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@@ -1,20 +1,16 @@
 ## Chapter 1
 
-Since the 1980s, the green movement has been on the back foot. There have of
-course been many green successes on the local scale. But, in stark contrast to
-the 1960s and 1970s, when the green lobby succeeded in delivering strong
-government legislation to protect clean air, water, and establish nature
-reserves, in the last few decades, most of the key social-scale demands of the
-green movement have not been met, and even some of those earlier successes have
-been partially rolled back.
-
-Human beings have burned more coal since 1987 than they did from 1800 until
-1987, and more oil and gas since the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1993 than
-between 1800 and that time [@owid-fossil-fuels; @energy-inst-2025; @smil-2017].
-Once upon a time, environmental campaigners declared that 400 parts of carbon
-dioxide per million in the atmosphere ought to be an uncrossable red line: last
-year, the figure ticked steadily up past 428 [@noaa-co2]. Without changes to
-government policies, plastic pollution is set to triple between 2020 and 2040
+Since the 1980s, the green movement has been on the back foot. In stark contrast
+to the legislative successes of the 1960s and 1970s, in the last few decades,
+the social-scale demands of the green movement have broadly not been met.
+
+Human beings have burned more oil and gas, and almost as much coal, since the
+Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1993 than between 1800 and that time
+[@owid-fossil-fuels; @energy-inst-2025; @smil-2017]. Once upon a time,
+environmental campaigners declared that 350 parts of carbon dioxide per million
+in the atmosphere ought to be an uncrossable red line: last year, the figure
+ticked steadily up past 428 [@noaa-co2]. Without changes to government policies,
+plastic pollution is set to triple between 2020 and 2040
 [@breaking-plastic-wave]. Since 1974, the proportion of the world's fish stocks
 deemed by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation to be within sustainable
 levels has fallen from 90% to 62% [@unfao-fish-stocks]. The Living Planet Index,
@@ -25,33 +21,27 @@ All these failures beg the question: why aren't the green movement's strategies
 working? 'Has public attention gone numb?' asks journalist Harrison Stetler. 'Is
 the sense of crisis faced with the devastating effects of climate change feeding
 passivity — or even the rush to preserve past privileges — rather than
-mobilization?' [@stetler-2025] In particular, I want to focus on the movement's
-rhetoric.
-
-Rhetoric, as I'm using the term, refers to an utterance with an agenda. When
-green rhetoric works well, it solves a problem relevant to green concerns. In
-order to solve the problem, the rhetor must persuade their audience that taking
-action is good for them. For that action to be effective in solving the problem,
-the rhetor must also address an appropriate audience: that is, an audience that
-has or could have the means, motive, and opportunity to solve the relevant
-problem. Furthermore, they must present their audience with a credible solution,
-and if the solution is to be credible, the rhetor will be best placed if they
-have accurately identified the root causes of the problem.
-
-There are problems with dominant green rhetoric from beginning to end of this
-process: rhetors mis-diagnose the root causes of the problem, propose solutions
-which are not credible, and mis-identify their audience.
-
-First, green rhetoric mis-diagnoses the problem. Rhetors imply that the
+mobilization?' [@stetler-2025]
+
+In order to solve a problem, a rhetor must persuade their audience that taking
+action is good for them. For that action to solve the problem, the rhetor must
+address an appropriate audience. Furthermore, they must present a credible
+solution, and if the solution is to be credible, the rhetor ought to have
+accurately identified the root causes of the problem.
+
+There are problems with mainstream green rhetoric from beginning to end of this
+process: rhetors mis-diagnose the root causes of the problem, propose incredible
+solutions, and mis-identify their audience.
+
+First, green rhetoric mis-diagnoses the problem. Many rhetors imply that the
 root cause of green evils is the combined choices, and particularly the
 consumption choices, of all the world's individuals.
 
-So, when Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac come to recommend ten actions
-for their readers to take to fight climate change, coming in at number 4 (after
-'Let Go of the Old World,' 'Face Your Grief but Hold a Vision of the Future,'
-and 'Defend the Truth') is 'See Yourself as a Citizen – Not as a Consumer.' The
+So, when Christiana Figueres, a leading architect of the 2015 Paris Agreement,
+wrote to the general public on the problems and solutions to climate change,
+she overwhelmingly focused on individual psychology. In her telling, the
 problem is that 'we' (that is, the universal human individual) are consuming too
-much. The solution is to change the psychology which causes over-consumption.
+much. The solution is to change the psychology behind over-consumption.
 
