I will be following with great interest the progress of the recently launched “Together” citizen engagement campaign on climate change.
A UK import from The Climate Group, “Together” comes on the heels of Al Gore‘s disappointing “we” campaign. I like that it is a true collaborative effort between environmental organizations, major American cities, media organizations, and big businesses. Whether the citizens will respond is another story.
Also, I couldn’t help but think, what would happen if the “we” people, and the “Together” team worked towards a single, unified campaign? Environmental organizations have this deplorable tendency of fragmenting their efforts.
La Marguerite 
I agree that there is too much overlap in all the efforts. However, I am always pleased to see new movements started.
Just like why there are hundreds of brands of cereal that all go in a bowl with milk, numerous religions that all worship the same God, and 31+ flavors of ice cream, people are diverse and are attracted to different things. Variety is key.
Maybe the We movement appeals to a certain group of people and the Together movement another group. What’s important is that people are paying attention and getting on the wagon, regardless of what banner the wagon displays.
I appreciate the http://uas.coop/about who try to bring together different organizations who have the same mission in an effort to combine resources and reduce overlap.
Thanks for the link, Carleigh!
I guess my concern here is one of efficiency, and of consistency in the message.
Thank you so much for touching upon the US launch of the Together campaign.
Together is about making it easy for everyone to fight climate change. Together partners – brands, cities and NGOs – are committing to delivering products, services and initiatives that will help consumers to reduce their carbon footprint. You will see more and more partners joining Together over the coming year – and each partner will be offering new solutions to help people reduce their impact on the planet.
The Climate Group – the NGO that created Together – is working with Environmental Resources Management (ERM) to independently verify the CO2 savings of each Together solution.
Together and ERM are adding up the CO2 savings of each energy efficient product, service or initiative promoted through the campaign to show that once aggregated, our small, independent purchasing decisions can amount to a huge wave of energy efficiency.
By no means do we mean to suggest that fighting climate change will be simple. But we must all do something. And if even if we can only do something small – like changing over to energy efficiency light-bulbs, or recycling or turning our AC or thermostat down, Together shows that lots of small, easy and practical actions can add up to monumental energy savings.
And the really great news: by joining Together, you can save energy, save money – and help save the planet.
Climate Change is the greatest challenge of our time. Meeting that challenge will be much easier if we do it together.
Oh – and one small correction to your initial post: the title should actually read: First “Together,” Then “We.” Together is a global campaign that launched last year in the UK. We’ve already saved over 500,000 tonnes of CO2. That’s the equivelant of taking 200,000 cars off the road every year. We are now up and running in the US – and will soon be unveiling the campaign in China, Australia and India.
For more information – and to learn how you can begin to fight climate change – please visit http://www.together.com and join Together.
This site is somewhat better than wecansolveit.com, because it gives a little more to do. There’s some interaction. The social part is missing totally though. I think people are most attracted by people “like them”. They want to join in on the activity. Play along. Playing with others is so much better than playing with a computer.
Right now, the only way to meet people is to actually go to an activist meeting. I think that’s quite a big step for many. Actually, I don’t think I’d meet with people who I haven’t talked to online first.
The “Togetherizer” is a good idea though. But it has far too few options… I can’t even see a “go vegetarian” option. They should have asked No Impact Man for ideas!
I think engagement is something best done organically, through existing social networks. People will help each other to find the right information and tools. It should be something viral.
But then, something like this doesn’t hurt of course. I like carleigh’s notion of variety. Throw stuff on the wall, see what sticks. 😉
I’ve just taken a look at http://uas.coop/ . I don’t know why, but that site touches me more than Together or Wecansolveit. It seems more human, I guess.
That reminds me we have something like the Together campaign in France, with the Nicolas Hulot Foundation and his ( Challenge for Earth )
Up to 800,000 people are taking part in this, and according to the website, more than 400,000 tons of CO2 emissions have been avoided.
Good luck to the Together team. I think I will write something on this for my blog, as I did it for the We campaign ! 🙂
Keep up the good work Marguerite, your blog is really fantastic !
