This extract from the ‘History’ section of See Through Network’s Wikipedia article, 2030 offers a time-travelling glimpse into our current past. (NB: by then, Wikipedia had adopted the Network’s pioneering The Truth Lies narrative model*).
This article explains the See Through Network’s methodology, while demonstrating it.
…[Extract starts]
‘Helping the inactive become active’ methodology
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Even before the See Through Network’s Moneywobble Phase (2021-2023) was resolved in favour of its zero-budget model, the methodology behind the Network’s projects, events and content were driven by its pragmatic ‘crossing the river by feeling for the stones’ approach.
Transparent Trojan Horseplay (TTH) is the name the Network uses to describe its ‘sophisticated storytelling’ methodology.
The Network’s early TTH iterations, especially during its Incubation Phase (2021-2026), lacked the theoretical rigour and depth now evident in climate activism think-tanks like the Lausanne TTH Institute.
One Incubation Phase insider described early TTH as ‘barely a ‘methodology’ in any academic sense, really. It was more an ad-hoc, opportunistic, masala of concepts concocted by climate activist non-experts and held together with WordPress and gaffer tape.’[43].
Even Incubation Phase TTH was nonetheless built on the same conceptual foundations the Scaled Phase Network still employs in pursuit of its Goal of ‘Speeding up carbon drawdown by helping the inactive become active’, unchanged since the 2021 launch of See Through News.
The Lausanne TTH Institute lists TTF’s ‘three key building blocks’ as follows:
- Make Climate Action Heroic: tell stories that make the Network’s Calls To Action (CTAs) aspirational, not sacrifices.
- Outcome, not Motivation: focus on nudging Unwilling Inactivists into taking the Network’s CTAs, not on why they do so.
- Tom Sawyer, not Oliver Twist: consistently adopt the status of benefactor, not beggar, both in public and private communication.
Make Climate Action Heroic
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The English translation of a See Through Carbon keynote speech at the Shanghai Sustainable Fashion summit in Oct 2026, describes ‘Make Climate Action Heroic’ thus:
’Why do Silicon Valley Overlords, Big Oil and their PR shills study neuroscience, behaviourism, and evolutionary psychology? Because they recognise E.O. Wilson’s insight that ’The real problem of humanity is that we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology’. Fancy modern innovations obscure the truth that we’re squidgy, sweaty, emotional humans who remain driven by the desire to be the heroes of our own narratives. And that heroism must is most effective if it’s aspirational and ends up with the protagonist both alive and better off. Unless you’re a religion, which we’re not, self-sacrifice is a hard sell’ ’
In response, an audience member who identified herself as being from ‘the marketing team of a leading global fashion brand’, asked ‘Fashion brands understand all about making our customers ‘heroes of their own narratives’, as you put it. How does the See Through Networks climate activist ‘hero’ status differ from what we’re already doing?’. The Network’s response is also taken from the event organiser’s English translation of the Q&A, conducted in Mandarin:
The key to effective climate action is simply to make sustainability action narratives more heroic than the available alternatives. There are plenty of other hero-status options out there, not just from the fashion industry, but all tend to be based on money, sex, status and power. Climate activists can suggest a different form of heroism – authentic altruism – that can only be convincingly made by a network without a bank account.
Following up, the same questioner expressed scepticism that ‘actual customers in the real world’ (‘现实世界中的真实客户’) would be responsive to appeals to ‘save the planet’. The Network’s response highlighted the distinction between Effective and Ineffective Activists:
‘Who said anything about ‘saving the planet’? Those are your words, not ours. Your mischaracterisation does, however, reflect a common misunderstanding about what effective climate activism is. ‘Saving the planet’ narratives are bound to fail. Why? Because the its scientifically meaningless, and unachievable in practice. ‘Saving humanity’ is a bit better, but still relatively ineffective. Anyone who thinks we’re motivated to act on a species level hasn’t been paying much attention to the last 300,000 years since Homo sapiens emerged. Appeals to tribal-level altruism can be powerful – just look at how few wars require conscription. But most powerful of all, is appealing to individual-level altruism, which elevates you in the eyes of those whose respect you yearn for – as you well know in the fashion industry, as your advertising aspired to do the same thing. That’s the hero narrative The See Through Network ‘sells’. It’s just that we measure our success in emissions reduction, not emissions increased by selling more unneeded luxuries, like the fashion industry currently does. [44]
‘Making climate action heroic’ was based on a number of psychological theories, such as Narrative identity, Self-serving bias, Self-licencing and Actor-observer asymmetry. The Network adapted these to appeal to the Network’s target audience of ‘Unwilling Inctivists’. The same speech summarised the Network’s practical application thus:
‘Most of us, most of the time, think that whatever the situation, we’re right and everyone else is an idiot. One of the more useful definitions of depression is that it flips this natural condition so that whatever the situation, we’re wrong and everyone else is right. But when people recover, instead of being the villains of their own narratives, they revert to being the heroes, like everyone else’.
