Family, Lifestyle, Property
The spheres of self-interest and morality are no longer separable—I lay out some ideas about how we can save ourselves from global heating.
It’s almost 2023—global heating is bearing down on us in such a ubiquitous, omnipresent, and ominous fashion that it’s completely superfluous to explain the threat.
The question is when enough people will recognize that the spheres of self-interest and morality have merged together. The most self-interested person imaginable must recognize—at this point in history—that their own self-interest has become inseparably entangled with the public interest when it comes to the environment. Nobody wants to live in a fancy bunker while the world burns down—that’s not a life worth living no matter how fancy your bunker is. Global heating is coming for everyone’s family, lifestyle, and property—there’s no magical bunker that will save anyone from the cataclysm, the chaos, and the stampede. And keep in mind that global heating threatens to bring down our fragile global economy—it doesn’t matter how many billions of dollars someone has when the global economy disintegrates, since the billionaires are going back to the Stone Age along with the rest of us at that point.
We can still save ourselves—there’s still a path to survival in this threatened world where the two spheres have merged into one thing. I’ll summarize two books that provide—for people who want to survive—a path to survival. First I’ll summarize Katharine Hayhoe’s 2021 Saving Us, which explains how we can bond our way, connect our way, and inspire our way to a livable world. Then I’ll summarize Noam Chomsky’s and Robert Pollin’s 2020 Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal, which discusses policies that will allow us to avoid catastrophe if we ever do decide to get serious about protecting our families, our lifestyles, and our property.
What would I myself say about global heating? I’m interested in the notion—which could be mistaken—that people should join climate activism and not focus on their individual lifestyle decisions. And the notion that powerful entrenched interests: (A) understand very well that profits will continue to flow as long as society doesn’t implement any vigorous government programs; (B) don’t want people to become political; and (C) try to get people to focus on their individual lifestyle decisions.
Everyone should read Emma Pattee’s excellent and thought-provoking 12 October 2021 piece about the need to challenge the standard ideas about how to stop global heating—one of the piece’s pull quotes says: “By promoting the carbon footprint as the single most important thing for concerned citizens to focus on, the fossil fuel industry ensured that we wouldn’t put our energy toward what truly matters: collective action and activism.” I can imagine a threefold response—which could be incorrect—to the piece.
First, political action will determine whether we survive global heating—political action means building popular movements that will be able to compel governments to adopt vigorous government programs.
Second, the hydrocarbon industry understands very well that profits will continue to flow as long as we don’t adopt these vigorous government programs—based on this understanding, the industry has adopted a diversionary strategy where they try to divert attention to individual lifestyle choices.
Third, it’s good that this piece broadens the notion of individual action but it’s unfortunate that the piece displaces attention from political action in a way that plays right into the industry’s diversionary strategy—a more meaningful “‘climate shadow’” would consider the time and energy that each person’s nonpolitical efforts take away from political action.
I hope to discuss with people the notions—and the response—that I presented. I think that that discussion will be interesting and useful.
Hayhoe’s Book
Hayhoe writes that her book is about “how to have conversations that will help you to reconnect with family and friends in real life”. And how to help you to build “genuine relationships and communities rather than tribes and bubbles”.
There’s no point talking to the small number of people who “discount any and every thing that might show climate change is real, humans are responsible, the impacts are serious, and we need to act now”—for these people, disagreeing with the science of global heating is “so integral to who they are that it renders them literally incapable of considering something they think would threaten their identity”. It’s not productive to talk to these people, but these people were only 7% of the American population in 2020, so it’s not important—or necessary—to pay any attention to them.
As for the other 93% of people, research shows that “dumping more scary information” on them doesn’t really work—research “on everything from airplane seatbelts to hand washing in hospitals shows that bad-news warnings are more likely to make people check out than change their behavior”.
Fear-based “messaging can motivate us very effectively if we know how to turn that fear into tangible action”—“if negative news about climate change is immediately followed with information explaining how individuals, communities, businesses, or governments can reduce the threat, then this information can empower rather than discourage us”.
But fear “hampers our ability to think creativity”. And those who are anxious and alarmed “can’t remain alarmed forever”, will eventually “overload and check out”, can collapse into depression and despair, or can even collapse into anger and denial.
Guilt can motivate change but can—like fear—“shut us down if we carry it with us long-term”. And shaming people might make us feel better temporarily but has a negative long-term effect—shaming people into doing X elicits negative feelings toward your cause and can even induce people to do exactly the opposite of X.
