Newsletter #32
Sky kingdoms | Resistance cultures | Ecological storytelling
Hi everyone,
Thank you to those who came along to our session yesterday about effective climate communications, it was great to see so many of you there! If you couldn’t make it, the recording is shared below.
As Climate Week NYC nears its close, we are encouraged by the UN’s recognition of the need to move beyond GDP, and also chastened by news that we are at risk of crossing a seventh (of nine) planetary boundaries. Our thoughts are with all those already suffering the effects of this transgression.
In this week’s shares you’ll find a selection of thoughts, strategies and tools for exploring this predicament, in the hope of finding ways through it together.
Shared in solidarity,
Public Session – recording
When Climate Communication Works (and When it Doesn’t)
Adam Corner with Alex Randall, Suzanne Dhaliwal, and Russell Warfield
Adam Corner of Climate Barometer steered us on an instructive trip down memory lane, reflecting with his guests on some of the wins and challenges over twenty years of climate campaigning efforts. Along the way, Adam’s guests offered an array of tips and warnings: from always remaining focused on people’s lives – not just treating ‘audiences’ as a means to a policy end – to ensuring that deeper damage isn’t expediently done in the interest of short term wins, and holding our trust in the majority when a reactionary minority starts shouting. Finally, in the face of powerfully organised, embedded and ruthless reactionary forces, an encouragement to connect-up and expand our approaches together.
🎬 See here
Shares
Key: 📝 Article | 📋 Report | ⚙️ Tool
The World is In Crisis: Here’s Why
Rachel Donald; Planet: Critical
A sober assessment of our predicament, based on extensive research with leading scientists. “The future of human civilisation is touted to be dematerialised. Not only are we going to decarbonise our economies, we’re also going to dematerialise them. This, of course, is impossible… There are not enough batteries, or stuff to make batteries. There are limits to growth; everything must decay for life to go on. Traditions of Western thought have disavowed this universal truth, creating eternal homes in sky kingdoms where man basks in his purest form having freed himself from the profanity of the living world. These thoughts live on in investment funds which are throwing money at dematerialising the human existence, creating machines within which our consciousness can live forever, hurtling through space and time – a meaningless juncture without a body to experience it.” Also hear.
#insight #deepnarrative
The Permacrisis is Making the Public Sector Unaffordable
Adam Lent
“Over coming decades, government spending is set to rise from 45% of GDP to 60%. Government debt from 98% of GDP to over 300%. The cause? A combination of climate change, economic shocks, international conflict, an ageing population, poor population health and persistently weak productivity. It is difficult to overstate the significance of this. It shows that our society, built on consistent economic growth providing reliable tax revenues to fund state-delivered public services is no longer sustainable. The world we have built and come to rely on since at least 1945 is over… we need new thinking and practice in every area of life well beyond the realm of state action. Currently, that is happening only at the margins. It needs to become mainstream rapidly.”
#insight #deepnarrative
Alternative Cultures Are Beautiful and Important. They're Also Not Enough.
Max Wilbert, Biocentric
“To believe that demonstrating alternatives to modern industrial capitalism will result in the end of that system is to ignore power… whenever the dominant culture we live in comes into contact with these cultures, it destroys them… empires cannot allow alternatives to exist. If they do, they represent a threat… alternatives — at best — allow us to hold some small pieces of ground while conceding elsewhere… They are defensive… I believe we must move from building alternative cultures to building oppositional cultures. Permaculture movements, Transition Towns, ecovillages, and community land trusts can and must be cultures of resistance.”
#deepnarrative #tactics
Funding Narrative Change
Christina Palassio; The Philanthropist
A lot is being written about how to fund narrative change work effectively at the moment. If you hadn’t already seen that, or would like a refresher, this is helpful. It asks: “what can we do to capture attention and meaningfully shift the mindsets on our issues? And how can we do that in a way that prioritizes shifting narrative power to the groups affected by the issues we’re talking about?” In answering them, Palassio references Jody Myrum’s articulation of a now familiar refrain: “changing beliefs and behaviors at scale cannot be achieved by a single movement, organization, or campaign. Narrative change is a fundamentally collective endeavor, and the transformation we seek to achieve requires a broad set of actors to work together over time to advance a shared vision.”
