Climate Lie-Down

I’m tired. And I bet you are too.

I need a rest. But I also need politicians to stop backsliding on their climate commitments.

I’ve been toying with the idea of a new climate tactic: A ‘pro-rest protest’ where we stop debating the science, stop debunking and simply remind politicians that the science is settled and the only way to avoid an ever-increasing climate crisis is to stop burning fossil fuels.

I’m tired of fighting island airport expansions and billion dollar fossil fuel expansions one-by-one. I’m tired of calling politicians and asking them to do the things they said they would do. I’m tired of debating whether wildfires are caused by climate change or people (they’re mostly caused by people or lightning, but they burn bigger and hotter because of climate change).

I propose that we just lie down. Not in surrender, but in refusal. Maybe you do it at a town hall or in the mall. You can do it outside parliament or at a bank or on your front lawn to start a conversation with your neighbours. You can do it in a big public park with your friends. Play relaxing music and eat grapes while you’re at it, to make it really appealing.

And then we keep lying down, whenever and wherever we feel like it, until meaningful climate action is well under way.

It’s hard to argue with someone who simply lies on the ground. Especially if that stillness is associated with the simple, generally agreed upon fact that the science is settled and the only option to avoid an ever-increasing climate crisis is to stop burning fossil fuels. You can’t greenwash someone lying down. You can’t promise you’ll do it later. You can’t try to jujitsu them into debating whether or not the minerals in EVs are sustainably-mined (they aren’t, but neither are fossil fuels and you use those up in hours instead of decades).

This isn’t an organization or a campaign. It’s just a tactic that creates an association between lying down in public and the simple fact that the science is settled and the only option to avoid an ever-increasing climate crisis is to stop burning fossil fuels.

People using the tactic would be welcome to make other points in interviews or add additional demands or have opinions about which decarbonization policies are best, but the tactic itself and the top line message would be that the climate crisis is real and it is time for politicians to make policies that actually reduce our annual emissions in each city and each country.

I have some thoughts on how to move this from blogpost to recognizable tactic but I will need some assistance — so let me know if you’re interested in pitching in. I’m also open to a new name if you can think of something better than ‘climate lie-down.’ It’s a little inelegant, but I do think it has to be a name that is short and direct.

Once it has a certain profile, it can easily be reproduced, as many protest tactics have been in the past. Hopefully with a little less room for bad faith analysis in the media, because the core message is quite a simple and widely agreed upon statement of facts.

I’ve started a google doc and a google sheet for brainstorming which has a bit of a launch plan and some tasks and roles that need to be filled and details that need to be worked out. If you’re interested in participating, join our email list or send us an email. We’ll probably do a webinar or in-person meeting if most people are in Toronto.