Santa Barbara during the 2017 Thomas Fire
CLIMATE CRISIS 101
The Climate Crisis
What It Is and What Each of Us Can Do About It
by
Ken Hiltner
Copyright 2019–21
Contents
So, what, exactly, is Climate Crisis 101?
Accessibility 2.0
The real reason that I chose to make Climate Crisis 101 such an unusual course.
In each of its forms, Climate Crisis 101 is unusual.
Why take this approach?
Climate Crisis 101 as a NCN (nearly carbon-neutral) course
FAQs
Some reflections on the first time that Climate Crisis 101 was taught
This course is creating a lasting archive
Scholar Activism
Chapter 1, Overview and Approach
Overview
General Approach
Climate Justice Approach
Course Components
Chapter 2, The Basics: Science and Reading
CO2
Plants, Animals, Oceans, Ice, Land, People, Population, & Justice
Reading Techniques
Why the climate crisis is a cultural rather than just technological problem
Why electric cars are more trouble than good
Flying, the absolute worst thing that you can do environmentally
Do we need a climate vanguard? (Food, today and tomorrow)
Personal action, climate activism, or becoming politically active. Which matters more?
Housing and Cities
Clothing
Chapter 5, Pulling it all together
Pulling it all together, Introduction
Pulling it all together, the 1st ten things that each of us can do to save the planet
Pulling it all together, the 2nd ten things that each of us can do to save the planet
The Climate Crisis: What It Was and What Each of Us Did About It
Chapter 6, The climate crisis as a generational issue
Intro and How the climate crisis was brought about in a single lifetime
Why the generation that caused the climate crisis is not acting
What a new generation can do to mitigate the climate crisis
Can one generation do what previous generations failed to do?
What the Boomer generation knew – and when we knew it
Reading 1, The uninhabitable (or at least unwelcoming) earth
Reading 2, 2°C- Beyond the Limit, Fires, floods and free parking
Reading 3, Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
Reading 4, Walden
Reading 5, The Waste Makers
Reading 6, Project Drawdown
Reading 7, Social justice, environmental justice, climate justice, and the injustice of it all
Reading 8, Communicating the Climate Crisis
Reading 9, Drawing down greenhouse gas emissions by being the change
Film 1, Before the Flood and An Inconvenient Sequel
Film 2, Fire in Paradise
Film 3, A Climate of Doubt and Merchants of Doubt
Film 4, Minimalism
Film 5, The True Cost
Film 6, Cowspiracy and Wasted!
Film 7, The Green New Deal
Film 8, Being the Change and Tomorrow
Film 9, Happy – Are we destroying the planet in a misguided pursuit of happiness?
(In the lower right of the screen, note the faint box with a small chevron in it. Click the chevron at any point and the page will quickly scroll up to the top.)
Introduction
Prior to becoming a professor, for more than two decades I made my living as an artisan, a furniture maker. During that time, I was a voracious reader. I spent my days working wood. My nights and weekends were given to reading pretty much anything that I could get my hands on. My principal interest was (as it still is now) the environment.
The challenge was getting access to useful books.
While my local library had some things of interest, what I really needed was a good academic library. I was seemingly in luck, as I lived a little south of Princeton University and little east of the University of Pennsylvania, also an Ivy League school. Both have amazing, world-class libraries: Firestone at Princeton and Van Pelt at Penn.
The problem was that neither library would let me in the door, literally. On more than one occasion, I was turned away by guards posted at the entrances. And, mind you, I had absolutely no hope of securing borrowing privileges. I just wanted to come in and read the books.
Some universities at the time – and we’re not talking all that long ago – were not only ivory towers, but walled-off ivory towers, that had little interest in sharing their riches with members of the public (like me).
And, of course, being able to attend a lecture was altogether out of the question. In my early 20s, which was during the early 1980s, I actually went to Princeton to ask them if they had night classes or if I could sit in on lectures. I wasn’t seeking university credits or a degree, I just wanted to learn.
They literally laughed at me. Apparently, Princeton wasn’t that sort of school. It was as frustrating as it was humiliating.
If knowledge is power, doesn’t it just seem wrong that only some people have access to it and, in some ways even worse, that universities went way out of their way – by actually posting guards at the doors – to make sure that others were denied access? We are not talking about a totalitarian government seeking to control access to knowledge here, but rather higher education the US in the closing quarter of the 20th century.
In terms of a subject like the climate crisis, why in the world would anyone want to restrict access to such knowledge? Standing outside of these extraordinary libraries, as well as classrooms where amazing courses were being taught, it just didn’t make sense me.
Of course, I wasn’t alone out there. In fact, the rest of the world was largely there with me.
Nearly everyone in low- and middle-income countries have long been quietly excluded from international educations. This is a huge social justice issue, which is, as far as I am concerned, still being ignored today. As with most social justice issues, this hurts us all.
So, I began dreaming of a time when the walls would come down and universities would make their riches (books, courses, discussions – everything) available to nearly anyone. To me, it was all about access.
A dyslexic furniture maker in New Jersey, a deaf teacher in Nigeria, a blind young woman on a farm in Mexico, nearly anyone, anywhere could learn as much as they wanted, whenever they wanted, about anything they wanted. And, ideally, learn it from any professor in any school on the planet.
It was quite a dream.
However, as I was a furniture maker and the Internet was still in a pretty nascent form back then, I had absolutely no idea how to bring it about.
But, then, years later, after I became a professor, I began to explore ways of realizing my outlandish dream. After more than a decade experimenting, Climate Crisis 101 brings together much of what I have learned through quite a bit of trial and (mostly) error. Although it falls short of the dream in some ways, it is, nonetheless, designed to be free and accessible to anyone, anywhere.
It is also a course that could be put together by pretty much anyone. No fancy cameras or studios were involved. Everything is filmed at my desk in a tiny little office, no bigger than a closet, that I built in my backyard and where I do most of my work.
This introductory chapter takes up in detail my quest to make a truly accessible university lecture course. In order to do so, we will first consider the various forms that the Climate Crisis 101 material takes, which is key to its accessibility.
If you are primarily interested in the climate crisis and what we can do about it, feel free to skip the rest of this chapter, which deals with the unusual format(s) of Climate Crisis 101 and educational reform (my dream from decades ago), and instead jump ahead to the next chapter.
So, what, exactly, is Climate Crisis 101?
Climate Crisis 101 is a number of things.
First, it is an actual course offered at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), where it is designated as English 23. Climate Crisis 101 not only explains the nuts and bolts of various aspects of the climate crisis, but also focuses on what we can do about it, both as individuals and through collective and political action.
However, Climate Crisis 101 is also 1) a book, 2) a YouTube channel, 3) an audio podcast series, and 4) a website, in addition to being 5) a university course.
Let me be clear here, it is at root all five of these things. For example, the YouTube channel does not simply support the book, nor does the course emerge out of the book. Rather, Climate Crisis 101 was, from the start, imagined as a grand experiment: a way to encounter the exact same material in a variety of ways.
In this chapter, I am going to talk about why Climate Crisis 101 takes these many forms.
Given that the climate crisis is an extraordinarily urgent and important issue, the reason for offering all these forms was not just to drag the traditional lecture into the 21st century (something that, as far as I’m concerned, desperately needs to be done), but also to make this material as accessible as possible to as many people as possible.
The central issue here is accessibility.
In this, the third decade of the 21st, people are learning all sorts of things by accessing material in different ways. Some prefer to do so through traditional means, such as by reading a book or taking a course, some by watching instructive YouTube videos, and some by listening to audio podcasts. Each of these ways in turn has its own options. For example, some people like to read whole books in order to get a unified overview of a topic, while others like to read shorter pieces.
Since I am an educator, and I hope to inform as many people as possible about what the climate crisis is and what we can do about it, it just makes sense to offer this material in a variety of forms that work for various types of learners.
As to why people prefer different ways of learning, it is important to note that human beings are various abled, although sometimes only subtly so.
Some people learn best by reading, some by watching, some by listening, and some by a combination of these, such as reading the closed captioning of what is being said while they’re watching a video. For these folks, it might be best to forgo the video all together and just read a book while simultaneously listening to it being narrated it (i.e. “Immersion Reading”).
Conversely, for some people, just watching a video may be best, as attempting to read captions of what they are simultaneously hearing may be annoying or downright confusing. None of these is, obviously, the right way to learn. However, one or more may be right for you.
For certain people, some of these options may not be options at all. Not everyone can see or hear, either well or at all. This makes offering material in a variety of forms especially important, indeed crucial.
Finally, as I did not want to privilege any particular group of learners, I tried to make this material equally accessible to everyone. In other words, Climate Crisis 101 is not first and foremost a book, a course, or any of the other forms. For example, as I will explain directly, rather than relying on visuals, I make a point of carefully narrating everything in my talks, so that someone just listening to the material won’t miss anything.
Although doing so is crucial for individuals who are not able to see (or see well) what is on a page or screen, we all stand to benefit here, as this gives everyone the option of listening to this material as an audio podcast when we were on the go, such as while out for a walk.
Regarding which approach is best for you, since this is a personal issue, think of Climate Crisis 101 as, among other things, an invitation to reflect on how you learn best. Feel free to experiment with the different forms on offer here.
So, how does all this work in practice?
1) Let’s start with why I chose to write this as a book. It is simple enough, as books are a time-honored and wonderful way of consolidating and organizing a great deal of material in a single place. And most people are, of course, familiar with how to use books. Some people, myself included, love books.
However, not everyone does, making books of somewhat limited use in disseminating material in the third decade of the 21st. Indeed, “[r]oughly a quarter of US. adults (27%) say they haven’t read a book in whole or in part in the past year, whether in print, electronic or audio form.” There is also the matter that written material can present learning challenges for some people.
Consequently, if presented just as a book, this material would reach a rather limited audience that has certain preferences and abilities. It is also the case that books usually cost money to buy and are generally protected by copyright, meaning that the material in them cannot be freely shared. These are significant issues, as my goal is that all this material should be free for everyone to use and reuse as they like.
So, I wrote this as a book (mainly for people like me who like books, even though I am, in fact, dyslexic), but I also pursued other options.
2) Enter social media, arguably the preferred way of disseminating information in the 21st.
But which social media platform is the most used (and hence likely to reach the most people)? If you ask Americans who are the age of my students (18-24), it is not Facebook, Twitter, or even Instagram.
Instead, YouTube is now used by 94% of these young adults. Indeed, three quarters of all American adults, regardless of age, use it. Teens now watch YouTube more than TV, and, according to Nielsen data, this may soon become true for the rest of Americans.
The Climate Crisis 101 material is broken into a number of chapters, just like any other book. These chapters are in turn each broken into a number of sections, which, of course, books sometimes do.
However, each of these chapter sections is also designed to be a YouTube video. In order for this to work, the tone here is a little unusual for a book (it is certainly different from the scholarly books that I am used to writing), as it is meant to be relaxed and conversational. On a personal note, I really like writing this way.
In practice, this simply means that I film myself reading (from a Teleprompter) one of the Climate Crisis 101 sections, which are meant to be 10 or 20 minutes (i.e. 1500-3000 words) in length or so. This is pretty standard for YouTube videos, though some, like this one, are a little longer. Because just watching me speak could quickly become a little boring, a small team of undergraduate student editors “punch up” these videos. One of the ways that they do this is to intersperse video clips while I am talking.
For example, if I am talking about the importance of bicycle culture in the future of sustainable transportation, clips of people on bikes might alternate with me talking. Substantively, this doesn’t really add anything to the talk, but it does breaks things up.
By the way, in case you somehow didn’t know, YouTube is an incredibly effective social media platform. Consequently, students enrolled in Climate Crisis 101 often share course videos with their friends, family, and even former teachers. In this way, the material is broadly disseminated online. The last time that Climate Crisis 101 was taught, there were more than 150,000 total visitors to the course YouTube channel and website.
You may be wondering why I don’t add images and clips that are more instructional, such as graphs, charts, quotes, or something of the sort.
The issue here centers on accessibility.
3) Which brings us to audio podcasts, a third form in which this material is available.
As I have already noted, one of my goals in putting this material together was that it should be as accessible as possible to as many people as possible. The idea is that anyone should be able to access this material, regardless of their vision, hearing, or motor and cognitive skills.
Specifically, Climate Crisis 101 was designed to be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, especially regarding the four major categories that apply: Visual, Auditory, Motor, and Cognitive.
It is noteworthy that many traditional in-person classes, as well as many Zoom classes, are often not at all compliant with these standards. As far as I’m concerned, this is deeply problematic, both morally and legally.
In order to make this material accessible to people who are blind or with low vision or vision impairment, it is entirely text-based. In other words, while I could show a chart, I instead explain (often in some detail) what such a chart would show. Without exception, all of the material is narrated, rather than shown onscreen.
Of course, it would be possible to provide a separate audio track that describes what is on screen, such as a chart. However, aside from being awkward and not necessarily effective, I dislike the idea of creating material that is essentially privileges vision over other senses (i.e. ocularcentric material). In other words, as much as possible, everyone should encounter the same material. It shouldn’t matter, for example, whether they see or hear. No one group should be privileged.
In short, sight and hearing are entirely optional for Climate Crisis 101.
Having all of the talks consolidated in one place as a channel on a podcast app also means that it is not necessary for people who are blind to bother with screen readers to access the material. This also significantly reduces the need for fine motor control, as it is possible to sequentially advance from talk to talk in the podcast series without making a single selection (most podcast apps will go from one podcast to the next automatically).
Regarding cognitive concerns, the material can be easily slowed down, repeated, or, for that matter, sped up. In general, the idea here is to offer as much flexibility as possible. As I already noted, some people benefit by being able to read closed captioning while watching a talk. Others find it a distraction. The goal of Climate Crisis 101 is to provide a range of options. In order to avoid fatigue, the book sections are short, resulting in videos or podcasts that are generally under 20 minutes, or even half that length.
Incidentally, this also pays significant environmental dividends, as excellent quality audio requires as little as 4% of the bandwidth of video. As “20% of the world’s total electricity consumption may be used by the Internet by 2025” and the overwhelming majority of the available bandwidth on the Internet is used by streaming video, this is not an insignificant issue. It is also the case that podcasts are frequently streamed from mobile devices, like smartphones, which operate on about 2 wats of electricity – far less than a desktop computer or even the 50 watts or so needed to power a laptop computer.
Incidentally, I do realize that some material benefits from visuals. Imagine working through a formula, either on a board or projected on a screen. However, if this was not narrated as well, I am not exactly sure how a blind person would be able to follow what is going on in class. Consequently, I try to communicate first and foremost through words, both written and spoken. (The fact that I am an English professor probably comes into play here, as words are my stock-in-trade.)
4) As most people no longer go to brick-and-mortar libraries to access reading material and various media, it makes sense to present this material by way of a website. In order to make it available to as many people as possible, the course website was carefully authored to be accessible and convenient.
All of the text on the course website is 2.5 times standard size in font recommended as an option for print disabilities. In order to ensure high contrast, all fonts are black and appear against a solid white background to be helpful for individuals with so-called color vision deficiency. Even link text is black, rather than a separate color (in order to distinguish links, they are underlined, which, in order to avoid any confusion, is a text stye not otherwise used in Climate Crisis 101).
The course website is also designed to work well with modern browser extensions (such as developed for Chrome), like Font Changer, which allow users to view the site text in different sizes and in specialized fonts, such as Open Dyslexic.
At the risk of using a little jargon, by using best HTML backend practices, the course website is optimized to work with screen readers, like NVDA, JAWS, Apple’s VoiceOver, and Android Talkback, which can read it aloud.
The website it is also designed to lead people to this material. If you happen to be curious about the climate crisis and type “Climate Crisis 101” into your browser, you should quickly be led to the course website, ClimateCrisis101.com.
Because this material is also a book, the website is designed to mimic an e-book reader, whether held horizontally on a smartphone or vertically on a tablet, laptop, or desktop computer. Doing so replicates the width and line length, and hence in some ways the general feel of a print book.
The goal was to have the website function like an e-reader app set to scroll. In other words, if you are used to reading Kindle or other e-books on your smartphone or tablet, the course website should provide a pretty similar experience (this is explained in detail in another section of this chapter/playlist).
In addition, as a website, Climate Crisis 101 is able to offer more functionality than the e-reader apps that it emulates. For example, without ever leaving the Climate Crisis 101 website, it is possible to have the YouTube video of the section pop up and play.
At the same time, Climate Crisis 101 also offers features provided by some advanced e-reader apps, such as ability to hear an e-book narrated as you are reading it at the same time (i.e. like Kindle/Audible e-books via their Whispersync technology). For some people, this can really help concentration and learning. (As this is an important point, I take up this issue of “Immersion Reading” in detail in an upcoming section of this chapter.)
At the beginning of every section, users are given the option to “Download as a PDF,” “Watch as a Video,” “Listen to as a Podcast,” or to simply scroll down to read the material as a browser-based e-book. If you choose to listen, you can just scroll down and read along with the narration. Students in the lecture hall can do something similar by reading along with the lecture on their smartphones, tablets, laptops, or go old school by reading the lecture on paper (i.e. a printout of the lecture PDF).
Making Climate Crisis 101 available as an online book also provides an easy way to reference the material, even if you did not initially encounter it by reading. For example, if you would like to revisit something that you heard on Climate Crisis 101 as a podcast, you might have to listen to hours and hours of material in order to find the proper section. However, a computer could quickly search the text of the Climate Crisis 101 online book. In addition, the text also provides the links to material cited in Climate Crisis 101.
Finally, as a website, Climate Crisis 101 brings together all of its forms. While it feels and functions like an e-book, the videos and audio podcasts are embedded directly (and conveniently) into the relevant text on the website, which also contains the course syllabus.
5) So, why is Climate Crisis 101 a university course?
The advantage of experiencing this material as a course is that it requires individuals (i.e. students) to encounter the material in 1) a carefully chosen order, 2) in its entirety, and 3) at a digestible rate.
While the book format presents the material in the same order, there is no way of ensuring that someone will read the whole book, let alone read it carefully. However, when taken for university credit, a course requires students to carefully study all of the material, as they will obviously be tested on it. Spreading it out piecemeal over an academic term helps ensure that people will not become overwhelmed.
A course also allows for supplemental materials to be introduced. This important point will be taking up in detail in another section of this chapter.
It is worth noting that all of this material in all of its forms is completely open access. Hence, anyone anywhere with an Internet connection can read this book, watch this YouTube channel (assuming that YouTube is available in your country), listen to the audio podcast series, visit the website, or take this course – though you can only receive university credit if taken at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB).
Because all of the material is open access, educators are free to incorporate all or part of it into their own classes. Moreover, since there are so many components available (i.e. so many individual chapters, videos, and podcast episodes), educators can and do use this material in flipped university and even high school classrooms. In other words, instructors have students read, watch, or listen to one or more of these components at home, then discuss it in class.
It is also worth noting that there is often a synergy between these five formats.
For example, YouTube automatically creates closed captioning for its videos using voice recognition technology. However, as you may have noticed, this often leaves much to be desired in terms of accuracy. In this case, however, the talks are all being given directly from a script (i.e. the section of the book chapter that I am reading by way of a teleprompter). Hence, the script replaces YouTube’s automatic closed captioning, ensuring that the captioning is completely accurate, including proper punctuation and capitalization.
Having accurate closed captioning means that when users employee YouTube’s translation feature to read it in a language other than English, the result will be likely be more accurate. Since 14% of UCSB’s student body are international students, this is, as far as I am concerned, especially important.
I realize that this may raise some eyebrows, as I am giving students the option to encounter course material in a range of languages, even though this is an English course. However, as far as I am concerned, students that have been accepted into UCSB (which means that their high school GPA was, on average, 4.25) who are non-native speakers, not only deserve praise and respect, but should be given support whenever possible. Moreover, being able to listen to a lecture in English while reading it in familiar language strikes me as a potentially useful way of improving one’s English – which is, after all, one of the things that English courses should do.
And, moreover, this potentially makes Climate Crisis 101 available across the planet in more than 100 languages. Which is no small thing.
An accurate script also means that I am able to make PDFs of the actual talks given (rather than just bullet points) available on the website. This can be an advantage for students watching the talks, as it allows them to take careful notes without going to the trouble of writing down what is being said. In order to help with this, the PDFs have been formatted with a good deal of white space on the page so that notes can be added, either to hardcopies or through PDF notetaking software.
Consequently, the PDFs present Climate Crisis 101 in yet another format. For some people, it might be preferable to download and read Climate Crisis 101 by way of these PDFs, rather than reading it directly online as an e-book. This is because, as I just noted, doing so allows notes to be added directly to the text. Actively annotating a text while reading (or while both reading and listening) is yet another effective learning strategy. Who knows, it might be especially good for you.
Incidentally, I realize that making PDFs of the entire lecture series available, word-for-word, may also raise some eyebrows, as some educators are of the mind that students learn best when they actively taking notes during a lecture. If that happens to be you and you are practiced in the art of notetaking, by all means take this approach if it helps you learn. In no way does Climate Crisis 101 prevent you from doing so.
However, this only works for a section of learners. Not everyone can take effective notes while keeping up with someone speaking between 150-200 words per minute (which is what I average). As far as I am concerned, assuming that everyone in the room is capable of executing this skill at this speed is a problematic and potentially unfair. Hence, Climate Crisis 101 provides additional options.
So, if the course material exists in all these forms, what exactly is the classroom experience like?
This is an important question. As UCSB is still a brick-and-mortar school, students are all required to show up for class in the lecture hall.
Let me repeat this for the benefit of my UCSB students: coming to class is absolutely, positively a requirement of this course!
During the class period, the YouTube videos of the talks are projected onscreen. Because they are shorter than the period, they are sequentially (i.e. in the order that they appear in the book and on the course YouTube channel) shown in the allotted class time.
This, raises a question, which may have already occurred to you: what exactly am I doing during lecture if I’m not…well…lecturing?
When my large lectures increased in enrollment to where there were more than 800 students in the room, it generally became impossible for me to take questions during class. As you might imagine, I found this frustrating. While we did have an “open mic” at the front of the room, almost no one, understandably, felt comfortable speaking in a room that large.
Now, while my talk is being projected in the front of the room, it is also simulcast as a webinar. I am seated in the lecture hall with my laptop officiating over a real-time Q&A session (which is similar to the Zoom chat function that many of us came to appreciate during the pandemic).
In a sense, this allows me be in two places at once: 1) up on screen giving the talk while also 2) spending the entire class session fielding questions and clarifying points. In traditional classes, I often spend half the time lecturing and half the time fielding comments and questions. Since the same thing is happening here, it is like having a two-and-a half-hour class taking place in 75 minutes.
I’m not sure just what you would call this, but I think of it as a flipped classroom that is synchronous. In other words, in the now traditional flipped classroom, students watch lecture material at home and come to class with questions and comments. The instructor then elaborates on the material by way of these questions. The same thing is happening here, but all at once, rather than at two separate times and places (at home and in class).
As with a flipped classroom, the obvious advantage here is that it makes the lecture interactive. It also gives every student in the room, including those who may be a little reticent, the opportunity to ask questions and make comments.
The lectures are, incidentally, interactive in a second way, as I ask students, at a time of their choosing, to comment on some of the talks by way of the YouTube forum. I also require them to comment on the comments of their classmates half of the time. The idea here is, of course, to get students talking with one other. (I take up Climate Crisis 101’s interactive discussions in detail in another section.)
So, there do you have it. Climate Crisis 101 is 1) book, 2) a YouTube channel, 3) an audio podcast series, 4) a website, and 5) a university course, all in one. And there is often synergy between these five formats.
Why did I take this unusual (and time-consuming) multifaceted approach?
To sum up this section, people learn in all sorts of ways. Some do well with the written word, others like to watch, some to listen, and so forth. And others do well with a combination. Moreover, unlike a traditional lecture where students only have access to lecture material two or three hours a week during class time, with the approaches outlined here, they can revisit the material by going back to read, watch, or listen to it at any time.
I should also confess that, because I think of myself principally as a scholar activist, I additionally wanted to speak to as many people as possible about the climate crisis and what we can do about it. The fact is that, as a university professor, I believe that I have a moral obligation to do so. Hence, I offered the material in a variety of forms to appeal to a variety of different individuals.
In the following section, I take up an entirely different kind of accessibility: digital.
Accessibility 2.0
In the previous section of this chapter, I took up the issue of how Climate Crisis 101 was designed to be as accessible as possible for as many people as possible, which is why you can either read, watch, or listen to this material, either as part of a classroom experience or not.
However, accessibility doesn’t end there.
Although this section further explains how Climate Crisis 101 works, it also grapples with digital accessibility.
In choosing to put course material online, we need to confront the fact that not everyone will have equal access to it. Not by a long shot. Consequently, in committing to disseminate information online, educators take on an enormous responsibility, as we need to ensure that this material gets out to everyone as equally as possible.
I have been thinking about this issue for number of years now. As I shall explain directly, Climate Crisis 101 is an effort to actually do something about the problem. In the first section of this chapter, I explain why this is personally important to me. Suffice it to say that I have long had a dream of truly opening up the traditional university to everyone, everywhere. Climate Crisis 101 brings together much of what I have learned over the years.
This is an important social justice issue. Allow me to explain.
In July 2020, when COVID-19 was accelerating its spread across the US, The New Yorker published a article on “How Harvard’s Star Computer-Science Professor Built a Distance-Learning Empire.” I have to admit to being utterly fascinated, as I learned that the Harvard course detailed in the article, CS50, is shot in super high-resolution 4k video with five separate cameras, some of them robotic, in order to make the video of the course lecture “on par with what you would expect from Netflix.” Actually, it’s more than you would expect from Netflix, as some of those cameras are $20,000+ virtual reality units capable of delivering a 3-D experience.
Now, let me be clear, I absolutely applaud these sorts of experiments. As far as I am concerned, exploring the cutting-edge of distance learning is definitely something that computer-science professors should be doing.
However, as I have repeatedly noted regarding virtual conferences, I am less interested in tomorrow’s technologies than yesterdays.
Why? Harvard’s dorms may be outfitted with enough bandwidth to simultaneously stream 4K video to all the students living there, perhaps even in 3-D. However, many students across the US. do not have the sort of Internet access needed for 4K.
This is an important social justice issue, as race, family income, and even the educational level of parents can impact what sort of Internet access a student has, as well as the devices are likely in their possession. As we shall see, some of our students are only half as likely as others to have access to broadband Internet at home, let alone the devices that can actually benefit by it. Sure, some undergraduates own a laptop, a smartphone, and a tablet, but fewer than a third are this fortunate.
Have ever wondered why some students take part in Zoom classes with their webcams off or even just by phone? It may be by choice, or it may be the case that they had no choice, as they simply may not have 1) adequate Internet access or 2) access to a laptop or desktop computer. Does it seem unlikely that many students would be in this predicament? As we shall see, it may be far more likely than you imagine.
We have been talking about the “digital divide” for over two decades now. This “refers to the gap between those able to benefit from the digital age and those who are not.”
Unfortunately, the divide hasn’t closed in that time – and perhaps never will. While more people have access to the Internet now than two decades ago, access varies greatly.
Even if, at some point in the future, all of our students have access to the bandwidth required to stream that 4K Harvard course, there is an emerging standard, 8K (some YouTube videos are already available at this resolution), that requires four times the bandwidth of 4K. Regardless of whether we are considering 4K or 8K, 3-D, which is what that Harvard course is experimenting with, has even greater demands: on the order of sixteen times more bandwidth. Very few consumers have access to this sort of Internet.
The simple fact is that once the digital divide begins to close, marketers release new technology that keeps opening it up again, such as 4K, 8K, 3-D, or whatever.
As long as we keep designing for tomorrow’s technology, we risk leaving quite a few of today’s students behind, who may only have access to yesterday’s technology. While the digital divide has been a social justice concern for many of us for some time now, it didn’t involve immediate action on our part.
However, now that we educators are generating and disseminating information online, we need to address this issue directly – lest we to become part of the problem.
Regarding the specifics of this issue from a social justice perspective, let’s start by looking at the numbers, which are from a 2019 Pew study.
Race: Nearly four out of five white Americans (79%) have home broadband. However, if you happen to be Black, it drops to just two thirds (66%). And just three out of five (61%) of Hispanic Americans have broadband at home.
Income: 92% of Americans who make more than $75,000 per year have broadband at home. Conversely, just 56% of Americans in the lowest income bracket (less than $30,000 per year) have access to it.
Education: 93% of Americans with a college degree have broadband at home. Only half that many (46%) have it if they do not possess a high school degree.
Since some Americans opt not to have broadband at home, it’s safe to say that if you are white, college educated, and with an income of $75,000 or more per year, you very likely have broadband, if you want it. One the other hand, for Black and Hispanic households with lower income and parents with less education, half may not have access to broadband.
For educators like me, it is also important to take into account international students who may not be on campus. As 14% of UCSB’s students are international, and most were not on campus during COVID, this was a significant issue for me at the time. In some places, like China,
bandwidth “can be as much as 50 times more expensive than in western countries.”
What does all this mean for us, as educators attempting to deliver video lectures via the Internet? As certain of our students are only half as likely as others to have access to broadband Internet at home, it would be simply unconscionable for us to design courses that require high-speed access.
What, then, do we do?
The good news is that smartphones often provide Internet access for those people who do not otherwise have it. The bad news is that race, income, and education also impacts smartphone dependance. Here are the numbers:
Race: Only 12% of white Americans depend on their phones for access to the Internet. However, that number doubles if you are Black (23%) or Hispanic (25%). Allow me to repeat that, if you are Black or Latinx, it is twice as likely than if you are white that you will need to rely on your smartphone for Internet access instead of a computer. One quarter of our Black or Hispanic students may well find themselves in this situation.
Income: Just 6% of Americans who make more than $75,000 per year need to rely on their phones for Internet access. That number more than quadruples to 26% if you make less than $30,000 per year.
Education: only 4% of college-educated Americans depend on their phones for Internet access. However, that number increases eightfold (32%) for Americans who do not have a high school degree.
As dismal as these numbers are, the good news is that 96% of Americans age 18-29 have smartphones. Unfortunately, certain students have no choice but to depend solely on their smartphones for Internet access. Whether they do so by choice, or because they have no choice, a 2017 ECAR study found that 25% of undergraduates “used a smartphone for all of their courses.”
The environmental implications here are also more than a little noteworthy, as smartphones, operate on about 2 wats of electricity, compared to the 50 watts or so needed to power a laptop computer or 1000 or more watts for some gaming desktops.
Given that we came to rely on it during COVID, you may be wondering how Zoom compares here. Unfortunately, not well. Everything else being equal, Zoom can more than double required bandwidth. Let’s take as an example a video meeting taking place at 1080p, also known as “full high definition,” which is quickly becoming the streaming standard online, now used by Netflix, YouTube, and a range of other services.
Zoom’s recommended bandwidth for meetings using 1080p video meetings is 2.5mbps, which is comparable to streaming 1080p content elsewhere online (i.e. Netflix or YouTube). However, Zoom requires even more bandwidth (3.0mbps) to send out 1080p from a participant’s computer – thereby more than doubling the required bandwidth. It doesn’t matter whether we are using a lower resolution (720p) or higher (4K), Zoom more than doubles the required bandwidth, as we are simultaneously receiving and sending video out.
Hence, during COVID, some students had no choice but to either turn their cameras off, or resort to calling into meetings.
What’s the answer here? It is simple enough: we need to design our courses around the lower end of the installed base of technology. Yesterday’s technology. Not doing so risks a broad swath of our students missing out. Moreover, we need to consider if having a two-way video connection is really necessary for the course at hand.
For some large lectures, like Climate Crisis 101, I would argue that it simply isn’t.
I know what you’re thinking: that this eliminates having a back-and-forth conversation, either between students and the instructor, or students and each other. However, this need not be the case if we shift to text-based interaction. What would this be like?
During COVID, we experienced this at work by way of Zoom’s chat feature. For many educators, this was a bit of a revelation. It created an entirely separate discussion space, which often rivaled (and indeed sometimes surpassed) what was being said in class. Incidentally, as I’ve experimented extensively with text-based interaction for our Nearly Carbon-Neutral (NCN) conferences, it is clear that it can be remarkably effective and often in a great deal more depth than a real-time, spoken interaction.
And the environmental gain in shifting to text-based discussion is extraordinary, as transferring text requires remarkably little bandwidth compared to video. Using the same amount of bandwidth, you could either watch one second of that 4K Harvard course or download the whole of War and Peace as an e-book.
As I explained in an earlier section, this also means that we can effectively double class time, as students can watch an uninterrupted, full-length lecture while also taking part in a Q&A that extends over the same period.
In practical terms, at this particular moment in time, I would argue that we need to make sure that our courses run on no more than one quarter of the bandwidth used by that aforementioned Harvard course (4K), which is 1080p resolution. However, given that some of our students do not have consistent access to high-bandwidth Internet, courses should ideally be designed to provide a rewarding experience at a resolution that is a quarter of that (i.e. 480p).
In addition, all of our content should be designed to run on smartphones, as this is not only the preferred way that many of our students access the Internet: for some, it is the only access point that they have (I will also explain more about this directly). Smartphones also provide access to an entirely separate network, cellular, for times when broadband is not available.
These recommendations may seem unreasonable, especially regarding 480p, which many people regard as an antiquated standard. However, I recall when this standard first came on the scene in the 1990s, as this is the resolution of DVDs. (Hence, 480p is also called “standard DVD,” or more accurately “DVD NTSC.”) Like most people, I was wowed by the incredible – and, initially incredibly expensive – DVD experience, which remained the most common video delivery standard in the US. well into the 2000s, and which is still alive and well today for certain users.
Keep in mind that most people initially experienced DVDs on home televisions, some of them quite large, and still found the experience rewarding and often exciting. When viewed on the five- or six-inch screens of a smartphone, I would argue that the experience is still completely satisfactory. Conversely, 4k and above is entirely unnecessary and even 1080p is questionable for smartphones, as Apple’s flagship smartphone (at the time I am writing this), the iPhone 12 Pro, has a resolution that is not all that much more than 1080p – and is far less than 4k.
And let’s not forget the environmental implications of all of us. As I noted in a previous section, “20% of the world’s total electricity consumption may be used by the Internet by 2025” and the overwhelming majority of the available bandwidth on the Internet is used by streaming video. 4K requires twenty-seven times the bandwidth of 480p. This translates into quite a bit of unnecessary carbon emissions.
If you read, watched, or listened to the opening section in this chapter, you know that, in its current iteration, students are required to come to class to watch the Climate Crisis 101 YouTube lectures. It may seem that this resolves the Internet access and device problem. However, I believe that it is important that each and every student has access to the course materials outside of class, allowing them to revisit and study the material as much and as often as they like. Only giving this access to certain students is, as far as I am concerned, unconscionable. Hence, even in a course like Climate Crisis 101, the digital divide can still present an impasse.
What does this mean for us educators?
We need to design our course for presentation on smartphones, not laptops or tablets (though these should, obviously, also be supported). This means, among other things, that we should ideally design our course presentations for screens that are about the size of a 3” x 5” card.
They should also be designed to look appealing at this size. This means little or no text on the screen during the primary lectures (which, as I explore in detail in another section, presents its own set of problems for individuals who are blind or with low vision or vision impairment).
It also means that all of the course material should also be designed to be read on a smartphone, which is one of the reasons that Climate Crisis 101 appears like an e-book on a mobile device.
Given that some students only have intermittent access to the Internet, all of the course material, including the videoed talks and audio podcast, should be downloadable. Because it is not generally not possible to do so with YouTube, Climate Crisis 101 uses a second video archive: Vimeo, which also allows the videos to be download in resolutions down to 240p, which is one fourth of the size of 480p.
Since bandwidth is such an important issue, videos should be designed to exploit data compression algorithms. For example, in the videos for Climate Crisis 101, I am filmed speaking against a solid black backdrop. Consequently, in terms of pixels on the screen, well over half of them are a single color. Because data compression algorithms are design to exploit statistical redundancy (like having a lot of the same-colored pixels on the screen), this means that, everything else being equal, when compressed these videos are half the size that they would otherwise be.
The stark black backdrop also provides for a simplified visual field, which may help individuals with low vision or vision impairment.
Ensuring that the material can be streamed and downloaded as audio, greatly reduces the demand for bandwidth. As I previously noted, excellent quality audio requires as little as 4% of the bandwidth of video. Of course, this means that the material needs to be designed for audio presentation.
And, of course, providing the course material as downloadable text requires the least bandwidth of all. Using the same amount of bandwidth, you could either download one or two seconds of Climate Crisis 101 as a video, or the entire book in text form.
What does all this mean for our students?
First, whether you can see the course material or not, or see it well, or hear it, or hear it well, it, ideally, shouldn’t really matter much. Moreover, being able to attend a lecture and access course material anywhere at any time with just your phone opens up a world of possibilities. Simply grab your phone and go in search of a nice quiet place and pop in your earbuds. Perhaps on some comfrey grass under a nice quiet tree. What better place to read, listen to, or watch a lecture on the climate and environment?
The real reason that I chose to make Climate Crisis 101 such an unusual course.
As I noted the previous sections of this chapter, unlike a traditional lecture series, each of the Climate Crisis 101 sections is design to be short and to the point, usually less than 20 minutes in spoken length. You can either read these lectures, watch them as YouTube videos, listen to them as audio podcasts, or experience them in the lecture hall if you are enrolled in the UCSB course.
So, why did I design such an unusual course and make its material available in these different forms?
As I noted in the previous two sections of this chapter, Climate Crisis 101 was, first and foremost, designed for accessibility.
In this section, I want to further talk about the format of Climate Crisis 101 and why it is so unusual. For me, this is a deeply personal issue.
For most of my life, I made my living as an artisan, a furniture maker, the trade that I learned from my father. It was not until my early 40s that I returned to school to pursue a Ph.D. Hence, I was a furniture maker for a longer than I’ve been a professor.
As I noted in my introduction to this chapter, back when I was a furniture maker I tried (and failed) to get access to the libraries at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania.
When the Internet began to come on the scene in a big way the 1990s, my mind kept returning to an outrageous idea: What if universities, their libraries, and their courses were completely open to anyone, anywhere? Presumably, as the Internet could disseminate of variety of media types, it could not only make this possible, but make these courses accessible to anyone, regardless of whether they could, for example, see or hear.
But, as an outsider, there was little that I could do to help realize this dream.
However, in my early forties I entered a Ph.D. program at Harvard. How I got there is a long story. I won’t bother to bore you with details. If you happen to be interested (though I’m not sure why you would be), in the Introduction to my most recent book, which is available for free on my personal website and which is on writing a new environmental era and moving forward to nature, I tell the tale in some detail.
In any event, flash forward a decade, when I was (as I still am) a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. In a perhaps someone surprising twist of fate, Princeton University invited me to teach there for a year, where I held a Chair as the Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and Humanities at the Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI).
Partly because of my earlier experiences outside of Princeton when I was a furniture maker, as a professor I felt strongly that education should be open. So, I took the unusual step of uploading videos of my entire Princeton lecture series online, which were completely free and open to the public. As far as I was concerned, there was a certain gratifying and poetic justice in doing this at the school that had turned me away decades before.
However, it began to dawn on me that, although available to the public, this material would not likely reach many people.
The problem is that most people, even if interested in a topic, just don’t have the time to sit through twenty or thirty hour-long lecture series.
I know that it sounds a little corny, but a university education really is something precious, wonderful, and quite a privilege, especially when you have the freedom to set aside four years of your life just to learn. Having earned my undergraduate and first master’s degree by attending night classes over two decades, the fact that a four-year education is a privilege is definitely not lost on me. It is a wonderful space and time, just for learning.
The traditional university lecture series emerged out of this space. Without the demands of a full-time job (at least I hope that fulltime students are not also working fulltime jobs), students have the luxury to take deep dives into subjects by attending lecture courses that last an entire term.
Outside of a university setting, few people have anywhere near that sort of time, even if the material is available to them. Consequently, publishing an entire lecture series online (like I did at Princeton) will not likely reach that many people.
How, then, do we reach a broad range of individuals? An obvious thought would be through the traditional genres of academia: books and articles. Another idea would be a newer form adopted by some scholars, the blog.
However, in the age of digital media, information is more often more disseminated by way of social media, which is now more popular than any of these genres – by a long shot. And, by many metrics, YouTube is now by far the most popular social media service of all.
The popularity of YouTube raised a question for me:
What if we took a lecture series and presented it in the form of a series of relatively short YouTube videos? The idea was to present the material in digestible little bites, rather than as one huge monolithic lecture series. Hence, anyone with 10 or 20 minutes to spare and an interest in a particular topic could learn about it from a credible, university source. If they found it interesting, they could go on to watch other short talks in the lecture series.
But the real question remained: Would students and the public really want to watch YouTube videos on the sort of material that we present in university lectures?
Natalie Wynn, who was for a time a PhD candidate in philosophy at Northwestern University, has a remarkably successful YouTube channel entitled “ContraPoints,” where she posts videos on such topics as “What’s Wrong with Capitalism.” Astonishingly, this video (which, incidentally, I heartily recommend) has been viewed millions of times. This is all the more striking given that it is essentially a 40-minute lecture broken into two YouTube videos of roughly equal length.
As far as I’m concerned, Natalie Wynn and others have proven that people by the millions are electing to watch meaningful content on YouTube – some of it quite like what we teach in university lectures.
This strikes me as a potentially important way for professors to speak to the public.
It is also worth noting that this approach potentially allows the lecturer to build a better relationship with the audience. In a traditional lecture, the speaker appears as a tiny person at the front of the room. It may be hard to hear them or even see their face. However, on YouTube, speakers often appear just about as large as someone sitting across a small table, speak directly to you, seemingly looking right at you.
Since we human beings are hardwired to pick up on a range of subtle facial cues, this rather nicely replicates a face-to-face talk. And a good one, as the speaker is hardly disinterested, but rather is intently focusing on you, telling you something that they obviously think is important.
If you look at the comments that YouTube personas like Natalie Wynn receive, it is clear that the regulars to her channel often think of her as a friend. They almost always refer to her by her first names. When I began to look through comments like these, it became clear to me that many YouTube speakers were, somewhat surprisingly (at least I was initially surprised), connecting with their audiences in a personal way.
Consequently, with respect to educators like me, although it may sound counterintuitive on first hearing, showing a pre-recorded lecture may well help build a better relationship with students in the class.
While I am of the opinion that virtually all university material should be freely disseminated, the climate crisis is an especially timely and important issue. As far as I am concerned, it is absolutely imperative that universities provide a comprehensive overview of the climate crisis, not only for our students, but the public as well.
There are, obviously, a range of reasons why this is important, but, as we’ll see in another section of Climate Crisis 101, it is especially urgent given that fossil fuel affiliates are spreading an enormous amount of this disinformation about the climate crisis in order to encourage denial of the science and delay of much needed action.
Consequently, as far as I’m concerned, it is crucial that each and every university offers a comprehensive course on the climate crisis. Ideally, it should be a campus-wide requirement. However, this raises two important questions:
1) To whom should we be teaching it? 2) How should we be teaching it?
The first of these questions has an obvious answer: To our students, of course. But should we also, given the urgency of the issue, be directing ourselves to the public as well? Since (as we shall see) fossil fuel affiliates are targeting the public and specific groups, like K-12 teachers and policy makers, shouldn’t we also be taking on the role of directly educating these individuals as well?
In many respects, this job has largely fallen to various media outlets, who sometimes report on our university research. The problem is that this sort of coverage is very different from a comprehensive overview of the topic that can provided by a course like Climate Crisis 101. Hence, my goal is to create an exceptionally accessible university course on this crucial topic that is available to the public.
This raises our second question: how should we be teaching it? In other words, how should material be structured to be informative, thought-provoking, and appealing to both students and the public?
For over a decade now, efforts have been made to make university lectures available to the public online. These range from simply uploading videos of an entire lecture series online (like I did at Princeton) to full-fledged courses offered for university credit at places like Stanford and UC Irvine via the Cursera platform.
The problem with this approach, as I have already noted, is that it seems unlikely that most members of the public would be willing to sit through many hours of lectures over ten or more weeks. Hence, this approach, while potentially offering a comprehensive overview of the climate crisis, risks largely failing when it comes to delivering it to the public at large.
Enter YouTube.
Posting a lecture as a series of short YouTube videos is definitely an unusual step for a professor. To be completely honest, many (I suspect most) of my colleagues don’t take YouTube very seriously – and may well look down on me for this. But, to be equally honest, I am of the mind that YouTube is so much better than the mediums than what we’ve had available to us in the past.
And we need not stop with YouTube, as there are other mediums available to us, like the audio podcast. Consequently, Climate Crisis 101 is also available in this format as well.
In short, Climate Crisis 101 is my most ambitious attempt to date of realizing the dream that I had decades ago while still a furniture maker: to make higher education free and accessible to anyone, anywhere. My first attempt at doing this, uploading my Princeton lecture series, made clear to me that just making material available online was not enough.
Instead, teachers like me need to make it accessible in range of different ways. Because the climate crisis is such a timely and important issue, it is, as far as I am concerned, absolutely crucial that we do so.
So, that’s the real reason that I chose to make Climate Crisis 101 such an unusual course.
In each of its forms, Climate Crisis 101 is unusual.
In the opening section of this chapter, I noted how Climate Crisis 101 is at once a book, a YouTube channel, an audio podcast series, a website, and a university course. In this section, I would like to draw attention to the fact that while Climate Crisis 101 is a lecture course and book, it does things that are very unusual for either lectures or books.
Let’s begin by focusing on Climate Crisis 101 as a lecture.
For hundreds of years, lectures have remained pretty much the same. For lecturers, this means standing at a podium and talking to a room full of people, usually from notes, which are now often bullet points projected on screen.
From a student’s perspective, it means a breakneck hour or so of feverishly trying to write down whatever seems important. With any luck, you can see and hear the lecturer OK, as this may well be the only time that you have access to the primary course material. Though, now that we are in the 21st-century, if you’re lucky, you might just get a digital copy of those bullet points.
It is also imperative that you are a fast and good notetaker. As you may have noticed, some lecturers never tired of repeating the importance of this particular skill. This emphasis on notetaking starts early, as studies have shown that “[m]iddle-school teachers use lectures with note-taking about one-third to one-half of the time in their content-area classes.” Unfortunately, for students with certain learning challenges, this could potentially set the stage for disaster.
As far as I am concerned, there has to be a more inclusive way that is better for everyone.
One of the overarching themes of Climate Crisis 101 is that, if we are to successfully mitigate the climate crisis, we need to make significant changes to our day-to-do practices. Technology is certainly important and instrumental here, but the simple fact is that technology alone is not enough. Not by a long shot. We also need to change the way that we live and do things.
This also applies to lectures. In this case, there are a range of technologies, such as streaming video and audio, that can be of great benefit if we are willing to accept the challenge of fundamentally rethinking the nature of a lecture and how we experience it.
In taking up this gauntlet, I first considered a variety of ways of disseminating information, like books, YouTube channels, and audio podcast series. It soon became clear to me that each of these could succeed at the job of teaching new material, though each in different ways that might work especially well for certain people. On thinking about it, it occurred to me that a mashup of these approaches might make for an interesting and effective lecture series.
Hence, Climate Crisis 101 it’s not your grandparents’ lecture, as it was designed, from the very beginning for both online presentation and to simultaneously exist in a variety of other forms, including as an e-book.
As a book, Climate Crisis 101 is, admittedly, also pretty odd. Not just because it has website functionality, but because it places unusual demands on the reader.
At the risk of stating the obvious, all that most books require of their readers is that you read them. Ideally, through to the end. True, they may reference other works, like books or films, but generally you are not required to read or watch additional works as part of the reading experience.
However, to be fully experienced, this book requires that you read and watch a range of works, which it elucidates and comments upon. It is possible to read this book without reading and watching these other works. However, as it is designed to frame and explicate this material, it will not be possible to completely experience (perhaps even completely understand) Climate Crisis 101 without encountering these additional works.
Climate Crisis 101 is also an unusual book by virtue of the fact that you can hear it narrated as as you read. Currently (as far as I know), this feature is only available on Kindle/Audible e-books via their Whispersync technology.
Hearing the book that you are reading can have real advantages for some learners, as it can help keep you focused. As was noted in Inside Higher Education, “[a]nyone who has ever tried Whispersync knows how compelling the syncing of e-book and audiobook can be. Switching back and forth between your eyes and your ears brings momentum to your reading. A synced e-book / audiobook creates a virtuous circle of reading. You want to read more because you are encouraged by how quickly you can read, a desire which causes you to read more still.” There are, incidentally, studies that back up the effectiveness of such so-called “Immersion Reading.”
However, this can be an expensive option, as you are in essence paying for a book twice: once as an e-book and then as a recorded book. The Kindle edition of Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything costs $15. The Audible version $30, for a total of $45. If you buy the two together, the combined total is discounted to $28. Still, this is a lot of money. In all of its various forms, Climate Crisis 101 is completely free of charge.
Although the text is not highlighted as it is spoken (as it is with Whispersync), I personally prefer this approach. Without Whispersync’s (somewhat annoying) animation, the page just feels more like a book. At least it does to me.
For certain people, Immersion Reading may be especially helpful. If English is not your first language, this might be a good opportunity to improve your English. In addition, for people like me, who are dyslexic, hearing what we see on the page can often be useful.
However, as we all learn in our own ways, Immersion Reading could be a good option for anyone. So, feel free to give it a try.
On a personal note, I very much like listening to books narrated. When I made my living as a furniture maker, I used to listen to books all the time while working. However, when I sit down to read a book, I often imagined that the author is speaking directly to me. It’s just one of the ways that I enjoy getting into a book. The problem with most of the audible books that you buy is that the author is not the one who does the narrating, which can be a little disappointing.
However, with the Climate Crisis 101, you get to hear me speaking the words that I put on the page. Apologies in advance if you 1) don’t like what I am saying (i.e. what I have written), and 2) if you don’t like hearing me say it out loud!
While requiring the reader to watch and read a range of supporting works is an unusual thing for a book to do, it is indeed the way that university courses generally function, as the instructor assigns and gives context for additional works. Not surprisingly, these works are often central to the course. In the humanities, a course that did not reference additional works would be more than a little unusual.
Just to be clear for the UCSB students who are enrolled in this class, reading and watching these additional works is an absolute requirement of the course. To put it bluntly, you will be tested on them!
But university courses go further, as they not only encourage the reading and viewing of material, but a discussion of it in the classroom. Certainly, in a traditional sense, a book is not a classroom experience. Moreover, a book does not contain an archive of various discussions initiated by the book itself.
However, as this book is also a university course, it contains a classroom experience. Indeed, if you are enrolled in the UCSB course, you are required to take part in this experience by commenting on portions of this book, which, like everything else in Climate Crisis 101, have been posted as video lectures on YouTube. These comments then become part of this book.
In other words, in addition to the required outside readings, Climate Crisis 101 is designed to encourage discussion of this material.
This is, in fact, really a four-part process for students in the class. First, you read, see, and/or hear my framing of the documentary or reading. Second, you then read or watch the work at hand. Third, you read what other people thought about the work in the YouTube comments to my framing videos. Fourth and finally, students share their own thoughts. Although the YouTube comments are not on the same webpage with the primary course material, this archive should also be considered part of Climate Crisis 101.
All of this is, importantly, public.
Traditionally, much of academia has taken place behind closed doors. Even though we are now in a connected age, this is still the case at many universities. At UCSB, for example, most online class discussions take place behind a password-protected wall in a Moodle-based online area known as “GauchoSpace.”
As far as I am concerned, this is problematic. There is no reason to keep this material from the public – especially given the urgency and severity of the climate crisis. Consequently, anyone who is interested can follow along with our class discussions, even years from now, as I have no intentions of taking down the course archive.
Given the size of the class (over 800 students) and the fact that every student will be making multiple online comments, literally millions of words of commentary and discussion will be created by this course and archived.
Why take this approach?
Traditional lectures can be seen as a kind of broadcasting. As only the lecturer talks and everyone else listens, knowledge travels in just one direction, not unlike a radio broadcast. In contrast, during a lively discussion, ideas are freely transferred back and forth between students and the instructor, as well as between students and each other.
Admittedly unusual, Climate Crisis 101 uses YouTube’s comment feature to facilitate a discussion involving hundreds of people. In order to do so, Climate Crisis 101 takes a decidedly different approach to flipping a classroom. (Incidentally, I have long been intrigued by this general approach: I flipped my first classroom back in 2012-13 at Princeton University.)
Unlike a lecture, in a traditional discussion-based class the instructor generally both transmits information and helps students make sense of it during the class period by way of a class discussion. In other words, part of the time the instructor delivers information by lecturing and part of the time there is a class discussion over what has been said by the instructor and others.
In contrast, in a flipped classroom, students first encounter information prior to class, usually through an online source. Class time is then given to working through this material, often by way of discussion. This allows for more time to discuss the material and work through it in other ways.
Climate Crisis 101 employs an admittedly experimental variation on the now traditional approach to flipping a classroom.
Here’s how it worked the first two years that Climate Crisis 101 was taught.
Prior to class, students would have already watched (or read) the day’s material and commented on it on YouTube. During the class session, I jumped into this discussion by reflecting on particularly helpful comments, which were projecting onscreen.
There were, however, shortcomings to this approach.
During the first two years that Climate Crisis 101 was taught, I waited until the end of the week when all the comments were posted. I then scrambled to go through hundreds of comments looking for particularly interesting ones. After which, I quickly put together a video, which was a “deep dive” into the subject. Students were then required to watch each of these deep dives.
While this approach worked well enough, it soon became clear to me that it had significant shortcomings.
First, this gave me a single day to sort through hundreds of comments and then make my own comment on the most interesting. As you might imagine, this felt really rushed.
Moreover, as we did not have time to edit the closed captioning for accuracy, I was 1) uncomfortable that we did not have an accurate written script for people who really needed it, and 2) frustrated that we were not able to include these talks as part of the Climate Crisis 101 book. Similarly, this meant that we we’re not quickly able to upload this material as an audio podcast.
As I noted in the previous sections of this chapter, accessibility is one of my central aims. Consequently, having some of the Climate Crisis 101 material unavailable in certain forms, such as a book and as audio podcasts, was of concern to me.
Finally, in the anonymous evaluation of Climate Crisis 101 at the end of the term, quite a few students noted that spending an entire class going over student comments did not seem like the best use of time. To be clear, most students seemed to like hearing the comments and my reflections on them. However, some felt that it ran for a little long.
So, I set about to take a different approach the third time that I taught Climate Crisis 101.
Because I had already taught the class twice (with enrollments of 860 and 1000 students, respectively), I had a terrific archive of thoughtful responses to the course readings and films. Consequently, instead of using the comments from the current class, I was able to create deep dives from this archive.
This allowed me to create the videos well in advance of the class, which also meant that we had an accurate script from which to work, which 1) allowed it to become part of the Climate Crisis 101 book and 2) also meant that we had accurate closed captioning for the videos. The additional time also allowed this material to be uploaded as audio podcasts.
Although I did like the fact that I was reflecting on comments that had not been made by students in the room, I decided to go with this new approach, as it was more accessible in a variety of ways.
This approach also promised to better prepare students for discussion. During the first two years that Climate Crisis 101 was taught, students were asked to comment on brief video introductions that I made framing the week’s documentary or course reading. Now, however, students watch this introduction along with a series of comments made by earlier students. In other words, they do not just get to hear my thoughts on the work, but what some especially thoughtful Climate Crisis 101 students (albeit, from a year or two before) thought about it.
In short, students are given more food for thought with this approach.
It is also worth noting that in the new approach I reduced the number of student comments included in the deep dive by half, which feels adequate, but not overwhelming.
In any event, informed by my framing of the material, as well as some particular thoughtful student comments, everyone in the class is then required to comment on the week’s documentary and course reading.
In this way, everyone in the room takes part in the discussion, which is a dramatic increase from a traditional discussion section. In such a section, assuming that it is particularly lively, perhaps just 30-40% of students participate regularly. An excellent discussion leader can push it to perhaps 50%. This, of course, means that half of the students are not participating in section. In our approach, however, everyone takes part in the discussion.
Moreover, as a student will have time to consider their written comments, they may well be more thoughtful. Consider the dialogue that one encounters in really good fiction. One of the joys of reading such a conversation comes from the fact that it is often just too good, with phrases and retorts chosen just too perfectly, to have been spoken in real-time. And it wasn’t, as the author had the benefit of time in writing and revising it into a polished form.
In transitioning from the spoken to written word, students have the same luxury with their comments in this class. When we put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) we have time, even if just a few moments, to reflect – as well as to revise the thought once written down, if desired. Consequently, while they may read like the transcript of a spoken conversation (as does the dialogue in a novel), our online discussions are potentially more thoughtful and precise.
By using this admittedly unusual approach, not only is the primary lecture material preserved online, but all of the considered and thoughtful class discussion surrounding it is archived as well.
Actually, the current iteration of this course encourages student involvement in two ways. First, by way of the YouTube comments that I have outlined here. Second, as the primary lectures are giving as webinar, students are encouraged to comment and ask questions in real-time during the lectures.
All this would, of course, not be possible if this were not, in addition to being a book and a university course, a website. A dedicated e-reader, like a Kindle device, is not able to offer this sort of functionality.
As this is a website, it is obviously possible to hyperlink directly to other online material, which is far faster than the way that footnotes and other references work in print books. In addition, it is possible to watch (stream) the lectures as videos right on this page. In order to keep videos from interrupting the reading experience, they are only displayed as needed. Consequently, all that is displayed on this page is text.
As a website, it was authored, as much as possible, with just HTML and CSS in order to ensure complete cross platform and browser compatibility, as well as interactivity. In other words, you should be able to read it on any desktop or mobile device, even one from a decade ago. Incidentally, if you would like to highlight passages, there are apps for some browsers, such as Liner, that allow you to do just that.
Climate Crisis 101 is an interpretation of what a book can be in the third quarter of the 21st century. Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way claiming to be a web innovator, as there is hardly anything new here with respect to website design. Nonetheless, as I have brought six books into the world as printed objects, the online approach being employed here strikes me as an interesting alternative.
I also like that it is free of charge. Did you know that most scholars make very little money off of the books that they publish? This may come as a surprise, as university libraries often pay more than $100 for each of the books on their shelves. Nonetheless, many professors make only a few hundred dollars in total royalties per book, as academic publishing is an expensive process. Hence, I like the idea of eliminating it all together and directly offering this material to everyone without cost.
Climate Crisis 101 as a NCN (nearly carbon-neutral) course
Up until this point, this chapter has been focused on the various forms that Climate Crisis 101 takes. As the first two sections made clear, one of the central reasons for making the material available on all of these different forms was to make it as accessible as possible to as many people as possible.
However, from the very beginning, Climate Crisis 101 was imagined as being a climate friendly, environmentally sustainable course. In other words, this course was designed to have a small climate footprint. In fact, making the footprint as small as possible has become a bit of an obsession for me.
So, what prompted this obsession? Please allow me to again relate a personal story – apologies in advance for doing so…
In 2015, I learned that a third of the carbon footprint for the campus where I teach, the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), came from air travel. This principally comes from flying staff and faculty to all sorts of conferences. All this air travel annually releases over 55,000,000 pounds of CO2 or equivalent gasses directly into the upper atmosphere, where it contributes most to the climate crisis. Once I got over the shock, I became a little obsessed with the climate impact of academic conferences – and how they might be improved.
Within a year, in May of 2016, we staged our first NCN (nearly carbon-neutral) conference at UCSB. Once it was over, we ran the numbers and realized that the carbon footprint for the event was less than 1% of its traditional, fly-in counterpart.
It was not, as you might imagine, a Zoom conference, but rather an unusual asynchronous event. Here is how it worked: 1) Speakers recorded their own talks and upload them online. 2) The conference was open for three weeks, during which time conference goers could watch any of the talks that they wanted at any time they want it. 3) While the conference was open, participants contribute to an online Q&A session by posing and responding to written questions and comments.
Why did I decide to experiment with such an unusual format?
As I have noted in the past, “being an admitted silver lining kind of guy, I try to think of the climate crisis as something of an opportunity. Don’t get me wrong, doing so isn’t always easy, especially as I realize that countless beings (some human, most not) will suffer because of our rapidly and profoundly changing climate. I certainly wish that it wasn’t happening.”
In that sense, I can actually sympathize with climate change deniers. Because this is such a horrific situation, it would be easy to slip into a state of denial and pretend that it wasn’t happening – and vehemently defend that position. Seriously, I would sleep so much better if I could somehow convince myself that humanity was not at a crisis point.
But, as the climate crisis is real, happening, and indeed is at a crisis level, it requires us to radically reconsider a range of cultural practices. It would be wonderful if there were technological fixes in the wings that would successfully mitigate the crisis without us having to raise a finger or make changes to our lives.
However, as far as I’m concerned, this is seductively wishful thinking.
In short, if we hope to get through this, we need to change the way that we live and do things. However, the required changes need not necessarily be for the worse or even painful. Moreover, what if, in addition to climate change, we also addressed a range of social injustices and cultural problems desperately in need of change?
Returning to conferences, as I note in my introduction/practical guide to NCN conferences, “the traditional conference has more than just environmental shortcomings. The cost of airfare from many low- and middle-income countries to anywhere in North America or Europe is often greater than the per capita annual income in these countries. Consequently, scholars from most of the world’s countries, and nearly the entire Global South, have long been quietly, summarily excluded from international conferences. Even in wealthy countries like the US, conference participation is, owing to vagaries in funding, a privilege unequally shared.”
And this is just the tip of the iceberg, as the traditional academic conference has additional, glaring shortcomings. Consequently, our NCN conferences are design to 1) be generally more accessible for variously abled individuals than their traditional counterparts, 2) provide free and lasting access to all the cutting-edge material introduced at the event, which is similar to open-access journals, and 3) allow participants from across the globe to equally take part, as comments can be made at any time in any time zone. The list doesn’t stop here, but you get the idea.
In short, the idea was to stand back and take a look at the traditional academic conference in order to brainstorm ways of addressing its shortcomings, both environmental and cultural.
However, as I have noted in previous sections of this chapter, decades before I began thinking about how the academic conference might be reimagined, I was giving a great deal of thought to the classroom and how it’s shortcomings might be addressed. Climate Crisis 101 is my most recent attempt at doing so.
Consequently, I not only think of Climate Crisis 101 as akin to our NCN conferences, I think of it as a NCN (Nearly Carbon-Neutral) course.
In rethinking both academic conferences and courses, my goal was the same: to make them a more accessible and just, as well as more environmentally sound.
This may seem a little counterintuitive with respect to courses. After all, why use all of the technology needed for Climate Crisis 101 (YouTube channel, audio podcast series, e-book, and website) when students could, alternately, just walk over to a lecture hall and hear me speak. Surely, the traditional lecture course must have a very tiny climate footprint.
The problem here is getting students to campus in the first place, as international students make up 14% of UCSB’s campus body. When I ask students to assess their individual climate footprints using an online calculator, many international students are surprised to learn that flying home four or more times per year is not only doubling their climate footprint, but in some cases tripling it or even more.
This is frustrating for more than our international students, as their presence on campus benefits everyone.
I have long noted that, if you took me to an unfamiliar college campus but kept my eyes covered, I would likely still be able tell if I am in a truly great university. How? By listening for the different languages being spoken there. Truly great universities are international universities by virtue of the fact that they draw students from all over the world. This is, as far as I’m concerned, absolutely terrific.
Until we think about the climate footprint of flying these students back-and-forth from campus and home. Not only is all this air travel environmentally largely disastrous, but we are back to the same issue that I noted regarding traveling to academic conferences. Please allow me to repeat what I said regarding international conferences, but instead slightly revise it to reference international courses:
“The cost of airfare from many low- and middle-income countries to anywhere in North America or Europe is often greater than the per capita annual income in these countries. Consequently, scholars [students] from most of the world’s countries, and nearly the entire Global South, have long been quietly, summarily excluded from international conferences [educations].”
This is a huge social justice issue, which is, as far as I am concerned, largely being ignored today. And, as with most social justice issues, this hurts us all.
True, students who cannot afford the airfare are obviously harmed. But, in addition, we all lose out, as universities like UCSB are not being enriched by having these international students in our classes. Simply put, we are missing out on the opportunity to have a great deal of additional brain power in our classes. Moreover, having a range of international perspectives on an issue like the climate crisis would deeply enrich Climate Crisis 101.
Consequently, Climate Crisis 101, as a NCN course, is designed to provide an equal experience to students (and anyone) across the globe.
Although I have repeatedly returned to the particular way that I am currently teaching Climate Crisis 101 at UCSB, this is hardly the only classroom experience possible.
For example, not every student watching the lectures need to be in the classroom. In this hybrid scenario, students in the lecture hall would watch the pre-recorded lecture projected on the screen in the room. At the same time, remote students would be able to watch the lecture (and take part in the Q&A) as a live webinar coming out of the computer playing the pre-recorded lecture. Hence, this would not be an asynchronous class, as all students will be watching the same lecture at the same time, regardless of their location.
The difficulty here is that time zones present a problem here. Simply put, regardless of when a lecture is scheduled, it will be the middle of the night in some time zones. However, when we experimented with live “NCN Salons” to complement our asynchronous NCN conferences, it became clear that some presentation times can work for a broad swathe of the planet.
Hence, as a UCSB class, Climate Crisis 101 is scheduled for 9:30-10:45am PST. This translates to starting times of 12:30 in NYC, 1:30pm in Salvador, Brazil, 6:30pm for London, 8:30pm in Nairobi, 10:30pm in New Delhi, and 12:30am in Beijing. I have, incidentally, geared this toward students, who (in my experience) tend to get up and go to bed a little later than I do. Thus, for some audiences, the timing could be moved up a little. For example, a start time of 7:30am PST start translates into 10:30pm in Beijing.
In any event, even though careful timing can include most people on the globe, some people will inevitably be left out. A 9:30am PST start time is 3:30am in Melbourne.
In order to be truly inclusive and not privilege any one time zone, we need to shift to an asynchronous course. This is the approach taken by both our NCN conferences and by Climate Crisis 101 when it was taught during COVID.
Since all of the lectures are prerecorded (and exist in a variety of forms) and students interact via the YouTube comments, Climate Crisis 101 was easily adapted to asynchronous presentation during COVID. The one downside was that this precluded a live Q&A while the lecture were being shown. However, it was easy enough to open an online forum where students could post questions and comments (and where I could respond) at a time of their choosing.
Why take this unusual approach? It creates a course that has ultimate flexibility, as it can be done in person, as a hybrid, remotely, and if remotely, internationally, as well as asynchronous presentation.
FAQs
In the course of this chapter, I somewhat sidestepped a number of issues. So, in order not to miss anything, in this chapter I would like to address a number of outstanding points regarding Climate Crisis 101.
Does posting this material online make the class redundant?
It is useful to pause and to reflect on why we give university credit for coursework. Credit is not given for simply showing up for class. Instead, students are graded on how well they have understood and mastered the material. Even if someone were to explore all of this online lecture material, the instructor would be in no position to evaluate what they had learned. Such evaluation is essential for accreditation.
This is not to say that someone studying this online material could not master it well enough to receive an “A” in the actual class. Indeed, the goal of posting everything online is to offer such a person everything necessary to attain that level of proficiency.
It is also the case that the course subject matters here. If this were a course on something like a computer language, having university accreditation would likely be of significant value in seeking a job. However, understanding the climate crisis is different. True, having accrued four credits for this course could play a role in obtaining an undergraduate degree, but the reason that someone would take this particular course is presumably because they want to learn more about what will likely be the most significant issue of this century – and one that will have a profound impact on his or her life.
In this sense, whether you receive credit for taking this course is – as far as I am concerned, given the urgency and severity of the climate crisis – far less important than learning about this issue.
This is also a moral issue for me. Anyone who is interested should have access to this material. Again, it might be different if the subject at hand were something like Renaissance poetry, but it seems to me that there is a moral imperative in making this material open to the public. Given that fossil fuel interests are working hard at spreading disinformation about the climate crisis, everyone needs to have unrestricted access to reliable information on this crisis.
Is this a MOOC?
Although it might be possible to convert the approach explored here into some sort of graded MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), it is by no means the objective – and certainly not at all necessary in implementing the approach. Moreover, making it into some sort of a paid course, and in the process restricting access to this material, strongly goes against the spirit of this approach. At the risk of repeating myself, as everyone on the planet is experiencing the climate crisis, everyone should have complete access to credible materials relating to it.
This is a living document
Unlike a print book, this page is regularly being updated and expanded. Why? Because the climate crisis is unfolding at a bewildering rate. Consequently, this page and its content will change along with the crisis. Moreover, students often come to me with questions that suggest new material that I should add to this page.
As a living document, this page is somewhat like an academic preprint; however, with the understanding that a print version will not be forthcoming. I welcome input from my students and colleagues, as well as the public, in improving it.
If you would like to cite from this page, you should note the date of the reference. Alternately, you could archive and reference a copy of this page from the day that you are citing it by way of the Internet Archive (a.k.a. “The Wayback Machine”) and reference that URL.
A note for teachers
The material on this website may be of particular interest to educators, as the course videos and podcasts may be useful in flipping a classroom. In fact, as noted above regarding this being a discussion-based approach, this course is designed around a flipped classroom.
A note on the syllabus for people not taking the UCSB course
If you are not enrolled in the course, you still might find the syllabus of interest, as it structures what may otherwise be a confusing array of online material. Although it is possible to randomly watch the course YouTube videos, this syllabus not only provides a systematic way of approaching them, it also offers links to additional course material (such as the primary readings, which are all available free of cost online). In addition, it should be possible to watch all of the course’s YouTube lectures directly from this page – even if YouTube is not available in your country
Why does this page look the way that it does?
First, see the above sections on accessibility.
It’s also time for a confession.
I love getting lost in a good book. Lost in a sea of words, just words on a blank page. As I am a scholar of the written word, this probably comes as little surprise. Of course, there is nothing wrong with feeling the same way about a page rich in images, like a graphic novel, but I personally find the look of words alone against a stark backdrop familiar and inviting.
In her Thinking With Type, Ellen Lupton wonderfully observed that “Typography is what language looks like.” In addition to considering what written language is doing, which is what I do for a living, I am fascinated (“mesmerized” might be a better word) by how it looks. The fact that I am dyslexic may play a role here.
While this fascination began decades ago when I was a child who read far too many books, and continued into adulthood as I collected far too many of them, I have grown to enjoy the look and nuance of digital text even more. Perhaps not surprisingly then, I find long scrolls of crisp Helvetica text pleasing.
Apologies in advance if you don’t like this look, as I realize that it flies in the face of a good deal of contemporary web design and the fact that pictures can indeed add interest to a page. Hence, you may find it just plain boring. Still, since I have no desire to monetize this site with ads or to promote anything here, I hope that you enjoy the luxury of this minimalist approach.
Some reflections on the first time that Climate Crisis 101 was taught
As I noted previously in this chapter, my goal with the comments was to create a “discussion-based course with 1000 students.”
Many people are of the decided opinion that the best size for a discussion class is just the opposite of this approach: classes that are as small as possible. Indeed, around one hundredth the size of this course, as the ideal for many is a seminar with 8 to 12 students. Indeed, this is pretty conventional wisdom.
Having taught at both Harvard and Princeton, I am quite familiar with discussion classes of this size, having led quite a few of them. This is, incidentally, the norm at both of those schools, as well as a broad range of private (read expensive and sometimes elitist) colleges.
However, looking back on the first time with this course was taught, I can say with complete confidence that these online UCSB discussions surpassed, by orders of magnitude, any discussion that I ever led at Harvard or Princeton.
By that I am not talking about the sheer number of comments or words written. In terms of metrics like these, few courses can compete with what happens with English 23, as the students in the class together literally wrote millions of words of commentary and discussion.
No, I am talking about the quality of these discussions.
First, the comments and questions posed by students were generally far longer and more thoughtful than what one might say off the cuff, in real-time, during a conventional discussion. This is one of the great advantages of switching to discussion using the written, rather than the spoken, word.
In addition to being a cultural historian, I am also a literature professor. Hence, as the written word is my stock and trade, I know that it can in many ways surpass spoken speech. While Oscar Wilde may have been as clever as some of his characters when he spoke, few conversations are as witty as those that he penned.
When we put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), we have the advantage of time. Time to reflect on what we are going to express. Time to craft our individual sentences and phrases. Time to go back and revise what we have written. Even if we take just a little time, a minute or two, this still gives us time for thought.
Written comments have additional advantages. Even if there are just 10 people in the room, speaking up in class can be a little daunting. For some people, more daunting than others. In fact, for some, so daunting that they never express what they are thinking to everyone else. I remember my first seminar in college, I didn’t say a single word the entire term. I didn’t say anything in my second seminar either.
As a professor, I have led plenty of small seminars where some people never talked. And others, where more than half the room had little to say.
But by making commenting a requirement of the course and removing any face-to-face social pressure, it means that everyone gets to be heard. And we all benefit by that.
With public comments like these, we also have the opportunity to read what others have written prior to putting in our own two cents. This is where comments turn into discussions, as people get to respond not only to the course material, but to each other.
And what interesting comments and discussion we had!
To be honest, they greatly exceeded my expectations. People said more – and said more interesting things – than I ever imagined.
I’m sure some of this had to do with the subject matter, the climate crisis. Many of my students (and people of their generation) are rightly very concerned about this crisis, which is no longer a hypothetical, as it once was for my generation, but is a reality of their lives.
The great diversity of the class was also a factor here, as we had students from around the world and from a range of different backgrounds sharing often unique perspectives on the course material. I will always remember one of the comments toward the end of the first course that began “When I was reading Being The Change, I couldn’t help but think of my parents. They were recently deported to Mexico…”
All this drew more than just my attention, as people responded, often in droves, to comments by their classmates that particularly resonated with them. The above comment received over seventy responses.
As you can probably tell, I am more than a little psyched about the comments in this course.
Because I found the comments so interesting and compelling, I structured the in-class lectures around them.
The idea was to have a discussion not unlike what would have happened in a traditional seminar involving just a dozen or fewer students.
In a traditional seminar of the sort, everyone comes to class having read or watched the course materials. I would then usually begin by making an opening statement, which, depending on the material, would take a few minutes. After which, people in the class would offer their own thoughts on the material and questions that I had raised. These comments would then often elicit responses from other people in the room.
During this time, incidentally, I usually try to hang back until everyone has had a chance to respond to their classmate. Once they had, I then would weigh in myself, delivering new information in the process. This procedure would repeat itself through the session.
I have to admit that I very much like this seminar model, as it allows the students in the room to structure how I present my thoughts and material on the subject at hand. In other words, if people are interested in a particular issue, I can then teach them more about that issue. In a lecture, by contrast, I am solely deciding what is important and the order in which it appears, leaving students out of the process altogether.
Even though both traditional seminars and lectures introduce students to a range of new material and ideas, the seminar approach has the potential to be more effective and ultimately more personally meaningful, as it tailors instruction to students in the class. This has long been a selling point of colleges (often expensive ones) that promise small classes, which is central to this pedagogical approach.
Although I was inspired by this seminar model, my suspicion was that it could work even better if far more than a handful of people were involved.
So, in this course I posted my short opening statement to YouTube and then invited comments on it, as well as responses to these comments. As with a small face-to-face seminar, I then replied to some of the most interesting of these comments and responses, one by one. This was done during the class period, as I projected select comments and replies onscreen for the class to read before I weighed in.
What quickly became apparent was that students were essentially “voting” on what they found interesting by replying to comments that focused in on particular issues. This often made it easy for me to decide which comments to discuss in class, as those receiving dozens of responses were clearly resonating with people. Although something similar can happen in a small lecture when people latch onto a comment, in this case such enthusiasm was made especially clear.
This is not to say that the only interesting comments were those that received dozens of responses. In fact, one of the real challenges of preparing for the class period was choosing just which comments and responses to project onscreen, as there were often a hundred or more really interesting ones!
This course is creating a lasting archive
The first iteration of this course began as a new decade opened, on January 6, 2020.
One of the objectives of this course, which is tied to when it is being taught, has little to do with pedagogy. From the start, one of the goals was to use the opportunity of this course to create an archive that is expected to contain millions of words of commentary on, and discussion of, the climate crisis. It will be written by thousands of college students at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) throughout the 2020s. In order to have the greatest chance of enduring over time, this material will reside on the Internet Archive.
Before exploring the nature of this unusual course and archive further, allow me to underscore the importance of this particular ten-year period, as it is not just any decade.
As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), a Representative from New York, famously declared the January before this decade opened, “The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.” Unless you had your head buried in the sand at the time, you know that she opened herself up to an enormous amount of criticism here. Consequently, regarding this statement, she later made clear that “you’d have to have the social intelligence of a sea sponge to think it’s literal.”
Still, AOC was right to draw attention to the profound importance of this decade, even if she could have done so more carefully. Which is, incidentally, exactly what Bernie Sanders, a Senator from Vermont, later did when he noted that “[t]he scientific community is telling us in no uncertain terms that we have less than 11 years left to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energy, if we are going to leave this planet healthy and habitable for ourselves, our children, grandchildren, and future generations.”
The reference to the “scientific community” by Sanders was very likely to an October 2018 report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which noted that, if we are to limit “global warming to 1.5°C…[g]lobal net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030.” These IPCC findings were also likely what AOC was referencing.
So, while the world will not (literally) end in 2030, we will really need to have decisively acted by then if we hope, in the words of Sanders, “to leave this planet healthy and habitable” for future generations.
Consequently, with respect to keeping our planet habitable and welcoming for our species, the decade of the 2020s may be the most important of the century.
But what, exactly, do people – and young people especially – make of all this?
Why focus on a younger generation in particular? Their lives, along with the lives of future generations, will be defined by what we do, and fail to do, in this decade.
For the most part, students in the first class taking part in this project in 2020 were born around the year 2000 (47% were Freshman, 33% Sophomores, 11% Juniors, 6% Seniors, and 3% others). Most of them will likely witness the majority of the 21st century unfolding. As will the nine classes following them each year through the 2020s. Consequently, the climate crisis will be a far bigger issue for this generation than it was for mine, as I have only been minimally impacted by the crisis during my six decades on the planet.
