Saving Ourselves: Climate Action and Activism with Dana R. Fisher

Hi everyone, Tom Raftery here, and welcome back to another episode of the Climate Confident podcast. This week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dana R. Fisher, director of the Centre for Environment, Community, and Equity at American University and author of the new book, Saving Ourselves - From Climate Shocks to Climate Action.

Dana brings 25 years of research on climate policymaking and activism to our conversation, providing valuable insights into the current state of the climate crisis. We delved into the evolution of climate policy, from the early days of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to the latest efforts like the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States. Dana offers a candid assessment of these policies, highlighting both successes and significant gaps.

A major theme of our discussion is the crucial role of activism. Dana underscores that meaningful change often requires grassroots movements to hold policymakers accountable. We explored various forms of climate activism, from local community actions to more radical tactics like civil disobedience. Interestingly, Dana's research suggests that even controversial actions, such as throwing soup at paintings or blocking traffic, can effectively draw media attention and pressure policymakers when part of a broader strategy.

We also touched on the importance of building community resilience. As climate shocks become more frequent and severe, Dana emphasises that local communities must prepare to support each other in times of crisis. This involves not only physical infrastructure but also fostering social cohesion.

Towards the end of our conversation, Dana offers practical advice for anyone looking to get involved in climate activism, stressing the need for solidarity across movements and the potential impact of nonviolent resistance. We also discussed the upcoming COP 29 climate negotiations and the controversial involvement of a fossil fuel executive in leading these talks.

I hope you find this episode as insightful and thought-provoking as I did. 

Thanks for listening, and stay climate confident!

Transcript

Dana R Fisher: 0:03

People are going to be unhoused. People are going to be displaced. The seas will rise and the storms will have an effect. There'll be many people who won't have insurance anymore. They're all going to need support and we need to be prepared to support them because as we know, nobody else is coming to save us. It's all up to us.

Tom Raftery: 0:20

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. This is the Climate Confident podcast, the number one podcast showcasing best practices in climate emission reductions and removals. And I'm your host, Tom Raftery. Don't forget to click follow on this podcast in your podcast app of choice to be sure you don't miss any episodes. Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode 170 of the climate confident podcast. My name is Tom Raftery. And before we kick off today's show, I want to take a moment to express my gratitude to all of this podcast's amazing supporters. Your support has been instrumental in keeping this podcast going. And I'm really grateful for each and every one of you. In today's episode of the podcast, I'm talking to professor Dana R Fisher. The researcher who coined the term apocalyptic optimism. It's going to be a fascinating episode. And coming up in future episodes, I'll be talking to Robin Salukis From eAgronom , I'll be talking to Tucker Perkins from the propane research council and I'll be talking to Siemens. So some greater episodes coming up as well. Before we kick off. A quick question for you. Part of today's episode will include conversations around climate activism. And so I would like to ask you this question. Do you agree with some of the tactics of climate activists, doing things like throwing soup at paintings, walking slowly on roads blocking traffic, protestors gluing themselves to doorways blocking doorways. All of these kinds of things that we've seen. Are these tactics something you agree with in the climate movement? Let me know. Send me a message. In the show notes of this and every episode of the podcast, you find a, send me a message link. Click on that. It'll open the messages application in your phone. The text messages application on your phone or your computer. Let me know what you think about those kinds of tactics in the climate movement. Anyway. On with the show today. With me on the show. As I said, I have professor Dana Fisher. Dana, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Dana R Fisher: 2:38

Thanks for having me, Tom. Yeah, I'd be happy to introduce myself. I'm Dana R. Fisher. I am the director of the Center for Environment, Community and Equity, and a professor in the School of International Service at American University. Most importantly, I think, for our conversation, I'm the author of the new book, Saving Ourselves. I'm pointing to it now. From Climate Shocks to Climate Action, which brings together research I have done on climate policymaking and activism over the past 25 years.

