One Question Answers; Has awareness diluted action?

Has awareness diluted action?

January 2020

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Has awareness diluted action?

We seem to have an unending desire for sensationalism. Although it feels like stories designed to shock arrived with the tabloids in the 1960s, that is far from the case. Italian preacher Bernandino da Feltre spread news in Veneto that a missing child had been found in the house of a Jewish family. All Jews in da Feltre’s village were arrested and tortured; fifteen were burned alive. That was 1475 AD. Fake news is also not new. The Jacobite rebellion of the 1700s led to printers churning out fake news that King George II was unwell – information designed to spur people into joining the movement to overthrow the Royal Family. It is seemingly this idea of ‘spurring people on’ that, now, becomes the real challenge. Scenes of unrelenting horror and devastation are constantly rolled out before us. Which of these should we genuinely be concerned about? We are aware, sure. But do we act? How do we act? What should we do when we decide to act?

Although we have choices, perhaps the worst example of doing nothing is when we simply feel powerless to act. A recent study from energy company E.ON revealed that 31% of people polled are notparticularly bothered about climate change – a greater proportion that those who feel that they simply cannot do anything to combat it (28%).

Both of these numbers are shocking; what once was the single greatest issue of our time is causing people either not to act, whether through choice or not, or simply to not consider any personal action worthy of a contribution.

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Nowadays, of course, news and information is broadcast and consumed in such volumes that it is almost impossible to detach oneself from it. Even if we don’t buy a morning paper or simply choose to put our phones down, 24hour news channels are on display in almost every office reception; news screens are in train stations and on trains; and, somewhat inevitably, the screens of smart fridges can bring us up to speed with world events. We couldn’t have foreseen on the 30th January 2020 when we asked, has awareness diluted action? How prescient this question would become. As a result of the impact of Covid-19 this report has been delayed, yet I feel very passionately that the question is now even more relevant today than it was two months ago.

Awareness and action have always had a tense relationship.

Action is a choice, but so is inaction. Quantity of message doesn’t necessarily lead to quality of response. Macro-issues don’t always easily, or quickly, translate to micro-actions.

Then a health crisis hits, a first for most of us, we are overwhelmed with information yet action is very simple.

Without definitive government action, without consistent media messaging, businesses and people act very quickly.

Health is uniting and whether our actions are selfish or selfless, in the face of a threat to our bubble, when our eco systems are impacted directly we can and will act and we will do it quickly, so perhaps the real question we should be asking is, in 2020 is ‘awareness’ just noise?

Sarah Parsonage One Question 5

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Awareness overwhelm Increased awareness: ushered into every corner of our lives. Now subject to the relentless feeds and notifications of the digital revolution. It can feel overwhelming.

Less than two months ago we were in the midst of three crises, the planet teetering on the brink of irreparable climate meltdown. The US pushing us all to the brink of WWIII, a technological and globalisation crisis. Then COVID19 swept

“The more facts that people see about the climate crisis, the more they feel fatalistic in a way. I guess it’s getting harder and harder; there comes a line of saying, okay, how do we not completely scare people? And how do we tell them the truth? Because it is really scary.”

across the world and we were living it. There is barely a soul on earth who isn’t subject to 20 Breaking News updates about the pandemic, yet all other news has seemingly ceased. Less than two months ago, headline after headline details profound tragedies, one after the other and from all angles. It’s hard to quantify whether our collective injustices have multiplied, or whether it just feels that way. Today there is one tragedy yet sadly the threat of the other crisis have disappeared from our daily news updates. So, on the one hand, more information and causes are available to grieve over or confront than ever before. On the other, we’re paralysed by not only the cacophony of messages, but its endless overlapping and compounding of issue upon issue.

Dominique Palmer Activist, UK Student Climate Network 8

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“What really drives action is a positive narrative: a promise, and a positive identity I can derive from my action. I think if you want to drive action, you need to understand the nature of denial and why denial has been an evolutionary advantage. When you move with your little tribe from one cave to the next, that’s when you lose some children; that’s when animals attack you. Change is inherently dangerous, and change is not [always] this positive thing.”

Wolfgang Blau Global Chief Operating Officer & President, International, Condé Nast

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Uncomfortable Complexity.

Complexity and clarity might seem incompatible bedfellows. But it’s imperative that we swim to the deep end of these issues, rather than sticking to their metaphorical paddling pool.

Our brains aren’t wired to accommodate conflicting information, rather to sift through stimuli until we find a more digestible (and inevitably less nuanced) account of ‘truth’. Despite our instincts, it’s leaning into the multiplicities and contradictions of reality which might just be what pulls us through it in one piece – however painful that wrench might be.

