Abstract
Responding to the "unprecedented, catastrophic flooding" that devastated local communities in the town of Lismore in 2022 in the biggest modern flood disaster in Australian history,1 Nicole Rogers writes that
[a]ll academics, and not only the academics of a university already experiencing the ravages of climate change, have an overriding obligation to be climate activists. There is no possible justification for neutrality, dissembling or prevarication in light of what we know, and have experienced, at 1.1 degrees of global warming.
(Rogers, 2023, p. 133)
Animated by her impassioned appeal, this "undisciplined" handbook sets out to examine grassroots climate activism as a crucial feature of an epoch of perilous human-environmental crises. It starts from three primary questions: what does grassroots climate activism - or taking action on climate change - look like in different parts of the world and in different political, economic, cultural, and institutional contexts? How can it be studied in "undisciplined" ways - without the restraints of disciplinary boundaries, and by giving space to nuance, dilemma, and critical analysis - while remaining sensitive to the phenomenal urgency of climate breakdown? And in what ways can a handbook such as this serve as a prompt for others to get involved in tackling the climate crisis, in the circumstances of their own lives, and using the repertoires of action available to them?