Making Tipping Points Happen
How might the 5 stages of engagement and actions for future proofing enable tipping points and avoid barriers to change?
Do businesses fundamentally follow the same 5 stages of engagement and need to use the same 6 actions as individuals? Might the same barriers to change apply to companies as apply to individuals? And not only in the the sense that companies usually need consumers to buy their goods and services - in the sense that goods and services addressing climate change may not appeal to those consumer who don't accept the need - but in the sense that companies have financial constraints, leaders who are actual people with their own biases and cultures which treat creativity in different ways.
Does the (potential) existence of tipping points simply provide hope that a social solution exists? Does it illustrate that individual action has merit? Or can we dig into the dynamics of social networks and better understand what exactly moves us into tipping points? There are many barriers to personal engagement with climate change, how do these interact with the tipping point process? Is climate change "different" from other social dynamics (e.g. much of the tipping point research seems to have been based on political revolutions).
Consider this book of 3 parts:
The 5 Stages of Engagement provide tools for a change agent to recognise how to engage
The Actions for Future Proofing provide tools to enable change
The "Small cogs" shows what needs to change and how you might measure success
What is the likelihood of people "at" different stages of engagement to respond to solutions and contribute to progress towards a social tipping point? And which future-proof actions would help to make this happen?
References
Lesley Head (2020, paywall) Nature Climate Change "Transformative change requires resisting a new normal"; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0712-5 talks about conversations and expressing emotion around climate change (this is normal!) compared to denial and avoidance (a new normal to be resisted).
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