I took a holiday in July. After Googling "top 50 non-fiction books”, I decided to download The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert. Despite it being a fact-filled description of how biological life has almost ceased to exist on Planet Earth five times already, it reads more like a thriller given my outcome is now in your hands.
Almost everybody agrees humans are heating up our only home. Slightly fewer people believe that, if we don’t do something about it, we will be lashed by storms and our insurance will go up. But few are using the term human-driven global extinction.
Language is critical for effective transformational leadership. It needs to strike hard but be relatable. Definitely not disconnected, exaggerated or farfetched. No leader wants to be dismissed as being ‘on the spectrum’ but what words do you chose when the evidence points to humans plundering ourselves to extinction?
It’s interesting to trace the terms associated with climate change (the description du jour). It started out as global warming, which frankly I was a fan of because living in the Roaring 40s means quite cold winters. That term has had its glory days and fashion has moved on. Google will only give you 404 million results to read.
After a couple of decades where global warming seemed to have more upside than downside, climate change struck a chord. That’s a nice, non-offensive term that makes us feel like some change is in the air but nothing too threatening. It’s as palatable as flying to Europe for a mid-winter break and Google agrees with a whopping 2.62 billion results.
As politicians entered the stage, they needed a stronger cocktail to justify disrupting our nice, non-offensive lives. Climate crisis was born and secondary school children marched the streets with tears running down their cheeks. Interestingly, my two teenagers have now substituted tears for cars with no sign of biking to school / university as they once did. Google agrees. Climate crisis is a bit jarring to our lifestyle and comes out with 703 million results. Probably a similar number of climate legislation pages throughout the 195 countries.
Global boiling really got the heckles up in July when announced by United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres. That just doesn’t feel OK. Nobody wants to imagine themselves as a lobster sitting in the pot, although it sometimes felt like that in Italy this winter. Maybe it’s because the description feels a bit disconnected, exaggerated or farfetched but Google will only give you 232 million results.
If that was bad, then Google’s pitiful 39 million results will confirm that we are covering our eyes with our hands when using, human-driven global extinction. Nobody’s up for that.
If you want to be a transformational leader, my recommendation is to go for impact and back it up with passion and facts. Use human-driven global extinction and stand out. Or if you don’t want to get in the ring, rest up in the comfy mainstream and use sustainability (the winner at 2.65 billion results), whatever that means.
Chris Bailey
GreenHalo Founder
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