So, what do these young people, with the weight of the world on their shoulders, make of all this?
The title of this course, “The Climate Crisis: What It Is and What Each of Us Can Do About It,” was meant to signal (as best I could in a few words) what is covered in class. Roughly the first third of the course is taken up with explaining exactly what the climate crisis is and what we can expect in future decades. The second two thirds is devoted to exploring a range of ways that each of us can make interventions, including personal action, collective activism, becoming politically active, communicating the issue to friends and family, and so forth.
As lecturer, my job was to inform my students of the situation and suggest ways that each of us can help to mitigate it. In this sense, our respective tasks were clear: I taught, they learned.
But in another sense, the more than 800 people in the room taught me a great deal – for which I owe them an enormously debt of thanks.
Normally, this would not have been possible with a lecture this large, as traditionally I would have been just broadcasting to the lecture hall with no feedback. However, as I note here, this course employed an unusual variation on a flipped classroom, as students watched and commented on my prerecorded lectures online. They not only commented on my primary lectures, but also short lectures in which I introduced and framed the course readings and films. All told, they each commented on over thirty short lectures.
In addition, and importantly, students were required to spend half their time responding to comments made by their classmates. The idea was to get them talking to each about specific aspects of the climate crisis and what we can do about it.
Some people may see this form of “talking” as inferior to face-to-face communication; however, having spent a number of years working on facilitating online conference discussions as a more environmentally sound alternative to fly-in events, it has been my experience that meaningful interaction can and does happen online in written form. Moreover, because we have more time to consider our words and be more precise when writing, this form of interaction is in some ways potentially superior to spoken conversations. Of course, as a literary historian, I have a certain fondness for the written word.
In any event, the primary goal of the course was, 1) as the title suggests, to familiarize students with the climate crisis and what actions that we can take to mitigate it, as well as to 2) get them talking about it with each other. All the material was selected and presented with this two-part goal in mind.
However, as with many class discussions, I also learned a great deal. In fact, I learned more than in any other class that I have ever taught – by a long shot.
Some of what I learned was pretty pragmatic, as these online conversations taught me, for example, new ways of intervening in the climate crisis, such as specific and novel ways of leveraging and communicating through social media. (As you might imagine, my students are far more up on this than I am.)
But I am also learning a great deal about how my students think and feel about this crisis.
This was not the primary objective in setting up this unusual pedagogical approach, as I did not structure lectures with this outcome in mind. For example, our first reading (by David Wallace-Wells) explores what would happen if we do not limit global temperature rise to 1.5-2 degrees Celsius, the goal of the Paris Agreement. Instead, Wallace-Wells outlines the consequences if it creeps to 2-4 degrees or beyond.
My goal was not to gauge how my students responded to the rather dire consequences that Wallace-Wells lays out. If that had been the objective, I might have provided them with a questionnaire containing a series of specific questions, perhaps asking them, on a scale of 1-10, how anxious they were made by the specific discussion of “Heat Death” in the article. But I’m not a sociologist and that sort of assessment wasn’t my goal.
Nonetheless, the online discussion for the article by Wallace-Wells (and for all of the readings, films, and lectures for the course) proved utterly fascinating.
My students are wonderfully diverse, coming from all over the planet and all sorts of backgrounds. However, they are a largely homogenous group with respect to age, as they are (as noted above), for the most part, all in their late teens or early twenties. They are a particularly bright bunch, as the average UCSB undergrad had over a 4.0 GPA in high school. It is also worth noting that they are a largely self-selected group, as only students with a least some interest in the climate crisis would likely take this particular course.
Consequently, if you are interested in what bright young people with an interest in the topic thought about the climate crisis in the 2020s, there is much to be learned from the archive created by the course.
As the plan is to add a new installment each year for a decade, presumably what they think will change over the years. For example, the first interaction of the course took place as the COVID-19 crisis was initially unfolding, but before social distancing was required (over 800 students were packing in one lecture hall, shoulder to shoulder). Will the next class see the climate crisis differently in light of COVID-19? Perhaps. We will have to wait and see.
Similarly, California’s Democratic primary took place during the first class, with Bernie Sanders, whose platform centered on a sweeping Green New Deal, taking an enormous initial lead. In contrast, the next time course is taught, either the sitting President (Donald Trump) or a new one will be sworn in four years. Hence, this political backdrop will be significantly different from the first class. It should be interesting to see how attitudes change.
I hope that you find this archive useful. The students in this class have already taught me much. And I am more than little optimistic that I will learn more during the following nine years. In posting these student reflections and discussions online, my fondest hope is that you will learn from them as well.
Here is the archive from the first time that the course was taught in the Winter of 2020, which has been saved to the Internet Archive:
Climate and Generation
How the climate crisis was brought about in a single lifetime
Why the generation that caused the climate crisis is not acting
What a new generation can do to mitigate the climate
Can one generation do what previous generations failed to do?
What the Boomer generation knew about the climate crisis – and when we knew it
What each of us can do about the climate crisis
Why the climate crisis is a cultural problem (and why electric cars are more trouble than good)
Pulling it all together: 20 things that each of us can do to save the planet
The Climate Crisis: What It Was and What Each of Us Did About It (A Message From the Future)
Personal action, climate activism, or becoming politically active. Which matters more?
Do we need a climate vanguard? (Food, today and tomorrow)
Flying, the absolute worst thing that you can do environmentally
Films
Before the Flood and An Inconvenient Sequel
A Climate of Doubt and Merchants Of Doubt
Are we destroying the planet in a misguided pursuit of happiness?
Readings
The uninhabitable (or at least unwelcoming) earth
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
Social justice, environmental justice, climate justice, and the injustice of it all
Communicating the Climate Crisis: vegans and freegans, vegetarians and climatarians
Drawing down greenhouse gas emissions by being the change
Scholar Activism
Climate Crisis 101 emerged out of another class that I annually teach: UCSB’s English 22, “Introduction to Literature and the Environment.” English 22 explores nearly 5000 years of Western literature with the goal of better understanding contemporary environmental attitudes. While this proved to be a popular course over the years, it became clear that students really wanted to focus on the cultural implications of the climate crisis. So, after thinking it over for a few years, I introduced Climate Crisis 101 in order to do just that.
I mention this because English 22
In order to expose students to a broad range of British and American Literature, all UCSB English majors are required to take a four-course lecture sequence (English 101-104) that covers literature from its earliest Anglo-Saxon beginnings to the present. For many years, I taught the first installment, English 101, which includes texts from the early Medieval period through 1650, including Chaucer, Shakespeare, and early Milton.
The problem is that many students dread this course. When I taught the course during the summer, I learned that more than half of the students in the room had just walked at graduation, even though they hadn’t taken English 101. (If students have just one or two courses to go, UCSB will allow them to take part in the graduation ceremony, but will not confer the degree until they finish the courses.)
When I asked students why they dreaded English 101, I kept hearing the same story: they repeatedly put off the course because Medieval and Renaissance literature did not seem very interesting (with the possible exception of Shakespeare, whom they often encountered in high school) and because they found the prospect of reading Chaucer in the original Middle English daunting. Thoughtful students also noted that this early English literature often lacks diversity, as most of the writers that have been traditionally taught are wealthy white men.
Ironically, it has been my experience that once students take English 101, they tend to like it, or at least see the merit of having encountered its literature. Consequently, having taught English 101 many times over the years, I have seen the central challenge as presenting the material in ways that interests students. For example, I work at making the readings more diverse by including portions of the first autobiography in English by a woman and poems by England’s first professional woman writer.
However, given the current situation in the humanities, I have come to see that the more urgent challenge is getting students interested in the material before (rather than during) the course.
If we fail to do this, courses like this are nonstarters, as students will not even sign up for them. If English 101 were not required for the major, I imagine enrollment would plummet. Keep in mind that we are focusing on English majors here. If we stand back to consider the humanities in general and students that have not yet declared a major, the situation is far more grim – and at the center of our current situation in the humanities.
Students want to know why they should take our courses and majors. This is a fair question. Answering that English majors will encounter 1400 years of literature, which is held up as a sufficiently worthwhile goal in itself, is no longer a compelling answer for a broad swath of students.
In response to the challenges with English 101, I developed a different sort of course. It is similar to English 101 in so far as we read one of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (in Middle English), one of Shakespeare’s plays (in Elizabethan English), and the opening books of Milton’s Paradise Lost (in its original 1667 iambic pentameters). In addition to these three canonical writers, we read over a dozen more English and American texts.
We also read a range of classical literature, including a significant chunk of the 5000-year-old Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, the first great work of Western literature, as well as Greek and Latin classics, including Hesiod, Theocritus, Ovid, Virgil, Cato, Varro, and Horace in Loeb editions (which have the original Greek or Latin text on the left and English translations on the facing page).
Finally, we looked at philosophical and theological texts (like portions of Plato’s Republic, the opening of the Bible, and one of Martin Heidegger’s essays). In each case, we explored the challenge of translating specific Greek, Hebrew, and German philosophical terms and concepts into English.
Unlike English 101, which students are often reluctant to take, this course – even though it is not a required English Department course like English 101 – fills the 860 seats of the largest lecture on campus with the significant waitlist every year. Not only is it the largest lecture course offered by the English Department (the average large lecture has 200 students), it is the most popular elective on campus.
So, what is this course and how does it differ from English 101? It is Ecocriticism 101, “Introduction to Literature and Environment.” The course asks a simple question: “Why do we feel the way we do about the environment?” In addressing this question, we explore our culture’s relationship to the natural world and its long history. Literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds – and in some cases thousands – of years.
Not surprisingly, our students are curious to learn why we feel the way we do about the environment. They see this as relevant and important, especially given the current state of the world. Reading Medieval and Renaissance is not the purpose of the class (as it is in English 101), but rather a means to what students see as a worthwhile end.
Yes, it would be terrific if we could get students to line up by the hundreds for the opportunity to just read Medieval and Renaissance texts, but this is just not going to happen. Perhaps back in the 20th century they did, but times have changed.
The solution is not to water down the material. As noted above, Ecocriticism 101is a challenging course with readings easily as demanding as those in English 101 (arguably more demanding, given all its Greek and Latin texts). It is certainly not a humanities version of popular science courses like “Rocks for Jocks.” Nonetheless, the course has confirmed for me that undergraduates are willing to put in the work for what they see as a worthy goal. And once in class, we can introduce them to the joys and merits of literature.
In short, if enrollment numbers are any indication, in recent years students are showing less interest in learning literature for the sake of learning literature. The lackluster interest in English 101 suggests that this is true even among English majors. However, if they believe it is for a worthwhile reason, students are lining up to take the class. If we were to reduce this to a concise maxim, it could be “If you give them a reason that they find relevant, they will enroll.”
Note that the high enrollment is not for vocational or immediately practical reasons. Some Environmental Studies majors are enrolled in the class, but they are a small minority. Most students take the class simply because they find it interesting. While it is perfectly fine to argue that humanities majors get jobs once they graduate, it is not necessary to do so to get students to enroll in our classes. Of course, once we have them in class we can (and should) let them know the many vocational opportunities open to humanities majors. However, job #1 is first getting them into our classes.
There is nothing particularly special about Ecocriticism 101 in this regard. Yes, undergraduates are interested in environmental issues, but other topics interest them as well. Many of our students, often from before they even enter college, are deeply concerned about a range of social justice issues, such as Black Lives Matter, LGBTIQ rights and identity, climate and environmental justice, wealth inequity, the rise of nationalism, and so forth.
I further believe that we have a moral obligation to introduce students to these important and timely issues. In the past few decades, the study of English has in many ways shifted from the study of literature to the study of culture. Hence, I think of myself as more of a cultural historian than literary critic (though I am both). Because we are scholars of important cultural issues (like climate change, race, queer studies, etc.), why not teach English around these issues? Yes, I am aware that professors often bring these issues into English 101-104 lectures. But why not build the courses around them? Since a recent study has revealed that a third of high school teachers are teaching climate change skepticism, it is crucial that we remedy this at the college level. Debates around race, LGBTQ+ rights, and a range of issues have similarly erupted on the public stage in recent years. We have a unique opportunity to make a difference in the world by helping our students sift through all this by way of courses built around these crucial issues.
Chapter 1, Overview and Approach
Overview
Let’s consider how this course is structured.
A frequent objection to Al Gore’s milestone 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth was that it principally explained the problem rather than offered solutions to the climate crisis. As it provided little direction on how to solve this extraordinary problem, more than a few people found the film depressing. Some even felt hopeless after viewing it, which was certainly understandable.
After all, on what were we to pin our hopes? What could avert, or at least mitigate, the crisis? Gore offered us very little to go on – and, thus, very little hope.
In fairness, given that the film ran for just under two hours, Gore was able to do quite a bit in a short time. He certainly energized a generation of activists, like filmmaker Kip Anderson (as he explains in the opening of Cowspiracy). Nonetheless, An Inconvenient Truth is something of a cautionary tale for anyone wishing to communicate the extraordinary challenge that the climate crisis presents for humanity.
Climate Crisis 101 humbly both takes up this formidable challenge of 1) communicating the climate crisis, as well as 2) exploring the challenges we face in mitigating this crisis.
As An Inconvenient Truth made clear, both challenges are indeed formidable and interconnected. Why didn’t Gore communicate more solutions? In part, he arguably didn’t because they were still being worked out in detail across the globe in 2006, even though at the time we had known for over 40 years that we needed to make changes like switching to renewable energy, such as photovoltaic and wind power. Moreover, we largely had the necessary technology in the 1970s.
However, as far as our day-to-day lives are concerned, a climate friendly lifestyle seemed, to be honest, like something of an oddity. Again, this is not to say that people haven’t been developing and advocating for such a lifestyle for 50 years, as environmental vegetarianism (i.e. eating a large plant-based diet for environmental reasons), for example, is certainly that old.
Part of the problem was that we were still in something of a state of denial. This is not to say that Gore’s audience was denying that the crisis was real. While it was unfortunately the case that many Americans were denying the crisis in 2006, the people that filled theaters to watch An Inconvenient Truth likely acknowledged that there was a problem. At least by the end of the film they certainly did.
But this is a different sort of denial. Denial that our lives would have to change in order to avert the crisis.
Many people were (and are) still hoping that a new kind of car, perhaps a hybrid or fully electric one, or buying organic food would solve the problem (Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma also came out in 2006).
But they weren’t at all prepared for the fact that we would have to forgo owning cars altogether and radically rethink the way that we eat. Pastured beef may arguably be better for the planet than feedlots, but a far bigger problem is that we eat beef at all.
It is not that Gore and his original audience were denying the validity of the climate crisis, they just were arguably in a state of denial when it came to personally addressing the problem. Gore himself certainly repeatedly came under fire for his personal failure to do so. It is, in fact, difficult to understand how a Nobel laureate for his work on the climate crisis would be ok with crisscrossing the globe in a private jet.
Climate Crisis 101 takes the position that we both need to stop denying that personal changes will be necessary, as well as stop delaying implementing them.
Once we open ourselves up to the fact that we need to make changes to our way of life, we are suddenly presented with scores of things that we can do to help mitigate the climate crisis.
Big and little things that together that can reduce our size-ten climate footprints down to size-one. I don’t mean this just figuratively. As we shall see, it is literally possible for Americans to reduce our individual climate footprints by a factor of ten and still live meaningful and happy lives. Arguably more meaningful and happier lives.
The needed changes are both individual and collective. Hence, there are things that we can do by ourselves, such as switching to a largely plant-based diet, and things that we can only do collectively through activism and political action, like enacting a Green New Deal.
These changes form the basis for Climate Crisis 101. In other words, in some ways, Climate Crisis 101 is less about climate change than it is about human change – how we human beings, both individually and collectively, need to change.
Consequently, and in contrast to An Inconvenient Truth, which focused on the problem, Climate Crisis 101 focuses primarily on solutions. This is not to say that we gloss over the problem, but rather that we only devote about a third of the course to it.
Here is how Climate Crisis 101 proceeds, which should help further explain its underlying rationale.
Climate crisis 101 is divided into ten sections, which correspond to the ten weeks that Climate Crisis 101 is taught at UCSB. Note that these sections are different than the chapters.
The first three of ten sections are devoted to the problem.
Section 1 focuses on the problem by considering how the climate crisis is a global phenomenon already impacting the entire planet. Moreover, as we explore in this section, this is just the beginning, as the worst is yet to come. How bad will it be? It all depends on how quickly and decisively we act.
Section 2 brings things close to home, as we look at how the crisis is already having a real impact on us locally. Since this course is taught in California, the focus is on how the crisis is unfolding here, including Santa Barbara in particular. This is an important section, as it underscores that this worldwide crisis will be experienced very differently across the globe.
Section 3 takes up the question of climate change denial and delay, which is greatly exacerbating the problem – and, in fact, making the problem far worse. If we resolve to take the required actions, we can avert the worst of what is to come. Unfortunately, the fossil fuel industry and other interests are devoted to thwarting those actions.
Three weeks are not a lot to devote to the problem. We could easily spend the whole course on this. Indeed, multiple courses. But this brings us back to Gore’s challenge with An Inconvenient Truth: a course devoted to the problem would offer little hope for the future.
In fact, when this course was taught for the first time, during the first three weeks many students were already becoming depressed and indeed despairing. After reading their weekly comments, I found myself repeatedly reassuring them that there was hope and that we would get to it soon.
And there is hope, lots of it. The final seven sections are devoted to it.
Section 4 introduces, by way of Henry David Thoreau and the modern movement of minimalism, how lifestyle choices and personal actions can have a profound impact on our individual climate foot prints.
Section 5 not only takes a look at the environmental impact of the past 60 years of consumer culture, but also the social justice issues that it created.
Section 6 looks at the top 25 sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and considers how important personal action is to many of these. In particular, we look at how limiting food waste and switching to largely plant-based diets are together more important than either wind or solar energy in reducing GHG emissions.
Note that sections 4-6 focus on personal action. I agree with climate activist Naomi Klein that “focusing on individual consumer behaviour, whether it’s changing lightbulbs or going vegan, is just not going to get us there.”
However, as we shall see, it is not a question of choosing either personal action or climate activism or becoming politically active. In many, many cases, all three are integrally connected – and desperately needed.
Personal action has a special position, as it can help keep our focus on the prize on a daily basis. Everyday that we hop on a bike or forgo a burger, we remind ourselves that much needs to be done – and that we are, even if in a small way, doing something.
Doing such little things also sends a message to the rest of the world, as we lead by example.
However, Naomi Klein is right that this is not enough, which is why the next two sections of Climate Crisis 101 are devoted to climate activism, political action, and the challenge of communicating climate change.
Section 7 underscores the importance of climate activism and political action. In particular, the focus will be on the Green New Deal, as it promised sweeping political, economic, and cultural changes in response to the climate crisis. Although it is presently not being enacted, it represents the most reasonable response to the climate crisis that has yet to be put forth by politicians in the US.
Section 8 focuses on the importance of communication. In addition to personal action, activism, and being politically active, it is important for each of us to communicate to others the urgency of the climate crisis and what can be done about it. This is often far easier said than done.
Section 9 takes up what may seem to be an odd question: Can the climate crisis make us happy? In no way do I mean to be insensitive here, as I realize that millions of people are already suffering because of the climate crisis – and that this is just the beginning, as billions (with a B) will ultimately suffer.
In response to this suffering, this course takes a long hard look at the current, consumerist iteration of the “American Dream” and how it is not just an environmental and social justice nightmare, but has also taken its toll on the American psyche.
The problem is that this consumerist dream promising happiness has not at all delivered on the promise.
In fact, in recent decades, Americans have become less and less happy. While this would be a sad irony in itself, the great tragedy is that in pursuing happiness in this way we are destroying our planet. During the same period that Americans have been becoming less happy, we have been pumping more and more greenhouse gases into our planet’s atmosphere.
Not only could profoundly reevaluating and reducing consumerism make us happier, it could reduce suffering in wealthy countries now, as well as the rest of the world, as billions of people move out of poverty.
Section 10 concludes the course by considering how we can make a difference in the world in light of what we have learned.
By ending on an optimistic (indeed “happy”) note, my goal is to make clear that not only is there hope for the future, but that it can be a far better, happier future than the present – or, for that matter, any point in human history.
How do we bring such a future about? The majority of this course is devoted to what each of us can do about realizing it.
General Approach
Let’s consider the approach that this course employs.
In one sense, the climate crisis is being caused by a rise in atmospheric CO2 and other so-called greenhouse gases. Science can address this cause. However, approached in another way altogether, this crisis is being caused by a range of troubling human activities that require the release of these gases.
These activities include our obsessions in wealthy countries like the US. with endless consumer goods, cars, certain food, lavish houses, fast fashion, air travel, and a broad range of additional lifestyle choices.
The natural sciences may be able to tell us how these activities are changing our climate, but not why we are engaging in them. That’s a job for the environmental humanities and social sciences.
In Climate Crisis 101, we will see anthropogenic (i.e. human-caused) climate change for what it is and address it as such: a human problem brought about by human actions. Thus, we will be taking a long hard look – from the perspective of the environmental humanities – at these actions and how they are culturally constructed.
In other words, we will be exploring why we as a species do what we do, even when these actions are disastrous for our planet and our species (along with most other species on the planet).
While this largely academic question is interesting in its own right, the course is also meant to be deeply personal insofar as we will be looking at our own actions and how they impact the planet and climate.
Moreover, we will not just be considering our individual actions, but also forms of collective climate activism. Becoming engaged and active, whether simply by voting or by becoming a committed climate activist, is of paramount importance if we are to mitigate this crisis.
In this course, we will not be focusing on technologically-based solutions, rather human-based ones. In other words, instead of looking to technology for solutions to the problem of the climate crisis, we need to look at its cause directly: human action. While human action caused the climate crisis, the good news is that human action can go a long way toward solving it.
In short, this course is in many respects less about climate change than it is about human change.
So, why take a human-based approach? Let’s take food as our first example.
As previously noted, the climate crisis can be seen as a human problem brought about by human actions. In addition to seeing the problem in this way, the solutions to this crisis that have the greatest potential impact also center on human behavior (i.e. cultural norms) rather than just technological innovation.
According to Project Drawdown (“Table of Solutions,” Scenario 1), which is the most comprehensive plan ever put forth to reverse global warming, the #1 thing that we can do to roll back global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions does not involve wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles, or any sort of similar technologies.
Instead, what is required is a cultural change regarding food: we need to waste far less of it and to switch to largely plant-rich diets. Doing so will result in a staggering reduction of 152 gigatons of CO2 or equivalent gases.
In comparison to this reduction, globally shifting from fossil fuels to electricity generated by photovoltaic (solar) panels will roll back less than half this amount of emissions. The adoption of electric vehicles? Far less than ten percent. We should, of course, work on exploring a variety of technologies to help reduce our emissions, but it is important to keep their relative impact in perspective.
Worldwide, agriculture is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, yet between 1/3 and 1/2 of all the food that we produce on this planet is wasted. Regarding the switch to a largely plant-rich diet, the same amount of greenhouse gasses is released in producing one pound of beef as is released in producing thirty pounds of lentils, also a great source of protein.
Changing how we eat may not sound nearly as sexy as a self-driving electric car, but it would nonetheless be ten times better for the planet.
Let’s consider a second example of why we should take a human-based approach.
The #2 thing (according to Project Drawdown) that we can do to roll back GHG emissions is also a cultural issue that is a far cry from technology.
We need to educate more girls and women (which dramatically curbs population growth, as the more education a woman has, the fewer children she has) and promote family planning (globally, there are roughly 85 million unintended pregnancies every year). These two things together would roll back 85 gigatons of GHG emissions.
This is not to say that we should place responsibility for this particular issue with girls and women. To the contrary, the responsibility lies with the institutions that restrict a woman’s access to education and control of her own body. And too, it is obviously the case that contraception is a male responsibility as well.
Why is population so important? Sixty years ago, around when I was born, the global population was about 3 billion. Currently, it is 7.75 billion. By 2050 it will be approaching 10 billion. The simple fact is that this many people are profoundly taxing the resources of our planet. Hence, reducing the population of our species is one of the main things that we can do to mitigate the climate crisis.
However, population is a complicated issue. As we shall see, when people in wealthy countries like the US. call for low and middle-income countries to reduce their population, this can sometimes be simply racist. The profound irony here is the poorest half of the world’s population have had a minimal impact on CO2 rise, yet will suffer the consequences of the climate crisis the most.
For the most part, these individuals are in low and middle-income countries and will suffer because of the actions of wealthy countries like the US.
Taken together, the two cultural changes regarding food and population can take us nearly a quarter of the way to where we need to go to get GHG emissions under control. Note that very little is needed by way of technology here, as the necessary changes can be made right now by both individuals and a range of groups and institutions.
This is not to say that these changes will be easy. Indeed, it is arguably far easier to change cars (such as by making them electric) than to change people’s actions, as issues like family planning are controversial across the planet, including the US, where Roe v. Wade may soon be challenged.
Nonetheless, we need to seriously roll up our sleeves and address the climate crisis as a human problem in need of human solutions.
Incidentally, many of these may well be win-win solutions, as giving girls and women equal access to education, as well as control of their own bodies, are obviously extraordinarily worthwhile goals in their own right.
Similarly, reducing the global herd of 70 billion animals that we keep for food is obviously important from the perspective of animal rights.
Hence, the changes that we need to make to address the climate crisis may not only be better for the planet, but for human (and a range of) beings, in a host of ways.
Science- and technology-based solutions to cultural problems like the climate crisis are rarely sufficient in themselves. The simple fact is that they often fail to attend to the root cause of problems of this sort.
This course will focus on these root causes.
One of the interesting things about this human-based approach is that it returns (to echo a 1960s phrase) “power to the people.” In other words, you do not need to be a specialist in climate science or lithium battery technology to make a dent in the climate crisis.
Anyone can make a meaningful, indeed crucial impact on the climate crisis, either through personal action, collective activism, political action, or – ideally – though a combination of all three.
This human-based approach can, in fact, be seen as a form of technology.
In my most recent book, which is on moving forward to nature by writing a new environmental era, I argued that the human-based approach that we will be using in this course is, in fact, a form of technology. Allow me to explain by quoting a little from that book:
“The sciences can apply what they have learned to solve real-world problems. We generally refer to such applied-science approaches as ‘technology.’ What if we similarly used an applied-humanities approach to solve problems? What if, after studying a problematic cultural practice, we then attempted to directly intervene by writing a new practice (or at least a new variation on an old one) into being?”
“Conducting a cultural analysis of an existing practice would help explain why it came into being and what social needs it fulfills. Having learned this, we would be in a position to use this knowledge to propose something new that also addresses these needs, but in a better, more environmentally sound and socially responsible way.”
“It is often said that the humanities, especially when compared to the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), have little to offer the world. To the contrary, the applied-humanities approach being suggested here promises to have a great deal to offer. In many cases, as much or even more than the applied-sciences.”
“This applied-humanities approach can be seen as a form of technology. When talking about technology, we generally mean an application of knowledge (i.e. applied knowledge) that brings about a change in the world. Usually, this knowledge is scientific. But must it be? The applied knowledge, the technology, can just as easily come from the humanities”.
“Let’s again take the automobile as our example. Using an applied-science approach, we could work on technologies to make cars more energy efficient and emit fewer greenhouse gases. Alternately, using an applied-humanities approach, we could study something like commuting by bus in order to find out why it is so undesirable—let’s face it, nearly everyone hates it.”
“If we could crack this nut (by exploring how mass transportation was largely written out of American culture as cars were written in, which did not happen to such a degree in any other country) and then apply what we learned to help make buses more appealing, we could advance a form of transportation that is a whopping 14 times more energy efficient than cars with a single occupant.”
“Approached from the perspective of the applied sciences, a 1400 percent increase in automobile efficiency is utterly unthinkable (even 14 percent would be quite an achievement). However, an applied-humanities approach could pull off such a feat by seeing this as a human problem brought on by human actions, which can be rewritten. This is why an applied-humanities approach can offer as much or more than the applied-sciences.”
“This is not to say that rewriting transportation practices would be easy. Indeed, it is arguably easier to change cars (such as by making them electric) than to change people’s actions.”
So, assuming that the humanities are important and have much to offer, why is this an issue for an English course?
As I’ve noted, not only does the climate crisis need to be seen as a human problem brought about by human actions, but the solutions to this crisis that have the greatest potential impact also center on human actions.
But why, exactly, is this an issue for an English course?
Wouldn’t approaching this crisis from another field of the environmental humanities or the social sciences makes sense?
Well, the simple fact is that we really need everyone to address this issue, including the average person on the street and scholars ranging from scientists, to sociologists, to specialists in the humanities.
Nonetheless, the study of English does bring something unique to the table.
The public is inundated daily with a broad range of material relating to the climate crisis. We know that fossil fuel interests annually spend hundreds of millions of dollars producing this material, which is often distributed by way of conservative think tanks like the Heartland Institute.
Moreover, now that the climate crisis has become a politically polarized issue in America, a variety of additional media outlets (including major news networks) now spread the message of climate skepticism, outright denial, or encouraging delay. Alternately, scientists, scholars, journalists, and others are desperately trying to convince the public of the validity and urgency of the climate crisis.
Confronted with this bewildering array of material, how does one get to the truth of the matter?
This course takes the position that we can read through to the truth.
In other words, since most people do not have a background in climate science or renewable technology, we have to rely on our ability to critically read a variety of materials in order to determine their validity. In this sense, teaching the skills of textual analysis, which is something that we do throughout this course, is central to our approach.
On the other hand, what we read in this course is just as important as how we read it. Hence, instead of randomly selecting texts to teach the art of careful reading, the course texts are designed to provide a comprehensive overview of the climate crisis and what we can do about it, as well as the debate that it has engendered in the US.
In this sense, this course studies the culture and thought of the climate crisis – which is now largely two opposing cultures in the US fiercely competing for dominance.
In this course, these two projects – 1) studying the culture and thought of the climate crisis by 2) learning how to read through to the truth of the matter – are not limited to written texts. The last few decades of critical analysis have expanded our definition of what constitutes a “text.”
Hence, for our purposes a text can be a written work, a photograph or painting, a film or video, or a range of additional creations – and any of these can be ‘read’ in our sense of being actively analyzed. In practice, this means that we will be analyzing both written works and documentaries that throw light on the climate crisis.
But why focus on English texts in particular? There are a variety of reasons, but two in particular are worth noting.
First, a significant number of texts that deny (in one way or another) the reality of the climate crisis, or its severity, are written in English for American, British, Australian, and worldwide audiences.
Second, as 25% of all greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were put there by the United States, understanding how this particular country has framed the issue is of unusual importance, as it can give us insights into how this crisis was brought about – and, hopefully, what we can do to reinvent US. culture, which is now being exported to the world with disastrous results for our planet and its climate.
Regarding this being an English course, it raises an interesting question: Should you agree with everything that is presented here?
In a word, “No.” Given that our topic is the climate crisis, this may come as something of a surprise. I am certainly not suggesting that you deny the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Nonetheless, when students disagree with me, it is often a sign that I have succeeded at my job.
Why? In part, it has to do with the humanities approach that we are employing here.
If this were a class on the science of climate change, I would expect you to agree with most of the material presented. For example, that a rise in global CO2 levels is having an impact on global temperature.
While a particularly advanced student, such as a PhD student working in the area, might (after years of work and research) be able to take exception to certain aspects of the relationship of CO2 levels to global atmospheric temperature rise presented at lecture, this would be a major accomplishment and almost certainly not an intervention that would come from a student taking an introductory lecture on the climate crisis.
But the humanities are different.
Imagine if we were not considering the climate crisis, but (using a more traditional subject from the humanities) a poem. As your instructor, my job would be to introduce you to the poem and its context, get you focused on it, and to give you a range of material to help you think about it in new and perhaps unexpected ways.
If your encounter with the poem went well (i.e if you committed yourself and I did my job well), you would be able to offer up a reading of it, or at least a portion of one.
My goal would not be to have you agree with me, but rather to mentor you in developing your own reading of the poem, which might be completely different from mine. If, on an exam or assigned essay, a student just repeated back everything that I had said about a poem, I would sadly conclude that I had failed to mentor them into the art of textual analysis.
However, I would be really excited if they came up with their own way of approaching the text.
Returning to this class and the climate crisis, my job is to get you thinking about it in an informed way – which is not to say that you must agree with me. For example, I have a series of lectures focused on the climate crisis as a generational issue. You might disagree with this approach in a variety of ways.
First, you might draw attention to the fact that, when considering different positions on the climate crisis, the gulf between generations is not as great as the gulf between people of different political leanings, especially those individuals that think of themselves as either very conservative or very liberal. Alternately, you might feel that casting blame from one generation to another is not particularly helpful, and in fact might just make things worse.
Neither response is in any way wrong.
In fact, I think that both of these reflections are useful and completely valid. If students had made such observations in their YouTube comments on my lecture, I would be more than a little gratified, as it would be clear that they were thinking hard about the climate crisis and how best to approach it.
My goal is to get you to do just that.
Climate Justice Approach
Let’s talk about justice, especially climate justice.
Among other things, Climate Crisis 101 approaches the climate crisis as a social justice issue. This approach is generally referred to as climate justice.
In a certain way, the methodological approach used in Climate Crisis 101 is similar to seeing racism as something that is baked into American culture and has been ever since (and even before) our country was founded by a group of privileged white man.
As far as I can tell, one of the reasons that people seem to resist this obvious truth regarding race in America is because it tarnishes the idea of the United States for them. In other words, for people who believe (and often loudly proclaim) that the United States is a great country, this is a thorn in their side because it draws attention to the fact that the US. once enslaved and to this day grossly mistreats – and even still unjustly kills on a daily basis – Black Americans.
Indeed, the United States is, in a variety of ways, unjust to most Americans, including (but certainly not limited to) women, people of color, and the LBGTQ+ community.
Hence, if the United States hopes to one day become a great country – it has obviously never truly been one – it will need a great deal of reform. You can see why, to people who believe that America is overwhelmingly a great country, or at least was until relatively recently (and hence, believe that they can “make America great again” with the right leadership), this could be a deeply unsettling thought.
However, to be clear, this does not mean that we need to turn our back on our country. To the contrary, in order to address the injustices and suffering, we need to roll up our sleeves and make this, for the first time, a truly great country – which I personally believe it can one day become.
Similarly, for people who believe that the United States is and has been an overwhelmingly great country, the climate crisis may be unsettling.
There are nearly 200 sovereign states (countries) on this planet. Of all these, one country has contributed more to the climate crisis than any other – by a longshot. When approached from the perspective of population, this relatively tiny country, which has just 4% of the earth’s people, has been responsible for 25% of historical greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. (Incidentally, this was largely done in the past 60 years.) In contrast, the poorest 3 billion people on earth have contributed only 5% of GHC emissions.
Ironically, because this country amassed so much wealth through its fossil fuel economy, it will likely suffer less than most countries. Who will suffer the consequences of climate change the most? Those poorest 3 billion people who did virtually nothing to bring about this crisis. This is, obviously, a deeply unjust state of affairs. Expressed another way, this is an enormous climate justice problem.
So, which country committed this almost unimaginable crime against our planet and billions of its people? You know the answer, though it is difficult for us in the US to come to grips with what we have done. Approached from the perspective of the climate crisis, not only isn’t the USA greatest country, it is the absolute worst – by a longshot.
If you were not already mortified to be a US citizen because of our history of societal racism and other acts of systemic injustice, climate justice gives you yet another compelling reason to feel…well…ashamed. It is also reason to stop and reflect on what the fossil fuel economy has given us: extraordinary wealth and privilege – which has come at an even more extraordinary cost.
Incidentally, issues like societal racism and climate justice are often intertwined, sometimes deeply. This might be easiest to see with the related issue of environmental justice.
When new facilities that will pollute the environment, such as chemical factories or power plants, are planned, where do you think they are located? In posh white neighborhoods or poor Black ones? In the United States, it has historically been the latter, which means that people in these neighborhoods, as well as their land and groundwater, are often exposed to toxic substances.
All sorts of marginalized individuals and communities can be impacted by environmental justice issues. For example, women are at greater risk of being harmed, as being exposed to toxic materials can threaten their reproductive health.
Returning to climate justice, which is concerned with the impact of climate change across the planet, rather than with just point-source pollution that can come from a factory or power plant, issues like race clearly come into play. Although racial diversity in the US. has been improving in recent decades, when I was born (1959), roughly 90% of Americans were white.
And those poorest 3 billion human beings on earth? Overwhelmingly, most are people of color.
The climate crisis presents a challenge for individuals who have been led believe that the United States is an overwhelmingly great country. For people my age and older, it can be especially difficult to come to grips with the crisis, as the most of the GHG emissions in the earth’s atmosphere from the United States happened during our watch. This can lead to denial, deep denial.
When we think about climate change denial, we often, naturally enough, think about fossil fuel companies wanting to deny the validity of the crisis so that they can continue to make a profit. In this case, we now know that executives at companies like Exxon have known the truth about the impact that burning fossil fuels would have on climate change for more than four decades.
However, there are many types of climate change denial. Perhaps one of the strongest forms of denial does not come from people who know the truth but publicly deny it, but rather from individuals who, deep down, just can’t come to grips with the truth.
Some people in the US, who want nothing more than to be proud to be an American, are deeply in denial, desperately working to convince themselves (as well as other people) that the climate crisis isn’t real. After all, admitting so would also necessitate abandoning the thought that we are the greatest country in order to accept the fact that, when it comes to anthropogenic climate change, we are the worst country on earth (and to the earth).
Consequently, such individuals can have an incredible personal investment in denying the truth of climate crisis to themselves – and anyone willing to listen.
And, make no mistake, this issue can really hit home.
The carbon footprint for the average American is 35 times greater than the average person in Bangladeshis. Unfortunately, Bangladesh, which is a poor country, will be disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis, as 40% of the country will be lost with just two feet of sea level rise – an amount that will occur in the next few upcoming decades. Since Bangladesh did very little to contribute to climate change, this is an obvious climate justice issue of staggering proportions.
If this we’re not bad enough, the so-called American Dream, to which we are encouraged to aspire (and some people believe they have, in various ways, actually achieved), is a climate nightmare of unbridled consumption. Big houses. Big cars, and lots of them. Boundless air travel. An endless supply of stuff delivered right to our doors. The list goes on, and on.
People who come closest to realizing the dream, like A-listers, may have a carbon footprint many times larger than the average American. For example, traveling in a private jet emits “40 times as much carbon per passenger as regular commercial flights.” Hence, in its supersized forms, a single person “livin’ the dream” (the American Dream in the US) likely is producing more GHG emissions than an entire village of hundreds of people in Bangladesh.
In other words, from a climate and climate justice perspective, the belief that America is an overwhelmingly great country could not be more wrong. And with respect to the American dream, it is, to the contrary, a climate nightmare.
As with systemic racism and a host of other social justice issues, it falls to the current generation to undo the injustices of the past.
Again, this is not to say that we need to turn our back on our country. To the contrary, I would argue that the US has never needed us more. If we bravely confront the past, and then roll up our sleeves to do all that we can to right the injustice of all this, the United States, and the earth, will greatly benefit.
Course Components
So, let’s talk about the course components.
1) Readings
As far as I am concerned, nearly every university course in the humanities needs to have at its core a group of readings. This course is no different. The good news is that you do not need to purchase any of these readings, as they are all available online, free of charge.
Why read these texts?
Each in its own way provides an interesting insight into the climate crisis. Not only what it is, but what we can do about it.
Some like Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, published in 1854, and Vance Packard’s The Waste Makers – which is…well…as old as I am – have nothing to say about the climate crisis. Yet, both writers seriously questioned the lifestyle choices that have profoundly exacerbated this crisis. Unfortunately, we largely ignored both writers on this count – though there is still time to act on what they had to say.
Others, like “The Uninhabitable Earth” by David Wallace-Wells, look squarely at the climate crisis and its future – and what the future may hold if we do not respond to the crisis, immediately.
Still others, like Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming have been generated by fossil fuel interests in order to cause us to doubt that there even is a crisis. The goal is not necessarily to convince us that the climate crisis does not exist, but rather to raise doubts in our minds about its nature and severity so that we will be slow to act, thereby allowing the fossil fuel industry to continue business as usual for as long as possible. While this might be good for their bottom line in the short term, it would be disastrous for the future of our planet.
Having read all or most of these texts, you should have a better idea of what the climate crisis is – and what each of us can do about it.
2) Documentaries
While it is certainly true that a writer can be incredibly expressive, a picture – and in some cases, even better, moving pictures with a thoughtful script and exciting soundtrack – can add something entirely new to the equation. In a variety of different ways, all of our course films take up the climate crisis. However, they do so in distinctly different ways.
Some take up the job of introducing the sheer breath of the problem, while others focus in on specific aspects of the crisis. Some lay out the problem, while others offer up solutions. Some take a somewhat detached stance, while others are far more personal, introducing us to the people who are rolling up their sleeves and doing something about the crisis. In some cases, these people have made radical changes to their lives.
Not all these films are perfect. Some even have major flaws, like Cowspiracy, which greatly exaggerates the impact that a switch to largely plant-based diets could make. Why, then, recommend such a film? Every one of these films made me stop and think – and taught me something new. In some cases, they are also all that is available.
Just watching these films will likely give you better understanding of the climate crisis and what people are doing about it than most Americans have.
Look at it this way, in the same amount of time that it would take to binge watch a single season of a TV show, you can get an interesting window into the climate crisis – and what we can do about it – just by watching these films.
Are the documentaries for Eng 22 and Eng 23 the same? In fact, half of them are the same. Does this mean that you will be watching the same films all over again in English 23 if you already had Eng 22? No, as each week there are alternate films to watch.
In other words, if you have already had the other large lecture, by the end of this course you will have watched a whole new group of documentaries. In the process, your understanding of a variety of issues will hopefully deepen.
Let’s take food systems as an example. The primary documentary on this topic is Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, which explores the environmental and climate implications of a plant-based diet. If you have not already seen Cowspiracy, you should watch this film.
However, if you have already seen Cowspiracy, the alternate documentary is Wasted! The Story Of Food Waste, which takes up the issue of food waste, both in the US and globally. Interestingly, everyone switching to plant-based diets would not make as big a dent in the climate crisis as eliminating food waste would.
Since Wasted! addresses the other half of the food systems problem with respect to the climate crisis, having watched it and Cowspiracy together would give you a particularly good handle on the topic.
If you have not taken the other large lecture but find some of the alternate films intriguing, feel free to watch them along with the primary ones.
3) How Discussion of the Documentaries and Readings Works
While there are a range of different ways of conducting a classroom, there are two time-honored approaches that stand out: the lecture and the discussion.
In a lecture, the instructor carefully prepares and structures all of the material. Students are not generally much involved in the process.
In contrast, in a discussion seminar, not only are students themselves heard, but they actually play an important role in deciding what it is that they will learn. Consequently, I definitely prefer discussion seminars over lectures.
In practice, many instructors, myself included, use a mix of lecture and discussion. For example, if we are discussing a particular reading, I generally deliver a little lecture (usually under 10 minutes, or so) explaining why I chose this particular reading and its significance. The idea here is to frame the material and give students some important and often necessary background.
Once I have given this mini lecture, I then open up the room for comments and questions. From this point on, students not only learn from me, but from each other. The latter is a particularly important point, as this is what separates a discussion from a lecture.
Students obviously learn from each other by hearing with their classmates think about the reading at hand. However, once we have shifted from the initial mini lecture to discussion mode, students are largely in control of the classroom and what will be learned there. Although some professors take a heavy hand and attempt wrestle control back (sometimes successfully, sometimes not), I am of the mind that, especially with a topic like climate crisis, students should have a major role to play in what they are learning. Allow me to explain.
Once students start making comments and asking questions about a reading, they are identifying what they believe are important points in the text, either to simply draw attention to them or to try to understand them better, often by asking for clarification from the instructor.
From an instructor’s point of view, at this point we are off script, as the comments and questions will now largely be responsible for what is learned in that class.
I think that this is absolutely terrific. If one or more students focuses in on a particular issue in the text that they found important, this draws my attention to it, gets me thinking about it. In contrast, in a lecture, I may have glossed over this particular point altogether. However, thanks to the intervention of the student(s) here, that won’t be allowed to happen.
One of the reasons that I personally find this approach so appealing is because it often makes me think about the text at hand, in ways that may have not occurred to me. Because the subject is the climate crisis, I get to see the crisis through the eyes of my student, such as what they think is important, what angers them, what worries them, what doesn’t, and so forth.
Hence, unlike when I deliver a prepared lecture, I often learn a great deal during a discussion.
Of course, there are times when I will lead the discussion toward a particular issue, if it has not yet been broached. However, it has been my experience that doing so is not often necessary, as a perceptive students will have often already pointed us there.
It might seem that, because Climate Crisis 101 is such a large class, meaningful discussion would not be possible. However, not only do we have discussions, I am of the mind that our discussions are far more meaningful precisely because of the size – thanks to YouTube (or, more accurately, to the online forum that YouTube provides by way of its comments).
Because there are hundreds of comments and questions in a class the size of Climate Crisis 101, this allows me to select and respond to particularly interesting and relevant ones. And too, this means that I generally learn more from a class this size, as there are so just many interesting (and at times, provocative) perspectives and observations.
Seriously, when Climate Crisis 101 is taking place, I find myself returning to the YouTube comments throughout the day. These online discussions can be really exciting!
In any event, my introductions to the course readings that follow have two parts. This is in order to emulate a discussion seminar.
First, I generally start with a mini lecture of 10 minutes or less. This is what I would do to begin any discussion seminar.
After that, just like in a discussion seminar, I respond to comments and questions from students. Since there are many hundreds of these comments from which to choose, I carefully go through them in advance in order to find the most instructive. Because these students are obviously not in the room with me, I first read aloud their comment that I address.
Sometimes, students ask questions to which I don’t have an answer. This almost always pleases me. Because I have the advantage of time in preparing my response, this allows me to do a little research, if necessary. Sometimes, I will provide links to this research. Since one of the forms that Climate Crisis 101 takes is a book, I am able to embed links directly into my responses.
Having the advantage of time, I am also able to think through my responses in advance. As far as I am concerned, this makes them more thoughtful – and simply better.
So, in short, each of the sections in this chapter is an introduction to a particular reading. But they are more than that, as each emulates – I would argue that each actually is – a lively discussion seminar.
Chapter 2, The Basics: Science and Reading
CO2
In order to understand the basic science behind the climate crisis, let’s start by considering wood.
I know, who in the world would begin a discussion of climate science by talking about wood? Perhaps only someone who really loved this particular material, like a furniture maker. (In case you didn’t know, prior to becoming a professor, I spent two decades of my life making my living as an artisan, a furniture maker.)
So, where does wood come from? This might sound like an obvious question, but the answer may surprise you.
In other words, if you plant a tiny acorn and wait a hundred years or so, it will become an oak tree containing thousands of pounds of wood that can be made into things like furniture. Where did most of that mass come from? (Incidentally, I have a UCSB colleague, Lisa Berry, to thank for planting the idea of an acorn in my head in this context.)
Wood chiefly comes from four sources. Interestingly – although it is somewhat irrelevant to our discussion – these correspond to the four classical (Greek) elements: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire.
Earth. Without certain elements from the soil, like nitrogen, trees, indeed all, plants cannot thrive or even survive. This is why farmers add nitrogen to the soil, such as though petrochemical fertilizers (i.e. fertilizer made from fossil fuels) or organically through plants that add nitrogen to the soil, like legumes.
Water. Without water, trees and other plants cannot survive. This is why certain drought-tolerant plants, such as salvia (sages), can survive a drought while other plants like turf grass cannot. Hence, lawns are a bad idea in dry areas, like here on the Central Coast of California, as their roots only reach a few inches into the ground. In contrast, some sages have roots that go many feet down into the ground to access the ground water down there.
Air. As with animals, plants and trees cannot survive without air. Put a plant in a sealed bag and it will promptly die.
Fire (energy). Without solar energy, photosynthesis cannot occur. This is why certain growers use opaque plastic for weed control. It’s a simple, but rather brilliant idea. If you lay black plastic on the ground and make holes for young plants, for example strawberries, then no other competing plants (i.e. weeds) can grow, as they will not have access to sunlight. Weeds may sprout under the plastic, but they will quickly die without the sun’s lifegiving energy.
So, what do you think: Where does the wood that makes our furniture and houses principally come from? Earth (minerals from the soil)? Water? Wind (air)? Fire (photosynthesis by way of solar energy)?
The correct one is…drumroll please…Air. Believe it or not.
If you’re like many people, most of your furniture and a good deal of your house is made of wood – and it all came from air, out of thin air.
To understand how this works, we need to consider CO2 (carbon dioxide), the principal greenhouse gas.
Rising levels of atmospheric CO2 are the primary cause of the climate crisis. Although a range of other gases, principally methane, are also involved, CO2 is the primary greenhouse gas.
Although our atmosphere contains relatively small concentrations of CO2, it has a profound impact on plants, animals, and the climate. Since Shakespeare’s time, CO2 in the atmosphere has risen from 280 parts per million (PPM) to a high of 420PPM today. That’s an increase of almost 50%. If a 50% increase sounds like a lot, it should. Indeed, it should be more than a little alarming
Where did all that CO2 come from? In order to tackle this question, we have to consider a little science. Don’t worry, I’m a humanities person, not a scientist. I promise it is indeed just a little and not at all tough science. Honestly, it’s really pretty fascinating.
Plants are capable of doing something altogether extraordinary with atmospheric CO2 when combined with H2O (water) and energized by solar radiation. Through the process of photosynthesis, molecules of CO2 and molecules of H2O are synthesized into a range of new molecules.
For example, six molecules of CO2 plus six molecules of H2O becomes one molecule of C6 H12 O6, as well as six molecules of O2 (the atmospheric oxygen that we animals breath). As you may recall from high school or college science class, C6 H12 O6 is the glucose molecule, a simple sugar.
This is a crucial service for all animals, as six molecules of CO2 are nicely converted into six molecules of O2, which is the oxygen that we animals breathe. Again, as you very likely will remember from high school, this creates a planetary system wonderfully in balance, as it means that we animals exhale CO2 and take in O2, while plants take in molecules of CO2 and return an equal number of O2 molecules into the atmosphere.
But plants to do more, as they also make glucose, as well as range of similar molecules, such as fructose and sucrose. These sugars are essential foods for all animals. You probably are more familiar with them by the common name that they all share: “carbohydrates” or simply “carbs.”
The “carb” in the word “carbohydrates” comes from carbon, as carbohydrates are hydrates of carbon. As a hydrate is simply a substance that contains water, a carbohydrate contains water and carbon (and oxygen).
Carbon is thus an essential part of the food that we animals eat, whether we get it directly from plants or indirectly from the animals that we eat, like cows and chickens, that have eaten plants.
In addition to synthesizing sugars like glucose from CO2 and H2O through photosynthesis, plants can create other molecules, such as cellulose (C6 H10 O5), hemicellulose, and lignin. Wood is chiefly composed of these three molecules, which, like gloucose, are also made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.
This is also very handy for us. Some plants create edible carbohydrates (which are the basis of everything that we eat), while others create usable material that we can use, like wood.
When life on earth is referred to as “carbon based” (as it sometimes is in sci-fi, like the TV series Altered Carbon), it is an acknowledgment that carbon is an essential constituent of all plants and animals on earth. The human body is 65% Oxygen, 18.5% Carbon, 9.5% Hydrogen. However, if a human body is dried out, as in the case of a mummy, what is principally left is carbon.
Similarly, when we dry a tree’s wood to become usable lumber, about half of what is left is carbon, as well as nearly as much oxygen.
Hence, returning to our original question, all that carbon and oxygen (C and O) came out of thin air, or, more accurately, came out of the CO2 in air that the tree (because it is a plant) pulled out. Water, of course, also plays a part, but the lion’s share of a piece of dried wood’s mass comes from CO2. Furniture makers, incidentally, generally like to work wood that has just 6-8% moisture (water) content or so.
Although it sounds a little hard to believe on first hearing, a great deal of our world has been made out of thin air: carbon and oxygen (CO).
When we think of “natural” materials that we human beings use, this is generally the case. Up until recently, when we started synthesizing other materials, which are often made out of fossil fuels, this was almost always the case. For example, all of the following materials are made out of thin air, out of CO2:
Clothing made directly of plant material, like cotton, linen, hemp, etc, and indirectly from plants metabolized into animal (and insect) products, such as leather, wool, silk, etc. Even buttons were made of shells and bone. Clothes were often dyed with plant material, like indigo, which was once used to color blue jeans, though now a synthetic version is generally employed.
Food, either directly from plants, or from animals like cows that turn grass and soybeans into milk and meat. This is worth underscoring, as nearly everything that you have ever eaten came, either directly or indirectly, from CO2. And drank as well, with the notable exception of water (which is just more hydrogen and oxygen), as nearly all other drinks we consume are made of plant or animal products. Even alcohol like whiskey and vodka is distilled from plant material, such as grains and potatoes.
Our homes and their furnishings, as many houses and pieces of furniture are principally made of wood. Even upholstered furniture was generally made out of animal products, such as woolen fabrics stuffed with horse hair for cushioning.
A range of supporting products also come from CO2. For example, furniture was traditionally finished with things like oil, lacquer, or shellac. We’re not talking petroleum oil here, but rather oil derive from plants, like linseed oil. Similarly, traditional Chinese and Japanese lacquer comes from the sap of a tree, which is collected not unlike maple syrup. And shellac is made from the shells of an insect, the lac bug, dissolved in alcohol distilled from plants.
Finally, up until a couple centuries ago, the human world was principally illuminated and powered (cooking, heating, manufacturing, etc) by the combustion of wood and other plant and animal products, including things like whale oil for lamps.
Hence, it is not only that we human beings are made of carbon and oxygen (CO), our world is powered and filled with things made out of CO2.
Incidentally, all of these things are sustainable in so far as they are all part of the carbon cycle. Not only did all these things come from plants, they can return to plants, as everything noted above can be composted. Even cotton jeans dyed with natural indigo can be composted.
I mention all this, just to get you thinking about it. As we shall see when we move to discuss fossil fuels, a range of products are now created out of petroleum oil, rather than plant material. Incidentally, even though they too contain large amounts of carbon, these materials are generally outside of the carbon cycle – and hence not sustainable.
In any event, when a plant dies and decays, the carbon that it contains (whether in the form of glucose, cellulose, lignin, etc) generally recombines with oxygen to again become atmospheric CO2.
Every Spring, plants “spring” up with new plant growth and pull CO2 from the atmosphere. Each Fall sees the “fall” of decaying plant material to the ground where it releases CO2 back into the atmosphere. Hence, global CO2 levels go up slightly during Winter and down in the Summer.
If you think about it for a moment, everything else being equal, this annual rise in CO2 shouldn’t really happen, as if should be offset by the Southern Hemisphere.
In other words, when it is Fall and Winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the fallen plant matter (like decaying leaves) should be returning CO2 to the atmosphere. However, as it is simultaneously Spring and Summer in the Southern Hemisphere, the CO2 should be being re-absorbed by the springing forth of plants. Hence, the two should cancel each other out.
However, because 68% of the earth’s land mass is in the Northern Hemisphere, CO2 levels go up during Winter in the global North. It’s a little more complicated than that, as ocean plants also comes into play here, but the Northern Hemisphere still wins out.
Under certain circumstances, plant matter does not decay in the above manner, which is via aerobic decomposition (i. e. in the presence of oxygen, which allows the carbon to again form CO2). Although relatively rare today, at least when the whole earth is taken into account, these conditions were quite common a few hundred million years ago, when the earth was far more swampy and in general pretty watery – largely because it was warmer and hence there was little ice on the planet.
So, let’s take up the question of how plant and animal material, along with the carbon of which they are made, can fossilize into the fuels that have – quite ironically – both made modern life possible and are now threatening it.
Incidentally, some climate change deniers (Alex Epstein is an example), like to focus on this point, underscoring that fossil fuels have me made modern life possible. While this is true, it does not mean that we need to continue burning fossil fuels – and in the process release vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. There are new alternatives that sidestep combustion, such as renewable sources of energy like wind and solar
In any event, when plant matter falls under water, aerobic decomposition largely stops, as the decaying process loses access to atmospheric oxygen and becomes mostly anaerobic. Under these circumstances, carbon in the form of CO2 is not released back into the atmosphere, but is instead sequestered underwater and ultimately, under the right conditions, underground.
After a few hundred million years of heat and pressure, plant and animal matter is fossilized into what we commonly call “fossil fuels,” as molecules like glucose (C6 H12 O6) are transformed into entirely new molecules that also contain carbon and hydrogen, as well as sometimes oxygen and certain other atoms.
Here are some important examples:
CH4 (methane, which is the “natural gas” we cook & heat with). Note that, as there are four hydrogen atoms, which is the lightest element in the universe, methane is lighter than air and can hence quickly rise to the upper atmosphere.
C6 H18 (gasoline, a refined form of petroleum oil).
C240 H90 O4 NS (anthracite, the most energy rich form of coal).
Note also that this fossilized carbon exists in the three regular forms of matter: gas (methane), liquid (petroleum oil), and solid (coal).
Note that oil and coal can pick up nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S) during the fossilization process. When combined with oxygen during combustion, these produce oxides of nitrogen and sulfur dioxide, which are worrisome types of point-source pollution. Generally speaking, this is what causes smog. Oxides of nitrogen can indirectly also act of greenhouse gases.
When methane, petroleum oil, or coal is burned, the carbon (C) that had been buried under ground for hundreds of millions of years – and hence safely sequestered – combines with oxygen to become CO2, the most common greenhouse gas.
Methane is a dangerous greenhouse gas even without being burned. Over a 100-year period in the atmosphere, it is up to 34 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2. The chief sources of methane release are hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for gas & oil, the beef industry, coal mining, and landfills.
Methane is responsible for more than 1/6th of global greenhouse gas emissions (perhaps more, depending on how you calculate its life in the atmosphere). Roughly a third comes from fracking, a third from the beef industry, and a third from everything else.
Returning to CO2, for the past million years atmospheric CO2 has held pretty steady at 280 parts per million (PPM). However, in the past 400 years it has soared to a high of 420PPM. The principle reason is obvious: human beings have been digging up fossil fuels and burning them at an alarming – and increasing – rate. In 1988, atmospheric CO2 was 350PPM.
In other words, it took nearly 400 years for CO2 to rise by 70 PPM by 1988. Since then, in the last 30 years it has risen 65PPM. This is why some people refer to the period from around 1945 until today as the “great acceleration.”
85% of the CO2 in the atmosphere has been put there since 1945.
Although Americans are only 4% of the global population (330 million people), 29% of global atmospheric CO2 was put there by us. Conversely, the poorest 3 billion people on the planet have only contributed about 5% of atmospheric CO2.
Allow me to repeat that: “Although Americans are only 4% of the global population (330 million people), 29% of global atmospheric CO2 was put there by us. Conversely, the poorest 3 billion people on the planet have only contributed about 5% of atmospheric CO2.”
Scientists agree that the solution is clear: we need to keep 80% of unextracted fossil fuels in the ground. As 350.org notes, “It’s not ‘we should do this,’ or ‘we’d be wise to do this.’ Instead it’s simpler: ‘We have to do this.’”
To understand why, we need to consider the impact that CO2 and other greenhouse gasses (like methane) have on our planet and its climate, which is the subject of the next section in this chapter.
Plants, Animals, Oceans, Ice, Land, People, Population, & Justice
In this section, we are going to take up greenhouse gases.
If you leave your car with its windows up in the sun on a comfortable 75-degree day, within 30 minutes the temperature in the car can rise to 109 degrees. This is how a greenhouse, which traps solar radiation, works. (It is also why you should never, ever leave your pets in a car on a sunny day with the windows up!)
When we talk about the “greenhouse effect,” we are referencing how the earth’s atmosphere (and certain gasses in particular) allow solar radiation to heat our planet.
Even though our atmosphere is an incredibly thin layer (a single layer of lacquer on a basketball would be proportionately thicker), it nonetheless keeps our planet warm.
CO2, methane, and other gases are called “greenhouse gases” because they all contribute to the greenhouse effect. Greenhouse gases are not in themselves bad. Without them, earth would be too cold to be habitable. However, because we have been pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere over the past 400 years (esp the past 60 years), our planet is quickly warming.
We initially referred to the impact that increased levels of greenhouse gases have on the planet as the “greenhouse effect,” then as “global warming.”
However, now that we realize that an increase in these atmospheric gases is changing our global climate in a range of ways, like hurricanes, more severe droughts, changes in regional weather patterns, etc., we refer to all this and global warming as “climate change.”
More recently, we have yet another reconceptualization, as we now refer to what is happening as the “climate crisis.”
For years, there was a reluctance among scientists and activist to seem like “alarmists.” However, with people like Greta Thunberg unabashedly declaring that “our house is on fire,” we no longer hesitate to describe what is happening as a true global crisis – which it is.
Knowing that I am interested in the climate crisis, people used to ask me when climate change was going to begin.
Unfortunately, questioning when global warming or climate change is going to begin is misguided: It has already begun.
Since 1880, average global temperatures have risen by a little more than 1° Celsius (around 2° Fahrenheit) total, with an average rise of about 0.08° C (0.13° F) per decade during this time. However, since 1981 the increase is now double this rate at 0.18°C (0.32°F)
Climate change is now impacting the entire planet and all life on it. No place on the face of the globe will be left untouched, from the upper limits of the atmosphere to the deepest ocean floors.
Let’s consider how the climate crisis is changing our planet and its life.
The earth has experienced five major extinction events where 75% or more of all animals on the planet died off in a relatively short period. While most people are familiar with the fifth extinction event, which killed off the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, #3 is of special interest in terms of climate change.
252 million years ago, the Permian–Triassic extinction event was caused by some sort of major eruption, perhaps a volcano. Whatever the cause, increased CO2 levels quickly caused global temperature to rise by 5° Celsius, which initiated a cascade of events, such as the rise of methane.
During the Permian–Triassic extinction event, 97% of all life on earth died. In comparison, “just” 75% of life on earth died during the Jurassic event that killed the dinosaurs.
Estimates suggest that we are currently adding CO2 to the atmosphere at least 10 times faster than happened during the Permian–Triassic extinction event. Since the temperature of the earth has already increased by 1° Celsius, we are 20% of the way toward the conditions that brought about the most extreme extinction event in the earth’s history.
As a consequence of this and other factors (such as habitat loss), experts suggest that we are now in the midst of our planet’s sixth extinction event. The 2014 book The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert, which won a Pulitzer Prize, is a compelling and an excellent introduction to this issue.
The U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity estimates that: “Every day, up to 150 species are lost.” In other words, over 50,000 species are becoming extinct every year. As Kolbert notes, this is perhaps 10,000 times the normal rate of extinction.
Although the extinction rate is itself disturbing, it only tells part of the story, as the overall number of extant animals on the planet has been dramatically reduced by human action.
So, here’s a pop quiz: What do you think weighs more?
- a) All the wild mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians on the face of the earth – by a lot.
- b) All the wild mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians on the face of the earth – by a little.
- c) Human beings and our animals (livestock & pets) – by a little.
- d) Human beings and our animals (livestock & pets) – by a lot.
- e) I am not sure.
All the wild mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians on the face of the earth constitute just 3% of the planet’s animal biomass. Human beings and our animals (livestock & pets) constitute 97%.
While estimates vary, there are around 900 million dogs and 600 million cats on earth. his pales in comparison to livestock. We maintain a global herd of about 70 billion (with a “B”) livestock animals for food and other products. This translates into 10 livestock animals for each human being on earth.
However, this is misleading, as certain people (especially in wealthier countries) consume far more meat than others. In the US, per capita meat consumption is 265 pounds per year. In Bangladesh, it is 4 pounds per year.
In any event, faced with climate change and other human-caused issues, like loss of habitat, plants and animals have three options:
1) to adapt (evolve)
2) to move (migrate)
3) to die
Let’s consider these options.
1) Adapt: For the past 30 million years or so, the earth has been cooling – thanks to all that CO2 safely sequestered in fossil form underground. During that time life on earth was able to evolve to thrive in the changing, cooler climate. Given enough time, life can dramatically evolve. In less than one tenth that time, human beings evolved from a small primate the size of a chimpanzee (Australopithecus – Lucy) to us.
Unfortunately, contemporary anthropogenic climate change is happening far too quickly for most species to evolve in response. Leaving them with the next two options:
2) Migration: Half of life on earth (plants and animals) is now migrating in response to anthropogenic climate change. For the most part, the migration is toward the poles and cooler temperatures. On land, the average migration rate is 10 miles per year. Ocean life is moving four times faster.
However, life near the North Pole is often moving south as the ice sheet breaks. Polar bears moving down and grizzly bears moving up recently collided and have successfully bred. The first “pizzly” bear in the wild was discovered in 2006.
As life migrates toward the poles, it can have a range of consequences, some worrisome. For example, the Zica virus, which was first discovered in Brazil and which is often transmitted by mosquitoes that live in tropical regions, is now in the US.
Option #3: If life cannot evolve or migrate, the only option is to die. For example, coral (which is, in fact, an animal, even though it looks rather like a rock), which cannot move great distances and cannot evolve fast enough to adapt to rising ocean temperatures and increased ocean acidification (more on this later), are now dying across the globe.
Roughly half of the world’s coral reefs have died in the past 3O years. Scientists predict that 90 percent of corals will die by 2050. Incidentally, the film Chasing Coral takes up this issue.
The loss of the planet’s coral reefs has profound implications for life on earth. Life life in ecosystems is deeply intertwined. 25% of our planet’s marine life lives on (and depends on) coral reef ecosystems. Once the coral is gone, these ecosystems will largely collapse.
This is, of course, very bad news indeed for our oceans. It is also a problem for us human beings: Roughly one billion people rely on coral reef ecosystems for food, especially protein.
Our planet’s oceans or performing an extraordinary service for us land animals and plants that has greatly reduced the impact of the climate crisis. If it wasn’t for our oceans, the atmosphere would have risen for more than the its current 1° Celsius. Unfortunately, this is killing our oceans.
Over 90% of the heat from climate change has been absorbed by the oceans. Since the oceans are absorbing CO2 where they are in contact with the atmosphere (which is over 75% of the planet), they are also becoming more acidic. Roughly 30 percent of CO2 released by human action has been absorbed by the oceans.
Unfortunately, many plants and animals are sensitive to changes in acidity. Coral is a prime example. It is not just dying because of rising sea temperature, but also because of rising acidity.
Warmer air is now melting ice across the planet, such as the massive Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. In addition, ice sheets over the ocean, such as the North Pole, are also melting because of warmer waters below. By 2050, ships will likely be able to sail over the North Pole.
Eventually, perhaps by the end of the century, the North Pole will be gone. This will only increase global warming, as the earth’s ice sheets reflect heat back into space. In contrast, dark oceans absorb heat.
Thanks to all this melting ice, sea level will certainly rise over the next century. Conservative estimates are that it will rise by at least one meter (39 inches). Some estimates are for a rise of ten feet, three times that amount.
Since a third of the world’s cities are on the coast and over 600 million people live within 40 feet of the ocean, this will have profound impact on human life. Sea level rise is already impacting a range of places, from Miami, Florida to whole island nations in the Pacific. (Before the Flood, the Leonardo Dicaprio film, explores this issue.)
Even a relatively small amount of sea level rise will have profound implications for humanity. Let’s consider what will happen when the oceans rise by just to feet. Even conservative estimates are that this will happen in the next few decades. Some estimates suggest that we will have five times this rise during the century.
Forty percent of land in Bangladesh will likely be lost with two feet of sea-level rise. Two feet of sea level rise will flood the entire coast of Florida. Roughly 75% of Florida’s population lives in coastal counties. Miami is already regularly flooding during fair weather due to sea level rise.
Who will be most impacted by this?
Poorer people and poorer countries will suffer from climate change more than the wealthy. The great irony is that wealthier countries and individuals are contributing to climate change far more by emitting far more greenhouse gases.
An average American is responsible for 16.4 metric tons of CO2 or equivalent gases being emitted per year. The average person in Sub-Saharan Africa emits 0.8 tons – less than one twentieth the amount.
While population is certainly an issue with respect to climate change, it can be misleading.
Africa is composed of over 50 countries. Together they have a population that is nearly four times the US. However, since the average African has greenhouse emissions that are 1/20th the average American’s, The US. is contributing to climate change five times more than Africa. Even if Africa’s population doubled, with everything else being equal, the US. would still be emitting more than twice as much as the entire continent of Africa.
When Americans suggest that global population is the root problem of climate change and look to places like Africa or India (where per capita CO2 emissions are less 1/10th of the US.) as examples, it is not only misguided and simply wrong, it can reveal an underlying racism.
Greenhouse gas emissions should always be thought of as a ratio of emissions to population. If we were to compare Africa to the US. using this approach, with lower being better and Africa as the benchmark at 1.0, the US. would currently be at around 5.0 even though Africa’s population is roughly four times that of the US.
In other words, even though Africa’s population is around four greater than the US, the US. is contributing five times more to global climate change than the entire continent of Africa.
We refer to the social inequity of climate change as “environmental justice” or more recently as “climate justice.”
“Environmental justice” can refer to any sort of environmental issue, such a point-source pollution. These can be local (such as the water crisis in Flint, Michigan), regional, or global.
“Climate justice” focuses on climate change in particular, which is a global issue.
In both cases, issues of environmental and social justice are often deeply intertwined (which The True Cost documentary makes clear).
Reading Techniques
You might be taken aback by what I am about to say, but I believe that the climate crisis is in part due to the fact that, generally speaking, the American (US) public lacks good reading skills.
As I am an English professor, perhaps this statement doesn’t, in fact, surprise you. Still, it may seem that this crisis is being caused by a range of factors, such as the rise of atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases, that have little to do with reading and hence should be studied by scientists, not humanities professors like me.
Well, the climate crisis is certainly being caused by a significant and altogether worrisome rise in global greenhouse gas emissions. I certainly wouldn’t deny that. But where are these emissions coming from? Obviously, from a range of human activities, such as driving cars with internal combustion engines that, on average, emit about one pound of CO2 for every mile that you drive (something to think about…).
In this sense, the root problem is human behavior. It’s simple enough: if we didn’t drive and do a host of similar activities, there would be few greenhouse gas emissions caused by human beings. No emissions, no problem.
Since emitting greenhouse gases is causing a problem, likely the greatest problem that humanity has ever collectively faced, why don’t we just stop engaging in activities that do so, like car use?
Part of the problem – a big part of the problem – is that not all people (including, and in many respects especially, US citizens) are convinced that greenhouse gas emissions are a significant problem, let alone at a crisis level.
So, how is this possible, when scientist have been telling us for decades that rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are unequivocally a problem, and a huge one, that threatens the nearly every aspect of human life? For example, James Hansen, a NASA scientist, who testified before Congress in 1988 (where he was introduced as a “climate hero”) that “[i]t’s time to stop waffling so much” and act on the climate problem.
Hanson was hardly the first scientist to draw attention to the problem, as others had been doing so for decades. However, Hansen made it front page news – literally. as the New York Times ran an article on it’s the front page in June of 1988 entitled “Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate.”
Since 1988 (and even slightly before), many Americans have encountered literature, often financed by the fossil fuel industry, that denies the severity of the crisis. Hence, the problem is not with the science or the fact that the public has not been informed of a problem, but rather the issue is that, when faced with a variety of material, a broad swath of the public is confused – which, of course, is why the fossil fuel affiliates commissions this material to be written.
The challenge, then, is honing the necessary skills to read through to the truth, which can sometimes be surprisingly difficult. There are a number of tips that can help sharpen the skills.
Tips for Reading Actively (Part 1)
Let’s consider some initial things to keep in mind when actively approaching a text.
While it may seem that this sort of investigative digging is not something that we normally do in literary analysis, it is in fact one of its cornerstones. For example, knowing that the author of a Victorian novel was an outspoken racist or misogynist can be of great help in approaching the text. Conveniently, literary scholars have already done much of this work for many of the texts that we read in literature programs. In the case of the works for this class, however, this obligation falls to you, as you will often be taking on the role of lead critical reader.
Here are five things to initially consider:
For each of these, we will take Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, which is available as a free PDF download, as an example.
1) Author. What do we know about the author or authors of a text? While it can only take a minute (literally) to do an online search to learn about a person, the results can be revealing. Do they have expertise in the area? What are their credentials? Do they seem credible? What else have they written? Where have their other texts appeared? What are their affiliations (groups or companies with which they may be involved)? Are they funded? If so, by whom? Finally, do we even know the author? If not, then many of these questions can be addressed to the publication venue.
The chief author of Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming is S. Fred Singer, who died in 2020 at the age of 95. Although Singer had a PhD in physics and was a university professor in the 1950s, he 1) was not a research scientist, 2) was not a climate specialist, and 3) never did any research in the field.
His main claim to fame was that he was an early proponent of launching satellites for a scientific investigation, including into weather systems, in the 1950s. Although having a PhD and having once been involved with the weather satellites may make it seem as if Singer has expertise in climate science, this is simply not the case.
Moreover, at least as early as the 1980s, Singer began to (I am quoting The Washington Post here) to “denigrate other scientists who warned the public about secondhand smoke, greenhouse gas emissions, acid rain and the dangers of a steadily warming climate. ‘It’s all bunk’…‘Stop worrying, don’t worry’… ‘Nothing you do will have any effect on the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere. Even if it did have an effect, it won’t affect the planet.’”
Even a cursory look into Singer reveals that, although he held a PhD, he had no expertise in the field of climate science. Moreover, it is obvious that he was seemingly a paid contrarian hired by the tobacco industry, electrical utilities, fossil fuel industry, and so forth.
If you take the time to research Singer further, you will find a great deal of material questioning his credibility. One of the most interesting is the book Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Climate Change, which considers Singer in some detail.
In short, although Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming presents Singer as a credible and unbiased expert in the field climate science, he is neither.
2) Publication. What do we know about the place (periodical, website, publishing house, etc.) where the text appeared? As with learning about the author, a quick online search can be eye-opening. For example, is a publication or website sponsored by, or affiliated with, a particular group or organization (as this can be somewhat unclear, you might have to do some investigative digging)? If sponsored, does the sponsor have a vested interest in this subject? What other sort of texts does the venue publish? Is there anything that links the various texts that appear from this publisher? What do you know about the reputation of the publication? For example, while both the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times are major newspapers, the former is generally politically conservative while the later tends toward the liberal.
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming was published by an organization called the Heartland Institute. As Wikipedia notes, “The Heartland Institute is an American conservative public policy think tank founded in 1984…The institute conducts work on issues including education reform, government spending, taxation, healthcare, tobacco policy, global warming, hydraulic fracturing, socialism,” and so forth.
In practice, the Heartland Institute has spent many years and many millions of dollars both denying that second-hand smoke has health hazards and that the climate crisis is real, while also sounding the alarm regarding the rise of socialism in the United States. Regarding funding, “[o]il and gas companies have contributed to the Institute.” They have also “received funding and support from tobacco companies” and a range of other sources, including the Koch brothers and General Motors.
In other words, the Heartland Institute exists in part to protect the interests of tobacco companies, fossil fuel affiliates, and other industries. A 2012 leak of Heartland documents revealed that the Institute pays a variety of climate change deniers, including the above-mention Fred Singer, who was paid “$5,000 plus expenses per month.”
It is clear that the Heartland Institute obviously has a vested interest in promoting climate change denial.
Alternately, if Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming had been published by a mainstream press, such as Penguin or a Doubleday, it would be a far more credible publication. As it stands, since the Heartland Institute is in part being funded by the fossil fuel industry and is in turn funding the creation of climate change denial literature, it is simply not a credible source for unbiased information on the climate crisis.
3) Audience. Most authors (and publications) have an imagined audience, which is the group that they both imagine will read them and hope will be moved in some way by what they read. Speculate, what is the imagined audience of the text at hand? Does it seem likely to influence this group? Why or why not? Specifically, how is the text vectored toward this audience?
The Foreword to Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming begins with this statement: “President Barack Obama and his followers have repeatedly declared that climate change is ‘the greatest threat facing mankind.’ This, while ISIS is beheading innocent people, displacing millions from their homeland, and engaging in global acts of mass murder. If it weren’t so scary, it would be laughable.”
From this and a range of similar statements, it is clear that the intended audience here are individuals who would likely self-identify as conservative. After all, I doubt that President Obama’s “followers” (i.e. Democrats and liberals) would react very favorably to the above statement.
So, it seems clear that Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming is aimed at an audience that likely is already skeptical of climate science, if not taking a position of downright denial. The purpose of the book, then, is to confirm and deepen this belief.
However, as the Foreword reveals, an added aim is to solidify this as a political issue. As the Foreword notes, the climate crisis “is a very important issue nonetheless for anyone concerned about individual freedom and protecting our way of life. The alarmist view, advocated by the Obama administration and environmental extremists, influences virtually every public policy, including the kind of light bulbs we may purchase, the type of cars we may be able to drive, where we live, and the types of jobs we may create or are available for us or our children to perform.”
In other words, according to this view, action on the climate crisis will negatively and severely impact each of us as Americans.
If this book was intended for an audience that was seriously concerned about the climate crisis as an environmental issue, it is doubtful that they would be convinced that this was, in fact, an issue regarding “individual freedom and protecting our way of life.”
4) Supervision. Has the text been vetted in any way? For example, major publication houses employ seasoned editors to carefully scrutinize books before publication. Major newspapers do the same and go one step further by having fact-checkers carefully research each article’s claim and reference. Similarly, scholarly texts are generally peer-reviewed before appearing in print. In contrast, many blogs are entirely written by a single person without any oversight.
In many respects, the gold standard for the supervision of a publication is set by academic presses. In this case, nothing is published before it is carefully reviewed by a series of experts in the field. This is process known as “peer review.”