‘Outcomes not motivations’
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‘Outcomes not motivations’ summarizes the See Through Network’s non-ideological approach to climate activism.
The Network’s Target Audience taxonomy makes an absence of ideological baggage a key diagnostic factor in defining ‘Effective Activists’. By contrast, overt or implied affiliation to Culture war tribes are among the features defining ‘Ineffective Activists’.
A profile of the Network by ‘voice of the Amazon’ news service Sunauma in 2026 listed two contemporary examples:
- Room From A View (RFAV): a Playlist on the See Through Together YouTube channel. RFAV was designed to look like a conventional property show about a money-obsessed homeowner trying to build an extension on the cheap. In fact it was a Transparent Trojan Horse ‘with a stretch goal of hoodwinking a climate denier into building a zero-carbon house because it saves them money and makes them look smart’. [45] Details in How To Convert YouTube DIY Video Into A Stealth Sustainability Universe.
- Feet To The Fire (FTTF): the revised, re-branded version of The Act Game. FTTF was designed to work with elected officials of any political affiliation, no matter their actual motivations, so long as they were prepared to publicly sponsor the Network’s emissions- reducing ‘Twollock’ (‘tightly-worded legal clause’) legislation. FTTF was first deployed on a sitting member of the UK Parliament as the third of the ‘December Experiments’ (see below) that first tested the ‘Oliver Twist-to-Tom Sawer’ beggar-benefactor pivot of the Network’s messaging in December 2025.
Transparent Trojan Horse methodology
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From the launch of See Through News in 2021, the See Through Network has referred to its ‘sophisticated storytelling’ methodology as Transparent Trojan Horseplay (TTH).
TTH is a self-referential TLA (Three -Letter Acronym), reflecting an amalgam of traditional storytelling techniques and modern behaviourism.
By the Dec 2025 launch of the See Through Network website the Network was describing TTH as combining ‘age-old, what-happens-next storytelling with behavioural psychology, nudge theory, and rigorous methodology’ [46].
During the Network’s 2021-2025 Incubation Phase (see above), TTH was crude compared to its current form. Contemporary critics characterised its academic credentials as ‘over-egged, self-important and grandiose, if not pretentious.’ [47].
This evolution reflects the pragmatic, journalistic, marketing origins in See Through News, described by one early Network member as a ‘quasi-academic, crude mash-up of basic nudge theory, advertising tricks and camp-fire storytelling.’ [48].
Transparent Trojan Horseplay development
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Even Incubation Phase-era critics of TTH’s theoretical robustness, however, acknowledged its effectiveness in practice.
Interviewed for the NRK documentary Hvis du ikke kan kjøpe integritet, hvorfor skal du da kunne selge den? (2028)[49] , a management consultant who was the architect of the Network’s Incubation Phase branding and infrastructure said:
‘I did my best to instil discipline into what the Network insisted on calling its ‘CRFTS methodology’ – which turned out to just be an acronym of the Chinese proverb ‘Crossing the river by feeling for the stones’. Honestly, it was pretty chaotic back then. I nearly quit more than once, but stuck with it because of the real-world results’.
TTH was the starting point of The Network’s 4-step ‘Engagement Journey’. In The Economist’s Feb 2027 special edition Gift Horse Distribution – you heard it here first! the web designer who created the Network’s iconic standing-walking-jogging-sprinting logo said:
‘TTH borrowed a lot from Big Oil’s PR shills, plus bits from the movies, comedy and advertising. Our Engagement Journey graphic reverse-engineered Big Oil’s disinformation strategy, and ripped off the advertising’s ‘AIDA’ mantra – Attention-Interest-Desire-Action. We just replaced buying a fizzy drink, car, T-shirt, gadget or fag with a carbon-reducing action. [50]
Many potential collaborators supported the Network’s TTF and Engagement Journey methodologies, but were unconvinced it could work in practice without money.
