Campaign

The #TalkCollapse Campaign was launched by Just Collapse in late 2021. It builds on the work of pioneers who have been warning about collapse for decades and have been vilified and marginalised for speaking up. Momentum is now building.

In recognition of our predicament, the #TalkCollapse campaign asks those who understand the inevitability of collapse, to communicate this knowledge as a matter of distributive justice; recognising that, whilst collapse is already happening now, collapse is complex and is experienced diversely by different people in different places.

Everybody has the right to know! As a first matter of justice, everybody has the right to know, and useful action for decentralised socio-ecological justice can be had, when people are made cognizant of the nature of the predicament, and not diverted by impossible fantasies of endless progress or fairytale techno-fixes which serve only to dig our hole deeper. In this way, we build a collapse-conscious-citizenry that is capable of planning and action in face of inevitable collapse.

How to #TalkCollapse? In alignment with our theory of change and our strategy, together we act so that some measure of socio-ecological justice might prevail, for as long as possible, in spite of the dire nature of our predicament.

RESPECT: Whether online or in the real world, a diversity of people are already experiencing collapse, whether they know it or not, and we should try to respect that diversity of experience in our communication rather than try to bully our message. The act of listening can sometimes achieve much more effect than a voluminous tirade. That said, it is true enough to say that you’d expect your doctor to give it to you straight, and in this regard, it may be helpful to make use of our resources page to provide confident support for your communications.

EMOTION: The decline of progress and civilisation with all its entailed multitude of socio-ecological horrors, is highly emotional terrain. Starting small and finding common ground is often a useful way to begin. Don’t get overly emotionally invested in ‘converting’ people. Sometimes planting a seed is the best you can hope for. This is not failure. We can only hope to do what we can, where we can. Remember, we are ‘riding the zeitgeist’ and collapse is inevitability coming to us all, so there is no need to drag people to it.

PRACTICE: Talking collapse gets easier with practice and you will be surprised how many people already intuitively understand that The Great Descent has already begun. Oftentimes they won’t use precisely the same language or ideas to describe what they intuitively know to be true, but we shouldn’t want nor expect everybody to be the same.

ONLINE: Using the hashtag #TalkCollapse increases visibility of the Talk Collapse campaign online, particularly in social media. People can also easily find where, and who, is talking about collapse by clicking on the hashtag, which helps build a sense of community and shared purpose. Remember that social media is rarely a one-on-one conversation – there are likely others reading what you are saying, even if they aren’t directly participating. So think less about ‘converting’ the person you are talking with, and more about what others may also be interested in.

SOLIDARITY: In traversing the difficult terrain of collapse, there is, perhaps, little worse than being alone. Making connections with others who understand our predicament, can help sustain and foster our capacity to #TalkCollapse.