Hence, when you pick up a book or journal published by an academic press, you should have a good deal of confidence in the credibility of what is being said, as the reputation of the press hinges on it.
Similarly, if you pick up a major newspaper, such as The Los Angeles Times or The Washington Post, you can generally be confident in what is being said, as the reputation of the paper is at stake. If something turns out to be incorrect or not factual, these publications will always publish a retraction. If it is a major problem, people could (and have) be Lost their jobs over something like this.
In the case of Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, there is no oversight whatsoever, other than what might be provided by the publisher, which is the Heartland Institute. Given that, as we have noted, the Heartland Institute is in the business of defending businesses, like the tobacco, oil, gas, and coal industries, there is little reason to believe that the publication received careful supervision. In other words, there is little reason to believe that claims being made were factual and correct. This is especially apparent, as many the claims made in the book are misleading or simply incorrect.
5) References. Does the author(s) supply a list of references or refer to other works? Are the references credible? Who are the authors of these references and where do they appear? Are the references appropriate? In other words, does the reference in fact support what the author claims? Authors will sometimes reference a very credible source but it may have little or nothing to do with their argument. As with the author and publication, some digging into the references may be necessary.
Let’s again take Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming as an example. The introductory chapter of this volume contains nine references. Four of these works are either published by the Heartland Institute, or appear on the Heartland Institute’s website. The Heartland Institute is, of course, the conservative think tank that published Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming. And such, it is hardly a credible source.
Three of the references are to undeniably credible sources, the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), NASA, and American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). However, the IPCC is cited in order to label it as an “alarmist” group. NASA and the AAAS are cited because they support the claim that “97 percent of scientists agree” the climate crisis is real, which is something that this book purports to disapprove. Hence, none of these sources, in any way, back the claims made in this chapter.
Finally, an article entitled “The myth of the climate change ‘97%’” is cited from The Wall Street Journal. Although this may seem like a credible, mainstream publication, in recent years The Journal has come under fire for publishing op-eds, like the one referenced in Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, that are essentially propaganda serving fossil fuel interests. For example, The Guardian, a respected media outlet, published an article entitled “The Wall Street Journal keeps peddling Big Oil propaganda.”
Consequently, although this chapter from Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming may give the appearance of being well referenced and supported, it merely gives the appearance of being such, as no credible sources are given that support the claims made in the chapter. The three credible sources that are referenced (the IPCC, NASA, and the AAAS), all strongly disagree with the argument made.
Tips for Reading Actively (Part 1I)
Authors can use a variety of different techniques and appeals to sway or influence readers. Here are ten to be on the lookout for:
1) Commonsense. Be wary of appeals to commonsense when not supported by facts. An example would be the argument that because meteorologists cannot accurately forecast weather even a week or two in advance, it therefore follows that attempting to predict climate change decades in the future is simply impossible. Even a cursory look into the subject reveals that climate modeling and meteorology are separate fields with completely different methodologies and results. As a careful reader, your job is to look into such facts.
2) Logic. Be careful not to be swayed by logical fallacies, such as confusing correlation for causality. For example, most children in the US. showing signs of autism have received a series of disease immunizations. This simple correlation does not prove that these immunizations are the cause of autism. In fact, study after study has shown that immunizations are in no way causally related to autism. Instead, this is just a random correlation.
3) Emotion. Authors will often make appeals to emotion as much as they do to logic and reason. Is this being done? Why? What is gained? How, exactly, are emotions being leveraged by the author?
4) Facts. An author will often make a number of statements of fact. Are they, in fact, facts? How do you know? Can they be corroborated? A little online searching should reveal if they are accurate or not.
5) Inclusions. Why has the author(s) included what they have? Do the inclusions all line up in support of the author’s position? If so, it may suggest that they are being cherry-picked in order to support the position.
6) Emphasis. Related to what an author includes is what they emphasize. How and why has the author emphasized what they have? Specifically, what do they gain by this maneuver?
7) Omissions. What has the author(s) omitted? In some cases, omissions can be glaring. Often, however, it will again require some digging to find what the author desires to keep in the dark.
8) Downplaying. Related to omissions, authors will sometimes mention a glaring issue only to downplay its significance. What is the author downplaying and why? Is this maneuver successful?
9) Misdirection. Is the author staying on point or directing you to something else? In the case of Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, why is the discussion focusing on socialism in the United States rather than the climate crisis? What is gained by this distraction?
10) Conspiracy. Be cautious of conspiracy and other oddball theories that help make an author’s case. For example, the notion that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by China in order to become more competitive in the world market. This theory have no factual support. For example, it has never been shown that China is either directly producing climate change denial literature or is funding it indirectly. To the contrary, the primary producers of this literature are conservative US. groups that generally take a strong stand against China.
The simple fact is that effective reading is active reading. Simply accepting what a text says without questioning it can lead to disaster with something as crucial as the climate crisis. Careful reading takes time. However, when something important – like the Earth remaining hospitable and welcoming for our species – hangs in the balance, it is imperative that read well.
Chapter 3, Transportation
Why the climate crisis is a cultural rather than just technological problem
This chapter focuses on transportation.
Why single out transportation? Well, for many Americans, transportation is single the largest chunk of their climate footprints. This principally comes from two sources: cars and planes.
If you are an average American, 25% of your climate footprint comes from using an automobile. As we shall see, this is, in fact, a deceptively low number. This is because what is being tracked here is car use and not car ownership. Perhaps not surprisingly, vast quantities of greenhouse gases are emitted during the manufacture of automobiles. Hence, although we may think that cars add to our climate footprint only when we are driving down, just owning a car series of cars over your lifetime is enough to blow your entire carbon budget. In the next section, we will take this issue up in detail.
Air travel is a little trickier to assess, as some Americans rarely get on planes while others fly a great deal. Even if you don’t travel by air a lot, when added to the 25% of your climate footprint that comes from using your car, it could be enough to make transportation the single largest part of your climate footprint. However, if you are a frequent flyer, transportation (that’s air travel and car use) could together be responsible for emitting more greenhouse gases than everything else that you do in your life. That’s right, transportation may be a doubling – or more – your personal climate footprint.
So, what’s to be done?
Well, for years – decades really – we have put our hope in technology, as we have (from the 1960s and 70s onward) been looking forward to the day when electric cars finally became practical and affordable. Since that day is nearly here, it may seem that we were right to put pin hopes on technology.
The problem is that while these may be zero-emission vehicles when they are being driven, as I just noted (it will explain in detail in another section in the series), manufacturing a car releases tons of greenhouse gases, literally. When we take this “embedded carbon” into account, it becomes clear that electric cars are not the solution – and that for decades we have been backing the wrong horse.
Similarly, we are now being told that zero-emission airliners are on the horizon. For example, a few years ago Rolls-Royce confidently proclaimed that we are “entering the era of zero-emissions aviation.” They have even “produced a whole host of STEM-related activity packs for inquisitive young minds eager to learn more about cleaner sustainable aviation and have fun in the process.”
The problem is that this technology is in a nascent form, as the electric aircraft that have flown have generally been small planes that carry a single person – which is where we were back with the Wright brothers. Assuming that it is even possible (a very big “if”), we may be many decades away from electric airliners that could carry hundreds of people over thousands of miles nonstop at over 500 mph.
This raises an important question: why did we put our hopes in technological solutions to the transportation problem when technology alone (as we shall see throughout the series) clearly cannot solve the issue? In order to answer this question, it’s worth looking at who was touting these solutions.
For example, General Motors, which was for decades the largest automobile manufacturer on the planet, rolled out a concept car, the Electrovette in the 1970s. (Sounds a lot GM’s flagship sports car, the “Corvette,” doesn’t it?) In the 1990s, they actually put an electric car, the EV1, also known as the “Impact,” into very limited production. GM only produced a little over 1000 of these electric cars. During the years that the EV1 was in production, GM produced tens of millions of gasoline powered cars.
Similarly, Rolls-Royce, which, as I noted, is now hyping “zero-emissions aviation,” is the world’s second-largest manufacturer of aircraft engines.
These companies have a huge vested interest in keeping us in the habit of driving cars and traveling by air. Indeed, if we got out of these habits, their businesses would likely cease to exist. Hence, they kept telling us that affordable zero-emission vehicles were just around the corner.
In other words, the message was clear: don’t panic, and certainly don’t get out of the habit of driving and flying, just stay with the course and we will take care of everything.
In promoting cars, automobile manufacturers have, in a variety of ways, directly attacked mass transit. A recent example would be Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla: “I think public transport is painful. It sucks. Why do you want to get on something with a lot of other people…It’s a pain in the ass…That’s why everyone doesn’t like it. And there’s like a bunch of random strangers, one of who might be a serial killer, OK, great. And so that’s why people like individualized transport, that goes where you want, when you want.”
His messages clear: if you are afraid of serial killers, stay off of mass transit!
But seriously, it is worth pausing on the habits and promises of cars, planes, and other transportation options – which in fact is what this series on transportation will do.
Since, it is clear that technological solutions are not sufficient in themselves, we need to take a long hard look at how we get around. In order to travel short distances, like to school and work, we are in the habit of driving there by car. For longer distances, such as across the country, we are in the habit of using air travel.
But these are just habits.
For short distances, we could alternately use mass transit or personal mobility solutions, like a bicycle. For longer distances, like across the country, high speed rail would be an option.
Although changes in habits such as these may sound like solely personal choices, the situation is more complicated than that.
For example, although some people might like to use mass transit to get around, the bus systems in their town may be inadequate, with not enough buses, lines, or stops, or may simply not be safe. And few towns and cities in the US have truly adequate infrastructure for bicycles.
Similarly, although it would be possible to comfortably travel from Los Angeles to Chicago (a 2000-mile trip) in ten hours or less on a high-speed train, no such service exists.
Consequently, what is needed here is not just a change in our habits (i.e. personal action), but collective action in the form of government intervention. In other words, instead of being massive supporters of the automobile and aircraft industries (which the US. has been in the business of doing for many decades now), our government needs to instead support things like buses, high-speed trains, and bicycle infrastructure.
And then there is the fact that we are told on a daily basis (in subtle and not-so-subtle ways) that cars are cool, signaling that you are at least relatively wealthy if you own one. Conversely, getting around by bus or bicycle is often seen as either for people who cannot afford a car or are just plain dorkey.
None of this is directly related to technology, but rather has to do with government policies and cultural norms. In the US, the “normal” way – which is established by norms – of getting around is by car and plane (depending on whether you are traveling a short distance or far, respectively).
But, how do we establish these norms? This is a central question that needs to be taken up.
In some countries, such as Denmark (where the per capita income is just about the same as the US.), many people get around by bicycle. In Copenhagen, the capital, nearly two out of three people commute to work and to school by bike.
As we shall see in the series, Copenhagen’s transformation into a bicycle friendly city (which is still an ongoing process) did not happen overnight. Instead, it has taken nearly five decades. It was motivated by the same predicament that caused the American automobile industry to start promising us that zero-emission vehicles, like the Electrovette, were on the horizon: the energy crisis of the 1970s.
When it became clear in the 1960s and ‘70s that the global supply of fossil fuel could easily be interrupted and was ultimately finite, people, corporations, and countries set out to find alternatives and solutions.
With respect to ground transportation, some countries, like the US, largely put its hopes in technological innovations and change, like the promise of the Electrovette. Alternately, countries like Denmark and cities like Copenhagen came to see that cultural change would be a large part of the answer.
In general, this course will explore how we can address the climate crisis by way of cultural change. This is not to say that we should ignore or downplay the importance of technology. In fact, I am of the mind that electric vehicles have an important role to play in our sustainable future.
However, I do not think that 5000-pound vehicles carrying a lone person (three out of four cars on the road have a single occupant) are the answer. In dramatic contrast, one hundred e-bikes can be made from roughly the same resources, with the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions, and powered by the same amount of electricity – which would obviously carry, rather than just one, 100 or more people (some e-bikes have a second seat for a child or adult).
Similarly, as we shall see, buses and trains are already many, many times more efficient than the average automobile on the road. And mass transit powered by sustainable electricity is a particularly appealing option.
Moreover, it’s also the case that the key to sustainable transportation may not much involve transportation at all. I know, this sounds like a paradox, but, in certain places, like Manhattan, a third of the population commutes to work by walking. Consequently, most households in Manhattan do not have a car. In contrast, 19 out of 20 households in the US have one or more cars.
In general, if we live in cities, which can be desirable for a host of reasons, then transportation becomes easier. Conversely, if we live in rural or suburban spaces, transportation becomes a far bigger problem.
I know, right about now I imagine that some people are wondering if I could possibly be serious: Do I honestly expect most Americans to ditch their cars and instead bicycle to work?
Well, two out of three people did just that in Copenhagen.
Some people may indeed voluntarily ditch their cars because they care about this planet and the future of our species on it. You may be among them. I hope that you are.
But what about everyone else? This is an important question, as I – sadly – suspect that this group may be the majority.
Although it may sound a little unbelievable, right now there is nothing to deter Americans or American corporations from contributing to the climate crisis by emitting greenhouse gases directly into the atmosphere in any amount that they like.
However, with respect to polluting the environment with toxic chemicals, the situation is very different. While there was a time, prior to the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the early 1970s and a series of laws that preceded it, when people and companies could release toxic chemicals directly into the environment, such as waterways, the EPA changed all that. Now, if someone pollutes, they can face stiff fines and even imprisonment.
However, there’s nothing to deter anyone in the US. from putting CO2 and other greenhouse gases directly into the atmosphere. Hence, people and corporations are releasing these gases into the atmosphere in a wholesale way. Just look at busy freeways at rush-hour. Millions and millions of Americans are dumping many millions of pounds of CO2 directly into the atmosphere, daily. Or look up at the sky at airliners, which release CO2 and other gases directly into the stratosphere, which doubles their potency as greenhouse gases.
So, what’s to be done about this? After all, we can’t ask the EPA to fine or imprisoned everyone who drives a car. True. But, if we put a price on every pound of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere (i.e. carbon pricing), then people might reconsider. Depending on the price, I think that they definitely would.
For every gallon of gasoline that we burn, 20 pounds of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere. So, if you drive an SUV that gets 20 miles per gallon, that’s 1 pound of CO2 for every mile that you travel. (Incidentally, this is just slightly under the efficiency of average car in the US, which is 25 miles per gallon.)
Pricing carbon would mean that the price of gasoline (as well as jet fuel and everything else produced out of and by way of fossil fuels) would rise. The idea here is to put a price on releasing a pound (or metric ton or some other unit of measurement) of CO2 or equivalent greenhouse gases.
We know that when the price of gasoline goes up, people reconsider their driving habits. For example, in the Fall of 2005, right after Hurricane Katrina interrupted the supply of gasoline and hence caused gasoline prices to rise above three dollars per gallon for the first time in US history, the sale of SUVs dropped.
What would happen if we started pricing carbon and caused the cost of gasoline to rise permanently and significantly?
We can guess, as there was a similar situation a few decades ago with cigarettes. When the US government finally decided to step in and deter tobacco use, one of the things that was done was to impose a stiff tax on cigarettes. In particular, the goal was to stop young people from entering into a disastrous lifelong habit. In this regard in particular, pricing tobacco works surprisingly well. “For every ten percent increase in the price of a pack of cigarettes, youth smoking rates overall drop about seven percent.”
Hence, if we priced carbon, the hope is that we would release less of it in the form of greenhouse gases. There is every reason to believe that this would happen. After all, if gasoline were $10, $15, or $20 per gallon, people would likely drive more efficient vehicles, drive less, and look for more economic alternatives, like mass transit and personal mobility options (i.e bikes). The same goes for flying.
Incidentally, we also know that a carbon tax would work because other countries have already levied them. For example, Denmark first started taxing carbon in 1992. (Incidentally, even back then it wasn’t the first country to do so, which gives you some indication just how far behind the US. is when it comes to climate legislation and action.) Although there were a range of other factors in play, it is not coincidental that in Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen, bicycle use has more than tripled since 1992. Because the city addressed the climate crisis early on, Copenhagen now hopes to be carbon neutral by 2025.
So, whether it is through personal action (i.e., people reconsidering how they get around), government action (such as pricing carbon), or some combination of the two (municipalities building more bike lanes so that more people bike), it is possible to dramatically reduce the climate footprint of transporting people around.
Generally speaking, we also need to reconsider transportation all together. As I noted, if we live in certain densely populated locales, like cities, it may be possible and convenient to simply walk in order to get to work, to buy groceries, to visit friends, and so forth. However, it is also now possible to visit and meet with people without even getting up out of our chairs.
A few years ago, if you brought up the notion of us being transported via telepresence, many people would have conjured up an image of the transporters from Star Trek. However, COVID-19 Zoomed us into a new telepresence era (sorry, I couldn’t help myself!).
If COVID-19 had struck two decades earlier, our response would have been entirely different, as the Internet infrastructure, as well as the computers on our desks and the software that they were running, was simply not capable of handling high-definition video in the year 2000. However, as Netflix, YouTube, and a range of other video services proved in the second decade of the 21st, many people can now watch high-def video online.
How many? In 2020, YouTube hit 2.3 billion (with a “B”) users worldwide, which is a little under a third of all people on the planet.
In a future section in the series, I want to recount my personal experience with telepresence, which dates back to 2015.
Why electric cars are more trouble than good
Many people believe that technological innovations are the solution to the climate crisis. While certainly important, we need to face the fact that cultural changes are every bit, if not often more, important.
In order to understand how, let’s take cars as an example.
A typical car in the US. emits about 4.6 metric tons of CO2 per year. Given that the average American’s total annual emissions of CO2 is just under 20 metric tons, cars account for around a quarter of our individual carbon footprints. Thus, if we wish to reduce our individual climate footprints, cars are clearly one of the lowest hanging fruits.
For decades now, electric automobiles have been touted as a solution to this enormous problem, as they do not directly emit CO2 while operating. Each one this promises to reduce those 4.6 metric tons of CO2 emissions per year to down to zero. Hence, they are often called zero-emission vehicles.
It is hardly surprising, then, that for decades electric cars have been held out as a sort of holy grail. Now that they are finally becoming practical and affordable, it would seem that in one swell foop our problem is solved.
Sadly, it’s not.
If we are to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°- 2.0 C, which is the goal of the Paris Accord signed at COP 21, each person on the planet can annually emit no more than about two metric tons of CO2 or equivalent gases.
Think of this sort of like a dietary guideline. The FDA tells us that, if you want to healthy body, you should consume no more than 2000 or 2500 calories per day. Similarly, if you want to healthy planet, you should emit no more than two metric tons of CO2 or equivalent gases per year.
With respect to the climate crisis, the problem with cars involves their production.
First, the good news regarding electric cars.
Even though manufacturing an electric car produces 15-68% more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than a similar gasoline car, over their lifetimes electric cars generate half of the emissions of their gasoline counterparts, more than compensating for increased emissions during production.
So, if you are going to buy a car, an electric one is arguably the better choice with respect to climate change, all things considered.
But, should we buy one at all? Are there other, external, factors to car’s operation that we need to consider?
The manufacture of a typical automobile emits a extraordinary amount of CO2 or equivalent gases. Manufacturing a typical midrange car (a Toyota Prius, which is a hybrid) releases about 17 metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. A top-of-the-line SUV (a Range Rover) about 35 metric tons.
Let’s lean toward the lower end assume that just 22 metric tons of CO2 or equivalent gasses are emitted during the manufacture of the average car on the road, even though SUVs and crossovers sales are currently dominating the American market and the electric cars now coming online release more greenhouse gases during their manufacture.
The average car has a lifespan of 11 years. This is, incidentally, up from couple of decades ago.
If we spread out the 22 metric tons of CO2 emitted during the manufacture of a typical car over its 11 year lifespan, we come up with two metric tons per year.
Recall that if you want a healthy planet, you should emit no more than two tons of CO2 per year – total.
So, if you buy a succession of cars during your adult life, one every 11 years, and leave them in your driveway and never drive them, you will have totally expended your CO2 allotment for your lifetime. And, of course, this does not leave an emission allotment for anything else, such as for food, clothing, housing, and everything else that we need to live – including actually driving that car!
In case you were wondering, recycling cannot help much more here, as automobiles are already the most recycled of all consumer products.
We could also hope that few people on the planet will own cars. During the 20th century, most cars on the planet were owned by Americans and Europeans. The problem is that we have made them so popular that the rest of the world now wants them.
India is currently the fifth largest car market in the world and growing rapidly. China, now the largest market, is quickly developing an even greater, in fact altogether extraordinary love of cars. In 1985, there were 1.78 million total vehicles in China. In 2017, car ownership alone had soared to 172 million. That’s an astonishing increase of more than 10,000 percent in just three decades.
There are currently just over a billion cars on the planet. Because the rest of the world is now also quickly becoming infatuated with them like Americans, that number is expected to double to two billion in by 2040.
The problem is that if we focus just on emissions and see this primarily as a technological challenge we will lose the fight against the climate crisis.
For decades, we have held out hope that technology and industry will produce a car with zero emissions coming out of the tailpipe, when we should instead have been focusing on the car itself.
Instead of trying to produce a truly emissions free automobile – which, if we consider its entire life cycle, is obviously impossible – we instead need to turn our attention to car use.
The automobile is just one example of the hope that technology alone will get us out of this problem. There is no need to stop driving cars – so the hope goes – as someone will soon come along and give us a zero-emissions automobile. Elon Musk, of course, likes to cast himself as this savior. But the fact is that no matter how hard we try, making a 5000-pound vehicle to carry one person will never be environmentally sound.
For decades now, we have pinned our hopes on reengineering the automobile. As far as I am concerned, this was a complete and utter waste of time. Unimaginably precious time during a crucial moment when the climate crisis was unfolding.
Effort was not only wasted on this thoroughly misguided project, but attention was drawn away from the real job at hand: We should instead have been focusing our attention on re-engineering the cultural practice of car use.
This is not to say that technology is not needed to help solve this problem along with cultural change.
As it turns out, it’s technologically possible to transport a person 350, 500, even an astonishing 750 miles on a single gallon of gasoline or its equivalent. In other words, it is theoretically possible to transport someone from LA to New York on just for gallons of gas.Not only is it possible, the good news is that these transportation technologies are no longer still in the experimental stage.
To the contrary, they have all proven themselves and in fact have been in widespread use for over a century.
What are these wonder technologies? Buses, subways, and trains, respectively. When compared to a 25-mpg car (which is currently the average efficiency of a new automobile in the US.) with a single occupant (three out of four cars on the road have just one person in them), a bus is 14 times more efficient (i.e. one gallon of gasoline can transport a single person 350 miles), a subway 20 times more so (500 mpg per person), and a passenger train 30 times more efficient (750 mpg).
A few years ago, a perceptive student of mine, reflecting on this situation and these numbers, succinctly observed that “what we need is not a 100-mpg car, but rather for taking the bus to become cool and owning a car to be anything but.” I could not agree more.
Incidentally, even 750 mpg can be improved upon—and it’s embarrassingly easy to do so. In parts of Manhattan, over a third of commuters walk to work. Bicycling is even more efficient. New Yorkers, incidentally, are eleven times more likely to take mass transit like subways and buses to work than the average American. As Edward Glaeser, David Owen, and many others have thus argued, cities are far more efficient than suburbs and rural locales. This is clearly the case with fossil fuel use and corresponding carbon footprints.
The example of New York (and cities more generally) makes clear that it is quite possible for modern human beings to live rich and diverse lives largely free of the automobile.
Why, then, do so many Americans drive cars? And why do we drive so many of them? The US. has fewer than 4 percent of the planet’s population, yet a quarter of its cars. Placed end to end, they would circle the earth – 31 times. As my student realized, in the US. cars are cool, really cool. In fact, in the US, we have more cars than we have licensed drivers. Nonetheless, automobiles are an environmental disaster.
If everything else were equal, switching from car to bus could reduce our individual climate footprints for transportation by a factor of fourteen. Yet, with fewer than 5 percent of Americans taking the bus to work, as opposed to 85 per- cent using cars to commute, buses are clearly not at all desirable. But why are cars cool and buses not?
This is not a question for the STEM fields, but rather the social sciences and humanities, where we seek to understand just why people do what they do. Science may be able to tell us how human beings are changing our global climate, but not why we are doing it. The sciences may be able to offer us more advanced technology (i.e. more efficient cars), but they offer little insight into why we continue to engage in these practices. Why, for example, we love cars.
If we can understand why cars are desirable and buses not, we can perhaps then take the next step – and it is a big one – of not just studying culture, but actively intervening in it. For example, we might help foster a culture where riding a bus or train is seen as far more appealing than traveling by car. If we could pull this off, the gains could greatly exceed the impact that a 100-mpg car would have on climate change. This is why I suggested that the humanities have as large a role to play as science and technology in limiting anthropogenic climate change.
But, make no mistake, this will be no easy task. Developing and manufacturing the next generation of lithium batteries will certainly be difficult, but no less so than trying to understand why human beings are engaging in perplexing and at times even irrational practices. As the World Health Organization (WHO) notes, over 50 million people are killed or injured in traffic accidents worldwide each year. Globally, traffic accidents are the leading cause of death for young people over the age of 10, surpassing malaria, AIDS, and any and everything else. Consequently, the WHO has declared traffic injuries a worldwide epidemic.
In addition to being incredibly dangerous, automobiles demand a huge portion of family income, making them far less economical than mass transportation. The average cost of owning, insuring, maintaining, and fueling a car in the US. is around $9000 a year. This is a huge financial burden. Indeed, work about one day a week to afford a car.
It is often suggested, often by car ads, that they represent freedom. Freedom to hop in a car at any time and go for a ride. However, imagine the freedom of every week having a three day weekend as you didn’t have to put in the extra work just to afford a car. Also, people have run the numbers and come up with an interesting figure regarding retirement: if, instead of spending $9000 a year to own a car, you put that money in a retirement account starting when you first enter the workforce in your 20s. If you did this, you would be able to retire not when you were 65 years old, but in your late 40s. Now that strikes me as freedom.
How is it that cars, in spite of being outrageously dangerous, a huge financial burden, and more disastrous for the environment than any other single source, are cool? Like everything else, this has a history. Here’s the short version.
The US. came out of the Great Depression economically because it was drawn into a highly industrialized war. Industrial output during World War II was staggering: the US. manufactured nearly 7000 major warships, over 300,000 aircraft, and around 2,500,000 land vehicles in just a few years. When the war came to an end, the challenge was to keep this industrial juggernaut (and accordingly the economy) going strong. The automobile played a huge role in this project.
The growth of the postwar US. automobile industry depended on convincing the public that cars were desirable. Getting us to spend huge chunks of our income to buy them and risk our lives driving them was no easy task. Nonetheless, car manufacturers, working hand in hand with politicians and others, pulled it off. In order to ensure that mass transportation did not successfully compete with the car, it received dramatically less federal funding than did industries devoted to building automobiles and road infrastructure.
Another big part of the solution was to sell the public on the idea of suburbia. In postwar America, if you wanted to get out of the city and into the appealing new suburbs you needed a car to commute. In fact, just to get around in the sprawling suburbs you needed a car. For many families this meant, to the great delight of the auto industry, that you needed two cars.
At its height in the US. a generation ago, one in six Americans were either directly or indirectly employed by this industry. And this did not include the massive, complementary industry of road construction, such as made possible by Eisenhower’s Highway Act of 1956, which authorized the creation of 41,000 miles of interstate highways.
Although it may sound a little outlandish on first hearing, for decades the backbone of the US. economy depended on cars being cool. So cool, in fact, that we would knowingly risk our lives and lavish huge portions of our income on their purchase and upkeep. It is difficult to imagine how a broad swath of the American public would go along with this lose–lose proposition. It’s even more difficult to imagine how it continues today in an age when we are aware of climate change. Although it is a little mind-boggling, the carbon footprint of cars in the US. exceeds that of our houses (and any other single source, for that matter).
Returning to the big picture, technology alone will not solve the climate crisis. Instead, we need to look hard at rewriting a range of cultural practices, like our love of cars.
Even though the challenges that we face are daunting – and let’s face it, more than a little scary and depressing – approaching this as a human issue can and should be empowering. There is no need to wait for Elon Musk or anyone else to solve this problem (especially as it is clear that these technologists simply cannot come anywhere near doing it on their own), as each of us can simply write cars out of our lives.
As Americans, we can do even more, as a good deal of the world still looks to us to lay down the precepts of what’s cool. In places like Portland, Brooklyn, and a range of other cities, an emerging eco-culture is eschewing cars to instead embrace mass transit and bikes as cool, really cool. Conversely, in these places gas-guzzling cars like SUVs are anything but cool. In terms of climate crisis, this sort of exciting, future-oriented culture may be one of the US.’s most important exports in the 21st century
Yes, even more important – far more important, I would argue – than exporting Teslas.
Although it may seem that we will therefore need to do with less and perhaps even do without (I am, after all, suggesting that we do without cars), we stand to actually benefit by this bargain. Instead of spending huge chunks of our income on deathtraps that are wreaking havoc on our climate and planet, we have the opportunity to imagine new and better ways of getting around.
So, I am curious what you think about the future of cars in the age of the climate crisis – and the larger issue of whether technological innovations will allow us to live our lives without change in this new age or whether will will have to change certain aspects of the way that we live in response to the climate crisis.
Flying, the absolute worst thing that you can do environmentally
It’s true. Environmentally, flying is the absolute worst thing that you can do.
What is interesting is that air travel only accounts for about 2%, maybe 2.5%, of total greenhouse gas emissions globally (source). As such, it contributes far less to the climate crisis than something like automobile use or eating beef. Other things that you may not think about at all contribute as much or more to the crisis. For example, 2% of all greenhouse gases come from the manufacture of aluminum; 5% from making cement.
So why is air travel so bad if it is currently such a small percentage of the problem globally?
Like many things related to the climate crisis, it is useful to approach this personally. We often ignore or avoid this approach, as it can make us more than a little uncomfortable, as it requires us to look at what we are doing rather than the actions of some corporation or politician, but doing so is important – in fact, it’s essential.
It’s hard to imagine a way for one person to contribute to the climate crisis more quickly than by flying. If you take a round-trip flight from LA to Paris, which would have you in the air for a little under 24 hours, you will have caused three tons of carbon dioxide to be directly emitted into the upper atmosphere. Incidentally, if you fly first class, you will have contributed twice that amount, six tons.
The next time that you wish you were flying first class, remember this: it’s literally twice is bad for the planet. And, of course, for all you aspiring Kardashians, taking a personal jet is off the chart when it comes to inflicting as much harm to the planet as quickly as possible. There really should be some sort of award for this kind of unconscionable behavior. Perhaps we could call it the “Worst Planetary Citizen” award.
Instead, we see it as glamorous.
In any event, in addition to CO2, other gases emitted by your plane, such as mono-nitrogen oxides (that’s a mouthful!), increase your short-term climate impact by as much as two or three times more (source).
So, if air travel is so bad – which it absolutely is – how is it that it accounts for only 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions?
The problem is that traveling by air is a practice exclusive to the wealthiest, most privileged people on the planet. In fact, flying is in some sense THE iconic display of privilege. For over seventy years now, we have referred to the world’s most privileged people as the “jet set.”
Conversely, 19 out of 20 people on the planet have never set foot in an airplane. Even among Americans, half do not fly annually. Frequent, rather than occasional, flyers are obviously the biggest problem. By some estimates, 80% of flights are made by just one percent of all people on the planet.
Although the term “jet set” has obviously lost its cachet over the decades, now that all sorts of people can fly coach, it is nonetheless a global elite that is still doing all this flying and contributing to the climate crisis in this way.
You may not think of yourself as a global elite or as a member of the “jet set,” but if you fly, you are. Put nineteen random people from across the globe in a room with you, and, just by virtue of the fact that you just occasionally fly, you may well be the only jet setter in the room.
If you are a frequent flyer, put a hundred random people in a room and you will be contributing more to the climate crisis in this way than anyone else in the room. You may not think of yourself as a member of “the one percent” (i.e. the world’s wealthiest and most privileged people), but you would be among the the one percent doing the lion’s share of all this flying.
In which case, air travel could be doubling or tripling your personal climate footprint.
Let’s a pause on that for a moment: Even though you may be trying to reduce your carbon footprint in a variety of ways (such as by eating a largely plant-based diet, not owning a car, buying less stuff, etc.), if you fly, this activity could easily singlehandedly nullify all the gains from the rest of your otherwise environmentally conscientious lifestyle.
Let’s get specific here. In order to meet the goals of the Paris accord, which was established at COP 21, everyone on the planet should emit on average no more than two metric tons of CO2 per year. In a single 24-hour period, that flight from LA to Paris thus expends your entire CO2 allocation for a year and a half. Three years if you fly first class. Factor in the other greenhouse gases emitted and it is two or three times worse even than that.
If only 5% of the world’s population is responsible for air travel, what would happen if the rest of the world began to follow our dubious example? In fact, this is what is now happening. For example, air travel in China recently increased by 50% in just five years (source).
So, what’s to be done?
Three things come to mind. One with respect to business travel, another recreational travel, and a third applies to both.
First, the one that applies to both business and recreational travel is simple enough, though not necessarily easy to enact: Fly less. Instead of multiple business trips or vacations, consolidate as much as possible. For example, instead of two short vacations that require flying every year, why not have one grand one every five years – thus reducing your flights by a factor of ten?
Flying less does not just mean consolidating trips, but breaking them into parts as well. For example, as travel by train is one of the most efficient ways of getting around (and hence has a relatively tiny climate footprint), as opposed to air travel which is arguably the most environmentally problematic, traveling overland by train and across oceans could make sense.
Let’s say that I wanted to fly from my home in Santa Barbara, which is near Los Angeles, to London. First, I could take a bus or train to LA. While there are nonstop flights from London to LA, many in fact have connections in New York City. Instead of doing these two legs by plane, the first could be by train and the second by airplane, thereby cutting the airmiles almost in half. Having traveled across the country by train, I can tell you that it was a wonderful experience that years later I still look back on fondly.
Regarding business travel in particular, a big part of the solution may be telepresencing of one sort or another. I know, when may people think of telepresencing we imagine the transporter from Star Trek.
Telepresencing is indeed being transported across great distances by way of some form of technology.
But the fact is that practical telepresencing is already here – and has been for over a century. Radio technology allowed our voices, at least, to be present at far off places. Not long after, television also allowed live images to be transmitted at a distance. Telephones, first wired though now largely radio, allowed us to conduct realtime, interactive conversations around the world. And, of course, the Internet and cellular networks made practical and affordable technologies like Skype and FaceTime that allow two or more people to see, hear, and interact with each other in realtime.
This technology has now advanced to the point that well over a billion people on the planet now literally carry highly advanced versions of it in our back pockets, as smartphones allow us to conduct conversations with high-definition video that rival broadcast standards.
What does all this have to do with the climate crisis?
It is simple enough: we expend an enormous amount of energy transporting our bodies around, often in environmentally disastrous ways like automobiles and airplanes, when just seeing and hearing each other would do. This is not to say that such telepresencing is the same as a face-to-face encounter: however, when we consider is that the climate footprint of such encounters can be 100 times smaller than the face-to-face meeting, the trade-off is, as far as I am concerned, well worth it for the sake of the planet and our future.
Moreover, social media has challenged us to reconsider how meaningful human interaction occurs. Many people find the relationships that they make and maintain online to be nearly as valuable as their face-to-face ones.
Regarding recreational air travel, let’s say that you make a commitment to stop (or dramatically reduce) flying, starting today. How, then, do you travel, in the sense of visiting new places and experiencing new things there without flying?
You could just throw up your hands in frustration and say “Screw it, I guess I just won’t travel then”! Unfortunately, when they hear about the environmental problems of air travel, many people may well assume that this what the future holds. Is it, then, any wonder that they want to hold onto the present (and their boarding passes)?
Alternately, you could accept the challenge of the future and start imagining possibilities, in some cases really appealing possibilities.
With respect to recreational air travel, an interesting alternative is the emerging slow travel movement.
Slow travel? Yep, it’s a thing.
For example, let’s assume I wanted to take a vacation from my home in Santa Barbara to San Francisco, which is about 300 miles away. I could fly there, which would take just over an hour and which would be unpleasant and an environmental disaster.
This is not, however, my only option. I could, for example, take the train up, which would add about 9 hours to my travel time. Even setting aside the environmental advantages of such a trip, I imagine that it would be pretty nice way to spend a day, just sitting back and enjoying a large chunk of the California coast.
Of course, I would also have other options. One of the most radical would be if I traveled up on my pedalec bike (which is an electric assisted bike that I still pedal), riding four or five hours a day and spending the rest of the time exploring the local areas and staying at Airbnb’s. Such a trip would take around 3 days. And then 3 days back.
Now, some people will scuff (maybe even laugh) at the very idea of traveling in such a way.
However, the nascent “slow travel” movement argues for trips of just this kind (as well as mass-transit options like trains). Like slow fashion, and before it slow food, this movement challenges the cultural status quo. Indeed, it seeks to upend it.
Spending hours preparing a meal, starting with buying the ingredients at a local farmers market to slowly preparing all its dishes (let alone if we grow the food ourselves), can seem absolutely absurd when compared to a fast-food restaurant, where you can buy a meal and eat it in under 10 minutes.
Similarly, spending hours of your spare time knitting a hat or sewing a shirt may seems ludicrous when you can buy one from a fast fashion outlet for less than $10.
Nonetheless, in the past few decades slow food has become a real cultural force. Slow fashion may not be far behind.
Decades ago, the architects of the slow food movement, frustrated with the present, imagined a bold new future. It took quite a while, but, at least where I live ( California), the future has arrived, and for many people it definitely includes healthy portions of slow food. One of the reasons that the slow food movement succeeded was that it had much to recommend it.
The same can be said of the slow travel movement. At the risk of rolling out a cliché, life really is about the journey, not the destination. This truism is completely lost on the fast travel industry, where the journey is reduced to a few altogether uncomfortable hours packed into, and jostling around in, a loud airplane.
Let’s return to my imagined trip up the coast on an electric bike. Frankly, making this trip with my wife and young daughter sounds like it could be a pretty magical experience that would stay with us for years. I can’t think of no better way than to experience the California coast. Of course, it would not be all about the destination of San Francisco. Indeed, San Francisco would just become part of the journey.
Yes, the transition to slow travel would impact the air travel industry, but whole new possibilities would open up, such as better mass transit and bicycle infrastructure (both of which are sorely needed). Whole towns that are not traditional “destinations,” will nonetheless be able to play a role in a new slow travel industry.
In any event, I am curious to hear what you think. Is it time to write air travel out of our lives, or at least greatly reduce it? If so, how do we begin?
Flying less? Telepresencing? Slow travel? Other ideas?
Chapter 4, Other Factors
Do we need a climate vanguard? (Food, today and tomorrow)
Are you an architect of the future, part of what I like to call the “climate vanguard”?
As I have argued throughout this series, the climate crisis is going to necessitate sweeping cultural changes if we are to mitigate it successfully. To quote Greta Thunberg: “Either we do that or we don’t.” If we don’t, this planet will become unwelcoming, perhaps largely uninhabitable, for our species. Consequently, there are, as far as I am concerned, no two ways about it, we need to make these changes.
The question is do you want to be part of the group rushing out ahead of everyone else in boldly forging a new future? In other words, do you not only want to voluntarily take part in this extraordinary reinvention of our culture, but do you want to take the lead?
Allow me to flesh this out a little, beginning with a sobering thought:
Many – probably most – people will likely not make the necessary personal changes to adequately combat climate crisis until required to do so. Although unfortunate – and more than a little depressing – this is the sad reality of the situation.
What can we do about this?
First, we need to elect politicians that will implement programs pricing carbon, such as a “carbon tax,” which would directly tax fossil fuel suppliers, thereby resulting in higher costs on all products and services that one way or another require the emission of greenhouse gases. Over time, such a tax would increase.
Pricing carbon would mean, for example, that the cost of air travel would increase and continue to increase over time. (Incidentally, as I note in another episode, air travel produces tons of greenhouse gas emissions – literally a ton or more of GHG emissions for just one passenger for a long flight!) Thus, air travel would become more and more expensive as the price of carbon emissions increased over time. Consequently, people would, on the whole, be traveling less and less as a result of carbon pricing. Eventually, if the cost became prohibitively high, most people would largely stop flying.
Since air travel is an environmental and climate disaster, this would be a very good thing indeed.
We all should, consequently, support legislation pricing carbon to get the ball rolling on this. But can we do more – and do it directly, right now?
The answer is, of course, “yes.” We can, staying with this example, make a personal decision to stop flying now – today, in fact. Sadly, it will likely be years before the rest of America catches up with us. Nonetheless, we would be charting the future for the rest of the country. Indeed, charting it for the entire developed world that shares our love of air travel.
In that sense, although it may sound like an odd way to think about it, we would be living in the future, working out what the future will be like.
Let’s stay with our example of air travel in order to explore this idea before moving to our primary topic today, which is food.
If you decided to stop flying today, you would then be confronted with all of the challenges that come with that decision. Let’s be honest, it would likely impact you both professionally and personally.
For example, when I decided to stop flying a few years ago, I was immediately confronted with the challenge of how to attend academic conferences and present papers, which are an integral part of my profession. As I have noted elsewhere, the academic truism “‘[p]ublish or perish’ has a less famous corollary: present or perish. At many institutions, conference and lecture presentations are tallied up alongside publications at tenure and other merit reviews.”
Unfortunately – and astonishingly – this means that many professors double or even triple (in some cases far more) their individual carbon footprints by flying to academic conferences.
What, then, was I to do? Since I was no longer able to attend national and international conferences, I started thinking about how such conferences could work if we took air travel out of the equation. Since computer programing is a hobby of mine, I started working out an online conference that addressed some of the shortcomings of conventional virtual conferences, which often use some sort of Zoom-like technology to coordinate real time events. In the intervening years, we have coordinated half a dozen of these nearly carbon-neutral (NCN) conferences at UC Santa Barbara.
Now, let me be very clear here – and this is in no way false modesty on my part – I doubt very much that the conference model that I proposed will become any sort of standard in the future.
My point is simply that I found myself strangely confronted with the future. In other words, I was confronted with challenge of a travel-free conference, which the rest of academia may not face until years from now.
Let’s put this in a more general way. We all are going to need to significantly alter our day-to-day lives in order to mitigate the climate crisis. Sooner or later, this absolutely needs to happen. Unfortunately, for many Americans it will be later rather than sooner, as they will not likely make these changes until they are, to be blunt, forced to do so.
The good thing about this situation (I always look for silver lining wherever I can!) is that it gives us time to prepare for this transition. Returning to my example of the academic conference, this means that we have a number of years to experiment with options and come up with a viable alternative to the conventional, fly-in conference. Unfortunately, we are not there yet, but if enough people take this job seriously and work hard enough at it, I am confident that online conferences of some sort will supplant our aging and environmentally disastrous conference model. If all goes well, we can transition into new conference models as we transition off flying.
This is just one example, as many, many of our day-to-day practices need to change: where we live, how we get around, what we wear, what we eat, the stuff that we own, and so forth.
What is needed is a bold group of people to take on the formidable job of being architects of the future. I know, that sounds pretty intimidating. However, it can be pretty simple. As author Jonathan Safran Foer recently noted, it can begin at the breakfast table
Which brings (finally!) us to our topic today: food. As I noted in a previous lecture, the #1 thing that we as a species can do to roll back global greenhouse gas is to waste far less good and to switch to largely plant-rich diets.
This is easier said than done, as the way that we eat is at once, somewhat paradoxically, deeply personal and almost always a shared experience.
Of course, we all like to choose for ourselves what we eat, but this choice is deeply influenced by the culture into which we are born. When reflecting on what makes a people a people, we often consider things like the language that everyone speaks and the laws that everyone follows, but scores of little things unite a people, such as the food that we eat.
These shared practices are often little things that we often take for granted, but can become present themselves as big issues if transgressed. For example, if a child were to tell her parents that she was going to adopt a new way of eating, perhaps by switching to a largely plant-based diet, she would risk disturbing and perhaps even offending them, as her actions could be seen as an affront to her cultural heritage.
There is often a great irony here.
I grew up in the Philadelphia area, which has a large Italian-American population. Consequently, from a very young age, I was exposed to this cuisine, which very often contained beef, from spaghetti with meatballs to cheesesteaks to pepperoni and sausage pizza. However, this is not at all what the traditional Italian (aka Mediterranean) diet is like, as it usually involves very little beef – indeed, not much meat of any kind – but rather is based on vegetables, fruit, beans, nuts, grains, and oil.
When a range of cuisines were imported in the US, they were reinvented to include large portions of meat, usually beef, which was often considered a sign of affluence. It’s true, eating a meat-rich diet was yet another way of announcing that you had, financially, arrived.
In one sense, there is no one American diet. As we are a country of immigrants, every day across America people sit-down to meals that in one way or another often resemble the cuisines of the county from which they hail.
However, in another sense, although varying widely, these are all distinctly American diets if they contain ample servings of meat and animal products – which in all likelihood were far less common in the original cuisine a few generations ago. Hence, when the US. beef industry announced its “Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner” ad campaign in 1992, it could do so confident of the fact that all sorts of Americans from all sorts of places were sitting down to eat beef at many, if not most, meals.
Returning to the example of the child seen by her parents as offending their cultural heritage by eschewing meat, the irony is that she may well be reclaiming a heritage that had been corrupted by American consumerism in the 20th century. A second irony is that this is strange thing for a loving parent to object to, as traditional, largely plant-based diets are often far healthier than the beef-rich American diet
But turning from past to future, what will the diet of the future be like? Let me rephrase that, what will the diets of the future be like, as a range of cultural traditions will no doubt inform how we eat in the future?
Well, it seems clear that, if we are to successfully avert climate catastrophe, these diets will involve largely replacing vegetable protein for meat.
But exactly how will this be worked out? With vegetable protein processed and fashioned to look like meat, such as hamburgers? Or with, for example, legumes unprocessed, such as in a traditional lentil curry? Or perhaps in some new way altogether?
I don’t have an answer here, as these “diets of the future” are in the process of being worked out now.
And this does not just involve reducing animal products in our diets. As I have noted in elsewhere, in terms of mitigating the climate crisis, reducing food waste would be every bit as important (in fact, a tad more important) then switching to largely plant-based diets.
Aside from simply throwing food away, this also means that we should rethink what we eat. For example, when we think of vegetables like beats, we are often just thinking about the root (and are consequently just eating the root), even though the greens are tasty and very nutritious. Similarly, while most people discard the rind, pickled watermelon rind has long been a delicacy in the Southern US.
When people think about what they can do to help mitigate climate crisis, things like the production of electricity from solar energy often comes to mind. However, it is clear that working out how best to eat is also profoundly important. And make no mistake, there is still much to be worked out.
The good news is that, while making solar panels more practical and efficient will require a broad range of technical expertise, anyone can begin working out the future of food in their own kitchen, today.
Which returns us to my opening question: Are you an architect of the future? Do you want to be?
There are all sorts of ways that you can take up this challenge, including by making photovoltaic panels more efficient. However, for most people, there is a simpler way, as we can take a long hard look at our personal practices, beginning with what we have to eat today.
This is not to say, however, that this will not be challenging.
Although it may seem that this is simply a matter of going vegetarian or vegan, the situation is more complicated than that.
For example, studies have shown that “diets that only included animal products for one meal per day were less GHG-intensive than lacto-ovo vegetarian diets.” So, while becoming a vegetarian is certainly a move in the right direction when compared to the average American diet, it is not necessarily the best solution.
Similarly, it is not as simple as just becoming a vegan. For example, eating asparagus in the Winter in most of North America is often no better for the climate than eating chicken or pork. Why? Because it is generally flown in from South America – and air travel has a huge climate footprint.
This is why Denmark is planning, as part of his effort to become a carbon neutral country, to put “climate” labels on food in the same way that we have nutritional labels. In this case, such a label would tell you just how good or bad the food is – not for your body – but for the planet.
Food is such an interesting example because an individual really can take the bull by the horns and address the climate crisis at, as Jonathan Safran Foer noted, the breakfast table.
Again, this is not to say that this is easy or that our decisions are clear, but rather that we can begin working out this important climate issue right now – and quite a bit really does need to be worked out, as simply shifting to a largely plant-based diet does not, for example, address the equally large problem of food waste.
Unfortunately, not every issue can be worked out primarily by individuals.
For example, if we want to write cars out of our lives, we can make a commitment to use mass transportation, biking, and walking. However, we can’t easily and effectively do this alone, as we need politicians (from local to national) that will similarly make a commitment to mass transportation and bike infrastructure. Otherwise, taking the bus could be an unnecessarily long and unpleasant experience, and riding a bike downright dangerous if we are forced to share busy roads with automobiles.
Consequently, in future sections we will taking up the importance of becoming politically active.
This is to to say that we cannot personally and immediate eschew car use, but simply to make clear that we need elected officials that support this choice rather than car use, which is unfortunately, but generally, what they support today.
In many respects, this course is aimed at the climate vanguard. Early adopters; early rejecters. People who do not need to be dragged, kicking and denying, into a sustainable future, but rather want to leave the present behind, as it is clearly in so many ways unjust to all the beings on this planet, from animals, to other people, to generations yet unborn.
In this sense, this course is aimed at people who are so profoundly distressed with the present that they just can’t wait for the future. Consequently they are pushing forward into it now, not only by imagining what the future can be, but, as paradoxical as it sounds, living it now.
So, here is my question: do we in fact need a climate vanguard to begin working out what life in the future will be like? Or should we simply wait for the rest of the world to come around to the fact that we need to make sweeping cultural changes in response to the climate crisis?
Personal action, climate activism, or becoming politically active. Which matters more?
So, let’s begin with a sobering thought regarding the climate crisis and what you can do about it. I didn’t come up with this; rather, is all over the Internet. Perhaps surprisingly, you might even hear it from climate activists. Why “surprisingly”?
Personal action
Who is responsible for the climate crisis?
A 2017 study found that 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global greenhouse emissions. Indeed, half that (i.e. 35% of total greenhouse gas emissions) came from just 20 companies. All of these companies are in the business of extracting fossil fuels (such as ExxonMobil, #5 on the list).
So, are these companies principally responsible for the climate crisis? At first glance, the answer might seem to be an unequivocal “Yes,” but the situation is more complicated than that.
These companies may themselves consume a small amount of the fossil fuels that they extract (for example, to fuel the bulldozers and other machines used in the extraction of coal via mountaintop removal). Nonetheless, it is overwhelmingly the case that these companies are not extracting fossil fuels for the their use. Economically, that wouldn’t be possible, as someone has to finance the project.
Who is financing – and hence empowering – these 100 companies? Obviously, it is us: human beings. This is why we call what is happening anthropogenic (i.e. human caused) climate change
We do it directly, such as when we turn the knob of our gas stoves to release and ignite extracted methane, also known as “natural gas,” or when pump refined petroleum oil (i.e. gasoline) into our cars at filling stations.
We also finance these companies in scores of indirect ways, such as when we buy plastic products, such as water in disposable bottles, as most plastics are produced from petroleum oil, or buy non-organic vegetables that have been grown with fertilizer derived from natural gas.
While we can’t avoid all of these products supplied by these 100 companies, we can avoid many, at least use less of them. In terms of the above examples, we can forgo using cars, which are responsible for a quarter of the average American’s climate footprint, by using mass transportation, biking, walking, telepresence, and setting up our lives so that we do not have to travel great distances.
We can avoid using fossil fuels in our homes for heating and cooking by shifting to electric appliances I’m powered by renewable energy.
We can also address many of the indirect uses, by not buying disposable water bottles, but instead carrying hydration flask and by only purchasing organic vegetables, which have been grown without fertilizer derived from fossil fuels.
So, should responsibility for the climate crisis shift from those 100 companies to each of us?
Before we accept all the blame here, it is worth pausing on just how much choice each of us have here.
For most of us in the US. (and in certain other parts of the world), we were born into car culture, which necessitates that we have a car to get to our jobs, get food, visit friends, etc. Car culture also celebrates cars as being cool and disparages alternatives like getting around via mass transit or bike.
While we might want to forgo car use, there may be no mass transit lines or bike paths connecting our homes to our jobs or stores.
Similarly, we may want to buy organic vegetables grown without fertilizer derived from fossil fuels, but these may be prohibitively expensive or simply not available. The fact is that dollar stores feed more Americans than Whole Foods. Food deserts are now a conspicuous feature of the American landscape.
While we might want to shift responsibility to individuals, many people find themselves unable to make certain choices. In this case, responsibility shifts to the corporations and local, state, and federal governments.
Personal action, climate activism, or becoming politically active. Which matters more?
(original material)
As you have no doubt gathered by now, this course focuses on cultural changes as a way of mitigating the climate crisis, rather than just technological solutions.
Up to this point, we have mostly held our focus on personal actions as a way of bringing about cultural change, such as largely forgoing cars, planes, and animal products.
During all this, you may have wondered if personal actions, such as switching to a large plant-based diet, are enough. If so, you are not alone, as a number of people have argued that such actions will prove inadequate to mitigating the climate crisis.
For example, climate activist Naomi Klein has suggested that “focusing on individual consumer behaviour, whether it’s changing lightbulbs or going vegan, is just not going to get us there.” Similarly, climate scientist Michael Mann has argued that focusing on “beef consumption heightens the risk of losing sight of the gorilla in the room: civilization’s reliance on fossil fuels for energy and transport overall, which accounts for roughly two-thirds of global carbon emissions.”
In fact, both Klein and Mann are right.
Even if everyone on the planet went vegan, it would not, as Klein notes, be enough – and, I would add, not by a long shot. Moreover, the reason that I started this particular lecture series with the personal actions of automobile and air travel was to underscore that for most Americans transportation is, as Mann notes, the 800-pound gorilla in the room.
Energy and transport, which Mann rightly focuses on, does not only cause CO2 emissions, but methane as well. Around 28% of methane emissions comes from meat (generally beef) production. However, an even greater amount comes from fossil fuel extraction, principally from hydraulic fracturing (aka fracking). Consequently, just switching to largely plant-based diets does not address the largest methane problem that we are facing.
It is worth pausing to consider just how much can be done thorough personal action.
Yes, if everyone on the planet gave up eating animal products, it would significantly reduce global methane emissions. However, we need to accept the sobering fact that a broad swath of human beings are not going to do this. As I made clear with my lecture series on “Climate and Generation,” many in the older generations (like mine) will not likely do this voluntarily. And they’re just the tip of the iceberg, as many people across the planet will not likely voluntarily do so for a host of reasons.
Moreover, even though we can indeed reduce global methane emissions at the breakfast table, fracking is the bigger methane problem. We cannot, practically speaking, end fracking through personal action. True, we could all could forego the products of fracking, gas and oil, but without practical and affordable alternatives (i.e. alternative, renewable energy), how exactly would we live, as quite a bit of our modern lives are fueled by gas and oil?
Hence, unlike the situation with food, we cannot easily make a personal switch here. While we could all install solar panels on our roofs with storage batteries inner closets, this would not address the fact that fracked gas and oil would still be used to make a good deal of the rest of our lives possible, such as the energy used to make our clothes and other stuff. Moreover, just as with the switch to largely plant-based diets, many (probably most) people will not likely voluntarily become their own electricity providers.
So, with respect to methane, this is the sobering situation: Right now, only a small percentage of Americans eat with the climate in mind. And fracking, the bigger methane problem, is definitely on the rise, as half of the oil and two thirds of the gas produced by the US. is now fracked.
You can see why Klein and Mann want to shift focus away from personal actions like eating a largely plant-based diet.
But, staying with this example, how, then, do we stop fracking?
It is simple enough: we need to vote and become politically active, calling for legislation to end fracking.
However, even voting is not enough, as someone needs to bring this issue to the attention of politicians and the public. Indeed, someone needs to make it a thorn in the side of politicians. Enter activists, climate activists.
For example, in 2016 actor and climate activist Mark Ruffalo produced a short documentary called Dear Governor Brown that urged the former Governor of California to ban fracking (which, incidentally, he refused to do, in spite of Brown’s commitment to mitigating the climate crisis).
You do not, of course, need to be a famous actor to be a climate activist. After all, Greta Thunberg was, just a short time ago, in many ways a pretty average high school student (though in other ways, an altogether extraordinarily one with the ability to see the climate crisis as a black-and-white issue and sustain a laser-like focus on the problem).
So, should we forgo personal actions like ditching our cars and instead work at being climate activists and getting the vote out?
First, I absolutely endorse climate activism. In fact, I think of myself not just as a professor, but first and foremost as a scholar/activist, a climate activist.
Second, as I never tire of telling people, if you can do only one thing to help mitigate the climate crisis and you do not have a lot of time to devote to the issue, you’re in luck, as the single most important thing that you can do takes just an hour or two per year. Who doesn’t have an hour or two a year to help save the planet?
What sort of magical action has this sort of power?
It’s actually a pretty pedestrian act that many people take for granted – though they certainly should not – voting.
How do we vote on behalf of our planet, it’s climate, and all the life that lives on it?
Cast you vote for candidates, from local to federal, advocating for sweeping climate policies, such as carbon pricing and the Green New Deal. In general, vote for candidates and initiatives that put people and the planet ahead of corporate interests.
And, if you have a little more time to spare, explain to five or more of your friends and family the importance of voting.
But what about personal actions, like foregoing beef, air travel, and having a car? Isn’t doing so important?
I would argue that it absolutely is. Moreover, I am of the conviction that activism, voting, and personal action can be – and very often are – intimately related.
Let’s take one of my favorite examples that I never tire of talking about: car use.
As climate scientist Michael Mann noted with respect to climate change, the 800 pound gorilla in the room is our “civilization’s reliance on fossil fuels for energy and transport overall, which accounts for roughly two-thirds of global carbon emissions.” As I have noted before, the average American’s car accounts for about one fourth of our personal carbon footprints.
OK, let’s assume that we decide to forgo owning car. Then what? In other words, how do we get around? Let’s say you use a bike.
Well, if your city is anything like mine, the bike infrastructure there probably leaves a lot to be desired. In fact, it may well be dangerous, even deadly.
Allow me to explain for a minute or two as a way of introducing activism.
I live in downtown Santa Barbara, 10 miles from the university where I work. A 20 mile roundtrip commute on a bike may not sound very practical; however, I have a pedalec bike, which is a hybrid bike with a propulsion system not unlike a hybrid car, except instead of being powered by an electric motor and gasoline engine, it is powered by an electric motor and my peddling.
(Incidentally, a pedalec may sound like really new technology: however, when I was 16 years old, way back in 1976, I converted my first adult bicycle to a pedalec using a commercially available kit. Because of the first energy crisis in the US. in 1973, quite a few people were experimenting with alternative transportation, including electric assisted bikes. As it had a range of about 25 miles and a top speed of about 25 MPH, it was surprisingly practical and could certainly have been used for my daily commute today. However, at the time, as I recall, I got laughed at quite a bit while riding it, especially to and from high school.)
In any event, since my current electric bike can travel 28 miles per hour (which is the speed limit for a bike such as mine) without my breaking a sweat, is actually a very viable transportation alternative that can often compete with car use for a number of reasons. For example:
1) Parking on my campus is a bit of a nightmare, meaning that you sometimes have to drive around for five or more minutes looking for a parking spot and then walk quite a ways to your destination. In contrast, I ride my bike right to my classes, which is very quick.
2) If you leave at the end of the day, there is often a significant traffic jam on the freeway heading back to Santa Barbara. I have never once encountered a traffic jam on the bike path!
Hence, my e-bike commute often takes just a tad more time than if I were commuting by car. As a bonus, assuming that I am peddling actively, my commute is a nice daily workout.
But there is a problem: there are only two main roads that lead from my house to my office. The first is a bike lane along the busiest street in town (State Street). When I say “bike lane,” I really just mean that you are riding along the shoulder, separated from traffic by just a white line on the pavement. The second route, Modoc Street, which is the one I usually take, is more direct with less traffic. However, it too means that I am riding on the unprotected shoulder. What’s worse, in places traffic is moving at 50 miles an hour alongside me.
Given the situation, it is perhaps not surprising (though still altogether mortifying) that four bicyclists have been killed along Modoc Street in the past few decades, including one last year.
So, even though I can make a commitment to a personal action (ditching a car for an e-bike, which people have been doing for over forty years now), the world is clearly not set up for e-bike riders like me. It wasn’t 40 years ago: it still isn’t today. Not to put too fine an edge on it, but not only is it difficult, it can be downright deadly.
Sadly, in the US, not much has changed in this regard in my lifetime.
What’s to be done? The obvious action is to become an activist. In this case, a bicycle/climate activist.
I would not at all be surprised if you scoff at this idea. After all, am I really suggesting that advocating for bicycle lanes can play a serious role in mitigating the climate crisis?
In fact, I am.
Let’s look at an example where such bicycle activism made a huge difference: Copenhagen. An astonishing 62% of people now commute to work or school by bike in Copenhagen.
You might be under the impression that this bicycle culture goes back many decades to the beginning of the 20th century when cars first came on the scene in Denmark. In fact, it is relatively recent (and profound) cultural change. I offer it as an example, as it proves that extraordinary cultural change – of just the kind that we need to combat the climate crisis – can indeed happen.
Allow me to quote from Wikipedia, which concisely lays out the history of bicycling in Copenhagen. Note 1) that it begins back in the early 1970s (1973 to be exact) with the first “energy crisis” that alerted much of the world that we needed to quickly wean ourselves off of fossil fuels – something, as I have noted elsewhere in this series, that the US. failed to do – and 2) that Copenhagen’s remarkable transformation into a bicycle culture was a largely bottom-up phenomenon brought about by bicycle/environmental activists:
With the energy crisis, which hit Denmark harder than most countries, and the growing environmental movement in the 1970s, cycling experienced a renaissance. The Government was forced to introduce car-free Sundays to conserve oil reserves. Many city dwellers thought it was the best day of the week, and the Danish Cyclists Federation…organized massive demonstrations in Copenhagen and other major cities, demanding better infrastructure and safety for the city’s cyclists. Another grassroots action cited for helping cycling infrastructure on the political agenda was operation “White Crosses” where white crosses were painted on the streets where a cyclist had been killed in traffic…
Although the first separate cycle tracks were constructed much earlier, they did not become the norm until the early 1980s…Politicians, although not very eager, gradually took up building cycle tracks on main roads and also began to develop its first coordinated strategies for increasing cycling in the municipality.
The LA Times nicely continues this history into the 21st century by noting that “[i]n recent years, cycling has enjoyed yet another surge in popularity – the result of constantly improving bike lanes coupled with fears of climate change. Global warming presents an existential threat to this Baltic Sea port, which lies just a few feet above sea level.”
What would the climate impact be if the same number of Americans swapped their cars for bikes? Let’s do a quick, back-of-the-napkin calculation: 62% of the population of Copenhagen times 4.6 metric tons of CO2 per year per car (the US. average) equals a reduction of 3.8 billion pounds of CO2 emissions per year. Again, that’s 3.8 billion pounds, with a “B.” And that’s just for one relatively small city. Imagine the impact if this happened in cities across the US – and world.
It could be objected that bicycle commuting is not practical in many American locales, as it gets pretty cold in many U.S cities. However, it also gets cold in Copenhagen, as it is further north than any of the lower 48 states. In fact, it is far closer in latitude to Jeuno Alaska than to the rest of the US.
Note that what happened in Copenhagen happened on a local level, with activists forcing the city’s local politicians to act.
When election time comes around, we might assume that the climate crisis is a national issue, which it is certainly is; however, it is also true that what happens in your local town (as with our example of Copenhagen) can have global consequences. Similarly, the reason that climate activists like Mark Ruffalo pressured the Governor of California was because he had ability to stop fracking in the state.
Hence, local, state, and national elections all play major roles in mitigating the climate crisis. Again, the local, city elections in Copenhagen have been responsible for keeping 3.8 billion pounds of CO2 or equivalent gasses from being released into the atmosphere every year.
And, of course, this all started with environmental activists. Note too that, starting in the 1970s, these activists were not focusing on climate change, but rather on a range of environmental concerns, especially the fear that our fossil fuel reserves were running out.
To put this in the terms that I introduced in a previous lecture, these bicycle/environmental activists from the 1970s acted on the knowledge that our fossil fuel economy was clearly problematic. In this sense, knowledge became power because it was acted upon – by activists.
When it comes to making a difference in the climate crisis, it is not a question of choosing either personal action or climate activism or becoming politically active. In many, many cases (as in the example of Copenhagen), all three are integrally connected.
I would argue the personal action has a special position, as it can help keep our focus on the prize on a daily basis. Everyday that we hop on a bike or forgo a burger, we remind ourselves that much needs to be done – and that we are, even if in a small way, doing something.
Doing such little things also sends a message to the rest of the world, as we lead by example. To echo a phrase often attributed to Gandhi, we become, indeed embody, the change that we want to see in the world.
I am curious to hear what you think about the roles that personal action, activism, and being politically active should play in the climate crisis.
Housing and Cities
Back during our discussion of the generational aspect of the climate crisis, I drew attention to the fact that houses have been slowly supersizing during my lifetime. As I noted,
“In 1950, shortly before I was born, the average size of an American house was just under 1000 square feet. Today, the average size is over 2500 square feet – more than two and a half times larger, even though American families are now considerably smaller. And of course, as with so many things American, bigger is often perceived as better.”
“Hence, if you can afford it, the ideal home is often much larger. One in five new houses in the US. is now, in fact, over 3000 square feet in size. One in ten is a McMansion, at over 4000 square feet. In contrast, a traditional Japanese home, which housed families of four or more, was one tenth that size at 400 square feet.”
The ever-reliable Union of Concerned Scientists notes that 17% of the average American’s carbon footprint comes from heating and cooling their homes. In addition, 15% comes from other home energy use, such as lighting and appliances. Suffice it to say that, at approximately a third when combined (32% to be exact), a large chunk of the average American’s climate footprint comes from our homes.
Indeed, in terms of our personal climate footprints, only transportation (i.e. chiefly our cars and flying, at 28%) and our relentless acquisition of stuff (26%) rival our houses and their energy use as climate offenders. Though, let’s be clear, they both fall short of houses.
Incidentally, as transportation, housing, and stuff (in that order) are responsible for 86% of our personal carbon footprints, it clearly points to where we need to personally direct our attention if we hope to mitigate the climate crisis. The remaining 14% comes from our food. Hence, while what we eat is certainly important (I would argue very much so), transportation, housing, and stuff are on average each more than twice as important.
Part of the problem with our houses, which is not reflected in that 32% figure from the Union of Concerned Scientists, is the embedded carbon in our homes. In other words, a ton of CO2 or equivalent gases is released when a house is built. Actually, about 80 metric tones are released to build a typical house.
This is the same problem that we encountered with the manufacture of a car.
However, with a house the situation is better, as they generally last far longer than the 11 years of an average car. Even if a house lasted “just” 80 years, which would be a relatively short lifespan for a home, and had just two occupants, that would work out to one half metric tones of CO2 per year. Of course, that would still be one quarter of each occupant’s total annual carbon footprint, but it’s still far better than the embed carbon in a car, which is four times as much when spread over its usable lifespan.
But keep in mind that we still have to contend with the fact that providing energy for that house (for heating, cooling, appliances like refrigerators, washers, dryers) takes 32% of the average American’s carbon allotment. The problem here is that, as Americans expend over 16 metric tones of CO2 or equivalents on average, 32% of this works out to 5.2 metric tones per person. This jumps even more if we add in the embedded carbon.
Hence, the average American is expending over two and a half times their total annual carbon allotment on their homes – and, of course, this leaves nothing for food, clothing, transportation, and all the stuff that Americans love to acquire to fill our homes!
So, what’s to be done? How exactly do we go about reducing this?
As with many issues related to the climate crisis, it is useful approach this as largely a cultural problem. Hence, while I definitely support actions like increasing home insulation and putting photovoltaic solar panels on your roof – and, in fact, my partner and I did both with our little old Santa Barbra house – this is not enough.
So, what, then, is to be done?
It is simple enough: Move to a micro-apartment or certain co-housing communities, as this can greatly reduce your climate footprint.
As I noted on in a previous lecture, “the good news for both transportation and housing is that there is a simple way to approach both: move to a city. City living can mean dramatically less car use (in Manhattan, only one in five people commute to work by car) and generally smaller, more efficient housing. Many cities have made major commitments to mass transportation and bicycle use…as well as micro-apartments.”
Consequently, I want to focus on cities.
A majority, 55%, of human beings on the planet now live in cities. By 2050, that number is expected jump to over two thirds or more.
In order to take up cities and city life, I want to again consider Henry David Thoreau and his life on the shores of Walden Pond. This may seem to be an odd move, as Thoreau is probably best remembered for the two years of his life that he spent living on the rustic shores of Walden Pond – which was, as far as he was considered, as far from city life as possible while still staying close to his hometown.
However, as I suggested in the lecture on Walden, his important legacy for the 21st century is (at least as far as I am concerned) that he took a long hard look at his life with an eye to reducing everything unnecessary. In this sense, it is less important where he did this than the fact that he took up this personal, reductionist project.
Here is something to ponder: what would Thoreau’s Walden experiment have been like had it not been conducted in its semi-wilderness setting, but an urban one instead? His profound aesthetic appreciation of the scene would, of course, be different, but, in wholly practical terms, what would such a lifestyle be like?
In other words, what would a life of urban (rather than wilderness) simplicity be like? Given our topic today, I am primarily thinking of housing here.
In a variety of different places, in a range of different ways, people are not only asking this question, but taking up new lifestyles in reply. What’s more, these are not isolated and quirky, but in many instances are mainstream efforts that are offered as models for us all with respect to housing.
In 2012, spearheaded by then Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York City launched its adAPT NYC pilot housing program to encourage micro-apartments by fostering a competition for real-estate developers. In 2013, the winning design was announced, which consisted of a modular building with 55 units with floor plans between 250 and 370 square feet each.
Although this might seem a little large when compared to Thoreau’s cabin, keep in mind that these units have bathrooms and full kitchens, which Thoreau lacked. Even so, as the larger apartments can be home to a couple, at 185 square feet per person these units are surprisingly close to Thoreau’s ideal size for domestic simplicity, which was 150 square feet.
New York is not alone as a test bed for this movement, as Boston, San Francisco, and an exciting range of other cities are adapting zoning for apartments as small as 220 square feet each.
In many respects, the adAPT NYC and similar projects are squarely in Thoreau’s rugged individualist tradition, which is a thoroughly American phenomenon. What I mean by this is that Thoreau lived alone – which is exactly how most Americans live: either alone or with their immediate family (i.e. with their parents or children). Consequently, each of our houses has a kitchen, a bathroom, a living room, etc. But must it be this way?
Co-housing, which is less common in the US. than in Europe (where, at least in a modern sense, it began around 50 years ago), challenges this individualist tradition. In a co-housing community, individuals and families can live in smaller housing units because they share services and amenities with others in the community. For example, members of the communities often share meals four or more times per week, which are cooked in a community kitchen.
(Incidentally, the documentary Happy has a very interesting section on co-housing in Denmark. Someone was kind enough to upload this section to YouTube.)
It is worth pausing to consider this global move toward cities as a form of environmental activism, as it can be seen as representative of a new kind of environmental thinking, which is profoundly different from what Thoreau advocated.
However, this new approach does resemble Thoreau’s in one important respect, as an emerging group of environmentalists is increasingly prompted to direct and personal action, rather than being content with merely speculating on our planet’s future from the sidelines. Like Thoreau, they are engaged in a gritty experiment with real-life environmental consequences.
They are not, however, as with the back-to-nature movement of their parents and grandparents, following Thoreau’s lead and retreating to the last scraps of American wilderness or expending a disproportionate amount of energy on its defense. To the contrary, many are going in the opposite direction by moving to different sorts of land, which many abandoned decades ago, such as cities.
For well over a decade now, a new wave of environmental activists has literally been greening cities. New York City’s High Line and Paris’s Promenade Plantée, both greenways fashioned from abandoned railways, have become icons of this movement, as have rooftop gardens, backyard chicken coops, and vertical farms.
These activists are not leaving the city for nature; they are bringing nature to the city, as the blended rural-urban lifestyle growing there is impacting a broad range of everyday practices. This movement is not limited to cities, but increasingly includes suburbs as well, where lawns are being replaced by vegetable gardens and municipal ordinances are being rewritten to allow livestock, like goats and sheep, to graze among swimming pools and tennis courts.
Although the growth of urban and suburban farming may seem trivial, even quirky and amusing, in some sense this movement overturns over 5000 years of thinking. Beginning with the very first works of Western literature, country and city (and, by extension, nature and culture) have been repeatedly imagined as not only mutually exclusive, but in opposition. In recent centuries, the country has nearly always been preferred, the city eschewed.
This attitude is alive and well in Thoreau, who, distressed by the growth of urban and industrial modernity, fled to what he imagined to be its opposite: the closest thing to nature he could find.
Now, however, a new wave of environmental activists is increasingly shifting its attention from nature untouched by culture, such as the wilderness of national parks and tropical rainforests (which preoccupied many environmental activists throughout the 20th century, sometimes to the exclusion of nearly everything else), to a vision of culture infused with nature – the merging of those ancient opposites: country and city.
Cities, among the most developed of all the places that human beings inhabit, are becoming test beds for the idea that culture can be far more natural than we ever imagined.
Thanks to works by Edward Glaeser, David Owen, and others, the idea of a “green metropolis” (Owen’s phrase) no longer sounds like a contradiction. The formidable challenge is to green cities even further, which, as Glaeser and Owen argue, are already in many respects far more environmentally benign than suburbs and even most rural areas. Although at first glance counterintuitive, they compellingly argue that life in Manhattan is far greener than in Wyoming in a variety of ways.
The notion that cities can be green and natural may seem counterintuitive, debatable, or just plain wrong. It certainly may have seemed so to earlier activists, like Earth First! founder Dave Foreman, who two decades ago baldly declared that civilization inescapably creates a rift between human beings and nature.
His solution, which was among the most radical offered by his generation of activists, was to call for the protection of wilderness by nearly any means necessary – even if it required acts of eco-sabotage – from human development.
By contrast, this new group of activists is focused on areas already developed and inhabited by human beings, which cover far more of the earth’s surface than the remaining remnants of wilderness.
If we hope to save the planet, which is now largely covered by cities, suburbs, farms, factories, and all sorts of other human works and projects, we need to turn our attention and energies to these places.
This shift in focus reveals just how much environmental activism is changing. Eco-sabotage (and more benign tactics deployed by moderate back-to-nature environmentalists) aimed at thwarting and checking human encroachment into wilderness is being supplanted by the eco-nurturing of areas that are already developed.
Does this mean that we all need to live in cities? No, of course not.
However, we really need to rethink the image of cites. My generation, following Thoreau’s lead, often saw cities as environmental nightmares and instead fled them for the suburbs.
This created a problem, a big one.
As I noted in my most recent book on Writing a New Environmental Era, if a large swath of the population took Thoreau’s lead and moved away from cities and out to rural locales it would, with absolutely no doubt, be an environmental disaster of unprecedented proportions.
Why am I so sure? Because…it actually happened and was. It began in the US. in Thoreau’s era, motivated by likeminded individuals acting on the same back-to-nature impulse that gave birth to his Walden experiment. In a sense, it became the largest (and to my mind most regrettable) cultural movement of the 20th century.
Hundreds of millions of people across the globe fled cities for the dream of simpler, rural lives. They ended up far short of the goal in suburbia. At first, in Thoreau’s era, they left in trains. A century later, the process sped up dramatically, as automobiles became the preferred way to get out of the city and then around in the suburbs. It soon became an environmental disaster on a global scale.
In contrast, today human beings by the billions are moving back to urban areas…It may well be the greatest cultural movement of the 21st century.
I am curious to hear what you think about all this: about living in micro-apartments, co-housing communities, and cities (and their regreening). Although it may sound a little strange soon first hearing, each of these decisions can be a form climate activism.
Clothing
I think it is safe to say that most of us don’t think a lot about laundry, except as a nuisance. Something that needs to be done, but which is, quite frankly, a pain.
But it is also a major climate and environmental problem or opportunity, depending on how you look at it.
On average, doing our laundry is responsible for more than 8% of total residential greenhouse gas emissions. It may not sound like a lot, but that’s the equivalent to the total energy needs of 21 million US homes.
So, what’s to be done about the problem?
Well, since all of this energy can come from renewable sources in the form of electricity, the first thing to do is ensure that we are using electricity rather than natural gas (i.e. methane) to run our dryers. Then, we need to make sure that the electricity that we are using comes from renewable sources.
This – once again – brings us back to the issue of collective activism and political change, as we need to ensure that our electrical grid is converted to renewable energy as quickly as possible. In other words, we need to put politicians into office who will make renewable energy one of their primary concerns and to keep pressure on them through collective activism.
But is there anything else that we can do? I am glad you asked, as there are personal changes that we can make that will reduce this problem by a factor of 10 or more. And you can implement these today, by yourself. If we had collective activism and political change to the mix, we can reduce it by a far greater amount.
How? Even though it seems like a trivial example, let’s start with washing clothes.
Roughly 90% of the energy used in laundry comes from heating the water that flows into our washing machines. However, experts note that washing your clothes in cold water usually does a good job, unless they happen to have an oil stain. It also significantly increases the life of clothing.
So, it’s as easy as that: just turn the dial to “cold.” And, for good measure, make sure that you are always doing a full load, as “[c]lothes washers use about the same amount of energy regardless of the size of the load.”
Next, comes drying our clothes, which requires at least two times more energy than washing clothes, even when we are using hot water.
In this case, the solution is simple enough: simply dry your clothes on a clothesline rather than in a machine. Of course, not everyone has this option. Indeed, it might simply be impossible if you live in an apartment complex. However, as we shall see, shared resources, like laundries in apartments and cohousing facilities, can significantly reduce our carbon footprints.
But let’s first go through the relevant numbers that pertain to washers and dryers:
In the US, 70% of the energy used for laundry goes to drying clothes. By using a clothesline, we eliminate all of this.
19% of the energy used goes to heating water for washing machines. By using cold water, we eliminate all of this.
