As someone who began working in the international wealth management industry in Zurich out of desperation some 30 years ago (in B2B sales, no less), fresh out of university with no qualifications and in a foreign country where I did not speak the language, and who in recent years has been volunteering in climate change and making sure to no longer be associated with any of the typical BS of this industry, I really loved reading this piece. I have often wondered how on Earth people in my industry can claim to be masters of the future for the benefit of their clients, when they seem to do nothing but continue to consider our multiple looming disasters as investment opportunities, as challenges that nevertheless offer amazing opportunities for wealth creation, as they make no changes whatsoever to their investment portfolio construction except to continue to hunt for the right combination of exposure to "safe" investments and the newest growth markets. Your piece has shown me that what I had imagined to be true about many of my colleagues seems about right, that many of them realize that something is amiss but feel compelled to continue with business as usual to be able to continue to support their families at the very least. The financial markets are much broader than investing alone, but investments are the carpet under our feet. So much of what needs to be done today is not answered by investing, but rather needs action and capital that is not expecting a reward other than a chance at a future, but that is not how any of this works, is it? I also very much appreciate your point about how to make progress with those we may perceive as the enemy. Of the many events I have attended similar to the one you write about here, I have never attended one that gave me any reason to feel hopeful about a better future. I hope you realize that your presence is the ONLY reason that many of the attendees at this event can possibly have emerged with something exciting to talk about and a reason to perhaps feel some hope for what is to come and also to how they might just be able to help to achieve it.
"make a lot of money ... and then buy some influence"
This is gold.
A simple, real life statement of the truth no one is telling: in the world as it is today, if you don't have lots of money, you don't have any real influence.
Money matters.
And theories of social activism that don't include money, and it's importance to how we, as society, make the social choices that shape our enterprises that shape our technologies that shape our choices that shape our economy that shapes society and our shared future, end up impotently raging against the machine, Occupy Wall Street-style.
One reason that social activism doesn't talk about money today, except to vilify it - "They have money. We have bodies. That's the fight." says Bill McKibben - is that society does not have today the words we need to talk collaboratively and constructively about the institutions of money, their agency, their authority and their accountability.
Money is missing from our current social narrative about being social as humans together.
And yet, how much money needed to be aggregated and deployed for Rachel to have the experience she writes about so powerfully in the article she shares with us through this post?
Money matters.
We need to talk about it.
Rachel is a worker in words. Every journalist is. So is every lawyer, advertising executive, public relations professional, novelist and poet.
Every artist is a worker in words. Painters only paint what cannot be expressed in words (Edward Hopper).
These workers in words need to help us invent the new words we need, to talk about money.
Mobilizing people who only have limited financial means still adds up to a load of cash. Consumer sentiment is appreciated and feared by the fat cats. We do not need to become rich in order to have influence. The views of the poor masses are not impotent. It is a tragedy to fall into the trap of thinking this way, that one can only change the system from within by becoming a powerful part of it. History shows that to be false.
People brought together by common goals represent one of the most powerful forces on earth. It only takes 3.5% of a population to start a movement. The power of our numbers offers a path to a tremendous amount of leverage. We have the tools at our disposal to provide citizens with a voice. This voice must rise up from the local level. Lee Iococca said something along the lines of "brilliant opportunities are often disguised as insoluble problems". As bleak as things appear, this is our opportunity to forge the existence of an equitable economy that benefits all citizens. This economy must revolve around the creation of sustainable products and services that are planet and human-friendly. The time is now. Don't give up! Join a group that aligns with your interests. Become part of the solution.
I often wonder if the one and two per centers can even see the limits of growth? They live so untouched by the reality of life for us peasants. It seems the wealthier, the more hostility and denial. However, I did know a billionaire, a first generation Italian immigrant NYC real estate developer, who seemed to be a gracious and humble man. He and his wife lived in a beautiful, large English Tudor home in Montclair, NJ, beautiful with fine things of course, but not tasteless like a gilded age baron. His demeanor was low-key, unpretentious. On his 80th birthday, his wife rented out a waterfront restaurant with a premium view of the NYC skyline. There were hors d'oeuvres on the deck, on tables about 20 yards long, then a sit down four-course dinner for about 300 of their "closest" friends. The skyline glittered copper as the sun fell, then we were ushered onto two ferries for a leisurely lap around the harbor. At some point the boats came to a halt, and fireworks began which seemed to go on forever. Without a doubt, this self-made man was a job creator and fueled the economy. He probably had no clue at what cost to the planet. As I was a guest in his home, I didn't have that conversation.
