Saving Us

by Katharine Hayhoe

  Then in terms of ideology, when solutions are presented as pertaining to the more liberal end of the political spectrum, conservatives see them as oppositional. Not only can they not do them, they don’t want to. But what if action turns out to be not only doable, but consistent with their values, just like John’s dad? All of a sudden their objection to the issue itself evaporates, because they can be part of the solution now, rather than being part of the problem.

  WHY ACTION EMPOWERS

  What builds our sense of efficacy when it comes to climate action? Research is still emerging, but the bottom line is pretty intuitive. When you hear or see or learn about what the real solutions look like, and how many of them are already being implemented or will be in the near future, that can increase your efficacy. And when you see someone else do something or find out about something you can do in your personal life—or in the case of John’s dad, something he’d already done—that increases your efficacy, too.

  It’s a true positive feedback cycle. When we feel empowered to act, individually and communally, that makes us not only more likely to act, but to support others who do. It’s a very human response that has been identified again and again around the world. It also inoculates us against despair: young people who are anxious about climate change, one survey found, aren’t paralyzed by it if they are able to act. People along the U.S. Gulf Coast who were affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill turned out to be less depressed if they were participating in the cleanup themselves and actively doing something about it. And in general, the more we do something, the more it matters to us and the more we care.

  It’s not about being a lone ranger, either. Collective efficacy is even more important—the idea that together, as a community, we can make a difference. That’s why it’s so important to seek out like-minded groups: other athletes, parents, fellow birders or Rotarians, or people who share our faith. Together, our actions add up; it’s not just us alone anymore.

  That’s the premise behind Lisa Altieri’s BrightAction, an online community platform in the U.S. Households can set goals and take action as part of their community: their neighborhood, their scout troop, their church, or their place of work. They can share information online or in real life, and even compete against other “teams.” Who’s in? Dozens of cities, from Palo Alto, California, to Albany, New York; all the Hawaiian islands; even Arizona State University and the Episcopal Church of America have hired Lisa to create customized communities where people can cut their carbon emissions together. And fostering a sense of collective efficacy by getting things done is what Citizens’ Climate Lobby, or CCL, is all about, too.

  Marshall Saunders was a former Shell Oil employee and real estate broker from Waco, Texas. In his own words, he “awoke to the climate crisis when he saw the [Al Gore] documentary An Inconvenient Truth [and] discovered the power that a well-organized, properly trained group of citizens could wield to make the world a better place.” He founded CCL in 2007. By the time he passed away in 2019, it had over six hundred active chapters spread across sixty countries and every continent of the world except Antarctica.

  In the U.S., CCL has created bipartisan climate solutions caucuses in the Senate and in Congress. In Canada, they successfully lobbied for a fee-and-dividend approach to the national carbon tax. In Slovakia, I’ve shared the stage with a CCL advocate who explained the benefits of this approach for a coal-dependent country. And as I’ve traveled, I’ve met business people, faith leaders, retirees, and even many academics—from literature professors to astrophysicists—who wanted to advocate for climate solutions but felt helpless until they found a local CCL chapter. There, together with other concerned community members, they could be encouraged and encourage others. People could grow their collective efficacy through learning more about climate solutions and having conversations and meetings with their neighbors and their elected officials to advocate for change.

  TALKING CLIMATE SOLUTIONS WITH POLITICIANS

  David is a physician. He lives in Utah and grew up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, so he understands the faith that motivates so many in that state. He also knows what the thick blanket of smog hanging over Salt Lake City looks like and how it affects the health of the kids and adults who live there.

  When David retired, he knew he wanted to continue the fight for his patients’ health. He also knew that fixing air pollution and climate change was key to that—so he joined CCL. His local chapter asked if he’d be willing to reach out to his Republican state senator. “Sure!” he replied, with no idea of what he might be taking on. But my favorite thing about CCL is how they teach people to approach conversations, even with potentially hostile politicians: with gratitude for what they are doing for their constituents, and the attitude that we are all on the same page and trying to do the right thing.

  The first time David met with his state senator, the senator was cordial but cautious. He didn’t want to talk about climate change, but they found common ground on air quality because the senator was an avid biker. He often rode his bike fifteen miles to the state capitol for his legislative work. So his next visit, David started the conversation with appreciation for the senator’s desire to clean up Utah’s air. Soon, the senator invited him to spend the day with him at the Capitol during the legislative session. By the second year, his relationship with the senator was so close that when David mentioned that a Christian climate scientist (me) was coming to town and would he like to have breakfast, the answer was an immediate yes.

  Thanks to David, our conversation with the senator focused entirely on real problems and viable solutions. There was no discussion of thermometers or hoaxes—just genuine concern for those being impacted by climate change and air pollution and the challenges of accelerating the clean energy transition for the good of all. In some small towns in Utah, the entire community is built around the coal mine. If it’s shut down, it will throw people out of work and devastate the town. So how to attract a new industry to town, and how to ensure it would offer training and jobs, was the question at hand. Cutting coal use doesn’t just help with climate change, which is already hurting Utah’s lucrative winter recreation industry: it also helps with the air pollution as well. The senator cared, and David cared, because they both cared about the place where they lived and the people they shared it with. It just made sense.

