When will the revolution begin?

The question of possible new revolutions is never far from thoughts when writing about the history of the French Revolution – but what kind, where, and whose? In their analysis of the French Revolution historian William M. Reddy writes of “emotional management” and “emotional refuge”¹ – how are today’s citizens managing emotions in the crossfire of compassion fatigue, apathy, and social media rage, and where do they find refuge in the time of the climate crisis?

Entangled with other wicked problems and obfuscated by wars and political crises, climate change remains an issue, which affects everyone and everything from decline of biodiversity to migration to collapse of civilization. It has become a human rights issue – and more than that: an existential multispecies community rights issue. ‘Are governments protecting their countries and citizens from climate change?’ thus becomes a central question in the relationship between the citizen and the state. What can citizens do if governments are failing in this task?

Civic courage?

Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen 1789 is one of the most lasting legacies of the French Revolution. Behind its values were Enlightenment ideas about the universality of human rights – the oft-quoted liberté, égalité, fraternité. In research on human rights, inequality is recognised as one of the driving forces behind societal instability.² In tyrannies the opportunities to participate in societal affairs and challenge the inequalities and perceived injustice are severely restricted, but for democracies civil rights are the founding principle.

Political scientists, Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth argue that nonviolent civil resistance appeals to a wider base of supporters than violent campaigns and can have significant impact because of its inclusivity.³ Today’s eclectic group of climate activists take a leaf out of the book of 1960’s civil rights movement and protest in the streets to raise awareness.

Nevertheless, human rights activism can prove problematic even in democracies. In the UK climate activists have been sent to jail for nonviolent protest⁴, which raises doubts about whether the state is committed to democracy and climate goals. Is defending the planet against multinational fossil fuel giants a criminal act or an act of civic courage – is the focus on protecting the profits of the shareholders or the land and its habitants?

Visions for planetary future

In the visions of sustainability research, possible futures oscillate somewhere between a systems change through degrowth and sustainability, and civilizational collapse. Professor of climate justice Naomi Klein and author Astra Taylor write that the “end times fascism” of oligarchs – exacerbating environmental destruction and waiting for the collapse sheltered by wealth – is a betrayal of one another as human beings on the most basic level.

As a solution, Klein and Taylor suggest regulation (e.g. in the form of international environmental laws to protect the planet; see Stop Ecocide International, or the study Carbon majors and the scientific case for climate liability, 2025⁵) and empathy (because it suggests that we as human beings have responsibility towards other human beings, the nonhuman world, and the planet we share).⁶

Compassionate action

Citizens are confronted with the question of rights once more, with added complexity and urgency. In the history of struggle for rights people have been excluded and abused in ways, which would now be seen as glaring human rights violations. Perhaps future historians will look at us and wonder how we could deny the rights of, and so casually practise systematic cruelty towards, nonhuman animals. One of the difficult questions to ask oneself is, knowing that it harms the environment and nonhuman animals, why do you choose to eat meat and drink milk?

Emphasis on multispecies and multidisciplinary approaches in research reflects the complexity of the environmental and societal problems. It also highlights the value of collaboration and conversation across divides.

A recent workshop, Multidisciplinary Approaches to Sustainability, organised by University of Turku and Åbo Akademi, sent participants off with the message to enable the potential of everyone from humans to nonhumans to create sustainable ways of living together on Earth. Perhaps this could be interpreted as seeking emotional refuge in compassionate action to bring about a sustainable ecological revolution.

Heidi Tähtinen (PhD student, Opera i periferin? Åbo och Paris som musik- och teaterstäder, 1790–1840, project funded by SLS)

1. Reddy, William M. The navigation of feeling. A framework for the history of emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [2001] 2009.  ↩︎
2. See, e.g. Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights: A history (2007); Colin J. Beck et al., On revolutions (2022); Walter Scheidel, The great leveler (2017). ↩︎
3. Stephan, Maria J., and Erica Chenoweth. Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. International Security, vol. 33, no. 1, 2008, pp. 7–44. ↩︎
4. Gayle, Damien. Sixteen jailed UK climate activists to appeal against ‘unduly harsh’ sentences. The Guardian, 29 Jan 2025. ↩︎
5. Callahan, C. W., & Mankin, J. S. Carbon majors and the scientific case for climate liability. Nature (London), 640(8060), 893–901, 2025. Stop Ecocide International, Council of Europe Assembly Advances Historic Ecocide Treaty, April 14, 2025. https://www.stopecocide.earth/home . See also, Earth4All Survey and the Global Commons Alliance Survey, Ipsos UK, 2024. https://earth4all.life/global-survey-2024/ ↩︎
6. Klein, Naomi and Astra Taylor. The rise of end times fascism. The Guardian, 13 April, 2025. ↩︎