Meryn, I get your point about the missing social media component on the Together website, a recurring theme after what happened with “we”. As evidenced by Callum’s comment above, however, it seems to me that the Together staff is showing great responsiveness to online conversations about their campaign. That’s a great start.
Is it perhaps too early to write “we” off? It’s only been around for a few months. As you have noted before, social movements don’t just materialize over night.
Thanks Sue. Maybe I am not as patient as you are. I would also stress the difference between social movements and advertising campaigns. I have serious doubts regarding the persuasion quality of “we”.
I notice that they have a number of commercial partners: Target, myspace.com, smartcar, lenovo, etc. Apart from recycling and turning off your computer, their tips on reducing your contribution to climate change involving buying or winning products.
Notice: “We measure the impact each time anyone takes up one of our partner solutions and add it up in the Togetherizer so you can see how lots of small actions make a big difference when we take them together.
My emphasis. When you buy or win some product, you get the credit. If you just walk to the shops or have lentils instead of beef for dinner, no credit. So this is not about actual reduction in your emissions, but boosting a few companies.
Then there’s the idea of “saving” carbon emissions; this is like “saving” money when you spend it. You can’t save carbon emissions, all you can do is reduce them. Saying that the people involved in this together have saved 500,000 tonnes of emissions is like saying that the people who go to the Target post-Christmas sale have “saved” a million bucks. This may make them feel good but is not actually true.
It all seems rather commercial and with meaningless warm fuzzies.
Even without the commercial tie-ins, I am sceptical of the “togetherizer”, keeping track of your “savings”. It’s like adding up all the 10% or 20% off I got on all the things I bought and saying, “look, I’ve saved $2,124!” So what? How much did I spend, and was my spending more or less than my income?
Likewise, what matters is not how much emissions we “save”, but how much emissions we emit, and whether they are more or less than a fair share of what the world’s climate system can handle.
We need less warm fuzzies and more action. And the action does not need spending money on fancy gadgets or software, nor does it require commercial partnerships. Reduce, reuse, recycle – in that order. That’s right, reduce, horrible thought I know but there you go.
Give yourself five years to work towards a one tonne CO2 lifestyle.
Life is too simple for some people. We try to make this all horribly complicated and involve lots of high technology and money. But really it’s pretty simple. Reduce, reuse, recycle – and focus the reductions on things which use fossil fuels, like your electricity, your transport and your food.
Kyle, maybe I am missing something, but it seems to me that the Together site is trying to cover all aspects of green living, including purchases. To be fair to them, if they are going to get any traction, they need to meet people where they are, first. Right now, most folks are still consuming as if there is no tomorrow. . .
And of course, the ultimate goal, as you so rightfully mention is the old ‘Reduce, reuse, recycle’. And consuming as few carbon intensive things as possible.
The alternative you are suggesting, of taking a bold stance, is one I think needs to be given more thought. Could it be that the common assumption of, ‘you are going to scare people away’ does not hold? Or, rather, how should your ideal be presented, so that the mainstream can relate to it?
Well, their “what you can do” page is mostly about buying from or promoting their commercial partners. Their eight “together ideas“, four of them involve buying things, two are trivial (“wash your clothes in cold water” – much less important than how you dry your clothes – and computer power saving), one is just plain old recycling, and only one is a behavioural change – walking/cycling for short trips.
This mixture of “spend more money on stuff” and “make trivial changes” is very typical of groups which strive for popularity, especially if partnered with commercial interests. You can tell it’s mostly commercial by the emphasis on spending money – but how should I reduce my impact if I can’t afford a new fridge or insulation? What about Josephine, spending a fifth of her income on fuel so she can earn the other four-fifths? How can she reduce the 1,000lbs a month of emissions from her car?
I don’t know if taking a bold stance would work, because it hasn’t been tried in a big way over many different areas. But it’s worth a go.
Where it has been tried is in wartime, with rationing, victory gardens and so on, and in a few other smaller areas. And it has worked. Looking at Australia, let’s consider some reduction programmes.