Tom Raftery: 3:05

It's nice that it's conveniently over your shoulder there. That's a nice, happy coincidence I got to think.

Dana R Fisher: 3:11

Exactly. Completely coincidental.

Tom Raftery: 3:14

Fantastic. So tell me Dana, first of all, how did you or why did you get into this space?

Dana R Fisher: 3:24

Well, I mean, originally I got into this space of thinking about climate change in the 1990s. So this was a long time ago. It was before, it was before there was a thing that we called the climate crisis. And most of the work that we were doing was thinking about what we call the precautionary principle, which was this idea that scientists said that we might be living in a warming world in the future and our climate system could get out of whack because of increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, so we should act in a precautionary way. And a lot of the discussions back then were about concern for the polar bear. I don't know. You may remember those those days. So I originally got involved in it because I had worked in the environmental world for a period of time. I had gone back to graduate school and I really wanted to do something policy relevant, that asked some really interesting questions. And at the time, even back in the 1990s, it was really clear that climate change was a tricky, tricky problem. And it's tricky because it's not just about finding an alternative to one particular chemical, like was the issue when we had to deal with ozone depletion and just replacing one chemical meant that the world would be okay. This is a tricky problem in that, greenhouse gases are produced by basically all combustion of fossil fuels. And as a result, and since those are what fuel most of the industrial world today, addressing them will mean changing our individual lives, our professional lives, the way that industry works and the way that commerce happens. And so it's a really tricky problem. So it seemed like a really good place for the budding sociologist that I was at the time to start to ask questions. That's why I got involved in it. And I stayed involved in it because, well, because it was really clear early on to me that we weren't doing what was needed to address the problem. So things were going to get a lot worse. And as I talk about in the new book, I've written so many papers about different failed policies at the national level. You know, I studied the Kyoto protocol. That was my first book. I studied the Paris agreement. I studied a bunch of efforts that were voluntary. I studied efforts that were regulatory and now I've been studying efforts that are more carrots than sticks, which means using money to try to encourage a transition away from fossil fuels towards clean energy, renewable energies. So it's been a really fruitful place for me professionally, but the reason I stayed in this world is because I really care and because the problem is trickier than it ever was before. And. And the stakes are higher because we are starting to see the effects of the climate crisis, and it's upon us already, and it's just going to get worse.

Tom Raftery: 6:05

Okay. And through all of those books and papers and studies which are the policies that you think have had the greatest impact?

Dana R Fisher: 6:17

Ooh, well. I mean, first of all, I think policies that have not been implemented have not had much of an impact. I mean, we, you know, in the United States here, we've been what's the word? In the United States, we have suffered from a number of battles to get Policies across the finish line and the finish line, I define as being

Tom Raftery: 6:39

Hmm.

Dana R Fisher: 6:40

We struggled through experiencing the delay in the clean power plan, which was the Obama administration's effort to address climate change when they couldn't get a policy through the U. S. Congress that then got stayed in the courts. And then the Trump administration canceled. So those are not ones that it's it's easy to think about celebrating in any way. I guess what I would have to say that, you know, I was most hopeful about the Paris agreement. I'm less hopeful now about it because we are what many years down the line here and it still has countries have still most of them have not yet met their initial commitments. I'm very hopeful about the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed in the United States and was the Biden administration's effort to address climate change. And it is the only effort that made it through both houses of the U. S. Congress and was signed by the president. and I think that there's a lot to be said for using carrots as in, you know, money to encourage a transition to clean energy rather than sticks which is basically penalizing those who are emitting fossil fuels, sorry, that are burning fossil fuels and emitting carbon. However, while we should celebrate the successes there, these incremental policies are not sufficient to address the climate crisis at the level we need to Get us where we need to go to to limit the climate crisis. So much more is needed even though we can celebrate We should celebrate for a moment and then we need to keep going and get back on the horse

Tom Raftery: 8:07

And how, I mean, the U. S. system is particularly, I want to say, challenged about climate amongst other things, but we'll stick with climate because that's, this is the Climate Confident podcast. How do we fix that? Because it's so polarized. And, I can't understand it. I, I can to an extent, but there's a lot of money going into it, I think is, is part of the big problem. But how, how do we, how do we fix that? Is it fix campaign finance? Would that do a lot?