11% goes to the electricity running the washing machine. If we do full loads, my guess is that this drops to less than 10%.
So, there you have it.
One of the major residential sources of our greenhouse gas emissions can be cut by a factor of 10. Just like that.
But we can, in fact, go even further. However, to do so, we need to shift from just personal action back to collective activism and political change, as the remaining energy still required here, that 10 or 11% that goes to running our washing machines, can – and absolutely should – come from renewable sources, like wind and solar.
To ensure that it does, it requires a little more effort than turning a dial, but not a lot more. As I never tire of saying, it takes only around one hour per year to vote, thereby ensuring that we have politicians in office that will do things like convert our grid to renewable energy, so that we can cook our food and wash her clothes sustainably.
And this is also an example where we can do our part to help with the grid, assuming that we know something about the “duck curve.” This refers to the fact that, during the day, electricity produced by solar energy is often available to directly add to the grid, but demand from consumers is relatively low.
In contrast, from 6 PM to 9 PM, when people get home from work and begin doing all sorts of things, like cooking their food and washing their clothes, demand goes way up. (Incidentally, if you chart this increased production during the day and then increase demand in the evening, it looks sort of like a duck, which is what gave the curve its name.) Unfortunately, this demand cannot be met by solar, as the sun is setting or already set it this time of the evening. From the point of view of energy suppliers, this creates a major problem – which either necessitates storage solutions, like massive batteries or, worse, requires generating electricity from the burning of fossil fuels.
However, we can do our part, by simply washing our clothes during the day when there is abundant solar energy (you might want to check with the weather report to make sure that there is before hitting the “start” button). It would also help if there was legislation to require that every washing machine had a timer function, so that you could load your clothes in in the morning, but have the machine start up midday you were away.
Even better, we could have washing machines design to interact with a smart grid, which would start in response to available energy. In this scenario, you would load your clothes in the washer in the morning and push the “start” button. However, instead of starting, your washing machine, which would be part of the “Internet of things,” would send a message to the AI running the electrical grid, informing it that it was ready to begin washing. When energy production was up enough and demand was low enough, a message would be sent back telling the machine that it could begin washing.
Although some people might balk at the inconvenience here, if the cost of electricity during peak production was lower than in the evening, many people might be incentivized enough to willingly take this option, as it would simply be cheaper.
With respect to doing our laundry, there is one other obvious option that needs to be mentioned. As one popular British guide succinctly stated it, “The best way to lessen the environmental impact of your laundry load is to do less laundry.” This has an added bonus, as it can significantly prolong the life of garments.
When a range of experts was asked about washing jeans in order to preserve their life, most suggested infrequent washings: One noted that if “[t]here is one rule to washing your jeans: Do it as seldom as possible to keep your jeans in optimal shape, quality, and color.” Another suggested that “you should wash jeans every six weeks.” Still another estimated after “10 or so wears.”
Washing clothes less frequently has environmental consequences related to more than the climate crisis. For example, water use. “Washing laundry is a significant use of water in the average home; accounting for 15% to 40% of the overall water consumption inside the typical household of four persons.”
And then there is the release of microplastics. As the Pew Charitable Trusts notes, “Microplastics Are a Big – and Growing – Part of Global Pollution.” Their 2016 study found that “the breakdown of plastic fibers caused when synthetic textiles are washed” was one of four primary sources “making up more than three quarters (78%) of microplastic pollution in the ocean. Notably [but not surprisingly, I think], high-income countries are the main contributors” here. Another study found that over 700,000 synthetic microplastic fibers could be released when washing a single average load of laundry.
Hence, reducing the number of our wash loads would, in addition to adding to the life of our clothes and helping with the climate crisis, significantly reduce domestic water use and also the extent to which each of us are personally polluting the environment with microplastics.
So far, we have only been talking about the energy required to wash and dry our clothes. However, there is the whole additional issue of “embedded carbon,”, which is refers to the greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions release during the production of our washer and dryer machines. This is the same issue as with automobiles, as enormous amounts of greenhouse gases are released during the production of cars, which is separate from GHG emissions that come from driving them.
These two situations are, in fact, quite similar, as a good deal of the emissions released during the production of cars, washers, and dryers comes from the manufacture of the steel, which is the major constituent of all of these. Although estimates vary, somewhere between 4-5% and 8% of percent of global CO2 emissions comes from the manufacture of steel.
Regarding clothes dryers, the answer is embarrassingly simple, as we can substitute a smooth hemp clothesline for a complex machine that emits (literal) tons of GHG emissions from its creation to its use to its disposal. And if we take care of that hemp clothesline, by taking it down and bringing it in after each use, it can last many years. When it finally frays too much to use, it can simply be composted.
With respect to embedded carbon, it might seem like we hit an impasse with washing machines. True, we could pursue the idea of using them more efficiently (such as only washing full loads), as well as producing these machines more efficiently (for example, by using renewable energy in their manufacture), but there is in fact another way of approaching this issue.
Perhaps not surprisingly, given that I am the one offering it up, it involves cultural rather than technological change.
We often think that every house and apartment (even tiny houses and micro apartments) needs to have its own washer and dryer. In fact, “over 85 percent of the nation’s households have a washing machine.” Moreover, over 90% of homeowners want an entirely separate room, a laundry room, in their houses.
Like so many things, there is a good deal of cultural baggage here.
Ever since the introduction of the agitator-type washing machine and the drum-type dryer in the 1930s, people in the US. were sold on their convenience. The problem was that they were often initially prohibitively expensive.
Enter the laundromat, which allowed people to use washers and dryers without having to buy them, let alone to build a separate room to house them. Although the first laundromat in the US, the “Washateria,” opened in 1934, they explode on the American landscape after World War II.
Having your own washer and dryer soon came to signal convenience – and status. Once there was sufficient market infiltration that most Americans owned these machines, a new, complementary rhetoric took hold: if you didn’t have a washer and dryer and needed to use a laundromat, it became a sign of reduced social status. The same thing happened with cars, as riding a bus is often now stigmatized.
Consequently, it is hardly surprising that today nearly everyone wants to have a washer and dryer in their house, and that 9 out of 10 people want to have a separate laundry room.
However, there are, of course, people who not only want to sell you a washer and dryer, they want to regularly sell you a new washer and dryer.
In his classic treatment of consumerism, The Waste Makers, Vance Packard noted that in 1960, “the board chairman of Whirlpool Corporation, Elisha Gray, II, delivered a speech to the engineers of the American Home Laundry Manufacturers’ Association technical conference that was most forthright. In it he stated: ‘An engineer’s principal purpose as an engineer is to create obsolescence’…He continued that if engineers and other professional people had not created ‘obsolescence at a tremendous rate,’ Americans would not be as prosperous, well fed, and long-living as they are.”
In other words, this industry very much wanted to make sure that the washing machine that they sold you either broke or seemed old fashion relatively quickly so that you would have to buy another one. Consequently, we should be aware of the fact that there are powerful forces (principally marketing forces) encouraging us to buy a whole series of washers and dryers, rather than on these machines for decades, and hence spread out the embedded carbon over a long period of time. The same is obviously the case with automobiles.
But when you think about it, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to create an entire room in our homes to house machines that only get used for a few (perhaps just one or two) hours per week.
Cohousing communities nicely sidestep this problem by having a single laundry room for a number of families, perhaps 10 or so. Sure, it may be little less convenient, as you might have to walk a little further with your laundry and coordinate when you can use the washer and dryer with your neighbors, but this is a much less expensive option.
It also means that, with one washing machine used by 10 families, rather than a separate machine for each, there is one tenth of the embedded carbon.
Pulling this all together, if you 1) lived in a cohousing community with a shared washing machine, which 2) you only use with cold water and which is 3) powered by renewable energy 4) during peak daytime production, 5) wash your clothes less, and then 6) you dry them on a line, you would reduce the carbon footprint for doing laundry, which currently is about 8% of total greenhouse gas emissions for the average American family, down to a pretty insignificant number (far less than 1/10 of a percent), especially as you would not have to build, heat, and cool a separate laundry room for everyone in the community.
In other words, you would reduce the climate footprint for doing laundry not just 1 a factor of 10, but rather a factor of 100.
Incidentally, although living in a cohousing community is desirable for a whole host of reasons, you could see similar gains by simply taking your clothes to a laundromat during the day – assuming, of course, that you didn’t drive there.
In addition, the embedded carbon would be greatly reduced as well, as 1) the need for clothes dryers would be eliminated and 2) the need for washing machines would be reduced by a factor of 10. Hence, everything else being equal, the embedded carbon required here would be reduced to just 5% of what it would otherwise be. Moreover, as industrial washing machines (which presumably would be used in both cohousing facilities in laundromats) are made to work day-in-and-day-out, they have considerably longer lifecycles then their domestic counterparts, which would likely reduce that number even further.
It is noteworthy that, if you are really in love with clothes dryers, better technology can help here. For example, a new generation of clothes dryers uses heat pump technology, which “[c]an reduce energy use by at least 28% compared to standard dryers,” while also being gentler on clothes because they work at lower temperatures.
Consequently, heat pump technology coupled with a shared dryer (either in a cohousing community or a laundromat) could make clothes dryers more sustainable. In other words, 1) a single clothes dryer shared by 10 families, 2) employing a heat pump, 3) powered by renewable energy 4) during peak daytime production would have a very small carbon footprint indeed.
It is also important to note that drying clothes on a line could potentially help people reconnect with their environments.
In his essay on “The Question Concerning Technology,” the philosopher Martin Heidegger noted that an almost irresistible appeal of the fossil fuel economy stems from the fact that it converts the environment into “standing reserve.” In terms of our example, for thousands of years, human beings had to wait on perfectly sunny days to do their clothes on a line. Now however, we don’t have to wait at all, as we can simply turn a knob that either directly (in the form of methane) or indirectly (as electricity produced by burning coal or methane) releases energy into our clothes dryers that is derived from fossil fuels. Day or night, rain or shine.
In this sense, the convenience of using these machines stems from the fact that they are able to convene the earth’s resources (in the form of fossil fuel) for our use at any time. In contrast, it is simply not possible to convene the sun at 11 PM at night to wash our clothes. Although this is obviously hugely problematic from an environmental point of you, we have very much gotten used to this sort of convenience provided by fossil fuels.
Although this approach is certainly more convenient (if none-the-less disastrous for the planet), something else is lost here: a connection to the environment. In other words, if you dry your clothes on a line, it requires that you to pay attention to the environment outside your door, thus potentially making you more appreciative of a bright sunny day, for which you may have been waiting for quite a while.
I imagine that right about now (or perhaps a little while back) you might be thinking that this all sounds complicated, perhaps excessively so. After all, who knew that laundry involves so many options and was so confusing!
But the simple fact is that the past 60 or so years, which is when washing machines, clothes dryers, and laundry room came on the scene in a big way in the US, was the same period of time when the US. and the rest of the high-income countries put nearly 2/3rd of the CO2 in the atmosphere (in my series on “Climate and Generation,” I consider US. emissions during this period in some detail). I do not think this is coincidental.
In other words, having a washer and dryer in your house, perhaps in the laundry room, may seem like the most natural thing in the world. However, there is nothing natural about them, as these are relatively new innovations that are, quite frankly, environmental disasters, at least in the way that many of us use them.
More generally, we really need to pull back a moment from our day-to-day practices, like the entirely pedestrian activity of laundry, to consider the larger implications of what we’re doing. One of the cornerstones of day-to-day practices, which I would argue as one of the greatest dangers, is that we just never think much about them.
I know this may seem like a silly example and this is not to say that we need to go back to washing our clothes on rocks by a stream. But it is the case that we need to carefully reconsider laundry (along with the host of similar) practices. Since this particular cultural practice was written into being in its current form in the past 60 or so years, there is absolutely no reason that we can’t rewrite it into another, far more sustainable form. One that might even help us reconnect with our environments, as we come to appreciate the simple wonder of a sunny day with light breezes.
Chapter 5, Pulling it all together
Pulling it all together, Introduction
Examples of a human-based approach (20 things we can do)
A human-based approach – in depth (Part 1, Introduction)
How do we begin to save the planet?
Author Jonathan Safran Foer recently published a book entitled We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast, where he argued that each of us should adopt a plant-based diet if we want to save the planet from catastrophic climate change. Hence, saving the planet begins when we eat, breakfast and otherwise.
Since such a switch could make a significant dent in the climate crisis if adopted by everyone, this is a step in the right direction.
However, while eating a largely plant-based diet is generally a good idea, the situation is sometimes more complicated. For example, eating asparagus in the Winter in most of North America is often no better for the climate than eating chicken or pork. Why? Because it is generally flown in from South America – and air travel has a huge climate footprint.
Moreover, we need to be clear about something: regardless of what we do, the planet will obviously continue on. Hence, the phrase “saving the planet” almost always implies that we are saving it for ourselves, humanity.
As humans are just one of many species of beings that inhabit the earth, a more equitable and less anthropocentric way of stating what the phrase leaves unsaid is “saving the planet [for all life on it].”
Still, in so far as he approaches this as a human rather than technological issue, I think that Foer is on to something. What he proposes is certainly what we would call a human-based approach.
Consequently, in order to help flesh out the underlying rationale for this course, let’s articulate a range of things that each of us can do to help mitigate the climate crisis.
First, while personal action is certainly essential, it is important to realize that we need to act at more than just the breakfast table. Here are ten examples of what we can do that are in this vein:
Saving the planet begins
1) in the kitchen, when we eat, rather than waste, what we buy and grow.
2) at meals, when we eat for the good of the planet and its climate, such as through largely plant-rich diets.
3) in the bedroom, when we practice family planning and limit family size.
4) in the classroom, when we fairly and equally educate boys and girls.
5) on the way to work, when we walk, bike, or use public transportation, rather than owning a car, which can account for a quarter of our personal carbon footprints.
6) at home, when we choose to live in an appropriately sized dwelling or co-housing, instead of an average (i.e. oversized) American house, let alone a McMansion.
7) on vacation, when we choose slow travel over air travel, which is, environmentally, the worst way to get around.
8) in stores and online, when we choose not to buy yet more unnecessary stuff.
9) off-line, when we barter, borrow, rent, and otherwise exchange, as well as repair, things, rather than buying still more stuff.
10) with buying, not only by buying less, sharing, and keeping things longer, but also by only buying from companies with environmentally sound and socially just practices.
This list of ten things is by no means complete, but you get the idea. Note that all of the above involve personal and cultural changes rather than new or more technology. In the course material, we are going to meet people who have reduce their carbon footprint by a factor of 10 just through the above actions.
Similarly, but on a somewhat different note, saving the planet begins
1) at the polling place, when we cast our vote for candidates, from local to federal, advocating for sweeping climate policies, such as carbon pricing and the Green New Deal.
2) again at the polling place, when we vote for candidates and initiatives that put people and the planet ahead of corporate interests.
3) prior to the polling place, as we explain to five or more of our friends and family the importance of voting on behalf of our planet, its climate, and all the life that lives on it.
4) at gathering places. when we join together and collectively demand climate action, such as with the Sunrise Movement.
5) by protesting and through acts of peaceful civl disobedience, such as Greta Thunberg’s protest outside the Swedish parliament.
6) with reading, as we learn more about the crisis and what is being done – as well as why nearly enough isn’t being done.
7) with rethinking, as we, as individuals and as a diverse range of human cultures, take a long hard look at how we inhabit this planet.
8) by sharing what we know and do with others, so that they too have a better understanding of the climate crisis and what can be done.
9) by joining with others in initiatives, from local to global, such as freegan or bicycle collectives, so that we can support each other.
10) with us, as we become (to echo a phrase often attributed to Gandhi) the change that we want to see in the world.
Again, this second group of ten things is not an exhaustive list, but it should be clear that none of the above (on either) list requires much by way of technological innovation, but rather just people both embodying change and joining together to demand it.
In other words, both lists suggest personal, cultural, economic, and political changes, rather than technological solutions, to a crisis caused by human beings. Again this is not to say that technological innovations are not needed to address the climate crisis, but this is not nearly enough by itself.
Because so much depends on human actions (personal and collective), this course focuses on many of the above 20.
Note that both of the above lists are aimed at the principal cause of the climate crisis: the actions of human beings in the developed world. Since those of us in countries like the US. are the cause of the problem, these solutions need to be enacted by us.
Since the poorest 3 billion people on the planet have emitted just 5% of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, only a few things on these lists apply to them. Moreover, there is one thing that I would add just for the developing world that would be absolutely huge, if they could somehow succeed in doing it: convince the developed world to stop emitting so many greenhouse gases! If you are curious what such an appeal would be like, see Sunita Narain take Leonardo DiCaprio to task in the documentary Before the Flood. Seriously, it is the best part of the film.
Pulling it all together, the 1st ten things that each of us can do to save the planet
In this course, we have looked at not only at what the climate crisis is, but what each of us can do about it. These include personal actions, collective activism, political action, communication, and so forth. We have also noted that these are often deeply interconnected.
Today I would like to bring all these together into a list of twenty things that each us can do about the climate crisis. Actually, it is two lists of ten, with the first focusing on individual actions, the second political and collective actions.
This lecture is intended as something of a capstone for the course. Hence it is in part a recap, especially as I quote myself in places. Still, I think that it will be useful to bring all this together. Hence, if you recommend just one video from the course to a friend, this is may well be the best one.
Incidentally, if you find this recap a little redundant, great, as it means that you have been paying attention! However, do watch it through, as there is quite a bit of new material here. Moreover, if you are taking the UCSB course, it is also intended as something of a review for the final exam.
As I noted in the section on Cowspiracy, author Jonathan Safran Foer recently published a book entitled We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast, where he argued that each of us should adopt a plant-based diet if we want to save the planet from catastrophic climate change. Hence, saving the planet begins when we eat, breakfast and otherwise.
It would be great if saving the planet were that easy. However, as we have seen, unfortunately it is not. In fact, as I have noted, the fracking industry is responsible for more methane emissions than the beef industry. And CO2 is a far greater emission problem than methane.
Don’t get me wrong, we can certainly help save the planet at the breakfast table – in fact, I list two ways that we can do so in the first list below – but we cannot stop there, as it simply will not be enough, not nearly enough.
Moreover, we need to be clear about something: regardless of what we do, the planet will obviously continue on. Hence, the phrase “saving the planet” almost always implies that we are saving it for ourselves, humanity. As humans are just one of many species of beings that inhabit the earth, a more equitable and less anthropocentric way of stating what the phrase leaves unsaid is “saving the planet [for all life on it].”
Still, I think that Foer is on to something, as what he proposes is certainly what I would call a humanities approach, as he focuses on anthropogenic (i.e. human-caused) climate change as a result of human action.
Nonetheless, we need to act at more than just the breakfast table.
Here are ten examples of what we can do that are in this vein:
Saving the planet begins
1) at markets and restaurants, when we buy enough to eat – and no more.
Food waste is a huge problem in the US. and globally. As Peter Kalmus succinctly observed, “[a]bout 1/3 of global greenhouse gas emissions are due to food production, and about 1/2 of this (15% of global emissions) is due to livestock, mainly cows.” And as Project Drawdown noted, we can drawdown more greenhouse gas emissions by addressing food waste than by switching to largely plant based diets. However, while being freegan may have more impact than being vegan, the ideal personal solution is to largely eat a plant-based diet and waste as little food as possible. This includes eating food that we would otherwise discard, such as the leafy green tops of beets.
2) at meals, when we eat for the good of the planet and its climate.
Although the word has not yet entered the popular imagination, perhaps the best way to eat is to eat as a “climatarian”: someone who eats for good of the planet and its climate. Certainly being vegan or freegan is good, but being as combination of the two is great. And being a climatarian means that we look carefully at even the vegetables that we eat. As we have seen, eating asparagus in the Winter in most of North America is often no better for the climate than eating chicken or pork, as it is generally flown in from South America – and air travel has a huge climate footprint.
Incidentally, as Project Drawdown noted, the #1 thing that we can do to roll back global greenhouse gas emissions does not involve wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles, or any sort of similar technologies. Instead, greater gains would come from change the way that we eat. When combines, wasting less food and switching to largely plant-rich diets would result in a staggering reduction of 137 gigatons of CO2 or equivalent gases every year.
In comparison to this reduction, globally shifting from fossil fuels to electricity generated by photovoltaic (solar) panels will roll back less than half this amount of emissions. The adoption of electric vehicles? Far less than ten percent. We should, of course, work on exploring a variety of technologies to help reduce our emissions, but it is important to keep their relative impact in perspective.
3) in the bedroom, when we use contraception and limit family size.
Globally, there are 85 million unintended pregnancies every year. 32 million of these (i.e. 38%) result in births. In the US, nearly half (45%) of all pregnancies are unintended. Hence, having both having access to effective birth control and actually using it is of central importance. This is both a deeply personal issue as well as a public one, as access to birth control is restricted across the planet for religious and other reasons. In Latin America and the Caribbean, for example,97% of women do not have unrestricted access to an abortion as an option of last resort.
4) in the classroom, when we fairly and equally educate boys and girls.
We need to educate more girls and women, which dramatically curbs population growth, as the more education a woman has, the fewer children she has. Together with family planning, this would roll back 103 gigatons of GHG emissions – more than anything other than changing the way that we eat (i.e. the above-mentioned synergy of wasting less food and switching to largely plant-rich diets).
This is not to say that we should place responsibility for this particular issue with girls and women. To the contrary, the responsibility lies with the institutions that restrict a woman’s access to education and control of her own body. And too, it is obviously the case that contraception is a male responsibility as well.
What I find so interesting about this approach to curbing greenhouse gas emissions is that it is a win-win-win. First, rolling back 103 gigatons of GHG emissions could have real and significant impact on the climate crisis. Second, educating women and girls across the planet is also terrific in it own right. Even without the environmental gains, we should obviously make every effort to do this. And third, as far as I am concerned (speaking in part as a father of a daughter), every woman on the planet should have control, including reproductive control, of her own body.
5) on the way to work, when we walk, bike, or use public transportation, rather than owning a car.
For the average American, 25% of our climate footprint comes from owning a car, as typical car in the US. emits about 4.6 metric tons of CO2 or equivalent gases per year. However, the carbon released in making a car is also a huge problem. As I noted in the lecture on electric cars, “if you buy a succession of cars during your adult life, one every 11 years, and leave them in your driveway and never drive them, you will have totally expended your CO2 allotment for your lifetime. And, of course, this does not leave an emission allotment for anything else, such as for food, clothing, housing, and everything else that we need to live – including actually driving that car!”
6) at home, when we choose to live in an appropriately sized dwelling or co-housing, instead of an average (i.e. oversized) American house, let alone a McMansion.
The largest chunk of the average American’s climate footprint – about a third of it, in fact – comes from our homes, from heating and cooling them, as well as home energy use, such as lighting and appliances.
So, what, then, is to be done? It is simple enough: Move to a micro-apartment or certain co-housing communities, as this can greatly reduce your climate footprint.
For the average American, over half of our climate footprints come from the above two sources; cars, which account for roughy 25% of our greenhouse emissions, and our houses, which account for 32%. However, as we have seen, the good news for transportation and housing is that there is a simple way to approach both: move to a city. City living can mean dramatically less car use (in Manhattan, only one in five people commute to work by car) and generally smaller, more efficient housing.
7) on vacation and when traveling, when we choose slow travel over air travel, which is, environmentally, the worst way to get around.
Air travel only accounts for about 2% or 2.5% of total greenhouse gas emissions globally. However, somewhat paradoxically, air travel can literally double the size of their climate footprint of one Americans. The problem is that traveling by air is a practice exclusive to the wealthiest, most privileged people, as 19 out of 20 people on the planet have never set foot in an airplane. Even among Americans, half do not fly annually. By some estimates, 80% of flights are made by just one percent of all people on the planet.
You may not think of yourself as a global elite or as a member of the “jet set,” but if you fly, you are. If you are a frequent flyer, put a hundred random people in a room and you will be contributing more to the climate crisis in this way than anyone else in the room. You may not think of yourself as a member of “the one percent” (i.e. the world’s wealthiest and most privileged people), but you would be among the the one percent doing the lion’s share of all this flying.
8) in stores and online, when we choose not to buy yet more unnecessary stuff.
In one sense, minimalism is hardly new, as most human beings throughout history have probably gotten by with the bare minimum, or nearly so, needed for life. Even today, for a broad swath of people across the planet, this is likely still true. But what we are talking about here is voluntary minimalism. Relatively wealthy people who could buy lots of stuff, but choose not to for environmental or other reasons. In that sense, minimalism is a “First World solution” to a “First World problem.” However, since the developed world is far and away the largest contributor to the climate crisis, this is an important intervention.
Many people believe that responding to the climate crisis on a personal level will mean we have to do without quite a bit, which means that we will have to live drab lives of deprivation. What is interesting about minimalism is that this group of individuals voluntarily has decided to do without quite a bit because they believe that this is a better way to live. This was also Thoreau’s message.
9) off-line, when we barter, borrow, rent, and otherwise exchange, as well as repair, things, rather than buying still more stuff.
In the documentaries Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution and Tomorrow (Demain), we met a number of people, including climate scientist Peter Kalmus and his family, as they attempt to live sustainable lives. I also put two short videos on the syllabus with similar theme: “Visualizing a Plenitude Economy” and “The High Price of Materialism.”
In different ways, each of these films drew attention to people working together, who, by bartering, borrowing, renting, and repair things, significantly reduced the relentless acquisition of stuff.
10) with buying, not only by buying less, sharing, and keeping things longer, but also by only buying from companies with environmentally sound and socially just practices.
The documentary The True Cost, as well as the episode of Patriot Act on “The Ugly Truth Of Fast Fashion,” exposed the horrible consequences of free (rather then) fair trade. This not only impacts the planet and its climate, but people all over the globe directly. Social justice, environmental justice, and climate justice are often not only related, but deeply and inexorably intertwined.
Hence, when buying, you have the opportunity to “vote with your dollar” to to support fair-trade products that were made under decent working conditions and the manufacture of which did as little harm as possible to the environment and climate.
Incidentally, when taken together, these last three things that we can do relating to stuff can have profound consequences for each of us in the developed world, as a quarter of the average American’s climate footprint comes from all the stuff that we buy.
This list of ten things is by no means complete, but you get the idea. Note that all of the above involve personal and cultural changes rather than new or more technology.
Pulling it all together, the 2nd ten things that each of us can do to save the planet
Add education???
Similarly, but on a somewhat different note, saving the planet can also begin in the following ten ways:
11) at the polling place, when we cast our vote for candidates, from local to federal, advocating for sweeping climate policies, such as carbon pricing and the Green New Deal.
Personal climate action, while important and indeed essential, is simply not enough. For example, around 28% of methane emissions comes from meat (generally beef) production. However, an even greater amount comes from fossil fuel extraction, principally from hydraulic fracturing (aka fracking). Consequently, just switching to largely plant-based diets does not address the largest methane problem that we are facing.
The problem is that we cannot, practically speaking, end hydraulic fracturing through personal action. How, then, do we stop fracking? It is simple enough: we need to vote and become politically active, calling for legislation to end fracking.
As I never tire of telling people, if you can do only one thing to help mitigate the climate crisis and you do not have a lot of time to devote to the issue, you’re in luck, as the single most important thing that you can do takes just an hour or two per year: voting. Who doesn’t have an hour or two a year to help save the planet?
12) again at the polling place, when we vote for candidates and initiatives that put people and the planet ahead of corporate interests.
Not only should we cast our votes for candidates advocating for sweeping climate policies, such as carbon pricing and the Green New Deal, but we to think more broadly, as there are a range of other problems and injustices in the world, both environmental and social, that need our attention.
For example, the beef industry not only contributes the climate crisis through the release of methane, but causes a range of other environmental problems, such as habitat loss ( 40% of the land in the US. is used to feed livestock animals), the use of many trillion gallons of water, waste removal, pathogen runoff, a range of issues relating to herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers, etc. We need to need to vote for the environmental initiatives that address issues like this.
Similarly, as the film The True Cost revealed, there are important and heartbreaking social justice issues across the planet, including the US, that need to be addressed – and this can only happen through political action.
13) prior to the polling place, as we explain to five or more of our friends and family the importance of voting on behalf of our planet, it’s climate, and all the life that lives on it.
As we have seen, communication is of central importance, not only in communicating to people who are are not yet convinced of the importance, let alone the urgency, of the climate crisis, but friends who may be aware of the problem but are not significantly acting in response to it.
Because voting can have more impact than any action that you can take regarding the climate crisis, such as switching to largely plant-based diet or reducing food waste, explaining the importance of voting on behalf of our planet and all its life and climate to five or more friends, may ultimately have many times more impact than any diet change that you can make. Of course, do everything that you can, including changing your diet, but keeping the relative importance of everything in focus is important.
14) at gathering places. when we join together and collectively demand climate action, such as with the Sunrise Movement.
As we have seen, nearly two out of three people in Copenhagen bike to work or school. This did not happen just through personal or political actions. Instead, what brought this about was the tireless work of activists for many years. After more than a decade of this pressure, city politicians ultimately relented and began putting in the necessary infrastructure to make biking not only safe, but pleasant in the city. Without these activists, this change simply would not have happened.
What we need is a generation of activists to pressure politicians in the US and across the globe for sweeping climate action.
15) by protesting and through acts of peaceful civl disobedience, such as Greta Thunberg’s protest outside the Swedish parliament.
Greta Thunberg was, just a short time ago, in many ways a pretty average high school student (though in other ways, an altogether extraordinarily one with the ability to see the climate crisis as a black-and-white issue and sustain a laser-like focus on the problem). Still, her modest act of civil disobedience, her “school strike for the climate,” has ultimately changed the world.
Incidentally, as Wikipedia notes, prior to her school strike, Thunberg’s first action was to challenge “her parents to lower the family’s carbon footprint and overall impact on the environment by becoming vegan, upcycling, and giving up flying.”
16) with reading, as we learn more about the crisis and what is being done – as well as why nearly enough isn’t being done.
Unfortunately, one of the things that is slowing action on the climate crisis is that it is exceptionally difficult to read through to the truth of the matter. Why? As we have seen, fossil fuel interests are spending many millions of dollars every year to confuse the public about the climate crisis.
Any college-educated American deserving of the degree should be able to carefully read through the facts concerning an issue like the climate crisis to conclude that it represents a real and present danger to our country and planet. Indeed, a high school education should be enough to sharpen the necessary reading skills. Educators like myself need to make sure that we are graduating students with these skills.
And everyone needs to take the time to sit down and carefully read about the climate crisis and what we can do about it.
17) with rethinking, as we, as individuals and as a diverse range of human cultures, take a long hard look at how we inhabit this planet.
The title of Naomi Klein’s first book on the climate crisis, This Changes Everything, could easily be turned into an imperative: if we are going to successfully survive this, “we need to change everything.”
Yes, we can hope that technology will save us. And let’s be clear, technological solutions are definitely welcome. However, it is both naïve and dangerous to think that technology alone can do this. Instead, we need to accept the fact that we have to make sweepingly change tohow we inhabit this planet. Our mass consumerism, which seeming has no bounds, is a case in point.
18) by sharing what we know and do with others, so that they too have a better understanding of the climate crisis and what can be done.
In one of the lectures on climate and generation, I noted that knowledge is not itself power. By that I meant that knowledge is only power when I acted upon, otherwise, knowledge is power squandered. This is not to say that knowledge is not important, as it clearly is the first step to power. Rash and haphazard action without knowledge can be more disastrous than not acting or knowledge.
While we can each individually learn about the climate crisis, sharing this knowledge (i.e. communication) is crucial if we are to all get through this. As we have seen, this not only includes communicating to people who are in denial of the crisis, but to friends and family sympathetic to the cause who sincerely want more knowledge and to know what can be done. And as we have also seen, we could effectively communicate through not just her words, but also our actions.
19) by joining with others in initiatives, from local to global, such as freegan or bicycle collectives, so that we can support each other.
Yes, it would be possible, for example, to be a freegan on your own, but as Peter Kalmus compellingly argued through his example, the support of others should be enthusiastically welcomed. By this I mean not only the help of others in collecting discarded food, but the emotional help and strength that others can offer.
After all, as being a freegan may well result in your friends thinking that you are little odd, wouldn’t it be nice to have a whole group of freegan friends who admired and were grateful for your work at this form of climate activism?
20) with us, as we become (to echo a phrase often attributed to Gandhi) the change that we want to see in the world.
This may sound like an odd observation coming from someone who just recorded over 30 lectures, but talk is cheap. This fact is frequently brought to light by our detractors. For example, Al Gore arguably sets himself up for easy criticism by flying in private jets.
This issue is related to the idea that knowledge alone is not power. After all, if we have the knowledge that flying is an environmental disaster yet continue to do it, then we have not only squandered that knowledge, but have arguably announced to the world – through our actions – that, as far as we are concerned, it is not knowledge worth acting upon.
This is why people like Greta Thunberg try to live by the principles they endorse, by, for example, refusing to fly.
Again, this second group of ten things is not an exhaustive list, but it should be clear that none of the above (on either) list requires much by way of technological innovation, but rather just people both embodying change and joining together to demand it.
In other words, both lists suggest personal, cultural, economic, and political changes, rather than technological solutions, to a crisis caused by human beings. Again this is not to say that technological innovations are not needed to address the climate crisis, but this is not nearly enough by itself.
Note that both the above lists are aimed at the developed world. Since the poorest 3 billion people on the planet have emitted just 5% of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, only a few things on these lists apply to them. Moreover, there is one thing that the developing world could do that would be absolutely huge, if they could somehow succeed in doing it: convince the developed world to stop emitting so many greenhouse gases!
There is one more approach that needs to be mentioned. Why what I am about to say is primarily intended for my students, as they will soon be thinking about careers that they can embark upon, it really applies to anyone. After all, I began a second career as a professor in my early 40s. Proving that it is never too late to take up the challenge of acting on something that you feel is important.
Students often come to me asking what sort of professions that they could take up that would have an impact on the climate crisis. They are often thinking about a major in environmental studies. Alternately, knowing that I approach things from the perspective of the humanities, they are thinking about careers of this sort.
But the simple fact is that almost anything that you think of can have a profound environmental and climate impact. For example, we have seen first-hand that communication is profoundly important through communicators like Kip Anderson, who made the film Cowspiracy. This not only applies to filmmakers, but journalists like David Walace-Wells. The episode of Patriot Act that we watched underscores that even (perhaps especially) comedians can have extraordinary impact.
Possibilities certainly abound in the STEM fields, as well as, of course, law, politics, and policymaking. Urban planners come to mind as especially important.
And, as was made clear in the documentary Wasted!, even chefs can play a very important role here.
When I was in graduate school, one of my advisers gave me some really good advice: you should focus on whatever you feel really passionate about. Not everyone follows this advice, as many people who devote their lives to doing good in the world go into fields that they feel will have the most impact.
But the simple fact is that pretty much any field can have an impact on the climate crisis. If this is not readily apparent in your case, I urge you to do a little research. My guess is that within a few minutes of online research you will find people who share your interests that address the climate crisis. If you can’t find any, shoot me an email and I’ll think about it as well.
In any event, I am curious to hear what you think about the above 20 things that each and all of us can do to intervene in the climate crisis.
The Climate Crisis: What It Was and What Each of Us Did About It
AOC’s “A Message From the Future” is a great short film and a great concept for a film.
It’s one thing to imagine the future and make plans for it, but, imagining yourself decades into the future and looking back on what happened because of our actions (or inaction) can get you thinking about the issue in new ways.
On the one hand, with respect to the climate crisis, if we do little or nothing, then we might rightly shudder at what the future holds.
On the other hand, we can imagine a future in which we full on acknowledged and faced the climate crisis in 2020 – rather than continue to deny its reality and delay action on it. Moreover, we can imagine a future where we took up the challenge of acting on this knowledge in the opening months of 2020.
In so doing, we can not only begin to imagine how to get there from here, one step at a time, but also underscore that it is, in fact, possible. This can be both heartening, as well as inspire us to action – even in the midst of an extraordinary crisis that threatens the very future of our species. Incidentally, nothing in AOC’s imagined future is at all implausible.
As the film notes early on with respect to the Green New Deal, “We knew that we needed to save the planet and that we had all the technology to do it, but people were scared. They said it was too big, too fast, not practical. I think that’s because they just couldn’t picture it yet. Anyways, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with how we got here.”
Similarly, the film ends by noting that “the first big step was just closing our eyes and imagining it. We can be whatever we have the courage to see.”
This is, of course, a wonderful closing line, as we, as a culture, can be whatever we have the courage to see. In other words, within reason, whatever we can imagine for our selves and our culture in the future we can bring about, starting today.
Incidentally, note that AOC believes that we “had all the technology to do it” in 2020. In other words, what is needed is to make sweeping cultural changes, as well as to apply the technology we already have, such as by installing far more solar panels and wind turbines. Sure, newer and better technology can certainly help, but there is no need to wait for it, as we can begin without it now.
I started these lectures by reflecting on what my generation knew about the future. What we knew would likely happen if we did not act – and act quickly and decisively. Well, even if you didn’t watch those lectures, you know that we did little or nothing.
Even though scientists were making pretty dire predictions about the year 2000, let alone 2020, as 2020 was forty years in the future when I was 20 years old, it seemed incredibly far off. Conversely, given the predictions that were made when I was a child and a teenager (throughout the 1960s and ’70s), this frightening future seemed, somewhat paradoxically, close and real. In my mid teens, I remember reading books like Diet for a Small Planet and The Whole Earth Catalog and being really frightened for the future.
This course began on the opening days of a new decade. Scientists are not only in agreement that our global climate is changing, but also in agreement that we need to act now, in this decade. True, we should have acted forty or fifty years ago, but there is still time to act if we do so quickly and decisively – now, in the decade that we just entered.
In a way, AOC has thrown down the gauntlet for each of us. Can you imagine, given the current reality of the climate crisis, a future in which you would like to live? Equally important, can you imagine how to get to that future from here?
I would like to offer the YouTube comment space as an opportunity for you to do just that.
The title of this course is “The Climate Crisis: What It Is and What Each of Us Can Do About It.” Imagine yourself forty years in the future. For many of you, this would mean you’ll be about my age now, 60. Imagine, forty years in the future, reflecting back on “The Climate Crisis: what it was and what each of us did about it.”
In imagining what it was, I am not suggesting that this crisis will be passed by 2060. Rather, I am inviting you to reflect on the nature of this crisis, what it is now, in 2020. In other words, what we knew in 2020 could happen if we failed to act. For example, our first reading for the
course, The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells, mentions quite a few things.
Mainly, though, I am inviting you to imagine “what each of us did about it.” (If you prefer, you can just write on what we did.)
This is very much like what AOC did in “A Message From the Future.” In fact, what I am suggesting is that, like AOC, you write a message from the future (in this case, 2060) to today (2020).
Feel free to go about this in any way that you like.
For example, you could take AOCs lead and write about what we, as a country, did. You could, like AOC, talk about important milestones, such as when “Democrats took back…the Senate and the White House in 2020, and launched the decade of the Green New Deal, a flurry of legislation that kicked off our social and ecological transformation to save the planet.”
You could also talk about what we did as a species, rather than as just one country.
Alternately, you could zoom in on yourself and talk about the actions that you took, from changing your personal habits to climate activism to political actions.
Or zoom out a little and reflect on what you and your friends, perhaps your generation, collectively did.
In some sense, this is sort of like a New Year’s resolution insofar as it encourages us to imagine life as we would like it, rather than how it is. Moreover, it expresses a well-defined, personal commitment to try to make this happen.
As with a New Year’s resolution, things may not turn out the way that we hope. For example, Democrats may not, as AOC hopes, take back the White House in 2020. Still, the important thing is that she has resolved to do everything that she can to try to make this happen.
The question is, what will you resolve to try to make happen?
The operative word here is “try.” It is perfectly fine to be realistic. To acknowledge, for example, that things did not go according to plan, or took longer than expected. Perhaps you tried to immediately begin eating a plant-based diet, but it took three years to finally get the hang of it.
It is also ok to be pessimistic, if that is how you really feel. Perhaps the 2020s was the decade that we tried and failed to pass the Green New Deal and similar legislation. Perhaps the American Dream of bigger houses, more cars, and mountains of stuff not only proved unstoppable, but spread to the rest of the world as we quickly consumed the planet in the next forty years – or at least destroyed its ability to sustain our species.
Regarding format, it is entirely up to you. Here are a few possibilities:
- As with AOC’s example, it could be a general statement sent out to everyone.
- If you are planning to have a child or children, you could write it as a letter to them.
- You could write it as a letter to yourself. Sort of a time-capsule to be opened in forty
years.
- You could even imagine yourself as a teacher in front of more than 800 students confessing that your generation fully knew that radical environmental action was imperative when you were 20, but instead your generation chose to do nothing.
If you like writing and sci-fi (and cli-fi in particular), great, feel free to go a little crazy here.
If you do not think of yourself as a writer, that is ok too. As with all the comments in this class, even though it is an English course, I am far more interested in what you have to say than if you make a grammatical mistake or two.
Since this one comment is taking of the place of the three that we ordinarily have every week, it should be approximately three times the length of an average comment (and, accordingly, it will be worth the same as three comments with respect to the course grade). And too, since there is no reading or film assignment, please take the time that you would have devoted to reading and watching to think about the future.
If you need a little inspiration, I suggest re-watching AOC’s “A Message From the Future.” In addition, let me end with the description of that video provided by the filmmakers, as it nicely lays out what AOC set out to do in it:
What if we actually pulled off a Green New Deal? What would the future look like?…
Set a couple of decades from now, the film is a flat-out rejection of the idea that a dystopian future is a forgone conclusion. Instead, it offers a thought experiment: What if we decided not to drive off the climate cliff? What if we chose to radically change course and save both our habitat and ourselves?
We realized that the biggest obstacle to the kind of transformative change the Green New Deal envisions is overcoming the skepticism that humanity could ever pull off something at this scale and speed. That’s the message we’ve been hearing from the “serious” center…that it’s too big, too ambitious, that our Twitter-addled brains are incapable of it…
This film flips the script. It’s about how, in the nick of time, a critical mass of humanity in the largest economy on earth came to believe that we were actually worth saving. Because, as Ocasio-Cortez says in the film, our future has not been written yet and “we can be whatever we have the courage to see.”
Chapter 6, The climate crisis as a generational issue
Intro and How the climate crisis was brought about in a single lifetime
Across the planet, the youth are rebelling!
This probably comes as little surprise, as you may well have heard of Greta Thunberg, the Sunrise Movement, and are likely aware that their generation is more than a little concerned about the state of our planet and its climate.
The fact that they are now rebelling should come as little surprise either. For decades, we kept telling yourselves that we needed to change the reckless way that we were inhabiting our planet – not for ourselves, but, as we kept saying, for our children.
Well, we didn’t. And those children, who weren’t necessarily even been born at the time, are now here – and coming of age. And they’re upset that we didn’t adequately address this issue decades ago. Let’s be honest, they’re pissed, really pissed – and rightfully so. We are handing them a planet that is well on its way to becoming uninhabitable, certainly unwelcoming, for our species.
If you look at the circumstances surrounding the climate crisis (which, as we shall see, are more than a little unusual), the emergence of a youth rebellion at this moment in history, from this particular generation, was almost inevitable.
In the this chapter of Climate Crisis 101 we will be considering the generational aspect of the climate crisis and why people of my generation failed to act – and are still, even now, not adequately acting.
Which means that the responsibility for sweeping action now falls to new generation coming on the scene, that of my students. Consequently, as far as I am concerned, the youth movement is a very good thing indeed. We should all, for the sake of our planet, welcome and do what we can to support it.
How the climate crisis was brought about in a single lifetime
It’s true. The climate crisis was principally brought about in a single lifetime. Contrary to what you may have heard or thought, for the most part the climate crisis was not slowly caused over centuries by many generations of human beings, but rather in a single lifetime. Which means, of course, that the people who largely caused this problem are still alive – and still making it worse.
I want to talk about how this happened. Not the mechanics of how greenhouse gases were released into the atmosphere, but how this was allowed to happen, why no one stopped it – and why, even today, we are not doing nearly enough.
Let’s be clear at the onset that it is not too late to act – there is still time – though, as we shall see, the solution to the climate crisis that I am going to propose may seem…well…radical.
The circumstances that made the climate crisis possible (perhaps even inevitable) are striking – and more than a little unusual. Even though we have been bringing about this crisis for quite a few decades now, to many people along the way it really did seem that there were few consequences to these actions.
This was largely because of an unusual time delay that challenges and confuses our ordinary temporal perception of cause and effect. It is important to understand this issue, as it can help explain our decades of inaction – as well as suggest how we can finally, adequately, and quickly mobilize. Allow me to explain.
If you pour a quart of oil down a storm drain, the consequences will soon be obvious, as it can quickly contaminate as many as a million gallons of water – it’s true. Release a billion times that amount of CO2 into the atmosphere (carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas causing the climate crisis), and there will be little impact, anywhere on earth.
Hence, it may seem that there is little need to worry about the wholesale dumping of CO2 into the atmosphere. For decades, we kept telling ourselves that there wasn’t much to worry about.
But, there was. If you keep releasing enough CO2 into the atmosphere (which we did), the impact will be felt everywhere on the planet, but there will – and this is important – there will be a significant time delay before the consequences are felt.
I would argue that this time delay played a major role in bringing about the climate crisis – without it, I doubt the situation would have gotten anywhere near this far. The delayed impact also set the stage for an extraordinary generational split on the climate crisis that is now revealing itself across the planet.
In order to understand how all this works, imagine that you could indulge in some sort of self-destructive behavior, say cigarette smoking, but without any consequences, whatsoever.
You could smoke three, four, even five packs a day without significantly harming your health – every day for your entire adult life – no strings attached.
Ok, imagine one string: while you would suffer none of the consequences of your actions, your children would suffer them all.
Cancer, heart disease, emphysema, stroke – you get the idea. They wouldn’t have to wait for the symptoms to show up later in life, they would experience them from birth onward.
And, not only your children, but your grandchildren – and, moreover, every subsequent generation of your descendants for hundreds of years.
Here’s another twist, if enough people did it, then not only the descendants of the smokers, but every child born on the planet for the next few hundred years would suffer the consequences.
We are by no means talking about a majority of human beings here. Not half, not even a quarter. If just one in eight people on the planet did it, this would be enough to make every child born for hundreds of years suffer for their entire lives.
One last twist: not only would subsequent generations of human beings suffer for hundreds of years, but all life on the planet will be profoundly impacted, from the heights of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans. Thousands upon thousands of species would suffer, many would go extinct.
Unfortunately, this is not a thought experiment. This is how anthropogenic (i.e. human-caused) climate change works. The abused substance in question is not tobacco but fossil fuels.
During one lifetime people enjoy, dozens of subsequent generations suffer.
I know: I keep saying just one lifetime? Isn’t it true that our fossil fuel addiction goes back hundreds of years?
Yes, that’s right. In fact, I have written about the first true fossil fuel economy to emerge on earth, which was 400 years ago in Shakespeare’s London.
But let’s look at CO2 in the atmosphere. Although there are a number of other important greenhouse gases (some that you may have heard of, like methane, others that you likely haven’t, such as HFCs – both of which we will be taking up in future sections), CO2 is the most significant greenhouse gas and hence an important benchmark.
For the whole of human history, indeed even before there were modern humans, before there were Neanderthals, CO2 in the atmosphere has held at about 280 ppm.
Then, something happened, something big. A few hundred years ago people started digging up large quantities of fossil fuels. When burned, they released CO2 into the atmosphere.
By 1959 (I’ll explain in a moment why I picked this particular year), CO2 in the atmosphere had risen to 315 ppm, a rise of about 35 points.
If it had stopped there in 1959, it is likely that the consequences for the human race would have been, relatively speaking, minor. But it didn’t stop there.
In fact, it continued to rise – dramatically. During the year that I am recording this, CO2 in the atmosphere reached 420 ppm. So, in a little more than 60 years, CO2 has risen by 100 points. That’s three times more than it rose in the preceding centuries. (It would in fact be much more, except that our planet’s oceans have absorbed a quarter of the CO2 that we have emitted – with grave consequences, which we will be taking up in future sections.)
1959 has particular significance for me: this was the year that I was born.
Let’s just pause for a moment to reflect on this: three quarters of all the CO2 – the principal greenhouse gas causing the climate crisis – three quarters of the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere by human beings was put there in a single lifetime – mine. Three quarters of it.
Because CO2 can remain in the atmosphere for hundreds, even thousands of years, dozens of subsequent generations are going to be impacted by what we have done. Generations of people, animals, fish, insects, plants – every living thing on earth.
Recall the little twist that I added with my example of smoking. I stipulated that not everyone would need to do it for everyone on the planet to suffer. This is how the climate crisis has unfolded on earth.
A quarter of all the CO2 in the atmosphere was put there by one country, my country, the United States, even though Americans constitute just 4% of the world’s population. If you add in the countries of Europe, as well as Russia, in the past 60 years these countries, which during this time formed the bulk of what we called the “developed world,” have been responsible for nearly two thirds of all the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere, even though collectively these countries are home to just one eighth of the world’s population.
In contrast, the poorest 3 billion people (“Billion” with a “B” – and that’s approaching nearly half of the world’s population), the poorest 3 billion people on the planet contributed just 5% of the CO2 in the atmosphere, a pretty insignificant amount.
Pause on that: the extraordinary role that one out of eight people on the planet played in the climate crisis, in a single lifetime. For the most part, these people are still alive. For the most part, each day they are still doing exactly what they did to bring about this crisis.
That last point is particularly worrisome, as my lifetime is not yet over. Life expectancy being what it is, I will live another twenty years or so. If we continue on like this, CO2 could rise another forty points, to 455ppm, in what would have been my lifetime. In other words, in the next 20 years human beings (principally those in the wealthy countries) could put more CO2 into the atmosphere than the human race did for the whole of our history up until the time that I was born.
In contrast, nearly half the planet’s people had virtually nothing to do with causing the climate crisis, yet generations of their children will also suffer. And let’s be honest, suffer more than children in the developed world, as all the wealth that our fossil-fuel economy has given us will, at least initially, likely help insulate the developed world from the climate crisis.
Pause on the injustice of that: the wealth and power that the developed world has amassed, which has principally come from our fossil-fuel economy, will help protect us from the worst of what we have done, while the rest of the world will suffer all the more for it. In future sections, we will be taking up this subject, climate justice, in detail.
Never in the whole of human history has one group impacted the planet and its life to anywhere near this degree. It’s not just unprecedented, it is altogether mind-boggling.
In this chapter, I want to propose a solution to at least help mitigate this crisis. The course of action that I am going to suggest is radical. But I see no other course, as little else will likely work.
For now, I want to end with an apology, from my generation to the newest generation emerging into maturity, that of my students. There are, no doubt, better people than I to deliver it. The power brokers in the fossil fuel industry come to mind, as do the politicians that still support them, even now. However, we may be waiting quite a while for their apology.
My generation should be – and I am – ashamed of what we have done. We have left you with a planet on its way to becoming largely uninhabitable, certainly unwelcoming, for our species. What’s worse, rather than correcting our mistakes, we have raised you and the generation before you to keep making the same ones. Instead of teaching you how to live sustainably on this planet, we have done just the opposite. Sadly, as you may have inherited our fossil fuel addiction, many of you may now, like us, be in the habit of casually abusing our planet, our home, Indeed, you may even have trouble imagining a sustainable way of life.
I wonder, I wonder how history will remember my generation…
All that I can say is that I am sorry and that some of us in my generation are with you in this fight – and will be as long as we have breath in us.
Why the generation that caused the climate crisis is not acting
In the previous sections, I noted that climate crisis was principally brought about in a single lifetime, mine. Today, I would like to address the question of why we’re not acting. As it turns out, this is arguably a generational issue.
First, allow me to quickly recap what I noted during the last section:
Three quarters of all the CO2 (that’s carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas causing the climate crisis) was put into our planet’s atmosphere in the 60 years of my lifetime. Most of it was put there by wealthy countries. In contrast, the poorest half of humanity had virtually nothing to do with bringing the climate crisis about – though they will suffer the most.
An unusual time delay is partly responsible here. For decades, massive amounts of greenhouse gases were released into the atmosphere, seemingly without significantly impacting the global climate. Many people, ignoring the warnings of scientists, simply didn’t believe that doing this was a problem, as the consequences of our actions had not yet caught up with us. Now that they are quickly arriving, coming to grips with what we have done is…well…difficult. It really is mind-boggling.
Mind-boggling for everyone, but, in a certain way, especially for my generation in the developed world: those most responsible for this crisis. How can we even begin to come to grips with what we have done?
Is it surprising that many of us are in a state of denial? Deep, deep denial.
We hear a lot about denial of the climate crisis nowadays. Usually this refers to theories that are advanced, often by or for fossil fuel interests, that in some way deny that the climate crisis is happening, or deny its severity, or that it is human-caused, or something of the sort.
To many people, these attempts at denial sound pretty outlandish, as they fly in the face of reason and the facts. However, to some individuals, those who are themselves in a state of denial, often deep denial, they provide a way out: a way to not face up to what we have done, as what we have done borders on the unthinkable.
Is it at all surprising that those in denial would question the truth?
Of course, since before I was born, scientists have been alerting both the public and policy makers to the problem. Perhaps not surprisingly, those in denial often lash out at these messengers. You may have heard some of them. They can sound something like this:
“After all, I have lived all my life without seeing any significant consequences from the burning of fossil fuels. Sure, there have been some pretty bad storms and crazy weather lately, but there have always been bad storms and wild weather. Who’s to say that they were caused by human action? Scientists? Who’s to say they’re right? Maybe their instruments are wrong. Maybe their theories are wrong. Maybe their computer models are wrong. Maybe this hasn’t been caused by human beings at all. Maybe it’s just the natural cycles of climate. Maybe it’s sunspot active. Maybe, maybe the scientists are corrupt. Maybe they’re part of some insidious global plot to undermine democracy.”
I know, this can sound pretty silly. However, all of these theories denying the climate crisis have not only been advanced, they have all gotten significant traction with certain sections of the public: often, those in denial. Incidentally, and perhaps not surprisingly, denial of the climate crisis is most common in wealthy countries – which, perhaps not surprisingly, largely brought about the crisis.
Even if individuals in my generation move past denial, there is the real danger of delay, climate delay. In other words, if we come to grips with the fact that the climate crisis is upon us and that we have caused it – and hey, that’s a lot to come to grips with – then how should we proceed? Slowly, with caution? Or decisively, as time is of the utmost essence?
Simple answer? My lifetime was the time to have acted. The six decades that I have lived was the time to have acted. The time for successful climate intervention is now receding quickly; we simply cannot delay any longer. As we shall see throughout this series, we need to fundamentally rethink and change the way that our species relates to this planet – and we need to do it now.
Although different in a variety of ways, climate denial and climate delay can result in the same thing: Nothing. Inaction.
There are three groups that should be particularly and profoundly upset about all this.
First, the half of the world’s population that had a minimal impact on CO2 rise, yet will suffer its consequences the most.
Second, let’s not forget all non-human life on earth, who hold no responsibility for CO2 rise. They will never know why this is all happening, yet are suffering and dying en masse already.
The third group is the children of the people who did this. In speaking to my students, I am for the most part speaking to this group (although, as they hail from all over the world, some of my students come from places that did little to bring about this crisis). While many of this group may have benefited from the fossil fuel economy, they largely had no choice in the matter. After all, parents do not generally decide whether or not they are going to buy a McMansion or gas-guzzling SUV based on the input of their children.
This last group is also in many ways currently leading the worldwide revolt against the climate crisis.
Because my generation has not acted, I am speaking to this younger generation. Not only in the classroom, but here, as I imagine you as the principal audience for this prerecorded talk.
The problem is that my generation is still largely in power across the planet.
Consider the US. federal government. The average age of Congress is around my age, 60. The Supreme Court is nearly ten years older, pushing 70. And, of course, Donald Trump was the first person ever elected President of the United States in his seventies. We could continue with state and local governments (the average age of a Governor is early sixties), but the story is much the same, as it is in the corporate world. The average age of a CEO of a major corporation is 56.
Of course, it does not necessarily follow from this that my generation cares little about the climate crisis. Unfortunately, polls reveal that this is in fact often the case.
A poll by Yale and George Mason Universities asked voters what would be the most important issues for them in the 2020 presidential election. Among my generation, so-called “baby boomers,” global warming ranked number 18 out of 29 as an area of concern. Instead, the leading issues were the economy, healthcare, and Social Security. Other concerns ranked ahead of global warming included terrorism, immigration reform, and border security. The generation after mine (so-called Gen X – basically people who are now in their forties through mid-fifties) did not rank global warming much higher as an issue of concern: for them it is 15 out of 29. Finally, the generation before mine, people the age of Donald Trump and older, ranked it lowest of all: 23 out of 29.
It’s not that these folks necessarily deny that anthropogenic climate change is taking place. According to this poll, 70% of registered voters in the US. now believe that the climate is changing because of human action, which is up from what it has been in recent years. While this might seem heartening, the problem is that the climate crisis, although now increasingly acknowledged as real, is just not much of a priority for many people. Sadly, as this poll reveals, this is a generational issue: the older you are, the less urgent you will likely find the climate crisis. People forty and above just don’t see this as very important, at all.
In many respects, this is hardly surprising, as these older generations lived their lives largely without seeing the consequences of their actions because of that strange time delay – which lasted for decades – that we took up in the previous section.
But perhaps polls aren’t all that revealing, perhaps the generation in power has been acting, has been lowering CO2 emissions. After all, isn’t that what the Paris Accord signed at COP21 is all about? Didn’t the nations of the world agree to limit global temperature rise to a reasonable 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit)? In fact, they did agree to this.
The problem is that global temperatures have already risen by two-thirds this amount, by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. When did all this happen? You guessed it: principally during the six decades of my lifetime.
Not only are CO2 emissions on the rise, but they are – astonishingly – rising far more quickly now than when the Paris Accord was signed. At that time (2015), CO2 emissions were rising at less than half a percent per year. In 2018, global CO2 emissions rose by a staggering 2.7%. That’s five times as much as when the Paris Accord was signed. In case you’re wondering, even though there had been a lowering trend in the US, 2018 was well above the world average with a 3.4% increase.
Simply put, during my lifetime we (and by “we” I principally mean wealthy counties) have been dumping vast amounts of CO2 other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each and every year – and every year we have on average been dumping significantly more than the year before. As last year proved, we have by no means been slowing down since the Paris Accord was signed.
How far off are we from the target of the Paris Accord? The goal is to reduce emissions to between 80-95% of the levels that we had thirty years ago, back in 1990, back when I was thirty.
So, no, the people in power are not sufficiently addressing this issue – not by a long shot.
What, then, do we need to do to keep this crisis from becoming even worse? In the next section, I will be taking up this question – and offering a radical answer.
What a new generation can do to mitigate the climate crisis
In the previous two sections, I noted that even though the climate crisis was overwhelmingly brought about in a single lifetime, mine, my generation sees the problem as a low priority and, consequently, is doing little to mitigate it.
In this and the next section, I want to suggest an admittedly radical solution whereby the next generation can avert the worst of this crisis
Just to recap, allow me to repeat what I said in the last section: “Three quarters of all the CO2 (that’s carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas causing the climate crisis), was put into our planet’s atmosphere in the 60 years of my lifetime.” Ironically, for the most part the people who currently wield power on the planet are from my generation. And for the most part, they are not sufficiently addressing on this problem – not by a long shot.
I think of myself as a scholar-activist. In the previous sections I have been talking to you principally as a scholar (and teacher), laying out the facts, explaining the situation. When I’ve done this in person, students often ask me what they should do, what action they should take. I am going to respond to that question now as an activist, by suggesting an action.
Here it is, my radical suggestion. It, and what follows from this point onward, is spoken for my students (and your generation):
You need to take control of this planet – or at least set your sights on that goal – and you need to start now, today.
You cannot wait for the normal course of events, which would bring you to power when you’re my age, or nearly so. As we shall see throughout this series, this situation is simply too urgent for that. You do not have decades. You do not even have years to act. You need to act now, in the upcoming months to have as much impact as is possible. The future – and by that I mean sustaining a reasonably habitable earth for human beings – depends on it.
Sadly, you cannot wait for my generation to act, as we have had decades to act, but haven’t. In fact, as I noted in the last section, during our watch we continued to make this situation worse and worse every year. And even now we see this as an alarmingly low priority.
In suggesting that you need to take control of this planet, I do not mean to suggest that human beings should take control of even more of the earth. Our species already controls over 80% of our planet’s landmass. I am simply suggesting that that control needs to be transferred to a generation that grasps the enormity of this crisis – and will thus hopefully be better stewards of this planet.
Also, let me be very clear, when I suggest that you take control of this planet, I am not in any way implying that you resort to violence to do so. Seriously, violence never solves anything. And, fortunately, throughout the developed world that principally caused this problem, democracy is for the most part still working reasonably well – though, as we shall see in future episodes, fossil fuel interests and others are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to subvert it.
The 2018 US. midterm elections can be seen as a proof-of-concept of what can be done. A month after the youngest woman was ever voted into Congress (AOC), she co-introduced the most sweeping US. legislation ever to address the climate crisis: the Green New Deal. The fact that she did this in her twenties is not, I think, coincidental.
Throughout this series, I am going to suggest a number of things that you can do to help take control of this planet. These will range from activism to engineering sweeping cultural change through decisions that you make on where you live, how you get around, what you eat, what you wear, the stuff you buy, etc.
However, political change is of central importance, even on the local level. You may trade your car for an e-bike (a great thing to do), but if your local politicians are committed to car infrastructure rather than bicycle paths, you may have real trouble getting around on that bike and even be unsafe sharing overcrowded roads with cars.
In short, one of the simplest, quickest, and most effective things that you can do to work toward taking control of this planet is to vote – and to urge five of your friends to do the same.
There is a particular urgency in doing so that is worth noting, as my generation is leveraging democracy to its advantage and interests, which is away from the climate crisis and toward things like Social Security and healthcare. How is this happening?
In the aforementioned 2018 midterm election, voter turnout in the US. was generally up. In the case of 18 to 29-year-olds, it was way up, having increased more than any other age group, as over a third voted. This is great, undeniably. However, the problem is that two out of three people over the age of 65 voted. As a group, their voting power is thus twice as great as the youngest generation of voters, simply because they are voting twice as much. My generation is not only effectively in control of this planet, we are significantly leveraging that control – two-to-one in the case of political power, which is all important – and which is, of course, exercised through voting.
It is not my intent is to cause generational discord. Moreover, I am not echoing the 1960s adage that you should trust no one over 30. I am, after all, delivering this message at twice that age. And there are plenty of people in my generation and even older, including politicians, that are deeply committed to addressing our climate crisis. Al Gore and Bernie Sanders, both in their seventies, come to mind.
Nonetheless, the bald fact is that we will be dead and buried when you will be dealing with the worst of this. We haven’t and simply won’t significantly suffer in our lifetimes. However, you will. Though we brought about the greatest catastrophe ever caused by human beings on the planet, the climate crisis wasn’t really much of an issue for my generation, as paradoxical as that may sound. This is arguably largely because of the time delay that I elaborated on in the previous talks. Even today, as polls reveal, it is still not much of an issue for my generation. It will, nonetheless, likely be THE defining issue for you, and for many generations after you.
Is it even possible for your generation to take even partial control of this planet? Frankly, I am not sure. However, I am decidedly of the “aim high” camp when it comes to tackling problems. Even you do not succeed at this incredibly ambitious goal, you may still have a profound impact.
Consider the last great youth rebellions in the US, which occurred in the 1960s and ’70s. True, political power was not transferred from one generation to another at this time. However, these youth movements, which in many respects had their center in colleges and universities, were able to exert tremendous political pressure that ultimately resulted in significant cultural and political change.
This not only included the ending of the Vietnam Conflict through the withdrawal of American troops, but also a range of additional cultural changes, such as for civil rights. Especially for people of color, for women, for the LGBTQIA community, we live in a better world because of the youth rebellions of the 1960s – though, of course, still far from a perfect world.
The simple fact is that, as a result of these rebellions, America was in many ways fundamentally, profoundly changed – for the better.
Even if you do not succeed in taking even partial control this planet, you can have a profound influence on the older generations. Interestingly, you are uniquely positioned to do so.
A recent study found that, when its comes to promoting “collective action” on the climate crisis, one of the most effective approaches is “child-to-parent intergenerational learning—that is, the transfer of knowledge, attitudes or behaviours from children to parents.” (source) Simply put, you need to teach your parents by communicating to them the horrific severity of this problem. You need to explain to them how important this is for your future, the future of their (as yet unborn) grandchildren – indeed the future of all your family’s descendants. By taking this direct, personal approach, your generation can have enormous influence on the generations in control of this planet.
Throughout this series, we will be looking at a range of approaches, such as child-to-parent intergenerational learning, that can allow you to have greater control of the destiny of the earth, our species, and the life with which we share this planet.
I know that I have left quite a few questions unanswered here, such as just how much my generation knew about what we were doing. I will take this question up in a future section, but the short answer is that we knew more than enough to have been prompted to action. After all, the modern environmental movement emerged at the moment, shortly after the time of my birth, when we could have largely averted the worst all this.
The most pressing question, however, is what you as a generation can do to undo what my generation has done. I will be directly addressing this question in the next section, as well as throughout this series. In fact, this series centers on this question.
Simple answer is that, in order to help moderate the climate crisis, we need to fundamentally reinvent Western culture, especially consumer culture and the belief that happiness is to be found in things (it obviously isn’t), a culture that we have now sold to the entire world, much to the detriment of our planet. This is not a big job, it’s an almost unimaginably huge undertaking. But it must be done. Because my generation didn’t do it, this job now falls to you.
Thinking back to the 1960s in the US, I am reminded of a speech by Robert F. Kennedy where he noted that “There is a Chinese curse which says ‘May he live in interesting times.’ Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind.”
This is probably not actually a real Chinese curse, but what Kennedy noted was correct. While he lived in a time of “danger and uncertainty,” it was also an extremely exciting, creative time. Out of his era, with all its strife, came a better world, precisely because it was not just more of the same, but a bold charting of a new future.
And yet, by comparison, it was arguably not nearly as exciting, with as much room for creativity, as the time in which we now live. Echoing Kennedy, I would argue that ours is “the most creative of any time in the history” of humanity. The challenge, at once both frightening and exhilarating, is to create a new world.
I open my most recent book, which is on the challenge of writing a new environmental era and moving forward to nature (in other words, moving forward to a better relationship with the earth), with a quote from Tennyson’s wonderful little poem “Ulysses.” Allow me to repeat it here, to you:
“Come, my friends, ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.”
In the next section, we will take up the question of how to begin.
Can one generation do what previous generations failed to do?
What can I do to help?
This is one of the most common questions that people ask me regarding the climate crisis.
In response, I often launch into a discussion of voting, activism, and things of that sort. However, many people are asking something different with this question. They want to know what they can do right now, today. Since human actions brought about the climate crisis, they want to know what sort of actions, personal actions, can help grind it to a halt.
In other words, they are asking how best to live their lives in order to avert climate catastrophe.
Although this is certainly a big question, I have a number of suggestions that can help make a start. Usually, I give five or so. Amazingly, these five things can cut your climate footprint in half or even more.
How is this a generational issue? I have noticed that people of my generation tend to respond very differently to these ideas then do my students and their generation.
This generational difference is more than a little important, as it it reveals one of the truly daunting challenges that we face, which is the subject of this section.
First, let me quickly articulate five things that can Americans can do to dramatically reduce our personal climate footprints. Then we can move to the two very different generational responses to them. (Incidentally, you might find these interesting in their own right. In future sections, I will be taking each of them up individually in detail, along with a range of similar suggestions.)
1) Transportation. For the average American, owning and driving an automobile accounts for around a quarter of our individual climate footprints. Hence, if you trade your car for mass transit, a bike, or walking shoes, or some combination of these, you will have done the earth (and humanity and the rest of the life on the planet) a huge favor.
2) Housing can account for another quarter of your climate footprint, especially if you live in a large suburban or rural home. Move to a micro-apartment or certain co-housing communities, and you can greatly reduce another big chunk of your climate footprint.
Incidentally, the good news for both transportation and housing is that there is a simple way to approach both: move to a city. City living can mean dramatically less car use (in Manhattan, only one in five people commute to work by car) and generally smaller, more efficient housing. Many cities have made major commitments to mass transportation and bicycle use, Portland and Vancouver are excellent examples, as well as micro-apartments, such as New York’s adAPT NYC program.
3) Waste less food and eat a largely plant-based diet. Food production is the second largest producer of greenhouse gases on the planet. Yet, we waste between 1/3 and 1/2 of the food that we produce. For Americans, much of this happens at the consumer level. Meat is another problem. Producing a pound of beef emits the same amount of greenhouse gases as producing 30 pounds of lentils, which are also a significant source of protein.
4) Have no more than one child per person. In other words, a couple should have either two, one, or zero children. When I was born (1959), there were just under 3 billion people on the planet. There are now 7.7 billion. By mid-century, it will be near 10 billion. The planet simply cannot sustain this many human beings. We need to reduce our global population.
5) Re-think your relationship to stuff. For example, the average American purchases over 60 items of clothing each year (not including socks, underwear, and other incidentals). Nearly everything we buy has a climate footprint. The solution: for a start, buy less, keep what you have longer, and consider preowned options from places like thrift stores.
(By the way, these last three suggestions – regarding food, population, and our appetite for stuff – are related. While it might seem that a swelling human population is the principal threat to our planet, we need to always keep in mind the relationship of population to consumption. As it is home to just 4% of the world’s population, the United States would seem to be pretty insignificant environmentally. However, as I noted in a previous section, 25% of all greenhouse gases that human beings have put in the atmosphere were done by this tiny population, in part because we have a voracious appetite for meat and all sorts of stuff. So, we can’t just think in terms of population: we must also consider the emissions of each person. In the future sections, we will be taking up this issue in detail.)
In any event, if you do these five simple things, you may well cut your climate footprint in half, perhaps even to a quarter or less of its present size.
Now, for the generational responses.
Over the years I have heard a range of different responses to these suggestions from my students and people of their generation. There are two in particular that I hear more than all others. They sound something like this:
1) “Is that it? Just doing these five simple things can make that big of a difference?” (It can!)
The second response often goes hand-in-hand with the first:
2) “Not only doesn’t this sound very bad, in many ways it actually sounds pretty exciting, even desirable.”
It’s true, moving to a place like Brooklyn or Vancouver (or a less expensive urban option) and living without a car can sound pretty appealing. Perhaps far more appealing than life in a cookie-cutter suburb, shuttling around in a minivan or SUV. Since many of my students have at least toyed with the idea of becoming largely vegetarian or vegan, switching to a mostly plant-based diet may be enticing for a range of additional factors, such as the ethical treatment of animals. And very few of my students are thinking about having large families. Regarding stuff, many of them are frustrated with our consumer culture and perhaps already visit thrift shops or have been intrigued by movements like minimalism.
So, all this doesn’t sound so bad and, in fact, can seem pretty desirable.
Although we are often told that adapting to the climate crisis will mean that we will need to make do with less and live drab lives of deprivation, this is not generally the perspective of my students – not by a long shot.
However, when I list these five things to people of my own generation, the response is often quite different. As it turns out, I primarily hear two answers from them as well. They often sound something like this:
1) “That sounds positively horrible! I love my car, and the freedom that it gives me. I’ve worked hard all of life for my house, it is incredibly important to me. And I enjoy the fruits of my labor; all the things that I now deserve as a result of all that work. Instead, you want me to live in a tiny, cramped apartment or with a bunch of other people in co-housing, to get around by bus or on a bicycle, to eats lentils for dinner, and wear somebody’s used clothing? Could you possibly be serious?
The second response is also pretty common:
2) “This is a direct assault on the American way of life. We should be able to live where we want to live, drive what we want to drive, eat what we want to eat, wear what we want to wear, buy what we want to buy, and, of course, have as many children as we please. What you are suggesting sounds like communism, totalitarianism, or something of the sort!”
To these folks, the changes that I outline not only suggest a decidedly unpleasant and drab existence, it comes at the cost of what are actually posited as freedoms.
Throughout this series you’ll hear me cite statistics and quote papers, but let me be clear, what I am relating here is my personal experience. And it is admittedly skewed. My students are a select group. The majority of them are from California, a very progressive state, or are progressive thinking international students, they will soon to be college educated, and they are likely more than a little drawn to environmental issues, otherwise they wouldn’t be taking my classes. In contrast, every now and again I run into members of their generation who hold very different views than I am relating here. I once had a student tell me that he “wanted everything that my parents had – and a whole lot more. I want it all!”
Nonetheless, experience has taught me that the generational divide that I am outlining here is real. And, as far as I am concerned, more than a little worrisome, as it suggests that the generation currently controlling our planet has been crafting and settling into a way of life for decades now that is, quite simply, an environmental nightmare. What’s more, my generation likes it – and often recoil from change almost instinctively. As my generation has shaped our modern world more than any other, many in this generation are actually proud of what was accomplished – and seemingly comfortable with it.
While it may seem that my generation simply inherited its behavior and practices from previous generations (and in some sense we did), we significantly innovated and often outrageously supersized them in a way that was disastrous for the planet. Take housing, for example.
In 1950, shortly before I was born, the average size of an American house was just under 1000 square feet. Today, the average size is over 2500 square feet – more than two and a half times larger, even though American families are now considerably smaller. And of course, as with so many things American, bigger is often perceived as better. Hence, if you can afford it, the ideal home is often much larger. One in five new houses in the US. is now, in fact, over 3000 square feet in size. One in ten is a McMansion, at over 4000 square feet.
In contrast, a traditional Japanese home, which housed families of four or more, was one tenth that size at 400 square feet.
Housing is just one example of how American lifestyle has grown more and more environmentally disastrous during my lifetime.
The light at the end of the tunnel is, as far as I am concerned, the generations that will supplant us.
Had my generation prepared the way, you would be faced with a far less daunting challenge. For example, if we had already written cars, big houses, meat, and the love of all sorts of stupid stuff out of your lives, mitigating this crisis would be far easier. And not just with respect to these particular issues, as this would have made clear that we can indeed change our lives and lifestyles. In a general way, it would have underscored to this new generation coming on the scene that the way of life that we are handed at birth can be changed at any time.
In short, our example would have made clear to you that is possible to effectively make sweeping and profound cultural changes. That would have been a lesson of inestimable value. Sadly, it is one that my generation never learned. Hence, we could not, did not, teach it to you.
What’s to be done now? If you hope to effectively mitigate our climate crisis, you need to embrace sweeping change. Throughout this series, we will consider specific ways of doing just that.
In the next section, I want to address the question of what my generation knew about the climate crisis and when we knew it. Although interesting in its own right, this is an important issue to take up, as understanding why my generation failed to act on what we clearly knew was an impending environmental catastrophe on a global scale can hopefully help keep your generation from making the same horrific mistake.
What the Boomer generation knew – and when we knew it
In previous sections, I drew attention to the fact that the climate crisis was principally brought about in a single lifetime, mine. I also noted that an unusual time delay is in part responsible here, as the consequences of our actions were not felt at the time but are only now catching up with us now, decades later.
This raises a crucial question: did we see this coming or not? In other words, did we know that our actions would likely bring about a catastrophe on a global scale that would threaten the very future of our species?
Short answer? Yes, for over fifty years, we clearly feared that this was going to happen. And by “we,” I mean not just scientists, scholars, activists, and policymakers, but the average person on the street in the US. knew and was very worried.
In order to understand what we knew and how, let’s focus on the two principal greenhouse gases, CO2 (carbon dioxide, which is released during the burning of fossil fuels) and methane (which for the most part is emitted by the beef industry and while fracking for fossil fuels).
With respect to CO2, if, 50 years ago (in the early 1970s), you asked the average American if we needed to end our reliance on fossil fuels by the close of the 20th century, the answer would very likely have been a decided “Yes.” Moreover, most people feared that failure to do so might well result in an existential catastrophe for the human race. In simple terms, in the early 1970s most Americans feared that if we did not quickly ween ourselves off of fossil fuels we would risk the collapse of our civilization, possibly as early as the beginning of the 21st-century.
With respect to methane, many people in the US. and the developed world by the early 1970s, as we shall see, knew that meat consumption was an environmental disaster.
In short, most Americans in the early 1970s knew that if we didn’t ween ourselves off of fossil fuels and meat then we were flirting with a global disaster of unprecedented scope, likely beginning early in the 21st-century. The interesting thing is that this concern was not directly related to climate change.
I will explain this unusual state of affairs directly, but first I want to specifically address what we knew about how CO2 would impact the global climate – and when we knew it.
As a colleague of mine at UC Santa Barbara, John Perlin, has recently argued, Eunice Foote, notably a woman scientist, was the first person to suggest that increased levels of atmospheric CO2 would result in global temperature rise. This was, astonishingly, in 1854.
Flash forward a century, in 1956, shortly before I was born, physicist Gilbert Plass published an article entitled “The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change,” which noted that we could expect global temperature to rise significantly in the 20th century as a result of the burning of fossil fuels. Using computer models, which were just coming on the scene at the time, Plass predicted a global temperature rise by the year 2000 that has proven to be pretty accurate, all things considered.
In less than a decade, in 1965, the President’s Science Advisory Committee, which is housed in the White House, produced an important report entitled “Restoring The Quality of Our Environment.” After being presented with it, President Lyndon Johnson made reference to it and the problem of rising CO2 levels in a speech to Congress.
Here are just a few lines from that report:
“Through his worldwide industrial civilization, Man is unwittingly conducting a vast geophysical experiment. Within a few generations he is burning the fossil fuels that slowly accumulated in the earth over the past 500 million years.”
“By the year 2000 the increase in CO2 will be close to 25%. This may be sufficient to produce measurable and perhaps marked changes in climate.”
“The climate changes that may be produced by the increased CO2 content could be deleterious from the point of view of human beings.”
