‘No’ is easier than ‘Yes’. ‘But’ requires you do to nothing. ‘And’ may require you to take climate action. This See Through Together Fabulous Fable explains the difficulty of ‘Helping the Inactive become Active’ to a child. It may help explain climate inaction to a ‘smart’ adult who’s adept at coming up with excuses for it.

This article identifies humanity’s biggest psychological obstacle to change in terms a child might understand, but most adults don’t.

Chapter 1: Stories

We all love tales.

Good tales make us the hero, the best make us change.

If a small child gets your tale, and changes, you’ve spun one hell of a yarn.

Chapter 2: Buts

Good tales brook no ‘Buts’.

Bad tales beget ‘Buts’.

No ‘Buts’ from a small child, you’ve cracked it.

Chapter 3: But-free Stories

‘Buts’ spoil the flow.

‘Buts’ make you zig when you want to zag.

Think of the ‘buts’, say them before the But-ers. Hey presto! Your tale is But-free!  

Chapter 4: But…

There’s a snag. If grown-ups don’t want to hear your tale, they come up with Buts.

Grown-ups are good But-ers. Smart ones are the best.

De-but your tales all you like, but grown-up But-ers will butt in, if they don’t want to change.

Chapter 5: Happy Ending?…

There once was a grown-up who heard a tale that meant they’d have to change.

And did not say ‘but’.

**
If you think fables are better left unexplained, stop reading. What follows is for anyone who’s intrigued by The Big But but can’t quite put their finger on its specific ‘lesson’.

Glossary

What lies behind The Big But’s 155 mainly monosyllabic words.

1 Stories

• We: Homo sapiens
• Tales: ‘tales’ and ‘stories’ are functionally synonymous with ‘narratives’. ‘Tales’ however, tends to be associated with lies (‘tall tales’) or malice (‘telling tales’). ‘Stories’ tends to be associated with truth (‘news story’, ‘the telecom sector story‘, ‘the climate story’).  
• Make us change: advertisers reckon it takes a dozen or more exposures to the same brand ‘story’ before customers act on it. The same probably applies to climate action and carbon reduction.
• Small child gets your tale: telling any story to a smart 6-year-old is the best test of its robustness and integrity. If they don’t understand it, your storytelling is poor. If they can’t repeat your story to someone else, your story is weak. For contrast, try explaining carbon offsetting, or climate summits, to a small child.

2 Buts

• brook: transitive verb, allow, permit. A small child might not be familiar with this usage, but is quicker at learning from context than their parents.

3 But-free Stories

• zig when you want to zag: whether via structural plot twists or colourful digressions, stories benefit from going in unexpected directions, but only if the storyteller is in control. Once derailed from the storyteller’s tracks, a listener’s attention is hard to retrieve. Climate deniers and their PR shills are black belts in derailing and but-ing.
• say them before the But-ers: the storyteller’s art is largely defined by having an accurate feel for their audience’s ‘average’ person. Expert storytellers induce their audience into pursing their lips to form a ‘but’, and answering their question just before it has fully formed in their head.

4 But…

• Smart ones are the best: questioning minds often excel in the classroom and boardroom, but when it comes to following a narrative disposition to look for the least likely explanation is an affliction. Keeping a hair-trigger audience primed to ‘but’ on track is a challenge to both storyteller and listener.
• if they don’t want to change: sometimes, a storyteller must admit defeat and seek more receptive ears. Ineffective climate activists waste energy trying to convert the unconvertible.

5 Happy Ending?…

• have to change: neophobia – fear of the new – is a mammalian trait. All storytellers, including politicians, primary school teachers, professors, persuaders and preachers, know inertia exerts a much more powerful force than impetus. Helping the Inactive Become Active is a tough gig.

Further Reading

If you want to know more, and favour hard science over metaphorical allusion, here are some articles expanding on these issues in more detail. 

They’re neither written for children, nor addressed at experts. They contain plenty of verifiable references, but are written in clear, lively language targeted at interested, intelligent novices.

Technical/Methodological

• Carbon Auditing Basics
• Why Current Carbon Auditing Fails
• The 70% of business emissions we don’t currently measure
• To Reduce Carbon Emissions, First Agree On How to Measure Them
• Carbon Consulting for SMEs – Good Enough and Better Than Nothing

Storytelling/Presentation

• How To Banish Greenwash Stains Forever
• Big Business’s Carbon Reporting ‘But’
• Why Carbon Accounting 1.0 is the opioid cure for our carbon addiction
• Carbon Auditing – We Need To Talk About SMEs
• Confessions of a Transport Surveyor – Don’t Mention The C-Word

Legal/Compliance

• EU Carbon Reporting – From ‘Want To’ to ‘Have To’
• When Greenwash Becomes Compliance – Carbon Reporting Has One Trajectory
• A Sceptical Investor’s Guide to the Decarbonisation Business

See Through Carbon’s Ecosystem Solution

• See Through Carbon’s AFOT ecosystem solution
• Carbon Auditing 2.0: Accurate, Free, Open-Source and Transparent
• STC’s Wiltshire/SME Pilot
• STC’s UK/Live Music Pilot

Joining

Like sibling programmes See Through News, See Through Together and See Through Games, STC is 100% driven by a global network of experts contributing their skills and time pro bono, with the shared Goal of Speeding Up Carbon Drawdown by Helping the Inactive Become Active

• If you’re interested in helping illustrate, animate or compose music for this parable, or any other of our storytelling programmes from YouTube Shorts to music concerts, articles, or online Games, join See Through’s creative team
• If you’re interested in helping support the network, join our Admin/Management team
• If you’re interested in helping develop, maintain and support the website, databases and integrations behind these programmes, join our IT/Tech team

If none of these match your skills or ambition, but you still want to help speed up carbon drawdown by helping the inactive become active, click on the Join button on the See Through Network website, and complete the application form, and our recruitment team will find the best match for the Networks needs.

By taking climate action, you can help others take climate action. No buts.