Peckham Anna |
Thinking more deeply about the nature of the exchanges about CRAGgers flying or not, I detect a sense of defensiveness [about being criticised] on the one hand and frustration [at the slow lack of progress] on the other. I suspect these are the key emotions involved in CRAGging… As somebody who sees themselves as a pretty keen low-carboner and doesn’t really see why other people don’t get it but is too polite to say so, I really found the comments of Zaria and Simon at Peckham CRAG’s first meeting very helpful in reminding me of what I already know from experience:
- everyone sees things at least slightly differently [even CRAGgers]
- all groups are made up of the people who you get
- people don’t make good decisions when they feel they’re being attacked or nagged
- people are best able to make difficult decisions when they feel good about themselves
- being effective is not the same as being right
As I understand it, CRAGs are trying to do at least two things: radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and radically change energy culture, both at the personal level. Part of this is about actually doing it, and part of this, for me, is about showing less green-inclined people what is quite easily possible. Some of us may feel that we’re hard-core very low carbon CRAGgers and that slow progress is frustrating and quite seriously frightening etc. The question then is how to deal with this in a non-destructive way.
One of the features that I’ve been mulling over this evening is how a possible negative effect of having a group target with credits and debts is that all the defensiveness [leading to anger] and frustration [leading to anger] get concentrated within the same group, with mirror-image cross-fire between opposing sides. [You selfish hypocrite! vs You self-righteous puritan!]
So, I wonder about very low carbon CRAGgers taking action outside the CRAG to bring about behaviour change? For instance, I recently put my 6 spare CFL lightbulbs on freecycle – I got over 20 replies in four days, when a free cordless phone got only three replies. I now wonder whether a strategy I could adopt would be to sometimes [anonymously] give away CFL lightbulbs to people who don’t have them [e.g. in my area], maybe with a note explaining that I’ve noticed that they don’t seem to be using them and that I’m so concerned about climate change that I want to give them some CFL lightbulbs to use.
Right? Absolutely not. Barmy? Possibly. Effective? Probably very much more so than getting very angry with fellow less-low-carbon CRAGgers who are feeling defensive. Win-win? Yes – the message about the importance of climate change is made again to a different audience, profits for energy-efficient lightbulbs increase, the lightbulbs might get used so less CO2 is produced and it becomes more normal to use CFLs AND my local CRAG doesn’t dissolve in a boiling pot of vitriolic recriminations so it continues to be available for the local community. [I know some CRAGs have already bought offsets; my point here is that I think behaviour change is an equally important part of what we’re trying to do, and there might be a broader way of understanding this that avoids the defensive/frustration divide developing within CRAGs.]
Again, apologies if I’m teaching grandmothers to suck eggs.
Best wishes
Anna