  Marshall Saunders once said, “I used to think that the important people were taking care of the important problems. I don’t think that anymore.” He didn’t necessarily mean that it’s a bad thing. His epiphany was simply that leaders don’t magically fix problems, even when they’re important. What Marshall realized was that ordinary people share the power to fix important things—and indeed, are the best hope of getting things done.

  No matter what our place in society, important problems don’t get fixed until enough ordinary people mobilize to take action. It isn’t only about what we accomplish ourselves: connecting with others imbues us with a stronger sense of collective efficacy and builds a network of like-minded people. Sharing our opinions and actions alters social norms, the informal rules that govern our behavior. This in turn makes us more likely to support politicians who want climate action and policies to reduce carbon emissions, more likely to speak out about the need for climate solutions, and more likely to be in favor of the changes required to address climate change at scale. It’s like knocking over the first domino: action eventually changes us all.

  I. Of course you wouldn’t want to generate a whole country’s electricity in one location; this example is just to illustrate the potential of Texas solar and the fact that it’s really not a lot of land we’re talking about.

  19 WHAT I DO

  “Eating organic is nice, but if your goal is to save the climate your vote is much more important.”

  DAVID WALLACE-WELLS, THE UNINHABITABLE EARTH

  “We all try and solve a different part of the puzzle.”

  NATASJA VAN GESTEL, SOIL ECOLOGIS
T AND KATHARINE’S COLLEAGUE

  Every year, I add two new low-carbon habits to my life. I don’t do it because I believe my personal carbon emission reductions will make a difference. Even if all of us who care do our best, as I calculated in Chapter 13, our individual choices will never cut global carbon emissions to anywhere near the goal of the Paris Agreement. So why do I adopt these new habits?

  First, because it’s the right thing to do. Even if its impact on the world is meaningless, it’s important to me to feel like I am doing my part. I also do it because research has shown that climate scientists who take their own carbon footprint more seriously are perceived to be more credible messengers and are more effective advocates for others taking action and supporting climate-friendly policies. That’s no surprise; no one likes a hypocrite. But most of all, I do it because it inspires me, and it helps me inspire others, too. It knocks over the first domino, reminding me that action is possible. It gives me something to talk about, and it builds efficacy in others as I share with them (without lecturing or hectoring) what I’ve been doing and how I feel about it.

  STEPPING ON THE CARBON SCALES

  When you’re going to lose weight, the first thing you do is step on the scales to see what you weigh now; then you set a goal of where you want to be; and lastly, you determine what you’re going to do to get there. Count calories? Hire a personal trainer? Put a lock on the fridge?

  In the same way, the first step to cutting your carbon is to step on the carbon scales. And when I did this some years ago, it showed me that my travel was the first thing I had to tackle. The result was the virtual-and-bundle travel policy I described earlier. Now, I’ve put it on my website so everyone who goes there can see it. Pre-COVID, I often heard from people who’d never tried a virtual talk before but because that was the only kind I would do, they were willing to give it a try. Now, of course, nearly everyone is on board.

  When it’s time to make big purchases, I also factor in my carbon. When I replaced my old hybrid with a plug-in electric car, we had to charge it outside the house until we got an outlet installed in the garage. We lived on a small cul-de-sac where all the neighbors would wave from behind the closed windows of their SUVs as they passed. But when they saw the plug-in, they were astonished. Every neighbor would stop, get out of the car, and ask somewhat incredulously, “What is that?” On being told it was an electric car, they’d ask, “Where did you get it?” and “Does it have a gas pedal?” and “How much does it cost to charge?” (a lot less than a tank of gas) and “Can I take a look?” Next time, they’d roll down the window and lean out. “I love your car,” they’d say with a big smile. It was clearly the first one they’d ever seen: and they wouldn’t forget it.

  Even small changes can add up: washing your clothes in cold water instead of hot (which uses five times less energy and keeps your clothes from fading), or using smart power strips with your home computer and entertainment systems to reduce “vampire” load from devices in standby mode (some $19 billion, or $165 per household, of energy is wasted on this in the U.S. each year). One year, I finally sat down and figured out how many Kelvins I wanted my light bulbs to be so I could replace all our incandescent bulbs with soft white and warm LEDs. They last for years rather than months and use a fraction of the energy to run.

  YOUR FOOTPRINT IS WHAT YOU EAT

  As much as a third of the food grown and raised on the planet goes to waste. At the global scale, it’s estimated that 8 percent of human emissions of heat-trapping gases, primarily methane, are the result of that waste. If food waste were its own country, it would be the third biggest emitter annually today, after China and the U.S.

  In developing countries, it’s food that doesn’t make it to market or isn’t preserved before it decays. In wealthy countries, a lot of food is wasted before it ever hits your shopping cart. It’s rejected at the farm gate as too misshapen for supermarkets, or plowed into the ground because of a decrease in demand. A lot is wasted after we get it, too. In the U.S., people throw away enough food from their own plates or refrigerators each day to fill a ninety-thousand-seat football stadium.