Smoking halved over the 1981-2001 period. This was achieved with a combination of high taxes on tobacco, regulations restricting who (by age) could smoke and where, and strong advertising campaigns against smoking and encouraging quitting.
Here in Melbourne, after a campaign of minor water use restrictions and lots of advertising “every drop counts”, we’ve reduced our domestic water use by about a quarter. Up in Brisbane a similar campaign plus progressive pricing (the second thousand litres costs more than the first, etc) have got reductions of about 40% of domestic use.
Or if we look from negative to positive reinforcement, offering options, as the PTUA notes, “a trial involving improvement of train services on [one train line] from every 20 minutes to every 15 resulted in a one-third increase in passengers, more than enough to cover the cost of the increased services.” Now that is something which would help the Josephines of the world.
People will respond to bold challenges. They respond if given decent options, regulations restricting use, taxes and/or progressive pricing, and advertising explaining the reasons for the changes.
Whereas warm fuzzies and commercial partners will just make people buy more stuff and not change in any substantial way. It’s a strange idea that to address peak fossil fuels and climate change we need commercial partners. Did MLK have a corporate sponsor? Did Gandhi? Ho Chi Minh? Social change comes about from people changing, not corporations. Was segregation ended because white people started buying more stuff from black people?
Ask people to step on up, and they will. Ask them to buy more stuff, and they will. People are pretty accommodating in that way.
As I see it now, what’s the best about Together is their partnerships with companies. It will bring green higher on their agenda.
“they need to meet people where they are,”
The same holds true for the companies they partner with.
And taken “together” that creates a problem. Because the companies might not be where the customers are, if they’d both were be able to express their true wants at this moment in time.
To be sure, I think sometimes the green “interests” of companies and customers match: Being able to choose electricity you take from the grid is a no-brainer I think. But there are lots of places where interests c
an diverge.
If Together would want to live to up to its name, they would state up clearly: Together, we have a problem. We all want different things, companies need to be profitable, employees want to keep their jobs, some consumers don’t want to pay too much extra, some consumers don’t want to much burden, and a whole different group of consumers want to do everything they can, but that would not be an acceptable outcome giving the negotiation space we have right now.
Then we could have conversation, and try to devise win-win solutions for different sorts of companies and people from all walks of life.
I think there’s not a shortage of good intentions, but a shortage in honesty. People doubt the good intentions because of the lack of honesty. That need to be reversed.
(And to put it in perspective: that’s why I think La Marguerite is ground-breaking right now because here there is quite some discussion about strategy in the open.)
Now, I’m very curious if Callum will take up the discussion right here.
“a whole different group of consumers want to do everything they can, but that would not be an acceptable outcome giving the negotiation space we have right now.”
To be more precise: If everyone would take up a one ton carbon lifestyle right now, economists would need to think up a whole new word for what’s going to happen. It would instantly crash some (or most?) industries.
I think such a frugal lifestyle is laudable in principle and should not have to hurt anyone in theory, but unfortunately this would be the case given the current structure of our economic system. We need to talk about this for the long-term I think.
“social movements don’t just materialize over night.”
That’s very true, but I don’t consider WE a social movement. It’s not grassroots. I have much higher hopes for what’s happening here on La Marguerite, It’s getting hot in here, and other small sites which I don’t know of.
I think of the crucial elements a movement needs to grow is a open place where people can meet (that’s why freedom of assembly is a human right…). WE lacks such a facility. It’s a top-down model.
I agree with Marguerite. The vast majority of people are living as nothing was on the making.
Sure thing, they heard about climate change. But to them, it is not that dangerous and/or near. So they make a few changes, because it enables them to save money and to have a better conscience.
I think that going from our current economic model to the one tonne CO2 lifestyle, and this for the majority of people, will take a lot of time.
It is to me the ultimate goal, but I really doubt it will interest more than ten percent of people.
Make no mistake in what I write Kyle, your idea is fantastic and you are model for us all.