In the May 2029 BBC Panorama special ‘Sludge As Well As Lubricant – world-leading money-free climate network was Made In Britain’, another founding Network member recalled how TTF development stalled during the Network’s Moneywobble period (2021-23):
‘The idea was to make ordinary people see taking measurable climate action as making them a bigger hero of their own narrative than buying some bit of plastic tat or sugary drink. It may seem obvious now, but back then when people said ‘good luck with that’ they didn’t mean it as encouragement. We were all wearing money-goggles in those days. You can’t know you don’t need money until you try it, and no one had tried it.’[51]
From its 2021 origins, TTH underpinned all the Network’s public-facing projects and content, e.g. The Think Game, Speaking of…Language and Climate, Room From A View etc.
For TTH use in private negotiations, see The December Experiments below.
Transparent Trojan Horseplay criticism
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The Network’s application of behavioural psychological ‘dark arts’ to climate activism was, and remains, a recurring source of criticism.
A dwindling rump cult of ‘Willing Inactivists’ still level this critique at the Network (see Fox News Implosion).
The Network’s standard responses are:
- Hypocrisy/Emulation: TTH is explicitly based on the nudge strategies pioneered by, and still deployed by Big Oil’s network of PR companies and junk-tanks (see 55 Tufton Street).
- Transparency: unlike Big Oil, the Network’s policy of Radical transparency requires it to provide clear links to articles explaining its Methodology in great detail. Most decline to follow them. Only 0.1-0.3% of See Through Together viewers, and less than 0.05% of See Through News-administered Facebook Group members click on the links provided. The See Through Network dismisses accusations of ‘hiding in plain sight’ by claiming ‘it proves the whole point of TTH – most people are much too interested in finding out ‘what happens next’ to be distracted by long articles about behavioural psychology’[52].
- Labelling: in one of the earliest public TTH trials, one pioneering Gift Horse Distributor explicitly referenced TTH methodology during a Languages Day speech at a Hampshire secondary school: ‘I’m manipulating you right now, but if I tell you I’m manipulating you, can I really be manipulating you?’’ (Learning Languages Is Easy, Fun and Educational – Just Watch! 2023). This comment, likened to a ‘conjurer explaining tricks while performing them’[53] went unremarked on the day. Schoolchildren and staff in the audience for that speech interviewed for the PBS documentary A Much Tougher Business Than You Might Think (2028)[54] were adamant the carbon drawdown call to action was a sidebar to their Languages Day speech, rather than the reverse. Still, they acknowledged remembering more about the ‘aircraft carriers and fridge thing’ than they did about the Latin and Greek.
Most commentators point to the creation of the oft-cited Transparent Trojan Horseplay website section in December 2025 as the turning point in the Network’s rapid transition from Incubation Phase (see above) to Scaling Phase (see below).
Early Methodological Inconsistency
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During its Incubation Phase, a widening methodological inconsistency emerged between:
- how the See Through Network presented itself in public-facing content and projects to its Unwilling Inactivist target audience using Transparent Trojan Horseplay
- how it presented itself in private meetings with potential commercial, academic or public body collaborators.
A deferential attitude to potential funders was prudent 2021-2022, before the Moneywobble debate was resolved, but made little sense once the Network had committed to going zero-budget.
With See Through Carbon’s adoption of itsIf You Can’t Buy Integrity, Why Should You Be Able To Sell It?strapline, this contradiction started to foment internal debate.
Incubation Phase See Through News articles and contemporary accounts of negotiations confirm the Network’s growing frustration at the low efficiency of its external meetings. The contrast with the speed, agility and growth experienced internally, as more people joined the Network, became increasingly stark.
The reasons for this inconsistency are made clear in Part 1 Zig-Zagger and Part 2 Smuggler of the Network’s Founder’s vision, which blames ‘learned behaviour’ from his commercial career (see Money, It’s A Gaslight: Climate Change and Finance).
Part 3 Activist, covers what the Founder ‘unlearned’ about the importance of money, but doesn’t detail the transition from Oliver Twist to Tom Sawyer.
