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Adam Cooper is director of Threads in the Ground, a climate hope organisation which helps people and communities imagine their climate future. He joined Blue Cabin for an away-day where we explored the idea of being a ‘good ancestor’. Adam explains more…
I use the question “how can we be good ancestors” in all our climate hope work. It’s a powerful way to encourage expansive thinking about climate and the power we hold.
But what does that question mean when working in a care experienced context?
I first threw myself into climate work shortly after my partner became pregnant with our now seven year old son.
I come from an oil family, and I worked in oil and gas recruitment through my early career. My inherited carbon footprint is massive – I’m probably in the global top 1% of inherited carbon footprint shoe size. So, when I realised I was going to become a Dad, I started to feel haunted by an idea…
“The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children.” William Shakespeare
I feel a bit self-conscious and pretentious dropping a Shakespeare quote…I’ve only read Midsummer Night’s Dream at school, and never seen a Shakespeare play. I’ve never read or seen Merchant of Venice, where the quote comes from. But like a lot of Shakespare, you don’t need to be a High Culture consumer to recognise this. The idea isn’t Bill’s – it’s paraphrasing a passage from the Old Testament.
It’s an ancient idea, 3,000+ years old, that as I pass down my myopia and my curiosity, my roast potato recipe and my widows-peak hairline, my grandpa’s watch and my cardigan…as I pass all these things down to my little boy, I also imbue him with generations of Carbon debt. So says the Bible and The Bard, and I Do. Not. like. That.
So how can I do this well? How can I make that inheritance a positive, generative thing?
How can I be a good ancestor?
Whenever I work with organisations to think about climate hope and climate action, I lean on a few useful questions. One of these, in particular, people find tricky to answer:
What unique ancestral power do I hold by just being me, living in this moment?
The question is an expansion of the “good ancestor” idea, but trying to zoom in on the individual.
Not all of us are made to do courageous, radical action. To bus it to London and join a march, to chain ourselves to something.
But the nature of the climate crisis is that it is everything, everywhere, all at once.
We are surrounded, immersed, enveloped in the climate crisis.
Climate change is
every system, everywhere.
It’s how we make and use energy,
It’s where we get our food from,
It’s how we work
It’s our pension, our healthcare
the games we play
our google search
Our car
Our kitchen utensils
Our summer holiday
It’s the bombs we make and drop
It’s the almond flour in the party cakes
Climate change is everything change.
And bloody hell, what an utterly overwhelming idea.
But the thing we hardly ever talk about is this…
If climate change is everything change. Then we are all climate activists whether we know it or not.
We each have our own kind of power. The stuff we do day-to-day, the skills and relationships we hold. Climate change touches everything, which means each of us touches it. And more so than any generation to come, that makes us powerful.
So…what do you want to do with that power? How do you want to be a good ancestor?
A beautiful idea was shared with me at the Blue Cabin away day, something which has lodged in me, and strengthened my belief that every group of people has their own distinctive contribution to our existential grapplings with climate.
The gift, the idea, is this: If thinking about our role as ancestors is a good lens for climate thinking, then surely the people and communities with experience of care have a deeply distinctive and powerful perspective to bring.
They are people who live and breathe questions of what we inherit and how we live with and pass on that inheritance. They are people incredibly well placed to think and talk about generational stewardship and custodianship. To dive into questions of heritage, of generational trauma and story.
I think that the deeply skilled, compassionate, and delicate practice which Blue Cabin has developed and nurtured over years of care-informed work equips them with an incredibly valuable lens for approaching climate work. And I would absolutely love to continue learning from Blue Cabin and their community. To continue receiving the gifts of care-informed perspective on climate thinking.
Thank you Adam for leading such an insightful and thought-provoking day with the Blue Cabin team. You can learn more about Threads in the Ground and how they inspire people to be good ancestors here.
Find out what we’re doing to prioritise environmental sustainability here.
