We launched this site in 2019 driven by two feelings. The first was an urge to confront the interconnected crises facing us, as inhabitants of this planet—crises that affect us in highly unequal ways. The second was a sense of doubt, a feeling that our efforts might seem amateurish, pointless, or even megalomaniacal.
Back in 2019, the crisis that captured most of our attention was the climate and ecological crisis. There are many reasons why this crisis can make you feel amateurish: It is so vast and complex that it’s exhausting to even think about it. In our everyday lives, there is little occasion to discuss it. In almost any social setting—whether it’s lunch with colleagues or a WhatsApp group with high school friends—bringing up the climate crisis can feel like breaking a taboo, spoiling the mood, or even provoking hostility.
At the same time, taking action often comes with immense doubt: Will what I do even make a difference? Is the information I’m acting on reliable? Are my actions consistent? Will others dismiss me as a naïve treehugger, an eco-extremist, or a self-important wannabe planet-savior? And why do I care about their opinions when lives are lost daily to ecological breakdown?
We had the sense that there are few spaces where it feels acceptable to discuss these questions.
Now in 2024, both our sense of crisis and our feelings of amateurishness have only intensified. Concepts like class, imperialism, and fascism loom larger, and the question of ‘what can be done’ has only grown more complex.
Back in 2019, we believed the answer lay in collectivizing—in shifting the focus from individual lifestyle politics to collective activism. While we still believe collectivizing is crucial, we realize that many social movements of the past few decades have not reached their desired goals. In If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution, Vincent Bevins shows how many of the mass protest movements that have shaped the 21st century ended up failing to achieve their aims. In some cases, they even gave rise to something worse.
The point here isn’t to blame social justice movements for their defeats. After all, defeat is inevitable for anyone who dares to try. It is part of the amateur’s journey, and, at this moment in time, it seems to define life on the left.
From the re-election of Donald Trump to the massacre in Gaza, it feels as though there is only loss and pain. It’s nearly impossible to shake off the sense that—no matter what we try to do for human rights, social justice, or the health of our ecosystems—it is all somewhat futile, doomed to be defeated by those who have the power and resources to maintain business as usual.
Are we being too negative? Perhaps. And yet, we are tired of having to fake optimism when the situation just doesn’t look very positive. Whether it’s continued investments in fossil fuels, the failure to uphold international humanitarian law, or the rising popularity of right-wing nationalism, things objectively don’t look good for the majority of the human species—not to mention the animals, plants, and ecosystems that share this planet. To say so isn’t doomism; it’s simply honesty. Inspired by existentialist philosophy, we believe authenticity trumps forced optimism. It is better to confront a challenge in good faith than to escape into toxic positivity.
But where does this leave us? For now, it leaves us with a lot of questions—questions we probably cannot all answer. What we can do, however, is create a space for people who wish to address them. Planetamateur is a space for those who know that acting on today’s planetary crises may feel futile, but still choose to act.
With this in mind, this site explores various forms and scales of amateur action—ranging from the individual lifestyle politics we engage in daily (for better or worse), to collective activism and the pursuit of socio-structural change.
Over the years, we’ve learned that trying to act on a planet in multi-crisis involves setbacks, moments of pause and rearrangement, impatience, and a nagging sense of inadequacy. All of this is typical for amateurism…and we keep going anyhow.
Planetary Crises, Amateurish Actions 