What can I do about climate change

I've been reading this and that about climate change, trying to get a handle on what climate change really is and what, if anything, I can do about it. Unsurprisingly, I think climate change a problem we should do something about.

And I'll admit: I think that there's something that I can do about it. Despite all evidence to the contrary - I've had little-to-no impact on anything at this scale before in my life - I believe that there's something that I can do to help stop climate change.

The problem is, I think my educational curriculum starts at the wrong place. I'm starting at the level of "what is climate change" and "how can we stop it" - when, even if you asked nicely, I don't think I explain to you how any large-scale, society-wide change has occurred. I couldn't explain it because I'm sure I don't know.

Here are a few theories I've heard:

1. Government tax people, invest in basic science. Basic science used by companies. Companies create technology. Creating technology gives people work (so, taxes). Technology drives change.
2. Individuals innovate technology. They create companies. Companies sell technology. Technology improves lives. Government regulate technology. Regulation limits innovation. Limited innovation stops lives from improving.
3. Black swan events occurs. A dynamic system of people, governments, corporations, and jim-on-the-corner react. Market dynamics drive the world forward in whatever direction the vector of the market happens to point.
4. Something something something people give power to the government something something something people are the source of all power and change.
5. The spirits of the sun and wind and sky decide how they are feeling, and bless us with floods or droughts or disease, and these natural forces drive our society to wall ourselves off from nature for forces, or sometimes to drink beer outside at a beer garden.

None of the above are particularly compelling. And anyways, there are a few problems with trying to answer the question "how does large-scale societal change happen?"

First, obviously, is that societal change doesn't occur for one reason. The forces that drove the lives of the early peoples probably were closer to the spirits of the sun and wind and sky than the market forces, but I'll be damned if market forces don't feel more aggressive than the wind most days now. So: there are variety of ways in which societal change has occured, and the previous ways change occurred is not necessarily a predictor of how change might occur in the future.

But that doesn't mean that it's not worth figuring out how change happened. Although the specific mechanisms for change may not be static over time, perhaps there are still constants: human nature, group dynamics, a large splash of randomness, whatever. Understanding the dynamics that respond to whatever forces might drive change could give you predictive power over a large number of future states.

The second issue with trying to understand how societal change has happened in the past is that, as far as I can tell, it's a very closely guarded secret.

I had a conversation with a friend in college (that ended with me crying in a hot-dog shop) where I made a point to the effect of "non-violent activism in the 60s lead the civil rights movement to success." The effecting point he returned: of course those people who control the narrative would want you to believe violence is always bad.

There are, undeniably, people in power with more information about all the workings of society than me (a washed-up 23 year old living with my parents). And if figuring out how social change occurs is a necessary step to making effective social change, then what do those in power stand to benefit from sharing this information with me? Changes in the status quo are very rarely good for those in power.

And I don't think this needs to look like explicit corruption. Think back to an argument you had that got heated, but ended with you changing your mind. If I asked you what the most effective part of the other-arguers argument was, would you say the part that got heated? "They made some good points, but I didn't like when they yelled in my face" - even if the yelling might have been the part that made you acquiesce, whether or not you really wanted to. Pride, fear, and guilt may all play a large part in the changing of the narrative about what is effective.

There are two other closely-related issues with trying to figure out how change happens. The first is that the future dynamics might be fundamentally unpredictable. The second is that prediction of future dynamics might be fundamentally absurd.

The first is somewhat easy to believe: maybe knowing the future, even if you understood the previous dynamics of change perfectly, is just not possible. If so, attempting to learn the previous dynamics of social change really won't help you much, no matter how well you can navigate the above complexities.

The case where understanding these dynamics leads to absurd behavior is even worse, though. You could be making yourself worse off by knowing the past. Your thoughts on how to change things are wrong, but now you're confident in them. You move in the wrong direction, and effect change in a direction you don't want to. I've certainly been guilty of this on smaller scales.

All this assumes that one wants to make changes. There are those who are happy with the status quo anyways - or those that feel that the only change should be changing back. I'm not one of them. For now, I'm just a bit too optimistic for such thoughts.