There are several services and assets I would like to see nationalised. But at the top of my list is neither water, nor trains, nor development land, much as I’d like to see them brought under national or local public ownership. Above all, I want to see the nationalisation of my own business: environmental persuasion. I love my job. But I’m not very good at it. None of us is.
We face the greatest predicament humankind has confronted: the erosion and possible collapse of our life-support systems. Its speed and scale have taken even scientists by surprise. The potential impacts are greater than any recent pandemic, or any war we have suffered. Yet the effort to persuade people of the need for action has been left almost entirely to either the private or voluntary sectors. And it simply does not work.
Why? The first reason is that we are massively outgunned. For every pound or dollar spent on persuasion by an environmental charity or newspaper, the oil, chemicals, automotive, livestock and mining sectors will spend a thousand. They snap up the cleverest and most devious communicators to craft their messages, offering salaries no one else can afford. Among others, they pay a BBC in-house content studio to make their films. The BBC’s offer of “our century-long pedigree as the world’s most trusted storytellers” can be used to massage the reputations of the fossil fuel and pesticide companies it now works for.
The second is that, however inclusive we try to be, we will always be seen as a faction. Who are we to tell anyone else how to behave? We are, for many, antagonists, regardless of how we frame our messages. Business and the media see us as enemies of aspiration, seeking to limit the consumption they are trying to boost. Despite the best efforts of sincere organisations such as the Conservative Environmental Network, we will generally (in most cases, correctly) be perceived as leftwing. Our endorsement of a cause will automatically trigger some people’s rejection.
And our instruments are limited. Whenever environmental persuaders start making progress, their most eye-catching methods are prohibited: for instance, by the 1986 Public Order Act, the 1994 Criminal Justice Act, the 2000 Terrorism Act, the 2005 Serious Organised Crime Act, the 2022 Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act and the 2023 Public Order Act. Between them, they criminalise even the tamest and most traditional attempts to generate public interest, such as marching slowly down a street or chaining yourself to the railings.
When we fail, we blame ourselves or are blamed by others. But we might as well chastise ourselves for an inability to levitate parliament. There are certain things the private sector does well, and certain things it cannot do. As a private trader in environmental persuasion, I feel obliged to state that my profession is, when it stands alone, futile.
It’s as if we were facing the threat of invasion, and the government had left citizens’ groups to prepare for it: persuading people to manufacture weapons, build defensive structures and enlist in the armed services. At the same time, if the citizens’ groups persuaded too hard, they would be arrested and thrown into prison.
All we can achieve by these means is petty, incremental change. The plural of incremental change is not system change. The plural of incremental change is failure.
Mass mobilisation behind a common good needs to be led by government. State persuasion campaigns have been run both well and badly. The UK government once produced dozens of films about road safety, some of which were highly effective; fire safety and public health (Rabies Means Death; Aids: Don’t Die of Ignorance). Some of its films now seem oddly specific: Don’t Put a Rug on a Polished Floor, Playing with Old Fridges Kills. Some government films speak from an age of forgotten decency, such as an information reel on tenants’ rights. Some, by contrast, were pernicious, such as the US government’s Boys Beware advert, which cautioned young men to “watch out for homosexuals”.
The UK government is at present running public information campaigns on cancer, diabetes, smoking, obesity, neonatal care, vaccines and mental health. Most are weak; some are used as a substitute for spending or regulation. But even the Tories knew that the private and voluntary sectors could not raise public health awareness alone.
As far as I can tell, the last significant government persuasion drive on an environmental issue was its 2019 Love Water campaign. It was, to say the least, wet. It seemed almost deliberately to eschew effective messaging. Why? Perhaps because among the campaign partners were the private water companies. To return to the military metaphor, it was as if our government had asked the German leadership to help craft its second world war mobilisation messages.
The efficacy of a government campaign depends to a large extent on two factors: a sense of moral seriousness (conspicuously lacking from the water campaign) and ubiquity. If everyone is hearing the same message at the same time and if that message appeals directly to a common moral core, it tends to be taken seriously. If it is well crafted, it quickly becomes a national project. As we saw in the first phase of the Covid pandemic and during the two world wars, when the government delivers a universal message instructing us to pull together for a higher purpose, almost everyone tends to accept the need for joint endeavour and we rise to a sense of duty and common purpose. So why does it fail to alert people to the environmental crisis?
Failing is an active decision, with major consequences. It makes environmental legislation much harder to sell to the public and to parliament. It also suggests the issue can’t be a big deal. Lurking in many people’s minds, I suspect, is the thought: “If the environmental crisis were really so serious, someone would stop me. Surely I wouldn’t be able to drive this SUV, or take a dozen flights a year, or eat beef or dredged scallops whenever I want? No one I’m prepared to listen to is telling me to stop. So the issues the greens keep blethering about cannot be real.”
Climate and environmental science denial, having retreated between 2008 and 2017, are back with a vengeance, fuelled by corporate and political campaigns – many of which operate below the radar – and amplified by social media. But governments sit and watch as we tiny warriors flail in the face of the corporate army. We cannot build social consensus without the state. Where is it?
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
