The Guardian UK
Monday 15 October 2007
Dropping environmental slogans like "save the planet" to focus on "intelligent living" instead would make a big difference, says George Marshall.
Please, I beg you, if you care about climate change forget about "saving the planet."
Don't get me wrong. I'm not arguing that you chuck your bike in a hedge and hurtle off to Heathrow in your 4x4. In fact the exact opposite.
The problem is that this wretched phrase and all the concepts it embodies are guaranteed to have the exact opposite effect. Let me unravel it and I hope you will agree.
First there is that word "planet". This word contains no sense of emotional connection. What is a planet? A lump of cold rock floating in space. Personally it does nothing for me. My attachment is to my family, friends, and community. The further I get away from that core the less I feel connected or prepared to act. The word planet, like climate, distances it even further from my immediate concerns.
And then there is this saving thing. Some people, and I am one, are motivated by the call to save something specific from imminent destruction - rainforests or whales or the panda - but this is a rallying cry for a campaign, not a total change in behaviour.
The phrase "save the planet" is closely associated with these worthy campaigns and the activist culture that produced them, which, let's face it, is overwhelmingly white and middle class. It is not an association that reaches deep into mainstream society.
And the wider associations of the word "save" speak of struggle, abstinence and sacrifice. It is no surprise that we are invariably told that the way we will save the planet is by giving something up: heat or travel or lighting.
Once again, telling people they have to give something up is an unproductive way to change their behaviour. Advertisers, those experts in motivation, never use the word save. Even if a product saves time or money they still avoid the word and highlight the wonderful things you could do with that extra money or time.
But people are not told about the wonderful things they could do with this planet if they save it. They are told, endlessly, of the appalling things that will happen if they don't. This is blackmail and it simply doesn't work.
But the biggest problem with "save the planet" lies with the underlying concept that people can be motivated to make personal changes by a gentle appeal to a vast collective goal. Why should anyone be told that it is their personal responsibility to save the planet any more than it is their responsibility to end global poverty or stop war?
A few people may be satisfied by the argument that if everyone made those small efforts it would create the desired change. However I fear that most people know only too well that the tiny contribution of their own efforts will immediately be overwhelmed by the indifferent high-carbon behaviour of their neighbour. And who can blame them?
So I say let's chuck out the tired old phrases from a strategy that is clearly not working. Let's start from first principles.
People want to make things better. No one feels motivated to do something that simply makes things less bad. They need a positive vision.
People want personal gain. That gain need not be financial: it could be an improvement in their health, happiness or status.
People never want to live with less. But people are prepared to live differently, and they are happy to make the change if they are persuaded that this will bring other benefits.
Put them all together and you get a very different message. And, to further reject the authoritarian tones of instructions to do this or that, I will write it as a personal testimony:
"I have embraced a lighter lifestyle because it is the smart, cool, intelligent and healthy way to live. I want to live in the present and the real world, not be tied to an outdated and dangerous 20th-century way of living. I live this way because I love it, because it makes me feel good and because it is healthy and gives me freedom.
"I feel that I am setting the pace for the 21st century and I am excited to see people all around me trying to catch up. If we all work together we can build a world that is cleaner, fairer and happier and that is what I want to leave my children."
Isn't that a better way to look at it?
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