The Climate Campaign | Alastair Campbell
The Climate Campaign | Alastair Campbell
Realpolitick vs the crisis
Appears in this episode
I’m aware today’s guest may come as a surprise to some of you, and that you may have questions. I explain my reasoning here.
“If enough people get engaged and enough people get involved, don't underestimate the power and the agency that we all have as individuals and, obviously, working together with other people.”
But What Can I Do?
That’s the title of Alastair Campbell’s latest book, a passionate treatise on how broken politics is and what to do about it. His answer? Teaching the youth to oust the old. His message is simple: Learn how to campaign and don’t stop til you win.
A key player in Tony Blair’s New Labour government as a strategist, he has a wealth of experience winning campaigns—including the campaign to invade Iraq. This has made him a divisive figure in British politics, on which he remains a key commentator on his podcast, The Rest is Politics. His co-host, Rory Stewart, recently grilled him on the invasion of Iraq, which I advise listening to. Alongside the podcast, Alastair works as an advisor, journalist, author and mental health campaigner.
He joins me to discuss what the climate campaign needs. Alastair emphasises the importance of getting both power and people onboard, stressing the importance of a unified and simple message to inspire action. He addresses the levers and systems which need to be utilised in Power and Politics, and details the roadblocks of Populism and Polarisation. Finally, we discuss the reality of politicking vs the urgency of the crisis before I ask:
Will you help?
The Climate Campaign | Alastair Campbell
The question of why and how the right in the U.S. became so polarised against environmentalism, particularly action on climate change, is documented in great detail in Naomi Oreskes book Merchants of Doubt. She would be a great guest to have on the show by the way.
On running a campaign, I think that a large reason for XR’s early successful mobilisation, was the hundreds of “Heading for Extinction” talks they ran up and down the country, some of which can be found on YouTube. Claire Farrell’s version was particularly effective. I even ran one myself once (could do better!). This reinforces Alistair Campbell’s advice to keep repeating the facts..even after you’ve heard them a thousand times yourself. For many people it’s the first time and it can be devastating to hear.
I think Alistair is being very self aware when he says that many people will be sceptical of his involvement as they won’t have forgotten the lies and aftermath of Iraq in which he was deeply entwined. Sorry, but there it is.
What's totally exasperating but SHOP (standard human operating procedure) is the hubris that we humans exhibit when we actually think that we can at some point in time "fix" Overshoot problems with the same level of mentality that got us into this mess in the first place (to paraphrase Einstein). Part of the hubris is the fact that humans won't admit that for the most part they are just animals at a certain evolutionary level that happen to have evolved into self-awareness and self-consciousness, and because of that thinks it knows best, can't see beyond that awareness/consciousness (although we intuitively know that there is something else beyond - so to speak - that we have historically and continue to strive towards), and with that "supreme" knowledge has the final word on every subject. We simply act as if we are God (sorry, God, didn't mean to insult you that way). Working together at our current level of mentality will not solve problems - techno-optimism, AI, et al aside. Humanity must evolve to a higher plane of knowledge before we can understand the totality of what we have done, how we did it, and how not to do it again. Humans are not inherently bad (i.e., as a result of a "fall" from grace, etc.) as many people, societies, and religions think: they just exist on a plane that only supports the ignorance of egoism, and until that is transcended, all bets are off. The transcendence is possible: that glass ceiling has been broken many times throughout history, we just have to learn how to do it more collectively, and then hold on to that without sliding backwards - again.