One of my favourite lectures starts with an advert for the fictional dating app: Greender. On screen, two twenty-somethings are holding trash bags and picking litter on a beach.
“When I read in your profile that you’re a beach bum I had a totally different idea. But I like this, it’s our first date and we’re saving the world already. Imagine what will happen on our second date,” the man says.
“What makes you think we’ll have a second date?” she says.
“Hey, this isn’t about us anymore, this is about saving the planet.”
The advert fades to text overlaid with a bubbly jingle: Swipe right for your sustainable soulmate. Greender.
The first thing I want to teach my students, whenever I give a lecture on sustainable lifestyles, is to explain how different uses can lead to dismissals of ‘greenwash’ or ‘too radical.’
A colleague comes on stage and introduces themselves: “Hi, I’m Sequoia Strong Sustainability. What I believe is that we are currently consuming too much and need to scale back. It’s a bit lonely though being an eco-warrior and my friends told me to check out Greender. Apparently, I can meet someone who will watch Netflix and chill. And I know there are loads of good environmental documentaries on there.”
Another colleague comes onto the other side of the stage: “Hi, I’m Wolf Weak Sustainability. I really care about the environment, I want to educate people about climate change and convince them to buy greener products. I tried Tinder, but everyone was shallow and materialistic, so I thought I’d give this Greender app a go.”
They start swiping on their phones and profiles appear on screen for the class to see. First up, on a bed of red peppers and orange carrots is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Shirtless. He’s leaning back seductively, elbows out and head rested on his palms.
“Now he is into growing your own, making good use of leftovers, and apparently he likes wonky veg. I like a knobbly carrot myself so I’ll swipe right,” says Sequoia.
Wolf and Sequoia both swipe right for Hugh, who is an English celebrity chef and campaigner on environmental issues. Hugh appeals to both because his programmes, like Hugh’s War on Waste, are about what both supermarkets and householders can do. For both, it makes sense to change regulations that create food waste, such as exacting cosmetic standards that result in misshaped vegetables being banned from supermarkets’ shelves.
They keep looking through profiles and next up is Elon Musk. “He’s fit, what would we do without the architect of the electric car?” says Wolf. “I love that the first Tesla was a sports car, he knows what people will buy and makes the green option sexy. I’ll swipe right for Elon, he can take me for a ride.”
Sequoia has a different response to Elon’s profile, “He’s into fast cars and I’m not sure he should be allowed on Greender. I get that it’s an electric car, but maybe he should try paying taxes rather than playing space games. And look at the size of those rockets, do you think maybe he's compensating for something?”
They have different ideas about how best to bring about change. Sequoia questions the ability of technology to save us because natural systems like flooding defences from trees cannot be simply replicated. Sequoia worries about how electric cars still lock us into suburban sprawl and is sceptical of the assumption that environmental impact can be decoupled from GDP growth because efficiency is rebounded by increases in overall consumption.
Next Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's profile appears, she's shaking a cocktail mixer, “Woof, the youngest woman ever to serve in the US Congress. I loved her dress at the Met Gala,” says Sequoia. “Someone would have to have quite a pair of ovaries to wear ‘tax the rich’ to that event. From the Green New Deal to the Civilian Climate Corps, she is supporting the creation of green infrastructure and jobs and taking climate justice to the heart of US politics.”
Wolf has a different response to Alexandria’s profile, “I’m all for decarbonising our energy system, but if we say no fracking and no new coal mines how are we going to live in the mean time? What’s she going to do when the lights go out?”
Wolf rejects that significant and fundamental changes to everyday life will be required and questions the severity of the crises facing society today. From Wolf’s point of view, cutting out fossil fuels too quickly would impact quality of life because if growth is slowed it will result in increased unemployment and poverty.
They keep swiping through profiles – Greta Thunberg, George Monbiot, Leonardo DiCaprio, Vanessa Nakate – and then they come across one another’s profiles. They both wrote that they are ‘into sustainable living’ with some common interests of loving time outdoors and hating all the packaging. “They look nice,” Sequoia and Wolf say in unison. ‘It’s a match!’ appears on screen and over the auditorium speakers a hallelujah chorus plays.
Now, what could possibly go wrong on their first date?
If you like this 'theoretical theatre' please check out Gill Seyfang, Tom Hargreaves, Helen Pallet and all the other folks from University of East Anglia who created 'Comedy in the Classroom' (my fav is their one on practice theory, behaviour change, socio-technical systems and rational choice - that's pure gold) inspired my piece. I have learned so much from their playful and creative lectures on sustainability: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/63622/
Also check out the performance that inspired it all, Elizabeth Shove and co's 'Extraordinary Lecture': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldEp3r1-8eo&ab_channel=ElizabethShove