#narrativestrategy #deepnarrative #tactics
Ecological Storytelling
Sophie Strand; Make Me Good Soil
“In an age of ecological crisis, it is urgent that we reclaim the forgotten earth-reverent root system hidden below modern narratives of capitalism and anthropocentrism… Stories weren’t linear, they were cyclical, teaching us how to live with seasonal fluctuations. Storytelling wasn’t concerned with human superiority. It wasn’t about individual characters. It was about relationships… Ecological storytelling is storytelling that prizes questions over answers, conversations over monologues, relationships over individuals. It is storytelling that rejects the idea of singular authorship. Rather, it acts as a messenger, carrying communications between members of the forest… It roots human beings back into the home of our ecosystem – our wider family of furry, fungal, vegetal kin.”
#narrativestrategy #deepnarrative
Moving Mindsets: How British People Think About Health Has Changed
Tamsyn Hyatt, Louise Marshall; Frameworks UK
Reveals that “we are at an important inflection point. More collective mindsets on health are emerging and old mindsets are being applied in new, more systemic ways. Over the last six years, the way we think about health in the UK has changed.” This has implications for communicators, which are explored in detail, but in brief: “1) Position public health asks as national initiatives and needs. 2) Reinforce the idea that when all of us have what we need to be healthy, our communities thrive. 3) Use an expansive, inclusive definition of ‘nation.’” (Part of the Moving Mindsets programme)
#narrativestrategy #framing #messaging
Attitudes Towards Planetary Stewardship and Economic Systems Change
Earth 4 All; GSCC Insights Hub
“This study aimed to understand attitudes towards planetary stewardship and economic systems change across the world’s major economies, focusing on public perceptions of environmental responsibility and the urgency of action. The survey findings highlight a global call for stronger, more urgent action to safeguard the planet and ensure wellbeing for all.” Key insights include: “72% of respondents across G20 countries believe that causing severe harm to nature and the climate should be classified as a criminal offence; 69% agree that Earth is nearing critical climate and nature tipping points due to human activities.”
#insight
Organising Abuelos
MAIA
“A living testament to the Caribbean ethos of making much from little, turning scarcity into abundance through collective ingenuity, community, reciprocity and love… Resistance always surfaces from the underbelly. The infrastructures we need will emerge from the grassroots and set precedence for the future of cultural life. For this to be a sustained, structural shift in power, what resources and infrastructures do we need to grow and build? How can this cultural power be rooted in and held across a community, rather than being used to leverage individuals? How can our contributions as artists and cultural workers transcend symbolic, identitarian work that, while often a beautiful gesture, fails to invoke collective, structural change?” (Also see details of their events below)
#narrativestrategy #deepnarrative #tactics
The Collective Imagination Practices Toolkit
JRF Emerging Futures
“Tools from Collective Imagination practitioners around the world, for anyone who wants to build the capacity to explore and learn ways of creating better, more hopeful futures, together.” Includes talks, frameworks, embodied practices, spatial practices, ecological practices, and temporal practices. “If we are to build alternative futures, we must collectively untether from entrenched ideas and start from a very different foundation. Collective Imagination work is the soil upon which that foundation is built. It enables us to engage with and embody different perspectives, weave together diverse perceptions and worldviews, and mobilise to take action.”
#tactics
⚙️ See here
Jobs, Courses & Events
Key: 💼 Job | 🎓 Course | 🗓️ Event
Manager, Creative Strategy
GSCC
Deadline: Sep 30th
“Global Strategic Communications Council is currently seeking a senior creative strategist to make a powerful impact in the face of global climate change. As the Creative Strategy Manager, you will be responsible for driving the creation of inspiring and compelling creative concepts for a wide range of topics and audiences, building out our existing Creative & Product Team of six people to make that happen.”