So, yes, we knew about this problem from nearly the beginning, in the sense that scientists and policymakers (including the President) were alerted to the issue at the point when it was emerging as a significant global problem – right around the time that I was born.
During the past 60 years, the problem has, on and off, emerged as a significant political issue. Nathaniel Rich has, for example, outlined how, starting in the 1970s, a decade-long effort almost resulted (according to Rich) in binding treaties that would have reeled in global CO2 rise. (source) It is also now clear that fossil fuel companies like Exxon have known about the problem in great detail for decades, starting in the 1970s. (source)
However, it can be argued – to be honest, I have heard it argued quite a bit – that the public (i.e. the average person on the street) really did not know about the impending climate crisis. To people of my generation, this can be a comforting stance, as in many ways it lets us off the hook. In other words, yes we did something that has proven to be environmentally disastrous, but we had no idea that it would be a problem.
This is an important issue to address. My goal is not to cast blame on my generation, but rather to see our story as a cautionary tale.
The simple fact is that we absolutely did know that what we were doing would be disastrous. Although not with respect to climate change, we nonetheless knew that we were setting the stage for a worldwide catastrophe by the early 21st-century. And yes, if you would have stopped and asked any random American on the street at that time, they would have almost certainly have told you that they knew – and were worried, perhaps very worried.
Allow me to explain.
In 1956, the same year that Gilbert Plass published his article on “The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change,” M. King Hubbert, a geologist working for the Shell oil company, introduced his theory of “peak oil.” Hubbert noted that every year we were pumping more oil out of the ground than the previous year. Eventually, he theorized, this trend would end as we began running out of oil. He predicted that this year of “peak oil” would be right around 1970. After that, the trend would reverse, as we would then be pumping less and less oil out of the earth each year as worldwide reverse were depleted.
Almost like clockwork, in the US. oil production started to decline in 1970. Consequently, we began relying more and more on imported oil, especially from the Middle East. In 1973, Middle Eastern oil producers put an embargo on the export of their oil to the US. for political reasons. This sent shock waves through America, as we were suddenly found ourselves running out of oil to heat our homes and gasoline to power our cars. As you might imagine, the cost of heating oil and gasoline soared.
This was the first “energy crisis” of the 1970s. Another would follow in 1979. The average American was profoundly, personally impacted by all this, as there were, for example, long (in some cases very long) lines to buy gasoline because of the shortage. And then there was the price: the average cost of a gallon of gasoline in the United States in 1970 was $.36 per gallon. By 1980, it had tripled in cost to $1.19 per gallon (source).
Consequently, most Americans not only knew about peak oil in the early 1970s, we knew that, as a consequence, we needed to quickly weaned ourselves off of fossil fuels. This resulted in the first mad dash in the US. away from fossil fuels and toward the development of renewable energy sources. By the end of the 1970s, the President, Jimmy Carter, was putting solar panels on the White House.
So, even though many Americans had not heard of global warming 50 years ago, nearly everyone knew that we needed to stop burning fossil fuels and switch to renewable energy – and knew that we needed to do so quickly.
With respect to methane released during meat (principally beef) production, thanks in part to an internationally best-selling book in 1971, Diet for a Small Planet, the concept of “environmental vegetarianism” became widely known at the time. This is refusing to eat meat because of the harm that it does to the environment, as opposed to not doing so for other reasons, such as the ethical treatment of animals. Consequently, even though meat production had not been linked to climate change by the early 1970s, most Americans knew that eating meat was deeply problematic environmentally.
In short, fifty years ago, in the early 1970s, the average American on the street may not have known about climate change, but they definitely did know that we needed to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels and meat, and that we needed to do it quickly. If we didn’t to this, all indications were that we would bring about global catastrophe by the early 21st-century.
We knew what we had to do, yet we didn’t act on this knowledge.
We often talk about how important knowledge is, but, as this example proves, it is not as powerful as we might think.
“Knowledge is power” is an often repeated, popular phase. In spite of its simplistic appeal, the problem with this statement is that it is just plain wrong. Knowledge is not power – not by a long shot.
Let’s say that millions of people are in possession of a profound and important piece of knowledge. For example, that our earth could sustainably feed billions of human beings, if we all would only eat a largely plant-based diet – something that the bestselling book Diet for a Small Planet made clear in 1971. Just having read it in a book, and thus being in possession of this knowledge, is not enough. In this sense, “knowledge is knowledge” – and little more. It’s hardly power.
For it to become power, we must act on knowledge.
Hence, a more accurate formulation would be “if acted upon, knowledge is power.” And it wouldn’t hurt to throw in a cautionary addendum: “if not acted upon, knowledge is power squandered.”
The knowledge that I have been addressing in this talk was largely squandered.
Coming when it did, fifty years ago – when global greenhouse gas emissions were just beginning to skyrocket – this knowledge regarding fossil fuels and meat had the power to change the world, to save the world. Instead, it was mostly ignored. This crucial, extraordinary knowledge never became power.
In the case of the few people who acted upon, for example, the knowledge that a largely plant-based diet could be enormously powerful – environmentally, politically, ethically and in a host of additional ways – they were often marginalized, even laughed at.
For the sake of our species, our planet, and all the life that we share it with, we cannot afford to let this happen again.
We need to act, and to act now, in response to what we know. At the risk of repeating myself, knowledge is power only when acted upon. Otherwise, knowledge is power squandered. Let my generation be a cautionary tale.
The activating of the power latent in knowledge has a name that derives from the word “action”: “activism.” Even if the extraordinary action takes place in a particularly mundane way – such as at the dinner table, or by taking the bus rather than a car – it can nonetheless be powerful climate activism.
Chapter 7, Readings
Reading 1, The uninhabitable (or at least unwelcoming) earth
In December of 2015, 196 nations of the planet Earth agreed to do their best to keep global temperature rise “to well below 2 degrees Celsius” from a preindustrial baseline. This was at the 21st annual session of the Conference of the Parties, also known as COP21. The agreement reached has become known as the “Paris Agreement.” What’s more, these nations agreed to also “pursue efforts to” limit the temperature increase to just 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Sounds good, right?
The problem is that the global temperature has already risen by two thirds that amount (1 degree Celsius from preindustrial levels). What’s more – and worse – the the nations involved have only promised to reduce emissions, as the Paris Agreement has no enforcement mechanism.
In less than two years after the COP21, the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change appointed by the United Nations to study the climate crisis) released a Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C that suggested that a 1.5 degree Celsius rise could happen in as little as 11 years (just ten years from the time that I am recording this) and almost certainly within 20 years if major cuts on global greenhouse emissions were not made immediately. Since we are not yet taking the necessary steps to make these cuts, a 1.5 degree rise seems inevitable and 2 degrees likely.
Unfortunately, as the IPCC Report made clear, even a 1.5 degree rise would have profound global consequences – and a 2 degree rise would obviously be still worse.
But what sort of consequences would we be facing if we fail to stop global temperature at 2 degrees, which now seems entirely possible, if not in fact likely?
This is the question taken up by David Wallace-Wells in July 2017 New York Magazine article entitle “The Uninhabitable Earth.” Wallace-Wells has, incidentally, subsequently written a book with the same title and published as followup article entitled “We’re Getting a Clearer Picture of the Climate Future — and It’s Not as Bad as It Once Looked.”
The 2017 article lays out the consequences of climate change if we do not act quickly and decisively. Wallace-Wells explains:
“This article is the result of dozens of interviews and exchanges with climatologists and researchers in related fields and reflects hundreds of scientific papers on the subject of climate change. What follows is not a series of predictions of what will happen — that will be determined in large part by the much-less-certain science of human response. Instead, it is a portrait of our best understanding of where the planet is heading absent aggressive action. It is unlikely that all of these warming scenarios will be fully realized, largely because the devastation along the way will shake our complacency. But those scenarios, and not the present climate, are the baseline. In fact, they are our schedule.”
While many authors focus on the impact of 1.5-2 degrees (Celsius) of global temperature rise, Wallace-Wells rightly notes that such a small rise in temperature is a best-case – and at this point probably unlikely – scenario, especially as human activity has already warmed the earth by 1 degree Celsius. With this in mind, Wallace-Wells takes up the question of what the earth (and our lives) would be like with a 2-4 degree Celsius rise – which is where we are headed if we do not act quickly.
“The Uninhabitable Earth” generated quite a bit of controversy, as many people (including some climate scientists) thought that he was being too alarmist. However, as Wallace-Wells makes clear in the above quote, he is portraying just one possible future. He notes that it is unlikely that all of this will happen, as humanity will at some point hopefully wake up and act. However, if we do not, Wallace-Wells paints a picture of where “business as usual” (BAU) will take us.
Incidentally, because a number of individuals have questioned the scenarios that he lays out, Wallace-Wells has also created an annotated version of the article where he notes and responds to the objections.
A few questions for thought:
1) Is Wallace-Wells too alarmist? While his objective seems to be to startle us into action by laying out what the future could hold if we do nothing, does he risk doing the exact opposite by incapacitating us with fear? There is certainly quite a bit of doom and gloom in the article. Expressed another way, how did you feel, or what did you want to do, after putting down the article? Did you feel prompted to action? Or did you simply want to cry?
2) Regarding the above question, does taking an alarmist tack risk alienating certain readers? Climate change deniers and skeptics frequently refer to people who are trying to alert us to the dangers of climate change as “climate change alarmists,” as they characterize them as trying to frighten us into action. As an obvious alarmist in this sense, Wallace-Wells fits into a category that some people might summarily dismiss.
3) Wallace-Wells focuses on a number of specific consequences of climate change, including Heat Death, The End of Food, Climate Plagues, Unbreathable Air, Perpetual War, Permanent Economic Collapse, Poisoned Oceans. Which did you find the most compelling and worrisome? Why?
A final thought: some people might be quick to dismiss Wallace-Wells as he is looking forward to an uncertain future. However, a quick look to the recent past makes it hard to dismiss Wallace-Wells as simply an alarmist. At the close of the twenty-teens, journalists Sarah Ruiz-Grossman and Lydia O’Connor published an article on “7 Numbers Show How Dire Climate Change Got This Decade.” Allow me to end by repeating them:
1) The past five years were the hottest ever recorded on the planet
2) Four of the five largest wildfires in California history happened this decade
3) Six Category 5 hurricanes tore through the Atlantic region in the past four years
4) Arctic sea ice cover dropped about 13% this decade
5) Floods with a 0.1% chance of happening [i.e. a one in a thousand chance of happening] in any given year became a frequent occurrence
6) There were more than 100 “billion dollar” climate disasters, double from the decade before
7) Meanwhile, we pumped a record 40.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air in 2019
Class discussion of “The Uninhabitable Earth”
(Note that the following observations, which are in italics, have not been paraphrased or altered, though I do correct the occasional typo and, because of space concerns, often just part of the comment is reproduced here along with my reply. In working through these, I will first quote an observation by a student, followed by my thoughts.)
After reading the article “The Uninhabitable Earth” by David Wallace-Wells I felt more worried and scared rather than wanting to jump up to take action. Although his article said nothing but the truth it left me feeling more discouraged than anything. As explained in the article the actions that need to be taken now are more drastic because the actions should have started years ago but instead the health of our world and atmosphere was put on the back burner.
In the chapter of Climate Crisis 101 explaining the course overview, I noted that one of the difficulties in communicating the climate crisis is that people might feel, as this person succinctly notes, “scared rather than wanting to jump up to take action.” However, allow me to again repeat what I explained in that section, namely that, just the first three chapters of Climate Crisis 101 are taken up with the problem. As we shall see, there is plenty that we can do to resolve this issue if we act decisively and act now. I hope this material will make you want to “jump up to take action.”
In all honesty, I thought this article would be like every other article addressing climate change that I had read before. I know that the Earth is warming up. I know that the rate at which it warms up is accelerating, and I know that if action isn’t taken now, the future of this planet and its inhabitants won’t look too bright. I thought that this article would just be a redundant embellishment of these three points. What I came to realize after getting only two and a half paragraphs deep into “The Uninhabitable Earth” was how incredibly pretentious my attitude towards the subject had been. There was so much more to learn.
Make no mistake, anthropogenic climate change is not simple. Even if you understand the underlying science (which would be an accomplishment in its own right), there is so much more to address here. As David Wallace-Wells makes clear, the societal implications of all this are complex and profound, as are the remedies that we need to enact to mitigate the crisis.
Climate Crisis 101 is, as the name suggests, an introduction to the problem. However, as this person rightly note, there is “so much more to learn.” Consequently, think of Climate Crisis 101 as an introduction to something that you may in fact want to learn more about, either through coursework or just by keeping up with what is happening in our rapidly changing the world.
I’ve come to understand that my mothers and grandparents’ generation set my generation up for failure due to not taking into consideration their anthropogenic climate impact. It is in the hands of my generation to save the planet earth… Wallace alarmist tone made me fear for the future of my kids I wish to have one day. However, it filled me with fear that motivated me to do something about it. Take for instance Ads and signs you see in regards to smoking tabaco, they defiantly use an alarmist tone to encourage people to stop consuming them. Perhaps setting up warning signs on gas pumps and flight tickets such as those seen of cigarette packs would motivate my generation and others to make a change for our earth.
As we shall see in detail (there is a whole chapter of Climate Crisis 101 devoted to the topic), my generation did indeed set up the current generation coming on the scene, that of my students, for failure. Consequently, it is “in the hands of my [your] generation to save the planet earth.”
This is a great example of something that we could do to help mitigate the climate crisis: put “warning signs on gas pumps and flight tickets such as those seen of cigarette packs.”
Although health warnings are required on every package of cigarettes sold in the United States, in other countries, like Germany, the warnings are especially blunt and powerful, such as “[s]moking can cause a slow and painful death.” What if we had similarly powerful warnings on gas pumps with the key term used by David Wallace-Wells: “Burning fossil fuels is making the earth uninhabitable for human beings”?
As we shall repeatedly see in Climate Crisis 101, there are all sorts of little things that we can do to help mitigate the climate crisis. Some of them, like this suggestion for warning labels, would be surprisingly easy to do. I also suspect that it would be surprisingly effective.
This makes clear that there are things that anyone could do to help with the climate crisis, such
as creating a viral online campaign designed to pressure politicians to require such warning labels…
By the way, if we were up to me, I would go further by drawing attention to the fact that over 50 million people are annually killed or injured worldwide by automobiles and that, for the average American, automobile use is responsible for a quarter of their carbon footprint. Imagine if every shiny new car had a prominent warning painted across both sides: “Cars kill people and the planet.” I’m just saying, it’s an idea.
Rather than give a simple breakdown of the statistics, David Wallace-Wells challenges his readers to drop the past and present and instead project their thoughts into the future. He makes us realize that many parts of the world such as Bangladesh have next to no hope in surviving our current rate of climate change. In addition, Wallace-Wells firmly grounds his readers into the hard reality that we face: the world is on track to surpass the goals set by the Paris Agreement.
This comment is succinct and to the point: “the world is on track to surpass the goals set by the Paris Agreement” and “parts of the world such as Bangladesh have next to no hope in surviving our current rate of climate change.”
The Paris Agreement, which was signed at COP 21 in 2015, is a promise by the nearly 200 countries on earth that they would take up the challenge of mitigating the climate crisis. Since it took decades to extract that promise, it was quite an accomplishment.
Unfortunately, since then, little or nothing has been done. Why? Because this is just a promise, there is absolutely no way to enforce it. Simply put, the Paris Agreement has no teeth.
As a consequence, we are well on our way to surpassing the goals set in Paris.
One way or another, this will impact every country and every being (including the human ones) on earth. However, as this comment rightly notes, some countries and some people will be more impacted than others, with Bangladesh being a prime example.
We referred to this as a climate justice issue, because it is simply unjust that certain people in certain countries will suffer more than others. In this case, especially so, as Bangladesh did very little to contribute to the climate crisis, which was overwhelmingly caused by the wealthy countries on the planet.
If every high school student were to read Wallace-Wells’ work, I believe that the world would see rapid change.
If you ask the average person on the street what we need to mitigate the climate crisis, I suspect that many of them would say that we things need more and better wind turbines, solar arrays, and electric cars.
However, we also need more and better climate education, which, as far as I’m concerned, should begin in elementary school. And not only in the United States, as 40% of people on the planet have never heard of the climate crisis.
Unfortunately, this is easier said than done, as fossil fuel affiliates are staging an extraordinary campaign of disinformation designed to confuse the public. Still, we need to do all that we can to counter this and to make the people of the earth aware of the horrific consequences of our actions
I found it to be strikingly interesting about the effects climate change will have on our oceans. I always knew that our oceans were being polluted and that marine life is being threatened. However, learning about the concept of ocean acidification really changed my perspective on the harmful effects of greenhouse gases.
Many people are indeed aware of the visible impact that we are having on our oceans, such as our polluting them with all sorts of plastics.
However, when it comes to dumping CO2 into our atmosphere, because we cannot 1) see the impact that it has on ocean temperatures and 2) how it increases the acidity of our planet’s oceans, many people are completely unaware of these consequences of our actions.
Unfortunately, other than studying the oceans for these changes (i.e. through temperature measurements and checking PH levels), we generally only become aware of them when we see their impact, such as through the wholesale death of our planet’s coral reefs.
This brings us back to the previous point, as we need to educate people about the horrific consequences of our actions.
Depending on the car that you drive, for every mile that you drive, you could be releasing as much as one pound of CO2 into the atmosphere. Not only will this help contribute to the warming of the atmosphere (and hence oceans, as they are in immediate contact with the atmosphere across 75% of the earth’s surface), but, in addition, most of this CO2 will be directly absorbed into the oceans, thereby increasing its acidity and making our oceans uninhabitable for quite a bit of life in our oceans.
Regarding a previous point, perhaps we could come up with a whole series of warnings to paint across new cars. Another option might be “Cars are killing our oceans.”
[T]he closing statistics and facts at the end of this video really put the effects of climate change on the weather into perspective. It is a daunting reality that so much has happened over the past decade alone. It makes me wonder if stopping or slowing down climate change is even something that is possible, or if it is just a part of the earth’s evolution.
As I have previously noted, prior to the last decade or so, people used to routinely ask me when climate change was going to begin. This is now a nonsensical question, as it has already begun. As this comment rightly notes, “so much has happened over the past decade alone.” Extreme weather events, such as more common and more powerful hurricanes, droughts, wildfires, etc.
It is important to note that weather and climate are different. “Weather refers to short term atmospheric conditions while climate is the weather of a specific region averaged over a long period of time. Climate change refers to long-term changes.”
However, our changing climate is now definitely impacting our weather, which is now changing as well.
Regarding the second point made in this comment, “if stopping or slowing down climate change is even something that is possible, or if it is just a part of the earth’s evolution,” it is absolutely the case that we can slow down climate change and mitigate this crisis. Climate Crisis 101 is design to explain how we can do just that.
As to the question of whether or not this is part of the “earth’s evolution,” this is definitely not a natural occurrence, but rather is principally being caused by human beings. In other words, the earth would not be evolving in this direction if we were not doing the things that we’re doing.
However, this issue can be approached another way.
Back in the middle of the 20th century, the physicist Enrico Fermi wondered why there is no convincing evidence that the earth has been visited by intelligent extra-terrestrial civilizations. Given that do universe is so large and likely filled with habitable planets, Fermi calculated that we should definitely have been contacted or visited.
Why haven’t we?
A recent study suggests that intelligent species may simply, as part of their natural evolution, inevitably wipe themselves out through something like “nuclear holocaust or runaway climate change.” This would mean “that the overwhelming majority of peak Milky Way civilizations are already gone.”
In this sense, the climate crisis could be a natural occurrence, as it signals the zenith and corresponding collapse of human civilization on the earth. This is, of course, a horrific thought.
However, I am firmly of the opinion that we can beat Fermi’s odds and get through this – and perhaps, one day, venture out to meet other civilizations.
[David Wallace-Wells] presents statistics that put these issues into perspective and on a scale that helped me to understand the severity of what global warming has done to our planet and what will happen in the future if we fail to take action. Reference to the time in which the Earth is likely to become inhabitable gives the reader an understanding of how little time there is left relative to their lifespan.
Related to the above point of when the climate crisis is going to begin (as I noted, it’s already started) is the complementary question of how and when it will end. As David Wallace Wells makes clear, nearly all of the consequences that scientists have laid out, which he is reporting on, will largely happen in this century.
In other words, the horrific effects of anthropogenic climate will largely occur in a single lifetime – that of my current students. Consequently, just as the climate crisis was largely brought about by a single generation, mine (I explore this issue in some detail in the chapter on Climate and Generation), the full brunt of the crisis will be felt by a single generation. Of course, it won’t stop there, as it will also be felt by many subsequent generations, but the first generation to experience this, my students’ generation, will see and feel it all.
Consequently, as this comment rightly noted, David Wallace Wells “gives the reader an understanding of how little time there is left [to act to mitigate the climate crisis] relative to their lifespan.”
After reading the article, “The Uninhabitable Earth” by David Wallace-Wells I would say his article was more thought-provoking and interesting than most of the environmental films and readings that I have read in the past. A lot of environmental articles usually conclude by saying Global warming will result in a tremendous amount of world disasters such as sea level rising, causing cities to flood, more natural disasters, or some type of economic crisis, but with Wallace he goes on to further his articles by adding in how this dramatic environmental change will deeply impact human lives.
This is an important point.
When we think of the climate crisis, we often think of it in terms of the impact it will have on the climate and environment, such as floods, droughts, wildfires, and so forth. Of course, this is accurate, as all this (and much more) is already happening.
We sometimes also look at how the crisis will impact life on earth, such as by killing off coral reefs and by bringing about our planet’s sixth extinction event.
However, as David Wallace Wells and this comment make clear, “this dramatic environmental change will deeply impact human lives.” Millions (in some cases, hundreds of millions) of people will starve, be forced to migrate, and will die as a result of the climate crisis.
Consequently, even if someone were horrifically selfish and didn’t care about the planet and its remarkable breadth of life, mitigating the climate crisis just makes sense, as it may well reduce your own personal suffering in the future, as well as the suffering of any progeny that you may have.
But the fact is, we really need to care about the planet and its life, even if just for selfish reasons. As I have noted, nearly one billion people rely on coral reef ecosystems for food, especially protein. If we allow coral to die, a billion human beings will suffer the consequences.
Part II, (Heat Death), did a great job of highlighting how the change in climate could result in direct casualties via heat. It brings the question of what would happen in the case of extreme heat rise. The poorest areas do not have air conditioning, nor the ability to migrate to a cooler climate. How would this additional problem be addressed by the nations. Nations such as Iraq and India would struggle with a large lower class and poor infrastructure. I was also very surprised to see how people in El Salvador are already experiencing the effects of climate change.
How, indeed, will we deal with the fact that changes “in climate could result in direct casualties via heat?”
Mumbai is India’s second most populated city, with roughly 20 million people. Because it is in a tropical climate, the mean maximum temperature is more than 90°F for nearly every month. A 2009 study calculated that “the potential cooling demand in metropolitan Mumbai is about 24% of the demand for the entire United States.” In other words, if Mumbai is required to convert to air conditioning to allow the city to remain habitable, it will would require one fourth of the electricity demanded by cooling for the entire United States – for justice this one city.
If vast portions of the earth are made uninhabitable because of high temperatures, it would require an extraordinary amount of energy to allow the people there to survive.
Of course, migration would also be a possibility for some people, but not all for everyone, as some neighboring countries might close their borders to migrants. I know, for some countries, like the United States, this sounds unimaginable. After all, would our government be morally fine with closing our borders to people in desperate need? And even if we did, would we actually try to build a enormous wall spending nearly 2000 miles at our southern border in order to keep migrants out?
I know, when I put it that way, it almost sounds unthinkable. Unfortunately, as you know, the idea has indeed occurred to people – who thought it was, in fact, a good one.
It is truly frightening to think that we could enter an era of even greater nationalism then we have today, made possible because of vast migrations of people fleeing climate change.
The end of the article explains what needs to be done in order to hopefully not permanently destroy the earth. Wallace outlines the solution as follows: cut carbon emission from industry and energy by half each decade, get emissions from land use to be zero, and there must be technology that can extract carbon from the atmosphere at a rate two-times as fast as plants can. We need to take these extreme measures right away before it is too late.
This comment is perfectly to the point. When put this way, it seems simple enough.
And, in a way, it really is simple: We just need 1) to cut GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions and 2) do what we can to extract the emissions that we have already put into the atmosphere.
If we can succeed at this, then we can not only stop the rise of emissions, but actually reduce them, and in the process, turn back the clock to a time when atmospheric CO2 levels were at a manageable level. Although atmospheric CO2 stood around 280 ppm for thousands of years up in Shakespeare’s time, I think it is pretty safe to say that setting a goal a little above that would also be acceptable.
Say, 315ppm – which is what atmospheric CO2 levels were the year that I was born, 1959.
Of course, this is easy to say but will be hard to do. Not the least of which is because we currently have no meaningful legislation in the US. to reel in the GHG emissions from industry. Nor have people, especially Americans, shown much interest in reducing their personal greenhouse gas emissions by changing their habits, like driving, flying, eating beef, buying fast fashion, and so forth.
Finally, we do not presently have the technology to practically and economically extract carbon from the atmosphere. Unfortunately, much of the research into carbon capture and sequestration, (CCS) is being done by fossil fuel companies so that they can continue to profit from extracting fossil fuels. In essence, their position has been, if you keep letting us extract and burn fossil fuels, we will figure out a way of pulling the resultant CO2 out of the atmosphere. This is, of course, a very convoluted course of action, especially as the simpler solution is to start extracting the fossil fuels from the earth to begin with. However, as there is no money in this for the fossil fuel industry, they are pushing this so-called solution.
Not to be pessimistic or fatalistic, but throughout the article I felt like I was reading a manual on how to create mass extinction.
Hypothetically, what if the human race, for some inexplicable reason, wanted to make the earth as uninhabitable as possible, not only for our species, but for all life on the planet? I know, this sounds a little like the Death Star from the Star Wars franchise, except that rather than destroying the planet itself, such an undertaking would just kill as much life as possible, as well as render extinct as many species as possible.
Could destruction on such a planetary level be achieved? If so, how?
Sitting aside that attempting this would be downright irrational, it seems to me that human beings have not only come with two entirely plausible ways of bringing us about, but came close to doing the first and are in the process of enacting the second.
The first is the idea of ‘mutually assured destruction,” which was developed during the Cold War, and which is “a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two or more opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender.”
In addition to ensuring the annihilation of both the attacker and the defender, this could profoundly impact all life on earth, as detonating as few as 100 nuclear warheads could initiate something called a “nuclear winter” by blasting particulates high into the atmosphere where they would blanket the earth for some period of time, thereby cooling the planet. This is an essence the same thing that happened during the fifth extinction event, when an asteroid hit the earth, thereby sending particulates high into the atmosphere and causing a similar cooling of the planet that brought about the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Whether or not 100 nuclear warheads could bring about a nuclear winter is something that scientist still debate. However, “[i]t is estimated that the United States produced more than 70,000 nuclear warheads since 1945, more than all other nuclear weapon states combined. The Soviet Union/Russia has produced approximately 55,000 nuclear warheads since 1949.”
In other words, if the United States and Russia were intent on mutually assured destruction, together they could explode 1000 times more nuclear weapons than the amount that might trigger a nuclear winter.
Consequently, it might seem that this is the closest thing that we have to a Death Star.
However, there is a second option. We could, for hundreds of years, devote of our global economy to digging up and burning fossil fuels.
Doing so would have the opposite effect on the global climate, as it would dramatically heat rather than cool the planet. However, there is considerable evidence that this would be an effective strategy. While the extinction event that brought an end to the era of dinosaurs was caused by the cooling of our planet, the other four major extinction events on earth were caused by global warming caused brought about through the rise of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Since, as David Wallace Wells notes, we are currently releasing greenhouse gases at a rate that is 10 times what it was during the Permian–Triassic extinction event, which killed 97% of our life on the planet, this approach may, in fact, be the closest thing that we have to a Death Star.
Apologies for framing the climate crisis in such a horrific way. However, as David Wallace Wells notes, if we continue to burn fossil fuels at the current rate, we risk making our once welcoming planet uninhabitable for a great deal of life on earth, including human beings.
Reading 2, 2°C- Beyond the Limit, Fires, floods and free parking
If you asked most people a decade or so ago what they thought that the consequences of global warming would be for California, they would likely have mentioned sea-level rise. After all, with over 800 miles of coastline and roughly two thirds of its 40 million people living in coastal counties, it seemed as if flooding was the greatest danger to the state from the climate crisis.
As it turns out, it’s not.
The problem, having to do with temperature rise and corresponding wildly unpredictable weather and environmental conditions, has really hit home for Santa Barbara and the surrounding area.
As The Washington Post’s article on California’s changing climate makes clear,
“Since 1895, the average temperature in Santa Barbara County has warmed by 2.3 degrees Celsius, according to The Post’s analysis. Neighboring Ventura County has heated up even more rapidly. With an average temperature increase of 2.6 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times, Ventura ranks as the fastest-warming county in the Lower 48 states.”
“Warming here already has exceeded the threshold set in the 2015 Paris climate accords, which President Barack Obama joined and the Trump administration has promised to leave. The agreement concluded that average warming worldwide should be held ‘well below’ 2 degrees Celsius to avoid potentially catastrophic consequences — but it already has warmed by more than 1 degree Celsius.”
With such extraordinary temperature increase, all sorts of impacts follow. For example, fires are now a reality of life due to dry conditions and lack of rain. The 2017 Thomas Fire at Santa Barbara, at 281,000 acres, was the largest wildfire to date in California in modern history, though it was surpassed in size by the Ranch Fire less than a year later.
This is not an isolated problem, as “A quarter of California’s 40 million residents now live in high-risk fire zones.”
It is not just fires, as the article reveals, what California locals call “global weirding” has resulted in strange midday temperatures soaring to 115 degrees Fahrenheit followed by sudden cooling, which resulted in deaths of livestock animals and scorched orchards.
Something startling happened while I was writing the first draft of this short lecture.
I penned the above paragraphs, which explained that California would likely experience far more than just sea level rise as a result of climate change, on Christmas morning, 2019. My plan was to come back the next day and finish this lecture.
But that night my phone flashed with an alert that a rotating storm cell was off the coast of Santa Barbara and that the city needed to immediately brace for a tornado. Everyone was advised to take shelter in the their homes and “move to an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building and avoid windows.” While a tornado did not hit Santa Barbara that night, the National Weather Service confirmed that one touched down in the nearby Ventura harbor that was generated by a different storm cell.
Now, if you are in another state or part of the world, this may not seem like a big deal. But the central coast of California is one of just a few true Mediterranean climates on the planet. The Ancient Romans had a name for this sort of welcoming climate, they called it locus amoenus a “pleasant place.” For over two thousand years, people across the world have wistfully pinned for such a perfect pastoral climate, with none of the temperature variations and various storms that most of the planet experiences.
While a handful of small tornados have been recorded over the past hundred years in the Santa Barbra area, they are extraordinarily rare and generally insignificant. That two rotating storm cells capable of generating dangerous tornados formed during one storm is exceptionally unusual and perhaps unprecedented.
I mentionable this because it underscores that climate change will likely produce a range of consequences that, like these tornados, may well be altogether unexpected. This is not to fault the predicative computer models produced by climate scientists, but rather to underscore that in addition to the sort of things that we can model and expect, like protracted drought conditions that set the stage for wildfires, there may be a range of others that we just don’t see coming.
And this is not just limited to the physical consequences of climate change (like droughts, fires, and tornados), but even more so when the human implications are taken into account. California produces almost half of fruits, nuts and vegetables grown in the US. If there is significant change to the climate of this region, it could have profound consequences for the food supply and security of the country.
The climate crisis is not only here. The climate crisis has now come home to California.
Class discussion of “2°C- Beyond the Limit, Fires, floods and free parking”
(Note that the following observations, which are in italics, have not been paraphrased or altered, though I do correct the occasional typo and, because of space concerns, often just part of the comment is reproduced here along with my reply. In working through these, I will first quote an observation by a student, followed by my thoughts.)
I felt like this article was a car crash that I couldn’t look away from; it morbidly sucked me in! Wow, as a junior at university I really thought I knew a lot more about climate change in my local and surrounding counties but this article really informed me on a lot of details of how we’re really being affected (I live in Ventura/Ojai). I was shocked to find out that “warming in Ventura has already exceeded the threshold set in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement” and feel like this has never been voiced within my community
This is perhaps the reading I have enjoyed the most, both from English 22 and the little bit of reading we have done in this class, English 23. I enjoyed all of the personal stories told in this article and the pictures and captions that went along with it.
Compared to the pre-industrial time, the average temperature in Santa Barbara county has raised 2.3 degree Celsius, which exceeded the 2 degree Celsius which is the threshold temperature set by the Paris Agreement (America has withdrawn this agreement in 2019). In the article, what impressed me was that the government of Santa Barbara has done nothing to change the current condition. The county has pledged to decrease the emission of greenhouse gases by 15 percent compared with 2007, yet it actually rose up by 14 percent. Many of whom are aware about the consequences of climate crisis, but the mainstream seems to intentionally ignore that.
It amazes me how much firsthand experience that Santa Barbara is getting with environmental disasters, such as oil spills, wildfires, and global weirding, and is the birthplace of the modern environmental movement, but still cannot serve as an environmental-model for others to admire and be inspired by. As Wilson states: “If a place with Santa Barbara’s predominantly green electorate and political class is unwilling or unable to change, who will?” And this is exactly right. Santa Barbara is a place that has been significantly affected by the climate crisis and has finally recognized the climate crisis at the political level, but is still not putting effective policies in place to help prevent these environmental tragedies from happening over and over again. It is truly up to my generation to take action and encourage radical changes in order to try and reverse the huge effects of the climate crisis
For students like those of UCSB that may consider themselves environmentally conscious, this article became an eye opener due to the fact that there are climate change issues occurring where we live ourselves. It was pressing to see the massive impact that cars have on the environment and how simple aspects of everyday life such as transportation become an issue to the climate. It was especially alarming to see that in 2015 Santa Barbara county pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15% and two years later Santa Barbara county exceeded its prior set levels by 14%. I am sure that many believe Santa Barbara to be a more progressive city considering its young population and awareness of social and political issues, but even cities such as ours are not doing enough to combat climate change.
A section of the article that stuck out to me was “Global weirding” where the temperatures reached 115 degrees and cooled down dramatically after sunset. I remember being out on those days and having my mom call me to go home because it was too hot to be outside and It wasn’t safe.
After reading the article, 2°C: Beyond The Limit, I was left again feeling shocked. I feel like this is a pretty common theme for the first half of this class, so I’m not really surprised that I was left feeling this way. Having grown up in Southern California (San Diego) for all of my life, I’m completely embarrassed that I was THIS oblivious to the fires ravaging our state. Reading that La Paloma Ranch manager John Kleinwachter was forced to change what crops he could harvest effectively due to climate change. It’s scary reading that crops that have been growing in California for over centuries now physically cannot grow. Also, the article did a great job of showing what climate is capable of to UCSB students. Showing pictures of the blatantly eroded cliffside had to spark some type of emotion into all of us; Talking about the future state of the DP the article said, “erosion could claim up to 78 percent of the city’s bluffside beaches by 2060.”
In the article they use the term ‘environmental posers’ to describe the gap between Santa Barbara’s talk on the environment and its actions, and I think this term describes the majority of people, not just people from Santa Barbara. Yeah, we all are aware of climate change, we’re not denying that, but what have we really done as a generation that is so profoundly different from what previous generations were doing? It seems that we just accept that climate change is a huge issue, but we aren’t really doing anything that is going to make as big of a difference as we need.
Being the epicenter for the grassroots environmental movement, I had liked to think that Santa Barbara had been doing its fair share to mitigate the climate crisis, but as I read through the article I found I was sorely mistaken. The severe lack of environmental regulation really opened my eyes to one of the main reasons why the climate crisis is so threatening to us now: because there are still people in positions of power that do not wish to see us change for the greater good at some relatively small sacrifice, instead pushing the county and its residents to remain within the status quo, perpetuating the problem that they claim to be seeking a solution for. My only hope is that the people who are taking or have taken this class as well, the people in my generation who recognize the problem we are facing and realize that something must be done about it, that we are the ones that will pick up where others have left off to guide us in the right direction towards a lasting future for our species on this Earth.
Another issue Wilson only mentioned in passing but holds a lot more significance is the inequality around being environmentally friendly. Most sustainable alternatives are more expensive. For example, organic, sustainable food options (Wholefoods!!!) are nowhere near affordable for most families. While talking about Santa Barbara environmental progress, the article explained that now Santa Barbara residents automatically receive renewable power coming from solar farms in the desert. However, this is actually more expensive and residents have to opt for the less expensive nonrenewable energy. There is so much more to this issue but I just thought it was interesting to point out how most of the time sustainability is only a reality for wealthier families. It’s easy to encourage sustainability or spread blame for not caring about our planet. However this is unproductive and unfair. Sustainability and environmentally conscious living needs to be made more accessible and a possibility for change to occur.
“2 C: Beyond the limit” reminded me of a distinct memory from last year. I was in Death Valley last February as my first ever camping trip. In Winter, it was still blazing hot, but manageable. However, there were so many signs that said don’t be statistic, as the heat can kill. I shrugged it off as that was more of a summer season worry. It was 80 degrees which was far from the record of 120 degrees. In my naivety I was shocked in 2020 when LA country reached record temperatures of 120 degrees. Even in my hometown of San Diego reached 100 degrees, and I could barely function in the day. The wildest statistic of all is that Death Valley broke its own record of 125 degrees. All these degree changes make me feel scared that as California becomes more of a desert that it will become the normal temperature, and more accidents or deaths or violence will exponentially rise.
Something that has been ingrained in me just from the past two weeks of this course is that the climate crisis is happening right now. Yet, I feel like the media is still portraying this issue as something that will happen in the distant future, which significantly contributes to people not taking any action. To this day, whenever there’s news about these disastrous issues in the media- hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, etc.- I see little to no mention of climate change having any significant role in causing them.
I have only been to Santa Barbara twice to visit the campus, but I already love the city. However, after reading the article, I realized that there isn’t less of a fire danger than where I live now. I am constantly anxious about fires during the warmer seasons, and I thought that maybe when moving to Santa Barbara, I wouldn’t be as nervous. But reading this article, I realized that it isn’t much different. It’s scary to think that even in cities with coastal climates, there are still high dangers of fire. This article really opened my eyes to the fact that there aren’t places that can escape the rising climate and the consequences that come with it.
As someone who is from an agricultural region, and currently works in rice, walnut, and almond farming, the portion of the article that had to do with farming struck particularly close to home. My childhood was full of people praying for rain, and making small-talk over when “this drought would end”. The funniest part of this upbringing was that so many of these farmers were conservatives who did not and still don’t believe in climate change, despite watching their PGE bills go up and their production go down.
“2ºC: Beyond the Limit” was – as Ken stated – an article that hit close to home. Although I am not currently in Santa Barbara due to COVID, I was lucky enough to spend the majority of my first year on campus. During that year, I experienced what is – unfortunately – a now common occurrence in California: a fire. Although nowhere near the scale of the Thomas Fire, the Cave Fire (as I now know it to be named) was definitely a scary reminder that we aren’t waiting for the climate crisis; we are currently living in it.
While I certainly found it astonishing how clearly we can see the effects of climate change in our own backyard, I wanted to try to tackle why Santa Barbara is struggling to act on the goals that so many people in this area seem to value. …A few years ago I came to the conclusion that eating meat was inherently immoral based on many of my most deeply held ethical convictions. Yet, I continued to eat meat on a weekly or daily basis…I tried a vegan diet, but quickly gave up because it was just too hard…My issue is what is colloquially referred to as “moral laziness.” . …In my mind, the main issues that cause this ‘moral laziness’ are as follows. First, the notion that an individual by themselves cannot make a difference (similar to why people don’t vote in elections, as their vote is “meaningless”), second, the fact that you can’t visibly see the harm that you are doing, (you can’t watch the Co2 from your car start fires or fuel hurricanes), and thirdly, that climate change seems so off in the distance that it is not worth giving up things that give us pleasure like eating meat or wearing nice clothes. I am unfortunately guilty of these as much as anyone. I hope that this class will help me overcome this barrier.
Something that shocked me while reading this article was that the climate in Santa Barbara and other parts of California, like the Central Valley, can no longer grow staple crops such as avocados. Instead, they turn to crops more accustomed to the climate such as dragonfruit, coffee, and finger limes. When I envision any of these crops, I immediately picture a hot, moist tropical climate in a country far, far away.
Studies have found that there is no greater predictor of the number of cars on the road than the availability of free parking. And in Santa Barbara County, the biggest contributor to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions is the car.
Environmentalists are lobbying to put an end to it and to even replace parking lots on prime downtown real estate with housing. But that campaign has so far failed to budge the city council on an issue the business community says is key to profitability.
This quote is from the article itself: “If there is a God-given civic right in which Santa Barbarans believe, it is bountiful and convenient free public parking.”
I think increasing the efficacy of the SBMTD would also be a good solution to encourage less driving. Adding more stops and more buses might reduce the need for free parking.
Never have I experienced something like the fire in the Santa Barbara hills that took place in November. Although it was not close enough to directly effect myself and my friends, seeing the fire with my own eyes and not through a television was genuinely frightening. Driving to my hometown while the fire was happening another fire was happening in LA county that I also saw on the side of the freeway. Two visible fires in just one day that were unconfined for long periods of time.
This is a reference to the Cave Fire, as is this one
[T]he recent wildfire that happened in Santa Barbara is definitely a warning from nature. This is the first time when I feel that the climate crisis is more than a topic in the textbook.
And this one:
The article talked about the crazy temperature surge on July 6, 2018. Coincidentally, that day was my Freshman orientation. Everyone was sweating, dying of thirst, and it did not even cool down a bit at night. I panicked and thought maybe this kind of heat would continue.
Reading articles like “2ºC: Beyond the Limit” make me realize why scientists suggested the new moniker climate “crisis”. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine that anything could go wrong in the idyllically beautiful landscape of Santa Barbara. That’s probably why I was so stricken by the truth in Scott Wilson’s quote; “Santa Barbara is often accused of caring more about how it looks than how it lives”. I was honestly shocked to learn about our county’s consistent failure with lowering our greenhouse gas emissions. The image portrayed by the city is often one of climate awareness and action, yet in actuality we continue to fall short of those marks on many accounts.
Moving here from out of state, I had many environmental assumptions I had never really checked. Coming from the south, I took my bias of all Californians being vegan and hating plastic water bottles to mean that the community I would move into was going to be highly environmentally conscious. Yet, now I learn about the lack of action in many areas and I realize that everywhere has so much work to do, even the places that have a facade of sustainability.
Reading 3, Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
If you ask me, education can play a crucial role in the climate crisis. Coming from an educator, it’s probably not surprising that I believe this.
What you may find surprising is that climate change deniers also find educators and education of central importance. And, they are doing something about it – in a big way.
A 2016 report from the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) revealed that as many as 30% of K-12 teachers teaching climate change teach that this is a two-sided argument and that “‘many scientists’ see natural causes behind recent global warming.” Conversely, more than half of K-12 teachers do not teach climate change at all. And those who do teach it only devote an hour or two to the issue.
Part of the problem is that many of these teachers are themselves unclear on the facts. The most referenced of all papers on climate change notes that 97% of scientists are in agreement that anthropogenic climate change is real and happening. However, when questioned about this scientific consensus by the NCSE, only 30% of middle-school and 45% of high-school teachers selected the correct answer from a broad range (“81 to 100%”). In other words, even if they thought that just 80% or 90% of scientists were in consensus, they would have still selected the right answer – but they didn’t.
So, what are so many teachers confused about the climate crisis?
This confusion is not too surprising, as teachers have been targeted by fossil fuel affiliates like the Heartland Institute (I will talk more about this organization in a minute or two), which mailed 300,000 unsolicited and free copies of the book Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, a portion of which we are reading, to K-12 teachers across the US. in 2017. As the Heartland Institute notes, this book purports to explain “why the claim of ‘scientific consensus’ [in other words, that 97% figure] on the causes and consequences of climate change is without merit. The authors comprehensively and specifically rebut the surveys and studies used to support claims of a consensus. They…then provide a detailed survey of the physical science of global warming.”
Although sent to K-12 teachers, the real targets are – of course – children, as the goal is to teach them climate change skepticism by way of the people that they trust most in this regard: their school teachers.
Assuming that each of the teachers that received this book teaches around 30 children, this approach could potentially teach climate change skepticism to 10 million American children. And this, of course, it’s just one year. Hence, we are really talking about tens of millions of children.
As you will see when reading Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, this does not read like the rants of a fringe group, but rather is built upon carefully constructed arguments. Don’t be at all surprised if it causes you to become a little skeptical yourself. That’s why it was written – and written carefully.
Incidentally, even if K-12 teachers are correctly informed and desire to teach the climate crisis, in a number of states (Maine, South Dakota, and Virginia, for example) bills have been introduced that would hamper their efforts. The Virginia bill argues that this is necessary because “many teachers in public elementary and secondary school classrooms are abusing taxpayer resources and abusing their ability to speak to captive audiences of students in an attempt to indoctrinate or influence students…under the guise of ‘teaching for social justice’ and other sectarian doctrines.”
If this sounds familiar, is may well be because dozens of states are similarly attempting to ban the teaching of critical race theory, which draws attention to another truth: the fact that racism is systemic in the United States and has been ever since our country was founded. In many ways, these efforts to ban the teaching of critical race theory were led by former President Donald Trump, who said that it is “propaganda” and “left-wing indoctrination,” and that the “ [t]eaching this horrible doctrine to our children is a form of child abuse in the truest sense of those words.”
In any event, some states are attempting to go even further in mandating that students be taught that the scientific consensus on climate change is simply wrong. A bill introduced in Montana in 2019 states that “when providing educational and informational materials on climate change,” the following findings should be observed: “reasonable amounts of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere have no verifiable impacts on the environment; science shows human emissions do not change atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions enough to cause climate change; claims that carbon associated with human activities causes climate change are invalid; and nature, not human activity, causes climate change.”
As the book Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming makes clear, Americans are clearly being influenced by a massive campaign of disinformation that has been ongoing for decades now, supported by a range of groups that includes a number of conservative think tanks (generally referenced as CTTs), such as the Cato Institute, the Heartland Institute, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which are funded by fossil fuel companies (like the Koch brothers) and interests.
Dating from the Reagan administration and earlier, these groups have long seen themselves, to quote the Cato Institute, as the defenders of “America’s heritage of individual liberty, free markets, and constitutionally limited government.” In practice, the Heartland Institute, which published the book that we are reading from, Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, has, example, fought bitterly against issues like tobacco regulation, which was one of its earliest initiatives in the 1980s. At the time, it received funding from the tobacco industry.
With respect to climate change, a 2013 study by two scholars, Riley E. Dunlap and Peter J. Jacques, which looked at over 100 English-language books denying anthropogenic climate change dating from the 1980s to 2010, found verifiable links to CTT groups for 87% of those emerging from publishing houses (links with self-published denial books, now proliferating, are more difficult to trace). That number was once even higher: 100% of all books from the 1980s and 95% from the 1990s.
Simply put, if you pick up a book denying that anthropogenic climate change is real, it is exceptionally likely that it was published or financed by a conservative think tanks funded by the fossil fuel industry.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg; CTTs support a range of websites, blogs and other online activities, as well as more traditional advertising. A billboard campaign by the Heartland Institute featured a photograph of convicted “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, who thinks of himself as an environmentalist, beside the words, “I still believe in global warming. Do you?” A television commercial by the Competitive Enterprise Institute argued that the greenhouse gas CO2 is not, in fact, a contributing factor to climate change. To the contrary, it is represented as “essential to life. We breathe it out. Plants breath it in…They call it pollution. We call it life.”
These conservative think thanks also directly attack science and scientists. In response to the definitive reports on climate change produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Heartland Institute commissioned its own group, the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), which has produced over a dozen reports, comprising thousands of pages.
The book from which we are reading, Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, is in some sense similar to the IPCC Summary for Policymakers, as it is produced by the NIPCC in order to deliver its findings to policymakers and others. With this goal in mind, “[m]ore than 50,000 copies of the first edition were sold or given away in five months to elected officials, civic and business leaders, scientists, and other opinion leaders” (pages xv-xvi).
With the second edition, from which we are reading, the Heartland Institute widened their free distribution of the book, as they posted the entire book online as a free PDF (which we are reading). In addition, as noted above, the Heartland Institute mailed 300,000 copies of the second edition of this book to teachers across America.
In short, Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming is designed to make a range of individuals question whether anthropogenic climate change is real: policymakers (i.e. politicians and business leaders), educators – and by extension, tens of millions of children – and others, by making the text available to everyone as a free PDF.
I am curious to hear what you think about the portion of Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming that you read and the larger issue of this campaign of disinformation in general, as well as how it is specifically being aimed at children by way of educators.
Class discussion of Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
(Note that the following observations, which are in italics, have not been paraphrased or altered, though I do correct the occasional typo and, because of space concerns, often just part of the comment is reproduced here along with my reply. In working through these, I will first quote an observation by a student, followed by my thoughts.)
There were literally hundreds of comments that expressed a similar sentiment to the following:
I’ve never been more angry reading a document. The authors of “Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming” are lying through their teeth for money.
Here is another example:
This reading, as well as the attached Amazon reviews, really pissed me off.
To be honest, it really pisses me off too.
As we have seen, the direct consequences of the rise of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are more than a little frightening. Even if every person and every country on the planet agreed to quickly and decisively to mitigate the climate crisis, this will still be a formidable challenge, likely the greatest that humanity has ever collectively faced.
However, as Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming makes clear, we face another challenge, which is in some sense every bit as formidable, as the fossil fuel industry is working, in a whole host of ways, to attempt to keep us from acting quickly and decisively to mitigate the climate crisis. And, make no mistake, they are doing a pretty good job.
If you are unfamiliar with their methods, you might easily dismiss their efforts. Before I started studying climate change denial literature a few years ago, I have to confess to not taking it very seriously. This was a mistake. I quickly realize that an enormous amount of work was being put into this literature and, perhaps not surprisingly as a consequence, it can be very effective at causing people to doubt the validity and/or severity of the climate crisis.
How effective is this particular book? I just checked the Amazon reviews of it, which gave it a 4.2. This is all the more astonishing as a number of people gave it scathing reviews, such as the most popular on, which begins, “[t]his is one of the most egregious attempts to defuse any support of fact on the existence of global warming and climate change that I have ever read…” In contrast, there were many reviews with labels like “Well Documented And Provides Much Needed Balance To The Climate Change Debate” and “Should be a mandatory read for media and politicians.” There were clearly for more positive reviews, which accounts for that rating of 4.2.
In any event, hundreds of people in Climate Crisis 101 had the same reaction when they read our selection from Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming: their gut response was to get angry – which, as far as I am concerned, given the circumstances, is entirely appropriate.
I don’t quite understand what an individual will gain by pushing for a more clean and green environment.
If you just happened upon the book Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, or any similar climate denial literature, you may well have this same question. After all, what is to be gained by pushing for a greener and cleaner environment other than…well… a green cleaner environment and future? In other words, what could possibly be the secret agenda here? After all, we hardly need one, as this is, obviously, a worthy goal in itself.
Nonetheless, climate change deniers have come up with a variety of conspiracy theories questioning the motives of climate change scientists and activists.
One is that climate scientists are corrupt and are receiving money to sell the American public on the idea of climate change. On the cover of the book The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science by Tim Ball, a wad of cash is being exchanged between two hands. Who is providing the payoff money here? According to this theory, it is coming from a range of institutions, including the federal government, as they are purportedly pursuing a goal that has nothing to do with the environment and climate, which brings us to the big conspiracy theory here.
When communism collapsed across the world in the early 1990s, the United States was presented with something of an epistemological dilemma (in other words, a challenge to the way that the US. understood itself).
In order to develop and maintain a sense of Self, all sorts of entities are locked into a binary structure with an Other. For example, the idea of men as strong, capable, and emotionally stable is consolidated by imagining an opposite of men, an Other, as weak, incapable, and emotionally unstable: women. Such binary structures in opposition, which obviously do a profound violence to the imagined Other (in this case, women), are sadly common. Racism has long functioned by postulating inferior Others to the normative white Self.
During the Cold War, the United States postulated communist countries as the Other. Hence, the most conspicuous feature of Americans was that we were free and happy because people in communist countries were imagined as neither free nor happy. Hence, communism was perceived as a profound threat to our way of life. However, when the Cold War and the so-called Red Scare ended, the United States suddenly found itself without an Other.
Not to worry, as very quickly a new entity replaced communism as the threat to America and our way of life. What replaced the Red Scare of communism? Environmentalism, as the phrase “green is the new red” came on the scene.
In case this doesn’t make intuitive sense, allow me to explain the logic.
The particular aspect of communism at issue here is that it is a form of big government. Imagine two very different ways of governing. On the one hand, a system where the government is small and plays a relatively small role in our lives. In such an approach, the economy and corporations are allowed to largely function freely, without unnecessary government intervention.
In the other extreme, of which the large communist experiments of the 20th century (i.e. the Soviet Union and Mao’s China) are prime examples, a large government is in direct control of the economy and corporations. This is government at its biggest.
What does this have to do with environmentalism and being green? The (conspiracy) theory here is that all sorts of restrictive government regulations will be introduced under the guise of being environmental. Because these restrictions are being cast as benign and good, we will allow them to be adopted without realizing that the hidden goal is to create a large and stronger government, like communism.
In terms of the climate crisis, because the nations of the world need to act together on this particular issue, the fear is that this project will go even further, linking up individual countries to act essentially as one world government – which, allegedly, is also the goal of communism.
In other words, in this view, environmentalism is a particularly insidious way of bringing big government and communism back.
Of course, this does raise the question of who stands to gain here. Not people or the planet, as reduced environmental restrictions put us all at greater risk. In contrast, corporations that would like to act as freely as possible without government intervention, stand to gain a lot here.
In particular, the fossil fuel industry has an enormous amount at risk. If you measure the wealth of companies by revenue, Apple Computer ranks number 10 in the world. Not at all bad; however, there are four oil and gas companies on the top ten list that are larger. If we phase out our fossil fuel economy and replace it with renewable energy, these companies (at least as fossil fuel companies) will go out of business.
Hence, the fossil fuel industry and its affiliates are in a desperate battle to survive. The difficulty is that their survival comes at the cost of making it difficult for life on earth, including human life, to survive.
When I first started reading the book, I hadn’t read the webpage introducing the book, any of the Amazon reviews, or watched Ken’s introduction about it. I found myself confused and almost started believing what I was reading until I took a step back and realized this book was denying climate change. I’m shocked at their convincing skills…
The first time that I taught Climate Crisis 101, a number of people similarly jumped right into reading Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming without first encountering my framing of the selection. Although I certainly did not intend for this to happen, these became, in a certain way, an interesting case study in the effectiveness of the work.
And make a new mistake, it was effective.
Dozens of people in the class had the same response. As this person so succinctly puts it, “I found myself confused and almost started believing what I was reading…” If this was the response of bright, attentive college students who were likely predisposed to already believe in the validity of the climate crisis (I suspect nearly all students who enroll in Climate Crisis 101 are of this belief), how might the general public respond to such a work?
When I first read Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, it became clear to me that it would likely be very effective for certain audiences. However, I have to admit to being surprised at how effective it was, even on my students.
I went to a high school in a relatively conservative town. My freshman year of high school, I remember the honors biology teacher explaining how climate change was a hoax only perpetuated to continue taxing Americans. I took this to be true. At that point, I was thirteen years old and wasn’t presented with other information that would contradict his argument. It wasn’t until my junior year of high school that I began to question what the teacher’s motives were for spreading misinformation to 13- and 14-year-olds. I then realized how many of my classmates were not going to have the same realization as I did about climate change… Many of my classmates, most likely, still believe that climate change is a hoax because of this teacher, and will see it only as a ploy used to tax Americans.
The fact that the Heartland Institute mailed 300,000 unsolicited copies of Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming to K-12 teachers across the US. does not prove that it was effective at influencing these educators.
However, there were many comments like this attesting to the fact that K-12 teachers are indeed teaching climate change denial, even in progressive states like California.
Note that the approach used by this particular biology teacher buys into the aforementioned conspiracy theory that the climate crisis is a hoax designed to create a stronger central government in the US. Not only would this, as previously noted, restrict the unchecked activities of a variety of industries, it would result in more taxes on Americans. Hence, this conspiracy theory creates a compelling personal reason to resist climate change action.
However, it should be noted, that in countries that have stronger central governments, such as many EU countries (like Denmark and France,), while individuals do indeed pay more taxes, they receive a great deal in return, such as free health and dental care, free college educations, higher minimum wage and other protections for workers (like thirty-hour work weeks in Denmark), free and better mass transit, and so forth.
In any event, it is more than a little disturbing that climate change denial is being taught to 13- and 14-year-olds right here in California, where, as we have seen, climate change is already at a crisis point with wildfires, droughts, heat deaths, and other impacts.
Not only do high school students receive wrong information, as with this example, but as the following comments makes clear, many simply do not receive any instruction at all on the climate crisis.
It’s frustrating that deniers target teachers, legislators, and businesspeople but quite frankly, who else did we think they would target? They want to get at the root of our society, children who trust their teachers more than anyone. As I was reading, I was reminded of all of my teachers growing up – none of them talked about climate change at all.
Similarly, someone else in Climate Crisis 101 noted that,
Most of what I myself learned about the climate crisis has been through this class and last quarter’s English 22 class.
Unfortunately, many high school students in the US. have not had an introduction to the climate crisis, even in states like California that are pretty green. A big part of the problem is that California’s educational code does not mandate it.
Under California’s Public Resources Code (last amended in 2018), “[s]chools are encouraged to teach environmental literacy, which by definition includes climate change…The…Code does not mandate that schools teach it, however.”
Consequently, when an informal poll was taken in 2019 in the Oakland Unified School District, it was found that “about 60 percent of surveyed science teachers were not familiar with the state’s Environmental Principles and Concepts and nearly 70 percent were unfamiliar with the recently adopted board policy for environmental and climate change literacy.”
So, even if there are laws enacted to encourage the teaching of climate change literacy, teachers may will not be aware of them.
The good news is that “[m]ore than 40 California districts and county offices of education have adopted climate change resolutions since 2017 as part of a national effort started by Schools for Climate Action.” The amazing thing is that Schools for Climate Action is not State program, but rather a grassroot “California-based advocacy initiative led by science teacher Park Guthrie and his students at Salmon Creek Middle School in Sonoma County.”
Still, although Schools for Climate Action is encouraging, it is clear that we really need state and federal laws to mandate the teaching of the climate crisis at all levels of K-12.
I know, kindergarten might sound a little young. However, personal experience (with my daughter when she was in kindergarten) has convinced me that children can really understand the situation. For example, as I explained to my daughter, just as veggies are good for your body and treats are not, wind turbines and solar panels are good for the earth, but burning coal and oil is bad. Similarly, bicycles are good; gas guzzling SUVs bad. Beans and lentils good; beef bad. It really is just that simple.
Moreover, this education needs to continue at the university level. Currently neither UCSB nor the University of California requires that students learn about the climate crisis. As far as I am concerned, this absolutely needs to change.
After reading the start of this book I am in shock. This highlights a deep flaw that we face in our time, which is Google and the ability to find anything. This leads to a problem called confirmation bias, which is a term used in Psychology referring to the act of only acknowledging opinions and facts that align with your prior beliefs. If someone was in denial or only concerned with their day-to-day problems and didn’t want to deal with the reality of climate change, they would seek out this book to confirm what they think.
So far, we have been talking about books, like Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming. However, most people do not now get their information from books nowadays. As this comment notes, the starting point for many people is now Google.
So, you type in something related to the climate crisis into your browser’s search field. A list of tens sources appears before you can blink. As you scroll down, you tend to dismiss some options and click on others. For example, if you are a climate change skeptic, you likely click on choices that are in accord with your beliefs.
Why is this the case? As this comment noted, something called “confirmation bias” is at work here. “Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring contrary information, or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing attitudes.”
Confirmation bias is just one of a number of cognitive biases that human beings share. As all of us are susceptible to these, it means that there is a real danger of us falling down any number of online rabbit holes.
Moreover, it has been argued that “Google is manipulating search and news results to bias them towards what it thinks it knows about people, based on the troves of personal data it has on them…This filtering and censoring of search and news results is putting users in a bubble of information that mirrors and exacerbates ideological divides.”
So, not only do people, by virtue of their confirmation bias, select only things that conform with what they believe, but Google itself is offering up search results that it believes are in accord with the beliefs of the person doing the searching, based on the information that they have compiled about of us. This is not the result of the actions of climate change deniers, but rather is the way that our brains and Google’s algorithms work.
In practice, this means that we can very easily slip into an online bubble where people believe, for example, that the climate crisis is a hoax. Once there, it only gets worse, as there are very active online communities of climate change deniers. So, if you happen stumble upon, for example, one of their boards, you will likely find nothing but people who are sincerely convinced that the climate crisis is a massive hoax. If you hang out there long enough, they may well convince you too.
But why, you may ask, would someone agree with something outlandishly improbable, like the fact that the entire scientific community and the collective nations of the earth are perpetrating a massive, global hoax by making up something like the climate crisis? Unfortunately (and to make things worse), human being seem to be hardwired to be drawn to conspiracy theories as a way of “[1]understanding one’s environment…[2 feeling]… safe and in control of one’s environment…[and 3] maintaining a positive image of the self and the social group” to which you belong.
Hence, although we might hope that our knee-jerk response to an outlandish conspiracy theory would be to simply reject it, we are in many ways hardwired to be predisposed to it.
To add on to that list of hypocritical things that climate change deniers have done, I’m sitting here thinking about what Ken said regarding the billboard with the unabomber saying “I still believe in climate change. Do you?” Like do climate change deniers know what we could put on a billboard? I kept thinking of different prominent climate change deniers, but in the end, I think the most effective billboard would just be a barrel of oil that read “I don’t believe in climate change, but I also don’t have family in Miami.”
First, I would love to see that billboard!
Second, it is interesting to note that while fossil fuel interests are often highly effective, including in their use of media, in getting out their message, the same, sadly, cannot always be said of groups and individuals attempting to get spread awareness of the climate crisis. Certainly, climate scientists do their part, but they are generally not trained as public communicators.
Reading 4, Walden
Henry David Thoreau’s 1854 classic Walden is a fascinating book that has been read very differently at different times.
Walden recounts (in literary form) Thoreau’s experience of living a rustic life on the shores of Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts. In the second half of the 20th century especially, readers were fascinated by Thoreau as a proponent of a back-to-nature lifestyle. The idea of leaving our overly mechanized lives behind in order to live simpler lives closer to nature fascinated the 1960s generation, some of whom actually built wilderness cabins and communes in emulation of Thoreau. He also played a role in inspiring books such as Into the Wild.
However, Thoreau can also be seen as the great grandparent of the modern minimalist movement, as he famously reduced one of Walden’s core messages to a two-word imperative: “simplify, simplify.” This is arguably Thoreau’s most useful message for the 21st century.
In this sense, Thoreau did something altogether extraordinary (arguably far more extraordinary than living in a semi-wilderness setting) – yet, nonetheless, something all of us should arguably do at some point in our lives:
He stepped out of his regular routine to ponder the sort of life that he considered worth living. In practice, he took a couple of years of his life to, as he puts it, “front only the essential facts of life.” He wanted to strip away all the stuff and crap surrounding him to find the meaningful life under it all. Among other things, he considered housing, clothing, and food.
Distressed by his neighbors, who even in the 1850s were building increasingly lavish houses, Thoreau pondered what would be the simplest dwelling possible for a single person. His answer? A wooden version of a single-person tent, with a floor just big enough for a bedroll. To keep things simple from the start, he proposed recycling a used railway storage box, which could be purchased at the time for a dollar, for the purpose. Ultimately, he settled on a larger structure, which at 150 square feet may seem lavish by comparison but is nevertheless about the size of an average garden shed (which his cabin at Walden Pond resembled).
When Thoreau turned his attention to clothing, he railed against the fashion industry, which even then was centered in Paris, for encouraging us to buy into fleeting trends: “The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler’s cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.” Because “every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new,” clothing was (as it is even more today) being discarded as unfashionable when it was still quite usable. To simplify things, Thoreau suggested not giving in to the whims of fashion. Instead, own just a few pieces of sturdy clothing and, for good measure, “beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.”
With respect to food, Thoreau made repeated appeals for the simplicity of vegetarianism: “I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals.” As early as Walden, he also rejected imported foodstuffs, like coffee and tea. His last work, unpublished in his lifetime, was a celebration of local and seasonal wild fruit, which he extolled as superior to their imported counterparts, such as oranges and bananas that were being shipped into US. ports (like nearby Boston) by way of sailing ships.
In general, though he was certainly given to his share of philosophical musing, throughout his life Thoreau repeatedly drew his (and our) attention to the most basic of our day-to-day needs, which, he provocatively argued can be satisfied far more simply than we usually imagine.
But Thoreau did something more, something bigger and altogether extraordinary: he challenged us all to ponder the role that we were given at birth. This has profound environmental implications.
Think of life like a play, a theatrical performance, that has been scripted for you. When you were born, you stepped into a role, exceptionally intricate, that was written long before you were even conceived. For example, where you would live, how you would get around, what you would eat, all this was spelled out for you, in detail. It’s not that you weren’t given some latitude in playing the role. For example, you could choose the car that you wanted and could afford. However, you could not easily choose to forgo having a car – not if you wanted to play the role successfully (i.e. be seen as a success).
Like many generations before, my generation lived the life scripted for us. In that sense, we did not take up Thoreau’s challenge to reconsider the life written for us. What’s worse, in many ways ours was an over-the-top performance in the role, as we did so many things bigger and more outlandishly. For example, in dramatic contrast to Thoreau, we live in houses that are 2 1/2 times larger than those of our parents (which, incidentally, were already six times larger than Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond).
The new generation coming on the scene, that of my students, cannot live the life scripted for them, as this would be environmentally disastrous. To some, this will be frustrating, perhaps enormously so, as the pressure to conform to that role (which comes from a thousand directions in our culture) can be pretty intense. Even little things, like forgoing a car and meat-eating, can be met with a backlash from those, happily living the scripted role, who see this as a threat to that way of life.
If you happily accept the role handed to you, this might be especially frustrating. Yes, the generations that came before you had lots of things that you will not have. Let’s face it, we had awesome amounts of stuff. However, it is not at all clear that any of this made us happy. Indeed, it has arguably done just the opposite.
In any event, what this new generation needs to do is to take up Thoreau’s challenge and reconsider and rewrite the script. This can be seen as an opportunity – a huge and exciting one. However, it is also an enormous challenge.
So, my question is just what do you make of Thoreau and his challenge to an overly bloated life? Given that he is responding to life in nineteenth-century America, imagine what his reaction would be to our consumer world. Is Thoreau onto something, should we all “simplify, simplify”?
As usual, I will select a number of your comments and respond to them in a future episode.
Class discussion of Walden
(Note that the following observations, which are in italics, have not been paraphrased or altered, though I do correct the occasional typo and, because of space concerns, often just part of the comment is reproduced here along with my reply. In working through these, I will first quote an observation by a student, followed by my thoughts.)
I wasn’t a major fan of this reading. Thoreau stood out to me as very spoiled and at times even racist (Savages?! I mean come on). Still, despite not enjoying reading such long-winded prose, I can still see how it relates to today. He mentions how buying a house can take ages and that it would be simpler to “buy” (or build) a smaller one that you can own. One that won’t take you most of your life to pay off so that you may enjoy the fruits of life. Even more relatable was when he talked about college dorms, and how his “house” cost as much as one, except he didn’t need to pay for it annually or have to worry about loud and obnoxious roommates/neighbors. I believe these two things were what intrigued me the most and caused me to go “Ah, okay I see what you mean” after paragraphs of barely understanding what was being said.
Good point. As I made clear in the Introduction to our online edition of Walden, there are a number of things in the book that are off-putting – if not reason enough to forever put it down. It is also the case that one can, as this comment notes, sometimes read whole paragraphs of Walden without a clue as to what Thoreau is getting out.
In many ways, Thoreau is certainly a product of his age. This is especially evident when he talks about people from cultures other than his own. Although he may, in fact, be drawing attention to something valuable about their culture, more often than not one gets the impression that he still nonetheless sees himself as fundamentally superior to these individuals.
In instances like this, it would be nice to be able to see these beliefs as being Thoreau’s culture speaking through him, rather than his own deeply held convictions. The problem is that other writers at the time didn’t buy into these beliefs, but rather, in fact, drew attention to them as problematic. Moreover, as Thoreau is urging us to reconsider many of our own beliefs, it is discouraging that he doesn’t do so in this case.
So, while I certainly do not think that we should ignore any of this, it is useful to provisionally bracket it off (as did the person who made this comment) so that we can better understand what Thoreau has of value for us. For example, as this person notes, by reconsidering whether or not we would like to have a big house, or, instead of spending “most of your life” working to pay it off, it would be better to spend that time enjoying “the fruits of life.”
I remember doing a project on Henry David Thoreau in eight grade and learning about his time at Walden [Pond] and initially thinking it was quite impressive that he survived on his own. Then, I learned that he was not really very far from civilization. Now that I know more about the world as I’ve grown up as well, I thought it was interesting that you mentioned that he wouldn’t have been able to do this if he was not a straight, wealthy, white male. That was an aspect of Walden that I had not considered before this class, and it is quite true
As I noted in my Introduction to our online edition of Walden, because Thoreau’s life was one marked by privilege, most Americans would not have been able to do what he did by moving “back to nature,” which was, as this comment notes, was “not really very far from civilization.”
In this sense, as a back-to-nature manual, Walden will only likely appeal to a limited number of people. I suspect that this is one of the reasons why some people have been turned off by Walden. One can imagine generations of readers putting down the book saying, “Well, I certainly couldn’t go out and live in some far-off wilderness– and for that matter, neither did Thoreau, regardless of how he makes it seem in the book.” Fair enough.
However, the aspect of the Thoreau’s project that interests me most (and which I focused on in the Introduction), simplifying one’s life by becoming more mindful of it in all its many details, strikes me as something that most people can, one way or another, achieve.
This is one of the reasons why we are not approaching Walden as a back-to-nature manual, but instead as, for lack of another term, as a “back-to-life manual,” in the sense as it instructs us how to live a more authentic life, which – and this is not incidental to our purpose – will have a significantly smaller climate footprint
When I saw that Ken assigned us to read Henry David Thoreou’s work, I questioned why in the hell is Ken making us read this work of literature? How can this possibly relate to our class? But I was already making such assumptions without having read the text yet. As I started to read I was pretty intrigued with what Thoreou had to say and the simplistic life he believed in. It amazed me how this work was written so long ago and for Thoreau to have already caught on to such ideas is insane. I could only imagine how cruel his critiques would be in todays time. Walden was written in 1854, the 19th century, an era that doesn’t even compare to what our economy has come to now; capitalistic, materialistic, maximalist, and straight up money hungry in order to live the American dream of a lavish lifestyle.
The idea that a work with literature, especially a somewhat old one, can impact our lives in a meaningful way is not necessarily an intuitive one. Yes, reading literature can be a fun diversion, but we don’t usually think of it as asking something of us, let alone something that can completely change our lives.
But this is exactly what Walden does, as it is asking something big of us: to completely reevaluate our lives. Walden is striking because Thoreau not only thoroughly, as this comment notes, “believed in” the simplistic life that he advocates, but actually lived that life. In other words, Thoreau is not just asking us to reevaluate our lives, but to act on what we learn by radically changing the way that we live.
As I have often observed, one of the things that I find interesting about cultural norms is that, when we are born into them, they generally seem pretty normal. So, if you were born into a culture were nearly everyone drives a car, nothing seems more natural then getting one of your own as soon as you can. However, there’s really nothing natural about this desire, as it is entirely culturally constructed.
Hence, examining a full-fledged car culture that has existed for generations, like our own, may not be as interesting as looking at when this culture historically emerged. If you can catch it at that moment (in this case a little more than 100 years ago), you often find people raising all sorts of concerns about new practices, such as – to give just one example – fears that automobile use would result in a nation of people who would not be exercising enough, as they were when they walked and bicycled everywhere.
Thoreau is interesting because he lived at a time when consumer culture was just beginning to take off in the United States. To us, the nascent consumerism of the time may seem quaint and virtually insignificant; however, to Thoreau, it was anything but, as he saw how it was fundamentally changing people. As Walden makes clear, this deeply concerned him.
When I began reading this, I wondered why…[Ken]… had assigned us such a seemingly trivial piece of literature and how that connected to this class…I soon realized that the purpose of reading this was to get the reader to evaluate all of the unnecessary luxuries that we have in our lives and to convince us of why we don’t really need all those extra things. Thoreau repeatedly argues that man has put himself in his own state of misery. All of the advantages we’ve made and the amenities we’ve created have only left us anxious to have it all. We’ve mistakenly put ourselves in a vicious cycle of never feeling fully fulfilled with what we have. This has left us miserable, and from his economic point of view, poor…So then, how does all this fit into the environmental theme of this class? Consumerism. And not simple consumerism, but consumerism without thinking of the consequences it could be having.
Thoreau’s central argument is that we have done this to ourselves.
As this comment aptly notes, humanity has put itself into a “state of misery.” We pursue happiness by consuming all sorts of things that all sorts of companies encourage us to buy. However, as Thoreau notes, not only doesn’t consumerism make us happy, it puts us into a state of misery.
According to Thoreau, we spend our lives in a vicious circle of desiring what we do not have, working long hours in unhappy jobs to get these objects of desire, only to find that they do not give us the happiness that we had hoped they would. Hence, as this person notes, “[w]e’ve mistakenly put ourselves in a vicious cycle of never feeling fully fulfilled with what we have. This has left us miserable, and from his [Thoreau’s] economic point of view, poor.” Well said.
Not only does Thoreau diagnose the problem with the human condition in the age of consumerism, he prescribes a cure: “Simplify, simplify.” As this comment fleshes it out, “I soon realized that the purpose of reading this was to get the reader to evaluate all of the unnecessary luxuries that we have in our lives and to convince us that we don’t really need all those extra things.”
If this were not bad enough in itself, in the century and a half separating us from Thoreau, we have done something else to us that is putting us into a new “state of misery.” The aforementioned “vicious cycle of never feeling fully fulfilled with what we have” is now bringing a whole new kind of misery to the human race (and our planet) by way of the climate crisis.
As this person notes, the problem is “[c]onsumerism. And not simple consumerism, but consumerism without thinking of the consequences it could be having.” Although climate change deniers would like to deny that our actions are bringing misery to human beings and our planet, the facts that climate change scientist have reported to us speak for themselves.
Hence, just as consumerism and the vicious pursuit of stuff was really beginning to takeoff in the United States, Thoreau clearly saw that it brought not happiness, but misery. What he didn’t know was that it was already beginning to bring a whole new kind of misery to human beings on the earth, as atmospheric CO2 levels were beginning to rise in his era because of the so-called industrial revolution that produced all that stuff.
[Regarding Thoreau’s] points about consumerism, he probably couldn’t have imagined a world where everyone is able to show off their stories with a click of button on small phone. This curated of view of life of pushes people to want the same objects as their favorite influencer, because they want to be happy and content.
Although consumerism in Thoreau’s day may seem quaint to us now, it is anything but quaint today. In many cases, this is a result of advertisers becoming more sophisticated in the age of the Internet.
Back when I was growing up, advertisers had a limited number of options: TV, radio, magazines, billboards, etc.
What is intriguing is that none of these options were directly in the business of selling products. In other words, a TV network did not care whether it was selling you cigarettes or dishwasher detergent. Instead – though it may be a little unnerving to think of it in these terms – TV networks are not in the business of selling products, but rather viewers – people.
Companies like Nielsen Media Research track how many (as well as what kind of) viewers a particular TV show has. Networks then “sell” these viewers to advertisers, who are indeed in the business of selling products, like dishwashing detergent. If networks deliver advertisers an audience of people that would likely buy this particular product that they are selling to the advertisers (which, in the case of dishwashing detergent, would have largely been women in the 1950s), they are paid in direct proportion to the number of viewers (people).
If a TV show is a flop, and hence doesn’t attract a significant number of viewers that can be sold to advertisers, it will quickly be canceled. Conversely, a show is a success if it attracts millions of people that can be sold to the highest bidder.
Although, in certain ways, advertising is far more sophisticated now, in a sense, not much has really changed. However, now it is often influencers and social media companies who are in the business of selling people.
Let’s take YouTube as an example. As you may well know, the goal of many YouTube influencers is to develop a large audience of viewers. Once an influencer has enough, they can then monetize their channel. This is another way of saying that influencers can sell these viewers (people) to an advertiser.
As far as which advertisers would like to be buy the particular group of people that influencers are selling, there is no need for the influencer to worry about this. YouTube generally knows more about an influencer’s audience than they do, as they have been tracking their online activities. Hence, YouTube knows that the audience may be principally composed of young women, for example.
In point of fact, YouTube knows a great deal about each and every subscriber (i.e. has hundreds or even thousands of “data points” on each of them). YouTube acts as a broker, matching up with the right people to sell to advertisers interested in buying that particular lot. Of course, YouTube charges a fee for this service.
Even if would be influencers do not have many viewers (people) to sell, they can still benefit here, as advertisers may give them modest compensation by sending them free product, which they can then directly market to their viewers by way of “haul” videos or by doing reviews of the product.
Influencers like this because they get free swag. Advertisers like it, because they not only get an audience by just giving out stuff, they also don’t have to go to the trouble of producing an advertisement, as the influencer takes on the job of making the product seem desirable. In fact, this is likely an effective form of advertising, as viewers may well be more likely to purchase the product on offer as they may trust the influencer.
Sadly, I suspect that most influencers are not aware how the underlying system works and what it is that they are actually doing.
