In Bill McKibben’s writing, “Movements Without Leaders,” he explains his ideas on how we can fix climate change through social change and social movement. Duhigg and McKibben have the same ideas about movements and leaders, and McKibben says, “[A]s a result, I think, I imagined that he [Martin Luther King Jr.] set the template for how great movements worked. They had a leader, capital L,” (McKibben 1). Dughigg feels that “[S]ocial habits are what fill the streets with protestors who may not know one another, who might be marching for different reasons, but who are all moving in the same direction,” (Duhigg 87). This is exactly what McKibben did around the planet, he staged 24 hours of rallies with 5,200 demonstrations in 181 countries, spending the last few years in constant motion around the world being an activist for climate change. When “…10 million solar arrays on 10 million rooftops are linked together. The engineers call this “distributed generation,”” (McKibben 2) McKibben says this process of everything working together and relying one on one, “[T]he same principle, it seems to me, applies to movements” (McKibben 2). Duhigg’s strong-ties and weak-ties use this principle as well. Duhigg relies on everyone coming together whether you know them or not and when that is “…fulfilled can a movement become self-propelling and reach a critical mass” (Duhigg 87). Duhigg’s third part of his three-part process revolves exactly around McKibben, “…a movement’s leaders give participants new habits that create a fresh sense of identity and a feeling of ownership” (Duhigg 87). McKibben does what he does not to just be a leader but to keep the ball rolling and make sure this movement does not end. McKibben’s theory is that the world needs to be remade in record time but, “[T]hat won’t happen thanks to a paramount leader, or even dozens of them. It can only happen with a spread-out and yet thoroughly interconnected movement, a new kind of engaged citizenry” (McKibben 8).
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