Decolonization Series Guest Feature: It’s Not That Radical

by Lauren Ballesteros-Watanabe, Chapter Organizer | Reading time: 5 minutes

To kick off 2024, we are uplifting Jamaican-British author and activist, Michaela Loach. As a truly remarkable 25-year old thought leader, she centers intersectionality in every chapter of her new book It’s Not That Radical: Climate Action To Transform Our World, incorporating arguments about liberation, abolition, decolonisation, and racial justice in the larger movement to save the world. 

As the urgency of the climate justice movement grows worldwide, Loach successfully unpacks capitalism and its impact on all social movements and frameworks, all while widening the lens through which the climate crisis can be perceived. Loach built a call to action that reframes but doesn’t dismiss widespread fears about climate change, in order to transform such feelings into power.

As the title itself reflects, Loach reminds readers that "radical" ideas are necessary and rightful in this fight for the planet, quoting feminist, civil rights activist, author, and academic Angela Davis: "Radical simply means grasping things at the root."

Below, read an excerpt from the book, featuring Loach's argument that offers an answer to the question: "Am I too radical or not radical enough?"

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It's Not That Radical: Climate Action To Transform Our World by Mikaela Loach

When hearing the phrase 'direct action', your immediate response might be that such acts are too radical. Or, in a different sense, when you first read the title of this book, you might have wondered if I was suggesting that being radical in our actions is a bad thing. The word ‘radical’ will have a different meaning for each one of us. Climate action itself will carry different meanings too. In order to build a better world, a multiplicity of actions are necessary, and therefore a multiplicity of roles are necessary too. Each role is valuable. Each role is important. Your role is important. There is often a misunderstanding that the only way to take action is to be the person in front of the microphone on the stage at a rally; someone on the streets protesting, or gluing yourself to the road. For people to even be able to carry out actions like these, there are so many people working behind the scenes filling out spreadsheets, sorting finances, writing out plans, doing outreach on the streets, researching to make information available, or facilitating meetings. There are people working from all kinds of different angles to apply pressure in other ways, in order to bring about change.

It’s just after COP26 — the big U.N. Climate Change Conference hosted in Glasgow — and I’m preparing to go on The Great Debate, a Sky News show. This week’s episode is all about COP26 and whether runaway climate change is inevitable. I’m texting a friend about how the panel isn’t ideal. Two of the other panelists are Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s COP26 spokesperson, Allegra Stratton, and Australia’s former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer; two people who are definitely not on the side of climate justice.

I am often framed as ‘the radical’ as a way to invalidate what I’m actually saying. In this context, ‘radical’ is seen as something irrational; something to be afraid of. Meanwhile, those who are promoting climate delay, upholding oppressive systems and enabling harm and devastation are simply seen as the norm.

Is the desire to create a safer, better world for all of us really that ‘radical’? Isn’t it something we should all want, not just for ourselves but for the generations that will come after us?

There is a never-ending debate going on in my head: am I too radical or not radical enough? This question follows me everywhere, and I don’t think it will ever go away.

There have been so many times when I have been told I am ‘too radical’. Whether it’s for being vocally anti-capitalist, calling for the abolition of prisons and the police, risking arrest as part of direct action or taking the UK government to court in 2021, I have been chastised often for taking these actions. I’ve also been told — mostly on Twitter — that I’m not ‘radical’ enough. We’ll get to that later.

But what does ‘radical’ really mean? Its true meaning is simply going to the root of an issue – to tackle it from where it came from. However, in the mainstream, it’s often used as an insult, as if ‘radical’ is synonymous with ‘absurd’, ‘ridiculous’, ‘destructive’ or ‘outrageous’. I think it’s important here that we define all those things.

What is outrageous is the fact that we are currently on track globally for complete climate collapse because a very small percentage of people want to continue profiting from fossil fuels and overconsumption. What is destructive is the fact that entire nations will be submerged by human-caused rising sea levels in the coming years. What is really absurd is that we live in an economic system that allows for a few people to hoard more wealth than they could possibly spend in thousands of lifetimes, whilst so many do not have access to safe homes, food or water. And what is utterly ridiculous is that absolutely none of this is necessary; so much of it is preventable.

"Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels. Investing in new fossil fuels infrastructure is moral and economic madness."

We really need to reframe what is and what is not ridiculous or outrageous. When we have been living in a system for so long, those calling for change are often painted as harmful, rather than those who work to continue the world as it currently is. Often, we can be scared to demand anything too far away from the current reality. We’re scared of causing too much disruption or really rocking the boat. We stay with what is familiar because to go outside of that feels less comfortable to think about.

Sure, change is frightening. Moving away from what is already known to us is scary. But none of that is a good enough reason not to try and change the world for the better. None of that is a good enough reason not to take the necessary actions to prevent our extinction and an increase in suffering for billions along the way.