A virus is sweeping the internet this week.  You’ll recognize it when you start to laugh, then repost it for others to share.  No, I’m not talking about a vicious computer program that attacks your operating system.  I’m referring to the viral spread of this two minute video by Fun Theory, a marketing experiment funded [...]

The Archbishop of Canterbury gave a speech on the environmental crisis last night. Much of it resonates with our identity campaigning approach.

“Many of the things which have moved us towards ecological disaster have been distortions in our sense of who and what we are, and their overall effect has been to isolate us more and more [...]

I swing, as I’m sure most of us do, between confidence and despair that things are going to change at the level that we need.  Principally, my despair comes when I see the mainstream narrative stuck so firmly in the idea that small changes will add up to a big difference - even Rosemary’s Carbon [...]

The environmental movement can be reframed with positive stories that people want to identify with.

The Institute of Public Policy Research has just published the results of deliberative workshop research on public responses to climate change. See the coverage in yesterday’s Guardian or download the IPPR report itself here. The work draws on the Values Modes analysis as championed by Pat Dade at Cultural Dynamics.
There’s much in this report that [...]

I just wrote the following blog article for my website, and felt that it would make a worthwhile topic for discussion here.  The article is called “Ethical Business in Your Town” and it explores moral principles that shape how people think about business in their communities.  I see this as a core issue for any [...]

Joe Brewer, a contributor to this site, has just publicised some work he’s done on ‘cognitive strategies’ in the health sector in the US. I think the ideas he develops are really import for identity campaigning, on several counts:
- they serve to draw a sharp distinction between a health campaign based on economic self-interest and [...]

Madeleine Bunting is spot on (My battle to cut carbon: a baffling, frustrating path to a more honest life) in yesterday’s Guardian. Making the large (and urgent) cuts in personal carbon isn’t easy. We wouldn’t be human if we weren’t beset with anxiety, sadness, anger and a thousand other difficult emotions as we struggle to [...]

Yesterday, Lord May, the former UK Government chief scientific advisor, highlighted the limitations of appeals to self-interest in the course of tackling climate change.
Bemoaning the lack of international co-operation on climate change, he said that no country was prepared to take the lead and a “punisher” was needed to make sure the [...]

The climate crisis is huge. We know this. And we are at a critical juncture. Will we continue to corrode our environment until it cannot sustain us? Or will we look to the future and build communities that thrive on nature’s abundance?