The smarter strategy is to have effective conservations that are based on bonding with people, connecting shared values to global heating, and inspiring people with solutions. This better approach allows us to “inspire one another to act together to fix this problem”—that inspiration works better than fear, guilt, or shame.
Enter the conversation with respect, bond over a value you genuinely have in common with them, and then connect that shared value to global heating. There are many relevant values—just ask yourself: “‘Because of what we both care about, why might climate change matter to us?’”
Global heating connects to our families’ health, our communities’ economic strength, and our world’s stability—you’ll care about climate change if you’re “a person living on planet Earth who wants a better future”. There’s an “endless” list of things that global heating impacts—it’s “almost impossible not to find something that you can connect to climate change, once you start looking”. Global heating impacts our hobbies. And our homes. And less fortunate people. A “sense of place is always a key connection”—you’ll be able to connect global heating to ongoing impacts no matter where you two both live.
The last—and most critical—step is to “inspire each other with real-life, practical, and viable solutions”. And when it comes to solutions, the list goes on and on and on just like the list of values does—ask yourself: “‘What solutions can I bring up that whoever I’m talking to might get excited about?’”
It’s crucial to offer a solution since otherwise people will “feel disenfranchised and powerless”—that’s true even for nonpoliticized problems regarding diet and personal finance.
Implementation is key. Hayhoe wants you to actually implement her ideas—think of one or two people you might have a conservation with, do some preparation for the conversation, and set “reasonable expectations” regarding the outcome.
Think ahead about how you want to start the conversation—it’s “usually a safe bet” to start with a question, which could be “an open-ended question about what they think or feel”.
And then the key is to listen and “keep listening”—you’ll understand more the longer you listen. Hayhoe cites Tania Israel’s observation that successful dialogue requires you to try to: understand and respect them and their “‘views, values, or experiences’”; help them feel “‘safe and understood’”; and avoid making them feel “‘confronted or attacked’”.
Keep “your ears pricked for things you can agree with and reinforce”; respond in an emphatic manner; try to repeat their words back to them; emphasize your points of agreement; and stay “tuned to how well you’re connecting in the moment” so “you can course-correct as necessary”. Renée Lertzman refers to this process as “‘attunement’”—it’s a process of “literally tuning ourselves to our own and to each other’s emotions, experiences, and perspectives”.
Make sure to know when to stop—sometimes it’s best to move on or “gracefully retreat”. You don’t want to stay in the conversation in a situation where an individual “can’t engage respectfully anymore”, is “trying to push back”, or is trying to judge the other person—an interaction might occur where you yourself are this individual.
Lastly, learn from each conversation—reflect on what they told you. Climate Outreach has a useful manual called Talking Climate that says: “‘See the experience as a way to learn about how others think about climate change, about the topic itself—and about how to have a good conversation. Every climate exchange is a small experiment!’”
That’s the strategy—it’s much more effective than “reeling off distant facts”. Bond with them over a value that you already share that’s “already near and dear” to your hearts; connect “who we are to why we care”; and inspire them to take part in solutions.
Understand who you already are and what you already care about—this understanding will improve your ability to bond over a shared value and connect that shared value to global heating.
As for other people’s values, Hayhoe has become “truly convinced that nearly everyone already has the values they need to care about the future of our world, even if they’re not the same as mine or yours”—“if they don’t think they care, it’s because they just haven’t connected the dots”. Help people “see for themselves that caring about climate change is entirely consistent with who they are”.
And climate action will sometimes be an even more “genuine expression of their identity and their values than inaction or denial would be”. You can see how a “loving parent”, an “avid conservationist”, a “savvy businessperson”, a defender of their country, and a “devout believer” would all find climate action to be a “new opportunity” for them to “better express”—through their words and their actions—who and what they care about.
The biggest barriers to climate action are emotional and ideological—they aren’t related to information, priorities, logistics, or money.
On the ideological front, conservatives oppose solutions that are presented as incompatible with their ideology. But the ideological problem goes away when you present solutions that are doable as well as consistent with their values—suddenly “their objection to the issue itself evaporates, because they can be part of the solution now, rather than being part of the problem”.
