Fighting for climate means fighting fascism

Reflections, lessons and helpful tips to navigate the immense insanity following recent worldly events.

Welcome back to Climate Psyched, and to the monthly post that goes out exclusively to those of you who have upgraded to a paid subscription. Once a month you will receive an additional, shorter post on a topic related to climate psychology, perhaps one that you’ve wished for or something that’s sparked my own interest. Sprinkled with a tip or two about interesting books or texts I’ve read.

Currently, COP29 is taking place in the petro state Azerbaijan, a meeting boycotted by not only climate activists who are questioning how the country was allowed to host the meeting in the first place, but also several world leaders from, amongst others, Papua New Guinea and France. Not even climate leaders seem to be all that sure about the usefulness of the COP meetings. Parallel to that it’s been a bit over a week since Donald Trump won the American election, which is terrible news not only for climate work, but also for democracy and safety. The anti democratic and fascist tendencies within the political movement that’s helped to enable Trump, and Trump himself, are no isolated phenomenon. I’ve previously written about how the far-right media eco system in Sweden has influenced governmental politics, but also how they nurture affective polarization, undermine democracy and pose a real threat to climate engaged people.

That climate never has been an issue separate from society, and the political movements within it is not news, but perhaps more evident than ever.

So, here we are. I believe one of the greatest challenges we’re facing right now in people’s capacity to mobilize and organize for a just and sustainable world is finding a way that can integrate climate action with democracy strengthening and fascism fighting action.

Community activist and cyber security expert Chad Loder wrote on Bluesky the other day that one of fascism’s main tactics is to physically and mentally exhaust you. Flooding everyone’s feeds, and the media debate with bullshit that keeps us constantly reacting, to the point where we get mentally exhausted and don’t have energy left to fight for the things we truly care about.