Dana R Fisher: 8:41

Well, I mean I would just let me just start by saying that absolutely the United States is unique. The United States is you know, the number one contributor to the climate crisis over the history of the world in that we have contributed the most carbon to the atmosphere of any country. So we obviously need to be addressed, but I would just say that a lot of,

Tom Raftery: 10:11

Congrats on that

Dana R Fisher: 10:13

I feel so But, at the same time I think that a lot of the issues that we experience, and we observe here in the United States, you can see in many other countries that are both geographically big. So people use public transport to get places as well as have large endowments of fossil fuel resources in house. So we see very similar things going on in terms of the flip flopping in Australia and in Canada. So as much as the United States is unique, and we are very proud of that, there are lots of similarities that are worth noting. So that's number one. Number two, to respond to your question about what we need to do. I mean, I think that campaign finance is absolutely part of the issue. I think that number one, pure and simple, we need to take corporate money out of the electoral process, but we also need to stop fossil fuel interests from being able to continue to capture or we need to limit fossil fuel interests, access to power and resources. And that means one. Fossil fuel interests and other economic actors should not be able to buy into the political system like they do now through campaign finance. But two is that right now, fossil fuels, fossil fuel interests, fossil fuel companies have privileged access to resources. They get subsidized access to public lands to extract. So they are basically extracting for a discounted rate and then they do not have to actually pay for their emissions. So that has to stop. I mean, that has to stop around the world. It just, it shouldn't just be in the United States, but those two steps in and of themselves, based on the research that's been done, and I'm talking about other people's research, not my own, but I build on these findings will have a huge effect on the way the policymaking process works, because even those people who say that they care about climate change when they run for office, research shows that if they have taken funding from fossil fuel interests, And many, many, you know, and we're not talking about just Republicans. We're talking about Democrats too, in the United States, those who take money from fossil fuel interests are much more statistically more likely to vote on behalf of the fossil fuel interests rather than the climate pledges that they made when they were running for office. So it's only those who actually commit to what we call a fossil free pledge. And there are a bunch of groups that are trying to get people running for office to take these pledges, to say they won't take money from fossil fuel interests. It's only those people who follow through on their promises. So we need to take fossil fuel money out of politics.

Tom Raftery: 12:47

Yeah, we won't mention Joe Manchin. How,

Dana R Fisher: 12:49

No, we will not mention him, but you know, he obviously is sitting on my shoulder, whispering things all the time.

Tom Raftery: 12:55

how likely is it to get that fossil fuel free politician pledge to be bipartisan? Is that a very naive question?

Dana R Fisher: 13:09

it's not, I mean, it's, it's an important question. I mean, but the thing is at this point, given where the Republican party is, the Republican party has gone from being soft on climate. To being

Tom Raftery: 13:19

Full on destroy the climate!

Dana R Fisher: 13:20

I mean, I guess I would just say that I would say non existent on climate. I mean, that's probably the nicest way I can say it. At this point, the platform, the main Republican platform on climate change is one of misinformation and denial. I mean, if we look at what you know, the Trump campaign. So president Trump, who's running for office again, his campaign and the platform that the Republicans are pushing out right now is all about extracting more fossil fuels, which is the opposite of what every scientist around the world and the IPCC reports and the United Nations say is necessary. So basically right now, the idea of there being a bipartisan agreement about getting fossil fuel money out of politics, it's not, it's not feasible to imagine here. What I think provides opportunities for, you know, hope is that at the local level, we see much less polarization in our country. And we also see much more opportunity for local elections, local elected officials to care about climate change, because that's where, you know, the rubber hits the road. That is where people are experiencing the climate crisis because we are seeing more climate shocks, coming more frequently and with more severity and they're hitting all over our country. They're hitting all over countries around the world. And so people who are representing local governments and are trying to address and be prepared for issues having to do with severe flooding, severe heat, severe drought, wildfire, they are figuring out how to regulate and to lead in communities that are facing those challenges. Oh, and then there's also sea level rise, course. Which, you know, is projected at this point to flood out the majority of the state of Florida by 2100. So, you know, so even in states like Florida where there is no climate, you know, you can't even say climate change in the legislature right now. Local leaders are doing a lot to think about what to do about this problem because it is absolutely, you know, threatening the people in communities around the United States and around the

