathise, who can support. There was the choice to live in intentional communities as well. I’d go off and do this demonstrating and protesting but I was going back to an environment where that was totally supported My parents have just been very loving really and provided me with a lot of security and love consistently. At every court appearance my Dad was there with a home-made banner of support, in his best suit and,...that helped me.

22. Self-care Being out of doors is really important to me I feel spiritually nourished waking up and seeing the trees and the countryside I live near the sea and the mountains. You can spend a day reading about Eritrea, the Congo or the Med and turn the laptop off and go for a walk. Literature and poetry, spending time with nature...just being in the park I do a lot of gardening I have a profound relationship with nature The things that create resilience are just the fairly standard things...just making sure you’ve got good support around you and having fun when you can I’ve developed quite a lot of inner practices to support my work like meditation and yoga.

23. Social defences against anxiety • Organisations have rules, practices and systems which operate both formally and informally. These can have an unconscious function as ‘systems of defence against anxiety’ and we found evidence of such defensive systems amongst the climate scientists. We were also interested to discover: • Do the looser networks and groupings of activist culture also contain rules, practices and systems that can be used as social defences? • Do environmental NGOs exhibit social defences?

24. Individual and social defences Individual Individual emotional management Individual defence Conscious Unconscious Collective emotional management Social defence Group

25. Individual emotional management • Self-care practices • Spending time in nature • Using meditation and yoga • Looking to family and friends for support • Taking holiday and time off • Maintaining other interests

26. Individual defences Keeping busy Apocalyptic thinking “Would you have been able to stop at that point?” “No. Basically no, I wouldn’t have. It would have felt wrong.” It’s clear that it’s hopeless, we wont stop runaway climate change at this rate. I was incredibly busy all the time I was an armchair apocalyptarian at that point People like overwork, they work to distract themselves.

27. Collective emotional management • Organisational practices • Preparation • Debriefing • Support practices • Consensus decision making • Non-hierarchical organisation

28. Social defences – the bubble of the movement I suddenly realised I was in this bubble and if I couldn’t understand what this person was saying who was very mainstream (then) how on earth did we think the general population could understand what we were saying? It felt like a very comforting bubble to be in because everyone there is an environmentalist, everyone believes in climate change...but there was no challenge to that. The first sign that public opinion just wasn’t with us...was very upsetting.

29. Social defences – toxic NGOs It’s got more corporate...full of bureaucracy and ideas of efficiency and marketing... ….there is a bit of a macho element, like how late you stay at the office or how long you can stay at your laptop… [Now] I feel more senior in my position [I’m] able to say I’m burning out whereas I recognise how impossible that is for people who are early on in their career both to recognise it as a problem and then feel confident in asking for time off. NGOs disempower radicals...having a secure wage and having these hierarchies and...targets in your appraisal and people get deradicalised very quickly.

30. Conclusions • Generational and cultural differences between the scientists and activists seem to be influential in how they cope with the stresses and dilemmas of their work. • Activists were more aware of and more engaged with the emotional impact of living day to day with climate change. • Some members of both groups had suffered psychological trauma in the course of their work. • The social defences available to the scientists were not available to the activists and this may relate to the activists’ capacity to develop more creative solutions to the difficulties of the work. However there was also some evidence that problematic social defences were also operating in the larger NGOs where bureaucratic structures predominated.

31. Outriders of the coming adversity: how climate activists and climate scientists keep going Paul Hoggett and Rosemary Randall