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“Boris Johnson, Erdogan, Bolsonaro, Maduro, Trump – whatever our leaders’ names currently, their playbook is increasingly similar. It’s not just their clever use of social media, and their promise is not just identity, but their promise is reduction of complexity. Ultimate populism is to say, it’s not that complicated. And in countries with failing education systems, there’s the added layer of ‘it’s okay to be uneducated, you are right.”

Wolfgang Blau Global Chief Operating Officer & President, International, Condé Nast

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Cognitive Dissonance.

Certainly, there’s no shortage of opposing voices to tune in to. Like 1.1 million others in the UK (quadrupling between 2014 and 2019) we can Go Vegan, only to discover that soy contributes to climate change, displaces smallholders in South America and comes at the expense of endangered wildlife.

Resolve to eat healthily and find that the blueberries, lentils and avocados in your basket have collectively racked up more air miles and carbon dioxide emissions than if

“[There’s a gap between] what people say and what they do… there’s far more claimed behaviour.

People say they want to buy the ecologically friendly version, or the climate friendly version, but in the end they buy the cheapest.

Or the best.”

you’d chartered a private jet to work every day for a week.

Endeavour to revitalise an ailing high street, and discover that you’ve priced out the locals in the process. Or vote for a proposition that promises £350 million a week to NHS and end up with a drawn-out retreat that costs more than we’ve contributed to the EU in 47 years of membership before it’s even enacted.

Ben Page CEO, Ipsos MORI 16

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“There is a sense of complexity being a bad thing or paralyzing. While we of course all enjoy the enormous diversity of ideas and things we can do […] I’m always intrigued by how people now think that the last big disruption, i.e., printed books, are this benign thing. […]

I think a lot of [this conversation] is about the discomfort of complexity, triggered by something that overall is something we all enjoy and don’t want to let go of” Wolfgang Blau Global Chief Operating Officer & President, International, Condé Nast

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The Cold March of Capitalism.

Looming larger than we can comprehend, systemic power structures prove harder to topple than anticipated. The reach of capitalism and its myriad injustices — exploitation, inequality — suffuse more of the world than we’ve previously been keen to admit.

Again and again, the systematic resistance to progress of any kind – other than profit – constricts even the most sincere bids for business transparency and authentic good. More than this, the re-provals to do things differently like shopping at farmer’s markets, purchasing only ethically-sourced clothes and toiletries might have sounded compelling, but they were (and often still are) inevitably spoken of from a position of enormous

“There are some people in situations where they’re not actually able to act, or to be active in activism.

It is a privilege to be able to dedicate so many hours to something.”

privilege. A privilege that has never been more apparent than it is now. The rise of the ‘superhero’ is not the people in power on any side of the pond, nor is it the corporates who have historically scaled for volume with value secondary to speed or efficiency.

Dominique Palmer Activist, UK Student Climate Network 20

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“The example of eco-fish labelling is a really interesting one. When they started putting on the labels – ‘this is a good fish to eat’ – the only people who really cared were the people who already knew about it.”

Georgia Arnold Executive Director, MTV Staying Alive

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A Question of Privilege.

It feels like many corporates - from Tesco to H&M - have committed to radical initiatives banning the use of child workers, or selling chickens covered in burns from their own urine.

But the degree of financial advantage that enables more people to make virtuous consumer choices might be diminishing. No-one buys, say, processed meat because they like its ethics. They buy it because it’s cheaper.

They buy it because they don’t have time to research, let alone travel to, a wholesome farmer on Sunday morning; because it’s right there; because they’re already overwhelmed at the demands placed on them by work, family and keeping things ticking over. As much as capitalism relies on different degrees of exploitation to function, it can sap sufficient energy from people such that they’re too exhausted to object. Of course, it’s always been true that it’s better to source your anything — whether it be museum funding or half a dozen eggs – from somewhere you could be sure wouldn’t cover your hands in blood through the transaction. It just wasn’t always possible, or realistic. Indeed it still isn’t, in many cases – but maybe just maybe as the world recovers right now it will become necessary.

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“Raising awareness is the easy bit, right?

Shifting social norms is incredibly difficult.”

Georgia Arnold Executive Director, MTV Staying Alive

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Whose Problem is it Anyway?

In many parts of the developed world, business has more clout than government – this was evident prior to the impact of COVID 19 and One Question’s 2020 question, can business make society better?

Is perhaps a bigger question with more tangible answers than it was during this discussion in January.

