EARLIER this year Professor Dana R Fisher, of the American University in Washington DC, published Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action, a short book on the worsening climate crisis and how concerned citizens can win the systematic change needed to successfully address the existential threat.

IS: It is commonly believed, even by many on the left of the political spectrum, that disruptive, shocking actions carried out by groups such as Just Stop Oil are detrimental to their cause and the wider climate movement. What does your own work, and the wider research evidence, say about this?

DRF: Although confrontational activism is unpopular (and has been since at least the time of the civil rights movement), activism that involves non-violent civil disobedience is well documented to expand movements, draw attention to issues and expand support for an issue (but not a specific group or social movement tactic).

In the case of the non-violent civil disobedience that aims to shock the public — such as the actions by groups like Just Stop Oil —evidence suggests that these tactics help to keep public attention to the issue of climate change and draw support for more moderate factions of the climate movement. 

In the book you argue that the transformative political, economic and social change required to successfully address the climate crisis “will only be possible with a mass mobilisation that is driven by the pain and suffering of climate shocks around the world.” Can you explain why you think this will be necessary?

After 32 years of governments trying to limit climate change, it is time to recognise that these efforts aren’t working: our emissions keep going up even as we are preparing for the 29th Conference of the Parties for the climate regime! These failures are due to the fact that the state and the market are too connected to fossil fuel interests to be able to take the necessary action of implementing systemic changes. Given this fact, civil society — which includes you, and me, and everyday people and citizens in our communities— is the most likely sector to push for the types of changes that are needed.

Even though concern about climate change is quite high, we have not yet achieved the level of concern that would motivate a critical mass of people to push collectively for climate action.

A mass mobilisation of society will provide the level of public pressure needed to push back against these entrenched fossil fuel interests, which have privileged access to power and resources. As climate shocks are felt more frequently and with more severity, more people will mobilise as they experience climate change and its effects first hand, which is likely to motivate more people to take action.

With nearly all governments and businesses refusing to take adequate action to address the climate crisis, you make three recommendations we should collectively focus on. What are they?

First, we need to create community, which involves concerned individuals connecting with other people where they live and work (although there are ways to build community online, my research has documented over the years why these connections are not as durable as those built in our communities).

During the period of the civil rights movement, these connections were directly linked to black churches. Today, people connect through community groups, places of worship, and all sorts of locally embedded civic organisations. Individuals who mobilise in response to the climate crisis and connect their concerns and efforts in their communities will have more tangible effects that will help build the resilience and reciprocity needed for us to save ourselves.

Second, the climate movement must “capitalise on moral shocks,” which can mobilise activism when there is limited organisational infrastructure or connections to civic groups — in other words when people aren’t particularly engaged.

Moral shocks and outrage are a common byproduct of violence against unarmed individuals. For example, there is no question that witnessing unarmed George Floyd murdered by a police officer while he begged for his life on a range of social media channels played a huge role in mobilising people to protest. This period of activism against systemic racism turned into the largest sustained period of protest in US history.

Similarly, the civil rights movement capitalised on the violence against unarmed black students when they engaged in non-violent civil disobedience by both white supremacists and law enforcement to mobilise people who cared about civil rights but had been sitting on the sidelines up to that point.

In other words, as movements get more confrontational — which is the common trajectory when their demands are not met, repression from law enforcement and counter-movements can both lead to violence and escalation.

This moment of violence against a movement can help mobilise people who care about the cause but have been watching on the sidelines. As the climate movement grows, a counter-movement will likely grow in response. When violence against peaceful, non-violent activists happens, the climate movement should capitalise on the shock the general public feels to mobilise more support for and engagement with the movement.

Third, we must all work to cultivate resilience, which involves building social and environmental capacity to respond to and recover from climate shocks. There’s lots of work to be done to support our communities to withstand the level of climate shocks that are coming.

Cultivating resilience includes making sure schools, bridges and buildings are built to updated codes that make them less likely to burn and/or flood, as well as developing community plans so that when climate shocks hit, schools can stay in session to provide food, clean water, housing, as well as air conditioning to families that are displaced.

As the US government expands its various service corps programmes that have been ongoing around the country since the New Deal, many programmes are starting to work directly to develop capacity at the local level to respond to climate shocks and to make communities more capable of withstanding shocks.

I’ve been working with several of these programmes connected as part of the American Climate Corps to ensure that they fulfil their potential in strengthening social and environmental resilience.

I presume you agree a second Trump presidency would be a disaster for the climate. What impact do you think Kamala Harris being elected to the White House would have on the US’s response to the climate crisis?

If elected, Vice-President Harris is likely to build her climate policies on the successes of the Biden administration. President Joe Biden passed the only climate policy that has ever made it through the US Congress: the Inflation Reduction Act, which is investing substantially in the expansion of clean energy. At the same time, though, the Biden administration has allowed fossil fuel extraction to continue. The US now ranks as the top global exporter of oil and natural gas. 

Kamala Harris has a history of supporting policies that are more limiting for fossil fuels: she supported a fracking ban as well as the green new deal before she became vice-president. At this point, it is unclear if her campaign will adopt her previous positions. However, it is possible that she will aim to integrate these policies into her administration if elected. These policies would be very good for the climate. 

In contrast to a Harris administration, a second Trump presidency would be disastrous for the climate. The campaign is following a playbook called “Project 2025,” which has outlined the ways that the federal government would cancel its climate policies and generally be restructured so that it replaces science and evidence-based decision-making with a bureaucracy that supports the consolidation of capital by a handful of wealthy individuals who are focused on expanding their wealth by expanding fossil fuel extraction and consumption.

Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action is published by Columbia University Press, priced £16.99.