 > Much of what we buy is intended to enhance our sense of identity. Particular
 > brands of clothes, soap, cookies, televisions, and cars and designed with a
@@ -61,7 +51,7 @@ much. The solution is to change the psychology which causes over-consumption.
 > five loads of laundry. These purchases are driven mainly by the fact that
 > fashion trends change every season. [@future-we-choose, p. 118]
 
-They're not alone in emphasising individual psychology as a root cause of
+Figueres is not alone in emphasising individual psychology as a root cause of
 climate change. For example, writing about climate change with TV co-host Chris
 Packham, Megan McCubbin, discussing 'our human reluctance to change our own
 mindsets and behaviours,' writes:
@@ -72,10 +62,9 @@ mindsets and behaviours,' writes:
 > practices? [@back-to-nature, p. 31]
 
 Part of the answer, they argue, is that political thought is associated with the
-prefrontal cortex, which is also associated with personal expression: thus,
-inviting people to think differently about a political issue like climate change
-can be perceived as a personal attack, preventing people from thinking
-rationally. [@back-to-nature, pp. 32-33]
+prefrontal cortex, also associated with personal expression: thus, debating with
+people about climate change can be perceived as a personal attack, preventing
+people from thinking rationally. [@back-to-nature, pp. 32-33]
 
 This analysis identifies a psychological problem – why can't human beings like
 you and me act rationally when presented with the facts? Having done so, it's
@@ -87,29 +76,7 @@ everyone else that matters will follow our lead.
 > are your wheels. If you turn right, they will turn right too. Eventually.
 > [@back-to-nature, p. 95]
 
-Fellow nature writer Benedict Macdonald extends this idea, that green harms are
-driven by 'our' consumption, into a sweeping grand history of the human race
-from primeval time:
-
-> \[…] we became systematic, methodical and determined in our eradication of
-> some cornerstone species \[…] By the Middle Ages, our desire to tame the
-> natural world around us grew in intensity and purpose \[…] As we began to
-> industrialise, the Great Fens would be drained and our conquest of the
-> land-at-scale, beginning with our deforestation in the Bronze Age, grew almost
-> complete \[…] By the early twentieth century, we had for the first time the
-> ability to create total order in the world around us; order that made way for
-> just one species’ progress and stability: ourselves. \[…] By the late 1950s
-> and early 1960s came a critical moment in human awareness. We began to notice,
-> at last, the growing silence around us. By this stage, the environmental
-> movement was nascent \[…] it would take further decades before, at last, the
-> Ape Aware would emerge. [@cornerstones, pp. 200-202]
-
-In Macdonald's account, the reason 'we' caused so much harm to the non-human
-world is because 'we' stole stuff to make 'us' richer: land, trees, food, water.
-Thus 'our' consumption is what drives ecological catastrophe.
-
-The idea that green harms are driven by consumption is further reinforced with
-the language of 'carbon footprinting.' The idea seems innocuous enough: tot up
+'Carbon footprinting' reinforces the focus on individual consumption. Tot up
 the carbon emissions produced in the process of producing all the goods and
 services consumed by a person, and you've got their 'carbon footprint,' their
 personal contribution to global carbon dioxide emissions. WWF publishes a free
@@ -131,9 +98,8 @@ investments (e.g. in infrastructure) and international transport,' before
 showing that the the poorest half of the world's people only account for 10% of
 the world's 'lifestyle emissions.' [@oxfam-extreme-carbon-inequality]
 
-However, this analysis downplays the degree to which consumption is constrained
-by production decisions over which most people have no control. As Matthew Huber
-puts it:
+However, this analysis overstates the degree of control people have over the
+their own consumption. As Matthew Huber puts it:
 
 > Carbon footprint analysis is more deeply rooted in neoclassical economics with
 > its particular theory of power in the economy known as "consumer sovereignty."
@@ -146,21 +112,15 @@ puts it:
 