Tom Raftery: 15:21

yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and it, There's another effect as well, which is starting to be seen now, and that is the effect of insurance companies getting out of dodge. You know,

Dana R Fisher: 15:32

Oh yeah, getting out of Florida,

Tom Raftery: 15:34

Florida, Louisiana Mississippi, Texas, even. And so the ones that are left are pushing up their rates. So I've seen cases of homeowners in Louisiana being quoted up to 8, 000 per annum for home insurance. I mean, it's insane stuff.

Dana R Fisher: 15:55

It's insane. I mean, what's really interesting about the way this process works, and I happen to have a bit of a firsthand hand experience with this because I owned a house on the Delaware River in New Jersey before I moved down here to the D. C. Area. And we actually had bought a house that was in a 1000 year storm zone, so it was not in a flood plain or not in the flood zone. But it then was, it was adjacent to one. And then we got hit with a thousand year floods twice in, in less than 12 months, which was really super great. We lost our kitchen twice. And in the process of that, we became reclassified insurance wise into a flood zone and that had a huge effect on our insurance. And this was this was 15 years ago now. So that, and that has become a lot more severe because a lot of insurance companies are concerned about, you know, the costs that They are going to face because they know that these places that are at risk for extreme weather and climate shocks, that's just going to continue and people will be making claims. So people who are already living in these areas are facing this crisis firsthand. And the thing I think is the biggest challenge is many people are going to, you know, have to decide whether they relocate or they have to basically just, you know, go without, reduce their insurance. And when the first, or second shocks hit, that's when we're going to see a huge crisis in areas where people are uninsured or don't have sufficient insurance for their houses.

Tom Raftery: 17:23

yeah, it's horrible. Horrible. Talk to me a little bit about the Saving Ourselves book over your shoulder there because we've skipped through that we haven't really mentioned it and gone into it in any detail. What's in the book? What's that about?

Dana R Fisher: 17:39

So the book basically brings together these past 25 years of research, which has focused on climate policy making. We've talked a lot about that. And, you know, and I studied climate policy making at the international level. I did international comparisons, but then I spent a lot of time here in the United States. You know, looking because there's lots to study, lots of interesting and sometimes frustrating things to look at. But I also study climate activism. I study activism more broadly. My last book was called American resistance, then was focusing on all progressive activism during the four years of the Trump administration. And so I basically bring together the research that I've done around climate activism with climate policymaking to tell a coherent story about where we are in the climate crisis. So I go back and talk about climate policy making since, you know, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change started at the Earth Summit back in 1992, and I track all of the efforts internationally to regulate climate change and talk about why they've all been failures, and then I dig down into the United States to look at efforts here and see why we need to basically accept that policymaking is not going to get us where we need to go unless the people start to claim power for themselves, and push back to require that the state and the market do something to address the problem. And so the book is all about thinking through how we take power back for ourselves, given that the state is not going to come and save us. Nobody's swooping in on, you know, a white horse to fix this problem. Instead, we're going to have to rise up, push back against power, push back against these fossil fuel interests that are vested, and have these privileged access that I talked about already, and start to push and require that these decision makers do what they need to do, or else they're going to lose power. And so the whole book is about that. So we claim power back for ourselves and then how it will, how it will look and what we need to do. And I go into a, I go into a little detail about the different types of activists. I talk about this growing and evolving movement that is including a lot more nonviolent civil disobedience than we've seen before in the climate movement. And I talk about what that means.

