Words Speak Louder Than Actions
4 years, 11 months, 24 days, 1 hour
28 July 2024
What people say matters, even if it is not reflected in what they do.
This series was originally entitled 7 years and counting. We are now at 5 years and counting (down). And on the day that the time remaining until we cross the 1.5 degree threshold went below 5 years, Sunday 21 July, it was reported that the global average surface air temperature was the hottest on record. And then one of the many wildfires recently experienced across the world obliterated a third of the buildings of the town of Jasper in the Canadian Rockies, in which my wife and I stayed a couple of nights many years ago.
A few weeks back I debated whether the world was making any meaningful progress towards net zero, contrasting the 2023 record-breaking fossil fuel consumption with the possibility that we were nonetheless at a tipping point to rapidly declining fossil fuel use. In response Carlijn van Dam shared with me another encouraging perspective, that speaks to a different sort of tipping point, and arguable the underlying one, being the tipping point in attitudes as revealed by what people actually say they care about. It is articulated in this wonderful speech by Jan Willem Bolderdijk: ‘Words speak louder than actions’.
His contention is that what people say matters, even if it is not always reflected in what they do, because what they do may be constrained by other factors, whilst what they say will influence others, and eventually cascades into widespread change in attitudes and system-wide change in behaviour. Because attitudes can change more quickly than actions, the shift in actions lag.
So words do matter, saying what we think is important matters, and is one way in which we drive the pace of change that each week of extreme weather powerfully shows that we need.
Which is why I keep writing.