 But in reality, consumers are often at the mercy of production decisions. To
 borrow Huber's illustration, the villain of the 'carbon footprint' narrative is
-a rich consumer, say, someone who has the air conditioning on all day in their
-spacious suburban house and drives a over-sized diesel SUV to work. But imagine
-that hypothetical rich consumer works in the manager's office of a fertiliser
-plant, where one day he is presented with the option of sourcing low-carbon
-hydrogen from electrolysis of water instead of extracting the hydrogen from
-coal. He decides that the low-carbon alternative is too expensive and will make
-his factory uncompetitive, so sticks with the coal. The carbon emissions of the
-factory, which might be equivalent to 100,000 American consumers, are not
-attributed to the manager of the factory, nor even the factory's owners, but to
-the 'carbon footprint' of the thousands of consumers eating the food produced at
-the ultimate end of the process, even though they are unlikely to have any power
-or even knowledge over the manager's decisions. 'This person spends eight hours
-a day managing this industrial capitalist enterprise and only perhaps forty
-minutes commuting to work—so why do we only pay attention to the latter?'
-[@climate-change-class-war, p. 16]
+a rich consumer, say, someone who drives a over-sized diesel SUV to work. But
+imagine that one day, that hypothetical rich consumer drives their SUV to their
+senior manager's office in a fertiliser plant, where they are presented with the
+option of switching their hydrogen source from coal to electrolysis of water. In
+carbon footprint analysis, if he sticks with coal, the resulting extra carbon
+emissions, which might be equivalent to tens of thousands of individual
+consumers, won't be attributed to the manager of the factory, nor the factory's
+owners, but thousands of end-product consumers, even though they have to eat to
+live, and are practically powerless over the manager's decisions.
 
 Taking an alternative approach, many green rhetors advocate for a simple
 programme: listen to the science, then act rationally. This call to action
@@ -174,10 +134,9 @@ February 2019, she spoke to a gathering of EU civil servants in Brussels:
 > talk to them either. We want them to talk to the scientists instead.
 > [@no-one-is-too-small, pp. 53-54]
 
-In September of the same year, while the US government was halfway through the
-4-year process of withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, she spoke at the US
-Congress. In a speech which repeatedly referenced Martin Luther King Junior's 'I
-have a dream' speech, she pleaded with legislators:
+She spoke at the US Congress in September of the same year. Having repeatedly
+referenced Martin Luther King Junior's 'I have a dream' speech, she pleaded with
+legislators:
 
 > Perhaps it is impossible. But looking at those numbers – looking at the
 > current best available science signed by every nation – then I think that is
@@ -186,9 +145,8 @@ have a dream' speech, she pleaded with legislators:
 > your children's future on the flip of a coin. Instead, you must unite behind
 > the science. [@no-one-is-too-small, pp. 122-123]
 
-In their 1996 rationalist-environmentalist call to arms, _Betrayal of Science
-and Reason_, Paul and Anne Ehrlich were explicit about how they saw the link
-between science and government policy:
+In their 1996 _Betrayal of Science and Reason_, Paul and Anne Ehrlich explained
+their rationalist account of how science ought to drive government policy:
 
 > In short, people should have faith in their own judgment when they've taken
 > the time to examine different views of an issue and taken into account their
@@ -198,21 +156,18 @@ between science and government policy:
 > sustainable future. [@betrayal-science-reason, p. 212]
 
 For such rhetors, the bogeyman is the 'science denier' or 'science fraudster'.
-Much of _Betrayal and Science and Reason_ is taken up with naming, exposing, and
-rebutting some of the authors' critics, whom they derogatively label
-'brownlashes.' In Thunberg's speeches, she has repeatedly proclaimed the
-narrative that 'we spoke the science and demanded that the people in power would
-listen to and act on the science, but our political leaders didn't listen'
-[@no-one-is-too-small, p. 134].
+Much of _Betrayal and Science and Reason_ is dedicated to rebutting
+'brownlashes.' In Thunberg's speeches, she repeatedly proclaims that 'we spoke
+the science and demanded that the people in power would listen to and act on the
+science, but our political leaders didn't listen' [@no-one-is-too-small, p. 134].
 
