A few weeks ago I saw Gary Stevenson live in Brisbane. It was incredibly energising to see him swagger out on stage in his tracksuit pants, hoodie tied around his waist, like a much-adored celebrity without the airs and graces.

I’ve written about Gary’s power as a messenger before, and hearing him live, speaking entirely from the heart, no AI slop, no corporate speak, just a real person with something to say, made me even more convinced that this is a one-in-a-generation voice for social justice. The whole room was captivated as he sat there, one leg tucked under himself, hands flying everywhere (“Listen — listen!”) as he got more and more worked up about the state of the world.

During the Q&A, an audience member asked Gary for his thoughts on climate change, and whether it was at odds with economic growth. He sidestepped that question (smart move, no real good answer there), but directed the topic to a different angle.

“Look,” he said. “I think climate change is a real issue, an important issue; but I just don’t see how you’re going to get any traction with it if you don’t tie it to cost of living.”

I was smiling from one of the back rows. Meg and I have been banging on about this for approximately 10,000 years, so it was fascinating to hear someone from outside the climate movement make these same connections.

“I don’t mean to be that person on the Left who says ‘no no, ultimately, everything is about my issue’,” Gary said, “but in this case I can’t see how any message about climate change can land when things are this bad.”

The reason Gary believes this is because the climate movement has historically done a very poor job at positioning mitigation as anything other than renunciation and sacrifice. The common understanding is that addressing climate change requires that we all accept less — less comfort, less convenience. For many, this is a reality that looks like unlit living rooms, empty airports, heading to the farmer’s market in a horse and buggy. For a generation that already feels like it has drawn the short straw — that feels as though it is getting a fraction of what its parents got — this is hardly welcome.

As the cost of a bag of groceries continues to climb, houses get further out of reach, and AI appears to (appears to) be taking human jobs, the appetite for what feels like further sacrifice is almost non-existent.

This is an especially important point for those in government and advocacy to keep in mind, but it’s not irrelevant for those in the corporate world. When you talk about your climate action or sustainability initiatives, customers want to know that it’s not going to make their experience worse or their fees higher. Investors want to know that it’s not going to bankrupt the company (or just make things too tight) in the short-term.

It’s easy to lead people to the assumption that sustainability is expensive and value-destroying if initiatives are presented out of context. Investing huge amounts of CapEx in a new fleet of EVs might sound frivolous in the current economic climate, until you link it to the cost and unreliability of oil.

Most things make better sense in the right context, and for our purposes, there are two types of context: the context driving you to make the sustainability initiatives you’re making, and the context in which your audience receives them. When communicating to consumers or citizens, that’s very likely to involve the cost-of-living crisis. When communicating to investors or business partners, it’s very likely to involve geopolitical risk and cost pressures.

Context helps us provide a logical framework for justifying our actions, but it also just makes people feel seen. When you acknowledge that people’s lives are hard (even in a professional context), they may just grant you the space to explain why this change won’t make their lives harder. We ignore this context at our own peril. How many times have you rolled your eyes and clicked off something that seemed completely out of touch?

Acknowledging context has a reassuring effect, but we can probably do better than just convincing people that sustainability won’t make things worse. There is so much opportunity for the climate movement to embrace more of an Abundance-style positive vision for the future, focusing on how particular solutions or investments actually bring us more rather than less. Most climate solutions have this element to them, but they have been historically underexplored.

We can’t keep promising people less and wondering why they’re not interested. In this world, more is almost always more.

📚 Book: Homeschooled: A Memoir, by Stefan Merrill Block

I didn’t quite know what I was signing up for with this one, but what a journey. I was completely swept up in the confusion and crushing loneliness of this poor boy’s childhood. This book had a lot in common with Tara Westover’s Education. While Westover’s story is more extreme in its subject matter, this book was more personal, more reflective, and ultimately more haunting. I highly recommend the audio version — you can truly hear every emotion in his voice and sense the true complexity of his inner journey.

📚 Book: Flesh Wounds, by Richard Glover

In a similar vein, I listened to Richard Glover’s Flesh Wounds, a memoir about his bizarre childhood and later quest to find out who his parents were and why they did such a spectacularly crappy job at parenting. Glover is, in my opinion, one of the funniest writers of all time, so you will find yourself gasping at the cruelty of it and then laughing at the hilarity of it in rapid succession.

Beyond sadness and laughter, the bigger theme here is just pure absurdity. Case in point: Glover’s mother proudly told him throughout his childhood that he was Australia’s first ‘artificial insemination’ baby. Not because the couple had fertility troubles, but because his mother had never, and still refused to, sleep with his father (who was also, awkwardly, her husband). Weird stuff, and it makes for a fascinating read. I can once again recommend the audio version — Glover is a radio presenter by trade and his impersonations are flawless.