Activating the Climate Majority with Rupert Read

Our recent You’re MarketingKind gathering with Rupert Read was a powerful discussion on how we can engage the climate majority in taking on the needed work of transformative and strategic adaptation to climate change.

We explored Rupert's journey from Green Party councillor to helping to launch Extinction Rebellion to founding the Climate Majority Project.

We discussed Rupert's latest book Transformative Adaptation: Another World is Still Just Possible and how the concept of Thrutopia can help us to imagine the possible futures we want to create.

Rupert said that 'We literally cannot go on the way we are going - we need to choose a different path and that needs to be a path of transformation and adaptation... If the way we try to adapt is (like the current government is doing) throwing a little bit of money at building hard flood defenses, it will not be enough. They are expensive, high carbon and will not last.

We need to instead adapt in a way that is transformative and works with nature to create solutions that will be sustainable, so in the case of flooding for instead it means changing uplands land management, it means creating sponge cities.'

The conversation gots controversial when it came to DEI, with disagreement on whether we can fully separate the issues of climate change and inequality.

Rupert argued that 'there has been some polarisation around decarbonisation and there's a lot more around DEI, but there is very little around adaptation, because it is incredibly tangible. And this is what research around this shows.

We're facing these worsening climate impacts and if we can succeed in bringing people together in the UK around work on transformative or strategic adaptation to climate change I think you will start to see communities that are less polarised.'

We discussed the importance of truth and Rupert recommended Mike Berners-Lee's new book A Climate of Truth.

And Rupert encouraged us all to join the Climate Majority Project's Regulate Us campaign. He said, 'we can take action through our own businesses, but even if we are trying to lead by example, there will always be bad actors. And if bad actors can get away with it then they may put us out of business, so government needs to regulate. And government will only regulate if business people step up and say "we can't do it by ourselves".'

You can listen to the full conversation on our podcast here or watch a clip below.