“The one thing I do think business is really good at is being able to change really quickly […] and small changes can make a huge difference to us. [… ] I’d prefer if [businesses] weren’t obsessed with economic efficiency rather than economic effectiveness.”

In less regulated markets, corporations are also far nimbler than lumbering institutions, who require endless votes and hearings to amend policy or react to changing cultural landscapes.

Businesses are built to adapt, absorb, and turn any new situation to their advantage. Whether we lament or celebrate their power will likely depend on whether our blood runs red or blue. Barring the greatest power restructuring in human history, our fate is largely in corporate hands. How, then, to leverage their power?

Dominic Kniveton Professor of Climate Change and Society 26

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“There’s this horrible thing in economics called scarcity economics. It studied the same people within a cycle of the year, examining their cognitive ability. And found that people are cognitively impaired when they’re poor. Not because of stress, but because they’re focused on trying to alleviate poverty.”

Dominic Kniveton, Professor of Climate Change and Society

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Green Washing Sensing a changing tide, many businesses are already making strong plays for ‘woke’ consumer loyalty. But what does it mean, when KFC brings out a vegan range?

Should we be pleased that a worthy cause has found sanctuary on such a monolithic platform – or rather furious, to have a sincere conviction co-opted by a megacorporation? Which is hypocritical? After all, it’s not like the fast food giants have ‘seen the light’, in any ethical sense. A vegan option will sit beside the beef and chicken that have built their empires (and brought the planet to its knees). Then again, the scale at which such companies have the capacity to produce these straw-man burgers bring the price points within reach of many more than just the guilt- wracked metropolitan elite. Do the benefits of exposure and availability offset the unsavoury reality of the processes which made them possible?

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“At Davos [World Economic Forum] the virtue signalling has now become so extreme that, if you listened to Chevron, you would think that they produce oil out of windmills. The joke in Davos is that it’s billionaires telling millionaires how the middle class should live.”

Wolfgang Blau Global Chief Operating Officer & President, International, Condé Nast

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Tipping Point.

Although it’s certainly true that respected and powerful institutions ought to be held to higher ethical standards than the Average Joe – even if only because of their access to personnel and resources – the world is waking up to the truth that a million Joes can affect as much change as one venture capitalist.

The opportunity for change has arguably never been greater. COVID-19 is a global issue, but currently it is being solved by local communities. Thirty bloggers can influence a thousand shoppers, who can reach an exponential audience via social media. Within a system which does not reward the virtuous without enormous pressure, a new generation of thought is demanding ethical behaviour and routinely pulling the rug from under heavy feet. So when does consumer preference start to overpower the siren song of money? Well, when it promises to out-do traditional means of profit production. Fight fire with fire, and cash with cash.

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“Brands will do whatever helps increase sales and protects their business. And if that means being green and cuddly, then – within reason – they’ll do it.”

Ben Page CEO, Ipsos MORI

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The scope of dirty money and power can feel overwhelming - because it is. Squeaky Clean might be a bit of a stretch, but 2020 is increasingly insisting on cleaner. Short of burning it all to the ground and starting again, uproar on a case-by-case basis seems reasonable – and, it was working.

One cause at a time – whether it’s forsaking high-street for handmade, recycling rather than binning, or choosing paper rather than plastic – there’s no denying a zeitgeist pushing for progress. Reframing smaller issues, with lenses that people can see through clearly, allows avenues into monoliths of discomfort that might otherwise seem too huge to broach. One starting point is to admit one’s own limitations. Co-producing solutions to manageable chunks of the whole, rather than striving to digest the world’s ills in their entirety, opens new perspectives of possibility.

While there are millions of causes which might benefit from our attention, not one of them will thank us for depleted efforts or divided focus. A single human cannot take the planet’s burden on their fragile shoulders – but en masse, we can lift enormous weights. Like trying to explain water to a fish swimming through it, systemic structures are sometimes so ingrained as to seem natural, inevitable, immovable. But systems are symbiotic – and adjusting one aspect can throw the others into energetic disarray, revealing disarmingly simple salves and glimpses into a future less off-kilter.

Reaching for hopefulness, it’s surprisingly small adjustments in perspective which promise the most profound change.

As Dominic Kniveton says, the missing element of our awareness-action chain is perhaps ‘reframing’: bridging the gap between discomfort and response, head and hand. Time will tell how the world recovers from our current crisis, but whether we want to return back to any kind of normal will be on us, not on them.

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“Most revolutions fail. Change is where the accidents happen.

We really need to have a lot of compassion for why denial mostly is a healthy thing, and why resistance to change has allowed our species to exist.”

Wolfgang Blau Global Chief Operating Officer & President, International, Condé Nast

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