On the emotional front, people lack self-efficacy—they don’t believe that they have the capacity to act so as achieve specific climate-relevant goals. Surveys show that “over 50 percent of Americans feel helpless when they think about climate change”—surveys “of people in different countries show that people’s sense of efficacy when it comes to climate change is not high”.
But your efficacy increases when you learn about “what the real solutions look like” and “how many of them are already being implemented or will be in the near future”. And your efficacy also increases when you see another person do something that you can do in your personal life, “find out about something you can do in your personal life”, or find out about something that you’ve already done in your personal life.
We build efficacy, and then we act, and then we build others’ efficacy through our action’s example. It’s a “true positive feedback cycle”—it’s a “very human response that has been identified again and again around the world”. And it “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”. And “in general, the more we do something, the more it matters to us and the more we care”.
Collective efficacy is even more important than personal efficacy—the idea is that “it’s not just us alone anymore” and we can make a difference together as a community. 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”.
Sharing your efficacy with others is what really matters and “really carries the weight”—that’s what starts social contagion. The “most important thing every single one of us can do about climate change is talk about it—why it matters, and how we can fix it—and use our voices to advocate for change within our spheres of influence”. It’s “contagious” when parents, children, family members, friends, students, employees, bosses, shareholders, stakeholders, members, and citizens connect with one another—it’s “how we change ourselves, how we change others, and ultimately, how we change the world”.
Chomsky’s and Pollin’s Book
The book cites some interesting material: Pollin’s 2015 book Greening the Global Economy; the 2016 paper “The Economics of Just Transition” that Pollin co-wrote; “An Industrial Policy Framework to Advance a Global Green New Deal”, which is a chapter that Pollin contributed to a 2020 book; and Mara Prentiss’s 5 December 2019 article “The Technical Path to Zero Carbon”.
Pollin points out that tactics have to be chosen so as to avoid reinforcing the view that “climate activists don’t really care about the lives of ordinary people”—anything that “strengthens this view among the general public is going to be politically disastrous”. Activists must “show genuine commitment to just transition programs for the workers and communities that will be hurt through the necessary shutdown of the global fossil fuel industry”.
We must unambiguously demonstrate—worldwide—“how climate stabilization is fully consistent with expanding decent work opportunities, raising mass living standards, and fighting poverty”. This consistency is a “core proposition under-girding the global Green New Deal”—demonstrating it is a “critical factor in advancing this movement”.
Given “where the world is today”, the odds are “shaky at best” when it comes to “moving the world onto a viable climate stabilization path” and “hitting the IPCC’s stated target of net zero CO2 emissions by 2050”. But there’s a “rapidly growing tide of climate activism that has started to deliver some major breakthroughs”.
Suppose that we put aside the politics and look at decarbonization in purely analytic and policy terms—from that nonpolitical perspective, it’s “entirely realistic” that we could get emissions to net zero by 2050.
Pollin’s “higher-end estimate” is that achieving this objective would take “an average level of investment spending throughout the global economy of about 2.5 percent of global GDP per year”. This investment would go mainly toward energy efficiency and making clean—and competitively priced—renewable energy abundant, but it would also go toward stopping deforestation and supporting afforestation. And this investment would come from both the public and private sector—a “major part of the policy challenge will be to determine how to leverage the public money most effectively to create strong incentives for private investors, large and small, while also maintaining tight regulations over their activities”.
The global Green New Deal’s “centerpiece”—the clean-energy investment project—will “pay for itself in full over time” through the savings associated with the project. The project includes new energy-efficiency standards that will “ensure that consumers spend less for a given energy-intensive activity” and will “deliver lower energy costs for energy consumers in all regions of the world”.
Pollin comments that we probably won’t face urgent issues around transmitting and storing renewable energy for a decade at least. His understanding is that solutions to these issues—including the issue of affordability—“should not be more than a decade away, certainly as long as the market for clean energy grows rapidly at the required rate”.
As for the political domain, “powerful vested interests will simply have to be defeated”—how exactly we defeat these interests is the “most challenging question at hand”, but it “absolutely must be done”. These interests include private companies like Exxon and Chevron as well as public companies like Saudi Aramco and Gazprom—these companies have “massive self-interests at stake” and “enormous political power”.
Chomsky points out that we need “urgent action”. And that we need a “major national—indeed international—mobilization if severe crisis is to be averted”. Chomsky says: “There’s no time to waste. The struggle must be, and can be, undertaken on all fronts.”
Not much reasonable doubt these days that the crisis is real!!