Thursday, Dec 12

Dear Reader,

Dana R. Fisher has spent much of her career as a sociologist studying mass movements and their varying degrees of success. What gets people off their couches? How do movements reach across divides of race, class, gender? She recently delivered a TED Talk focused on climate change and activism titled How to Be an Apocalyptic Optimist. Her words are compelling. And sobering. She believes it’s still possible for humanity to save itself but only with a mass mobilization of civil society that is, she says, motivated by the suffering caused by the series of climate shocks around the world — heat waves, droughts, fires, and floods. 

Evidence shows us, she says, that the climate shocks that personally affect us and the conflicts they create will spur us to demand climate action. (Which isn’t to ignore the many, many activists who have — for years! — been demanding action, including the Standing Rock protesters, and people such as Julia Butterfly Hill.) But we’re seeing something of a groundswell. Fisher points to the 2023 March to End Fossil Fuels in New York City, where roughly 75,000 people took to the streets. Of those, she says, about three quarters had experienced climate change personally. 

Calling herself an “apocalyptic optimist,” Fisher points to inspiration in the form of ordinary people who are changemakers in their communities. (Sound familiar? That’s pretty much Bluedot’s mandate!) Her advice for all of us? “Prepare for the shocks that are coming,” and respond as “disruptors, activists, and bridge-builders.” 

Ready to get involved? Starting by watching here. 

Apocalyptically,

Dot