 However, there's no particular reason to think that the fossil fuel industry is
-scientifically incompetent or unable to act rationally. In fact, fossil fuel
-companies are if anything astonishingly capable of mustering scientific and
-technological resources to act rationally. Fossil fuel extraction makes
+irrational or unscientific. In fact, fossil fuel companies are some of the
+world's most scientifically capable organisations. Fossil fuel extraction makes
 intensive use of technological and scientific resources, from the geological
 surveying needed to identify reserves to the hydraulic engineering needed to
 pump gas and oil from underground or subsea reservoirs. Despite these
-technological and scientific challenges, fossil fuel companies among the world's
+technological and scientific challenges, fossil fuel companies rank among the world's
 profitable. Adding together the most recent annual profits from the five largest
 state-owned fossil fuel companies and the five largest public fossil fuel
 companies produces a number well over $500 billion [@energy-profits-jun-25].
@@ -220,24 +175,25 @@ companies produces a number well over $500 billion [@energy-profits-jun-25].
 Even the production of so-called 'fake science' can be seen as the result of the
 fossil fuel industry acting rationally on the basis of the scientific evidence.
 As I'll explore in more detail in chapter 4, the fossil fuel industry is
-following the tobacco industry's strategies and even hiring the same PR
-consultants in their campaign to use science to influence public opinion. The
-problem for the world is not that people aren't listening to the science, but
-rather that fossil fuel companies, and other business lobbies, have an interest
-in poisoning the world, and powerful means of ensuring their interests are met.
-So again, the 'listen to the science' line mis-diagnoses the root causes of
-green issues, and thus fails to bring about change.
-
-Having mis-diagnosed the root causes of the problem, green rhetors too often go
-on to propose politically impossible solutions. The worst is simply to cut
-individual consumption. Since _The Limits to Growth_ was published for the Club
-of Rome in 1972 [@limits-to-growth], bolstered by eco-classics such as _Small Is
-Beautiful_ (1973) [@small-is-beautiful] and _The Population Bomb_ (1968)
-[@population-bomb], the green movement has frequently emphasised a message of
-austerity, echoing the austerity rhetoric which dominated the cost-of-living
-discourse in the 1970s and since [@climate-change-class-war, pp. 158-159].
-
-So, in 2006, George Monbiot set out his manifesto for putting the UK through a
+following the tobacco industry's strategies in their campaign to use science to
+influence public opinion. The problem for the world is not that people aren't
+listening to the science, but rather that fossil fuel companies, and other
+business lobbies, have an interest in allowing climate catastrophe to continue
+unabated, and powerful means of ensuring their interests are met.
+
+Rhetors who target individual consumption or 'science denial' mis-diagnose the
+root causes of green issues. Having mis-diagnosed the root causes of the
+problem, they too often go on to propose politically impossible solutions.
+
+Perhaps the worst proposal is to cut individual consumption. Since _The Limits
+to Growth_ was published for the Club of Rome in 1972 [@limits-to-growth],
+bolstered by eco-classics such as _Small Is Beautiful_ (1973)
+[@small-is-beautiful] and _The Population Bomb_ (1968) [@population-bomb], the
+green movement has frequently emphasised a message of austerity, echoing the
+austerity rhetoric which has dominated the cost-of-living discourse since the
+1970s [@climate-change-class-war, pp. 158-159].
+
+In 2006, George Monbiot set out his manifesto for putting the UK through a
 90% cut in greenhouse gas emissions. While Monbiot acknowledged that austerity
 rhetoric was a hard sell, repent did he not:
 
