After the failure of COP26, there is only one last hope for our survival

"It’s too late for incremental change. By mobilising just 25% of people, we can flip social attitudes towards the climate." - George Monbiot

After the disappointment and despair of the COP26 cop out, a typically well-argued piece from George where he claims that our last hope is "cascading regime shifts" and "domino dynamics", scientific theories as to how human behaviour can suddenly shift.

He says .... "There’s an aspect of human nature that is simultaneously terrible and hopeful: most people side with the status quo, whatever it may be. A critical threshold is reached when a certain proportion of the population change their views.

But where does the tipping point lie? Researchers whose work was published in Science in 2018 discovered that a critical threshold was passed when the size of a committed minority reached roughly 25% of the population. At this point, social conventions suddenly flip. Between 72% and 100% of the people in the experiments swung round, destroying apparently stable social norms. As the paper notes, a large body of work suggests that “the power of small groups comes not from their authority or wealth, but from their commitment to the cause”.

Social convention, which has for so long worked against us, can if flipped become our greatest source of power, normalising what now seems radical and weird. If we can simultaneously trigger a cascading regime shift in both technology and politics, we might stand a chance. It sounds like a wild hope. But we have no choice. Our survival depends on raising the scale of civil disobedience until we build the greatest mass movement in history, mobilising the 25% who can flip the system. We do not consent to the destruction of life on Earth."

The Guardian - After the failure of Cop26, there’s only one last hope for our survival

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