I will wait for you.

Sounds cute. When it comes to social change, it might be one of the worst strategies we have.

There is something strangely comforting about waiting for someone else to move first.

I’ll start buying less when everyone else does.
I’ll take the train when it becomes more normal.
I’ll stop buying cheap clothes when other people stop too.
I’ll eat less meat when nobody thinks it’s weird anymore.

I will wait for you.

The problem is: you might be waiting for me too.

And this is where things get interesting.

A large global study published in Nature Climate Change, involving almost 130,000 people across 125 countries, found something remarkable. 89% of people said their government should do more to fight climate change. 69% said they would be willing to contribute 1% of their household income every month to climate action. And 86% agreed that people should try to fight climate change.

Yet there was a huge gap between what people actually believed and what they thought other people believed.

People systematically underestimated how willing their fellow citizens were to act.

The researchers call this pluralistic ignorance: a situation in which we collectively misread what other people think or want. We look at what people do and assume it reflects what they believe.

And because we are social creatures, what we think other people are doing matters.

The same research found that people were more willing to contribute themselves when they believed others were willing to contribute too. In other words, we are often conditional cooperators. We are willing to do our bit when we feel that other people are doing theirs too.

That creates a rather absurd loop.

Imagine a group of people who would all prefer a different kind of fashion system: fewer clothes, better quality, fairer production, less waste.

Everyone looks around and sees everyone else buying cheap clothes.

So we conclude: apparently, this is what people want.

And we keep buying them.

Not necessarily because we love the system. Sometimes it is simply hard to be the person who steps outside what seems normal.

Research into sustainable food has found a similar pattern. People can overestimate how much others value or engage in unsustainable eating habits, which can reinforce the feeling that those habits are simply “normal”.

And young consumers are not necessarily as indifferent to sustainable fashion as their shopping baskets might suggest. Research among 6,000 young consumers in France, the UK, Germany, Italy and the US found that environmental and social considerations play an important role in how younger generations think about fashion, even while price, trends and convenience continue to shape what they actually buy.

That distinction matters.

Because what is normal is not necessarily what we want.

Sometimes it is simply what we think everyone else wants.

And that is where collective action becomes interesting.

When hundreds of people decide to slow down together for a day, put their phones away, stay in bed, take the train instead of the car, cook something plant-based, repair something instead of replacing it, or simply make a little less noise and a little more room, something happens beyond the individual act.

We see each other.

We discover that the person next to us was thinking something very similar.

And suddenly an opinion that felt private becomes visible.

That is part of what we are trying to do with Slow Up.

A day of slowing down will not solve the climate crisis. Putting your phone away for a few hours will not change the world either.

But when enough people do something together, it can change our sense of what is possible, acceptable and normal.

It can make the quiet majority a little less quiet.

There is another side to this, too.

We should not put the entire responsibility for social change on individual behaviour. If 89% of people want their governments to do more on climate, governments do not need to wait until every citizen has changed their lifestyle first. They can make policy. They can change the rules of the game.

We don't need everyone to become perfect before change can begin.

We need to stop assuming that everyone else is waiting for someone else.

Because perhaps they are waiting for you.

And perhaps, all this time, you have been waiting for them.

‍