Tom Raftery: 19:48

Okay, so talk a little bit about that. How can we claim our power back? Is it throwing soup at paintings or is it something beyond that, or less than that, or, you know, where are you on that spectrum?

Dana R Fisher: 20:03

So I am an all of the above person, So you'd probably have heard of those who are in the all of the above energy, you know, strategy. Well, I am an all of the above activism strategy. So, you know, I've studied civic engagement and activism for my entire career. I actually wrote the section on civic engagement and climate activism for the most recent IPCC for working group three. So that's kind of my that's my space. And I believe that it is all about people doing whatever they're comfortable with. So we're going to save ourselves by people working in their communities to get community centers, you know, to transition to clean energy, to create more resilient communities where we're actually prepared to support one another when climate shocks come. But also people who want to push for elected officials who don't take fossil fuel money as well as people who might decide that they need to throw soup or crazy glue themselves to something so that the media starts to talk more about the climate crisis. I think we need all of those people doing all sorts of things because this is a really, really widespread problem and it's going to take all of us to push back against power to make the changes that are needed.

Tom Raftery: 21:13

And what do you say to people who say that throwing soup at paintings or gluing yourself to whatever harms the movement?

Dana R Fisher: 21:23

I would say that there's no evidence to support that. And I've actually, I've written a couple of pieces. Most recently I had a piece that was in Nature magazine with two colleagues who also study climate activism. And in that piece, we talk about the fact that actually, if you look at the research and you look at the data, there is no evidence that these kinds of what we call me, I'm going to use my air quotes here, my radical tactics, like, Throwing soup, blocking traffic, crazy gluing. None of those things are actually quite radical. I mean, if we look at the history of social movements, we can see lots more radical tactics that involve violence and involve property destruction. And, you know, in the past, you know, great cases of that are women's suffrage or the civil rights movement here in the United States. Here we have a relatively, you know, tame, you know, radical flank so far. And so, so there's, so it's worth noting that, but also evidence in terms of looking at research so far into the, you know, people's opinions about the radical flank. Yes. Some people, and there's been some interesting new research that shows that some people are very unsupportive of these tactics in these organizations. And in response to that, I would say one. The radical flank is always unpopular. And in my, in my book, I talk about how the civil rights movement was extremely unpopular when they had people who were doing things like sit ins and you know, blocking things and, you know, doing freedom rides where they were basically coming into areas and trying to push for supporting the vote and registering, you know, black Americans to vote. All of those things were super unpopular. So this is consistent. They're going to be unpopular. However, There's no evidence that that unpopularity of the organizations doing the radical tactics has any effect on the broader consensus and support for the movement. And in fact, I actually, I just wrote a piece that summarizes data that I collected in September from people who are participating in the march to end fossil fuels, which was the largest climate march we've had in the United States since. The Biden administration took office and that had 75, 000 people marching in the streets of New York City right before the U. N. had its meeting around climate change in the fall. And at that protest, I survey protesters. That's one of the things I So we I had a team of people. We went out in the street. We did a random sample of the people in the crowd and what we asked them, in addition to all these other questions, we asked them one, did they participate in civil disobedience? Less than 50 percent of the people in the crowd reported having participated in civil disobedience in the past year. So these are not these, these folks who are engaging in, you know, the radical flank, these are mostly, you know, activists who are doing other parts of the, all of the above strategy. Okay. That was number one. And number two, I said, the question was, do you support organizations that are engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience such as, and I listed all these things. sit ins, blockades, throwing food, you know, et cetera and so forth. And I, so I thought it would be really interesting to parse out in the movement who was supporting it and who wasn't, not one person said they didn't support these organizations and these actions, they were not doing it themselves, but so any claims that this is turning off people in the movement, there's no evidence of it. What there is evidence of is the people who weren't supporting climate action anyway. Okay. They don't support it. And some people who support climate action and want to be doing work like investing in electric school buses in their communities, which is an absolutely wonderful tactic and a wonderful thing for people to be doing. Those people may not like organizations that are gluing themselves or throwing food, and that's fine, but there's no evidence that that's going to keep them from working on their school buses or getting fossil fuels, you know, fuel money out of politics. So I think everybody who's making those claims needs to look at the research.

