From persuasion to connection – a theory of change for the climate reset
In the spirit of Earth Day, these are my reflections over how we create a shift in society that can move us from knowing to acting.
For more than a decade, the climate movement has been circling the same question: how do we convince people to act on climate?
We have tried facts. We have tried urgency, and climate emergency declarations. We have tried fear, hope, data, graphs, storytelling, science communication, behavioural nudges, policy briefs. And still, the gap remains – not between knowledge and solutions, but between knowing and acting.
This persistent gap invites a difficult but necessary reflection: What if we have been asking the wrong question?
. . .
Social energy
The German sociologist Hartmut Rosa, together with Danish researcher Steen Hjul Lybke, offers a subtle but potentially transformative shift in their recent work on what they term ‘social energy’. Their suggestion is simple: the real question is not how to convince people, but how to create conditions where people feel connected enough to care and act.
Seen from this angle, the climate challenge is not primarily a communication problem. It is an experience problem.
My own recent writing aligns closely with this idea. In the Substack blogpost ‘Climate action begins with collective understanding’, I explore how societies only move when a shared understanding forms – not just intellectually, but culturally.
In ‘Meaning that will move us’, I argue that the climate conversation has become too abstract, too detached from lived experience. People are not mobilised by “climate” as a concept, but by what they love, what they recognise, what they feel part of.
And in my attempt to outline a theory of change, I arrived at the conclusion that unfortunately there are no quick fixes. The roots of the problem run deeper, embedded in how we relate to the world, to each other, and to meaning itself. Education – particularly through public broadcasters – is essential.
This is precisely where the idea of ‘social energy’ becomes relevant.
Climate activists often speak about apathy, denial, or disengagement, as if people are lacking motivation. But what if that diagnosis is wrong? What if people are not lacking energy at all, but lacking meaningful channels for that energy?
‘Social energy’, as Rosa and Lybke describe it, is not something individuals possess in isolation. It is something that arises between people. It emerges when we feel heard, when something resonates, when we experience belonging, when we are touched by something real. It is the kind of energy you can sense in a room when a conversation matters, or in a moment of shared silence in nature, or in a community that knows why it exists.
Without this kind of energy, action stalls. With it, action often becomes almost inevitable.
. . .
Meaning and connection
Seen through this lens, the climate movement’s struggle with mobilising the masses begins to make sense. The movement has placed its emphasis on information, awareness, persuasion, and political pressure. These are all important, but what has been missing, or at least underdeveloped, is the cultivation of relational depth, collective meaning-making, and a felt connection to life itself.
In other words, we have tried to move people from the outside in. But lasting change may only happen from the inside out, and from that space in-between, where human beings meet.
When the American writer and climate activist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson says, “Fuck hope. What’s the strategy?”, she is not dismissing hope. She is challenging passivity. She is asking for something that works in the real world. But strategy, if it is to be effective, must also take into account how human beings actually mobilise.
And here, we encounter an important realisation: People do not act because they are convinced. They act because something becomes real enough that not acting is no longer an option.
That “something” is rarely a report, a statistic or a lecture. It is an experience. It is a moment of recognition. It is a warm, positive feeling of connection and bonding that shifts how we see ourselves and the world.
. . .
Creating spaces
If this is true, then the implications are significant. The climate action movement’s theory of change needs to evolve. Instead of focusing primarily on scaling messages, refining narratives, or targeting demographics, we need to focus on creating spaces where resonance, connection and experience can occur. Spaces where people can encounter each other and the world in ways that allow meaning to emerge, rather than be imposed.
This is not a soft or secondary layer of change. It is structural, just at a deeper level than we are used to thinking about.
From this perspective, initiatives like Climate Cafés or Connection Cafés take on a new significance. They are no longer peripheral activities, but essential infrastructure. In these spaces, people gather without the pressure to perform or persuade. They listen. They speak honestly. They feel less alone. They reconnect with themselves, with others, and with the living world.
Something shifts in those moments. Not necessarily opinions, but orientation. And from that shift, action can begin to emerge.
The idea of ‘collective understanding’ or ‘public understanding’ also becomes richer in this light. It is not simply about shared knowledge or agreement on facts. It is about a shared language, a shared emotional reality, a shared sense of what matters, and a shared readiness to act.
When societies like Switzerland or Denmark reach moments of decisive climate action, it is not only because of convincing arguments. It is because a certain level of resonance has been reached in society.
This is a shift in how we understand what drives human behaviour, what makes human beings act on an issue. Instead of seeing people as rational actors who need to be persuaded, we begin to see them as relational beings who move through connection, meaning, and resonance.
When people truly feel connected – to each other, to place, to life – they do not need to be convinced. They already know, and they care enough to act.
. . .
A theory of change for the climate movement
If we are to articulate a new theory of change from this, it might look something like this:
First, we create spaces of genuine encounter, where people can feel, not just think. Cafés, events, festivals. Within those spaces, shared meaning is allowed to emerge organically, rather than being dictated.
Over time, and actively assisted by our public broadcasters, this builds into a form of collective understanding that is lived and embodied.
From that, social energy arises – the kind of motivation that does not need to be forced. And finally, action begins to emerge as a natural expression of what has become meaningful.
This is how we close the gap – not by adding more knowledge, but by transforming what knowledge becomes in people’s lives.
. . .