Rachel, your work is vital. I watch almost all your videos and read almost all emails. This post made me realize how your work is beginning to move the right pieces on this messy chess called Paradigm Shift. Therefore I became a paid subscriber today. Go, Rachel, go!
Your experience engaging the minds of millionaires, Rachel, demonstrates a very important aspect of the struggle for climate sanity. That is, as you say, these are humans too, and most of them think some about the future, even the near future outside the quarterly report. Even more important is the disconnect between their public persona and their private thoughts.
Anyone fully engaged in a corporate environment is severely constrained to not openly express her/him self in ways that counter the corporate culture of growth at any cost. That leads me to think more and more, as I have been lately, about the necessity of social mobilization to shape a strong social movement directed toward public pressure for radical transformation of the 'corporate state.'
I am reminded that in the 'Eastern Block,' when the Soviet empire was weakening, at the point where the people came out into the streets--in Czechoslovakia I think it was--to demand their freedom, many members of the 'establishment,' including police and military, joined them. The consensus on the need for a new society had grown that strong.
Many, certainly not all, corporatists are dissatisfied at least and should not be counted out in seeking the New Great Transformation that we must initiate to overcome the terminal trajectory of industrial civilization as it declines and approaches its fall.
I'm so glad you were invited to speak to those people. Your extensive knowledge is valuable and impressive, but what I love most about listening to your interviews is that you convey genuine curiosity and desire to understand along with humor and personal warmth. I am not surprised that even an audience of aviation industry folks found themselves open and interested innwhat you have to say.
Here's my question: since you found that these people are concerned but do not feel empowered, if you were invited back and asked to tell them how they can help change our speeding toward a cliff, what advice would you give this crowd to give them a sense of their own power and agency?
I hope you get a chance to engage with some of them again and lead them to the Reduction Roadmap. I believe that the cast majority of people essentially want to do and be good, but sometimes I lose heart, seeing the human-made suffering around us. You help reinforce my faith in people when it starts to crumble. Please take good care of uourself and keep doing what you do so well!
Hi Rachel, I very much recognize your observation about being able to have the same level conversation with intelligent people from different backgrounds:
"Frankly, the conversations I had were not that different to the rhetoric of my peers, except these were backdropped by the most glorious view over the Swiss Alps."
I had a similar experience, attending the World Energy Congress in Rotterdam and the next week the Amsterdam Complexity School on Climate Change where you had a keynote. I wrote about this on my Substack:
Hopefully there will be more high level meetings between scientist-activists and business leaders as "collaboration is critical" as you write. I proposed such a panel for an energy conference with the working title: “De-polarizing the energy transition: how to reconcile business and civic interests across the spectrum from the fossil fuel industry to XR” but they found it too risky for the rep of the ff company hosting the conference.
Well done! Borrowing from Thomas Kuhn and others, two things are required for people to change their worldview: 1) people need to understand that their old view of the world contradicts reality, and 2) they need a new worldview to grab on to. I believe we have reached the first stage: most people understand that our current economic system will collapse. The big challenge is to provide an acceptable alternative that does not require people to suddenly wake up full of "peace, love, and kindness." We do not have time to change people, which is why we need to change the system. And yes, the "good cop", "bad cop" strategy works. The people in power have to be more afraid of maintaining the old system than to change it. Some further ideas can be found here. https://www.global-climate-compensation.org/p/a-problem-of-moral-philosophy
This is exactly why I think the growing traditional ceremonial psychedelic movement is so important - people need some rapid wake up to the alternative world view option, complete with differing intuitions and incentives, and a while bucket load of neuroplasticity and love to go with it.
I wonder if you've spoken with Todd Smith, ex airline pilot, XR activist and spokesperson for Safe Landing, who are fighting for a just transition of the airline industry.
This is great. There is an environmental group here in Italy of young radicals who stop traffic, throw (washable) paint on art or in fountains in Rome and I adore them. They get the pearl clutchers clutching and talking about priceless art, without them relishing thats the point. The TREVI fountain isn't going to mean much in thirty years if we are in a war over food scarcity and extreme weather. And they are effective because now activists who wear a suit to talk to politicians or corporate leaders can finally get their meetings. It's starts the discussion.
My response after reading only the beginning: Did Kim Stanley Robinson model one of his characters in Ministry for the Future after you? I remember some similar tense scenes with bankers in that novel. Good work!
