I was walking with my niece Emily when she piped up about a recent conversation she’d had: “My friend denies climate change and there was nothing I could say to change her mind, she said. She sounded worried.
In my response to her I explained that all you need to effect change is critical mass. You see, when it comes to social change, not everyone has to agree. We don’t need 100% consensus. We don’t even need a majority. We just need a critical mass of people in support of a clean and healthy planet.
So what exactly is critical mass? A recently released study from the University of Pennsylvania tested the number of people needed for an established group to accept and adopt a new idea. The researchers establish coherent groups and then had members introduce a new idea. The researchers then increased the number of people supporting the new idea gradually, from 15% to 35%. The average number of people needed to swing the whole group to the new idea was 25% of the total. This result held true for numerous test groups. It also held true when the same experiment was run using computer modeling–in groups of up to 100,000 people.
This result is counter-intuitive. It challenges the prevailing model that says you need 51% in order to create change. But these results tell us that a minority can be very effective, even if many oppose the minority view.
In my public lectures, I often talk about the first Earth Day, which took place in April 1970. What’s significant is that 20% of the US population participated in that event. There were organized events in cities and towns across the country that day. The horror of seeing the Cuyahoga River on fire, along with the realization that rivers across the country were too toxic to touch, was enough to stimulate an enormous turnout.
Following that first Earth Day, 28 major environmental laws were passed. Between 1970 and 1980 Congress passed the Clear Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the laws establishing the EPA, the Superfund, and more. The legal framework for the environment that we rely on today was established during that decade. In my talks I present the first Earth Day as an example where critical mass enabled massive environmental policy change.
As I said, twenty percent of the US population participated in live events on the first Earth Day. My guess is that many more supported it, but were unable to be there in person. So critical mass was established and major policy change resulted.
My niece was relieved to hear that we don’t need to convince everyone that there is a climate crisis in order to effectively address it. But a pitfall is that opposing minorities may also develop critical mass. We’ve seen this recently in Congress, when all the Senate Republicans voted “no” on the Inflation Reduction Act, legislation that has broad public support. Unfortunately, the Senate is weighted towards rural conservative voters, since every state gets two Senators, regardless of population. The work to establish a different view among Senate Republicans has proven to be difficult—a topic for another day.
Another pitfall is the reticence people have to bringing up controversial ideas. If people are afraid to talk about something, it leaves the door open to opposing views becoming the established norm. Nine years ago the Maine Climate Table was established for the purpose of learning how to talk about climate change. We know now that fossil fuel companies were working then to cast doubt on climate science. We are not afraid to talk about this now, but we were in 2013.
In another example, a majority of women have long kept their abortions secret. Many are now coming forward and talking about their experience. If we want pro choice policies to prevail, then telling these stories is a necessary step to achieving the critical mass needed to shore them up.
So here’s the important take-away: If you want to address the climate crisis, you need to talk to everyone you know about how we solve it. It is no longer enough to admit that climate change is real or CO2 emissions are a problem.
Now it is time to introduce topics like investing in renewables, cutting down our use of plastics, reducing miles traveled, forming community climate groups, voting for climate friendly candidates, and most important of all, holding fossil fuel companies accountable for toxic emissions. It’s time to stop worrying about people who deny the climate crisis, and engage regularly in dialogue about solutions. It is time to establish critical mass for a fossil free future. The good news is, we can all participate in doing this.
For Further Reading: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-25-revolution-how-big-does-a-minority-have-to-be-to-reshape-society