  The food rescue organization Second Harvest estimates 58 percent of the food produced in Canada is either lost or wasted. About half of that occurs during processing, the other half during consuming—and half of it is avoidable. Food is valuable so an organization called Flashfood partnered with Loblaws, a popular Canadian grocery chain, to create an app that sells food approaching its “best before” date at a discount of 50 percent or more. According to Flashfood’s founder, Josh Domingues, as of 2020 the app has saved over nine thousand tons of food from the landfill—and he’s a customer himself. “It’ll actually dictate what I buy for dinner,” Domingues said.

  I don’t live in Canada anymore, but there’s still a lot I can do. Instead of one big grocery haul every two weeks, I make two or three small trips a week on the way home from campus. It’s quicker, easier, and it’s not hard to figure out what to cook every night; there are only two choices and the veggies are always fresh. I don’t need our extra freezer anymore, so I sold it and filled the empty space with racks where I now hang laundry instead of throwing it in the dryer.

  I also started looking at what we ate. Eating lower down in the food chain produces fewer heat-trapping gases, especially methane. On Earth today we are raising more than 30 billion land animals to consume. Livestock emissions—from deforestation, feed, fertilizer, and yes, cow burps and farts—account for 14 percent of total global heat-trapping gas emissions each year. Per kilogram, beef produces the most: one hundred kilograms of greenhouse gases for each kilogram of beef produced. Chicken is just a tenth that, at ten kilograms CO2eq per kilo of chicken. Eggs are five, and most fruits and vegetables are near or below one kilogram.

  In fact, if animal agriculture were its own country, it would tie at number three for annual heat-trapping gas emissions. That’s why, in countries where people eat a lot of industrially produced meat, a plant-rich diet is one of the most impactful steps we can take as individuals to reduce our personal emissions. Eating less meat means fewer animals belching methane, and it also saves us money and improves our health. When our family does eat beef, we buy from a local farm. Free-range grazing is more humane, sequesters carbon in the soil, and promotes animal health. There are a lot of invasive species here in Texas, too, from wild hogs to deer, that have to be regularly culled. For over thirty years, Broken Arrow Ranch has been working with wildlife ecologists and ranch owners to safely butcher and process the meat, turning it into steaks, sausage, and ground meat that would otherwise go to waste. And as a wider array of substitutes for milk, cheese, yogurt, butter, and even meat become available in most supermarkets in rich countries, making these changes increasingly doesn’t mean going without. My son became such a fan of Beyond Meat that when his grandparents were taking him out for burgers, he insisted they go somewhere that offered it as he preferred it to beef. In Toronto, it wasn’t too difficult to find. My dad tried one, and now he’s on board, too.

  Feeding pets is more of a problem, especially as there is a trend toward feeding dogs and cats fancy “human grade” meals. Instead, look for pet foods that take a “snout to tail” approach, serving parts of animals that humans don’t typically consume. A Futurra start-up called Lovebug and another by Purina called RootLab are developing and selling cat and dog food made from innovative proteins with a small carbon footprint, such as invasive Asian carp and cricket meal. While you might not be particularly excited to tuck into a cricket burger, Fido and Fluffy—or Timbit and Dr. Evil, as we call them—aren’t likely to recognize the difference.

  EVEN THE BEST LAID PLANS CAN FAIL

  There’s something I can’t do much of right now during these COVID times, though, and that’s recycle. Lubbock’s municipal recycling program handles a very limited range of items, and much of it just ends up in the dump. So for years, I used our university housing department’s home-grown program. It is the work of one woman
, Melanie Tatum, who carefully sourced and pieced together a host of different recycling options, from glass and plastics to electronics and Styrofoam. Even better, she used the proceeds from the recycling to support student workers, so my garbage was helping students.

  But then the coronavirus hit, and our campus shut down. For weeks I faithfully piled up our recycling in our garage, hoping against hope that the campus would open back up again soon; but no such luck. I even found myself considering how much time it would take to load up my car and drive all my recycling to the nearest city with a decent recycling program, six hours away. I recognized that would likely consume more energy than just tossing it, but I still had to hide my eyes while my husband took the bags to the dumpster. The week afterward, a student wanted to talk to me: she had the same dilemma and didn’t know what to do. This same scenario was replicated across the world. As household garbage increased under coronavirus—by as much as 25 percent in the U.S.—supply chains for recycling were disrupted. Some cities had no choice: the recycling went to the dump.

  This illustrates how we may try our hardest to live up to our ideals, but sometimes the more we try, the more hopeless it starts to feel that we can ever succeed. You might even run into the work of my friend Kim Nicholas, a sustainability scientist at Lund University in Sweden. She’s calculated that the highest-impact personal carbon emission reduction anyone can make is not to have a child (and the second is to go car-free). If you’re a parent like me, that ship has already sailed. So should I just give up?

  KEEPING YOUR EYE ON THE BALL