Deputy Director
Uplift UK
Deadline: Oct 6th
“Uplift is a high-impact campaigning and research organisation helping to move the UK towards a fossil fuel-free future. We are currently looking for a Deputy Director to join the leadership of our growing team. This is an exciting opportunity to help build an ambitious movement for a just transition away from oil and gas in the UK.”
Head of Programmes and Development
Local Storytelling Exchange
Deadline: Oct 10th
“Work closely with the Executive Director to drive forward the scale and pace of impact at the Exchange. This person will be a creative individual with an entrepreneurial mindset. Excited about joining a start-up, they will be strategic and analytical, with a strong understanding of where storytelling can make the biggest public and political impact. A background in strategic communications and / or climate policy is desirable, but a strong track record in project management and ideas development is key. They will enjoy testing new ideas, evaluating success and developing new partnerships and opportunities. A self-starter, they will be a quick learner, able to take initiative and lead the effective delivery of programmes.”
2025 Fellowship
The Bio-Leadership Fellowship
Applications now open
“A global movement of people and projects working towards better forms of human progress by working with nature… More than just a learning programme. It is a global community and supportive structure meant to inspire you and from which you can experiment and develop your work. Over 8 months, Fellows are supported in their personal development and in exploring real-world challenges or inquiries. The core programme offers models, tools, stories, connection, access to an array of global contributors, and various levels of support. And the journey doesn’t end there. After the 8 month programme, Fellows are invited to continue their learning via active engagement with the wider community, continuing to weave learnings into your life and work.”
Organising ABUELOS
MAIA
Oct 23rd-26th | Ladywood, Birmingham
“In 2024, the MAIA team are making a fundamental shift to step into the next stages of making transformative cultural infrastructure tangible. We’re working on a spatial justice proposal to move land from a private commodity into a community entity, held in perpetuity for Black thrivance… a cultural centre with accommodation, as a site of radical hospitality and artistry… we invite our community, peers and those we have yet to meet, into a collective enquiry that informs how ABUELOS becomes real.”
🗓️ Details here
Big Tech Narrative Initiative
Doc Society
Dec 3rd | Online
“Come and join us for the Big Tech Narrative Initiative at Doc Society in collaboration with The Citizens - to help artists and storytellers unlock creative and courageous vision and give our publics a clearer understanding of how Big Tech is shaping society today and tomorrow. We’re kicking this off on Tuesday 3 December, 2024 with an online gathering of experts including Maria Ressa, Christopher Wylie, Karim Amer, and Carole Cadwalladr, together with filmmakers and journalists, publishers + commissioners, campaigners + technologists, academics + philanthropists who are thinking about the power and potential of narrative strategy and Big Tech. Join us to build our collective knowledge and strategy, and connect with new colleagues who share a common goal of understanding and shaping the narrative around Big Tech.”
Quotes
(This selection of quotes is intended as a resource, in the hope that they may be useful for your own communications.)
“Power is always more secure when co-optive, covert, and manipulative than when nakedly brutish. The support elicited through the control of minds is more durable than the support elicited at the point of a bayonet.” – Michael Parenti
“The larger mythic structures of history we’ve been deploying for the last several centuries simply don’t work any more; they are impossible to reconcile with the evidence now before our eyes, and the structures and meanings they encourage are tawdry, shop-worn and politically disastrous.” – David Graeber, David Wenlow
"We got here through limitless greed masquerading as a civilising mission" – Vandana Shiva
"Euro modernist individualism is Frankenstein's monster: a danger to itself and others." – Rajani Kanth
"We need to think like a planet." – Bruno Latour
Thanks for joining us, see you here again in two weeks.
A reminder that if you have something that you’d love to see in these newsletters, or work you’d like to share in the community sessions, or if you have any feedback, please reach out at inter-narratives@greenfunders.org
Very best,
Paddy & Ella