Illustration by Erin Gallup.

Broad Work on the Climate Crisis Starts with Those of Us Not at the Top

Erin Gallup
Nov 5 · 4 min read

The time is over to wait for others to give us the opportunity to take action on the climate crisis. All of us who are common can integrate, lead and unify action starting with our daily work.

The problem

So many of us want to start working on climate change now, but we struggle to find the opportunity to do so when our day jobs take up most of our time. But as we pine for an opportunity, it’s become increasingly clear that we cannot wait for the various mechanisms running society today to give us the lucky break needed to begin work. Our capitalist economic system keeps our business and government leaders too busy to hand us the work.

Contrary to what some in the financial sector believe, capitalism will not be able to propel large scale climate work because the system is overwhelmingly driven by revenue. Market forces rule its decisions. Capitalism will make us delay addressing climate change until it becomes profitable to do so, which will be too late. We simply don’t have time to wait for a profitable market to blossom that encourages climate work.

Likewise, we do not need to wait for company leaders to provide an opportunity to work on the climate crisis. Their role and focus are to maintain or increase revenue for the enterprises they manage. Their days are busy answering to owners, boards and shareholders and it is difficult for them to create company-wide climate initiatives without a financial incentive or a vocal majority of employees asking for it.

And as for our government leaders, we cannot stand by and hope they will organize a solution. They have too many divergent pressures to juggle — from economic to social — and require the overwhelming support of a unified governed body. This is more difficult than ever as our modern societies are more fragmented and divided than they have been since we first started learning about the climate crisis.

So if our leaders and our economic system will be too slow to encourage working on the emergency — who will start the work? And how?

Illustration by Erin Gallup.

The answer lies in us, the common worker

We believe that it will be the collective action of the common worker that will create the shift needed for true action to begin. We are the ones who can empower each other to bring the voice of the environment into our daily work. We are the ones who can look past financial pressures and influence the bigger picture. But that sounds big and we feel small. How do we start?

We can start by declaring ourselves a Climate Action Professional. By giving ourselves a bold label and announcing it publicly, we make a theoretical concept tangible. We can do this openly, to draw others who want to work on this to us and encourage others to join in. Our power is in numbers.

Next, we can use this label to help us take action. We can make climate work part of every day. From the moment of the declaration on, environmental impact can be taken into account in all decisions, designs, and structures we create. We can always advocate a climate-friendly option first.

As we bake climate action into the work we produce, we can also look at the climate-unfriendly aspects of our offices and workspaces and gently encourage their evolution. From having less meat in the company canteen to fewer single-use products and flights, we can be the ones to help influence and refine our work environments.

And finally, we can support each other. When we find tools and techniques that work in our projects and in our workspaces, we can share them and spread them. We can provide a network of encouragement to celebrate results big and small to keep each other going.

Large-scale work on climate change will require a collective approach. No one company or individual can solve this problem alone. Yet we as common workers are at the source of a product or service’s creation. If all of us are empowered to advocate climate action choices first, we can begin to work on climate change now and at scale.

If you’re ready to take action, come join us at the Hive Initiative, a group of common workers banding together to work on climate change today.

The Hive Initiative

Common people working on climate change through our day jobs

Erin Gallup

Written by

Product Design Leader and Climate Action Designer at Making Waves in Oslo, Norway

The Hive Initiative

Common people working on climate change through our day jobs

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