Fantastic Rachel. I talked to a small theology group on Monday. Not quite the calibre of your audience but I learned a lot. The title of my talk was ‘Extinction Rebellion is my Religion’ as that’s where I go for hope and support in an insane world, where our small band of brothers care for each other and plan positive actions while having a laugh. It was well received so I hope to do more.
I liked your observation that the banker looked slapped by your checking of his loose opinion. Reminded of Mary Murphy's understanding of bankers need to be in a safe fenced paddock when it came to thinking outside their box; from KSR's Ministry For the Future. But there's the elephant always in the room, and it's drawn from another recent work, Michael E Mann's Our Fragile Moment. If BAU continues as horribly charted now, if fossil fuel aren't massively reined in then this is what your tiny children now will experience in 2100: ocean level rise 32 feet, 1 billion+ people, flora, fauna displaced from their homes and businesses, never to return, all the infrastructure gone for ever. If the death of insurance hasn't happened by then, it will die on that hill, and then you will see the long overdue Manhattan Type Projects kick in. Come and talk with us #ClimateCrisisClub on Twitter Spaces 11AM EST Saturdays; drop by if you like -it goes for about 8 hours, and is friendly even if you're a banker(:
I think this is absolutely right. Individuals succeed because they play by the rules so they are seen as a safe pair of hands. If they start challenging the social norms, they can become seen as a liability. A key challenge maybe is finding points of collaboration between those with (some) power and those without, so the more powerful insider can provide a narrative to their peers that allow them to keep their position while actually promoting a different agenda in cooperation with the outsiders. This though does require the insiders to be able to be duplicitous and take risks, which not everyone is good at. It also requires them to find a way of creating trusting relationships with the outsiders, which is not straightforward and could create questions in their peers' mind as to their 'trustworthiness'. Otherwise these bridges cannot be built prior to the revolution...
As someone who began working in the international wealth management industry in Zurich out of desperation some 30 years ago (in B2B sales, no less), fresh out of university with no qualifications and in a foreign country where I did not speak the language, and who in recent years has been volunteering in climate change and making sure to no longer be associated with any of the typical BS of this industry, I really loved reading this piece. I have often wondered how on Earth people in my industry can claim to be masters of the future for the benefit of their clients, when they seem to do nothing but continue to consider our multiple looming disasters as investment opportunities, as challenges that nevertheless offer amazing opportunities for wealth creation, as they make no changes whatsoever to their investment portfolio construction except to continue to hunt for the right combination of exposure to "safe" investments and the newest growth markets. Your piece has shown me that what I had imagined to be true about many of my colleagues seems about right, that many of them realize that something is amiss but feel compelled to continue with business as usual to be able to continue to support their families at the very least. The financial markets are much broader than investing alone, but investments are the carpet under our feet. So much of what needs to be done today is not answered by investing, but rather needs action and capital that is not expecting a reward other than a chance at a future, but that is not how any of this works, is it? I also very much appreciate your point about how to make progress with those we may perceive as the enemy. Of the many events I have attended similar to the one you write about here, I have never attended one that gave me any reason to feel hopeful about a better future. I hope you realize that your presence is the ONLY reason that many of the attendees at this event can possibly have emerged with something exciting to talk about and a reason to perhaps feel some hope for what is to come and also to how they might just be able to help to achieve it.
"make a lot of money ... and then buy some influence"
This is gold.
A simple, real life statement of the truth no one is telling: in the world as it is today, if you don't have lots of money, you don't have any real influence.
Money matters.
And theories of social activism that don't include money, and it's importance to how we, as society, make the social choices that shape our enterprises that shape our technologies that shape our choices that shape our economy that shapes society and our shared future, end up impotently raging against the machine, Occupy Wall Street-style.
One reason that social activism doesn't talk about money today, except to vilify it - "They have money. We have bodies. That's the fight." says Bill McKibben - is that society does not have today the words we need to talk collaboratively and constructively about the institutions of money, their agency, their authority and their accountability.
Money is missing from our current social narrative about being social as humans together.
And yet, how much money needed to be aggregated and deployed for Rachel to have the experience she writes about so powerfully in the article she shares with us through this post?
Money matters.
We need to talk about it.
Rachel is a worker in words. Every journalist is. So is every lawyer, advertising executive, public relations professional, novelist and poet.
Every artist is a worker in words. Painters only paint what cannot be expressed in words (Edward Hopper).
These workers in words need to help us invent the new words we need, to talk about money.
Not to vilify, but to mobilize it.