@@ -285,36 +241,33 @@ services. Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac implore their readers:
 heat and electricity respond to such demands?' asks Matt Huber
 [@climate-change-class-war, p. 170]. Most consumption for most people is not
 discretionary even in the Global North, and this is even more true in the Global
-South. There is no feasible route to persuading people to impose voluntary
-austerity upon themselves en masse.
-
-Another favourite of green rhetors is to propose smart market-based policies,
-mainly taxing carbon, aimed at tweaking the incentives for private capital to
-nudge the market into financing economic transformation. It's hard to disagree
-with eloquent experts like Sir Dieter Helm [@legacy] who argues that a
-sustainable economy must observe what he calls the 'polluter-pays principle.'
-However, too often, smart market tweaks are proposed which exacerbate market
-injustice, effectively levying the cost of economic transformation on those
-already squeezed by markets. This is not politically sustainable.
-
-In March 1993, for example, Norman Lamont announced a fuel price 'escalator',
-promising to gradually increase fuel duty, partly in order to reduce carbon
-dioxide emissions. A tobacco escalator followed in November. However, amidst
-criticism that the fuel duty was regressive and ineffective and protests from
-lorry drivers, Gordon Brown was forced in March 2000 to rescind the escalator
-and reduce fuel duty [@parl-fuel-escalator; @bbc-fuel-duty-cut]. In 2018,
-Emmanuel Macron suffered a huge loss to his political authority after a similar
-fuel duty policy bequeathed to him by a previous government sparked the 'gilets
-jaunes' civil disobedience movement [@bbc-gilets-jaunes].
+South. There is no feasible route to mass voluntary austerity.
+
+Another favourite of green rhetors is to propose 'smart' market-based policies,
+such as taxing carbon, aimed at nudging the market into financing economic
+transformation through private capital. It's hard to disagree with eloquent
+experts like Sir Dieter Helm [@legacy] who argues that a sustainable economy
+must observe what he calls the 'polluter-pays principle.' However, too often,
+rhetors propose solutions which exacerbate market injustice, effectively levying
+the cost of change on those already squeezed by markets.
+
+In March 1993, for example, Norman Lamont, then Chancellor of the Exchequer,
+announced a fuel price 'escalator', promising to gradually increase fuel duty,
+partly in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. A tobacco escalator followed
+in November. However, amidst criticism that the fuel duty was regressive and
+ineffective and protests from lorry drivers, Gordon Brown was forced in March
+2000 to rescind the escalator and reduce fuel duty [@parl-fuel-escalator;
+@bbc-fuel-duty-cut]. In 2018, Emmanuel Macron suffered a huge loss to his
+political authority after a similar fuel duty policy bequeathed to him by a
+previous government sparked the 'gilets jaunes' civil disobedience movement
+[@bbc-gilets-jaunes].
 
 So, while smart market fixes might work on paper, they are too often divorced
-from any politically sustainable programme. Thus, here too, green rhetoric has
-failed to demonstrate to their audience that the change they advocate will be
-good for them, and thus their proposals are politically impossible.
+from any politically sustainable programme.
 
 Finally, having mis-diagnosed the root causes of the issues and proposed
-solutions their audience cannot support, green rhetors fail to properly identify
-an audience that can make a difference.
+solutions their audience cannot support, green rhetors fail to identify an
+appropriate audience.
 
 As I've already shown, green rhetors have a tendency to address an unspecified
 'we,' suggesting a universal human individual, implying that for all relevant
@@ -334,9 +287,9 @@ nevertheless obtained currency far beyond the discipline of geology
 For many scholars, in the world beyond the technical debates of geological
 technocrats, the term 'Anthropocene' describes the present time as one
 characterised by human domination over the Earth. The choice of 'anthropos,' or
-'human,' as the focus point, rather than 'animal' or 'accountant,' implies that
-responsibility for recent changes to Earth's ecosystems are shared roughly
-equally amongst all and only humans.
+'human,' as the focus point, rather than 'mammal' or 'management consultant,'
+implies that responsibility for recent changes to Earth's ecosystems are shared
+roughly equally amongst all and only humans.
 
 Some critics have proposed alternative terms such as 'Capitalocene' or
 'Oligarchocene' so as to more fairly reflect the social texture of the changing
@@ -344,10 +297,7 @@ relationship of human beings within Earth ecosystems [see e.g.
 @anthropocene-or-capitalocene, @blaser-2018]. But Anthropocene, by describing
 the shaping power over Earth's ecosystems as the undifferentiated 'anthropos',
 downplays the importance of the different powers and interests between different
-humans. Thus, when a green rhetor uses the word 'Anthropocene', they suggest
-that you and I engage in environmental discourses as a universalised human, that
-our location in social systems is not relevant to our location in Earth
-ecosystems.
+humans.
 