Tom Raftery: 25:09

Okay. Interesting. And how effective is that kind of again, throwing food, gluing, marches. Well, not so much marches, let's say, but go slows where you're slowing traffic, blocking traffic, these kinds of things. How, how effective are those kinds of campaigns?

Dana R Fisher: 25:26

So those campaigns, I mean so in my book I actually distinguish the radical flank and I break it up. The type of civil disobedience we see into the groups that I say are shockers. And those are the folks who are doing these kind of performative acts to get attention and get media coverage. And the idea there is that their goal specifically is to get media coverage so that they have opportunities to talk about the climate crisis on TV, in the media, online. And to the degree that that is their goal, they are absolutely effective. I mean, and a great example of that is most recently we saw the folks who threw the pumpkin soup at the Mona Lisa and people were, I think the word apoplectic would be a legit way of doing it, right? I mean, people were very unhappy about this. I mean, I'm not super excited about seeing people throwing food in that case. I thought the people at the museum were very effective in kind of closing it down really quickly and addressing it. And of course, there was no damage to the painting it is worth noting here. But what was really interesting is if you looked at media coverage, a great example of this, one of my colleagues posted is if you looked at the front page of the Washington Post website right after that happened. There was a video on one side of these activists throwing soup and on the other side it was a list of the organization and their demands. You can't buy that kind of media coverage. So it's super effective. I mean another example was the guy who glued his foot to the stadium at the U. S. Open during the tennis match in the fall. People were really mad about that. They had to pause play. Didn't affect anybody's ability to see the whole game or the game happening, but they had to pause play. Well, I ended up being asked to go on TMZ Live. For the first time ever to talk about this, which is funny because I was like, is this a joke? I mean, who wants to talk to a sociologist who studies climate, you know, change and climate activism on this TV show that tends to talk about sports, etc. and gossip. But I went on and they said, you know, they said, is this effective? And I said, well, I'm here on TMZ live talking about it. And we ended up talking about climate policymaking and why these folks were feeling like they had nothing else, no other option than to go and disrupt, you know, a sports event. So it was, it was very effective in that way. So that's number one. Number two, you know, I talk about the folks that are not the shockers, but the groups that I call disruptors within the radical flank of the climate movement. And those are activists who are using civil disobedience at specific moments to draw attention to broader campaigns they're doing that work through what we call like insider tactics, like moving money or divestment, as well as doing these events to draw attention to it. I talk about a couple of different examples in the book. And those are particularly effective because they basically have a lot to shine light on when they get the media attention. But I mean, the other thing that I would say about this question of effectiveness is that we do know that having a radical flank provides opportunities to draw attention to the movement and is known to increase support for more moderate factions of a movement. For example, the action that happened at the U. S. Open. Coco, who was one of the people who was playing, right, the tennis player, actually said, I don't support this group, but I think we need to do more on climate change, right? She basically spoke legit, you know, she provided a textbook case of the way the radical flank works. People thinking, Hmm, this is an issue. I should do something, but I don't support them. I'm going to go over here and do something about the issue. And so those are, so it works on individuals. But then finally, when we look at whether it works on policymaking, you cannot draw a straight line between these kinds of more radical tactics and decision making. But we do, do know from research that it helps to put pressure on policymakers. And a good example of that is in the United States, the Biden administration, after being protested numerous, you know, talks through the activists who are doing what we call bird dogging the, the, particularly there's one group that has been going to these events and they, they heckle and yell at people when they're trying to give talks to draw attention to climate change, the climate crisis, the need to declare a climate emergency, fossil fuel money in politics, stuff like that. And in response to that, partially, I mean, there were other, you know, campaign. This was part of a broader campaign with other groups. The administration announced they were going to pause expanding LNG, that's compressed natural gas exports from the United States. And when the, when President Biden announced this, he specifically talked about the young people who were very concerned and, you know, and were disrupting policymaking because of their concerns. So he actually motioned towards the people who are doing these kinds of actions. When he said, we've decided to put a pause on it. Now, there is a rumor that the pause is going to end very soon. So, you know, obviously, you know, more activism may be needed to get across the finish line in terms of limiting, you know, the expansion of natural gas, but there's no question that this type of a tactic as part of a broader campaign can be, can be extremely effective. And there's evidence even recently about that.

