"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing."              -Muhammad Ali

It is hard for most people to imagine life without fossil fuels. They're present in almost all aspects of our daily lives. They facilitate nearly everything we do. Are we in love? Maybe not, but in being so dependent on fossil fuels, we've not only formed a codependent relationship, we've mentally normalized their permanency in our lives. But the permanency of fossil fuels is an illusion. Not only are there existing alternatives that would allow us to eliminate fossil fuels in many or most aspects of our lives, but continued combustion of fossil fuels is directly incompatible with near-term, continued life on this planet. If people burn existing fossil fuels, global temperatures are certain to exceed 4 and 5 degrees C, at which point the infrastructure that supports our existence falters and collapses (according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report) and living outside climate-controlled buildings becomes effectively impossible (see the recent "Risky Business" report for more info on how life in the U.S. is and will be affected by climate change).

Yet after a straw poll in the office and amongst our colleagues in other climate organizations, we noticed that even sophisticated environmental professionals are convinced that fossil fuels are necessary to daily life, at least in the near term, despite the fact that such fossil fuel use is logically and mathematically contrary to the continuation of civilization as we know it. The myths are propagated by the fossil fuel industry and they're accepted not only by the public but by much of the environmental community itself, which creates additional hurdles for our work at As You Sow to bring about corporate change. We press the energy sector using shareholder advocacy to dialogue with national and international energy companies and persuade them to move towards sustainable business models and operations. In order for oil, gas and coal companies to change, they have to believe they can move away from fossil fuels. They have to believe that a different future is possible, one in which they are diversified energy companies and power suppliers rather than 'oil' or 'coal' companies; and to make that belief possible, we have to believe that fossil fuels are not, in fact, necessary to daily life.

How can we as a people approach this problem - how can we "break up" with fossil fuel? That's the challenge we at As You Sow sought to address in our 'Pause'. We brought together a marriage counselor, media experts, environmental experts, and the As You Sow energy team. We used the first of two meetings funded by our Pause to clarify our thinking about this issue. We learned about the language of 'toxic relationships' and saw how closely it mirrored the rhetoric used by the fossil fuels industry. We learned about what kind of language and rhetoric helps average, busy people think about climate change, and what kind of language makes it more difficult for them to approach an issue. We learned about the important psychological role of hope. We learned about how the public polls on climate change. We learned about demographics. We also noted that popular culture tells us that "breaking up is hard to do." It was a day of learning that brought many of us who work on climate change every day to a central place of questioning: what is the smartest way to approach this issue? With the knowledge of everything the environmental movement has accomplished in the last hundred years, how can we build on that success in this critical window of time we have to act on climate change before things really fall apart?

After that day of reflection and strategizing, we emerged with a plan to deploy a media campaign aimed at introducing people to the idea of “Breaking Up” with fossil fuels, psychologically and in their daily lives. We will use a second Pause to bring this campaign to other organizations with whom we would like to partner, to test some of our messaging ideas and to explore who would make the best messengers. We will also develop a plan to raise funds to execute the campaign; and depending on the pace of that effort, hope to launch in 2015-16, the year of the much-anticipated Paris Climate Talks. We’re immensely excited about this project, and we think we have the tools to truly rock conventional thinking about fossil fuel dependency. As You Sow has a history of focusing companies on the future they could have, the future their stakeholders and shareholders deserve; now we are focusing stakeholders on the companies they could have, and the companies they deserve. After all, breaking up may be hard to do, but there are also “50 ways to leave your lover.”

Come to our website to learn more and join the campaign.