It’s Not That Radical, by Mikaela Loach

Here’s a book I’ve been looking forward to for a while – Mikaela Loach’s It’s Not That Radical: Climate Action to Transform our World. You may have come across Mikaela Loach, as she became quite a prominent climate justice activist a couple of years ago. She’s also a junior doctor, and now an author as well.

An interesting book it is too – a climate book with no science, no technologies. Kind of the opposite of the ‘white guy runs the numbers and tells us what must be done’ books that dominate the climate reading list. And hey, I read and review those books too, so you can unroll those eyes. It’s just that there have been quite a lot of them, and fewer of this kind. Ones that talk more about solidarity, empathy and community as climate change solutions.

Mikaela Loach is a climate justice advocate, and that is distinct from traditional environmentalism. The latter often seeks to protect the status quo by tweaking things, “making the same world we have now but ‘green’.” Climate justice looks to “open up the whole world to transformation,” seeking multiple benefits, liberation, new possibilities, solutions that “will not only prevent climate breakdown, but also make for a better world for all of us.”

From that perspective, climate action is connected to the struggle for racial equality, to class, to indigenous rights, to poverty alleviation. It’s connected to health inequality, something Loach knows a thing or two about as a doctor. Practically every cause that people fight for gets harder with climate change layered on top, something I discuss in my own book, and so it’s important to build bridges between movements. There is power in coalitions, in relationships.

It’s Not That Radical looks at how we build these bridges, and the forces of racial hierarchy, elitism and consumer capitalism that stand in the way of that powerful unity. Because Loach is wise to how angry and divided the conversation about these topics has become, there are all sorts of anticipated questions and observations along the way. There are notes on cancel culture, identity politics, tokenism, on avoiding the simple mental shortcut of dividing everything into binary categories: right/left, good/bad, us/them.

Instead, we should value nuance, that most under-appreciated of words. We should see people’s full humanity, recognising that those who hold different views to our own are just as multifaceted as we are. We will be better equipped to accept criticism if we believe in our own inherent worth, in a world that always wants to sort everybody into hierarchies of who matters and who doesn’t.

It’s Not That Radical is personal too. Loach talks openly about the downsides of being thrust into the role of an ‘influencer’, the expectations, the burnout, the dangers of putting people on a pedestal. Climate change is personal too, and Loach writes about the risk to her Grandma in Jamaica, and to the places that she loves.

Ultimately, the book is a call to action across movements, and for readers to find their place in the struggle for a better future. Any social change takes “sustained, long and often quiet work from millions of ordinary people over generations,” and climate justice will be no different. “We will always need new people, new perspectives and new energy to take on some of the work required to transform the world.”