Societal change is needed - but we might not get it in time, or ever. It just might not be in the human repertoire to consciously change social arrangements. When I was spending much of my time consulting with senior executive teams I became aware that change required both a change in the attitudes of the team members and the range of willingness to undertake semi-unpleasant tasks that were scorned in the past but may be necessary in the future C circumstances, the arrangement of the physical world, will need to change to provide material support to needed new actions. The key here is the need for coherence.
A simple but profound example: take a group of executives for a weekend retreat, and they return Monday to the same offices, the secretary sitting in the same place, the water cooler in the same place, the clock on the wall in the reception area, and each person’s private office is found just as they left it. I concluded that the old habits of thinking and communication were reestablished as soon as the execs returned from their weekend retreat and the rich discussion and potent ideas from the weekend were lost as soon as the first moments of the return. All the old ways of walking the hall, who to talk with, and how to restart work reemerged as the default. I proposed that for the upcoming retreat half the money should be spent on rearranging, from the paint on the wall, the surface of the floor, the furniture rearranged or even replaced. Then it is possible that some of the good yields of the retreat can be carried forward in time.
For climate change, the same holds but requires more time, effort, cost, and imagination. But the changes we need will not happen if the people are not willing to bend a bit to new habits and that the new habits must be supported by new environments.
The literary critic Kenneth Burke wrote extensively about social change and proposed what he called the scene-act ratio. Imagine going to a theater to see a play. When everyone is seated, the lights go down, the curtain opens up on a stage set. Everyone can tell what to expect from the set. A state set for a kitchen in a Chicago tenement will feel very different and support different ways of behaving, from a stage set representing a posh LR in the style of Beverly Hills or Versailles. This is before the actors move on stage. This example makes clear that there must be some congruence, some good fit, between the action to be performed, the scene, and the character of the people as acted by the actors. The same for adapting to climate change. The new mix of character and scene must have some degree of coherence if new actions are to be performed.
One of the big issues for climate adaptation is going to be food. Most city people grow up phobic about dirt. The idea that a handful of soil smells good and looks plush is not an easy shift from the button-pushing world they have grown to manage. Yet coming to be comfortable in the world of growing things will be necessary for a large part of the population if they are to eat. Rotting lettuce must be seen as organic and necessary, not as something to throw up about.
All climate proposals, such as cutting energy use significantly will test the strength of the people. They must change what they do. but this will be g,iven an uncomfortable nudge as circumstances are forced to change, such as having to choose between a limited heated house or cooking food with the limited energy available. Instead of a walk down the isles of the grocery store people will need to walk among piles of rubble, rot, and maybe violence to get anything eatable. Many will just give up. Those who are trying to lead will benefit by taking into account the way the environment -the scene - motivates, frustrates, or even disgusts the people. The Arts and Crafts (see wiki) movement blended fairly simple shelter design ad adjacent gardens in ways that made new adaptations not only doable but interesting and even attractive.
A favorite quote is
To make the frozen circumstances dance, you have to sing to them their own melody.
1Yo soy yo y mis circumstances - Ortega y Gasset (or Unamuno!)