The power of festivals
At the moment, many groups in the climate and sustainability movement are looking for what should be their next step. Luke Taylor, director of the National Sustainability Festival, is calling it a “reset” for the movement.
Perhaps a reset is not primarily about improving the messaging, but about creating a different kind of space. And to do that, the concept of an annual festival offers lots of possibilities.
If we take this shift seriously – ‘from persuasion to connection, from information to experience’ – then the question becomes: what would a festival look like if it were designed around social energy?
A Festival of Life rather than one around sustainability or climate. Something closer to a cultural moment. A shared experience. A temporary reordering of how we relate to each other and to life itself.
“Life” can be understood in several ways as it is both the name for all living beings on our planet and also an expression for something we all participate in every day, something we are part of, something we share.
The core intention of the festival would be to create conditions where people can feel, connect, and remember what matters.
Imagine this: Once a year, maybe on 22 April, across a city – or even a region – everything opens.
Inspired by Denmark’s Kulturnatten events, but reimagined for this moment in history. Schools, museums, farms, theatres, workplaces, galleries, radio stations, community halls, and even private homes open their doors – not just to showcase what they do, but to celebrate, express, discover and discuss aspects of life. And while doing so: create experiences of connection.
The city stays awake. People move through it like a living network. From one space to another. From one encounter to the next. Public transport is free, and there are bands playing live music and theatre troupes performing in many of the busses, trams and trains.
At the centre of it all, something larger unfolds. A gathering of thousands for a shared moment. It could be a collective act or ritual – something simple, but deeply felt. A moment where thousands of people acknowledge their awareness and appreciation of life, and at the same time, that they are part of something larger than themselves. A moment that cannot be reduced to content. Only experienced.
It might take the form of a city-wide “moment of life awareness” – where, at a set time, everything pauses. Music fades. Conversations soften. Lights dim. And across the city, thousands of people stand still and hold their breath for 28 seconds. Not a protest. Not a performance. But a collective recognition: we are here, together, alive, at this moment in history. Together. And when, after 28 seconds, we start breathing again, we will have reset our collective Clock of Life.
. . .
Creating the conditions
From that moment, the festival branches out into hundreds of smaller encounters:
In one place, climate scientists speak – not about data, but about what it feels like to carry the knowledge they carry.
In another, a group of strangers sit in a listening circle, discovering how rare it is to be truly heard. A young person might speak about anxiety, or anger, and what the future feels like from where they stand. A farmer might share not just practices, but their relationship with land, seasons, and uncertainty.
Elsewhere, a choir forms from whoever happens to be there.
There would be moments of pure celebration – dancing in the streets, unexpected performances, bursts of joy that remind people that caring for life is something deeply worth celebrating.
On the edge of the city, people gather around fire, or water, or trees – reconnecting with the more-than-human world, as presence.
There would be time built in for slowness. For walking together. For sitting under a tree. Even for silence. Because connection does not happen on a tight schedule, and meaning rarely emerges when everything is rushed.
There could be spaces specifically designed for deep listening. Small, facilitated circles where people are invited to speak from their own experience, and others simply listen. No fixing, no debating, no correcting. Just the simple, often rare experience of being heard.
Food is everywhere – not as catering, but as participation. Making and doing. Cooked, shared, eaten together at long tables where conversations unfold between people who did not know each other hours earlier.
Art is not confined to stages or galleries. It appears in unexpected places. A story told in a stairwell. A projection on a building. A piece of music drifting through a tunnel, or from a roof top.
Throughout it all, something subtle but powerful begins to happen: People start to feel differently. Not instructed. Not persuaded. But reoriented. Excited.
That is where social energy begins.
A Festival of Life does not try to tell people what to think about climate or renewables. It creates the conditions where people remember and celebrate what they care about. And that is where the shift begins. Because when enough people experience that shift – even briefly – something larger becomes possible.
The real success of such a festival would not be measured in attendance numbers, but in what follows: Conversations that continue. New gatherings that emerge. Spaces recreated in homes, workplaces, communities. Small circles, café meetings, conversations.
The annual festival as catalyst for what happens the rest of the year. The beginning of a different kind of movement not driven by messaging, but by meaning. Not by persuasion, but by connection.
. . .
If this resonates, the next step is simple, and at the same time not simple at all: create or join a space – or a festival! – where people can meet, listen, and connect. Because this is how change begins. Between us.
I encourage you to leave a note in the comments field – let us know what you think!
Related articles and blogposts
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www.climatesafety.info/from-fighting-for-the-climate-to-serving-life-on-earth
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www.climatesafety.info/meaning-that-will-move-us
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I feel that many (and I have people close to me like this) are seeking perpetual happiness which they chase by pursuing activities they feel instantly gratifying. Overseas travel, going somewhere warm in winter, competing materially with peers, seeking stimulation from endless activity. There are bucket lists and experiences to be ticked off etc. They don’t recognise or remember the real reward and pleasure they get when acting collectively for the benefit of others or it’s experienced as being on a sports club committee or some such and they can’t see to transcribe this to broader life. Satisfaction is only gained from kudos from others. Intentions may be good but attention spans short. It’s only part of it of course.
It occurred to me reading this piece that we already have a shared understanding that none of us should engage in behaviour that harms another—especially severely harms. Then, why do we set up corporations to do exactly that and then excuse and exonerate them, and the people that run them, when they do?