Free Software, Climate Change, and the Importance of Creeds-End Fit

The Challenge of Coordination

Thurman Arnold writes that creeds shape the functioning of organizations. An important challenge with respect to climate change is organizing people to press for needful changes to climate policies in a broad range of countries. In seeking to develop such a coordinated movement, attention to the organizational implications of the creeds used to market the movement is essential. Put another way, there needs to be an assessment of creeds-end fit, and creeds which do not help develop an organizational psychology capable of supporting the work that needs to be done should be de-emphasized.

To deal effectively with climate change, there must be a measure of policy coordination across countries. If the United States adopts a climate law which imposes carbon emissions limits, and production simply migrates to countries with less stringer limits, global emissions will remain unchanged. This is referred to as the problem of leakage. What this means is that even if activists are successful in pushing for a strong climate law in their own country, they will fail to solve the global problem of climate change. For this reason, among others, Richard Lazarus has referred to climate change as a "super wicked problem."

Arnold's Theory of Organizational Psychology

The Experience of the Free Software Movement

In this respect, climate change activists can learn a great deal from the free software movement, which has been particularly thoughtful about the content of its creed and the seemingly subtle but important implications of words.

Richard Stallman recognized the disconnect. There was a lack of creeds-end fit. A creed of open source may help convince corporations to help produce some powerful free software, but in the long term it provides no creedal counter to the sale and use of software which restricts user freedoms.

Climate Change: Ethics or Incentives?

Similarly, for the climate movement to rely on the language of incentives may seem appealing. Energy companies have begun to rebrand themselves. However, this creed of incentive doesn't provide the means to support the types of sacrifices needed to deal effectively with global climate change, which will fall with greatest fury on the poor.

Al Gore, in attempting to shift to an ethical frame, rather than an incentive frame, invokes the analogy of World War II. However - nationalist frame. Reliance on carbon based fuels has been compared to slavery. Quakers. Student essay.