The thing is, people generally don’t want to embrace models ( or the frivolous ones, the serious ones, nope )
And as I stated in an earlier discussion right here, dividing by four or five our emissions country wide will be a major challenge. I don’t imagine the heck it would be to convert us all to the one tonne.
Marguerite, once again is right : that would scare a lot of people away from climate change mitigation.
Sure, the end is near ( of our lifestyles, at least ), but if you say so to people, they won’t do a single thing as they would say : ” so it’s useless for me to change whatever since we already are f_ed up…”
Indeed, look at non environmentalists that came here. They don’t give a damn about the planet, or at least, little do they care. They only think about them and their own comforts, even if it discards the chance of their own children…
Daryl, from Verda Vivo wrote something on her blog on how her efforts are somewhat canceled by her husband. That makes me think :
Even if we the ten most affluent commentators on this blog changed our lifestyles toward the one tonne lifestyle, there would be hundreds of other people that would cancel our efforts.
And this is why I think together and the likes are interesting : they enable a wider array of people to act. bit by bit… with time and efforts, we will see major changes.
Hope I didn’t wrote anything that would hurt you Kyle, or anybody. And once again : you are model, but I doubt this model is duplicable to the majority of people. Keep up the good work and enjoy !
Meryn, first up when fossil fuels start dropping in supply and skyrocketing in price, and when the world’s climate changes catastrophically, our economies are going to change anyway – and for the worse. Better to have them change because of our plans than forced to change by circumstances.
Secondly, in recent years economists have largely subscribed to “economic rationalism“. This boils down to, “life changes, we’re going to force it to change, tough shit”. When Thatcher killed the coal mines, when Keating killed manufacturing, when Reagan killed manufacturing, when the IMF yoked the Third World with debt, the response was “tough shit, figure out a way to cope, survival of the fittest,” etc.
Thirdly, people are not going to take up such a lifestyle overnight, it’ll take a decade or so of dedicated effort from individuals, the community and government for most people to manage it – for example, we just don’t have the public transport for everyone to use it, but we could have fairly easily. My city recently spent $2.5 billion on 45km of roads, $500 million would buy you 1,000 buses, and the interest on $2 billion in the bank would fuel, staff and maintain them. Would people lose jobs from less cars being built, maintained and fuelled? Sure. But are we to suppose that the buses appear from nowhere? No – those buses are built and maintained and fuelled, too. Companies making cars now can make buses in the future.
Lastly, going to a one-tonne CO2 lifestyle does not mean spending no money, it just means not wasting fossil fuels. If I am saving $150 a week from not having a car that doesn’t mean I won’t put it back into the economy, but instead of $150 on a car it’ll be $150 on gym memberships, massages, accountants, naturopaths, restaurants, theatres, my garden and so on and so forth.
Already in the West we’ve seen the rise of the service sector. When clothing factories moved to China we were told not to be pussies, to find another job in McDs or something – why should it be any different this time? Why must we accept change for abstract reasons like “economic rationalism” or “free market” or “communism” or whatever, but should not accept change for concrete reasons like “climate change” or “fossil fuel depletion”?
Whatever we do, things are going to change. They can change in a way we choose and plan for, or change in a way we’re forced to. Common sense tells us the first is better.
I hope this post gets through Marguerite’s aggressive spam filter 🙂
Edouard, nope, not hurtful at all.
There are a couple of things to say. The first is that the “one tonne” lifestyle isn’t a model, it’s an example. There are lots of ways to achieve a low emissions, low fossil fuel use lifestyle – that’s just one suggestion.
It’s like if you say, “I’d like to be self-sufficient in as much of my food as possible” I might give an example of three raised garden beds of 10m2 each; or if you said “I’d like to become a doctor as quickly as possible” I might give an example of someone who goes back to school to do their Baccalaurate; and so on. It’s just an example.
One of the objections people have to reducing their emissions and fossil fuel use is, “oh but we’d have to live in a cave.” So right there is an example lifestyle where you get the low emissions and consumption, but are living an affluent Western lifestyle. No caves needed. Anyone can do it, but for everyone to do it would need government help and take some years – more public transport, etc.
