The Power of Personal Stories

how and  why  we  wrote  a  climate  book

A personal story feels like the only appropriate form for this post.  This is the story of how I came to realise that it wasn’t just facts and evidence that were missing from our culture’s conversations about Climate and Nature… and of how coordinating and co-authoring the book Scientists on Survival: Personal Stories of Climate Action crystallised for me why the personal account has a remarkable power as part of those conversations.  ​

For a long time I sincerely believed that showing the right science or the right evidence to the right people would inevitably lead to a cascade of events that would bring about the transformations that our species and societies desperately need.  The story I told myself was as follows. Equipped with the science, politicians would legislate to reduce the harm that humans have, mostly unwittingly, been causing, they’d throw support behind better, fairer, resilient and sustainable alternatives to the harmful systems of our age, they’d create an adaptation plan to help us cope with the consequences of the climate and ecological disruption that we can no longer prevent. Knowing the risks the climate and ecological breakdown pose to their own businesses - let alone the future of humanity - corporations would make a rapid pivot away from extraction and destruction and towards regeneration. Fuelled by knowledge, public consciousness and priorities would shift.  We’d demand that ‘leaders’ act with proportionate urgency, and enable us all to meet our basic needs whilst treading more lightly on the Earth we depend on for our survival. But, gradually, I’ve found myself forced to reexamine this simplistic ideal that was motivating my work in science (be that via engaging with research, communication, education or policy). Whilst maintaining that it is fundamentally important that we are well-informed, the combination of disinterested, dismissive and disempowered  responses to evidence I’d brought to different spaces over the years has made it clear to me that knowledge alone is not enough.  For each of us to take on our respective role in the tale I had been telling myself we’d also need an emotional connection to that knowledge - we’d need to feel the myriad ways it really, really matters to us.* We’d also need to believe that it is possible for our personal actions to make a difference. 

Just over a year ago, a group of activist scientists were approached by a publisher, who invited them to write a book about the science of the Climate & Ecological Emergency. But the book that actually got written is not that book.** It’s not a ‘science’ book. Instead it’s a collection of personal accounts from scientists who’ve decided they need to do more than publish facts to play their part in protecting life.  When I heard the call for scientists to get involved, I was ready and willing to get stuck in… and it turned out to be a huge privilege to get to coordinate the project alongside the excellent Drs Caroline Vincent and Viola Ross-Smith, and to write it in collaboration with 21 other inspiring scientists, similarly motivated by our love for the world around us. 

Scientists tend to feel relatively comfortable talking in data, statistics, probabilities, hypotheses and theorems … but what we’re rarely expected or trained to do is to communicate the emotional as well as the ‘rational’ responses we have when faced with information and its implications. I often wonder whether this has contributed to pervasive complacency about unfolding Emergency - by calmly analysing and documenting the breakdown of the Earth’s life-enabling systems rather than allowing ourselves to feel and show a commensurate level of fear, have scientists sent mixed signals about the scale and urgency of the crisis? It’s something I’ve actively tried to “unlearn” over the past few years: in most circumstances I have to consciously decide not to say something like “the E.U. Copernicus Climate Change Service data puts the average surface temperature of the Earth in 2024 at approximately 1.6°C above an estimate of the 1850-1900 temperature designated to be the pre-industrial level”, because what most people really need to know is that humans have heated the world beyond the point that scientists agree is safe for any of us. We can communicate clearly and urgently without compromising the integrity and accuracy of the scientific information, and I’ve come to believe that we scientists would be much more effective advocates for informed, positive change if we gave ourselves more permission to share how that information impacts us and what action it compels. Might we be in a better position now if decades ago many more scientists hadn’t stopped after “The Earth is heating rapidly” and instead went on to explain “This terrifies me and I am going to do everything in my power to stop us burning fossil fuels”?

For Scientists on Survival: Personal Stories of Climate Action we encouraged and supported one another to speak from the heart rather than be constrained by a sense that scientists ought somehow to be detached, ‘neutral’ or dispassionate observers of a world in crisis. The process of writing our personal stories - whether about our journeys in science, transitions we have made, or protests actions we’ve taken - was different for every author.  Some chapters published today are virtually unchanged since they were first submitted to us, whilst others are radically different.  For me the most rewarding part of the whole project has been working with the authors to craft their stories into a clear, engaging and compelling narrative without detracting from each scientist's unique personality, humanity and voice (nor, of course, from the accuracy of any science they were communicating along the way). It has felt like such a privilege to get to know the humans behind those stories through doing this. Having spent years exploring how to communicate in ways that cultivate Emergency understanding and action, it’s also heartening to have tangibly supported people I find so inspiring to do the same. 

As I write this on the book’s official publication date, I feel a rare sense of pride having contributed to showing the humans behind the protests and the headlines in this way. Amidst the stories told by those 24 people, there will be something liable to strike a chord with any of us trying to navigate life on this imperilled blue dot, whether we consider ourself to be a scientist, activist, both or neither. That makes me hopeful that our book can encourage and provoke its readers to envisage and embark upon a pathway to taking part in effective action (in whatever form makes the most sense for them). Watering those seeds of hope are incoming reactions from friends and family and activist acquaintances who got hold of some of the first copies.  Unexpected people have expressed admiration for the courage and passion the scientist authors have demonstrated.  They’ve shared a range of emotions, thoughts and questions evoked by these stories.  They’ve told me they feel moved and motivated to take - or at least investigate - various forms of action themselves. 

*See my previous post “The Understanding Gap” for more thoughts on how both knowing and feeling are vital precursors for informed and effective action. 
** The story of how that happened, in the words of its co-author and co-coordinator Dr Caroline Vincent, is here

More  information  about  Scientists  on  Survival:  Personal  Stories  of  Climate  Action

As described by the publisher: "In this important and timely book, scientists from a broad range of disciplines detail their personal responses to climate change and the ecological crises that led them to form Scientists for XR and work tirelessly within it. Whether their inspiration comes from education or activism, family ties or the work environment, the scientists writing here record what drives them, what non-violent direct action looks like to them, what led them to become interested in the environmental crisis that threatens us all and what they see as the future of life on Earth.” 

• If you’d like to read our book it’s now available in bookshops and online book retailers. We recommend Bookshop.org which supports independent retailers).  If the cost is a barrier to you please use my contact form to request a copy (I have access to a limited supply). 
• You can find endorsements from Zadie Smith, Caroline Lucas, Robin Ince, Sir David King, Prof Kevin Anderson and more here, and there are some early reviews already out from Brian McHugh and Tom Hardy in The Ecologist. 
• A public launch event for Scientists on Survival is being hosted in York on Earth Day, Tuesday 22nd April. You can reserve a place via this event page.