Oliver Twist Approach and Inconsistency
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From its 2021 inception to mid-2025, when interacting with higher-status individuals, businesses or organisations in ‘business meeting’ contexts, the Network adopted what became known as an ‘Oliver Twist’ approach in private negotiations; supplicatory, deferential, accommodating, begging.
By 2025 the Network had embraced its zero-budget ‘ecosystem’ model. Its ‘no bank account’ stance distinguished the Network from virtually all other climate activists organisations, underpinning its ‘Best Story’ reputation and unique status among climate activist groups.
During 2025, the Network’s need to actively market itself was diminishing. The Nov 2025 launch of the www.seethroughnetwork.org website accelerated this trend.
The was facilitated by the Metrics That Don’t Matter summary of the Network’s non-financial assets:
- See Through News-administered Facebook group members had passed 1M
- See Through Together’s YouTube channel had sailed past 300K views and would shortly achieve ‘Partner’ status
- YellowDog’s 2022 US$500K donation still ‘raised eyebrows, even if they often became knitted when its ‘in-kind’ nature was explained’ [citation needed]
By late 2025, with the Moneywobble sceptics having left convinced the Network was doomed to fail, it rapidly became clear that the reputational and practical benefits of operating without money vastly outweighed any diminishing operational drawbacks. Sceptics had left the Network, but were being replaced by greater numbers of new members attracted by its integrity.
By October 2025, See Through News had published How To Do Good With No Money, ranking the ‘Ten Requirements’ – common misconceptions of why people are convinced effective climate activism activism is impossible without money, pointing out the Network has just ticked off #8 (it achieved #9, ‘Have others pay volunteers’ in Feb 2026, and claimed to have achieved #10 ‘Operate at scale’ by Jan 2029).
But by the winter of 2025, the focus had shifted to the widening gap between the Network’s private ‘Oliver Twist’ negotiating stance and its public ‘Tom Sawyer’ methodology..
Network members began to questioning this contradiction. They criticised contintuing the ‘Oliver Twist’ approach in private negotiations was both methodologically inconsistent, but also unproductive. The See Through Network was growing in all respects, apart from the continusing low efficiency of converting potential institutional, NGO or business partners in private negotiations.
Drivers to the Twist-Sawyer Transition
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By 2025, exogenous conditions were also making the Oliver Twist approach less tenable.
November’s COP30 confirmed the USA’s complete withdrawal from any global climate leadership. President Trump’s ‘climate hoax’ stance, while publicly supported by corporate America (see Tech Bro Brownnose Hubris & Humiliation 2028), was having no effect on public opinion globally (see Public opinion on climate change).
In the early 2020s, this geopolitical power vacuum was filled by the EU, via its European Green Deal. The January 2026 implementation of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) panicked big business, as they realised the EU was serious about enforcing €80/tonne non-compliance penalties.
The EU’s consensual structure still offered greenwashing businesses scope for delay or dilution, but for multinationals, foot-dragging was no longer a viable option. Mainsteam media didn’t report it until well into 2026, but industry insiders acting on private research had already realised the sudden shift in global carbon reporting leadership.
Following Big Oil’s capture of the White House, China was rapidly overtaking the EU when it came to carbon reporting leadership and standard-setting.
The transition from what the See Through Network called ‘The Voluntary Era, or carbon accounting 1.0’ to ‘The Age of Compliance, or carbon accounting 2.0’ surprised complacent businesses who’d assumed ‘business as usual’ would go on forever.
By late 2025, with the first CSRD compliance deadlines weeks away, the See Through Network no longer needed to explain either the problem of auditable Scope 3 supply chain reporting, nor See Through Carbon’s unique solution to the ‘SME Paradox’.
The Network was by now getting positive responses to its ‘Tour de France’ challenge to C-suite executives to identity with the 2%’ of leaders rather than 98% of followers. This was Network’s climate-focused version of the ‘Crossing The Chasm’ start-up model favoured by Silicon Valley ‘disruptors’.
At this point, Network Founder Robert Stern (disambiguate from architect and testicular surgeon of same name) proposed a radical change of approach, harmonising the See Through Network’s public and private storytelling strategy.
…[Extract ends]
* only accessible to readers who can visually distinguish a hyperlink from blue text, or curious enough to try clicking the links