The other objections people have are, “but what difference does it make if just I change?” and “but not everyone will change anyway.”
And my answer to those objections is that some things are right or wrong whether they have any effect at all, and whatever anyone else does. If I am faithful to my wife and refrain from stealing from my boss, I don’t expect it to increase the amount of fidelity and honesty in the world. It’s just right to be faithful and honest, so I do it – even if all my friends are screwing around on their spouses and stealing from work. It’s just the right thing to do.
Don’t underestimate the power of example. Between peak fossil fuels and climate change, we’re fast approaching a time when a change to low emissions and lower consumption lifestyle will be forced on us. If the world oil supply goes from 85 to 40 million barrels a day over twenty years, then we’re going to have to halve our oil consumption whatever “model” we have in our heads, tough luck there’s not enough to piss it away.
Of course, some may continue their wasteful lifestyles, while others have nothing to waste. Already around the world the rich-poor gap is a fossil fuel gap, with the US using 25 barrels of oil per person annually, Western Europe 12-15, Eastern Europe 6-12, and countries like Ghana about 1-2. So perhaps we’ll see more such gaps within our wealthy Western countries. If there’s an oil shortage, it won’t be Bill Gates who does without. We could see a widening rich-poor gap.
That’s the future that awaits us if we do nothing, if we say, “what’s the use in changing, nobody else will change, just party on.” The fossil fuel supply declines, the rich hold onto their share and the middle class and poor miss out and become poorer.
I don’t think that’s a desirable outcome. I believe in social justice. I don’t believe in everyone having exactly the same, but I think the top 1% can survive with only 100 times the wealth of the bottom 1%, they don’t really need 1,000,000 times it.
And one of the ways we can see a smaller rich-poor gap is with people having access to shelter, food and water, energy and transport, and that’s easiest with distributed and renewable energy generation, more and better public transport, and so on.
And it’s all quite doable. It requires no new technology, no grand social movements, it’s just developments of what we already have. We already restrict the consumption of goods which are scarce (water in Australia) or dangerous (we have controls for acidic and heavy metal and toxins emissions), so we can restrict the consumption of fossil fuels. We already have public transport and renewable energy in place, we just need more of them. It’s all just an extension of what we already do.
I just found http://www.energyrace.com/ . Too bad it’s US only. Marguerite, had you heard of it?
Thanks Meryn. This reminds me of Carbon Rally:
https://lamarguerite.wordpress.com/2007/12/03/carbon-rally-is-making-a-game-out-of-reducing-carbon-emissions/
I have become less enthusiastic about these kind of sites. I do not believe this is how the human mind works. Yes, maybe I do decide one day, that I want to become green, and go through the whole carbon footprint and behavior program exercise, and virtual social network thing. The question is, can I sustain that good intention and stick to the program. My hunch is, probably not.
On the other hand, if someone offers me some sensible solutions to what is hurting me most at the present moment, eg, skyrocketing gas prices, it is very likely that I will eagerly consider these new behaviors, as in carpooling, driving less often, taking public transportation, etc. It is a question of relevance to very real, personal, daily problems.
This brings up the central issue of how to engage people into changing their behavior over the long run. And the reason why you, and I, and many others on this blog spend so much time thinking about it.
Callum, since I know you follow this thread, this one is for you!
Campaign like “Together” need to be topical and answer in real time to people’s real pain. The main thing is to be responsive, and meet them where they are, where that happens to be at the moment. Also, in true Web 2.0 mode, you want to create a meeting place where people can contribute their ideas and solutions, and help each other. Kind of like here, but on a larger scale, and with a local emphasis.
(For those of you who don’t know, Callum Grieve is the Director of External Affairs for The Climate Group, the organization behind the “Together” campaign.)
Marguuerite: thanks for the guidance. As a 41-year old, I’m still finding my way in the world of 2.0.
This is a fascinating conversation – and lots of good, candid feedback.