Tom Raftery: 30:25

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, to your earlier point, we got to keep in mind that this is, we, we, we say it's radical, but really it's not radical at all. When you think back to some of the other civil disobedience movements, I mean, you mentioned that the suffragettes and the suffragettes famously went on a hunger strike, the suffragettes threw themselves in front of horses and in some cases were killed to disrupt races they bombed museums and libraries. I mean, that's radical.

Dana R Fisher: 30:53

At the height of this. Yeah, that's completely, I mean, it's interesting because in my, I'm teaching a class on activism right now, and we just read a great account of violence in, in the struggle for women's suffrage and during the height of the movement, they were blowing up a building a month. I mean, they, they were, it's just, I mean, I hadn't, I honestly had no idea how violent they were. And there's an interesting question about the degree to which the diffusion of these time types of violent acts were associated with women eventually getting the vote, but it's fascinating to look at the degree to which they got violent. And I, you know, I applaud all of the folks who are engaging in confrontational activism right now who are staying the course and committing to being nonviolent because I think nonviolence is absolutely necessary. I do, and I talk about in the book that unfortunately, historically, nonviolence ends up being repressed through violent acts from law enforcement and counter movements. And so I expect that we are going to be seeing violence in the street, but I do not expect that it will be coming from the activists. It will be coming from other channels and we're starting to see repression ramping up in Europe, in the UK and here in the United States. So, so it's probably coming quite soon.

Tom Raftery: 32:11

And for people listening who might want to get involved in some form of activism, whether it's extremely moderate or whether it's more radical. What kind of advice would you give them? What kind of steps should they take? How should they do? How should they go about it?

Dana R Fisher: 32:29

So I end the book with three points that are suggestions for anybody who wants to get involved in helping us save ourselves. Two of them are for folks who want to get involved in activism, and one is for the general public. So the two on activism are, number one, anybody who wants to get involved in activism needs to think about how we can create community and solidarity within the movement. At this point, the climate movement still is quite small, and it is quite isolated. What we need to do is think about ways that the climate movement can connect with other movements and struggles that are around justice, equity, against racism for labor, to think about how you can draw those kinds of connections because it's that kind of solidarity and in many cases intersectionality that will be extremely helpful for expanding the movement and giving the movement strength. That's number one. Number two is for those people who are interested in engaging in more radical, you know, again, the air quote, radical tactics. I would say that there the movement needs to think about capitalizing on what we call moral shocks, including violence and moral shocks are the actions that will be taken against activists that will offend and shock the general public. Because there are lots of people who care about climate change who have not yet mobilized. Who historic, you know, history and previous research tells us will mobilize if they are made aware of these kinds of radical or no repressive actions against nonviolent activists. There are great examples of this during the civil rights movement. More recently, we saw in the United States after the protests of George Floyd were expanding, the president came in and tear gassed a bunch of nonviolent activists, including members of the media in Washington, D. C. And the day after that happened, when people watch that on national television, there were so many more people in the streets around the country. So there was a huge effect to this kind of repression and violence against activists. So I think that the activists need to be prepared for it and they need to be prepared to take a, to take advantage of the violence against them to help expand the movement. And that's number two. And then number three for everybody, you don't need to be an activist. You don't need to do any type of activism. What we all need to be doing is we need to be preparing to create and cultivating resilience in our communities, because there's no question that climate shocks are going to be coming more frequently with more severity around the world, because we have not yet limited the increasing concentrations of carbon in our atmosphere, and the science is very clear on this. That means we're going to be seeing more of all of these extreme events that we have already been experiencing, and I'm sure this summer here in the global north, we're going to see lots of them because we're already here in the D. C. Area. It's we're like a month ahead of where we normally are in terms of temperatures and in terms of the seasons. So, during that period of time, we need to figure out how to make our communities more capable of withstanding the kind of environmental shocks they're going to experience so that they can handle extreme heat, extreme drought, extreme storms and flooding, but also we need to get our communities ready to withstand it and we need to support and create resilience in terms of social resilience. People are going to be unhoused. People are going to be displaced. The seas will rise and the storms will have an effect. There'll be many people who won't have insurance anymore. They're all going to need support and we need to be prepared to support them because as we know, nobody else is coming to save us. It's all up to us.