Thoreau would, no doubt, have been shocked by all this. But, in a way, there is really nothing new here, as the underlying enterprise is to groom us to become good (ideally, rampant) consumers.
However, to us, the way that this project has permeated our lives in the age of the Internet is more than a little disturbing, as the following comment notes:
The script of life is basically written for them every time you crave to be another human on your favorite social media. I don’t think there is going to be a time in which consumerism is not rampant. We are programmed to keep desiring, and rise of technology has amplified that.
While I totally understand this person’s fatalism, in terms of online influencers and social media, there is in fact a simple solution here: we need a new generation of socially responsible influencers, who care about the well-being of their viewers and the planet, rather than just personal gain. And, of course, what is also need it is a new generation of viewers who would support such influencers directly (by way of a service like Patreon), rather than by purchasing products that they are hawking.
One of the intriguing things about YouTube is that anyone can post material for free. In other words, you do not need to be selling something in order to upload a video. Of course, YouTube now reserves the right to add in advertisements to any video whenever they like. Nonetheless, if you want to post a video of something like your kitten doing being silly, you are perfectly free to do so. (In case you didn’t know, silly kitten videos are a thing on YouTube.)
What this means is that an influencer can use their platform in nearly anyway that they choose – though there are limits here, as they cannot, for obvious reasons, do something like spread hate speech.
Imagine if an influencer with millions (even hundreds of millions) of viewers decided not to act for personal gain by selling these people to advertisers. Instead knowing that, as influencers, they have…well… enormous influence on their viewers, they instead acted in a socially responsible, rather than exploitive manner, and used their platform to help make the world a better place.
In other words, as this comment succinctly notes, people “crave to be another human on your favorite social media.” Sometimes, we act on the desire to be the influencer by emulating them. If they dress a certain way, we dress that way. If they purchase certain products, we too purchase them. Influencers monetize this influence (in other words, act for personal gain) by selling their viewers to companies that want to sell these clothes and products.
Even if the influencer is not directly selling a product, they may well (perhaps inadvertently) be doing harm here. For example, if they celebrate a lavish lifestyle filled with private jets and a fleet of cars, the influencer may influence their viewers to act in a similarly environmentally destructive manner.
What would happen, however, if the influencer wasn’t displaying products or a lifestyle that is wildly unsustainable from an environmental point of view, but instead showed them trying to make the world a better place?
Curious what this would be like? In a sense, this is what Leonardo DiCaprio did with the film Before the Flood. Not every influencer would, of course, needs to travel the world in their effort to make a difference. Instead, they could be doing something small, like getting involved with a local activist group. Instead of showing a haul of fast fashion, the weekly installment on their channel could show them brainstorming climate solutions with friends or out protesting with them or canvassing for votes for a candidate with a strong environmental/climate platform.
In so doing, an influencer would largely cease to be a person out for private gain, but rather an activist working to make the world a better place.
In the first chapter, he [Thoreau] discussed the absurdity he found in the “spending of the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it.” This part stuck out to me because while it may not have been related to climate change, this way of life so many are used to and plan ahead for may turn from a questionable liberty to virtually no liberty at all if the earth continues to warm in the way it already has been. Liberty will feel quite meaningless if we can no longer reasonably live on the planet we were born on.
This is an intriguing observation.
In a sense, Thoreau is offering us two options: 1) to live our lives as they were scripted for us, or 2) to try to find a more authentic way of living. Thoreau clearly feels that we should take the second option.
But what about the “questionable liberty” (to use Thoreau’s words) of the first option? In Thoreau’s era, going this route would, as far as he was concerned, have meant an authentic, and presumably unhappy, life.
But, as this comment makes clear, the stakes are far higher in the 21st century, as the first option, living the life that most Americans now do, will severely restrict liberty for not only most Americans, but for most human beings (as well as a host of additional beings on the planet).
In other words, if we pursue the liberty scripted for us, this will not only mean that we will never personally have true liberty (which is, essentially, Thoreau’s point), but in the era of a climate crisis brought about through the misguided pursuit of liberty, we will greatly hamper everyone’s liberty.
As this comment suggests, “Liberty will feel quite meaningless if we can no longer reasonably live on the planet we were born on.”
When considering “Walden” through the lens of living in an urban area instead of the wilderness (as suggested by Ken in the Introduction), it is exciting to see how Thoreau’s ideas can be applied. Tiny homes, like the ones introduced in the documentary “Minimalism”, come to mind as an improvement to urban life. I think they are a good upgrade from Thoreau’s 150 sq/ft cabin, and are fitted with features to make them more adaptable to fit more people and cater to varying circumstances.
One of the difficulties with Walden is that the lifestyle that Thoreau is suggesting can seem extreme. After all, most people will not likely find the idea of living out in the garden shed very appealing.
However, all sorts of people are not only now advocating for a much simpler way of living, but, like Thoreau, are rolling up their sleeves and actually doing it. Minimalism, the tiny-house movement, slow food, slow fashion, and a host of similar movements have now moved into the mainstream.
None of these are, strictly speaking, emulating Thoreau’s experience at Walden Pond. Instead, whether directly influenced Thoreau or not, the activists bringing about these transformations are doing exactly what Thoreau suggested: rethinking how we can satisfy some of our human needs in a way that will not only make us happier, but be more environmentally sustainable in the bargain.
Reading 5, The Waste Makers
Have you ever wondered how, why, and when Americans became rampant consumers? As consumerism has a profound environmental and climate footprint, it is worth pausing on this question and its history.
In one sense, unchecked consumerism has been going on for a very long time. In my course on literature and the environment, we read a blistering attack on consumerism by the English writer Sir John Denham from nearly 400 years ago. And he is hardly the first. However, in the US, consumerism really ramped up in the seventy years separating us from the Second World War.
It is not coincidental that the same period of time is called the “Great Acceleration,” as humanity’s impact on the planet, including and notably in the form of climate change, greatly accelerated during this period.
Radical cultural change is an interesting phenomenon. Once it has taken place, we often quickly adjust to the new normal. To people born into a changed era (as are, in one way or another, all eras), it generally doesn’t seem unusual at all, as it is all that they have ever known. The new normal is simply normal.
However, people caught in the middle of profound cultural change have an interesting vantage point, as they can see the changes particularly clearly – and hence often react to them strongly.
In the 1950s, as consumerism really took off in the US, journalist Vance Packard was a particularly keen observer of the change in American culture. Immediately after that decade closed, Packard published a best-selling, scorching indictment of consumerism entitled The Waste Makers.
While Packard was not an environmentalist per se, and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (which in many ways inaugurated the modern environmental movement) would not be published until two years after The Waste Makers, from the title onward the book focused on consumerism as a culture defined by the production of waste – which is obviously environmentally disastrous. Although Packard didn’t take up industrial waste, he focused in on the fact that American consumerism was quickly evolving into a waste machine.
Although we don’t often think much about it, as the words suggests, “consumerism” is the process of consuming stuff and eventually discarding what we have consumed as waste. Packard drew attention to the fact that Americans were increasingly being encouraged to both consume more stuff and to discard it more quickly.
Born in 1914, Packard matured during America’s Great Depression. Hence, “normal” to him meant consuming something as completely as possible before discarding it. A jacket, for example, might be worn for many years, even though it would become frayed and need assorted repairs along the way.
However, the “new normal” of 1950s consumerism meant that we would keep a jacket a fraction of that time, discarding it as soon as it went out of fashion – which the industry that produced it made sure that it quickly did. If you look carefully, you can see the early roots of fast fashion here.
While the garment industry arguably pioneered this model of discarding what is entirely usable but no longer fashionable – which is why we call it the “fashion” industry – Packard drew attention to the fact that all sorts of additional industries were jumping on the fashion bandwagon.
The automobile was a prime example. The ubiquitous car that Packard grew up with, Henry Ford’s Model T, famously came in just one color (actually, that’s a lie marketed by Ford, but that’s neither here nor there) and didn’t significantly changed much over its 20-year production history. In contrast, taking its cue from the fashion industry, in the 1950s automobile mobile manufacturers were significantly changing cars every two or three years in a successful effort to sell more and more cars – and in the process create more and more waste.
But is this as bad as it sounds? Aren’t the needs of individuals and corporations arguably both served when they provide us with stuff? In other words, isn’t this this is a win-win, for people and corporations? The problem is that time and time again corporations have chosen their needs over those of consumers, often with horrific results. Let’s look at an example.
Since the 1920s, scientists have known that there was a link between smoking cigarettes and cancer. By the early 1950s, the American public was alerted to the problem through series of articles entitled “Cancer by the Carton” in the Reader’s Digest, which was an incredibly popular magazine at the time. By the end of the 1960s, all cigarettes sold in the United States were required to have a prominent label informing consumers that “Cigarette smoking can cause lung cancer and heart diseases.”
Knowing that they were selling a poisonous substance that was, moreover, addictive, what did the tobacco industry do? Did they, horrified at what they had done, apologize to the public and immediately stop? To the contrary, they doubled down, denied the science, and did everything they could to continue profiting from extraordinary human suffering for as many decades as possible.
Even today, when a successful campaign has significantly reduced cigarette smoking in the United States over the past few decades, even today half a million people in the US. die every year from smoking. Smokers, on average, die ten years sooner than nonsmokers.
But, wait, it gets worse. In 1987 – 35 years after the articles on “Cancer by the Carton” made Americas aware that cigarettes killed – the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company launched its Joe Camel advertising campaign for its for Camel cigarette brand, which featured a hip and friendly cartoon camel named “Joe.”
Four years later, an article in the Journal of the AMA (American Medical Association) revealed that this cartoon camel had become nearly as recognizable to six-year-old children as Mickey Mouse. One third of all cigarettes illegally sold to minors by this time were – you guessed it – Camels.
Astonishingly, the tobacco industry got into the business of making consumers out of children. As unbelievable as it may sound, the goal was to addict them to a poisonous substance that would take 10 years off their lives – all in order to keep profits up.
Are all corporations as…well… evil as the tobacco industry? No, of course not. Nonetheless, this is in instructive example, as it reveals that, unchecked, corporations have been willing to do extraordinary things in the name of profit and preserve their industry. Even knowingly kill people, by the millions.
As the publisher of The Waste Makers notes, it was “An exposé of ‘the systematic attempt of business to make us [into][ wasteful, debt-ridden, permanently discontented individuals’…[and]…how the rapid growth of disposable consumer goods was degrading the environmental, financial, and spiritual character of American society.”
I am curious what you make of The Waste Makers. In particular, what do you think of the various types of planned obsolescence that he outlines? He also weighs in on an issue that I take up in discussing the film The True Cost: just who is responsible for out obsession with consumer stuff that is wreaking havoc on our planet? Is it us consumers? Or is it the companies that manufacture all this stuff?
Incidentally, Packard continued writing books for some time. Like The Waste Makers, his last book, published in 1989, is arguably as timely today as it was then: The Ultra Rich: How Much Is Too Much?
Class discussion of The Waste Makers
(Note that the following observations, which are in italics, have not been paraphrased or altered, though I do correct the occasional typo and, because of space concerns, often just part of the comment is reproduced here along with my reply. In working through these, I will first quote an observation by a student, followed by my thoughts.)
Before jumping to student comments on The Waste Makers, let me first quote from a Spring 1955 article entitled “Price Competition in 1955” by Victor Lebow in the Journal of Retailing. Note that Lebow is an economist and retail analyst, not a scholar. Hence, he is not critiquing consumerism here, but is rather offering advice to corporations on how products need to be marketed.
Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfactions, in consumption. The measure of social status, of social acceptance, of prestige, is now to be found in our consumptive patterns. The very meaning and significance of our lives today expressed in consumptive terms. The greater the pressures upon the individual to conform to safe and accepted social standards, the more does he tend to express his aspirations and his individuality in terms of what he wears, drives, eats, his home, his car, his pattern of food serving, his hobbies.
These commodities and services must be offered to the consumer with a special urgency…We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever-increasing pace. We need to have people eat, drink, dress, ride, live, with ever more complicated and, therefore, constantly more expensive consumption…
As we examine the concept of consumer loyalty, we see that the whole problem of molding the American mind is involved here.
In 1955, Lebow thus provided what is in many ways a mission statement for modern consumerism.
Note that there is nothing here about providing superior services or making better products. Instead, the focus is on “molding the American mind” with the goal that “[t]he very meaning and significance of our lives today [be] expressed in consumptive terms.”
What is the role of marketers here? It is not to extol the merit of the products on offer (as we might fully expect marketers to do), but rather to exert “pressures upon the individual to conform to safe and accepted social standards” through the act of consumption.
As you might imagine, many students were mortified to see marketing unmasked in this way:
“Thus the challenge was to develop a public that would always have an appetite as voracious as its machines.” What a sickening line. The American public is being convinced by the manufacturing and advertising industries to purchase items, in order to ensure the wheels of production are never still. This is completely backwards to how production and consumption should work, ESPECIALLY if you look at it from an environmental standpoint. Before mass production, most goods were made on an as-needed basis. If you needed a dress, you got fabric and made it, or went to a clothing maker and put in an order. Now, we aren’t even sure if we need another dress, but we probably do, right? Because look at all the cute ones there are in the online ads! Ready to purchase! In what feels very related to last week’s minimalist and Walden content, the manufacturing and advertising industries have completely warped our sense of desire for material goods…
The endgame for marketers is now, to quote from this apt comment, to completely warp “our sense of desire for material goods.”
As this person notes, the way that consumption worked historically was largely based on need: “If you needed a dress, you got fabric and made it, or went to a clothing maker and put in an order.” However, need is now greatly overshadowed by desire. In other words, do we really need that new dress or whatever it is that is on offer? The answer is now generally no, but that doesn’t mean that we still don’t desire it. Where does this desire come from? From marketers, of course.
In this sense, the goal of marketers is to generate desire where there is little or no need.
However, Victor Lebow suggested, just in case desire is not sufficiently motivating in itself, marketers need to exert “pressures on the individual to conform” so that Lebow’s imagined male consumer will consequently “express his aspirations and his individuality in terms of what he wears, drives, eats, his home, his car, his pattern of food serving, his hobbies.”
It’s simple enough. If we just purchased what we needed, marketers would only sell a fraction of what has become possible through industrial mass production and the largely unchecked exploitation of workers. Consequently, in addition to manufacturing products, all sorts of companies are now in the business of manufacturing desire.
At first hearing, it may sound a little odd, but most corporations, from fashion brands to pet food and automobile manufacturers, are first and foremost are all in the business of manufacturing the same thing: desire.
Without desire, these industries would be decimated if they had to rely on need as a sole motivator. After all, if you just purchased a new shirt when you really needed it, when your old one was frayed beyond repair, the fashion industry (especially the fast fashion industry) would crumble.
And if desire is not a sufficient motivator, desire has a less-pleasant counterpart, as we human beings are hardwired to conform to the norms of the groups to which we belong. In this case, manufacturers are not just manufacturing desired, but engineering social pressure on the individual in order to make them consume. For example, by quickly shifting fashion trends, an individual embarrassed by wearing a shirt from last year, will discard it and purchase a new one.
As we all know firsthand, social pressure is a powerful thing. Everybody wants to fit in; nobody wants to be an outcast. Marketers are turning this truism of human nature against us.
If you consume enough and correctly, the promise is that you will fit in. If you don’t, the threat is that you risk outcast.
Regarding whether you actually need the product on offer, this is of somewhat minor concern.
But the American economy has been built on the notion that a healthy economy is one that grows due to increased consumption. In order to prolong this unsustainable economic path, the entire advertising industry was created— this all feels so artificial!…What makes “The Waste Makers” such an uncomfortable read is the fact that it so simply explains that many of our desires are not our own. They are a product of an economy and culture that excels in shaping desires and inventing scenarios and fads that draw the attention of our wallets. If being mindful of your consumption for the sake of the environment isn’t for you, maybe being mindful for the sake of acting on what you actually want is.
This comment nicely dovetails with the previous one, especially the observation that “[w]hat makes The Waste Makers such an uncomfortable read is the fact that it so simply explains that many of our desires are not our own.” This is rightly a disconcerting thought, as we tend to feel that basic emotions, like desire, originate with us. Hence, it is more than a little disturbing to realize that they are being manufactured elsewhere.
If this were being done for the good of the consumer, it might be less worrisome. In other words, if marketers were creating a desire for healthy and inexpensive food, this might feel a little more acceptable. However, as Thoreau realized over 150 years ago, corporations largely act in their own interests, not those of the consumer.
Hence, soda companies, for example, sell us branded sugar water that is neither healthy nor inexpensive. Indeed, the WHO (World Health Organization) is urging “global action to curtail consumption and health impacts of sugary drinks,” as these can be a “major factor in the global increase of people suffering from obesity and diabetes.”
The problem is that a number of the corporation selling sugar water are so large and profitable that they have been very successful at maintaining their prosperity and health, even though they are contributing to global health problems among people consuming their products. You may not be surprised to learn that the five most valuable brands on the planet are (in order) Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Samsung. What may be a surprise is that #6 is Coca-Cola.
This comment also draws attention to the fact that our economy is built on the notion of unending growth, which is fueled by consumerism. The difficulty is that we do not have sufficient resources on this planet to sustainably support infinite growth. Indeed, we have already exceeded what is sustainable for this planet.
The solution is simple enough: We need to enter a period of economic degrowth. “Degrowth emphasizes the need to reduce global consumption and production … and advocates a socially just and ecologically sustainable society with social and environmental well-being replacing GDP as the indicator of prosperity.”
Make no mistake, degrowth presents its own formidable set of challenges. However, we have no choice but to find a way to make this work if our species is to live sustainably on this planet.
Our mindset towards wanting more is becoming a serious problem. This reminded me of a trip I made to Nicaragua, where I went to volunteer to build a school for a small community. It was there that I learned how consumerism is making my life and others in developed countries worse. These people I was lucky to meet were happy and content with what little they had. The locals were always smiling and laughing with each other, which took me by surprise because in America, where we literally have everything these people don’t, we find ourselves unhappy that we can’t get the new iPhone or new clothes. These people in Nicaragua don’t have money to buy one pair of shoes yet they seem happier than us who have everything at our finger tips. This was just an eye-opening experience and hopefully we can change our mindsets that are wired to always want more.
After manufacturing desire, product advertisements often hold out a promise that purchasing the product will satisfy the desire.
First, as we have seen, this is worrisome as the desire didn’t necessarily even exist before the corporation manufactured it. Second, the promise of fulfilled desire is also problematic
If products really did fulfill our desires, then people who purchase the most should be the most satisfied (i.e. the happiest). Consequently, it is often implied that people who are outlandishly gorging themselves with consumption, like some influencers, are the luckiest, happiest human beings.
However, even without resorting to statistics here, I think that most of us know from first-hand experience that consumerism does not, deep down, make us happy. Consequently, consumerism, even outrageously supersized consumerism, is not the answer.
In dramatic contrast, this comment considers people who are largely untouched by consumerism. As we are accustomed to equate consuming things with happiness, it is striking that people who have so little are so happy.
For the person who made this observation, this was “an eye-opening experience,” as largely stepping outside of consumer culture made it clear that it is not only failing to deliver on its promise to fulfill our desires and make us happy, but is, in fact, making us even less happy than people who have very little.
This is not to say that all sorts of people across the planet should remain living in poverty and not have a range of needs met more successfully. However, there is a danger here, as corporations are waiting in the wings to convert these people into consumers.
Corporations often speak of low- and middle-income countries as “emerging markets.”
Let’s stay with our example of Coca-Cola and the sale of sugar water. In low- and middle-income counties, “only a quarter of what…[people drink]…is a commercial beverage.”
In wealthy countries, companies like Coca-Cola have already done an extraordinary job when it comes to manufacturing desire of their product, as “75% of beverages consumed are commercial products.” However, experts agree that, for Coca-Cola, the “greatest growth opportunities looking ahead are in emerging markets,” like India. In order realize this potential, Coca-Cola needs to manufacture desire in these countries.
India is considered an emerging market for Coca-Cola. The average yearly income for a laborer in rural India is about 300 rupees per day. That’s for a man. For women, it drops to 200. The cost of a small (12 ounce) Coke in 34 rupees. Hence, if you work a 10-hour day, a man will need to work for more than an hour to buy a small Coke. Or nearly an hour and 45 minutes if you are a woman.
In a country where “76 million are without access to safe drinking water,” it is wildly misguided to manufacture desire for a water substitute that many people simply cannot afford and that no one really needs, especially as it can contribute to a host to health problems.
Alternately, corporations to step in and supply what people really need: safe drinking water.
This week’s reading is very interesting in many aspects. It was written in the early 1960s, just as modern consumerism in the United States was taking root. Now I am from China, and modern consumerism is also taking its root here at an extremely rapid pace in the recent years. Therefore, this book has an even closer relationship to me. In the twenty-first century, the book can be a reflection of the past decades for the developed countries, but it can also still as a warning sign against the potential dangers of consumerism, not to the American people as it was in the 1960s, but to the developing countries.
What a great comment.
As I noted in my introduction to The Waste Makers, “people caught in the middle of profound cultural change have an interesting vantage point, as they can see the changes particularly clearly.” Vance Packard was well position to see the emergence of truly modern American consumerism in the period following the World War II.
In different parts of the world, however, this is not something that happened a generation or two ago, but something that is happening right now. In some places, consumerism is, in fact, something that has yet to arrive, or is only now coming on the scene. Indeed, for most people on the planet, large-scale consumerism is (perhaps) looming in the future.
While we often see this type of consumerism is part of the so-called American Dream, in addition to cars, computers, music, and a host of other products, the most notable thing that America is selling the world may well be the American Dream itself (i.e. our consumer culture).
This is a sobering thought. Not only did the United States directly contribute more to the climate crisis than any other country, we have indirectly encouraged the rest of the world to do the same. In short, we are potentially multiplying the harm that we did to the planet many times over by encouraging the rest of the world to do the same.
Of course, other countries also played a role in the development and spread of modern consumerism. However, arguably, no country did it to the extent of the United States, making supersized consumption our signature way of life.
Because the world now looks to the United States as a cultural model, can we reimagine the American Dream to be environmentally sustainable? If so, we need to sell the world this new Dream.
Can we succeed at this? Honestly, I don’t know. It may, in fact, be up to other countries to take the lead in imagining a new, better, more sustainable way of life.
“There are the soft, insistent commercials the youngsters hear during their weekly twenty-odd hours of television watching. And there are the breakable plastic toys, which teach them at an early age that everything in this world is replaceable.” It wasn’t until I read this sentence then I realized that I grew up watching commercials that can shape my attitude about consumerism. I can still remember the commercials in which an actor encourages us to purchase their products as soon as possible. Many kids have been impacted by those commercials, and their idea about consumption is gradually shaped by them. It is scary to think that people, at such a young age, have been negatively impacted by the capitalist who wants to maximize their profits, and the formation of our values is shaped while we don’t even realize it is formed.
At first glance, it may seem that corporations are principally in the business of manufacturing products, like toys for children. However, as we have seen, they are also in the business of manufacturing desire for the product, as well as manufacturing social pressure to buy the product. In other words, even if you are happy with your aging smartphone and don’t desire a new one, you may succumb to this artificially created social pressure and buy one anyway just to fit in.
What is in some ways even more disturbing is that corporations are also, in addition to manufacturing desire and social pressure, now manufacturing consumers as well.
As this person notes regarding advertisement aimed at children, “[m]any kids have been impacted by those commercials, and their idea about consumption is gradually shaped by them…[hence]… the formation of our values is shaped while we don’t even realize it is formed.”
In other words, people are born, consumers are made.
Because marketers have a direct channel to children through a range of daily programming aimed at kids, they cannot only sell a child on the idea of buying a particular product, they can – and do – also sell children on the idea of buying itself (i.e. consumerism). Hence, to again quote this comment, during the “the formation of our values” as children, marketers are working to make sure that one of our core values is consumerism.
What exactly is a human being?
On a personal note, from my perspective as a parent, I try to do all that I can to ensure that my daughter grows up to be my ideal for a successful human being, which is a happy and good person. From the perspective of our society, the ideal is that children will grow up to become good citizens. From the point of view of marketers, they are doing all that they can to raise generations of consumers.
These ideals need not necessarily be in conflict. For example, one can be a good and happy person, as well as a good citizen. Arguably, the goal is to be all three. However, it is unclear why we need to be, in addition to being good people and good citizens, good consumers.
To again approach this on a personal note, I have to admit to finding it frustrating (perhaps I should say “mortifying”), as I daily work, as a parent, to raise my child in a certain way, which is deeply in conflict with the marketers who daily work to raise her in another way. The profound difference here is that my goal is to give her an upbringing that benefits her. Marketers on the other hand, are intent on benefiting themselves – at her cost. In fact, to once again quote this comment, they don’t care at all about her, they just want to “maximize their profits.”
The following comment also takes up this issue:
What Ken mentioned about the influence of this society on children in particular was quite shocking. On one hand, the idea of selling to kids was revolutionary, it spawned multibillion dollar industries. On the other hand, it can be considered downright evil, spawning generations that only know how to purchase and are subconsciously brainwashed into believing that is the gateway to true happiness and contentment…This week made me feel as if I had been living as a puppet on strings.
It is one thing to think about how, in a general way, consumerism impacts children, people, and society as a whole. But it’s something else again to think about how this has impacted each of us personally, myself included, as I was born shortly before The Waste Makers was published, when the project of creating a generation of consumers was well underway.
Being hit with the revelation that we have been, from early childhood on, to again quote this comment, “subconsciously brainwashed into believing that is the gateway to true happiness and contentment” is to be found through consumerism, it really does make it feel like we have “been living like a puppet on strings.”
I, for one, like to feel that I am in control of my own actions. Consequently, it is more than a little disconcerting to think that someone else is pulling the strings – and has been since my childhood. Do I really want to buy that new mobile device, or is that invisible and familiar tug pulling at me to do so?
Reading 6, Project Drawdown
Ok, let’s say that we get serious about not only stopping the rise of global greenhouse (GHG) gasses, but getting to the point where these emissions are actually declining. How do we even begin such an undertaking? Specifically. what do we need to do? Install more wind turbines? More solar?
There are two ways of approaching this problem, one personal, one global. Let’s start on a personal level, as we hear all sorts of solutions bandied about, from switching lightbulbs to unplugging our phone chargers.
In his book Sustainable Energy — without the hot air, the late David MacKay drew attention to the fact that the BBC News suggested that, as “[t]he nuclear power stations will all be switched off in a few years. How can we keep Britain’s lights on? … unplug your mobile-phone charger when it’s not in use.” This is certainly a good thing to do, but, as MacKay aptly notes,
“Obsessively switching off the phone-charger is like bailing the Titanic with a teaspoon. Do switch it off, but please be aware how tiny a gesture it is. Let me put it this way: All the energy saved in switching off your charger for one day is used up in one second of car-driving.”
So, what then are the big offenders in terms of our individual climate footprints?
A few years ago the ever-reliable Union of Concerned Scientists put together a concise article on the subject that, among other things, explained where our primary personal emissions come from:
1) Housing can account for a third of your climate footprint, especially if you live in a large suburban or rural home. The main problems are heating, cooling, and home energy use.
2) Transportation. For the average American, owning and driving an automobile accounts for around a quarter of our individual climate footprints.
3) All the stuff that we buy, “from tangible items like clothes and furniture to services like haircuts and healthcare,” also amounts to around a quarter.
4) Finally, rounding out the big four, the production of our food also is responsible for an extraordinary greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
As I noted in a previous lecture, if you just addressed these issues (by getting rid of your car, living in efficient housing, and eating a largely plant-based diet and wasting less food), as well as reconsider your relationship to stuff, you could likely cut you climate footprint in half, perhaps even a good deal more.
Alternately, we can approach this issue globally, rather than personally. Project Drawdown, which is arguably the “most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming,” considered and ranked the “100 most substantive solutions to global warming.” If enacted, these solutions could not only halt the rise of GHGs, but actually drawdown these emissions.
While all of these solutions are needed, the top 25 are particularly noteworthy, especially as, taken together, the top three solutions would do more to drawdown global GHG emissions than the bottom 75 combined.
What is perhaps surprising is that many things that we might imagine would be in the top 25 are absent and, alternately, some that we may have never heard of top the list.
For example, we are often told that switching to energy-efficient lighting in our houses can make a meaningful difference in the climate crisis. While doing so is certainly important and can indeed make a difference, its relative importance needs to be taken into account, as globally reducing food waste can have nearly ten times the impact of switching to LED lightbulbs residentially.
Similarly, even though electric vehicles have taken on an iconic, almost savior-like status as a solution to the climate crisis, they are, at #23, near the bottom of the top-25 solutions, while the #1 solution, reducing food waste, is rarely mentioned in the press – especially when compared to electric vehicles.
Perhaps surprisingly, the #1 thing that we can do to roll back global greenhouse gas emissions does not involve wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles, or any sort of similar technologies.
Instead, when taken together, wasting less food and eating a largely plant-based diet (#1 & 3 on the list) is bigger than anything else on the list at 152 gigatons of GHG emissions for the pair. This is considerably more than either wind or solar.
Food waste is the single largest producer of greenhouse gases on the planet. Although many people have gotten the memo that switching to a largely plant-based diet would have profound climate consequences, food waste is a considerably larger issue that receives very little press.
Part of the problem is that we waste between 1/3 and 1/2 of the food that we produce. For Americans, much of this happens at the consumer level.
Let me repeat that to be clear, if we just stopped wasting food, we could cut the single largest greenhouse gas emissions problem on the planet nearly in half.
I know, this shift in diet doesn’t sound nearly as glamorous as a self-driving electric car, but it would nonetheless be ten times better for the planet.
Similarly, the education of women and girls and family planning are together #2. Simply put, we need to educate more girls and women, as well as promote family planning (globally, there are roughly 85 million unintended pregnancies every year). These two things together would roll back 85 gigatons of GHG emissions.
Throughout the 20th century, there were large-scale efforts to reduce population. Perhaps the most famous was the one- (and two-) child policy in China during the closing quarter of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. It has been argued that because of this policy, “provincial governments could, and did, require the use of contraception, abortion, and sterilization to ensure compliance, and imposed enormous fines for violations.” For obvious reasons, these policies were exceptionally controversial, as well as being arguably ineffective.
We now know that there is a much simpler solution: educate women, which dramatically curbs population growth, as the more education a woman has, the fewer children she has. No one has to force women to make this decision, as this is simply their choice.
This is not to say that we should place responsibility for this particular issue with girls and women. To the contrary, the responsibility lies with the institutions that restrict a woman’s access to education and control of her own body. And too, it is obviously the case that contraception is a male responsibility as well.
Why is population so important? Sixty years ago, the global population was about 3 billion. At the time of this recording, it is 7.75 billion. By 2050 it will be approaching 10 billion. The simple fact is that this many people are profoundly taxing the resources of our planet. Hence, reducing the population of our species is one of the main things that we can do to mitigate the climate crisis. But how, exactly, do we go about doing this?
So, in order, the top three solutions to the climate crisis are 1) reducing food waste, 2) educating women and girls and family planning, and 3) shifting to largely plant-based diets.
Taken together, these three cultural changes alone can take us nearly a quarter of the way to where we need to go to get GHG emissions under control. As I noted above, these three changes would do more to drawdown global GHG emissions than the bottom 75 things on the Project Drawdown list combined.
Note that very little is needed by way of technology here, as the necessary changes can be made right now by both individuals and a range of groups and institutions.
Note also that quite a few of the suggestions made by Project Drawdown involve land use, relating to tropical forests, silvopasture, regenerative agriculture, temperate forest, peatlands, and so forth. In fact, eleven of the top 25 things that we can do to draw down emissions involve land use of one sort or another.
Interestingly, nine of these eleven issues related to land use also involve food production. Hence, eleven of the top-25 things that we can do to draw down emissions involve food, if we add to this list reducing food waste and switching to largely plant-based diets.
It is worth pausing on this fact for a moment. If you happen to be looking for a career path that could make a major climate intervention, focusing on land use and food systems are (in light of the Project Drawdown data) an obvious choice.
In any event, while land use and food production dominate the top 25 “solutions” suggested by Project Drawdown, all-in-all, a diverse group of actions are required to draw down GHG emissions.
I am curious what you make of this compelling list of solutions to the climate crisis.
After all, this is what many, many people have been asking for: a roadmap to globally reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.
Class discussion of Project Drawdown
(Note that the following observations, which are in italics, have not been paraphrased or altered, though I do correct the occasional typo and, because of space concerns, often just part of the comment is reproduced here along with my reply. In working through these, I will first quote an observation by a student, followed by my thoughts.)
When I look through the website, and spoke to myself, “Yes! This is exactly what I want! Specific solutions to reduce personal carbon footprint.” I feel surprised by the various actions we can take to contribute to CO2 reduction, and I also enjoy reading it. To be honest, I prefer to read articles and websites that give people a specific way to solve problems or guide us to the same goal. I am not denying the significance of raising questions or discovering issues that already existed, but I am saying that reading materials that give people instructions can be more encouraging and hopeful. I grew up in China, and I am sure that our media is displaying advertisements about saving food, water, and electricity. However, it is not until the moment when I read this week’s reading then I know that there are even more things we can do.
Many, many people made comments similar to this one.
If you follow the news, you will hear about the climate crisis on a daily basis. You will hear about its disastrous impacts in the form of droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, and so forth. The political squabbling over the issue also receives a great deal of attention. And, of course, climate change deniers are also doing what they can to get in the news.
What is frustrating is that very little media attention is given to climate solutions. When it is, things like switching off your lights and unplugging your phone charger are often rolled out.
Which is why I think that Project Drawdown is so important, as it lays out solutions in order of their climate impact. Hence it is not surprising that this person exclaimed that “Yes! This is exactly what I want! Specific solutions to reduce personal carbon footprint.” And I hasten to add that these things can not only help us all reduce our personal carbon footprints, but also addresses changes that we can only make collectively, like installing offshore wind turbines.
This person makes another great point, as “reading materials that give people instructions can be more encouraging and hopeful” than “raising questions or discovering issues.” However, to get people to the position where people are ready to do something about the climate crisis, they need to be fully aware of the severity and enormity of the situation. This is why we spent a good bit of time looking at the problem.
In other words, if you are going to ask people to stop doing something that they enjoy, like eating beef, you better give them a good reason. For example (to borrow the word used by David Wallace-Wells), keeping our planet from becoming “uninhabitable” for our species. Then, when people are, like this person, ready to roll up their sleeves and do something about the climate crisis, laying out the solutions in order can be, to again quote this person, “encouraging and hopeful.”
To state the obvious, when we can do something – anything – about a problem, it is generally far better than feeling helpless. This is arguably why Project Drawdown is, in addition to being a terrific roadmap to the future by laying out the top-100 things that we can do, “encouraging and hopeful.”
It is fabulous that we have these solutions in hand to solve the climate issues, but it is required from us and our government to implement these as quick as possible to save ourselves before sinking in the mud of desperation.
This comment makes two great points.
First, we really do indeed have the “solutions in hand to solve the climate” crisis.
Many people seem to be under the impression that, if we are to mitigate climate crisis, we need a range of new and better technology technological solutions. There is some truth to this, as we do need to for example, work out how to make offshore wind turbines (#6 on the list) practical and economical. However, most of the top-100 (as well as the top-25) things that we can do to mitigate the crisis do not require a great deal of new technology.
Hence, technologically, there is nothing stopping us from jumping right in to solve this crisis.
So, what is standing in our way? As this person aptly and succinctly notes, what “is required from us and our government [is] to implement these [largely cultural changes] as quick as possible.”
In other words, the chief barrier standing in our way is us. If, individually and collectively, we resolved to solve this problem, I believe that we most definitely could. This leads to the next comment:
Disheartening is a good word to describe the Solutions list. Backed by governmental and political action, implementing many of these changes would be swift and effective…How impactful would this list be if it was widely made public knowledge. It is 100% frustrating and disheartening to come to the realization that our government chooses not to act in the interest of our well-being.
Two more great points.
First, effective communication and education is essential here. As this person succinctly notes, “[h]ow impactful would this list be if it was widely made public knowledge.” As we have seen, unfortunately, climate education at the K-12 and even university levels is at best spotty. Moreover, the media is hardly doing an effective job at communicating solutions to the public.
Hence, many people absolutely want to do something (and would no doubt, feel much better if they were), but they just don’t know where to begin or what to do.
Second, although the public may not necessarily know what to do, informed by experts and agencies like the EPA, government officials certainly have access to this knowledge. Nonetheless, as this person notes, “our government chooses not to act in the interest of our well-being,” which is, as this person notes, “100% frustrating and disheartening.”
So, what’s the solution here? It’s simple enough:
First, educate the public, as early as elementary school, about both the problem and solutions.
Second, vote in politicians who care about, to again quote this person, “our well-being” rather than the well-being of the fossil fuel industry and other corporations.
When I first looked at Project Drawdown, I assumed the list of solutions would be the things I have heard before. Things like you should eat less meat and you shouldn’t drive your car. I did not expect to see so many new solutions. Education of women? As a woman, this is something I have been passionate about ever since Malala was shot for going to school.
Many people commented that they discovered all sorts of new solutions on the list that had never occurred to them. After all, most people have never heard of Silvopasture, Tree Intercropping, Regenerative Annual Cropping, and so forth. This turns back on the question of communication and education, as it is startling that these solutions are not better known. (I should confess that a number of things on the list were, in fact, new to me too.)
As this person notes, Malala Yousafzai, who is a Pakistani activist advocating for women’s rights, was, indeed, “shot for going to school” when she was fifteen years old. Astonishingly, she survived the assassination attempt after undergoing a range of operations.
Although obviously an extreme example, it makes clear that what is seemingly a simple solution, providing education for girls and women – which is not only good for the climate, but for women across the planet – can sometimes be met with fierce opposition. The same is obviously true with giving women access to contraception, which is resisted across the planet, including in the United States – as the following comment makes clear.
The most interesting solutions I read about were “Educating Girls” & “Family Planning.” According to Project Drawdown, 225 million women in lower income countries say they want the ability to choose whether or when to become pregnant but they lack access to necessary contraceptives. Also, there are 62 million girls around the world that are not able to access an education because of economic, cultural, and safety related barriers. As a female and a Latina living in the US, I sometimes forget how hard people before me fought for someone like me to get an education. Still, there are girls all around the world that are not given the opportunity to get an education.
Across the planet, hundreds of millions of women want, but are denied, access to education and contraception. That’s too mild a way of putting it: these women need access to education and contraception. Not only would they benefit, but so would the planet.
As this person aptly noted, “people before me fought for someone like me [a Latina living in the US.] to get an education.” I would add that decades of activists also fought hard to give women in the US. access to contraception and, as a last resort, abortion.
There are two things to note here:
First, the problem here is not with women, as hundreds of millions of women clearly know what they want (i.e. education and contraception), but rather, as I noted in my introduction, with the institutions that restrict a woman’s access to education and control of her own body.
Second, if you were under the impression that we were going to need to largely addressed the climate crisis through the deployment of new and expensive technology, such as offshore wind turbines, you may have found it heartening that the health and education of women is #2 on the Project Drawdown list.
After all, giving women access to contraception is quick, easy, and inexpensive. Moreover, studies have shown that the cost of educating women is deferred by the fact that, by entering the workforce, they greatly add to the economic health of a country.
In short, as there is no need to wait for a new technology or to spend a fortune on infrastructure, this is something that we can jump right in and do. What’s stopping us?
As it turns out, quite a bit. Giving women access to education and contraception has been fiercely fought across the planet for hundreds of years now.
Hence, this is a situation that will not be easy to remedy. It may well be easier to install offshore wind turbines across the planet.
Nonetheless, thinking back on this comment, what is now needed is a new generation of activists to fight for both women’s rights and the planet. Proving once again that you do not need to be a climate scientist or a technology specialist to make a real difference in the climate crisis.
When I first checked out the site, I was a little confused but then became very amazed. It really is a roadmap, and it makes it so easy to tell how much each of these factors is contributing to our global emissions, how much investing in it costs and then how much it can save us.
This is a great point regarding the actual financial benefits that implementing these 100 changes can have. We are often told (often by politicians who receive funding from fossil fuel companies) that it would simply be too expensive to mitigate the climate crisis. For example, a number of Republican politicians have argued that the Green New Deal would cost $93 trillion to implement. Donald Trump rounded this number up to $100 trillion.
However, as Project Drawdown makes clear, implementing the necessary changes could actually save us money – and lots of it.
Let’s take Improved Clean Cookstoves (#9 on the list) as an example. As Project Drawdown notes, “[a]round the world, 3 billion people cook over open fires or on rudimentary stoves. The cooking fuels used by 40 percent of humanity are wood, charcoal, animal dung, crop residues, and coal. As these burn, often inside homes or in areas with limited ventilation, they release plumes of smoke and soot liable for 4.3 million premature deaths each year. Traditional cooking practices also produce 2 to 5 percent of annual greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.”
What would it cost to solve this problem? Project Drawdown estimates $129–264 billion. That’s quite a bit of money.
But, what if we fail to spend this money, what then? It would cost us somewhere around $2-4 trillion dollars. In other words, it would cost us around 10 to 20 times more if we do not act. Expressed another way, it would cost, as they say, just five or ten cents on the dollar if we address this problem now. I admit that I am no economist, but that seems like a terrific deal to me.
And, as with so many of these issues, addressing this problem would help reduce human suffering across the planet.
The fact that there are “4.3 million premature deaths each year” caused by breathing in this smoke and soot in really just the tip of the iceberg. According to the WHO (World Health Organization), those “3 billion people cook[ing] over open fires or on rudimentary stoves” suffer from a range of health issues, such as stroke, heart disease, obstructive pulmonary disease, and an increase in pneumonia. Indeed, “[c]lose to half of deaths due to pneumonia among children under 5 years of age are caused by particulate matter (soot) inhaled from household air pollution.” “Exposure is particularly high among women and young children, who spend the most time near the domestic hearth.”
So, not only would acting on this issue save us trillions (that’s with a “T”) of dollars, it could reduce human suffering worldwide, especially among women and young children.
It was great to finally see that among all the false theories surrounding climate change and global warming that there are still genuine climate scientists out there who still are fighting to get the real message about the climate crisis out to the public and make them more aware of what’s truly going on in the world around them…It’s because of well knowledgeable & well-respected climate scientists such as these that issues of climate change continue to surface and inspire new newer generations of people to rise up and tackle the climate crisis as a whole.
I could not agree more. I know that sometimes I am quick to shift from science and technology to cultural solutions; however, I too feel that we owe an enormous debt of thanks to climate scientists, especially as they frequently sufferer attacks from climate change deniers.
It is not just that climate change scientists identified the problems being brought about by the greenhouse gases that we have been emitting, they then set about to finding solutions. While Project Drawdown should be absolutely applauded for bringing all these solutions together into one place, they are really just aggregating the work of countless unsung scientists and researchers.
This is not to say that the job of mitigating the climate crisis should fall to climate scientists. They have done wonderful work in identifying the problem and coming up with solutions.
However, it is up to us, individually and collectively, to implement those solutions.
As Ken pointed out, 11/25 solutions are related to land use and food. This just shows how important it is for us to monitor and regulate what we are consuming and how our food is getting on to our plates. Restorative, regenerative, and conservation agriculture are the three most important ways farmers should shift to reduce CO2 emissions.…Most of the solutions, however, are not things that I can do personally right now. I cannot switch to wind power, solar power, or nuclear power when I am currently living on campus. I also cannot implement agricultural practices or improve my rice cultivation methods. It is a little frustrating knowing that it is up to the people in power and control of our energy and agricultural industries.
This is such a good point, as none of us can improve “rice cultivation methods” ourselves.
In his book Meatonomics: How the Rigged Economics of Meat and Dairy Make You Consume Too Much, David Robinson Simon argues that “A $5 Big Mac would cost $13 if the retail price included hidden expenses that meat producers offload onto society. Animal food producers impose $414 billion in hidden costs on American society yearly. These are the bills for healthcare, subsidies, environmental damage, and other items related to producing and consuming meat and dairy. That means that each time McDonald’s sells a Big Mac, the rest of us pay $8 in hidden costs.”
The simple fact is that the US. government provides enormous subsidies for the agricultural sector, but virtually none of it goes to mitigating the climate crisis. In fact, since most of it goes to the beef and cattle industry, US. tax dollars are actually supporting a prime driver of climate change. (How frustrating is that?)
So, while we can personally switch to a plant-based diet, doing so will not bring about the necessary changes to the agricultural sector. Hence, as this person noted, it is “frustrating knowing that it is up to the people in power and control of our energy and agricultural industries.”
As with so many issues, this brings us back to activism and being politically active, as we need to put into positions of power people that will act to mitigate the climate crisis. While voting is obviously important here, so are activists, as they I need it to create awareness of the problem.
Project Drawdown allowed me to better understand the amount of change humanity can make in restoring the Earth and ultimately combat the climate crisis. Being able to visually see both the economic and environmental impact such changes can make to heal the Earth makes this desire to create a more sustainable future more realistic. Past readings and videos have often left me thinking that it is too late to act, yet I feel like these upcoming years will be the most vital in reversing the damage.
Perhaps the most important message coming out of Project Drawdown is that we can, as this person succinctly put it, “create a more sustainable future.” However, as this person also rightly notes, the “upcoming years will be the most vital in reversing the damage.”
Ideally, we should have acted decades ago when scientists realized the enormity of the problem. However, there is no use crying over spilled milk, as there is still time to act.
But we need to act now, immediately. While we should definitely welcome new technology and solutions as they become available, there is no need to wait for them. As Project Drawdown makes clear, we have all the solutions that we need, right now.
Reading 7, Social justice, environmental justice, climate justice, and the injustice of it all
Let’s do something different today.
Since this week’s short films are on the Green New Deal, it would be pretty redundant if I made two videos on the Green New Deal.
So, let’s take up the climate crisis and justice, which are in many ways the cornerstone of the Green New Deal.
As I have repeatedly noted (you’re probably tired of hearing me say it!), this course focuses on the sort of cultural changes that we need to make in response to the climate crisis. While, as I noted in a previous video, personal actions (like switching to largely plant-based diets and away from flying and automobiles) are absolutely essential, we need to do more.
We need to collectively address this problem. Although the climate crisis is obviously a global problem, different parts of the world (i.e different countries) have their own individual challenges with respect to the crisis.
In some, like the US, the challenge is to reel in our environmentally disastrous lifestyle. Economically, this means that we arguably need to enter into a period of degrowth, where we work out how to live rich and meaningful lives while reducing our population and economy – and in the process emit far fewer greenhouse gases.
Alternately, in low- and middle-income countries, the challenge is how to raise the quality of life for everyone, so that everyone there can also live rich and meaningful lives, while not raising greenhouse gas emissions to unacceptable levels in the process – which is, sadly, exactly what wealthy countries like the US. did.
Because every country is facing somewhat different problems, the Paris Agreement signed at the COP21 in 2015, left decisions on climate action up to individual countries.
In some cases, these climate actions may be related, as every part of the world will need to rely on renewable energy sources like wind and solar.
However, in wealthy countries, part of the challenge will be to use far less energy than we currently are using. In low- and middle-income countries, by contrast, the challenge will be to use more energy – such as by electrifying villages across the planet – but to do so responsibly and sustainably.
Simply put, wealthy countries will need to enter into a period of degrowth; low- and middle-income countries, sustainable, responsible growth. In both cases, this will involve profound cultural change.
Because this is a course taught in the US, it has addressed a range of problems that to much of the world may well seem absurd.
For example, this course has considered reducing our meat consumption, which is hardly a problem for places like Bangladesh, where the per capita meat consumption is 4 pounds per year (compared to 265 pounds per year in the US.). To put that in perspective, people in American not only eat more meat than people in Bangladesh, we eat 6,600% more meat.
I know, it is difficult to even imagine such a huge difference, especially when it comes to food. Nonetheless, the US. has an obesity epidemic, which impacts 40% of Americans, while one in ten people across the globe experience chronic hunger daily. Returning to the example of Bangladesh, approximately 40 million people are close to starvation there and “40% of the country falls under three categories: hunger, starvation and chronic hunger.”
We have also taken up the issue of air travel. In the US. there are 2.5 flights per person per year. While not everyone is taking this many flights, as a country, we obviously fly quite a bit, with frequent flyers flying a great deal. In contrast, in Bangladesh, just 1 in 55 people fly every year.
If you had trouble wrapping your head around the fact that the average person in American eats 6,600% more meat than the average person in Bangladesh, the difference with air travel is even harder to imagine: as the per capita air-travel in the US. is 14,000% greater than in Bangladesh.
Finally, we have also taken up car ownership, which is hardly a problem in a country like Bangladesh, where only four people in a thousand own a car. In contrast, in the US. 838 people in a thousand have cars. The difference here is even more mind boggling, as per capita automobile ownership in the US. is 21,000% greater than in Bangladesh.
Recall from the documentary The True Cost that Bangladesh is where the Rana Plaza disaster happened. In case the film left you wondering why people would take jobs in such horrible conditions for such low salary, if one out of four of your friends was starving, it would probably be quite an incentive to take any job on offer.
All this brings us to the questions of social justice, environmental justice, and climate justice, which are all interrelated.
The horrific conditions under which people are forced to work in Bangladesh is an example of a “social-justice” problem.
The environmental damage done to the places by, for example, factories that pollute there, (which we often call point-source pollution) is an example of “environmental justice.” The phrase is a little confusing, as we really are talking about injustice here, which includes the facts that these factories are frequently located in areas where people are generally quite poor. Bangladesh is an obvious example: as poverty there is so great that the people have little choice but to take any sort of development, even if it destroys their local environment.
“Climate justice” looks to how global climate change impacts people across the globe, with the poor being impacted the most. For example, by flooding related to sea-level rise. “Each year in Bangladesh …10,000…square miles…(around 18% of the country) is flooded, killing over 5,000 people and destroying more than seven million homes.” Let me just repeat that: this many people, 5000, are killed and this many homes, seven million, are destroyed each and every year. “During severe floods the affected area may exceed 75% of the country” of Bangladesh. The last time that this happened, “30 million people were made homeless.”
There is an extraordinary, deadly gulf between the wealthiest and poorest people on earth. It not only impacts our planet’s poor directly through things like working conditions, it also does so indirectly through the contamination of their countries, such as Bangladesh.
Climate justice also comes into relief here, as wealthy counties are far better equipped to protect their people from its impacts.
Take the Thomas Fire, which I have previously mentioned and which came pretty close to my house in December of 2018. At one point, 8,500 firefighters mobilized to fight it. And then there was the firefighting equipment, including aircraft from across the nation and nearly 300 fire engines from eight nearby states. All told, it cost hundreds of millions of dollars to fight this wildfire.
I am, of course, profoundly grateful for all this, especially for the firefighters who risked their lives putting out this fire.
But how many other countries could afford to mount a response like this? How many would even have the equipment on hand to mobilize?
In other words, if I lived pretty much anywhere in a low-income country, during the Thomas Fire my little old wooden house would have burned to the ground along with all my possessions – and the rest of my town. Perhaps my family and I would have survived, perhaps not.
This is an example of climate justice – or more accurately, climate injustice.
In part because my country put 25% of all greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, we now have, in many cases, the wealth to protect ourselves from the devastation that the climate crisis is already bringing to our planet.
On the other hand, the 30 million people made homeless by the last great flood in Bangladesh, have no such protection.
Incidentally, in 2018 the Trump administration slashed funding to Bangladesh to two thirds the level of the previous administration. The slash was even greater with respect to the health sector, where funding was reduced to less than half by the Trump administration.
So, what can be done regarding all this?
Yes, we can buy fewer clothes, but what about the social, environmental, and climate justice issues in places like Bangladesh?
The Green New Deal – which I think is absolutely necessary – is primarily focused on the US. economy. But what responsibility does the US. have to the rest of the world, to places like Bangladesh?
Specifically, as a trading partner – and in terms of social justice – what responsibility do we have to mitigate the sort of cultural problems that led to the Rana Plaza disaster?
Regarding environmental justice, should we play a role in making sure that countries like Bangladesh have strong environmental laws – which would prevent the production of stuff for the US. and the rest of the world from destroying the environment of Bangladesh?
Finally, with respect to the climate crisis, should we help Bangladesh when they suffer the consequences of it?
Class discussion of Social justice, environmental justice, climate justice, and the injustice of it all
(Note that the following observations, which are in italics, have not been paraphrased or altered, though I do correct the occasional typo and, because of space concerns, often just part of the comment is reproduced here along with my reply. In working through these, I will first quote an observation by a student, followed by my thoughts.)
The statistic you mention regarding the loss of life and homes in Bangladesh is astonishing. I was truly struck by it. I paused the video and rewound it several times to make sure that I heard you right. 5000 lives lost per year, six million homes, and even more in some cases. How could this be allowed to happen? My gut reaction was “Why am I here learning about this when I could be there, on the ground actually helping those impacted by the flooding?”…Instead of caring about what these people face every day, we create false realities that benefit a wealthy few and call it good…I am truly fuming and I worry this is a jumble of unconnected thoughts. Really my takeaway is that the US has no right to be considered a world leader (and in fact in the wake of the Trump era is not a world leader) when we allow such events to happen and do nothing to avoid them.
As I have noted, because this course is taught in California, we have principally taken up the impact that the climate crisis is having in this part of the world, such as wildfires on the West Coast. However, global climate change is impacting different parts of the world in different ways.
“Climate experts predict that by 2050, rising sea levels will submerge some 17 percent of…[ Bangladesh’s]…land and displace about 20 million people.” And this is just the tip of the iceberg, as during storms many more people will be impacted.
Although we may feel disconnected from the people of Bangladesh and this problem, wealthy countries like the United States (and the United States in particular) are the reason that the climate crisis and this sea level rise is happening.
Moreover, the US is Bangladesh’s principal trading partner, as more of the country’s exports go to the United States than any other country. Even though Bangladesh does not play a very significant role in the US economy (when it comes to the US’s trading partners, Bangladesh is #46), the US is nonetheless of central importance to Bangladesh.
Prior to this course, you may have never thought much about Bangladesh, if at all. But what is happening in Bangladesh right now, from sea level rise and storm surges to horrific working conditions (which, at root, is caused by the fact that we are not paying them nearly enough for the products that they are supplying), is being caused by wealthy countries like the US (and, again, the US in particular).
Why are we not doing anything to correct these problems that we have created? As this person aptly notes in this comment, “Instead of caring about what these people [in Bangladesh] face every day, we create false realities that benefit a wealthy few and call it good.”
In order for this to work, all that we generally hear about from marketers is the product that they are selling us. They neither want us to think about where the product comes from (places like Bangladesh, where many of our clothes are made) nor where it goes when we are finished with it.
When we throw something away, they do not want us to think about where “away” is. Most of us never raise this obvious question. For their part, marketers are perfectly content to let us believe that, when we drop a pile of clothes off at Goodwill, they actually go to people in need, which they rarely do.
When confronted with the reality of what is going on here, the person who made this comment, much to their credit, said in exasperation “[w]hy am I here learning about this when I could be there, on the ground actually helping those impacted by the flooding?”
It would be incredibly commendable to go to Bangladesh in order to help with the suffering. However, this would really be little more than putting a Band-Aid on the problem, as it would do little to put an end to the cause of the suffering.
Respect to the United States, to do that, we need to 1) immediately and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused, both directly and indirectly, by the United States, 2) reel in the free-market system that makes us in the US richer buts keeps the people of Bangladesh in abject poverty, and 3) use the wealth that the fossil fuel economy has given the US to help mitigate the damages of the climate crisis in places like Bangladesh.
To do all that, we need both climate activist to make people aware of these problems and to elect politicians that will enact these changes.
Ken posed various questions of whether the United States has a responsibility to help countries such as Bangladesh mitigate the social, economic, and environmental disasters our country has caused. I believe that the United States absolutely has a responsibility to aid Bangladesh, other developing nations, and the rest of the world in moving towards a cleaner future. Over the past few years especially, I have felt that the sense of nationalism and patriotism in the United States has outweighed the compassion and empathy we should have for other human beings on our planet. While people’s feeling of pride for their country is great, I don’t believe that it should be placed ahead of caring for other people and other countries. While America is focused on maintaining our strong economy and making revolutionary technological, medical, and scientific advancements, we fail to realize the impact that our actions are having on the rest of the world. I believe that the Green New Deal needs to include specific ways in which America can aid the countries which we have harmed, such as a plan similar to the Global Marshall Plan created by Al Gore [published in 1992!].
What do you do if you live in Bangladesh, or someplace similar, that is impacted by the climate crisis? What if you are one of those aforementioned 20 million people that will need to migrate when 17% of Bangladesh is submerged by 2050? You really have no choice; you would need to migrate.
Across the planet, there are already millions of climate migrants, people who have no choice but to leave their homes. As astonishing as it may sound, even back in 2017, 68 million people worldwide were forced to become climate migrants. As the Brookings Institution notes, “one-third of these…were forced to move by ‘sudden onset’ weather events—flooding, forest fires after droughts, and intensified storms.”
By the way, that is an extraordinary number of people, “about three times more [people] than those displaced by conflict” and war during that time. It used to be that wars and other conflicts were often the greatest challenge faced by people across the planet, now the climate crisis is becoming even worse.
Regarding the other two thirds, Brookings Institution notes that “it is becoming obvious that climate change is contributing to so-called slow onset events such as desertification, sea-level rise, ocean acidification, air pollution, rain pattern shifts and loss of biodiversity.”
Let’s take Central America as an example.
First, central America is now experiencing more, and more severe, of those “‘sudden onset’ weather events” mentioned by the Brookings Institution. For example, in 2020, the region experienced two catastrophic storms within two weeks: Eta, a Category 4 hurricane, and Iota, which was briefly a Category 5 hurricane.
These two storms, “impacted 6 million people, destroyed thousands of homes and displaced nearly 600,000 [people] in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua.” In addition, “many people…also lost their livelihoods. The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock in Honduras estimates that up to 80% of the agricultural sector was decimated by the storms – an industry that…provided one-third of the country’s employment.”
Second, in terms of the “so-called slow onset events such as desertification” mentioned by the Brookings Institution. The FAO (the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) notes there is something called the “Dry Corridor strip, which stretches from Southern Mexico down to Panama and suffers from severe inclement weather due to El Niño…Although the term “Dry Corridor strip” didn’t even exist until 10 years ago, today it symbolizes the region’s vulnerability to the effects of climate change.”
The impact of this desertification is profound. For example, in “[i]n 2018 alone, a dry spell caused crop losses for at least 2.2 million people.” “[L]osses in bean and corn crops planted by subsistence farmers ranged from 75 to 100 percent” in the Dry Corridor.
So, with the devastating one-two punch of “‘sudden onset’ weather events” and “slow onset events such as desertification,” what are impacted people in places like Honduras, Guatemala, el Salvador, and Nicaragua to do?
Shortly after hurricanes Eta and Iota hit, “[w]ith few options at home, in mid-January [of 2021] up to 9,000 people gathered to join a caravan in Honduras heading to Mexico and the United States in search of opportunity.” This was just the most recent such event, as people have been, in part because of severe climate change, leaving the Dry Corridor for a decade now.
What is happening in the Dry Corridor has profoundly altered who is attempting to enter the US from our southern border. “In 2011, 86 percent of people arrested trying to cross [the southern border into the United States] were from Mexico; in 2019, 81 percent were [not surprisingly, if you are familiar with what is happening in the Dry Corridor) from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.”
Returning to this person’s comment, allow me to repeat a portion of it: “Over the past few years especially, I have felt that the sense of nationalism and patriotism in the United States has outweighed the compassion and empathy we should have for other human beings on our planet. While people’s feeling of pride for their country is great, I don’t believe that it should be placed ahead of caring for other people and other countries.”
In 2018, the then President of the United States, Donald “Trump…called a caravan of Central American migrants heading toward the U.S.-Mexico border an ‘invasion’ and pledged to use the military to stop people from entering the U.S“: “‘This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!’ the president tweeted.” 5000 US troops were deployed to the border in what the Pentagon named “Operation Faithful Patriot.”
The profound irony here is that “Central America is among the most vulnerable regions on the planet to climate change, despite producing less than 1% of global carbon emissions.” In dramatic contrast, the United States emitted roughly 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
In other words, the US is playing a leading role in bringing about a situation that devastated the lives of millions of our southern neighbors. However, with little choice than to become climate migrants, when these neighbors come to us looking for a new life, we respond with deadly, military force.
Sadly, this hints at the future, as we have seemingly already decided how we are going to act during the climate crisis with respect to humanitarian aid.
A lot of the time we Americans don’t recognize how climate change isn’t just an environmental issue but a social issue as well. The Green New Deal does an amazing job at acknowledging the social issues that have arisen as a result of climate change. Americans are going to… countries in the Middle East and fighting these wars in order to secure oil. While there fighting these wars, they’re ruining the conditions of innocent people who live in war zones. It’s disheartening to see the measures Americans are willing to go in order to secure oil. This is why just as Ken said important to vote for candidates that are willing to put our climate first since if this issue isn’t solved soon we won’t see a future on earth. If candidates see how important the general population views the climate they will begin to support pro-climate legislation such as the Green New Deal.
In the past 30 years, the United States has fought two major wars, the Gulf War in 1991 and the Iraq War beginning in 2003, in a part of the world rich in oil. Arguably, these wars fought were over securing just who would control that oil. Consequently, as this person notes, “[i]t’s disheartening to see the measures Americans are willing to go in order to secure oil.”
When we talk about the cost of petroleum oil, we generally referred to the financial cost, the cost in dollars, such as the cost per gallon of gasoline. However, there are all sorts of cost to securing oil.
Tens of thousands of people, including civilians, died during the Gulf War. And there were environmental costs. Iraq intentionally “dumped 400 million…gallons…of crude oil into the Persian Gulf, causing the largest offshore oil spill in history at that time,” and set fire to 700 oil wells, thereby, as this person notes, “ruining the conditions of innocent people who live in war zones.”
When we fill up our tank at a local gas station, we nearly always forget about these extraordinary costs and how unfair and unjust this is to all sorts people, such as those living in this war zone.
So far, we have largely been discussing social justice issues that are a consequence of the climate crisis. In other words, how people across the globe, many of whom who did little to contribute to the crisis, will be impacted by climate change.
However, as this person rightly notes, social justice issues arise before we even burn the extracted fossil fuels. This happens all across the planet, and not just during wars.
For example, if you were under the impression that Egypt or Libya was the largest oil producer in Africa, think again, as “Nigeria is Africa’s main oil producer…The petroleum industry accounts …for almost 90 percent of all export value” in Nigeria. However, this does not at all translate into wealth for the Nigerian people, where the per capita income is under $2400 (US dollars) per year.
This is in part because of corruption and in part because the oil companies making a profit there are from foreign countries, such as the United States. Three of the biggest oil companies in Nigeria are US companies: Exxon, Chevron, and Shell.
In short, the fossil fuel economy creates all sorts of justice issues for all sorts of people across the planet.
The US is really internally two separate countries, the wealthy and privileged, and poorer, primarily BIPOC communities (Black, Indigenous, People of Color). We live two different experiences, with the former oppressing the latter. Although the US has outlawed segregation, and although we’ve relinquished many of our imperial territorial possessions, it’s clear that these power hierarchies are still in place. The histories are impossible to ignore, both in developing nations like Bangladesh, and in minority communities right in our cities. It’s disgusting. The environmental movement has to be intersectional. Solutions offered like electric cars are only for the privileged global elite, when as Ken mentions only 0.4% of Bangladeshis own a car. I want to scream, it’s all so unfair. This is why I like the Green New Deal. Its authors acknowledge these inequalities, and focus on addressing them. Different communities will have different solutions to climate change, and we kind of rely on those in power to understand this reality and work to simultaneously fix climate change and fix the systemic issues with how this country treats the poor.
Is this person aptly and concisely notes, “[t]he environmental movement has to be intersectional.” If we ignore how the climate crisis is impacting BIPOC people in the US and across the planet, billions of people will suffer unjustly.
Hence, we really need to look at where environmental issues and social justice issues collide, as it is at these intersection points that human suffering is already occurring.
Here are two examples. In order to address the climate crisis, we need to end coal extraction in the US, as well as dramatically downsize the air transportation industry. The problem is that these industries employ many people. The air transportation industry directly employees around half a million Americans and indirectly far more.
What will happen to people in these industries – along with many more industries – when we reinvent our economy in response to the climate crisis? Millions of lives could be devastated.
Hence, the Green New Deal sees this issue holistically, as it is designed to protect individuals who would be negatively impacted by, for example, the downsizing of the air transportation industry. It does so by providing unemployment benefits, access to education, guaranteed healthcare, and so forth.
We also need to squarely confront the fact, as this person rightly notes, some of the “[s]olutions…[to the climate crisis]…like electric cars are only for the privileged global elite, when as Ken mentions only 0.4% of Bangladeshis own a car. I want to scream, it’s all so unfair.”
In part because of colonialism, the fossil fuel economy that emerged in the past two hundred years has been profoundly unjust to most people on the planet, as only certain individuals in wealthy countries benefited by this economy.
When we make lifestyle changes and transition into a new economy based on renewable energy, the danger is that this profound injustice will only be reproduced. As this person rightly notes, electric cars are a prime example. It doesn’t matter whether they are electric or not, wealthy people in wealthy companies will continue to have their cars, while poor people will still be without them.
The solution is not to give cars to everyone on the planet, as this is, of course, completely unsustainable. Rather, we need to reimagine how we get around, so that everyone in the US (and across the planet) has equal access to sustainable transportation.
If we fail to do this, we will build a world where the inequalities of the past will live on in the future.
However, as daunting as all this sounds, we are presented with a remarkable opportunity to work at righting the wrongs of the past and build a world that is not only more sustainable, but is more just and fair to people across the planet, including BIPOC communities.
Reading 8, Communicating the Climate Crisis
So, in addition to personal action (i.e. lifestyle changes), climate activism, and becoming politically active, today I would like to talk about yet another thing that we can each do to intervene in the climate crisis: communicate.
The reading for this week is the chapter by Professor Richard Somerville on “Communicating Climate Change Science” (Chapter 8) from the book Bending the Curve: Climate Change Solutions, which is, incidentally, a University of California publication.
As the Overview to the chapter notes, in it you “meet ‘Uncle Pete,’ a fictional character closely based on fact. Uncle Pete does not accept climate change science. Many people know a real person who strongly resembles Uncle Pete.”
The chapter thus seeks to prepare you for encounters for your own “Uncle Pete” – and similar skeptics that you may have already met.
Since the article takes up the formidable challenge of communicating the reality of the climate crisis to skeptics, in today’s talk I would like to consider a related but in many ways very different challenge: how to communicate action to people who are not skeptics, like your friends.
If you are like me, many of your friends are already convinced of the reality of the climate crisis, as we often surrounded, for a variety of reasons, by people who see such issues similarly.
Hence, it may well be the case that what interests your friends most is knowing what can be done about the climate crisis. More to the point, what they can do about it.
While such people are very different from Somerville’s “Uncle Pete,” they offer a very real opportunity for communication, though of a very different sort. Moreover, many of the things that Somerville underscores, like preparation, stories, metaphors, and language, can also help you communicate with your friends and family.
So, exactly how does one open up a space for such communication?
Even though it sounds paradoxical, I would argue that the best thing is to not initiate talking about the climate crisis, let alone initiate talking about your personal actions.
In a book on mindfulness mediation, Jon Kabat-Zinn nicely suggests the same regarding meditation “Every time you get a strong impulse to talk about meditation and how wonderful it is, or how hard it is, or what it’s doing for you these days, or what it’s not, or you want to convince someone else how wonderful it would be for them, just look at it as more thinking and go meditate some more. The impulse will pass and everybody will be better off – especially you.”
We’ve all had friends who became enthusiastic about something and then immediately began to talk ears off about it. This is, unfortunately, not a very successful way to spur people to action.
So, when is the best time to communicate new ideas? In general, I wouldn’t decide this for others, but leave it to your friends to tell you when they are ready to hear about it.
Allow me to give a few examples.
Up until relatively recently, I was a pretty hardcore vegan for five years straight. Before that I was a vegetarian. Before that a pescatarian. Before that, I did not eat a whole lot of animal products.
Whenever I was out to dinner with friends, this sometimes became obvious before I even ordered, as I would often ask the server for information about the food. Consequently, friends frequently asked me about my eating habits. When I replied that I was vegan, that often shut down the conversation.
Why? Well, because people know what being a vegan entails. Hence, for most people there is little need to ask about veganism as a lifestyle.
Moreover, as many people are vegans because of strong ethical convictions, they are often seen as feeling particularly virtuous and morally superior. Mind you that this may well not be the case, but, having been a vegan for years, I can tell you that people often assume that this how you feel – and how you feel about them, and their moral decisions (i.e. what they imagine that you perceive as their moral failure).
Consequently, experience has taught me that announcing that you are vegan can not only pretty much shut down all conversation on the subject, but can make for an uncomfortable meal for all involved.
How, then, does one go about communicating the importance of diet with respect to the climate crisis?
Here’s my approach to such communication. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but it has generally been working for me. It is certainly better than announcing to the world that I was vegan.
When asked about my dinner choices, I generally reply that, while I have been pescatarian, vegetarian, and vegan, I now largely think of myself as a “climatarian,” though I admit to being intrigued by friends who are “freegans.”
As you might imagine, people almost always immediately ask “What’s a climatarian?” “What’s a freegan?” Instead of shutting down conversation (i.e. communication), as the label “vegan” risks, these words initiate it.
So, I explain that a climatarian is a way of eating, like the similarly sounding “vegetarian.” A relatively new term, as it was coined in 2015, it denotes someone who eats with the climate in mind. For example, a climatarian would choose a turkey burger over a beef one, as 2.5 times more greenhouse gases are emitted in producing a pound of beef than a pound of turkey.
Of course, eating a pound of lentils is far better than either a pound of turkey or beef, as the beef requires – astonishingly, as I noted in another talk – the release of 30 time more greenhouse gas than the lentils. However – and this is an important point to communicate – not all climatarians are purists. The main thing is to try, as much as possible, to be aware of the climate impact of the food that you eat, and to act on this knowledge the best that you can.
But is this enough? Shouldn’t we all be eating a largely plant-based diet and forgoing turkey along with beef? Yes, that is true, but we are not only talking about bringing about greater awareness here (i.e. communication), but starting people on a path.
Because becoming a vegan can entail radical lifestyle changes and the notion of being vegan carries with it a great deal of cultural baggage – and, let’s be honest, much of it negative in the eyes of the carnist public – it risks being seem like an alien, far-off shore.
Climatarianism, by contrast, can be seen as a bridge to that other shore – a welcoming bridge that anyone can step out on to, at any time.
For example, on hearing about climatarianism, people often ask me, if we are at a restaurant, to walk through the menu in our hands to compare the relative climate impact of the food on offer. As a consequence, more than once my dinner companions have chosen more climate friendly options right then and there. As with the example of beef and turkey, people are often surprised that one tasty menu item can sometimes have half the climate impact of a similar option.
Of course, Somerville’s advice regarding preparation is worth repeating, as researching the relative climate impacts of different foods in advance is necessary here. However, this is the sort of knowledge that we all need to acquire if we want to eat with the climate in mind.
In any event, a single meal can thus result in someone not only learning about the relative climate impact of different foods, but also result in them acting on that knowledge, on the spot.
Yes, it would be great if telling people that you are vegan could instantly result in them swearing off of animal products, but, in my experience, this can completely backfire and have the opposite effect.
Climatarianism, however, offers them a new way of thinking about food choices – and, for many people, thinking about the climate impact of their food choices is indeed entirely new. If everyone were to think this way, it could have profound climate impact.
Climatarianism is fundamentally different from veganism insofar as it does nor present people with an either/or choice of either animal products or not. You’re not telling people to stop eating that pizza, but maybe to decide to get one covered with veggies rather than three different kinds of meat.
In terms of overall climate impact, it would be better if most Americans cut their climate footprint from food in half with choices like turkey over beef then if just 5 or 10% of the population switched to largely plant-based diets.
And, who knows, perhaps climatarianism will serve as a bridge to veganism for some people, as it offers them the first tentative steps in that direction, even though it my take years – as it did for me, as I went from being pescatarian to vegetarian to vegan.
As with “climatarian,” just the mention of the word “freegan” opens the door to climate communication – and perhaps action.
Since many people have never even heard the word “freegan,” it is a wonderful opportunity to explain that, while eating a largely plant-based diet can have profound climate consequences, wasting less food can have an even greater impact. It has been my experience that most people are truly startled by this fact.
Incidentally, as Wikipedia concisely notes, “Freeganism is often presented as synonymous with “dumpster diving” for discarded food, although freegans are distinguished by their association with an anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist ideology.”
It’s true that some people are pretty hardcore freegans. For example, Peter Kalmus, who is a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, collects food to eat that has been put out by his local supermarket because it is past its expiration dates.
On the other hand, as with being climatarian, being freegan is pretty flexible.
For example, if we are at a restaurant, we can take home everything that we order – and actually eat it at some point. When at home, we can prepare sensibly-sized portions and eat everything on our plate. Similarly, we can work at being freegan when we cook as much of what we have purchased as we can – such as leafy beet tops, as well as the root.
True, we have not dumpster dived for our meal, but we have eaten food that otherwise have likely wound up in landfill.
In other words, as with climatarianism, freeganism is not an either/or lifestyle choice like veganism. Instead, anyone can make freegan decisions throughout the day.
Communicating through your actions can be a very effective form of climate activism. It at once underscores that you really care about this issue (rather than just give it lip service) and that anyone can do the same, even if doing so just involves ordering a turkey burger.
After all, to get anywhere you need to make a first step.
Such communication can happen in all sorts of ways. People are always asking me about my electric bike, as they are truly curious about just what is. It is even the case that, noticing that I have a limited wardrobe (OK, noticing that I wear the same clothes a lot), people sometimes find polite ways of asking if I am a minimalist, which is, in fact, something that I work at being.
In fact, I get asked about lots of things: being an urban farmer, living in a small (though not tiny) house, swearing off flying, having only one child, climate activism, my meditation practice, and so forth. I do not advertise any of these lifestyle choices, but rather wait until people want – and are themselves ready – to hear about them.
When they are finally ready, people often come to me with scores of questions, as they really want to learn about sometime like urban farming or meditation.
This communication strategy also leverages personal climate action. Not only do these actions have direct impact on the crisis, but they encourage others to act as well, as they underscore how seriously you take this crisis – and that you are willing to “walk the talk,” as they say.
Such personal actions also underscore an often ignored truism: Before you can change the world, you need to change yourself. Otherwise, to be honest, you may well cause more trouble than good. To again echo that injunction often attributed to Gandhi, “Be the change you want to see you in the world.”
In any event, I am curious to both hear what you think about Somerville’s advice on how to talk to “Uncle Pete” about the climate crisis, as well as ways of communicating with concerned friends and family who want to do something about this crisis, but are not quire sure just how to go about it.
(Note that the below observations and questions were taken from the YouTube comments for the above short video lecture. They have not been paraphrased or altered, though often just part of the comment is reproduced here.)
2021
Like we have discussed in the class already, we already have the technology needed to meet the planet’s energy needs, the problem lies elsewhere. One of the problems being an uninformed public, mostly through no fault of their own.
Talking to an Uncle Pete I think would be challenging because it’s hard to control the anger I feel in their ignorance on something that is obviously happening.
I think that the most striking point this literature made was comparing climate scientists to physicians or doctors. I had never thought of making this comparison before reading this and it really stuck with me. It is true that people do not question doctors in the same way they question climate change and this can be due to political influence or sheer ignorance.
I agree with Ken in that sometimes I feel it is best to communicate without words and let people come to you. A couple years ago, I became close with a friend I met at UCSB. She was vegan, but she did not advertise it in the way that I had seen others advertise their veganism on social media. I became intrigued about her experience with eating a vegan diet and what led her to those choices. After a few long informative discussions and a couple of vegan turkey sandwiches, I made the decision to cut meat out of my diet. I have now been vegetarian for over two years without any pressuring or persuading. When I moved in with a different friend last year, she eventually noticed I didn’t eat meat and asked why. I explained my reasoning to her and we would occasionally have casual conversations about the climate crisis. One day she came up to me and said “I am giving up beef for lent,” and she hasn’t eaten beef since. A few months later she informed me that her brother stopped eating beef as well! In retrospect, I am amazed by the power of this form of passive communication and the domino effect it had created.
My little domino train came to a screeching halt when I moved back home at the start of COVID. My family has constantly made fun of me for all of my choices and opinions regarding climate change ever since I became vegetarian. I have tried countless methods of communication with all of my family members, but they refuse to even consider anything I say. I have shown them the data and cited my sources and debunked the myths and presented the solutions. I have explained the science and politics and industries behind everything. They just aren’t interested in hearing what I have to say. Both Ken’s video and this week’s reading, “Communicating the Climate Crisis,” provide a lot of useful tools for communicating climate change, but I am not sure if there is any way to effectively communicate with someone that refuses to listen. I used to be passive about my feelings regarding climate change because my family would immediately knock them down. The struggle of communicating the climate crisis is real.
I think that when it comes to effective communication, how you say it, and who says it, is more important than what you say. Chapter 8, in the “Preparation” section, notes that “trusted messengers can have an enormous impact and can motivate people to bring about change.” Messengers can carry certain personas that draw groups of people in, or have certain audiences that are willing and eager to listen. The book mentions Katherine Hayhoe as a climate change messenger to the Christian community. I had the opportunity to attend two lectures by her at UCSB in January of 2020. The first was a “conversation session” in a small lecture hall; this more intimate meeting was geared towards the topic of engagement and outreach. Dr. Hayhoe described what she calls the “outreach spectrum”: the many different ways and degrees to which people are involved in environmental activism. It ranges from being a scientist and writing scholarly articles, to being a nature photographer and running an instagram account. Her point was, there are so, so many ways you can get involved in environmental outreach that everyone has a place in the movement— you just have to find your niche. She made sure to note that not everyone can or should play certain roles; for example, if you are poor at public speaking, don’t engage in outreach that involves public speaking! If you aren’t religious, don’t be the person that tries to work with churches! Someone else can and will fill these roles and you can pick the one most suitable and exciting for you. Being a climate change messenger isn’t for everyone, but for the people who have the speaking skills, outgoing personality, or any sort of platform, this is a good role for you. Hearing Dr. Hayhoe describe the outreach spectrum in this way really inspired me to start thinking about what I’m good at and how I can start using my own talents and passions to be a better advocate and activist for the planet.
