If you have been following my posts on the climate crisis, you know that I have been supporting various forms of activism. I was pleased to see the massive turnout at the climate strike all around the globe and especially here in New York, where Greta Thunberg will be addressing the UN today.

Some people have been pushing back along the lines of “this activism is distracting from the real need which is for innovation;” or “all they want is renewables but we really need nuclear;” or even more pointedly “the activists want socialism and only capitalism will give us enough innovation” to fight the climate crisis.

This is a false dichotomy. We absolutely need activism so that we can have more innovation. How so? First, in order to attract more entrepreneurs and private capital to the sector we need to price carbon and we need a high price for it. That will not happen without activism.

Second, there is a clear role for behavior change above and beyond innovation. If we remain stuck in industrial age patterns of production and consumption, wedded to the job loop, we will not succeed against the climate crisis. That will not happen without activism.

Third, beyond innovation and behavior change we also require the mobilization of public resources. As I tried to explain with the “alien invasion analogy” the scale of the climate crisis is such that we need to globally be on the equivalent of a war footing. Again, only activism will get us there.

But what about nuclear you may still ask? Absolutely there will be questions down the line that need to be resolved and this is one of them but that discussion can only be had in the context of real urgency which still needs to be established.