Mobilizing people who only have limited financial means still adds up to a load of cash. Consumer sentiment is appreciated and feared by the fat cats. We do not need to become rich in order to have influence. The views of the poor masses are not impotent. It is a tragedy to fall into the trap of thinking this way, that one can only change the system from within by becoming a powerful part of it. History shows that to be false.
People brought together by common goals represent one of the most powerful forces on earth. It only takes 3.5% of a population to start a movement. The power of our numbers offers a path to a tremendous amount of leverage. We have the tools at our disposal to provide citizens with a voice. This voice must rise up from the local level. Lee Iococca said something along the lines of "brilliant opportunities are often disguised as insoluble problems". As bleak as things appear, this is our opportunity to forge the existence of an equitable economy that benefits all citizens. This economy must revolve around the creation of sustainable products and services that are planet and human-friendly. The time is now. Don't give up! Join a group that aligns with your interests. Become part of the solution.
I often wonder if the one and two per centers can even see the limits of growth? They live so untouched by the reality of life for us peasants. It seems the wealthier, the more hostility and denial. However, I did know a billionaire, a first generation Italian immigrant NYC real estate developer, who seemed to be a gracious and humble man. He and his wife lived in a beautiful, large English Tudor home in Montclair, NJ, beautiful with fine things of course, but not tasteless like a gilded age baron. His demeanor was low-key, unpretentious. On his 80th birthday, his wife rented out a waterfront restaurant with a premium view of the NYC skyline. There were hors d'oeuvres on the deck, on tables about 20 yards long, then a sit down four-course dinner for about 300 of their "closest" friends. The skyline glittered copper as the sun fell, then we were ushered onto two ferries for a leisurely lap around the harbor. At some point the boats came to a halt, and fireworks began which seemed to go on forever. Without a doubt, this self-made man was a job creator and fueled the economy. He probably had no clue at what cost to the planet. As I was a guest in his home, I didn't have that conversation.
For those interested, here's an article on degrowth that boils its principles down to something manageable. https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/degrowth-the-vision-we-must-demand
Rachel, your work is vital. I watch almost all your videos and read almost all emails. This post made me realize how your work is beginning to move the right pieces on this messy chess called Paradigm Shift. Therefore I became a paid subscriber today. Go, Rachel, go!
Thank you!!
Your experience engaging the minds of millionaires, Rachel, demonstrates a very important aspect of the struggle for climate sanity. That is, as you say, these are humans too, and most of them think some about the future, even the near future outside the quarterly report. Even more important is the disconnect between their public persona and their private thoughts.
Anyone fully engaged in a corporate environment is severely constrained to not openly express her/him self in ways that counter the corporate culture of growth at any cost. That leads me to think more and more, as I have been lately, about the necessity of social mobilization to shape a strong social movement directed toward public pressure for radical transformation of the 'corporate state.'
I am reminded that in the 'Eastern Block,' when the Soviet empire was weakening, at the point where the people came out into the streets--in Czechoslovakia I think it was--to demand their freedom, many members of the 'establishment,' including police and military, joined them. The consensus on the need for a new society had grown that strong.
Many, certainly not all, corporatists are dissatisfied at least and should not be counted out in seeking the New Great Transformation that we must initiate to overcome the terminal trajectory of industrial civilization as it declines and approaches its fall.
I can’t remember who said it - that revolutions snowball when the people just below the top join in...
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...
There is research and historical examples out there that validates that statement.
We need to learn from it.
I'm so glad you were invited to speak to those people. Your extensive knowledge is valuable and impressive, but what I love most about listening to your interviews is that you convey genuine curiosity and desire to understand along with humor and personal warmth. I am not surprised that even an audience of aviation industry folks found themselves open and interested innwhat you have to say.
Here's my question: since you found that these people are concerned but do not feel empowered, if you were invited back and asked to tell them how they can help change our speeding toward a cliff, what advice would you give this crowd to give them a sense of their own power and agency?
Great question. I'd probably direct them towards The Reduction Roadmap pioneered by the Danish architects that can be rolled out in any industry! https://www.planetcritical.com/p/the-reduction-roadmap
I hope you get a chance to engage with some of them again and lead them to the Reduction Roadmap. I believe that the cast majority of people essentially want to do and be good, but sometimes I lose heart, seeing the human-made suffering around us. You help reinforce my faith in people when it starts to crumble. Please take good care of uourself and keep doing what you do so well!