I know that most people’s reaction to this reading will likely be appreciation for how the author attempts to help us communicate climate change, however, while reading the chapter, I was immediately struck by how disheartening the whole thing was. The fact alone that scientists need to put so much thought into their communication of climate science is beyond me. As the chapter mentions, medical science would never be scrutinized to the same extent. I’d be hard pressed to believe any field would. Rather than trusting the professionals, the fossil fuel industry has been so successful at causing doubt, that climate scientists now have to take time away from their work solely to equip readers with communication tactics to reinforce something that is fact. While I appreciated that the author was trying to make climate science more accessible and understandable, it’s shameful that this is even something that needs to be considered. Why is it so difficult for people to trust the work of established and credible scientists, even when they’re talking about an issue that could save our population?
I really enjoyed this week’s reading “Communicating Climate Change Science” and Ken’s introduction video. I recently listened to a podcast explaining how to talk about politics with your family and friends during the holidays (where many of us will see someone with opposing views like Uncle Pete). The podcast discussed how a group, Better Angels, would host workshops that promoted self-reflection and mutual understanding. An example of questions they were asked is: “What are some of the common stereotypes about my group, and what truths are those based upon?” Both liberals and conservatives had reasons to explain the truths. Having reflected on their own group’s stereotypes, conservatives and liberals were able to see each other more as humans than as a stereotype that threatened their morals. This podcast, the reading for this week, and Ken’s introduction reiterated my belief that communication is essential to getting someone to understand you, let alone change their opinions to agree with you. However, I had not before broken down the steps one must take to communicate effectively with opposers like the reading this week did. I’m happy to have gained new insight from this reading to use for future discussions with others who disagree with me on any topic. It is sad that the important discussions I want to have would be with people who disagree with me on environmental issues, social justice issues, and politics, and yet, these are all interwoven. There is hope, though. Communication is powerful, and if there are enough of us having conversations with the right people using these communication skills, I think we can stir a lot of change in all of these realms.
Another week, another fantastic reading. As I’m sure many of you do, I have an Uncle Pete in my extended family. About a year ago, long before I enrolled in this class, I got into a pretty heated argument with him about climate change. A few hours after the discussion, I felt like I had completely missed an opportunity to accurately argue my side, and I felt as if my emotions got the best of me when going head to head with a true climate change denier.
I really liked this week’s reading. I really appreciated the advice about waiting to be asked about climate change as opposed to bombarding someone with all your knowledge about climate change. I often have friends wanting to have in-depth conversations about a topic I don’t really care about, and it makes me even less interested in the topic when they do so.
One of the main problems with climate change is that big businesses, like fossil fuel and oil companies, are much better at communicating an idea to the general public than scientists are. If we work on getting clear messaging out about the dangerous effects of global warming, it may help convince people who have been previously turned off from climate change…
This reading made me very hopeful that communication about climate change will get better and inspire more to take action in fixing it. Spreading hopeful solutions and impassioned information will certainly be more effective than complex, boring, data about climate change.
Reading Chapter 8 this week, it’s sad to see how we’ve all met some forms of “Uncle Pete” in our lives and how he’s so stubborn and never willing to change his mind. As people grow older, they’ll gradually develop their own sets of values and knowledge, making it harder for them to change their minds. That’s why teaching children about climate change is so important – Only when kids accept the importance and urgency of climate change at a young age could they go on and take action on this matter. In addition, climate change is always considered as something irrelevant to people’s daily life, which is probably why many people fail to recognize it as a top-tier problem. Communicating climate change should definitely involve emotional stories, like the first few documentaries we’ve watched, so as to impress people through means of pathos.
As for communicating with our friends and relatives, I found it unhelpful to start a conversation on climate change that they didn’t want. After watching Fire in Paradise, I recommended it to six of my friends yet none of them eventually finished that documentary. There’re definitely more effective ways to communicate climate problems, but I always feel like I’m not “professional” enough to do that. Yes, I know the facts and statistics, but when asked to explain the deeper, tangling root causes and science behind all this, I don’t think I’m equipped with knowledge for that.
[T]he part I found most intriguing was Ken saying not to push the conversation of the climate crisis on people. While this definitely made sense after he explained it, I was initially very surprised to hear Ken advocate this stance. Of course, unloading your passions onto an uninterested and unwilling audience won’t bring them any closer to agreeing with you, but I guess I wasn’t expecting that answer. But when Ken compared this to veganism I understood. I have seen conversations shut down right before my eyes when someone says they are vegan. My brother and his wife are vegan and have been for many years, when this comes up at gatherings with extended family, I can see people get uncomfortable. Both veganism and the climate crisis have a way of making people feel guilty, because morally, we all know it is something we should pay more attention to. There is no strong reason to not know more about the climate crisis and be involved in halting emissions. Getting the conversation started and educating people is one of the first and best places to start with making a difference, and it is somewhere we can start today.
“Deciding to do nothing about climate change is like deciding not to have serious elective surgery, such as declining a coronary artery bypass operation that your cardiologist recommends. The operations will involve risks and costs. But declining it will also involve risks and costs, including the risk of a fatal heart attack” (Bending the Curve). This was my favorite quote from the reading. The other day, I attempted to talk to my mom about the climate crisis. It seemed that no matter what I said or what statistics I gave her she just did not understand why climate change was such a big issue and why change needs to occur right now. This quote really resonated with me because I felt like everyone, including my mom, could understand the metaphor, and therefore understand why we must make changes for the sake of our planet…
Going back to the quote I originally brought up, many people are scared of what will happen if we start implementing major changes. I agree, change is scary, but we must help these people realize that without making changes ourselves, changes will come eventually. These changes won’t be renewable energy however, they’ll be climate disasters. Everyone has power in making a difference when it comes to climate change, whether we are taking action ourselves or encouraging others to do the same, everything matters. I feel much more confident in bringing change after this reading, as I hope you do as well.
I really really loved this week’s reading and I think it was my favorite out of all of them! I live in a very conservative city where a lot of people don’t believe in the climate crisis and I have many family members who don’t as well. This chapter really helped me understand how to effectively communicate with these people, as I’d often just grow upset and leave the conversation. I told my mom about this reading and she too wanted to read it so we could be prepared for the next time we go to her parents’ house. They’re the type of people to say that the climate is always changing, but they live in Texas, so I’m hoping I can use the tragedy of an event that just happened there to my advantage in explaining the climate crisis to them.
I also happen to live in a very conservative region where many people are climate change deniers. I was happy to receive some advice on how to approach speaking to these people. I found the comparison of climate science to the medical field really moving because I had never considered it before. I definitely am one to trust what the doctor is telling me 100% when I am at the doctors’ office, not question it and take his or her words for granted. Climate scientists are constantly questioned and undermined by deniers who try to use false claims to fight against climate change, such as the climate is always changing, like you mentioned. It would be very beneficial for our Earth if climate scientists’ words were taken as seriously as doctors’ words were.
Another great piece of advice that stuck out to me was to always be sure to include information on solutions. Nobody wants to solely hear about hopelessness and this was definitely something I noticed in the first few weeks of this course. It was very hard to hear about how deep in trouble our generation is in with the first few readings and films, but now that we are getting into solutions more I feel alot better. As the book stated, research suggests that messages that may invoke fear or dismay are better received if they also include hopeful messages. I will definitely keep this in mind for future conversations.
This reading brought to mind a personal connection with the material. My whole life, I have never enjoyed eating meat. I was raised on a largely plant-based, mediteranean diet, and so this is what is natural and desirable to me. Upon becoming aware of the climate impact of eating meat, and the benefits of a plant-based diet, my passion for eating this way and learning more about it became heightened, and I’ve never looked back since. While I would label myself as a pescatarian, I hardly ever announce or broadcast this label. Rather, I simply choose to stay away from meat options and do all that I can to make my meals plant-based. Thus, my peers are often surprised when they put it together and realize I am pescatarian. This is widely considered a good thing, to me and them, because by not advertising my dietary choices, I open up the topic to discussion, as Ken notes in the video. Often, people ask me why I choose to eat this way, and their curiosity effectively leads me to enlightening them on the benefits of a plant-based diet. Instead of casting shame, thus closing off curiosity and discussion, by not ostentatiously advertising my lifestyle choice, I have been effectively communicating climate change and continue to do so day-to-day. Although this may only have a minute effect (if any) on the lifestyle decisions of people around me, at the very least, it makes others aware of the ramifications of their food choices. I’d like to think I set a positive example for how to actively combat the climate crisis on a personal level, at a benefit to your own well-being – a win-win! If people come to see that combating climate change as a win-win scenario, they will be more effectively inclined to make choices with the climate in mind.
I found this week’s reading to be the most useful by far. In this class, we talk a great deal about what climate change is, the principle causes, and how to make an impact. All of this knowledge is incredibly powerful and I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to learn about the environment in this way at a collegiate level. All that being said, it is critical that we acknowledge the obvious: millions of people around the world have never and likely will never have access to this kind of education. It is therefore of chief importance that we pay equal attention to how our knowledge can be made understandable and accessible to the general public. That requires understanding how the average citizen absorbs information like this and how we can develop strategies to have the largest impact. “Bending the Curve: Climate Change Solutions” tackled this issue in depth and provided concrete tools for how students like us can implement our knowledge in a public activism setting.
I’ve mentioned this in my comments before, but this reading reminded me a great deal of my own volunteer experiences at my local zoo. My job essentially boiled down to accomplishing exactly what this reading talked about: communicating conservation information to a public audience in a way that was straightforward and understandable. I was delighted to recognize many of the tactics that I was familiar with in this chapter. For example, the reading discussed the importance of language and how different words communicate different things depending on the audience. The reading gave the example of how scientists speak of “postive feedback” loops to explain climate change, a term that can be confusing for folks only familiar with “positive feedback” as a good thing in a job setting. Likewise, in my volunteer work, I practiced modifying my language depending on the audience. When explaining the conservation of rhinos, I might explain to a six year old that rhinos are especially cool animals because their horns are made of the same stuff as our fingernails. If I was discussing the same topic with an adult, I might go into the name of that material (keratin) and discuss more mature ideas about the threats of poaching. Though the information I would be presenting varies slightly in content and language use, I would make a conscious choice about how to have the greatest impact depending on my audience.
The reading also discussed the importance of solutions and formatting messages. This idea is also something that I experienced in my position, as I was often working with zoo visitors hurrying to see their next animal or rushing to find the nearest lunch option for their hungry kids. Especially when you’re working with a limited time period, it is critical to include a solution or positive action step at the end of your message. If you aren’t careful, your guest may walk away learning only the disheartening aspects of a particular conservation issue. Just as the reading suggested, it is often more valuable to start with the bottom line and work outwards from there. If a child is anxiously looking for the next exciting topic, it is always more valuable to impart the lesson of recycling paper than to try to explain the details behind how deforestation harms binturongs. As someone with experience with public activism, I can confidently say that this chapter of reading is an incredibly useful resource.
2020
Perhaps one of my favorite aspects about this class, besides Ken’s obvious enthusiasm and passion for the environment, is the exposure that it provides me to a wide range of literary and cinematic pieces regarding climate change. I can certainly say that I would have never read something like Bending the Curve: Climate Change Solutions if it weren’t forced upon me as an assignment. But I’m so glad that this class introduced me to this reading because I think it’s an extremely useful tool for those that want to spread urgency regarding the climate disaster. The extended metaphor regarding convincing our own “Uncle Pete” of anthropogenic climate change made absorbing what was being said just that much easier. Uncle Pete symbolizes every stubborn, conservative and science-doubting person in our lives that refuses to believe what you have to say about climate change no matter how strong the evidence you have is…
One facet in the reading that I found resonated with me the most was concerning language use. I think the words that we use have an underestimated importance regarding their influence on the strength of our argument. As Ken focused on in his video, the use of one wrong word could completely disinterest your audience. His personal anecdote of labeling himself as a vegan and people automatically dismissing him as an environmental extremist shows just how critical language is…
[this comment received 48 replies, including]
I also have some uncle Pete’s with my family and friends. But what I also realized is I am not taking any action to change my diet or the way I live. How can I communicate with my family and friends of how bad climate change is if I do not do it myself. That is the main problem of my communication and will need to be able to put my own effort before telling anyone else what my ideas are.
I also Believed that the Language was super important in explaining about climate crisis. Ken did indeed explain this briefly on this video. I think that Climaterian is a great way to communicate new people to learn how to help climate change. I like how you have a many more choices then being a climaterian. Instead of eating a burger, you can eat turkey. You do not necessarily have to quit eating meat like vegans do, you can just cut back and meat that cause higher concentrations of green gas emissions which is mainly beef. Also being a freegan also has many choices as well. Instead of throwing away left over food, JUST EAT IT.
[and this reply]
I wanted to respond to your comment because I also feel the same way about this class. In the beginning I was worried that some of the content of this class was going to be difficult and hard to read. However, as the class is progressing I have come to enjoy doing the reading and watching the videos…I also have someone in my life that reminds me of uncle Pete and I’ve always just avoided having any conversations about it because I know we are going to disagree. However, I feel like this was because my lack of real knowledge on the subject. I have always been a believer in protecting the planet and the importance around it but I never knew the science to back it up. As the reading pointed out the first step in communicating about the climate crisis is to know all the facts. Now that I have more knowledge about the subject, as well as accesses to resource to help validate my points I feel more confident to take on “uncle Pete”.
From my personal experience, I have met a hardcore climate change denier on the train from Santa Barbara to LA. It was during my first year and I barely know anything about the actual damages climate changes has done, nor did I know all the facts and numbers about things such as the beef industry and airplane’s contribution to this crisis. This “Uncle Pete” which I encountered was sitting next to me writing up a document regarding a report for his job, and then he started a conversation with me about how I view climate change and whether or not I believed in it. Of course, as most sane people, I said climate change is happening and I do believe it has detrimental effects, but then this Uncle Pete begun “correcting” the information that I learned before. As he said, he works as the lead engineer for a project from a petroleum company, he knows a lot of data that can prove that climate change is not happening, and I was just sitting there listening to him showing me all these graphs and research. At the time, I really had no idea how to debate with him, and he was so convincing that I almost wanted to believe him. After we parted ways, I felt like I lost a debate that I no knowledge about, and I was almost convinced by him. It is certainly important that individuals know more about the truth of climate change, or else they could be easily convinced such as myself.
[Note that texts denying the climate crisis also provide readers with communication tactics, such as offering multiple ways to refute the argument that anthropogenic climate change is real, as well as offering specific language. For example, arguing that the numbers are “overhyped”]
I really appreciate Professor Hiltner’s attitude of tolerance and humbleness regarding his own beliefs. It must be difficult to simultaneously be passionate about such an important issue and be tolerant towards others’ personal choices. I used to think of Vegans as “holier than thou” folks but I do not anymore.
As for the reading, I find Somerville’s defense of science to be very compelling. Furthermore, he is exactly right in stating that the Climate Crisis is much more than a scientific topic. It is a “human” topic, whatever that means. In an age of science skepticism, it is important to be able to explain the Climate Crisis in a way which motivates the largest amount of people.
Regarding the author’s mentioning of Christianity, I find it interesting that Christians in this country are not more vocal about the climate crisis. I think Jesus of Nazareth would’ve been a climate activist in the sense that the Biblical message includes prosperity for all humankind. If this religion does indeed consider the earth, men, and nature as sacred, then there is absolutely no reason for Christians to not be concerned about the Climate Crisis.
[BTW, Pope Francis is a “climate activist in the sense that the Biblical message includes prosperity for all humankind.” See his encyclical letter “Laudato Si: On Care for our Common Home.”]
[this comment received 48 replies, including]
I agree with you about Ken’s tolerance towards other people’s personal choice. In addition, I found the communication skills really matter. I have experienced the similar situation that when I, at some point, was obsessed with something and keeps talking about it with my family and my friends, they often appear to be indifferent about it while I was supposing that they should be somewhat passionate about what I was talking about. The idea of leaving them alone for a while until they are ready to listen to you is really effective. Being too enthusiastic talking about one thing could actually scare them off and make them think “oh, gash, what is he talking about” and thus make them less patient rather than intriguing them to your topic.
[and this reply]
For me, communication is a sophisticated art that requires lots of experience and technique…
[and this reply]
Although I am no longer very religious, I used to be Christian when I was in high school. I definitely used to see the world as something that humans should protect, and saw my environmentalist views connected with what I would learn in church about love and respect for all living things. Although I think it is a pretty big overgeneralization that Christians have little concern about the environment, I do think that Christians can do more to advocate. My own personal connections that I made to the environment were not mentioned much at all in my church.
amazing content
[from “MisterTracks,” obviously a bot]
[this comment received 5 replies, including]
The videos are posted on YouTube, a public website that the majority of people have access to (he also put these videos up on his website for people who don’t have access to YouTube). However, he doesn’t send out these videos, put ads out for these videos, and he doesn’t have bots promoting his contenet (or at least that I know of).
When one is ready to educate themselves on this topic, they have these videos within reach. Each video is short (compared to a 2-hour long nature documentary). I would argue that Ken’s short videos are entertaining (although this claim may be considered biased). They are split up by different topics, and give an effective rundown on the climate crisis.
Despite taking his class for two-quarters, this is the first time I’ve heard of Ken’s dietary restrictions for the environment. In fact, I’ve noticed that he seldom speaks of his personal experience regarding climate change, which is refreshing to not hear someone brag about their personal experiences. It’s is nice to hear that Ken practices what he preaches, it’s encouraging to see that he’s in this fight with us.
As a communications major, I feel this challenge to effectively communicate the reality and solutions to the climate crisis is something my field can come together to successfully do to take action. Allotting money and energy into mass communication on this topic are very worthwhile.
Vegans can be awkward to eat with, especially being someone who loves meat-lover pizzas and all you can eat Brazilian barbeques. In all honesty, the past couple years, my meat intake has to be in the top 1% of Americans, the country with the highest meat consumption. While politely, actively, and attentively listening to Ken’s argument on climatarians, but I’d rather stop flying all together. Freeganism seems feasible. However, because I eat 4 meals a day at a buffet style cafeteria, this wont help me be the change I want to see in the world either. Unfortunately, my society has made me addicted to growing muscle mass and eating much more protein than carbs. While my ketosis diet is healthy for me, I now realize its very unhealthy for the environment and selfish. I need to rethink whether looking good is more important to me than holding myself accountable to hurting the environment.
[Do check out the documentary The Game Changers in which “A UFC fighter’s world is turned upside down when he discovers an elite group of world-renowned athletes and scientists who prove that everything he had been taught about protein was a lie.”]
This week’s reading was probably my favorite we have had thus far. I recently went home for the long weekend and was at a family dinner with my extended family when they asked about my classes this quarter. I exclaimed that I loved my climate change class and began to talk about the experience I have had as a student in this class. I emphasized lots of the new information I have learned and the lifestyle changes my close family and I have had to decrease our own carbon footprint. My cousin who is twenty three years old began to argue with me regarding the realness of climate change and if climate change was truly caused by human actions. His stance on climate change shocked me. Throughout the course almost every comment of mine relates to the lack of education our society has and how I believe that this lack of education greatly contributes to the problem. Therefore, I used this as an opportunity to educate him as well as everyone at the table about climate change using statistics and doing my best to combat his points that he was making. I really wish that I had done this week’s reading prior to our conversation…
[this comment received 16 replies, including]
I think it’s awesome that you got use the material you learned in this course to educate those around you. I was also very enthusiastic about the reading this week. Because the climate crisis is such a dire issue, it’s important to communicate messages in the most effective way possible. Especially as a communication studies major, I felt really connected with the points made in the article. For starters, I loved the ideas of using stories and metaphors. By using methods like this, the crisis is easier explained. I feel like many people think about the climate crisis in complex terms, and do not even attempt to understand what’s going on. The reality is that it in fact is not that complex, the facts are made upfront and clear. The planet is warming at accelerated speeds and this is because of humans. Using metaphors allows people to put things into perspective, and gives them more chances to understand the crisis.
[and this comment]
I also found myself in a similar situation the past week. I discussed with my friends how I no longer wanted to eat beef and in general eat less meat. They asked me why and I said because beef is very bad for the environment, although they seemed to understand the effects of beef they asked me why should I change if everyone else is still going to eat beef and if the food is already made it is better to just eat it than to let it go to waste, I found myself to be unable to argue back with them. I almost felt a bit ridiculous because I just had to sit there and be like “well idk”. I was totally unprepared for comebacks, I wish I had read this article to be more prepared instead of just shutting down.
To start off, I’d like to mention how appreciative I am that Ken explained the two alternatives to help aid conversations that go sour after lifestyles/diet labels are brought up. Not only do they help conversations that have turned sour, but they also help prevent any awkwardness that can potentially arise from the topic. I personally have never been much of a meat eater, but I consume lots of other foods that vegetarians and vegans would typically refrain from. When someone fills me in on the information that they are a vegetarian or vegan, I feel hesitant to say I don’t share those same habits. I feel as though I would be looked down upon by those who choose to be vegetarian or vegan for the sake of the planet. Not only does this experience simply make me uneasy, it gives me the impression that I have an insane amount of change to endure and undergo in order to begin the battle against climate change within my own life. I actually have not met anyone that has used the term “freegan” or “climatarian”, but I appreciate those terms. They feel more welcoming and achievable or realistic. It is simply doing what you can while it being better for the environment as well as for yourself as an individual.
I intuitively knew that climate change communication was just as important as individual or collective action, but I didn’t ever think that it may be best to not initiate talking about climate change or your personal actions to those who aren’t skeptics. However, after Ken explained it, it made perfect sense. You don’t want to make people feel guilty or uncomfortable for not taking action, because they will be much less likely to listen. If you wait until they are ready to act, and then educate them, the outcome will likely be more effective than otherwise. I really enjoyed Ken’s stories of explaining his diet choices while having dinner with friends. As a lifelong vegetarian myself, I completely understand what he was trying to explain about people being defensive or uninterested when it is brought up. People usually jump straight to explaining why they would not be able to give up meat, which I completely understand – that’s why I love the idea of climatarian. It’s a lot more approachable of an idea because it doesn’t require commitment or radical lifestyle changes. It merely means making conscious decisions about what is better for the environment, even if it is just some of the time. The effectiveness of a more realistic/approachable diet change is clear in Ken’s example, where his friends made a decision to have a more climate friendly meal right then and there, and were interested in learning more, rather than being put off by the idea of giving up meat altogether. As Ken mentioned it would be more effective for the majority of Americans to cut their footprint in half, than 5-10% switching to a plant based diet.
I have to admit that I really did view the freegan diet as sort of “dumpster diving”. But after Ken explained that making freegan decisions really consists of eating what’s on your plate or finishing your leftovers it seems 100% realistic. Even buying “expired” food from grocery stores doesn’t even sound so terrible because most of it is still edible anyways. Of all of Ken’s videos, this is one of the ones that resonated with me most – I learned so much from it despite that it didn’t include climate change statistics or even list out actions that should be taken to combat it.
Reading 9, Drawing down greenhouse gas emissions by being the change
You may be wondering why I included Peter Kalmus twice in this course, first in the documentary on Being the Change and now in the book of the same title upon which the film is based.
In fact, I find this week’s reading to be more akin to Project Drawdown than the documentary on Kalmus.
Project Drawdown gave us a glimpse the big picture, what we need to do to globally bring down greenhouse emissions. However, as someone in our class aptly noted, “Most of the solutions…are not things that I can do personally right now. I cannot switch to wind power, solar power, or nuclear power when I am currently living on campus. I also cannot implement agricultural practices or improve my rice cultivation methods.”
In contrast, Peter Kalmus looks at what each of us can do to drawdown our own greenhouse emissions, like bike and eat with the climate in mind.
True, we have been discussing theses things for a number of weeks now, but not through the eyes of a scientist. As a climate scientist, Kalmus is able to do the same sort of calculations that we saw in Project Drawdown, but, in his case, he focuses on the issue in a far more personal way.
For example, he notes that when he went vegetarian 2012, it reduced his greenhouse gas “emissions by about 1,500 kg CO2e per year. ” Going freeganism reduced his “food emissions by an additional 1,000 kg CO2e per year.” As he notes, Kalmus’s vegetarian and freeganism hence reduce his food emissions to 400 CO2e per year, which is .4 metric tons. Since he also “began growing food, [and] trading surpluses with neighbors,” presumably this number is even lower.
What is interesting here is that Kalmus is not just calculating what sort of emission reductions are possible, he is actually testing to see if this is possible, let alone rewarding.
He also does a great job of bringing the relative impact of his actions into focus. “My five most effective actions were quitting planes, vegetarianism, bicycling, freeganism, and composting.” In this class we have, of course, talked about cars, planes, and animal products as a problem, but Kalmus not only underscores that these are major issues, he shows how he acted on them and the results.
Kalmus also draws attention to seemingly little things that might escape our attention.For example, “[w]hen we first moved into our house in 2008, there were five pilot lights emitting a whopping 1,600 kg CO2e per year.” This translates into 3527 pounds, or over 1.5 metric tons. Recall that we each should annually be emitting no more than 2 metric tons each.
I am curious which reductions in particular that Kalmus calms and his family took interested or surprised you most. For example, he notes that by switching to using a clothesline they reduced their “household CO2e emissions by 550 kg.” This one little change saves half of a metric tons of CO2 or equivalent gases annually. Note too that there is an incredibly small amount of CO2 embedded in a clothesline, especially when compared to the manufacture of a clothes dryer.
Because he is a climate scientist, Kalmus really likes to backup what he says with cold, hard facts. For example, he that “[t]he average American diet emits 2,900 kg CO2e per year,” which is almost 3 metric tons – and hence can completely blow your individual carbon allotment.
Another eyeopening statistic is that “each dollar spent on new stuff represents roughly 0.5 kg embodied CO2e emissions (counting manufacturing, packaging, and shipping).” As “[t]he average US person spends a little over $6,000 per year on new stuff…average emissions are something like 3,000 kg CO2e,” which translates into three metric tons per American – and hence can also completely blow your individual carbon allotment.
Kalmus also notes that “US landfills emit 1,300 kg [i.e. 1.3 metric tons] CO2e per person per year. Let this sink in for a moment: our society has reached a point where even one person’s trash, taken by itself, generates more CO2e than the average Bangladeshi generates for everything.”
While you might expect Kalmus to focus solely on personal actions, his chapter on “Collective Action” reveals that he has more holistic view of the situation.
For example, he succinctly notes that “Global warming is a market failure. Burning fossil fuels imposes huge costs on society that aren’t included in the price of the fuels, primarily by causing global warming and respiratory illness. It’s crucial to fix this market failure because few of us will voluntarily stop burning fossil fuels in a society that still strongly rewards this behavior.”
As Kalmus notes, he takes up the the question of activism, in order to “balance” his focus on personal action: “In this chapter, I’ve presented my opinions as a human, not as a scientist. Although my job is to do science, as a human I have as much right to respectfully express my opinions as anyone else. I’ve done so here in order to balance my emphasis on individual action and emissions reduction elsewhere in the book
I am interested to hear what you make of both Peter Kalmus’s approach to the climate crisis through personal action, as well as his underscoring the need for activism.
(Note that the below observations and questions were taken from the YouTube comments for the above short video lecture. They have not been paraphrased or altered, though often just part of the comment is reproduced here.)
2021
In 2 years, he was able to lower his carbon emissions by 80%, which is a very impressive feat.
A similarity I saw between Ken’s lectures and from this chapter is reducing flying because of its huge impact. In addition, Kalmus provides good reasons of why he prefers slow travel that I think are underappreciated in our lifestyles now; he says slow travel allows him to connect with the local communities more while having more of an adventure. He also notes that flying can spread diseases in a pandemic- like we have witnessed with the coronavirus.
[Kalmus: “modern air travel is the ideal way for a local outbreak to spread into a pandemic”]
I think what really stuck out to me in this reading was the author appealing to the audience as a human and not a scientist. I think people can feel discouraged or reluctant to listen to someone so knowledgeable who uses advanced vocabulary they don’t understand. I like how he wrote things simply and listed things that the everyday person could do to make a difference. I just hope that by us citizens demanding changes our nation as a whole will evolve and with collective action, we will be able to fight this crisis.
This reading (and the film) shows how every day people can change their habits and practices in order to help the planet. I thought it was interesting to see how to calculate my footprint, although I am terrible at math and have not been keeping track of how many miles I drive, how many times my family does laundry in a month, etc. Websites that show your carbon footprint are really helpful in that regard…
When Kalmus admitted that one person’s reduction of greenhouse gas emissions may feel like a small drop of change in a vast sea, I didn’t really understand why it was so important to him to make these personal changes. Some people may ask, why make an effort when it won’t make a difference? But, I found that Kalmus explained it perfectly. One, he finds joy and a deeper connection with people and the environment when producing less greenhouse gas emissions. Two, it aligns with his personal principles. Finally, he believes this really does help indirectly. I think Kalmus is right, showing others how much you care for the environment, will probably inspire them to change. Reading Kalmus’ experiences, makes a sustainable lifestyle seem approachable and rewarding. He states that he spends $4,000 per year on goods and even on the stuff he buys at target, which is something I relate to. He shows us that we can still buy the things we need and live sustainably. I also loved how Kalmus mentioned that his main food source comes from trading surpluses, freeganism, and growing his own food. As Kalmus states, a lot of the emissions of food comes from growing, processing, packaging, and distributing it, so I would love to expand my small garden one day to produce a lot of my own food. If myself and others were to do this, we would not only appreciate the source more, but we would help reduce the 1/3 of greenhouse gas emissions produced from food.
I want to focus on one particular subject you have mentioned, which is Peter Kalmus’ proposal of a carbon fee. Personally, I believe it’s a great measure, but by no means perfect. For example, people may still choose to buy the taxed products if the corporations advertise them as being a necessity to people, and to cut the cost imposed by the taxes, corporations might choose to cut costs in other ways, such as choosing cheaper labor and resources, which is usually not a good thing. It is obvious that for the carbon fee to work most efficiently, corporation behaviors need to be strictly regulated, and the public needs to be more clearly informed about the environmental costs of each products. But even if the carbon fee plan has problems, it’s still the best plan for now. As Kalmus has said in the book, he is walking the middle path, and a carbon fee would only be the first step. It has been proved effective in smaller scales, such as the example of British Columbia mentioned in the book. But clearly, to impose it on a larger scale, on the entire United States, there is still more work to be done, from the individual level all the way up to the government. Ultimately, what is required is that every person can voluntarily make the right choice, and a carbon fee points at the right direction down this path. This will be hard, but Kalmus’ book has already explained a lot that is required for people to move down this path, allowing them to evaluate their own personal carbon footprints and make individualized plans to reduce them. But for now, during this crucial transition period, everything that can help should be considered, and acted upon immediately. However, at the meantime, we must also keep track of all the problems it might bring. This would be the only way to deal with the climate crisis, or any other issue most effectively.
I find Peter Kalmus’s attention to detail remarkable. His actions to reduce his energy consumption are mainly achieved at the micro-level. So, when Ken asks, “What changes that Kalmus made intrigue you the most?” Immediately, I thought of his approach of questioning different actions in his day-to-day life and figuring out the carbon emissions that each produce. I feel motivated to do the same…
While I was reading the chapters from Being the Change, I read something so pertinent that I stopped reading and put it in my journal. Kalmus writes: “If you choose flying, go forth and fly. But please don’t pretend your life is sustainable”. Ever since learning about the extreme climate impact of air travel, it’s felt like forbidden information. If I didn’t know how much GHG emissions I was directly responsible for when I travel via plane, then I wouldn’t have to feel so incredibly guilty about it. One of my number one goals in life is to travel. In my dream life I’d never be sedentary; I’d be constantly nomadic, jetting off to a new place every month. Kalmus highlights the importance of personal action, and for my entire adult life I’ve agreed and tried to live as sustainably as I can. But then he really punches me in the gut. He tells me if I fly then I can’t consider my life environmentally sustainable. He’s right, and Ken is right and flying frequently isn’t a goal I should aspire to. Maybe it’s time to rethink my life goals. Maybe instead of visiting a new far-off place every month, my dream life consists of living smack dab in the middle of every continent for 5 years at a time. Then I only take a plane once every 5 years, and I can just train everywhere. That sounds really cool. This is the major theme I take away from the reading: in the future I can make choices that challenge cultural aspirations, but still lead to a fulfilling life (perhaps even more so than the status-quo). I want to live like Kalmus, he seems happier than most and he’s actually making a difference in the world. I don’t want to become somebody that says they care about the planet, but then knowingly takes selfish actions that harm it. I want to be the change.
I always try to be as environmentally conscious as possible, and reading these excerpts made me realize that there are always more ways that I can cut down on my carbon emissions. One of the things that I’ve always enjoyed doing is talking and driving around town with my sister and mom. However, this is obviously a very wasteful way of spending time with family and sadly produces unnecessary CO2. Since the pandemic, however, my mom, sister, and I have started walking in the mornings. Sometimes we drive to different locations, so in that sense we still emit CO2, but we spend time walking and enjoying being outside where we would instead have increased our carbon footprints. These readings have inspired me to continue making changes in my lifestyle; I’m already vegan and rarely fly, but I enjoy finding new ways that can cut down on my CO2 emissions. Cutting out unhealthy aspects of my routine actually make me happier, especially since I know that I’m helping the planet!
Reading chapters from Peter Kalmus’ book, “Being The Change”, was an interesting medium to hear more of Kalmus’ ideas on tackling one’s climate footprint just a week after watching a documentary on his personal impacts. I was critical of the film. I felt as if it was filled with self aggrandizing sections that had more to do with Peter’s ideas of himself than the greater climate movement. These chapters were the opposite. They were critical of anyone who even slightly justified their reasons for emitting carbon. My favorite was the nurse who makes trip to Africa to assist under resourced women during child births. She felt guilty about flying to do what just about anyone would see as a noble profession. He essentially told her that she should feel guilty. If she cared so much she should just move there; otherwise, find ways to help your own community. I loved the ferocity and brevity that Kalmus used in guiding people on how to act. People always talk about the urgency of the climate crisis, but even some of the greatest defenders of our planet make concessions for certain actions, Kalmus did not, and it made everything feel so much more pressing than other orators of the movement.
I also thought it was interesting that the average American’s largest climate impact is car use. This is probably the case for me as well since I come from Palo Alto, a suburban city where everyone basically drives everywhere. When living in Palo Alto, it was really hard for me to give up driving (hence I never really succeeded in doing so) because everything is somewhat spaced out and the bike lanes are tiny. However, I just moved to IV in January and find that I almost never need to use a car. Because IV is relatively small and there is a massive biking culture, biking places just makes sense. I think this further proves how important it is for changes to be made that discourage driving and encourage modes of transportation like biking because a change in culture and infrastructure is extremely impactful.
This weeks reading stressed me out, made me feel guilty, but also enlightened me and will prevent me from making some of my daily decisions that contribute to climate change. I am from Montclair, New Jersey- a nice suburb about 30 mins from New York City. I live in a medium size house with my mom and my sister. I like to think of us as environmentally conscious, as my mom has worked on climate change her whole life and has raised my sister and I to not leave the lights on when they don’t need to be and other little things like that. However after reading all the facts in this weeks reading I realized we are not doing anywhere near a perfect job. There are mannyyy ways we could adjust our lifestyle to reduce our emissions significantly (even just by having the washer and dryer on!) I do not think many people realize how big of an impact just living in your house has on the environment. Now in Isla Vista, I notice I am using way less electricity and heat because the natural climate and light is more than enough for my apartment. I think that if people want to help save our planet but are not able to take drastic steps such as stop flying or ditching their car, starting with small actions inside the comfort of their own home is a great way to start.
After reading “Being the Change” by Peter Kalmus I was able to reflect on my actions and starting to make the effort to at least change some of my ways that are damaging to the environment. As Peter stated, personal action can begin to shift culture by other people witnessing change. This statement is something that I heavily agreed with and made me realize that although I may have some “uncle petes” living in my home, communication and seeing my change in actions is something that will make them change their minds on the whole environmental crisis and hopefully they will soon start to change their daily lifestyles in order to accommodate our earth. The unfortunate thing about making a cultural change is that it is not something that will occur in just less than a year, it takes time, especially if it will be actions people will be reluctant to do, such as human composting. Although I’m not very optimistic on the idea that we will all change our everyday lives in order to reduce our carbon footprint, I will continue to do my part by changing my actions and continue to inform and encourage those around me to do the same.
Just the idea mentioned in the reading that an American’s trash emissions alone are more than a Bangladeshi’s entire emissions in a year was so shocking to me. Although we have compared American emissions to Bangladesh several times throughout the quarter, this fact was the most eye-catching to me. That is because this made me realize just how much trash I alone throw out in my house every day. There’s so much plastic and other wrappers on every little item I use or consume every day. I’m assuming a lot of the plastic and wrapping on food items is to meet federal standards. That amazes me just because we in the United States set such high standards for how our food must be wrapped, stored, and transported that creates so many emissions. Meanwhile, if you ever visit India or Bangladesh, you will notice how a lot of products are wrapped in recycled materials. If you go to a street vendor, you will notice they don’t wear gloves. The amount of plastic and rubber used to make the gloves that are used in the American food industry is the basis for such a high amount of emissions. A lot of Americans I know are always disgusted by how street vendors in India or Bangladesh don’t wear gloves because they think it’s so unsanitary and overreact to it. Oh, if only half of those people knew how many hands touch the food they are served in the United States behind the closed kitchen doors in restaurants when they aren’t looking. Another thing you would notice in India is that often, street vendors will wrap your food in recyclables, a lot of times in newspapers. Again, so many Americans I know are so disgusted by that and think they’ll get sick. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve eaten food from Indian street vendors and I am completely fine. In fact, I would say that I have a very strong immune system and rarely get sick. (Don’t worry, I knocked on wood.) Thus, I think we in the United States need to stop taking everything for granted and take action first on our emissions, as many people around the globe don’t have the resources to do so. Just the fact that our trash alone creates more emissions than another person’s entire annual emission in a developing country should be enough to nudge Americans to identify this as a severe issue that we need to address and fix right away.
These two chapters by Peter Kalmus really changed my perspective on how big personal actions can help the climate crisis. The readings were very different from the film and they definitely gave him more credibility in my eyes. I think an important thing he mentioned is how personal change can be seen by other people and that would cause some cultural changes. This happened to me this year. My roommate is a vegetarian and she never tried to make me become a vegetarian with her, but as I lived with her more, I became more interested. I think this also relates to what Ken mentioned earlier in his videos on how people are more likely to ask questions and change if they do it by their own free will. My roommate was very understanding of the fact that I did not know much about how to eat like a vegetarian and find foods, especially in restaurants. By being the one to ask her, I feel like it was more my decision to follow in her footsteps in being a vegetarian and I was not forced or pressured to follow her. I think its simple things like this that can make a big difference if it reaches enough people. Now that I have become a vegetarian, my mom and four of my friends have also asked about being a vegetarian and changed. My roommate’s choices have now caused some cultural changes within my inner social group. I know that most people will not want to change their diets, but I believe that if we make eating a plant-based diet more normal in society then people will be far more open to change. By seeing some positive changes, other people will also make positive changes to their diets and to their lives. Additionally, Kalmus also talked about how a large number of emissions is caused by waste like leaving lights on and food waste. These are such simple changes that can be made in our lives and if everyone does it then we can reduce emissions by a lot. Overall I liked reading Kalmus because it really provided a good real world perspective on what personal changes we can make in our lives to help the planet.
Back in my hometown, my family and I had a compost bin and chickens that would eat our food waste. Anytime we had leftovers that weren’t good anymore, or meat scraps that we wouldn’t want to eat, we would feed it to our chickens and they would eat all of it. The rest of our food waste that we couldn’t feed to our chickens we composted it, and garbage trucks would come and pick it up. Now, however, I live in Isla Vista, and the garbage trucks don’t pick up compost in a separate bin. The entire time I’ve been living here I’ve been throwing my food waste away in the trash. Now understanding the numbers and the amount of CO2 that composting can prevent from going into the atmosphere, I’m going to start delivering my food waste to the nearby compost plant. Furthermore, I’m going to ask my neighbors on my block if they want to take turns driving our compost.
While reading “Be The Change” I realized that there are so many simple things that the average person can do to reduce their carbon footprint. Before reading this I felt that all of the main things I could do to reduce my footprint are all life-altering decisions. Giving up flying, driving, and becoming vegan are all reasonable but they would require a lot of changes in my life. I feel like Peter Kalmus offers up things that you can do to make that transition less drastic right away. For example, instead of completely giving up my car I could start to make a point in my life to bike or ride the bus when I want to go places that aren’t necessary to use a car. Another part of my life that I can easily alter in order to reduce my emissions is laundry. I do so many loads of laundry each week but I could work to air dry most of my clothes and wash them less. Overall there are so many small changes we can make in our lives to make to ease into the big changes that are necessary to largely reduce our carbon footprint.
Moreover, in the chapter, “Collective Action”, I like how realistic and critical Kalmus is, specifically about the topics of cap-and-trade and carbon offsets. He explains how cap-and-trade can be easily manipulated and not effective. He also talks about how these practices reinforce people’s consumerists and materialistic behaviors. These “solutions” will not do much when the inherent behavior still exists. I like how he addresses this behavior, which is different from Project Drawdown. He does go on to list collective action, including lobbying for carbon taxes, using less energy and expanding the carbon-free electrical capabilities, ending fossil fuel subsidies, redistributing wealth, campaign finance reform, rethinking global trade that focuses on local economies, reducing the global population, and working together as a planet. All of these collective action items are extremely difficult to achieve, and probably require a “tipping point”. However, one can hope that the world hops on the climate crisis mitigation train because they are all necessary reforms for a better planet. All in all, I really enjoyed these two readings and it is vital to combine both personal and collective action in order to inspire and be the change in the world.
The major thing that i found interesting from the video was the pilot light in th furnace. This was very interesting to me becasue the pilot light is almost always lit and running every single day which takes up lots of C02 and emitts 3,5000 pounds of C02 per year. This is an important thing to know since not everybody needs to use their furnace every day but the pilot light is always on and putting out C02 emissions into the environment. The pilot light stood out to me because it is something that most people do not even think about or maybe even acknowledge within their daily lifestyle. I think it is important for people to acknowledge this because it is not something that people think about on the daily. The pilot light is not as obvious as an issue to the environment as driving gas powered vehicles are which is why it can play a major part in affecting the environment since it is constantly lit and running off C02 emissions that are sometimes unnecessary.
2020
When I was reading “Be The Change” I couldn’t help but think of my parents. They were recently deported to Mexico. I went to visit them in the Spring and was shocked at how drastically their lifestyles changed. Both of my parents used to drive their own cars, and now they share one for when they visit my dad’s land about 45 minutes from their house. My dad went from commuting 2 hours a day, to now mostly walking to the farmer’s market and butcher shop.
The reason I thought of them however, was because of Peter’s choice not to use a dryer. When I visited their house they didn’t have a dryer, my parents dried all the clothes outside. They don’t even have a washer, and instead hand wash everything. I thought about how drastically my parent’s carbon emissions changed because of where they live, and I thought about how the life that they currently live still fulfills the same necessities as the ones they were living in the US. My parents didn’t have the choice to switch over to a more sustainable lifestyle like Peter and his wife did; they were forced to by an unjust system. We do have the choice to. As Ken has stated before, these are first world solutions to first world problems.
My biggest takeaway from this class thus far is to recognize our privilege as students at UCSB. Even if we don’t feel like the 1%, we are. Globally, we wreak environmental havoc and let the Global South suffer because of our greed. Learning in this class about sustainable living is a privilege. We must take it into practice so that we use our privilege for good. We cannot be complicit in the most catastrophic environmental crisis of all time.
[this comment received 68 replies, including]
Thanks for sharing your story. I can’t even imagine what this has been like for you and I hope that you’re doing ok. That’s very interesting to think about; how their carbon emissions have drastically declined but not by choice. Unlike them however, we do have that choice and need to act now.
[and this reply]
Thank you for sharing your personal story and bringing a different view on this topic. I completely agree with you when you say that we are the 1%. We are single-handedly abusing every resource, commodity, luxury, etc. without batting a single eye at the damage it’s doing. I also think you are right in that we are using our privilege for the wrong things. We have the option to change our lifestyle into something much more sustainable and eco-friendly, but most of us choose to acquire more stuff to add on to the hundreds of things that we already own. We are using our privilege to feed our greed for material things and not putting nearly as much effort in finding ways to change our lifestyles.
Kalmus’ book this week gave me some hope because he really made it sound almost easy to switch over into a much more environmentally friendly lifestyle. What was even more convincing was the fact that he also became happier in the process….
[and this reply]
I would first like to say that I am sorry your parents were deported, I have felt the pain of family members being deported and it must be very difficult without them. In regards to your comment, Mexican communities and lifestyles are so drastically different in so many scenarios, my grandparents wash by hand and dry by hanging clothes outside. Cars are used but minimally and the lifestyle that they live is so much lower in carbon emissions. The conscious choice to switch for carbon infused lifestyle to a smaller one is not is admirable but for most people in the world there is no choice to make.
I made a comment awhile about minimalism and how it is great to be able to make that choice but most people do not have the choice to make it one, especially in poorer countries where there is not a lot of things available to others. The choices that we make even including with our lavish lifestyle are not always our own but sometimes choices forced by the hands of others and I feel like this choice to be more environmentally conscious needs to be encouraged by our government.
We have such immense privilege that countries view us as the dream place to live, people die trying to get here and even when people get here they are met with racist and unjust treatment that they face everyday. This country is idolized and put on a pedestal for greatness but really this country has immense greed. I completely agree that we must take sustainable living as a privilege and start making real change to help our environment.
“Being the Change” by Peter Kalmus definitely did shift my ideas on how personal action can help the climate crisis. I found the readings to be much more easy to digest than the films, as the kitchy meditation scene and his cringeworthy tattoo detracted from his credibility as a fellow citizen attempting to help mitigate the climate crisis. The readings were much easier to understand and accept. One thing that he mentioned that really resonated with me was how personal action can begin to shift culture by other people witnessing change, and I do think this is important, because I for one know that I often feel disheartened by our current situation. If I were able to see more positive change, I know that myself and others would feel more inclined to make change in our lives, which would then create more change and actually create a positive feedback loop of change. While some ideas such as human composting, I don’t see the average person adopting, but maybe other ideas that are convenient or cost effective could begin to be adopted. Kalmus also discussed how a large amount of emissions are caused via waste, such as leaving lights on, natural gas leaking, and food and material waste…
[this comment received 50 replies, including]
Environmentalism is a state of mind. I agree with you that the problems we face today can be disheartening as there is inevitable environmental changes happening all around us. It’s also hard to be the one who changes as social perception puts pressure on the need to succeed in order for others to follow. Peter Kalmus discusses with us the things we can do to reduce carbon emissions through his personal, relative results of his own actions of change.This week’s readings especially Chapter 14 focuses on specific solutions that should be implemented into society such as the Carbon fee & dividend which entails setting fees on emissions so that less people will be motivated to overproduce carbon. There was a quote that really stood out to me in this reading, “Daily life is a series of choices”. Overall, it comes down to when someone even oneself decides to finally take the first step in trying to change as without a beginning there cannot be a solution.
[and this reply]
Environmentalism is a state of mind. I agree with you that the problems we face today can be disheartening as there is inevitable environmental changes happening all around us. It’s also hard to be the one who changes as social perception puts pressure on the need to succeed in order for others to follow. Peter Kalmus discusses with us the things we can do to reduce carbon emissions through his personal, relative results of his own actions of change.This week’s readings especially Chapter 14 focuses on specific solutions that should be implemented into society such as the Carbon fee & dividend which entails setting fees on emissions so that less people will be motivated to overproduce carbon. There was a quote that really stood out to me in this reading, “Daily life is a series of choices”. Overall, it comes down to when someone even oneself decides to finally take the first step in trying to change as without a beginning there cannot be a solution.
[and this reply]
I agree with your focus on how seeing a change occur is more likely to have others to adopt this change as a part of their lifestyle as well. In class, we mentioned that places such as Burger King witness that change and shift among people and adapt. Our personal level actions can affect the bigger companies because they will do almost anything to get our money even if it means selling plant-based items or switching over to renewable energy sales rather than fossil fuel. I believe that our choices in life will affect the people around us and soon cause bigger companies to be unable to avoid changing for the better. However, this process alone would be way too slow for how bad of a situation our planet is in at the moment so we need to vote for better policies as well as people to enact those policies. You mention that you don’t see human composting as something that will be adopted but I feel as though anything that was mentioned in “Being the Change” could be enacted if we got people to feel less stigmas about them. For example, freeganism may look disgusting to some people because why would anyone want “old” or “bad” food. We have this stigma that anything that is thrown out of the store must be bad and thus trash but often times items are tossed for being not as pretty or have a beat-up box. At most Albertson’s, they have a corner of the store where they put all the dinged up items or close to expiring on sale for 50% – 75% off. I often look at this corner specifically because they have baked good over there. When the baked goods hit their sell-by date they are thrown to the corner and sold for $2 or $3 but are just as good as the others with maybe some stale or dry pieces. I think if all stores were to have corners like this and then donate the leftovers that are not taken to homeless shelters, we would be doing a great deed to feed all of our people while lowering our waste levels. But stores won’t know if we want things like this unless we tell them and make efforts to use them when they are available.
I really like how in the chapter “leaving fossil fuel” Peter Kalmus addresses everything he was doing wrong. Most people won’t admit all the things that they are doing badly. He gave us ways to fix what he was doing because let’s be honest most of us are doing the same. I thought that was pretty cool. The numbers he gave too were so astonishing I had no idea how much America’s were emitting. In the other chapter “collective action” I like how he started out with a quote from Nicholas Stern “climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen.” He gives so many great ideas on how to change our ways in this chapter as well and how it would benefit us. For example, he gave one example of British Columbia’s economy and how it grew. He backed up his facts which makes it more credible as well.
Peter Kalmus in Being the Change, attempts to uncover the importance of individual action. Peter Kalmus decided to change his lifestyle for the sake of his children, he wanted a better world for them. Climate change is affecting all life on the planet, Kalmus wants his children to experience life on Earth without the worry of an end. Kalmus has a philosophy he follows which involves the head, hands, and heart. The head is for realizing from an intellectual, scientific point of view that there is a problem. Once the problem is recognized we can take action with our hands. The hands are used for gardening, fixing old objects, riding a bike, and much more. The heart ties the head and hands together. The heart is where meaning is found in making life more satisfying. In conclusion, taking part in environmentally friendly things equals a happier, more meaningful life.
[this comment received 5 replies, including]
I completely agree with you. It is true that it is humans who destroy the earth, and it should be humans to save the world. There is an old saying in China:In order to untie the bell, the person who tied it is required. To overcome desire and greed, and for a sustainable tomorrow, humanity must work together now.
Kalmus’ book: “Being the Change”, was for me, way more informative than his documentary of the same name. I think that was done on purpose because documentaries appeal to a wider range of audience, while books are only good for the ones who truly care about the situation and want to make a change. His book, as ken pointed out, is almost like the other half of Project Draw Down, telling the individuals what they can do to change the climate their way. It is not some big shot actions like converting to nuclear, but to waste less energy, bike, have more climate-friendly diets…etc. His calculations for how much our actions could help is also a huge inspiration for those who do want to approach the method, and each step they do they will know exactly how much they are helping the planet. What is even better about his methods is that they don’t need expensive equipment like solar panels, but just clothespins to hang wet clothes. Contrasting to this, he also acknowledges that more actions are needed to be taken, and thus collective action is needed. Although personal actions are good, a fracking company can just wipe out all of our hard work. Thus, we need to stop relying on fossil fuel and realize that it is like smoking or many other types of market failure that is in need of a tax due to its negative effect on society.
[this comment received 4 replies, including]
I also enjoyed the readings much more than the film! I watched the film before the reading and I hate to admit I was pretty bored and often found myself not paying attention. However, during the readings, I didn’t want to stop! I plan on reading the rest of the material and I also want to watch the film again as I realized I didn’t really pay attention haha. I really liked how he said we can cast a vote simply by changing the way we live and think! I found this thought so powerful. We often times see our vote as an every four-year type of thing which can bring a lot of discouragement, but seeing our every day lives as a vote makes me realize we are much more responsible and have much more say so in how the world is run and sustained!
[and this reply]
I agree. It is like smoking. I think that a carbon tax would be most beneficial because people are scared of money. People will finally have to start paying the price of their actions instead of the planet. The people that cause the biggest problems are responsible for fixing them.
Peter says that his 5 most effective methods of depleting his carbon footprint were quitting planes, vegetarianism, bicyclism, freedom, and composting. While Peter does acknowledge the many issues we’ve discussed in the class such as transportation, he gives us ways to make changes that will produce results. One way that really resonated for me, simply because of its simplicity was the idea of using a clothes line. What surprised me was how effective the simple idea was. And, for the first time, I felt like I wasn’t being asked to do something completely horrible.
The way Peter presents his argument is most appealing to me. He presents it in a manageable way that will ultimately lead to not only a better planet but potentially a happier person. He doesn’t say we need to cut things out but the happy medium which is just less. Less air travel, less red meat, less shopping, less driving. It seems better that we just have to cut it out a little but not altogether.
Here’s a valuable skill Peter has taught me that everyone needs to adopt: we need to keep score. Every single human needs to be accountable. Of course, with this comes mindful action and holistic change that will result in true sustainable lifestyles, but bare minimum, people should be aware of the damage they are inflicting. The first step to making conscious decisions is to know where one might be going wrong. Physically seeing the change that is being made can be the best motivation, and a great way to generate collective action.
Here are some things that these readings have made me want to start doing as acts of personal awareness: Starting by noticing how much less you might be able to spend on new stuff per year; Small efforts to reuse items and buying overall less. Then perhaps bigger travel efforts… Why are there not adult carpools to get to work in the morning? That could absolutely work as it does in younger life with school. I am interested in moving somewhere with better transportation for the public, I hate spending money on gas and am constantly frustrated by the barrier that car travel has on reducing my carbon footprint. And the discussion of clotheslines… I never want to dry my clothes anyways as it reduces their lifespan!! These are simple changes I see within my reach, other than the more commonly discussed, often-broad topics. I am going to reread these chapters again, and perhaps the entire book. This is content I want to show my family and spread awareness about.
[this comment received 3 replies, including]
I totally agree with you in terms of “keeping score” and thinking deeply about how our actions impact the world. I am lucky because growing up my parents really talked to me about the environment and the beauty of our Earth and universe in general. They bred in me this sense of thankfulness and wonder, I always felt that we were so lucky to be living where we are, amongst all these wonderful beauty and diversity, from our fellow human to every other animal, life and nature itself.
Chapter 8, Documentaries
Film 1, Before the Flood and An Inconvenient Sequel
“If you could know the truth about the threat of climate change — would you want to know?”
This is the question posed by the National Geographic film Before the Flood, which features Leonardo DiCaprio. It is a great question that throws down the gauntlet to potential viewers, as hitting the pause button would obviously answer with a decided “No” – although, presumably, you would not have even purchased or clicked on the film if you did to what to know the truth.
But what is the truth and, as a filmmaker, how do you present it in about an hour and a half? Keep in mind that we are not taking up how to present one aspect of the climate crisis, such as wildfires or climate migration, but the whole shebang, from the fact that Miami is now flooding on sunny days to the disturbing fact that fossil fuel interests are spending millions of dollars trying to convince the public that the climate isn’t even changing.
The approach that the film takes is interesting and arguably effective. You introduce the audience to a protagonist, DiCaprio, who wants to know the truth about the climate crisis and sets out to find it – in this case, by traveling the world in search of answers. Along the way, he talks with people as diverse as as Barack Obama, Pope Francis, Elon Musk, and Dr Sunita Narain.
Incidentally, Narain, who really takes the US. to task in the film for failing to lead in the crisis, is the Director of India’s Centre for Science and Environment.
In a sense, DiCaprio acts as a surrogate for the viewer, who also wants to know the answer to the question with which I opened: “If you could know the truth about the threat of climate change — would you want to know?” If you answer “Yes” by not hitting pause, then buckle in, as you and DiCaprio are embarking on an epic, whirlwind journey.
Incidentally, the climate footprint for all this travel and production was, according thot the filmmaker, “offset through a voluntary carbon tax.”
This general approach is, incidentally, used by a range of environmental films, from Gasland to Cowspiracy. In Gasland, Josh Fox’s family receives a letter from a gas company wanting to lease their property to set up a fracking operation on it. Knowing little or nothing about hydraulic fracturing, Fox then sets out on a journey for answers, with you, the viewer, along for the ride.
Similarly, in Cowspiracy you and Kip Andersen embark on a quest to learn about the environmental impact of eating animal products. (A little trivia: DiCaprio, who has long been a committed climate activist, was an executive producer of Cowspiracy.)
Are Fox, Andersen, and DiCaprio really as uninformed as their onscreen personas appear? Probably not. Still, what do you think, is this an effective rhetorical device?
In Before the Flood the approach is notably somewhat different. Unlike Josh Fox in Gasland, DiCaprio’s online persona is not professing ignorance of the situation. He hardly can, as early in the film he draws attention to the fact that in 2014 he was appointed as the UN climate ambassador. Still, he acknowledges that, since he is hardly an expert in the climate crisis, he still has much to learn. He then sets out to learn it, with viewer in tow.
In both of his “Inconvenient” films, Al Gore takes an entirely different approach.
Gores 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth was a phenomenon. Although it is not in the top-ten highest grossing documentaries of all time, it is number eleven. Partly on the merit of the film, Gore was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with 1500 scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Gore received half, the scientists split the other half).
A good deal of An Inconvenient Truth was given to establishing Gore’s credibility. No, he is not a scientist, but he has been working on the climate crisis since the 1970s. He also works with a range of climate scientists. In short, the film hopes to make clear that you should listen to him, as he is presented as the right person to deliver this message.
In Gore’s 2017 follow-up to An Inconvenient Truth, aptly named An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, the filmmaker takes largely the same approach by working to establish Gore as an internationally recognized expert.
In contrast, early on in Before the Flood, DiCaprio wonders if the UN did the right thing in appointing him as their climate ambassador. As he baldy puts it, “I mean to be honest they may have picked the wrong guy.” If you have watched Before the Flood and An Inconvenient Sequel, I am curious to hear what you think about these different approaches.
One of the reasons that the iconic An Inconvenient Truth it’s not one of our options is because a great deal has changed in the years since its 2006 release.
For example, while Gore was correct in asserting in the film that climate change played a role in exasperating Hurricane Katrina, the 2005 storm that divested Florida and Louisiana, killing 1,200 people, scientists now have a much clearer understanding of how this works. And, sadly, there have been a rage of horrifying storms since Katrina, like Superstorm Sandy and hurricanes Mathew, Harvey, Irma, Michael, Maria, and Dorian.
An Inconvenient Sequel also takes on the job of introducing viewers to the politics lurking behind all this (which Gore, a former vice president for two terms, is obviously in a position to know a good deal about), including visiting a Texas city with a Republican mayor who firmly believes in renewable energy.
The film also introduces the viewer to the COP 21, where the Paris Agreement was signed, by taking us there with Gore. Another little piece of trivia: after its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, an An Inconvenient Sequel was edited to include Donald Trumps’s announcement that he would withdraw the US. from the Paris Agreement – along with Gore’s response.
Before the Flood and An Inconvenient Sequel are different films with very different approaches, they both take up the formidable job of communicating the breadth of the climate crisis to viewers in about an hour and a half.
I am curious to hear what you think of each – or both, if you have watched each and are thinking about the two of them together.
Class discussion of Before the Flood and An Inconvenient Sequel
Note that the following observations, which are in italics, have not been paraphrased or altered, though I do correct the occasional typo and, because of space concerns, often just part of the comment is reproduced here along with my reply. In working through these, I will first quote a student’s observation, followed by my thoughts.
[In one of the introductory videos,] Ken stated that the first few weeks of the class are undeniably depressing, and this could not be any more true. When reading “The Unhabitable Earth” I was completely shocked by the devastating future Wallace-Well’s illustrated through his reading, but after watching the film “Before the Flood” my shock and fear have been cemented due to visuals that the documentary provided on the devastation already happening. I find it completely devastating and corrupt how the individuals and countries who contribute the least to the problem are the ones who are suffering the worst. As the world leader it claims to be, the United States needs to take charge in addressing the issue and investing in solutions.
Before the Flood dies, indeed, contain something incredibly powerful about images.
A few decades ago, all that we had to go on were projections and mathematical models from scientists. Now, however, the climate crisis is here. Consequently, if you travel across the earth, you will see its impact, in one way or another, nearly everywhere. Which is, of course, exactly what Leonardo DiCaprio does in Before the Flood.
And if you travel across the earth, one thing that will be immediately clear is that the suffering brought about the by climate crisis is already unevenly – and unjustly – felt. This ranges from all sorts of plants and animals, who obviously had no role in the crisis, yet are already suffering, and in some cases, going extinct.
And then there are all sorts of people on earth who did virtually nothing to contribute to the climate crisis. It’s one thing to mention this as a fact, that the poorest 3 billion people on the planet only contributed 5% of the greenhouse gases that human beings have put into the atmosphere, but it’s another thing to see a farmer in India point to his field, which is entirely underwater, having been destroyed by a flood.
Finally, we come to the cause of the climate crisis, the relatively small number of wealthy countries and individuals who are bringing it about, but are ironically suffering the least. Which, of course, brings us to the United States and this student’s suggestion that we need to “take charge in addressing the issue and investing in solutions.”
After all, how did the United States get to be so wealthy and powerful? Sometimes Americans seem to think that this is just a natural occurrence, as we are imagined as being just that special. However, our success, power, and wealth came from 200 years of unchecked burning of fossil fuels, from our fossil fuel economy.
Hence, the only just thing to do is to use our power and wealth to do what we can to correct this problem. In other words, because we are, more than any other country on earth, responsible for bringing about this crisis, we now need to take the lead in solving it.
[The climate crisis is] a topic that has a tendency to make me feel like I’m face down in the dirt with my hands tied behind my back. Through this, I mean that it feels like no matter how much I want to fix the issue of climate change, I feel like my personal actions won’t amount to enough to make a significant difference.
Lying face down in the dirt, hands tied behind your back.
That’s such a strong image. I want to address this feeling: being completely and utterly helpless in the face of something unimaginably huge and seemingly inevitable. And not just as a response to our weekly documentary, but as a response to the climate crisis.
I completely understand this response to what is bearing down on us.
However, the goal of Climate Crisis 101 is to, in a manner of speaking, untie your hands and get you up – and hopefully mobilized.
It is true that our “personal actions won’t amount to enough to make a significant difference” in the sense that if all of us gave up beef and driving cars it would not be enough. It’s not that it wouldn’t be good to do these things – it absolutely, positively would – it’s just that there are other sorts of actions that we can and should be taking.
Bigger actions, political actions. However, because the required actions are so big, what could one person possibly do? This brings us back to that feeling of helplessness.
But there is the possibility that one seemingly insignificant person can, in fact, do a great deal. Consider Greta Thunberg or AOC. Moreover, if you get enough people together, they can do amazing things. Consider the Sunrise Movement.
The important thing is to try to do something. Aside from the fact that you may be successful – let’s hope that you are – doing so is important because it can help reduce that feeling of helplessness. Seriously, it can.
In particular, I really enjoyed the section with Sunita Narain. I believe that it gives a completely different perspective on the use of renewable energy than those that are traditionally portrayed in mainstream media. While India as a country is the third biggest polluter, behind China and the United States, it is important to note that per capita, one US citizen is equivalent to 34 India citizens when it comes to their carbon footprint. I believe that Narain makes an extremely good point that the US should be the leader when it comes to using renewable resources. Our country certainly has more financial means to do so, so it is unfair to blame developing countries like India when looking at carbon emissions.
Having shown Before the Flood to a number of students, nearly everyone’s favorite part is not, as you might imagine, the interview with Elon Musk in his car factory, but rather the interview with Dr. Sunita Narain, the Director of India’s Centre for Science and Environment. Narain really takes DiCaprio, and the U.S, to task for not leading during the climate crisis.
If you stand back and think about it, which Narain is in essence prompting us to do, it is rather absurd that the largest contributor to the climate crisis, the United States, is critical of the way that a poor country like India is approaching the situation. How, indeed, can we ask India to take action, when we are not doing so ourselves, especially when we have the wealth and power to, for example, shift to renewables, which India simply cannot afford to do?
Consequently, Narain and this student’s comment are squarely on the mark: “Our country certainly has more financial means to do so, so it is unfair to blame developing countries like India when looking at carbon emissions.”
Watching the Fox news anchors roast Leonardo DiCaprio so viciously just for trying to bring attention to the scientifically proven phenomenon of science change was extremely disheartening. The way the largest news corporation in America just constantly denies the existence of climate change in the first place sets the tone for how difficult advocating for structural change is in the United States. Elected officials purposely mislead their constituents to believe this is a made-up phenomenon, and continue to make it the problem of future generations.
It is a sad state of affairs in America today that if you attempt to pop your head up and call for action on the climate crisis, you present yourself as a target to smack down. Given his wealth and celebrity, Leonardo DiCaprio is an easy target. However, it really doesn’t seem to much matter who you are, as speaking out about the climate crisis can open you up to ridicule and attack.
When Greta Thunberg gave a moving, impassioned talk at the U.N. Climate Action Summit in 2019, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, tweeted that her speech was “So ridiculous. Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashion movie with a friend! Chill Greta, chill!”
OK, aside from the fact that the most powerful person on the planet openly attacked and ridiculed a 16-year-old, Thunberg came under fire simply for being angry about the climate crisis. For being angry about the fact that Donald Trump and his generation of wealthy individuals, which brought about the climate crisis, were not doing anything about it.
In other words, more than anyone else at the Summit, an angry Thunberg was speaking to Trump, imploring him to do something about the crisis. His response was to ridicule her and to tell her to “chill.”
This is, all the more reason, as far as I’m concerned, to respect and admire people like Thunberg and DiCaprio for having the courage to speak out.
“Before the Flood” truly put into perspective the depth and scope of the climate crisis. It also added to things I learned taking ENVS 1, which I found insightful. I think that everyone should see this, as it comes from a relatively neutral perspective, aside from being against oil companies. Overall a 10/10 watch, and a harsh reality check for the inhabitants of Earth.
There are two important points here.
First, even if you are familiar with the climate crisis (for example, if you’ve already taken a course like ENVS 1 at UCSB), there is always still more doe us to learn. This includes nearly everyone, including me. And thi ss especially the case because the climate crisis, along with our understanding of it, is evolving so quickly.
Second, the observation that Before the Flood takes a “relatively neutral” position strikes me as both correct and perhaps intentional on the part of the filmmakers. As to why the filmmakers took this approach, I suspect that it has to do with their imagined audience.
Before the Flood was released in theaters on October, 21 2016. It was also made available for free “between October 30 and November 6, 2016” on the National Geographic Channel. Given that November 6th was election day, when Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, we can conjecture (and I’m just guessing here, as I don’t know this for a fact) that the filmmakers were hoping to influence at least some people, who may have still been undecided, to vote with the climate crisis in mind.
If your imagined audience are people who are not yet convinced of the validity or severity of the climate crisis, and who may, in fact, have already been influenced by arguments put forward by fossil fuel affiliates, taking a “relatively neutral” position makes a great deal of sense. In other words, if you just lay out the facts in as neutral a way as possible, given that the facts here are so compelling, it will allow someone who may be a little skeptical to make up their minds without feel like they influenced by partisan interests.
Since some people are immediately skeptical of Al Gore because he is a liberal politician, it makes sense to have a relatively neutral spokesperson like Leonardo DiCaprio discovering a range of disturbing facts about or changing climate.
I found the pairing of this movie with our reading of the “uninhabitable earth” to be very effective as the two balance each other – DiCaprio’s solution is a technological one (investing in green energy, building Giga factories) while Wallace’s approach emphasizes the inability of technology to solve each and every one of our problems. In Wallace’s book, he talks about the negative impact capitalism has on our environment, and how it is difficult to see a way out of this crisis without a fundamental shift in our way of life, a stance similar to that of the activist and author Sunita Narain DiCaprio talks to in India.
This is an apt observation.
Although there are a variety of ways that we can mitigate the climate crisis, they often fall into two general camps (though these two are often intertwined): solutions that are either technological or cultural.
Perhaps nowhere is the technological approach more concisely presented then when Leonardo DiCaprio interviews Elon Musk in his Giga factory in Before the Flood. What will it take to mitigate the climate crisis? According to Musk, “we actually did the calculations…what would it take to transition the whole world to its sustainable energy…100 Giga factories.” DiCaprio wonderfully voices the response of the audience when he exclaims in wonder, “That’s it? That sounds manageable!”
I wonder how many people slept better after hearing that…
However, as David Wallace Wells makes clear, the situation is far more complex than that.
Allow me to gain quote this apt student observation, as it in many ways is an equally concise presentation of the cultural approach to mitigating the climate crisis: “In Wallace’s book, he talks about the negative impact capitalism has on our environment, and how it is difficult to see a way out of this crisis without a fundamental shift in our way of life, a stance similar to that of the activist and author Sunita Narain DiCaprio talks to in India.”
Climate crisis 101 takes the position that, although technology will absolutely play a major role here, a “fundamental shift in our way of life” is also required.
For this week’s film, “Before the Flood,” I was expecting to learn a lot of new information about the climate crisis but I never imagined I would have been this enlightened. It felt like I had personally joined Leonardo DiCaprio on his journey across the world to discover ways to make the changes we need. There were many statistics and visuals that I found very interesting. Speaking as someone who enjoys a good burger, when DiCaprio addressed the agriculture aspect of climate change, I was fascinated but disheartened.
Whenever I speak to the public about the cultural changes that will be necessary to mitigate the climate crisis, I have noticed that sooner or later, for one reason or another, most people in the audience will (to use this person’s words) go from being “fascinated” to “disheartened.”
The issue here doesn’t involve concern over impacts of the climate crisis like sea level rise or wildfires, but rather what mitigating this crisis will require of each of us, personally.
In my response to the previous comment, I noted that technology alone will not solve this problem. Rather, we need to engineer significant cultural changes. This may sound fine in theory, but what does this mean in practice?
For example, what if you are, as this person noted, “someone who enjoys a good burger”? Or someone who enjoys air travel to exciting locales? Or someone who really loves cars or clothes?
When I talk about these particular issues to live audiences, when I get to the climate impact of air travel, some people in the room become visibly uncomfortable. The same happens for other people when I shift to talking about automobile use or fast fashion. Still other people become uncomfortable when I take up burgers.
Unfortunately, as I noted in response to the previous comment, it is not the case that technology alone will solve this problem. One way or another, it will eventually hit home for each of us.
Although this may seem that will need to give up thing that gives value to our lives, it’s useful to think about the downsides here. Experts argue that eating beef is not just unhealthy, but eating enough of it can take a year or more off of your life. Automobiles injure or kill over 50 million people annually. And is having a full closet really make you happy?
When watching “Before the Flood”, I went through a range of emotions. The film was overwhelming. It was infuriatingly frustrating and sad. I drew from the film that what really needs to be addressed are big corporations and government. While I’m not trying to scapegoat them and only blame them because we as consumers fuel their interests, corporations and government have a much bigger weight on climate change than myself. The actions of big companies, lobbyist, and spineless politicians are criminal.
This comment wonderfully and aptly cycles through a range of emotions and their cause.
First, the climate crisis is “overwhelming,” as it is causing one major problem after another. However, shifting to the next emotions, what is “infuriatingly frustrating” is that “big corporations and government[s]” are not addressing the problem.
The United States government has known about the dangers of the climate crisis ever since the 1960s when the President, Lyndon Johnson, addressed Congress about the issue. Since then, virtually nothing has been done about the problem.
Regarding corporations, although it will be easy to just focus on the fossil fuel industry and its affiliates, all sorts of corporations are now powerful entities in the world. If Apple Computer were a country, “it would be the 8th richest country in the world,” surpassing Russia, Canada, Italy, and nearly every other country on earth. Other companies, such as Amazon and Microsoft, are not far behind. Although this began at the close of the 19th century with fossil fuel providers, such as oil companies, and heavy industry, like steel production, all sorts of corporations benefited during the era of the fossil fuel economy.
To put it simply, wealthy countries and wealthy corporations amassed enormous wealth during the era of the fossil fuel economy. Because carbon pricing (such as a carbon tax) was not in effect during this time, none of these countries or corporations were taxed or penalized for carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Moreover, it could be argued that during the last 40 years especially, corporations of all sorts have not been paying nearly enough in taxes in wealthy countries like the United States.
Consequently, as this comment noted, what is “infuriatingly frustrating” is that “big corporations and government[s]” are not addressing the problem.
Our next comment concisely explains this frustration:
The capitalistic greed for short term profits will continue to hurt our future, if policies are not made to crackdown on corruption and enforce better actions like with a carbon tax.
We’re going to talk more about this issue throughout Climate Crisis 101, but it’s worth noting something now, even though we will expand on this later.
When people draw attention to problems with capitalism, as does this comment, it does not at all follow that they are suggesting that we throw it out the window.
Fossil fuel affiliates and climate change deniers will sometimes argue that calling for reform to our current system is really a secret attempt to resurrect the failed communist experiments (i.e. Soviet Russia and Mao’s China) of the 20th century.
However, what we are really talking about here is that unchecked consumerism and capitalism are playing a significant role in hastening climate change. In order to reel this in, we need a strong government (i.e. a strong democracy) to enact legislation to protect people and the planet from, to use this person’s words, “greed for short-term profits.”
Simply put, we need to put people and the planet first, not corporations or their profits.
I believe the film [Before the Flood] was a great intro to the issue, however more in-depth environmental films could also be useful in adjunct.
I too wish that we had time for more films that took up a range environmental and climate issues. However, I tried to just show films that in some way seem essential.
That said, there are a number of terrific documentaries that consider specific issues that are worth watching, such as Gasland, which is about hydraulic fracturing (a.k.a. fracking), Racing Extinction, about species loss, A Plastic Ocean, the polluting of our oceans with plastic, Chasing Ice, the loss of our planet’s glaciers and ice, and Chasing Coral, the death of our planet coral.
“Before the Flood” is a captivating documentary that I could barely take my eyes off of once I began watching. I am not the type of person who cares a great deal about what celebrities are up to, what products they’re using, who they’re dating, etc., which is why I was pleasantly surprised at how Leonardo Dicaprio presents himself in a humble and approachable way and learns and grows with the audience rather than coming off as pretentious.
Americans have an undeniable fascination with celebrities: “what products they’re using, who they’re dating, etc.”
Some celebrities capitalize on this by attempting to sell you the products that they are using, either directly through their own brand, or by advertising for a brand.
Consequently, I too was “pleasantly surprised at how Leonardo Dicaprio presents himself in a humble and approachable way and learns and grows with the audience rather than coming off as pretentious.” Dicaprio’s celebrity may have been what drew people to this documentary, but he and the filmmakers do a great job of presenting him as just another person who will be impacted by the climate crisis.
Of course, given what we know about climate justice, he will be impacted less than most people on the planet. Still, his concern is heartening. Given the enormity of the climate crisis, it is altogether surprising that more celebrities or not speaking out about it.
This is, I think, a very disheartening thought. In other words, once a person achieves celebrity, most use their platforms to sell some sort of a product or another, rather than leveraging it to do good in the world. Sure, many have Pet causes, but it is rare to find someone with DiCaprio’s commitment, as has been actively working to educate the public about the climate crisis for two decades now.
While I agree that DiCaprio worked hard to travel the world for this film, we should be reminded that this travel adds to DiCaprio’s carbon footprint.
While I definitely take the point here, especially regarding air travel, it is worth thinking about this sort of critique for a moment.
In response to a previous comment, I noted that if, like Leonardo DiCaprio and Greta Thunberg, you “pop your head up and call for action on the climate crisis, you present yourself as a target to smack down.” Although there are various ways that people are smacked down, there is one that is particularly effective: drawing attention to an action of theirs that is in conflict with the message. In short, calling them a hypocrite. For example, a climate activist flying on a plane or having a burger.
In so doing, not only is the attacked made personal, but the focus shifts from the message, which is often then completely forgotten, to the messenger.
In terms of the climate crisis, as activist Naomi Klein succinctly noted, “[i]f you can’t be an activist unless you have already somehow purged your whole life of fossil fuels then you’ll have a movement of three people.”
In terms of the previous comment about celebrity, it is doubtful that there are many celebrities living especially sustainable lives. Hence, as Klein further notes, calling people hypocrites is “an incredibly effective way to repel” potential activists.
This form of attack is, incidentally, widespread. For example, the New York Post ran story that “Gas-guzzling car rides expose AOC’s hypocrisy amid Green New Deal pledge.” As the article noted, “even though a subway station was just 138 feet from her Elmhurst campaign office,” AOC choose not to use mass transit, but instead used “Uber, Lyft, Juno and other car services.”
If you look hard enough, I suspect that you will find that nearly every climate activist is in some sense a “hypocrite.”
Shifting from the message to the messenger is is a doubly effective strategy: it keeps potentially important messengers out of the game. And if they are brave enough (perhaps we should say foolish enough?) to use their platform to help with the climate crisis, their hypocrisy will become the news story, rather than the climate crisis.
As we shall see throughout the Climate Crisis 101, fossil fuel affiliates and climate change deniers have developed a number of highly effective, and often vicious, ways of shutting down the climate crisis conversation.
The following comment was made in response to another student who felt that Before the Flood was too much of an oversimplification of the climate crisis.