I want to try to clarify a few things.
First of all, Together is not about consumption. The last thing we want people to do is spend money on “stuff.” It’s about shifting behavior through the promotion of smart, energy efficient products, services and initiatives.
For example, Together helps people who need to buy light-bulbs understand the energy efficient bulbs are a much better choice than incandescents. This may seem like a small victory to some of the folks on this wonderfully progressive and open-minded blog.
As always, there’s some good news and bad news. The bad news is that recent research shows that millions of Americans are still very confused about what they can do to lessen their impact upon the planet. The good news is that that same research suggests that more than ever: consumers are ready to act. They just need some simple, clear and easy steps to help them get underway.
Again, some may see this as “trivial,” but just imagine if every American began buying only energy efficient light bulbs. And then tomorrow, they started buying programmable thermostats. And then the next day, they bought only Energy Star appliances. If this happens, we will have started a energy-efficiency revolution.
Sure, some of these things are small steps. Baby steps. But baby steps are what get most humans started. And we need humans to get started – fast.
Think how foreign and challenging the world of Web 2.0 is for some folks. Climate change is no different.
Good idea about listing “hang-drying your clothes” as a Together idea. We’ll get that and others up on the site in the next day or two. Keep the ideas coming. We’re listening.
Secondly, Together is about action. Practical, tangible, quantifiable action. In the coming weeks we will be launching the Togetherizer, which will track tons of CO2 reduced as a result of smart, affordable energy efficient products. We’re working with Energy Resources Management – a highly regarded and independent environmental consulting team. ERM is measuring the energy savings of each Together product – and will calculate the tons of CO2 people have managed to reduce based on sales data from each of our partners.
We couldn’t agree more about needing less “warm fuzzies and more action.” That’s precisely why we’ve built the Togetherizer. It tracks real results, real action, based on real smart purchasing decisions. We wish we could give credit in the Togetherizer to people who choose a vegan diet or walk to work rather than drive – but we simply can’t verify those kinds of figures. Again: Together is not about warm fuzzies, or pledges to do good or carbon offsets. It’s about quantifiable, credible CO2 reduction. It’s about easy ways to help fight climate change. It’s about action.
Finally (at least for now) Together is about precisely that: together. It’s about all of us, you and me. And everyone who has posted here. And everyone else. It’s about the friends we have who care passionately about the environment. But it’s also about the folks who aren’t so concerned about things like carbon footprint, polar bears or the difference between weather and climate.
Together is not just about how the energy efficient bulb is good for the planet. It’s about how he energy efficient bulb will save you money on your energy bill. Saving money is an awfully powerful motivator – specially these days when gasoline is now more than $4.00 a gallon.
The not-so-simple truth is that alone, we won’t be able to make the changes necessary to fight climate change. Global warming requires a global response. We need everyone. Big business. Government. The non-profit groups. The faith-based groups. The Boys Scouts and The Girl Scouts. The greens and the not-so-greens. Everyone.
That’s why this campaign is called Together.
Individually, we can accomplish many great and important things.
But together, we have a chance to make enormous and lasting change.
I wish I could weigh in more deeply, but things are rather hectic still – the Together campaign having launched just days ago. But I promise to keep touching base.
Together is listening. More importantly, Together hears you.
Callum, given how busy you must be with the launch, I am truly impressed with you taking the time to respond. That you are hearing, and actively listening says a lot about your commitment.
Again, let me reiterate. Consider this blog community as a resource, and a sounding board for any of your future decisions.
Thank you. We will be following with great interest.
Many thanks, Marguerite. This forum is precisely what our campaign is about. People doing great things – and helping others to do the same. I will be following this discussion with great interest. Many wise and inspiring voices here. Perhaps I can share one last notion before I unplug for the evening? An African proverb. “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
Callum, are you going to use that proverb in your campaign? I find it very inspiring.
Wasn’t it used by Al Gore in An inconvenient truth ( or afterward ? )
In any case, the Together campaign is inspiring… Hope you will be successful ! 🙂
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