Tom Raftery: 35:59

Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah Absolutely. Dana, we're coming towards the end of the podcast now, is there any question I haven't asked that you wish I had or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to think about?

Dana R Fisher: 36:15

I think that, well, so here's one that's being discussed, well, it's being discussed now. Let's hope it's still being discussed when we, when the podcast airs. There's the next COP meeting, which is the big international meeting that is supposed to move forward the climate negotiations taking place in fall. It'll be the COP 29 meetings. So there's a, there's a question that a lot of people are starting to discuss about whether or not it's worth spending money to fly to Azerbaijan to participate in climate negotiations that are being run literally by a fossil fuel executive. And I would just say that one thing that I have said for the past couple of years, but it is even more important this year is that people should not be going. There's a call now for companies not to go, particularly companies that care about climate change and are working to phase out fossil fuels to move to net zero, but other also NGOs, like there is no reason for NGOs to fly around the world, to be isolated away from the climate negotiations in a petrol state where they are going to do whatever they do and not listen to NGOs and civil society. So that's one thing I would just say that we haven't talked about. And that is going to be an increasingly big call and big debate as we get closer and closer to the next round of the climate negotiations that will be taking place.

Tom Raftery: 37:31

Fascinating. Interesting. Interesting. Okay. Dana, if people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we discussed on the podcast today, where would you have me direct them?

Dana R Fisher: 37:42

If you want to know more about me, come to my website, it's danarfisher. com. That's Fisher without a C. I also am very active on LinkedIn, Blue Sky, Instagram, and I'm even on TikTok. On Instagram, I am the, I am apocalyptic optimist because that is what I am. I'm an apocalyptic optimist. But I am moving more and more away from Twitter slash X. So don't look for me there.

Tom Raftery: 38:07

Similar.

Dana R Fisher: 38:08

Oh, and the book is available. In fact, I so the book is just coming out. The audio book will be out by the time the podcast airs, but so the book is available and definitely check out the book because there are lots, there's lots more to see and read.

Tom Raftery: 38:20

Available on Amazon, I'm guessing.

Dana R Fisher: 38:23

It's available on Amazon. It's available through independent bookstores. It's available wherever you get your podcasts. It's available anywhere you get your digital or audio books as well

Tom Raftery: 38:34

Perfect. Superb. Great. Dana, that's been fascinating. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today.

Dana R Fisher: 38:40

Thank you so much for having me, Tom.

Tom Raftery: 38:42

Okay, we've come to the end of the show. Thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like to know more about the Climate Confident podcast, feel free to drop me an email to tomraftery at outlook. com or message me on LinkedIn or Twitter. If you like the show, please don't forget to click follow on it in your podcast application of choice to get new episodes as soon as they're published. Also, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It really does help new people to find the show. Thanks. Catch you all next time.