Hi Rachel, I very much recognize your observation about being able to have the same level conversation with intelligent people from different backgrounds:
"Frankly, the conversations I had were not that different to the rhetoric of my peers, except these were backdropped by the most glorious view over the Swiss Alps."
I had a similar experience, attending the World Energy Congress in Rotterdam and the next week the Amsterdam Complexity School on Climate Change where you had a keynote. I wrote about this on my Substack:
https://tychohuussen.substack.com/p/the-climate-is-indifferent-about
Hopefully there will be more high level meetings between scientist-activists and business leaders as "collaboration is critical" as you write. I proposed such a panel for an energy conference with the working title: “De-polarizing the energy transition: how to reconcile business and civic interests across the spectrum from the fossil fuel industry to XR” but they found it too risky for the rep of the ff company hosting the conference.
Well done! Borrowing from Thomas Kuhn and others, two things are required for people to change their worldview: 1) people need to understand that their old view of the world contradicts reality, and 2) they need a new worldview to grab on to. I believe we have reached the first stage: most people understand that our current economic system will collapse. The big challenge is to provide an acceptable alternative that does not require people to suddenly wake up full of "peace, love, and kindness." We do not have time to change people, which is why we need to change the system. And yes, the "good cop", "bad cop" strategy works. The people in power have to be more afraid of maintaining the old system than to change it. Some further ideas can be found here. https://www.global-climate-compensation.org/p/a-problem-of-moral-philosophy
This is exactly why I think the growing traditional ceremonial psychedelic movement is so important - people need some rapid wake up to the alternative world view option, complete with differing intuitions and incentives, and a while bucket load of neuroplasticity and love to go with it.
I wonder if you've spoken with Todd Smith, ex airline pilot, XR activist and spokesperson for Safe Landing, who are fighting for a just transition of the airline industry.
He’s a friend!
Beautiful. Great insight. Thank you
This is great. There is an environmental group here in Italy of young radicals who stop traffic, throw (washable) paint on art or in fountains in Rome and I adore them. They get the pearl clutchers clutching and talking about priceless art, without them relishing thats the point. The TREVI fountain isn't going to mean much in thirty years if we are in a war over food scarcity and extreme weather. And they are effective because now activists who wear a suit to talk to politicians or corporate leaders can finally get their meetings. It's starts the discussion.
My response after reading only the beginning: Did Kim Stanley Robinson model one of his characters in Ministry for the Future after you? I remember some similar tense scenes with bankers in that novel. Good work!
What a compliment! Written well before I came on the scene (but she was also a Celt!)
Yep, they were scared outside of their safely nurtured pastures.
Fantastic Rachel. I talked to a small theology group on Monday. Not quite the calibre of your audience but I learned a lot. The title of my talk was ‘Extinction Rebellion is my Religion’ as that’s where I go for hope and support in an insane world, where our small band of brothers care for each other and plan positive actions while having a laugh. It was well received so I hope to do more.
I liked your observation that the banker looked slapped by your checking of his loose opinion. Reminded of Mary Murphy's understanding of bankers need to be in a safe fenced paddock when it came to thinking outside their box; from KSR's Ministry For the Future. But there's the elephant always in the room, and it's drawn from another recent work, Michael E Mann's Our Fragile Moment. If BAU continues as horribly charted now, if fossil fuel aren't massively reined in then this is what your tiny children now will experience in 2100: ocean level rise 32 feet, 1 billion+ people, flora, fauna displaced from their homes and businesses, never to return, all the infrastructure gone for ever. If the death of insurance hasn't happened by then, it will die on that hill, and then you will see the long overdue Manhattan Type Projects kick in. Come and talk with us #ClimateCrisisClub on Twitter Spaces 11AM EST Saturdays; drop by if you like -it goes for about 8 hours, and is friendly even if you're a banker(:
I think this is absolutely right. Individuals succeed because they play by the rules so they are seen as a safe pair of hands. If they start challenging the social norms, they can become seen as a liability. A key challenge maybe is finding points of collaboration between those with (some) power and those without, so the more powerful insider can provide a narrative to their peers that allow them to keep their position while actually promoting a different agenda in cooperation with the outsiders. This though does require the insiders to be able to be duplicitous and take risks, which not everyone is good at. It also requires them to find a way of creating trusting relationships with the outsiders, which is not straightforward and could create questions in their peers' mind as to their 'trustworthiness'. Otherwise these bridges cannot be built prior to the revolution...
Oh this was so wonderful to read, well done. And well done to the woman who invited you.