Well focus is generally useful for getting things done so one way to address climate change would be to stick to climate change discussion at climate change discussion events.
Want to sabotage a protest? Encourage advocacy for increasingly tangential issues. Focus splits, folks start disagreeing on new issues, folks start disagreeing on how issues get prioritized, everything falls apart.
Sadly, this doesn’t even require a malicious actor encouraging it. Well-meaning folks see a potentially sympathetic audience for their pet issue and boom.
At some point an acute issue takes precedence over your long term goals. These are pretty wild hyperbole, but I acknowledge I am trying to paint an image.
Let’s say you were an activist for the welfare of cattle. But then you find out chickens are hooked up to a new feed system that increases their weight by 20% but also causes them excruciating neurological pain, to the point the chickens are even trying to peck themselves to death to avoid the torture. Would it not make sense to pivot for a moment to the worse animal cruelty for a while? The cows aren’t going anywhere.
Let’s say you were an activist for climate and a nation state was running towards genociding an entire group of people. Would it not make sense to pivot to the genocide speed run for a while? Climate change isn’t going anywhere.
Well focus is generally useful for getting things done so one way to address climate change would be to stick to climate change discussion at climate change discussion events.
Want to sabotage a protest? Encourage advocacy for increasingly tangential issues. Focus splits, folks start disagreeing on new issues, folks start disagreeing on how issues get prioritized, everything falls apart.
Sadly, this doesn’t even require a malicious actor encouraging it. Well-meaning folks see a potentially sympathetic audience for their pet issue and boom.
YES!!!
Nothing builds a coalition as effectively as insisting that you absolutely must include a controversial but completely unrelated topic in the effort.
At some point an acute issue takes precedence over your long term goals. These are pretty wild hyperbole, but I acknowledge I am trying to paint an image.
Let’s say you were an activist for the welfare of cattle. But then you find out chickens are hooked up to a new feed system that increases their weight by 20% but also causes them excruciating neurological pain, to the point the chickens are even trying to peck themselves to death to avoid the torture. Would it not make sense to pivot for a moment to the worse animal cruelty for a while? The cows aren’t going anywhere.
Let’s say you were an activist for climate and a nation state was running towards genociding an entire group of people. Would it not make sense to pivot to the genocide speed run for a while? Climate change isn’t going anywhere.
YES!!!