Media contributions
1Media contributions
Title In Praise of Climate Virtue Signaling Degree of recognition International Media name/outlet Wired Media type Web Country/Territory UK United Kingdom Date 23/09/23 Description Politicians and other leaders don’t like to brag about their green credentials. But what if a little virtue is exactly what we’re missing?
What separates a good leader from the merely adequate? The question stalks the business section of bookshops and motivates no end of teeth-grindingly-awful podcasts. In the latest addition to this canon, Tony Blair’s new book draws some lessons on leadership from his decade as prime minister of the UK. His message—at least according to a review from former chancellor George Osborne—is that great leaders focus on delivery, embrace tech, and seek respect rather than love. A great Leader—capital L—gets shit done.
Other politicians are a little more squeamish about seeing themselves as leaders. That is one finding from a paper by Steve Westlake, a research fellow at Cardiff University’s School of Psychology. Westlake is intrigued by how leaders—politicians, celebrities, billionaires—shape our actions on climate change. Behavior change is often talked about as an amorphous blob. We all have to change eventually. But who should change first? And how? Westlake is interested in how these changes ripple out through society—or don’t.
To that end, Westlake interviewed 19 members of the British parliament. He wanted to know how they thought about climate leadership, their own climate behaviors, and the response of the people who elected them. The paper makes for slightly uneasy reading. The MPs fretted about virtue signaling, being seen as overly radical, and alienating their voters. “I’m not going to turn into a vegan, [a] person who wears linen and goes around in a teepee or wherever,” one MP told Westlake. “I’m going to still be of this world.”URL https://www.wired.com/story/in-praise-of-climate-virtue-signaling/ Persons Steve Westlake
Keywords
- Climate change
- Behaviour change
- Leadership