Enabling Change: Vision, Progress & Benefits

Greater Progress

Increased Benefits

Stronger Shared Vision

Here are three models of change that can assist any change. This page is oriented towards:

  • promoting climate action (community change), but the same principles apply to:
  • change in organisations, and
  • change in individuals, e.g. change assisted by counselling.

Vision, Progress and Benefits: A Virtuous Cycle

Change can follow a recognisable virtuous cycle:

  • A shared vision motivates progress.
  • That progress delivers concrete benefits.
  • Those benefits, in turn, strengthen commitment to the vision.
Greater Progress

Increased Benefits

Stronger Shared Vision

Vision, progress, and benefits can form a self-reinforcing virtuous cycle.

Progress, Benefits, & Climate Action

After a climate demonstration in September 2019, I realised that most of the banners were about:

  • what to stop, e.g., “Stop Adani”,
  • the dangers of climate inaction, e.g., “Welcome to the Age of Fire”, or
  • unspecified action, e.g., “Climate Action Now”.

I didn’t see banners promoting solutions like:

Climate action advocates need to emphasise not only the urgency of a green transition but also:

  • the tangible benefits of renewable energy, and
  • the real progress we are already making toward a green economy.

People often belittle renewable energy, as when the then-prime minister Morrison mocked the new big battery in South Australia as like the “Big Banana”. They do not release that now, in 2026, renewable generation supplies a substantial share of Australia’s electricity and underpins a growing, reliable energy system. (On the East Coast Grid, renewables generated about 43% of electricity in 2025.)

This matters because successful change follows the virtuous cycle outlined above. Strengthening this virtuous cycle is essential if public confidence, political support, and further investment are to continue to grow.

Australia has already made remarkable progress towards becoming a renewable energy superpower. So we can use this progress to promote this vision. The progress shows that the superpower vision is realistic, while the resulting benefits demonstrate its value.

Two other models of change

Three models of change have influenced my thinking about climate action:

  • The virtuous cycle of vision, progress and benefit
  • The states of grief
  • The determinants of change

Model: The States of Grief

Many demonstration banners warn of climate dangers and demand closures. These banners can lead people to fear, loss, and grief. They find it too painful and so do not join in efforts to make a change.

There are several stages or states of grief:

State: Denial

People can deny well-established climate science, e.g., refuse to accept that our current high levels of greenhouse gases are causing the planet to heat, bringing dangers like longer fire seasons with more intense fires.

Another form of denial is, “we all want to act on climate, but we have to be slow, incremental and realistic”. This stance denies the climate emergency.

State: Fantasy Solutions

People can grasp onto fantasy solutions, like:

State: Anger

People can react with anger. For example, they can attack the messengers of the bad news about fossil fuels, saying that greenies stopped hazard reduction burning and caused the recent fires.

State: Depression

They can be overcome by depression or despair, believing things like, “We have already blown it. There is nothing we can do”. They can also resort to “flight” and try not to think about climate, e.g., not watching David Attenborough wildlife shows to avoid distress.

State: Acceptance

Finally, they can accept well-established climate science and support climate action.

Repeated movement between states

These are the “stages of grief” described by the psychiatrist Dr Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. I refer to them as “states of grief” because people do not move through them in any set order. Indeed, people can flip between these states quickly and repeatedly. For example, even within a brief conversation, a person can flip from a state of denial and anger, fiercely saying that climate change is nonsense, to a state of depression, saying that there’s nothing we can do about it anyway.

Minimise the action-inhibiting states of grief.

An effective climate campaign should help people accept climate science by reducing people’s chances of entrapment by the climate action-inhibiting states of grief, i.e., denial, fantasy, anger, and depression.

Model: The Determinants of Change

Often, people urging climate action focus on the dangers of climate change. This model of change suggests promoting the dangers and more.

I based these “determinants of change” on an organisation development model, the Beckhard-Harris Change Model.

The five determinants of change follow.

Determinant: Dissatisfaction

Change is more likely when people are dissatisfied with the current situation, e.g., when they are concerned about the dangers of climate change.

The difficulty of promoting the dangers of climate change is that frightening people into change increases the chances of those climate action inhibiting states of grief, i.e., denial, fantasy, anger, and depression.

Determinant: Vision

Change is more likely when you have a widely shared vision, e.g., the vision of Australia as a renewable energy superpower could gain widespread acceptance. An inspiring vision draws people into the change with excitement. They want to change rather than have to change.

Determinant: Plans

Change is more likely when you have plans for the next steps towards the vision. We have many plans that are consistent with the superpower vision, plans by:

  • Companies like Sun Cable,
  • government organisations like the Australian Energy Management Organisation and the CSIRO, and
  • non-government organisations like Beyond Zero Emissions,

Determinant: Benefits

Change is more likely when people see the benefits of the proposed change. The superpower vision offers many benefits, like:

  • a more robust and sustainable economy, and
  • zero-emissions energy for Australia and the world.

Determinant: Costs

Change is more likely when people view the costs as low, reasonable, or inevitable. One example of how Australia could reduce the perceived cost of the superpower vision would be to prioritise a just transition for fossil fuel workers.

Promote each determinant of change

The “determinants of change” model suggests that you make change more likely by promoting each determinant:

  • Disatisfaction with the current status
  • Vision for the future
  • Plans for action
  • Benefits of the vision, possible or achieved
  • Reasonable costs of the change

Loaded Nov 2020. Changed 18 Jan 2026