 For example, Mike Berners-Lee uses the word 'Anthropocene' liberally in his
 public appearances. In his popular book, _There Is No Planet B_, he describes
@@ -379,7 +329,7 @@ that is at fault, it is easy to elide super-human social structures with the
 human individual.
 
 In reality, green rhetoric is primarily addressed not to an imaginary universal
-human individual, but to the Western middle classes. This makes sense, since the
+human 'we,' but to the Western middle classes. This makes sense, since the
 green movement has historically been heavily dominated by large non-governmental
 organisations such as the RSPB, National Audubon Society, Friends of the Earth,
 Greenpeace, and WWF, to name but a few. Typically, such NGOs don't depend on
@@ -393,18 +343,18 @@ concerns are often seen as less important or relevant to environmentalism by the
 dominant NGOs [@working-class-env, p. 13].
 
 But what change is it that Western professional middle classes are capable of
-bringing about? If it's not reducing your individual 'carbon footprint' – which,
-as I've already discussed, is not a proposal with legs – green rhetors have a
-tendency to propose actions which could only be achieved by the imaginary
-universal human 'we,' and not by their actual audience.
+bringing about? If it's not reducing your individual 'carbon footprint' – not,
+as I've already discussed, a proposal with legs – green rhetors have a tendency
+to propose actions achievable only by the imaginary universal human 'we,' not
+their actual audience.
 
 One common rallying cry is for an international agreement. Greta Thunberg has
 spent a great deal of her considerable campaigning energy attending
 international diplomatic summits, such as UN Climate Change Conferences of the
 Parties (COPs) and the World Economic Forum. _An Inconvenient Truth_, Al Gore's
 influential campaign film, was primarily motivated by the desire to see the US
-get back on board with the Kyoto agreement. Only in December, Fiona Harvey wrote
-a 10-year retrospective of the Paris Agreement for the Guardian, in which she
+get back on board with the Kyoto agreement. Last December, Fiona Harvey wrote
+a 10-year retrospective of the Paris Agreement for the Guardian. She
 lauded its achievements and declared, 'the question now is: can countries learn
 from the mistakes of the past decade, in order to keep the Paris agreement alive
 in the next?' [@harvey-2025-12-13]
@@ -439,7 +389,7 @@ to default to activism, but this has no route to political success:
 
 Sadly, despite the great excitement protests often generate, they typically have
 limited material impacts on governments. It is therefore easy for governments to
-pay lip service to some grand ideals and move on. The net result is little
+pay lip service to the protesters' cause and move on. The net result is little
 political change and feelings of betrayal, demonstrated, as eloquently as ever,
 by Thunberg:
 
@@ -455,15 +405,14 @@ putting harms down to individual consumption choices and science denial, whereas
 in fact, these factors play a relatively small role in explaining ecological
 harm, and other factors, such as industrial production decisions shaped by
 markets, are much more significant. A mis-diagnosis of the problem leads to
-false solutions: austerity or 'smart' market fixes, neither of which are not
-politically sustainable. This in turn is due to green rhetors failing to take
-account of the powers and interests of their audience. Rhetors speak as if they
-are addressing an imaginary universal human 'we' capable of acting rationally in
-the universal human interest, asking them to take actions such as creating
-international agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But in fact, green
-rhetors do not address that imaginary 'we,' but rather the Western middle
-classes, who may not have the right powers and interests for such exhortations
-to be feasible.
+false solutions such as voluntary austerity or 'smart' market fixes. Moreover,
+green rhetors fail to take account of the powers and interests of their
+audience. Rhetors speak as if they are addressing an imaginary universal human
+'we' capable of acting rationally in the universal human interest, asking them
+to take actions such as creating international agreements to reduce greenhouse
+gas emissions. But in fact, green rhetors do not address that imaginary 'we,'
+but rather the Western middle classes, who may not have the right powers and
+interests for such exhortations to be feasible.
 
 This begs the question: if green rhetoric is failing, how might it be fixed? One
 common suggestion is that green rhetoric needs to be less catastrophic. Since