I agree that the movie oversimplifies the Climate Crisis…However, I think what makes this documentary great is that it is made to draw people in to environmentalism. My 57-year-old Grandpa, who barely believes climate change is real, doesn’t want the same in-depth six hour movie describing all the socio-political intricacies of climate change and the science behind it. He would immediately turn off a documentary that started with “the earth is its own autonomous being and we have disrespected it for too long. But he sat through the whole hour and a half with me, and by the end he had so many questions. We literally talked about this movie and the climate crisis for hours…Without a movie such as this one, which eases the viewer into the situation, he would have never listened to me.
What a wonderful endorsement of Before the Flood and its approach.
Since this is the first documentary for Climate Crisis 101, it is worth noting that many people have observed that watching with friends or family not only makes watching more fun, but often leads to, as this comment notes, interesting and thought-provoking discussion.
Because, as this comment also notes, our documentaries were generally designed “to draw people in to environmentalism,” they are, relatively speaking, easy to watch – even for someone’s grandfather – as they are neither too las they are neither too long or too esoteric.
Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Sequel” was very interesting to me because I really resonated with many of the speeches that he gave (especially the final speech in which he compared the movement to curb climate change to the women’s rights movement and similar movements)…A quote which especially stuck with me was “no other country can play the role the US. can play [in the movement to curb climate change]”. I think that America, a developed country with a lot of resources and power, should be doing a lot more to lead the “green” movement than it’s doing right now…While America is not stepping up to the plate in this “green movement”, other countries and their leaders are. One such example is Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, who stated that: “…our [Canada’s] government is making climate change a top priority.”
Other countries are already well on their way to combating the climate crisis, While not without problems, “Germany has been called ‘the world’s first major renewable energy economy.’” Similarly, “Renewable energy in Costa Rica supplied about 98.1% of the electrical energy output for the entire nation” back in 2016. In terms of wealth (GDP per capita), Costa Rica ranks pretty low among other nations: it is #50 – and yet it has already achieved this level of renewable saturation. Incidentally, the GDP per capita in the US is more than four times greater than Costa Rica.]
Film 2, Fire in Paradise
So, just what are the consequences of the climate crisis?
Note that I said “are,’ rather than “will be,” as the consequences of the crisis are now, sadly, here – and more are arriving daily.
The fact is there are many, many consequences appearing across the planet.
The documentary Fire in Paradise looks at just one: wildfires caused by drought conditions exacerbated by the climate crisis. In fact, it looks at just one such fire.
Unlike many of the documentaries that we are watching in this class, this film does not focus on the climate crisis in the sense that it does not survey the problem or offer solutions. To the contrary, while Fire in Paradise does spend some time addressing the climate crisis, the focus is really on the horrific consequence for one Northern California town.
Consequently, if you didn’t first watch this little blurb of mine, you might wonder why I even included this film in a course on the climate crisis. Fair enough.
When the climate crisis entered into the public imagination in the closing quarter of the 20th century, we generally referred to it as “global warming” and saw the potential consequences in these terms. In other words, the big concern was sea level rise. As nearly half of the world’s population lives on or near the coast, sea level rise was rightfully an issue of great concern.
However, for the other half of the world’s population, it was often seen an issue of less immediate concern.
Moreover, it seemed rather far off to many Americans, not only in the sense of being far off in time (decades from now), but also not much of an issue close to home in the United States. The countries that would suffer, like the island nation of the Maldives in South Asia, where are the average ground elevation is just 1.5 meters, seemed far away. And since scientists were predicting a gradual increase in sea level, it seemed likely that the wealthy country like the United States would have decades to respond, perhaps by building levees and other infrastructure.
We now know, however, that not only will climate change bring about many more changes than just sea level rise, but that they will come far faster than we imagined and hit close to home – regardless of where your home is on the planet.
Since this course is taking place in California, I thought it appropriate to consider the impact that it is having here, and now.
Four of the five largest wildfires in California history happened in the past decade (the teens).
One of them, the Thomas Fire, happened here in Santa Barbara just a few years ago. At the time, it was the largest wildfire in California’s recorded history, though it has now been surpassed.
We could approach this from a statistical, scientific perspective. Doing so would reveal that we are in the midst of an ever-worsening situation with respect to wildfires in California.
But what does this mean in human terms? As we are approaching the climate crisis from a human, cultural perspective in this class, this is an important question. The documentary Fire in Paradise takes it up.
As it turns out, I can also address this question personally, as the Thomas Fire came within almost a mile of my house. At one point, it was spreading at one acre per second, which is absolutely astonishing. The smoke was so bad that I needed to leave town, as I was very concerned for my daughter (and her lungs), as she was a just a toddler of the time. It was an emotional moment when we left, as it was not at all clear that we would have a home to which to return.
Fortunately, our home, as well as the city of Santa Barbara, was spared.
Unfortunately, many people in nearby Montecito also thought that the danger was over, only to be caught in mud and debris flows a month later. Because vegetation had been burned by the Thomas Fire, there was no sufficient plant and root structure to deal with an extraordinary (and extraordinarily unusual) weather event, when 1/2” of rain fell in a five-minute period. Because this downpour took place at 3am, many people were not even aware of what was happening.
In some places, the debris flow was over 15 feet in height, bringing entire boulders with it. Moving at a speed of up to 20 miles an hour, it was impossible to out run. Over 20 people were killed. In some places, the debris flow continued all the way down to the ocean, crossing a major interstate freeway (Route 101) in the process. Because it deposited nearly 12 feet of mud, water, and debris on the freeway at some places, it was closed for nearly 2 weeks.
Having burned over 280,000 acres, there had never been anything like the Thomas Fire in recorded history in California. However, in just half a year, it would be surpassed by the Ranch fire, which burned nearly a half a million acres.
Astonishingly, the Ranch fire would be surpassed in the same year by the Camp fire, which is the subject of the PBS documentary Fire in Paradise. Surpassed not in the sense of burning more acres, which it didn’t, but rather by being the most destructive. In fact, it was the most expensive natural disaster in 2018 – not only in California, but worldwide. In addition, as it killed more people, it was the deadliest wildfire in the California history.
The documentary Fire in Paradise puts a human face on the climate crisis, which will impact all sorts of people across the planet, in all sorts of ways.
Although some people (climate change deniers) would like us to believe that the climate crisis is just scientists wildly speculating on the future, incidents like the Camp fire make clear that the climate crisis is all too real – and that it is here, now. Even in sunny California. Even in incredibly wealthy parts of California, like Montecito, where scores of celebrities have homes.
I am curious to hear what you think – as well as how you feel – about of all this and the documentary Fire in Paradise.
As something of a postscript, when I put together the first draft of this section (during the first week of January in 2020), wildfires were burning across Australia. At that time, over 12 million acres had been burned. By the time it was over, these fires had burned and astonishing 46,000,000 acres in Australia.
Of the 20 largest wildfires in California history, 15 took place in the 21st century. The Australia were 15 times larger than all these 15 wildfires combined.
Let me repeat that, 15 times larger than the 15 largest wildfires in California history, combined.
Class discussion of Fire in Paradise
Note that the following observations, which are in italics, have not been paraphrased or altered, though I do correct the occasional typo and, because of space concerns, often just part of the comment is reproduced here along with my reply. In working through these, I will first quote a student’s observation, followed by my thoughts.
“Fire In Paradise” is one of the most scary and heartbreaking things I have ever seen. I honestly wanted to stop watching the film during many scenes because I felt overwhelmed, as if I were experiencing the fire along with everyone else as well.
On the syllabus for our course, I put a trigger warning in to alert people to the fact that this can be an emotionally overwhelming documentary, especially if you personally have ever experienced a fire of any type, but especially a wildfire – which an increasing number of Californians now have.
Although it is well put together documentary, the emotional force comes in part from the striking images but mostly from hearing firsthand from people who experienced the Camp fire.
Because we tend to think of the impact of climate crisis being far off, either in a far-off place or far off in the future, it was particularly unnerving to see it right here, in California, right now.
When watching the film “Fire in Paradise”, I started having heavy flashbacks to where I was and what I was doing when the Paradise fire happened. Where I’m from, my hometown is only two hours away from Paradise, but we were still heavily affected by that fire. I can remember feeling that same panic that the people in the film were feeling, I can remember all of us in our town so nervous when thoughts began to pop up, such as, “Are the ashes going to land here? Is another fire going to happen here? If Sacramento is being alerted about the potential harm of the ashes and the smoke, do we have to worry too?” I can remember all the students, the teachers, and the parents protesting for our school district to cancel school because the air was terrible.
The documentary Fire in Paradise takes us to the epicenter of the Camp fire. However, it is important to realize that a wildfire like this can have far-reaching impact – often hundreds of miles away.
Recall that I noted in late 2017 the Thomas Fire near Santa Barbara was the largest wildfire in California’s recorded history at 280,000 acres. In late Summer and early Fall of 2020, two more wildfires surpassed this record: the Creek Fire, which burned 380,000 acres, and the North Complex Fire, which burned 319,000. The Creek Fire and the North Complex Fire, were, respectively, over 200 and 150 miles from San Francisco.
However, San Francisco became an extraordinarily eerie place at the time, as even in the middle of the day the skies were a dark red color – kind of like twilight, but a very odd twilight that filled the entire sky. This was because the air was filled with tiny microscopic particles. Unfortunately, the air was so saturated with these particles that it became unhealthy to breathe.
“The Northern California fires in August of 2020 impacted the air quality of nearly 7.8 million residents in the San Francisco Bay Area alone…[and]…Millions more outside the Bay Area” were impacted, including places as far away as Reno, Nevada.
“[W]ildfires release nitrogen oxide and hydrocarbons that contribute to elevated ozone levels,” which can “worsen symptoms of bronchitis, emphysema and asthma.” which can also increase the likelihood of cardiac arrest. A study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that “[e]xposure to heavy smoke during recent California wildfires raised the risk of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests up to 70%.”
One can imagine making a documentary about the impact that California’s wildfires have had hundreds of miles away. I am not sure that it would be as striking as Fire in Paradise, but I imagine that it would be none-the-less be heartbreaking.
Incidentally, quite a few students in the class are from in the area surrounding the Paradise Fire. Here is another example of how it impacted someone:
I had avoided watching the Fire in Paradise film for so long because I knew it would be completely heartbreaking. I live about an hour away from Paradise and I remember how terrified everyone was here, even though we were so far from the flames. I can’t even imagine the emotions that residents of Paradise and the surrounding communities must have been experiencing. My high school was shut down for a week and a half not only because the downpour of ashes made for unhealthy air quality but also our campus was an evacuation site.
When the Thomas Fire was still some distance from the city of Santa Barbara, I woke to an eerie sight, as the ground was blanketed in a white-gray color and the air was filled with flakes dropping to the ground. It almost looked like snow. But, of course, it wasn’t. Ashes from a fire many miles away we’re falling on our yard.
Although at the time I didn’t know the above facts about the inhalation of particulates caused by wildfires, having made my living as a furniture maker for many years, I knew that the really scary part was not what you could see, but what you could only smell, as the air was filled with tiny microscopic particles that were being absorbed into people’s lungs.
Which is why my little family, like so many others during wildfires, evacuate – even if they live some distance from the fire.
During my first year at UCSB I became friends with someone who lived in Paradise. I remember him telling me how beautiful Paradise was and how I had to go visit. But soon his hometown was engulfed in flames and him and his family lost everything. He had to move back in with his family to regroup and restart their lives. I was heartbroken when I heard about the fire, but after watching the documentary “Fire in Paradise” my heart was completely crushed.
Because Climate Crisis 101 is such a large class, it contains many students who have either personally experienced consequences of the climate crisis, wildfires, or know people that have.
While the documentary focused on the fast-moving fire itself, we sometimes forget that an event like this will have consequences not only many miles from the wildfires themselves (as I just noted), but also for many years to come.
Not only will students have to leave school to go back home, but people will lose jobs in businesses that will never reopen, homes will never be rebuilt because of lack of adequate insurance, and people will continue to directly suffer the bodily consequences, such as from lung damage from smoke inhalation during the fire for years.
If this wasn’t all bad enough, there are a range seemingly obscure issues that are nonetheless quite a problem.
As The New York Times noted, the “runoff from burned homes can put harmful chemicals [such as benzene] into ground water and reservoirs…The Environmental Protection Agency classifies water with benzene levels above 500 parts per billion as hazardous. Some samples in Paradise after the fire were found to have 2,000 parts per billion. In Sonoma County after the wine country fires some samples had 40,000 parts per billion.”
Moving at 80 football fields a minute and eventually covering the size of Chicago, this incident that should have not been as big of a deal as it was became seared in the memories of the 50,000 people who managed to escape – but also ended up being the last memory made for 85 people. No matter how crazy the statistics of the fire are, nothing was more impactful to me than seeing the vigor of the fire contrasted to how serene Paradise once was…Not only will the altering climate worldwide affect the earth’s ecosystem from a scientific point of view, but it has a sentiment attached to it as it kills all types of species – including humans. But not just humans in general – our grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters, neighbors. It is happening and needs to be addressed.
Well put.
Statistics, like the fact that the Camp fire was the size of the city of Chicago, can certainly be instrumental; however, as this person notes, “nothing was more impactful…than seeing the vigor of the fire contrasted to how serene Paradise once was.” The fire did not just impact a certain number of acres, but rather a real place (which happened to have been strikingly beautiful) inhabited by real people.
And let’s not forget that a range of additional beings that also lost their lives. A whole other documentary, which I would imagine would be very moving, could have focused on all the animals and birds living in the area that also lost their homes and lives.
This comment rather succinctly draws attention to the human focus of Climate Crisis 101. Yes, as this comment wonderfully noted, we can approach the climate crisis “from a scientific point of view, but it has a sentiment attached to it as it kills all types of species – including humans. But not just humans in general – our grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters, neighbors.”
Not only is the climate crisis being brought about by human action, our actions are impacting all of the beings on the planet, including the human ones. While we might find this fact useful, actually seeing the faces of people suffering because our actions brings the issue home.
The following observation approaches the same issue:
This film is difficult to watch, largely because of how “human” it is. In my other ecology classes, I have always been told the cold, hard facts and numbers. While the statistics are convincing and concerning, they never made me feel as distraught as the personal account, onsite footage, and recorded phone calls presented in this film…
As I continue to note throughout Climate Crisis 101, I have enormous respect for my friends and colleagues in the sciences, including (and in some ways especially) those offering courses that translate the climate crisis into “cold, hard facts and numbers.”
However, as I will also continually note through our Climate Crisis 101, even if you are not a scientist, there are definitely things that you can do to make an intervention in the climate crisis.
Communication is a great example.
Let me take this opportunity to throw in a plug, just in case you are looking for a way to help mitigate the climate crisis (or in case you are looking for a major): we have an excellent Department of Film and Media Studies at UCSB,.
It’s also worth noting that, now that film has been democratized thanks to the Internet and technological advances in the last few decades (I am especially thinking of the fact that smartphones now have excellent video cameras), anyone can be an influencer, thanks to YouTube, TikTok and other platforms.
Indeed, I can imagine going to a place like Paradise after the fire and just recording a series of personal accounts with a smartphone, as well as filming the damage caused by the fire. With the right mix of creativity and careful editing, I would imagine that this would make for a striking series of videos on YouTube or TikTok.
Finally, regarding this comment, it is worth noting that Climate Crisis 101, even though it takes a human approach to the issue, is for more than just majors in the humanities and social sciences. In that sense, think of our approach as being complementary to the natural sciences. As this person notes, “statistics are convincing and concerning,” but they are not the same as “personal account, onsite footage, and recorded phone calls.”
In other words, one of the goals of Climate Crisis 101 is to not only understand the problem, but to feel it as well. The following two comment made this point especially well:
As an Environmental Studies major and a climate activist, I have watched many films about the climate crisis and the impacts it has caused and will continue to cause if action is not taken immediately. However, I do not recall any film that has evoked the same level of emotion that “Fire in Paradise” did. I found myself reaching for a box of tissues more than once
The following statement made a similar point:
In Ken’s Youtube video that gives an introduction to this documentary, he explains that because this film isn’t a scholarly film, we may wonder why it’s even required. But I wasn’t questioning this at all! It’s easy to see why this would be such an important film to broadcast. In fact, I sometimes think that films like these are more important to watch than films that spew a bunch of facts. This documentary had me so engrossed and invested that I even shed a few tears at some points. I feel like I just went through such a visceral, cathartic experience after watching the utter devastation that this wild fire created. Looking at environmental issues from a humanistic perspective rather than a scientific one allows people to form emotions about climate issues rather than simply being exposed to facts.
One of the most remarkable things about human beings is that we can experience empathy with other beings, which is, incidentally, not limited to human beings, as we can feel empathy for animals.
According to the Encyclopedia of Social Psychology, “Empathy is often defined as understanding another person’s experience by imagining oneself in that other person’s situation: One understands the other person’s experience as if it were being experienced by the self, but without the self actually experiencing it.”
One of the remarkable things about communication is that we can activate feelings of empathy by way of films and other media. As this comment noted, “I feel like I just went through such a visceral, cathartic experience after watching the utter devastation that this wild fire created.” This is, of course, just a feeling rather than this individual’s own personal experience. However, because of the gift of empathy, it feels rather like we had actually experienced it ourselves, as this person aptly notes.
As much as I respect the natural sciences, empathy is not generally their stock-in-trade. However, if we hope to convince people that we need to act to mitigate the climate crisis, engaging their emotions can be a very important approach.
The difficulty is that feeling emotions of this sort can sometimes be a little overwhelming. This is, of course, why Climate Crisis 101 can be especially depressing in the first three weeks.
Fortunately, empathy works both ways, as we will be meeting a range of individuals (by way of the course documentaries and reading) in the second two thirds of Climate Crisis 101 who are doing amazing things to mitigate the climate crisis. With any luck, meeting them will help bring about good, positive feelings.
In 2019, Greta Thunberg delivered a powerful speech asking people to act as if their house is on fire, but this is no longer an if, our house is literally on fire. The climate crisis is a daunting task and can at times make us feel like sitting ducks, as people did in the film, waiting for climate change or a fire to wipe us out. However, I have hope for our future. I believe that my generation will be able to make the cultural change to finally put out the fire that has engulfed our home we call planet earth.
It is an altogether remarkable fact that Greta Thunberg, who was in many ways just an average high school student, forever changed the climate change discussion.
Perhaps because “‘[s]houting fire in a crowded theater’ is a popular analogy for speech or actions made for the principal purpose of creating panic,” for a long time most climate activists shied away from making statements that would allow them to be perceived as “climate alarmists,” which is, in fact, the term that climate change deniers use for climate activists. This was a clever move on the part of deniers (and, make no mistake, they can often be very clever), as it discouraged speaking about the climate crisis in alarmist terms.
However, in her January 2019 speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Thunberg reframed the conversation by baldly proclaiming that “[o]ur house is on fire.” In other words, this is an emergency and we need to act immediately. Lives are at stake.
Astonishingly, as the above student noted, for some people, their houses have literally been burned to the ground by the climate crisis.
There is a potential danger to this approach, as people can become petrified (i.e. stunned into an action) by fear or made to feel that, in the words of this comment, “like sitting ducks…waiting for climate change or a fire to wipe us out.” However, this person resists this feeling to instead declare that “I have hope for our future.”
This strikes me as a perfect balance: on the one hand, taking the issue most seriously, even to the point of being alarmed. On the other hand, not being petrified by the fear, but rather having hope.
I have tried to balance the material in Climate Crisis 101 in the hope that most people will feel this way by the end of the term. If you do not feel this way right now, I wouldn’t worry, as we have not gotten to any of the solutions.
Finally, this comment notes that “I believe that my generation will be able to make the cultural change to finally put out the fire that has engulfed our home we call planet earth.” As I explained in the chapter of Climate Crisis 101 on Generation and Climate, I believe that my students and their generation can and will solve this problem. It is frustrating that it has landed on your shoulders, as my generation (and the one after it) has done very little to mitigate the climate crisis. This is unfair. You deserve an apology.
Having taken English 22 already, I watched the second film and found it to be effective because of the people that tell the story. The fact that the film showcased the story of young kids around our age, made me think about what this situation may have been like if it had happened to me and those around me. Seeing people who lived a very similar life to yours, and then their life got turned completely upside down was very disheartening, but also very close to home. When I watched the other films, such as the one starring DiCaprio or Al Gore, although also powerful, I did not get the same feeling. This film showed that this type of disaster can happen to anyone at any moment, and change your entire life forever.
Although most people watched the documentary Fire in Paradise, students who had already seen this film were asked to instead watch The Story of California’s Camp Fire, as Told By Paradise High School. It is in August 2020 documentary produced by The New Yorker magazine.
As far as I’m concerned, Fire in Paradise is the better, more effective of the two films. However, I offered up this option, as it, to borrow words from this comment, “showcased the story of young kids around our age…[which]… made me think about what this situation may have been like if it had happened to me and those around me.”
This turns back on the question of empathy. While plenty of people in the class expressed deep empathy for people in the Fire in Paradise documentary (many were literally brought to tears), we don’t always feel the same amount of empathy for everyone. This is simply human nature. Consequently, it can sometimes be difficult for a college student to emotionally connect up with a famous and wealthy person in his forties like Leonardo DiCaprio or Al Gore, another wealthy white guy, who is old enough to be DiCaprio’s father.
Consequently, seeing how people just like you, in this case high school students, were impacted by the wildfire in Paradise can sometimes be very effective. This turns us back to the issue of communication, as certain approaches may work best with certain audiences.
For example, taking an alternate approach by focusing on the loss of houses, businesses, and property may not elicit a great deal of empathy from high school students. However, if you knew that your audience were relatively wealthy homeowners, this might be an effective approach.
As far as I am concerned, when it comes to communicating the severity of the climate crisis and prompting people to action, a broad range of approaches should be explored, even though I am
My dad is a firefighter and talks about how draining and dangerous wildfires can be and how he has lost friends trying to help out in situations like this, and even though he talks about his experiences, I don’t think I’ve ever fully understood how detrimental wildfires truly are; I’ve heard the stories and watched the news, but this documentary really opened my eyes to how climate change is such a large, dangerous influence and how it has made fires so much worse.
This comment address is an important point, which not only applies to California’s wildfires, but to a range of other consequences of climate crisis.
Are the recent wildfires that we have been considering caused by anthropogenic climate change? No, they are not, in the sense that this area of North America has a long history of wildfires that predates climate change and even human beings arriving here thousands of years ago.
However, we are now having more, and more severe wildfires, then we ever had before. As this person succinctly notes, the “climate crisis… has made fires so much worse.”
Incidentally, the same can be said of other consequences of the climate crisis, such as hurricanes. Hurricanes have probably been around nearly as long as the Atlantic Ocean; however, we are now having more and more severe hurricanes than ever before in human history.
Climate change is making wildfires more common and more severe because of “a combination of rising heat, longer droughts, and powerful winds.” In terms of longer droughts, it used to be the case that California would begin its rainy season around October. When I first arrived in Santa Barbara in 2006, this was generally the case. These were very welcomed occurrences, as they would wet everything down, greatly reducing the chance of a wildfire.
However, because of climate change, the seasonal rains do not come until November or even December. Consequently, not only does the dry season exist for a longer period, everything dries out even more as the months go on. Which significantly raise his risk of wild fire. The Camp Fire that destroyed the town of Paradise occurred in November. The Thomas Fire that threatened Santa Barbara happened in December. If seasonal rains had come in October of either a year, neither fire may have happened.
Because the climate has changed, people have begun to refer to California’s current situation of more and more severe wildfires as the “new normal.” After the Thomas fire near Santa Barbara, the governor of the state at the time, Jerry Brown, noted that “[t]his is the new normal, and this could be something that happens every year or every few years — it happens, to some degree. It’s just more intense, more widespread, and we’re about ready to have firefighting at Christmas,”
However, as “Philip B. Duffy, a climate scientist who is president of the Woodwell Climate Research Center” noted to The New York Times, “People are always asking, ‘Is this the new normal?’” he said. “I always say no. It’s going to get worse.”
Documentaries like these should be played in science classes across the country because they could further influence the generations who will continue to take action against worsening climate change. However, big corporations and businesses are the ones who hold wads of power, and most of them aren’t doing anything to slow/end their impact on the world and its climate. Big names/brands/companies need to be held accountable for their actions, whether it is for something giant like starting a devastating wildfire or just admitting that they need to alter production and come up with a new sustainability model that could potentially make a difference in the world we all live in.
I wholeheartedly agree that documentaries like this should be played in classrooms across the country.
However, I would argue that, to be most effective and elicit the most empathy, such films should be tailor-made for each area. I happened to have been a visiting professor at Princeton University when Superstorm Sandy hit. Although the situation was entirely different, as the problem was principally gale winds and a massive storm surges that flooded, among other places, some of Manhattan’s subways, the death toll was far greater than the Camp Fire at Paradise, , as “233 people across eight countries from the Caribbean to Canada” were killed.
In other words, as the climate crisis is now hitting close to home, regardless of where you live,
I think that everyone should know how it is impacting their nearby friends and neighbors.
Regarding the observation that “Big names/brands/companies need to be held accountable for their actions” in contributing to the climate crisis, the following comment squarely takes on this issue:
There is a shortlist of people who could be considered directly responsible for the loss of life in Paradise. The higher-ups of ExxonMobil who created their own studies and knew for a fact that continued use of fossil fuels was going to be disastrous and said nothing. The Koch brothers and every other right-wing think tank funded by oil money that lied to the American people and the world. Many of these people are still around today, living comfortable luxurious lives. What these CEOs and politicians have done to my generation and the many that will come after goes far beyond negligent or selfish. It’s criminal. These people are criminals. Their mindless pursuit of infinite growth lays the fate of every town like Paradise squarely at their feet. One can only hope for a day when these people could be tried for crimes against humanity, a sort of Climate Nuremberg Trials, but sadly, that day likely won’t be coming anytime soon. All we can do is ensure towns like Paradise are never forgotten and keep fighting for a better world.
In one sense, the Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, California “was caused by electrical transmission lines owned and operated by Pacific Gas and Electricity (PG&E) located in the Pulga area.” However, in another sense, it could be argued that the cause of the Camp Fire may have indeed been anthropogenic climate change.
In the past 140 years, the average temperature on earth has increased by roughly 2°F. However, in California the increase was 3°F. As the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) notes “[t]he length of fire season is estimated to have increased by 75 days across” parts of California, such as the Sierras. As CAL FIRE further notes, this “seems to correspond with an increase in the extent of forest fires across the state.”
In other words, if the fire season ended with October rains in 2018, as it has traditionally, the PG&E transmission lines may not have sparked the Camp Fire on the morning of November, 8 of that year. If this is indeed the case, who then should we blame for the problem?
This comment boldly suggest that ExxonMobil should be partially held responsible for the Camp Fire because they “created their own studies and knew for a fact that continued use of fossil fuels was going to be disastrous and said nothing.” So, what’s the story here?
As InsideClimate News noted in a milestone 2015 article, back in 1977, the senior scientist with the Exxon Corporation delivered to talk at the corporate headquarters where he noted that “there is general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels.” Exxon quickly responded by commissioning an “ambitious program [that] included both empirical CO2 sampling and rigorous climate modeling.”
“Then, toward the end of the 1980s, Exxon curtailed its carbon dioxide research. In the decades that followed, Exxon worked instead at the forefront of climate denial. It put its muscle behind efforts to manufacture doubt about the reality of global warming its own scientists had once confirmed. It lobbied to block federal and international action to control greenhouse gas emissions. It helped to erect a vast edifice of misinformation that stands to this day.”
So, it can – and certainly has – been argued that organizations like ExxonMobil and the Koch Brothers (also mentioned in this comment) could have intervened in anthropogenic climate change just as it was really beginning to take off forty years ago. (In 1977, CO2 in the atmosphere was 334 ppm: it is nearly 420 ppm today – an increase of almost 25%.) Instead, they not only concealed the findings of their own scientists, but vehemently denied it. Indeed, they helped inaugurate an era of climate change denial.
This is why this student is so outraged. “What these CEOs and politicians have done to my generation and the many that will come after goes far beyond negligent or selfish. It’s criminal. These people are criminals. Their mindless pursuit of infinite growth lays the fate of every town like Paradise squarely at their feet.”
I don’t know what more I could say. I will end with this blunt and powerful statement.
Film 3, A Climate of Doubt and Merchants of Doubt
A great battle is underway. Millions of lives hang in the balance. Hundreds of people millions risk becoming refuges in what may well be the greatest diaspora in human history. The world economy may teeter; entire nations disappear. As in all wars, animals and plants will also suffer; tens of thousands of species will become extinct. No place on the face of the globe will be left untouched, from the upper limits of the atmosphere to the deepest ocean floors.
What will cause all this? Climate change brought about by a range of human practices. To mitigate as best we can the above and a great many more consequences, we need, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other experts, to limit global warming to a maximum of two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit). To do this, something like 88% of the earth’s coal reserves, 35% of its oil, and 52% of its natural gas must remain in the ground, unextracted.
The problem is that these resources are of enormous economic value. Some of the wealthiest companies on the planet are in the fossil fuel business. For the most part, they primarily measure their worth not in terms of money in the bank, but rather by the value of unextracted fossil fuels that they control.
If we mandated that the above percentages of these resources remained in the ground, it would staggeringly reduce the values of these companies. Imagine having $100 in the bank and being faced with the prospect that 88% of it could never be taken out. For all practical purposes, you would now have $12, not $100. You would not likely be pleased. Not surprisingly, these companies are not at all happy.
Consequently, these companies have doubled down and are now fighting for their financial interests, rather than those of the planet and its life, including human beings. When I said that a great battle was currently underway, this is what I meant: a battle between the fossil fuel industry and its many affiliates and champions (such as politicians who it funds) and, on the opposing side, a range of individuals who want to act quickly and decisively to mitigate the climate crisis, thereby keeping the earth as welcoming and habitable as possible for human and a range of beings with which we share the planet.
Have you ever wondered how climate change became such a political issue, such a battleground, in America? Like everything else, this has a history. While we can see it as a long history spanning decades, the last dozen or so years has been incredibly important.
The documentaries A Climate of Doubt and Merchants of Doubt both take up this history, though in somewhat different ways.
A Climate of Doubt, which is a PBS Frontline documentary, chronicles a decisive moment in American history when the politicalization of climate change came to a head. Although the film is now a decade old, it is of historical interest, as it chronicles when the tide began to turn in favor of fossil fuel interests.
While you might have been under the impression that this sea-change took place with the election of Donald Trump in 2016, the situation really goes back a few years further.
Here is how the filmmakers described their documentary in 2012:
“Four years ago, climate change was hot. Politicians from both parties, pressed by an anxious public, seemed poised to act. But that was then. Today [i.e. 2012], public opinion about the climate issue has cooled, and politicians either ignore the issue or loudly proclaim their skepticism of scientific evidence that human activity is imperiling the planet. What’s behind this reversal? FRONTLINE correspondent John Hockenberry…goes inside the organizations that fought the scientific establishment, environmental groups, and lawmakers to shift the direction of debate on climate issues and redefined the politics of global warming.”
But how, exactly, is this battle being fought?
At first glance, this may seem to be a battle for scientists to wage with the fossil fuel interests. However, the underlying science is no longer seriously in question. As you may have heard (I repeatedly mention it and the paper introducing it has been referenced in the media more than any other on climate change), a 2013 study that looked at roughly 12,000 journal articles dealing with climate change found that 97% of these scientists concluded that climate change is real, underway, and is principally anthropogenic.
Instead, this is largely – as amazing as it may seem – a battle of words. A debate on whether the climate crisis is real or not being staged for the public.
Ultimately, as years pass and the real-world consequences of anthropogenic climate change become impossible to deny, fossil fuel companies and their allies will lose this war. However, each year that they sway public opinion away from the truth regarding climate change and our acting on that knowledge, the more severe will be the consequence, as many more trillions of pounds of fossil fuels will annually be extracted and burned while we wait.
From the point of view of the fossil fuel industry, their goal is to take every last dollar that they possibly can out of the ground before legislation hampers them from doing so. How much will be extracted? Quite a bit depends on this debate over the nature and validly of climate change.
What is fascinating here is that there is no real debate. The thousands of scientists researching this issue have concluded beyond any reasonable doubt (they certainly no longer debate the issue among themselves) that anthropogenic climate change represents a real, pressing, and significant global danger. Nonetheless, a media spectacle is being staged by fossil fuel interests with the goal of influencing public opinion.
Surprisingly, unlike many debates, winning over opinion to one side or the other isn’t necessarily the goal. True, on the one side, scientists would like to convince the public that anthropogenic climate change is indeed real, but, as far as climate change deniers are concerned, all that matters is that a broad swath of the public is confused or unsure whether human beings are indeed significantly changing our planet’s climate.
In this sense, their goal is to create doubt, as an individual doubting the validity and scope of a problem is unlikely to make sweeping life changes and support the spending of trillions of tax dollars in an attempt to remedy it.
In their 2010 book Merchants of Doubt, two historians (Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway) explored how effective campaigns of disinformation were waged by tobacco and fossil fuel interests in order to block government interventions into their industries. Surprisingly, as Merchants of Doubt made clear, these two campaigns used some of the same rogue scientists to build their cases.
In 2014, a documentary of the same name was made of the book. Here is how the filmmakers describe it:
“Merchants of Doubt takes audiences on a satirically comedic, yet illuminating ride into the heart of conjuring American spin. Filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the curtain on a secretive group of highly charismatic, silver-tongued pundits-for-hire who present themselves in the media as scientific authorities – yet have the contrary aim of spreading maximum confusion about well-studied public threats ranging from toxic chemicals to pharmaceuticals to climate change.”
I am curious to hear what you thought of either one of the other (or both) of these “doubt” documentaries and the battle underway for the support of the American public.
Class discussion of Merchants of Doubt
Note that the following observations, which are in italics, have not been paraphrased or altered, though I do correct the occasional typo and, because of space concerns, often just part of the comment is reproduced here along with my reply. In working through these, I will first quote a student’s observation, followed by my thoughts.
Watching the documentary “A Climate of Doubt” was so infuriating that I had to pause it half way through and take a 10-minute walk around my house trying to fathom how people can be so incredibly selfish.
And similarly:
After watching, “A Climate of Doubt” I’m simply in utter disgust and disbelief. It was truly hard to watch all fifty-three minutes of it.
Quite a few people found it difficult to travel the world with Leonardo DiCaprio and see the impact of climate change. And some people, quite understandably, found it more than a little tough to watch the documentary about the fire in Paradise, California.
But A Climate of Doubt was difficult to watch for an entirely different reason, as it introduces a cause of the climate crisis that we sometimes ignore. Not greenhouse gases, like CO2 and methane, and not human practices, like eating beef and driving cars, but rather the fossil fuel industry’s attempt to deny the climate crisis and keep us in the dark.
Even if every person and every government on the planet resolved to do all that we could to solve climate crisis, we would still be facing an enormous undertaking. Indeed, it would have been an incredible challenge 50 years ago when we first realized that there was a problem.
But the fact is that the fossil fuel industry and its affiliates and champions (i.e. such as certain politicians) have been extraordinarily successful in keeping us from tackling the climate crisis. They have done so by simply denying that there is a problem.
From the perspective of the fossil fuel industry, the challenge is to keep their corporations alive, as they would obviously go out of business as fossil fuel companies if we shifted away from extracting and using these resources. Of course, from another perspective, the challenge is to keep the planet healthy, not these corporations.
Unfortunately, not only are these two enterprises in direct conflict, but for decades the fossil fuel industry has been winning, as it is healthy and growing. In contrast, the Earth and its life are suffering.
Because this documentary introduces us to some of the masterminds behind this project to deny the climate crisis, it can, indeed, as both of these people noted, be difficult to watch.
When asked what would happen if the climate skeptics were wrong, Myron Ebell’s response was only “I would be sorry.” Are you kidding me? When millions of people have to be relocated because their homes are no longer habitable, when the 3 billion people on earth who rely on fish for their primary food source starve, and billions of species go extinct — I think it’s going to be a little too late for an apology…I think that politicians who deny climate change need to be locked up in jail. I know that sounds extreme, but the policies that they are promoting are destroying our ecosystem and ruining any chance that we have at salvaging a habitable planet.
See also the below statements regarding Myron Ebell.
How can their “sorry” answer their grandchildren’s pleas for clean air, less hurricanes, less fires, and a more hopeful future?
His answer was “then I’ll have to say I’m sorry.” This really frustrates me for a number of reasons. First, just in the years since this [documentary] has been made, we have experienced major climate disasters and are seeing the effects of the climate crisis…Second, it is infuriating seeing a wealthy old man say that he’ll apologize if he’s wrong when it reality he’s gotten to live his life, he’s not going to feel the effects the way poor communities are, the way younger generations are.
Myron Ebell has been politically active for a number of decades now. In the 1990s, he worked in the defense of the tobacco industry in an effort to keep it from being regulated. For over 25 years he has been working to deny the climate crisis. In September 2016, two months before he was elected president, Donald Trump revealed that Myron Ebell would lead his transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Allow me to repeat that. The future of what is arguably the most influential environmental protection organization on the planet was handed over to Myron Ebell.
Consequently, immediately after Trump was elected, there was considerable speculation that Ebell would be appointed as the EPA Administrator (Director).
Donald Trump made a number of public statements (often by way of tweets) denying the climate crisis. However, what went on behind the scenes in his administration with respect to the crisis is even more shocking. A prime example would be appointing Myron Ebell as the architect of an entirely new Environmental Protection Agency, which denied the validity of the climate crisis altogether.
Shortly after Donald Trump was sworn into office in January 2017, he “instructed EPA’s communications team to remove the website’s climate change page, which contains links to scientific global warming research, as well as detailed data on emissions.” By “April 2017, the Trump administration took down the agency’s extensive trove of resources on climate change.”
When A Climate of Doubt was made, Myron Ebell was something of a fringe character in American politics. Just a few years later, he set about making climate change denial the official position of the US. government, including the Environmental Protection Agency itself.
I have no words.
While I was always aware that the topic of climate change and the climate crisis was political, I was also unaware of the extent to which politics affected the issue. For the most part I was under the belief that climate change skepticism was relatively rare, and was only such a big issue because a minority of people (being policymakers, members of Congress, and lobbyists) held a large amount of power. While this is true to an extent, I was completely unaware of the sheer number of people who are in the dark about the issue of climate change
The fossil fuel industry and its affiliates have taken a multi-prong approach to making sure that the industry is allowed to continue with its business as usual, regardless of the impact that it has on the planet and its life.
First, as A Climate of Doubt revealed, they are directly contributing (in some cases, millions of dollars) to individual politicians. However, this would not be sufficient if the American public, specifically the people who put these politicians in office, we’re at odds with this project.
Consequently, the fossil fuel industry has gotten into the business of trying to convince the American public (and by that, I mean voters) to go along with this project, even though it is completely against the public’s interests and counter to the facts and science.
As I have noted elsewhere, this doesn’t necessarily mean convincing the American public that climate change is definitely not happening. Instead, all that is needed is to raise enough doubt in the minds of the public to keep them from voting for candidates who take the position that the climate crisis is real and needs to be dealt with quickly and decisively.
One of the things that is most striking about A Climate of Doubt is that it reveals that the fossil fuel industry and its affiliates have been remarkably successful in raising doubt in the last decade.
Just how successful have they been in swaying the voting public? In November 2016, a climate change denier was elected President of the United States.
[O]ne part of the film that gave me hope for the fight against climate change denial was hearing Bob Inglis talk about how he changed his mind about climate change after witnessing its consequences first hand. It’s nice to see that even people who once held firm beliefs of denial can be educated and change their minds. Examples like that one give me hope that people can realize the truth, however I worry that it will take too long before enough people change their minds for it to make a difference.
If you don’t happen to recall, Bob Inglis was an exceptionally conservative member of the US. House of Representatives from South Carolina who nonetheless refused to deny that climate change was happening. As a consequence, he was quickly voted out of office (he didn’t even receive his party’s nomination).
Bob Inglis’s story is heartening because, as this person notes, “even people who once held firm beliefs of denial can be educated and change their minds.” On the other hand, it’s a disheartening tale, as Inglis was crushed by a political machine largely controlled by the fossil fuel industry. As a consequence, he became something of a cautionary tale for any conservative politician who would might advocate for climate change action.
Although there were many quotes that resonated with me throughout the film, one in particular sent chills down my spine, “doubt is our product”. It sickens me that there are mega million corporations out that that have lied about their harmful product or production for monetary gain…How could half of America allow themselves to be fooled by industries that just want to fill their pockets even more?
The tobacco and fossil fuel industries provide fascinating case studies in how a broad swath of the American public was swayed to support industries that clearly harm (and in some cases actually kill) these supporters directly.
The whole notion of democracy hinges on the fact that citizens would vote for politicians that would, first and foremost, act in the best interest of these citizens. Historically, this is why democracies supplanted monarchies, which largely acted in the interest of the monarch and other powerful groups and individuals.
It is surprising, then, that democracy can be subverted by wealthy and powerful individuals and corporations. Since politicians cannot be directly appointed by these corporations (in the way that various leaders are appointed in monarchies and dictatorships), massive media and political campaigns are now initiated to put such politicians in the office.
It could be argued that one of the flaws in our particular form of democracy in the US. is that we allow powerful corporations and interests to finance the campaigns of politicians. In effect, this allows them to buy votes, as it is demonstrably the case that the more money that is infused into a campaign the more votes will be received.
This is why some politicians, such as Bernie Sanders and AOC (who both, incidentally, support the Green New Deal), argue for campaign reform. As Sanders succinctly puts it, we need to “Get Corporate Money Out of Politics.”
This is yet another example of something that we could do to help mitigate the climate crisis that never occurs to most people. Indeed, getting corporate money out of politics might well be one of the most effective things that we could do to help mitigate the climate crisis.
[A]fter watching this week’s film Climate of Doubt. I feel angry, confused, and frustrated as I see people denying the climate crisis. I grew up in China, a country that has begun to pay more attention to climate issues in recent years. Most Chinese students have developed the awareness of protecting the environment. If you ask a young girl on the street if she believes in the climate crisis, the answer is very likely to be “yes.”
Although climate change denial is rampant in the US, this is not the case across the planet.
Climate change denial is often found in countries that speak English, such as Canada, England Australia, and New Zealand (in addition to the U.S, of course). The reason for this is that the climate change denial literature, which exists both in print and online, is generally written in English, as it primarily comes from the US, where it is funded by fossil fuel interests.
However, in recent years it has spread to some other countries, such as Spain, Finland, Austria, and Germany, arguably in response to the recent rise of nationalism. The issue here is the climate change needs to be addressed as global problem, as greenhouse gas are being emitted it all over the planet. Hence every country needs to agree to cut down on these emissions, which is exactly what happened at the COP 21 in 2015, as the countries of planet earth all signed an agreement (now called the Paris Agreement, as this is where it was signed) to cut down on emissions.
In short, “in order to confront climate change, we need additional loyalties and commitments to a level beyond the nation.” This is at odds with nationalism in so far as the goal is often to close borders and reduce, rather than strengthen, ties with other countries. Hence, climate change denial has been spreading with nationalism in the past few years – and is yet another reason why the recent spread of nationalism is alarming.
In any event, one might suppose the climate change denial would be similarly rampant in China, as the two largest oil companies on the planet, Sinopec and China National Petroleum, are Chinese corporations. However, both are wholly owned by the state. As a consequence, the Chinese government dictates their behavior, which means that they are not allowed to promote climate change denial like Western oil companies.
This is an intriguing example of a government response to climate crisis, as China decided that it is clearly not in the benefit of its people to deny the crisis. The government is able to act because it is more powerful than corporations in China, even though Sinopec and China National Petroleum are, when measured by revenue, two of the five wealthiest companies on the planet.
Put simply, in China, the government controls corporations, which is arguably just the opposite of the situation in the US. today. Consequently, with respect to the climate crisis, China is now producing twice as much solar and twice as much wind energy as the US. and has made a commitment to cut meat consumption by 50% by 2030.
This is not to say that corporations need to be government owned in order to reel them in. Denmark, for example, has an open economy though a strong central government. Hence, the “Denmark’s parliament recently voted to make its new and sweeping carbon reduction plan law. Denmark has one of the most aggressive climate plans of any country, aiming to reduce emissions to 70% of its 1990 carbon levels within 10 years.”
As former climate skeptics like Rep. Inglis demonstrated in their ill-fated efforts to spread the truth, trying to stop climate change denial is like trying to put a lid on a thousand schoolyard rumors at once. All it takes is one mention of “sunspots” or “more than 31,000 scientists” or “a candle in a crib” on the news for millions to keep parroting it for years to come. What good is a peer-reviewed study against a self-perpetuating wall of bite-sized falsehoods? Disturbingly, “Merchants of Doubt” demonstrates to us that when it comes to quelling climate change denial, the truth is not enough.
“[T]he truth is not enough.” What a perfect summation of the problem of climate change denial.
As I have repeatedly noted, scientists have been informing us of the truth about anthropogenic climate change for decades now. And this goes back long before NASA scientist James Hansen testified before Congress on the issue in 1988, which made the front page of The New York Times.
However, “the truth is not enough,” as alternative facts are constantly being generated by fossil fuel affiliates and endlessly rehearsed by climate change deniers. To again quote this person, “[w]hat good is a peer-reviewed study against a self-perpetuating wall of bite-sized falsehoods?”
What is happening here, of course, is that free-speech is being exploited by fossil fuel affiliates.
It is ironic that, as we all know, a person cannot yell fire in a crowded theater. As this could potentially harm people, free speech does not cover such a reckless act. However, even though, to quote Greta Thunberg, “our house is on fire,” there is nothing to stop people from standing up and yelling “No it’s not, please do not do anything,” even though over 500 people were literally cooked alive just in British Columbia during the heat wave of June/July 2021.
Lake campaign reform, putting an end to the outright and egregious lies being put forth by fossil fuel affiliates might well be one of the most effective things that we could do to help mitigate the climate crisis.
After watching this film, it seemed to me that it’s rather unlikely that we will be able to educate anyone who is already a denier of climate change due to the fact that these companies have so much wealth and so much power that they can afford to keep fueling the spread of disinformation to the public. The only way that I could possibly see change happening in the future would be to implement some form of policy change that completely bans things like fracking or a carbon tax that would directly force people to make ecofriendly decisions based on their own carbon emissions.
This is a sobering but probably true observation. Climate change denial literature has already been so effective that there are some people who will never likely believe that the climate crisis is really happening. At least not for decades, which is not nearly quickly enough.
What then is to be done?
Perhaps the best answer is that we need to, as this person suggests, enact a series of laws, such as regarding fracking, and, importantly, also price carbon emissions.
Right now, any corporation or individual in the US can emit as many greenhouse gases as they please without any cost to them, even though these emissions will ultimately cost us many trillions of dollars, as well as bring about enormous suffering. The simple solution is that we need to put a price on these emissions, which is what carbon pricing does.
In practical terms, this would mean that the cost of gasoline at the pump would go up significantly. So would pound of beef. Regardless of whether or not you believed in anthropogenic climate change, you would still have to shoulder these costs, just like everyone else. Consequently, you might just forgo having a car or burgers all together, regardless of your position on climate change. You may not like it, but this would simply be the new reality of life.
The problem is climate change denial rhetoric is standing between us and carbon pricing, as not enough US. politicians are in office to enact it.
Incidentally, other countries began pricing carbon, in the form of a carbon tax, as early as 1990 (1990 for Finland, 1991 for Norway, and 1992 for Sweden and Denmark). The idea was to start with a relatively small tax and then incrementally increase it. For example, Denmark’s carbon tax increased by an average of 1.8% per year from 2008 to 2015.
Film 4, Minimalism
One of the films that was in the running that I did not select as one of my top 10 (or top 20) was the 2009 film No Impact Man. There is, however, an interesting scene in the film where the title character, no impact man Colin Beavan, has a discussion with his toddler daughter about consumerism. As he explains to her, a consumer desiring to make environmentally sound purchases is faced with an extraordinary job, as this can require a great deal of research. In an effort to short circuit all this, Beavan suggests simply consuming less, a lot less.
It’s a simple idea. So simple in fact that even a toddler can apparently understand it. In a certain way, it also forms the basis of the response to consumerism known as “minimalism.”
In one sense, minimalism is hardly new, as most human beings throughout history have probably gotten by with the bare minimum, or nearly so, needed for life. Even today, for a broad swath of people across the planet, this is likely still true. Hence, we hardly need to prescribe minimalism for most people in the planet.
But what we were talking about here is voluntary minimalism. Relatively wealthy people who could buy lots of stuff, but choose not to for environmental or other reasons. In that sense, minimalism is a solution to a to a problem that is at epidemic levels in wealthy countries, like the US.
In America, at least as early as the nineteenth century, people began amassing stuff as consumer culture began to build momentum. One of the earliest critics of this phenomenon was Henry David Thoreau who, I think, can rightly be considered one the great grandparents of American minimalism, as he pondered the bare minimum necessary for life – and then acted on what he learned during his relatively short Walden experiment.
In recent years, minimalism has emerged as a cultural movement designed to counter rampant consumerism. Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, featured in the film Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things, are two leading proponents of the minimalist lifestyle. As this film makes clear, one of the interesting aspects of minimalism is that people are not necessarily adopting this lifestyle for environment reasons. As Millburn and Nicodemus explain on their website:
“Minimalism is a tool that can assist you in finding freedom. Freedom from fear. Freedom from worry. Freedom from overwhelm. Freedom from guilt. Freedom from depression. Freedom from the trappings of the consumer culture we’ve built our lives around. Real freedom.”
Many people believe that responding to the climate crisis on a personal level will mean we have to do without quite a bit, which means that we will have to live drab lives of deprivation. What is intriguing about minimalism is that this group of individuals has voluntarily decided to do without quite a bit because they believe that this is a better way to live. This was also Thoreau’s message. Intriguingly, after experimenting with a life of minimalism, Thoreau, Millburn, Nicodemus, and many others have all confirmed that this is indeed a better life.
So, is minimalism an important response to the climate crisis? One thing to consider is no impact man Colin Beavan’s assertion that simply consuming less is enough. It would be great if it were, in fact, this simple, However, seemingly similar products and practices can have very different environmental footprints, especially when you consider the energy used to make them, their useful lifespans, this sort of materials of which they are made, the conditions under which they are manufactured, and so forth. Hence, it is not enough to just consume less: we need to make sure that we make the right decisions when we do consume.
Nonetheless, although Minimalism is not an environmental film, per se, living a minimalist lifestyle can have significant environmental impact. I am curious to hear what you think about the film. Is minimalism a viable and meaningful option?
While minimalism is a great start, a number of theorists have been considering the next step. Two such thinkers are Juliet Schor in her book True Wealth: How and Why Millions of Americans Are Creating a Time-Rich, Ecologically Light, Small-Scale, High-Satisfaction Economy and Tim Kasser in The High Price of Materialism. While both books are well worth reading, New Dream has conveniently put together two short videos that nicely introduce both works.
Incidentally, New Dream, formerly The Center for a New American Dream was, as their website explains, “founded in 1997 by a group of forward-thinking activists and philanthropists who sought to draw greater attention to the links between individual action, social justice, and broader environmental impacts, and between excess materialism and negative impacts on human well-being, including children’s development.”
In True Wealth, Schor in many ways takes a minimalist approach. However, minimalism, from Thoreau through to modern minimalists, has largely been a personal choice. Schor considers what if an entire society took up a similar approach by adopting a new economic model, what she calls a “plentitude economy.”
The idea is simple, people would work less (maybe a lot less, like in the Netherlands, where the workweek is under 30 hours) and hence have more time for things that would make their lives better and more rewarding, like growing some the their own food and other DIY projects. They would also have far more time for activities that would make them happier.
In short, Schor’s message is that while personal changes (of the minimalist variety, for example) are obviously terrific and absolutely necessary, we also need to think in terms of larger system change, involving the sort of economic and political change that she recommends.
Tim Kasser’s The High Price of Materialism (both the book and the video snippet from New Dream) considers the impact that materialism, in the sense of ramped-up consumerism, has in our lives. It is not a pretty picture, as materialism makes us less happy and more anxious, depressed, and selfish, for a start.
Again, I am curious to hear what you think. Can we maximize minimalism (so to speak) by to building our society and economy on less materialistic values? Would this indeed be better for us and the planet? Could we actually make this happen? In other words, could we get enough people to go along with it to actually re-invent our materialist culture?
Class discussion of Minimalism
Note that the following observations, which are in italics, have not been paraphrased or altered, though I do correct the occasional typo and, because of space concerns, often just part of the comment is reproduced here along with my reply. In working through these, I will first quote a student’s observation, followed by my thoughts.
The thing that bothered me first was when Joshua Milburn was talking about how his life looked a lot like “everybody else’s,” listing off a lot of items and things, “closets full of expensive clothes,” and how now he has a lot less – he has his chair, his table his bed, etc… It just came across to me as grossly privileged for him to say that what he had was very average and now he has way less than average, when his apartment is honestly nicer than anything I’ve ever lived in. Growing up in a home where our house was pretty bare but not at all by choice, that just didn’t sit right with me. Also when the man later on who said he was “homeless” – there’s a big difference between traveling and renting homes wherever you go and not being able to afford a place to live, so again, it just felt grossly privileged.
This is a wonderful observation that squarely hits on a central point:
Minimalism is a movement by and for privileged people. There is no doubt about it. After all, minimalism doesn’t make sense for people who have very little. As they may only have essentials in their lives, what is there to give up? Indeed, their lives may well be best characterized by lack rather than abundance.
However, for people who have a lot (i.e. too much), for example, certain people in wealthy countries like the US, minimalism makes sense.
Unfortunately, the documentary Minimalism does not address this issue in any meaningful way. To the contrary, Millburn and Nicodemus spend a good bit of time portraying themselves as successful before they chose a minimalist lifestyle. This is seemingly done to underscore that their lifestyle is one of choice, rather than necessity. In other words, yes, I live like a poor person, but I was once (and presumably could again be) quite wealthy. Unfortunately, this can be more than a little grating.
This is not to say that there is no merit to minimalism. Quite the contrary. From an environmental perspective, since the wealthy countries have largely brought about the climate crisis in the last few decades through their relentless consumption and corresponding greenhouse gas emissions, anything that people in these countries can do to reduce this endless cycle of consuming and emitting should certainly be welcome.
Indeed, people in wealthy countries who adopt a minimalist lifestyle could do even more.
For example, being a minimalist, you might have either more disposable income, as you are buying less new stuff, or more time, as you might be working fewer hours in order to buy new stuff. So, what about that extra time and money that you have? You could of course, buy fewer things of higher quality, which would still take as much money. Or use the money for other things, like purchasing experiences, such as travel. Or use the time that you have freed up for self-care.
But what donating that money or time to worthy causes? Again, the documentary Minimalism does not address this possibility in any meaningful way. Consequently, minimalism can (and in the documentary arguably does) come across as selfish and self-serving. Of course, it certainly need not be, but, again, the documentary did not explore how a person could directly help themselves AND others through a minimalist lifestyle.
I remember I watched this film in my economics class my senior year of high school and I was left inspired. I wanted to desperately change my ways of living. But in the end, I was not successful. Mostly because at the time I was still living with my parents and they shut my idea down immediately because to them minimalism does not exist. I come from a Latinx immigrant family. For my parents, the more things you own, the more it is seen as a form of success. Being able to own a car and buy clothes and materialistic things means they have succeeded in life. To them it means all their hard work has paid off after years of struggling in this country to prove their worth. While I do understand where they are coming from and their reasoning for not wanting to live a minimalist life, there is no way to change their thinking.
Another excellent point.
In wealthy countries like the US, we live in a system that measures the worth of a person by way of how much they consume. Simply put, success is measured in terms of consumption. Hence, if you are a mega successful influencer, your life is characterized by unbridled consumption. Huge houses (and lots of them), fancy cars (and lots of them), expensive designer outfits (and lots of them), exotic trips (and lots of them) – you get the idea. And social media provides a wonderful opportunity to telegraph your consumption/worth to the world.
Of course, most people never achieve this level of purchasing power. Nonetheless, we are all encouraged to aspire to consume as much as possible. Maybe just one McMansion and a closet full of fast fashion.
But, what if you are on the other end of the spectrum and do not have the resources to consume much? Since success and the worth of a person is measured in terms of consumption in this system, such a person would hardly be seen as successful. Indeed, in its most nasty form, we are encouraged to think of such a person as a failure.
Of course, as I have suggested, Millburn and Nicodemus spend a good deal of effort convincing us that they were and could again be successful if they chose to be. But not everyone has that confidence. Hence, they need to prove their worth to the world through consumption, endless consumption. That’s how the system works.
While some people, like the person who wrote this comment, they choose to opt out of the system, for other people, like their parents, it is not so easy, as the system exerts enormous social pressures on them to assert their worth through consumption, which results in increased greenhouse gas emissions.
But let’s be clear, it would be misguided to put the blame on these individuals, as the blame squarely lands on the system itself, and the corporations that maintain it.
“Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things” was my favorite movie of the quarter so far. What made me like it so much was the fact that it gave me a breath of fresh air, allowed me to step back and rethink some of my own practices with new ideas of minimalism. I started to also ask questions like “Is this useful to me?” for various items in my life and it even prompted me to start to get rid of some of the excesses.
As we have seen, there are certainly reasons to be critical of the documentary Minimalism.
However, let’s stand back and consider the climate crisis for a moment. What is the principal cause of this crisis? It is certainly not most individuals in low- and middle-income countries. As I have repeatedly noted, the poorest 3 billion people on earth have only contributed 5% of the greenhouse gas emissions that our species has put into the atmosphere.
Rather, the principal cause of the crisis is a minority of people on the planet, who live in wealthy countries, and who have lifestyles that are utterly unsustainable, as these individuals consume far too many of the planet’s resources, which results in staggering greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Ironically and tragically, this unbridled consumption is not achieving what these people desire, which is greater happiness.
Let’s be very clear about the fact that some of these GHG emissions come from the United States collectively, rather than being the byproduct of individual action. From things like maintaining a large military and extensive infrastructure, like roads. But much of this is expended in order to make the “American Dream” possible for each of us individually.
So, is there a cure to this sickness? In fact, there is. Here is the prescription: consume less, a lot less. It’s seemingly just that simple.
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple, as many people, like the parents of the person who made the previous comment, will not likely take the prescription. Should we fault them for this? Certainly not. Why not? Because, as I noted, many of us in wealthy countries are trapped in a system that has yoked our very sense of worth and self with consumption.
So, in diagnosing this as a personal problem and offering a prescription to cure it, we lose sight of the fact that this is a far larger, systemic issue – which deeply needs to be changed. Simply put, unbridled consumption and capitalism needs to be severely checked.
How do we go about doing this? Ultimately, by electing a new generation of politicians that will reel in the corporations that are profiting at the expense of us and the planet. And, of course, we need a generation of activist to bring this attention to the forefront of the public consciousness.
So, what about this comment, that the documentary Minimalism “gave me a breath of fresh air, allowed me to step back and rethink some of my own practices with new ideas of minimalism”? This was, incidentally, hardly the only comment like this, as many, many people had similar sentiments.
Yes, summing up what we have been saying, 1) such a comment can only come from a privileged position, 2) given our extraordinary consumer culture, many people will not feel this way, and 3) one person’s action are virtually insignificant, given that there are nearly 8 billion people on the planet. So, should we then not bother with something like minimalism?
To the contrary, I am of the decided opinion that rampant consumerism in wealthy countries (and the corresponding greenhouse gas emissions) needs to be radically minimalized if we are to mitigate the climate crisis. In this sense, people who are now voluntarily minimalizing are harbingers of the future, working out how all of us in wealthy countries will need to live if we are to get through this crisis.
Of course, individual action alone doesn’t add up to much, but it is a start, especially as it makes clear that another way of life is possible. For many people, this itself is an epiphany.
[T]he minimalist life sounds appealing to me and I want to start getting into some of the practices that were seen throughout the documentary. I also realized that my very own grandma has a very similar mindset of a minimalist. She lives in Mexico and sometimes she comes to visit us but when she does she always comments that she wouldn’t like to live in America because she says she’s noticed that it seems like everyone here just focuses on materialistic things and is money oriented. She also appreciates the simple things in life and has always made whatever she buys last a long time. I used to not get why she said what she said about the US. but after the documentary it highlighted all of the things my Grandma was saying and I agree with her.
What a wonderful comment, which makes clear that minimalism is hardly new, but rather has been a way of life for most people on the planet for most of human history.
We might then conclude that isn’t that sad for them, but lucky for us that we now have so much. But, from the revealing and perceptive viewpoint of this person’s grandmother, we are not the lucky ones, regardless of what we have been told. From her perspective, in the US, “everyone here just focuses on materialistic things and is money oriented,” rather than appreciating “the simple things in life.”
This is not to say that conditions for billions of people across the planet, especially in low- and middle-income countries should not improve. Everyone should have access to clean water and healthcare, for example.
However, converting everyone in the planet into consumers in keeping with the US model would be as disastrous for the planet as it would be for them. Of course, some people, like this person’s grandmother, would have the good sense to reject a life of relentless consumerism, but given how successfully the US has been turned into a country of consumers, and how successful the project is sweeping the planet, there is every reason to fear that individuals like this are in the minority.
This makes clear that what we are facing here is not just a US problem, but is now a worldwide phenomenon – though the US is, of course, clearly one of the global leaders in consumerism and is in part responsible for the successful marketing of it to the world.
I loved that this film’s baseline was that less does and can make us more happy. The American Dream is a tarnished, outdated, consumeristic goal that is not only ruining the planet but deteriorating our well-beings. It was inspiring to hear how the people in the film have readjusted their lives, perspectives, and happiness by deconstructing their attachment to material items. I got chills when the film faded out with the saying, “love people and use things because the opposite never works”. It’s TRUE. It’s devastating that our culture has been built around and conditioned to think that stuff gives us happiness, purpose, or fulfillment. The most important aspect in our lives is our relationships, with ourselves and others. True happiness cannot be found from a Black Friday sale or the Instagram Ad.
Well said.
It is indeed “inspiring to hear how the people in the film have readjusted their lives, perspectives, and happiness by deconstructing their attachment to material items,” which is quite an accomplishment. 150 years ago, Henry David Thoreau wrote a book about his own personal journey of deconstructing his attachment to material things.
Why is this such an accomplishment? Precisely because, as we have noted, corporations have excelled at turning human beings into consumers. They exert all sort of pressure in all sorts of ways to make us pine for the “material items” on offer.
This is, of course, what makes minimalism so difficult to adopt – and to keep as a lifestyle over time. It also gets to the root of the problem, which, as we have noted, is not with individuals, but rather the corporations that have raised us from a very young age to be rampant consumers.
Of course, these corporations would like to tell us that the problem is ultimately with us, as we should simply not buy the things on offer, but this is a rather outlandish position, as they spend billions of dollars every year pressuring us to make these purchases.
This also underscores the fact that it is unlikely that minimalism will become anything like a dominant culture in the United States if we do address this root problem, which is not with individuals, but with marketers fashioning them into consumers.
As with the climate crisis, this will ultimately involve putting politicians into office who are willing to decisively act on this problem.
Until then, minimalism is a fascinating grassroot phenomenon trying to work out how to live a more authentic life free of unnecessary things. In this sense, it may be a provocative glimpse into the future.
Let’s hope.
Since I already saw Minimalism last quarter in English 22, this week I instead watched the alternate videos, “Visualizing a Plenitude Economy” and “The High Price of Materialism”. These videos build off of the minimalism argument, but on a more societal scale. “Visualizing a Plenitude Economy” talks about how, following the 2008 financial crisis, Wall Street was thriving while poverty and joblessness were rampant in our society. Their solution was a Plenitude economy: changing how we spend our time is the key to reducing environmental impact, creating more jobs, and making our everyday lives better. They suggest changes such as reducing individual workloads (instead of hiring 4 full time employees, hire 5 and have them each work 80%). This is very in line with the Nordic model, with people working less and having more time for socializing and seeking personal fulfillment. Instead of juicing as many work hours out of their employees as they possibly can, these companies instead want their employees to work less, in order to be more productive.
Minimalism is largely a personal choice, though one can imagine families adopting it as well. But what would this be like on a larger, “societal scale”?
As this person rightly notes, “following the 2008 financial crisis, Wall Street was thriving while poverty and joblessness were rampant in our society.” In response, scholar Juliet Schor suggested the idea of a “plenitude economy,” where people would work less (perhaps just four days a week for 30 hours or so). This would result in a shrinking of the economy, also known as “degrowth,” but one that did not bring about joblessness, poverty and unhappiness, but rather more fulfilling lives, as people would have, to again quote this person, “more time for socializing and seeking personal fulfillment.”
Although this may sound like a theoretical (and hence unrealistic) idea, as this person rightly notes, this is very in line with the Nordic model, as countries like the Netherlands and Denmark have largely adopted this approach. For example, “around three-quarters of people in the Netherlands choose to work part-time – anything from 12 to 36 hours a week.”
Although the idea of three-quarters of the workforce working parttime may seem almost unthinkable to our American sensibilities, can and does work in other countries. Amazingly, the per capita income in the Netherlands is just a few percent less than the United States.
The reason that I coupled the film “Visualizing a Plenitude Economy” with Minimalism is that it suggests that, by shifting to a different sort of economy, we could maximize minimalism, so to speak, by having people work less and instead spend more time learning meaningful lives.
“The High Price of Materialism” … [mentions]… how in America today, we’re told that ‘the good life is the goods life’. As we become more materialistic, we suffer more from depression, anxiety, substance abuse, we act less empathetically, generously, and cooperatively, and we stop appreciating ecologically conscious activities. At its core, the video focuses on the points that: 1. We need to understand what causes people to prioritize materialistic lives, and 2. We need to promote intrinsic values (growing as a person, being close to your family/friends, and improving the world). We need to spend more time working on ourselves and making sure our personal values are being reflected in the lives we live. We need to live a life that shows how much we care about the people around us and the world we live in. This really goes hand in hand with the minimalist lifestyle, and reminds me of the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh… Hanh, a Buddhist monk, said that we have everything we need to be happy right now. Happiness does not come from our possessions, it comes from within ourselves, from the people around us, and from being fully present and interconnected with the world, living completely in the moment. This really put the puzzle pieces together for me personally, and helped me understand what this is all about. I think we tend to get so caught up in living our lives that we find it hard to see the downsides of everything. We understand the drawbacks of a problem, but we can’t just rip the band-aid off and get it over with. We know that our obsession with our possessions is toxic, but we can’t bring ourselves to throw them away because we know the work we put in to buy them. We know the harm that our behaviors are having on the planet, but we can’t give them up. It is so easy to feel discouraged with the direction the world is headed in and subsequently disillusioned with the suggested changes in our lifestyles that we want to live. Ultimately, though, if we could just be brave enough and strong enough to give new things a try, we could solve our problems so easily. But, things aren’t that simple. It’s not easy to just compromise on everything, it’s not easy to give up the things that we feel that we deserve, and it’s particularly hard to change our conventions on how we should live our lives every day. But, all we can do is take baby steps and begin to build a life that we feel satisfied living. We need to be the pioneers so that the people that come after us can see the benefits of a new world and a new way to live our lives.
This comment is so thoughtful and squarely on the mark that I don’t really know what I could add.
All in all, this was a very thoughtful group of responses to the notion that, for those of us in wealthy countries (who are the principal cause of the climate crisis), living less a consumerist lifestyle would not only be better for the planet, but for each of us as well.
Film 5, The True Cost
As the film The True Cost makes clear, people in wealthy countries consume an extraordinary amount of stuff. And it’s not just clothing, but all sorts of stuff. From small stuff like smartphones to big stuff like cars. Incidentally, my country, the United States, arguably leads the world when it comes to consuming stuff.
Environmentally, this is a double edge sword, with each side harming both people and the earth.
First, all this stuff is made of natural resources. A smartphone, for example, is made of dozens and dozens of different materials. Some of them, like the cobalt used for the battery, cause significant social and environmental problems through their mining, which directly harms workers (including children working in some mines), as well as the environment by contaminating air, land, water, etc.
Second, making stuff requires an enormous amount of energy, which in turn emits greenhouse gases. The manufacturer of an automobile releases more than a dozen tons of carbon dioxide or equivalent gases into the atmosphere. Some luxury SUVs are responsible for three times as much (35 metric tons).
So, just who is responsible for all this? Is it as consumers? Or is it the companies that manufacture all this stuff?
A variety of corporations and their advocates have long argued that we consumers are the problem. After all, they just make what we want. If we didn’t want it, they wouldn’t make it, and there wouldn’t be a problem. Consequently, since we are the problem, it is up to us to address the issue. If we really want to do something about it, then we should simply stop buying, or at least become minimalists.
So, it sounds simple enough. As we consumers are to blame, it is up to us to us to solve the problem that we’ve created.
But are we?
Something to think about is that corporations have long been in the business of making consumers out of ordinary people. Ideally, insatiable, rampant consumers. It sounds a little like The Matrix, but corporations are in the business of making us into the beings that serve them best: consumers. Unfortunately, neither we nor the earth are much served by this enterprise. To the contrary, it can be incredibly detrimental to our species and our planet (as well as all the other species with which we share the earth).
In order to help explain all this, please allow me to repeat a story that I included in my most recent book on writing a new environmental era [and] moving forward to nature.
“Quite a few years ago, while visiting friends, I noticed that their young daughter, who was six or seven at the time, was watching TV. Glancing over from time to time, it was obvious that the show was geared toward young girls. What caught my attention were the ads. Most were selling what you would expect: toys, sugared breakfast cereals, a local theme park.”
“One ad, however, was another sort of beast altogether. It was for a major cosmetic corporation, showing models having fun on a Caribbean beach. It repeatedly cut to scenes of them applying makeup, which they were having a frolicsome good time doing. Realizing that this ad was running on a show pitched at young girls, I waited to see how it would end. Were they really trying to sell lipstick to six-year-olds?”
“As it turns out, they weren’t. The ad was not designed to sell a particular product, but rather to sell a brand that makes a broad range of products. It was really just sixty seconds of young women made happy by cosmetics (well, made happy by a particular brand of cosmetics). So, were they trying to get six-year-olds to switch to their brand of eyeliner? If they really were trying to sell cosmetics to young girls, you would expect that at least some of the models would have been children. Why where there instead just young women onscreen?”
“After thinking about it, the frightening answer hit me like a ton of bricks. This cosmetic company decided that they needed to make more than just cosmetics. Astonishingly, they had also taken up the business of making consumers.”
“First, they present girls with images of happy and appealing young women. Next, they cut to the source of the happiness: applying and wearing makeup. There is no suggestion that young girls themselves should be wearing the makeup; instead, it is held up as an essential part of what it is to be a woman.”
“It may take a decade or more, but by repeatedly and subtly suggesting to girls that the road to womanhood is paved with cosmetics, a generation of consumers is created whose very sense of self (in this case their gendered self) depends on the products on offer. With so much at stake – indeed, the fragile, emerging self-identity of a human being – the desire to have, and fear of being without, the product becomes extraordinarily important, as it is presented as an essential part of a happy and successful adulthood.”
“Although we may think that industries exist to serve us by providing all sorts of appealing consumer goods like cosmetics, it is arguably the other way around: human beings exist to serve these industries. Human consumption is what empowers them. An enormous amount of care and attention is thus given to fashioning human beings willing work long hours making disposable income – and willing to make sacrifices in the bargain, such as by not having time for family and friends – so that these industries can thrive.”
It really does sound a little like The Matrix, doesn’t it?
As I noted back in our discussion of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, today, the project has been profoundly ramped up, as girls and young women are themselves recruited to help create this new generation of consumers. They do so by first cultivating a following on social media. Once a trendsetting young woman has a sufficient number of viewers on YouTube, she can monetize this achievement by, for example, selling cosmetics on her channel. In this sense, the project comes full circle, as the trendsetter herself was arguably fashioned by the cosmetic industry for this role. Ironically, she may view having been conscripted by the cosmetic industry as a great personal achievement. Maybe it was, as girls and young women are certainly encouraged to look up to individuals of this sort.
Of course, all sorts of industries are in this business and it certainly doesn’t just involve girls and young women. It happens with boys and young men as well, although with different products. For example, certain cars are marketed to men with great success. More than four out of five purchasers of the Chevrolet Corvette are men. In both cases, marketers hope that they can exploit our insecurities, so they provide a way for us to believe that we can become more attractive (via cosmetics) or seem more powerful (by purchasing a so-called muscle car). And, of course, there are plenty of products that are not gendered in their marketing.
The film The True Cost shows us the ugly underside of this consumption machine, which is a disaster for both us and the planet, as well as for the people making our clothes. In terms of clothing, the average American purchases over sixty new items of clothing every year, not including incidentals like socks and underwear. Thus, although we consumers are seemingly the ones that benefit by this, it is the corporations selling all this stuff that really profit. Our job is to buy, briefly wear, and then dispose. And repeat. And repeat.
While The True Cost focuses on the fashion industry, this ramped up consumerism impacts all sorts of products.
Incidentally, 150 years ago Henry David Thoreau desperately tried to convince us of the truth about all this when he argued that the goal of the clothing industry was “not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that corporations may be enriched.”
So, at the risk of repeating myself, “just who is responsible for all this? Is it us consumers? Or is it the companies that manufacture all this stuff?” Thoreau certainly thought that industry was principally to blame.
I am curious what people make of all this. Do you agree with Thoreau? Having been given a glimpse inside of the fast fashion industry by The True Cost, what is your response? While this film is about the fashion industry, are other industries now following suit? In other words, in addition to fast fashion, do we now also have things like fast consumer electronics?
The episode of Patriot Act on “The Ugly Truth Of Fast Fashion” provides an interesting supplement to The True Cost. Although it doesn’t shockingly take us inside of the fashion industry, as The True Cost did with the scenes from the Rana Plaza disaster, this Patriot Act episode nonetheless makes, it seems to me, an effective critique of fast fashion. However, what I find particularly interesting here is the format. At one third the length of The True Cost, quite a bit has to be crammed into this episode, yet it does not feel rushed. And, of course, it manages to make us laugh out loud in spite of the horrific subject matter.
To me, this episode of Patriot Act raises an important question: how should we go about informing the public of issues like this? A full-length documentary is a traditional – and I would argue nonetheless great – approach, but it is not without its shortcomings, as it may not attract a huge audience. So, should we be experimenting with other ways of getting the message out, like the biting comedy of Patriot Act? Any other ideas for spreading the message?
Class discussion of The True Cost
Note that the following observations, which are in italics, have not been paraphrased or altered, though I do correct the occasional typo and, because of space concerns, often just part of the comment is reproduced here along with my reply. In working through these, I will first quote a student’s observation, followed by my thoughts.
Every single employee deserves a livable wage, trade union rights, pension, safe working conditions, and healthcare. However, the numerous disasters, including the collapse of Rana Plaza and factory fires, show how little greedy companies care. The less money these companies spend on infrastructure and employee benefits, the more profit is made for a small group of people at the top. My mother, who immigrated to the US. two decades ago, has experience working in garment factories in both China and San Diego; she talked about the poor living conditions, not making enough to eat, the long hours, and the strict management. The treatment of garment workers makes me awfully angry; the poorest people in the world who face innumerable struggles and can’t afford the necessities in life (shelter, food, childcare, healthcare, etc) support the selfish lifestyles for the rest of the world. And what makes it even worse is that most people don’t know where their clothes come from. The problem with American culture is that people have insatiable desires for more and the need to meet unrealistically high standards. Instead of buying quality fair trade clothing for a higher cost and that will last longer, Americans go towards purchasing cheap clothing that is made to be worn a few times and disposed of. The cheap clothes come from mothers who can’t afford to care for their children and cotton farmers who face the health consequences from pesticides.
Wow, such a powerful statement. And it’s all true; squarely on the mark: “Every single employee [on the planet does] deserves a livable wage, trade union rights, pension, safe working conditions, and healthcare.”
The International Trade Union Confederation’s (ITUC) “Global Rights Index ranks 139 countries against 97 internationally recognised indicators to assess where workers’ rights are best protected, in law and in practice.” Basically, the ITUC has created five tiers in order to clarify where workers rights are most protected.
Scoring a one, the top score, are countries like Norway and Denmark, where rights violations are not a regular occurrence. Next down are countries like Japan and Switzerland, where “[r]epeated violations of rights” occur. The third tier down includes China and Ghana, which have “[r]egular violations of rights. At the very bottom, in the fifth tier, are countries like Bangladesh and Nigeria, where there is “[n]o guarantee of rights.”
You may have noticed that I skipped a tier, the second from the bottom, number four, right above Bangladesh and Nigeria. In these countries, there are “[s]ystematic violations of rights.” There are 77 countries that rank above these tier-four countries.
Tier four includes Kenya and the United States.
It may seem like garment workers in San Diego, like this person’s mother, would have their rights protected more than in Paraguay, Namibia, or Ghana, but this is simply not the case. Moreover, this person’s mother would, statistically, have experienced fewer human rights violations back in China then she did when she arrived in San Diego.
Hence, while we might hope that a “Made in USA” label ensures that the workers who made the product did not have their rights violated, this is hardly a guarantee.
After watching The True Cost, we might think that these rights violations happen far from home. However, they are widespread in the US as well. One can imagine a sequel film, titled something like The True Cost: The US Story, which would take us inside of garment factories in the United States, which, in many ways, would be as poignant as the original film.
While watching “The True Cost” it made me more suddenly wary of the impact just one person can really have on climate change. I think we all to an extent think that we are just one person and we can’t we contributing so largely to such a widespread issue. Though the reality is that we are individually damaging the climate. Watching this film, I knew about the impact I make on the environment with the everyday choices I make, but seeing it was a whole different story. My family is from India and I have visited there often so I have seen these horrific labor circumstances first hand making them far more impactful to me. India has a large population of over exerted laborers though most of what they make is for export purposes.
There are a number of great, interconnected points here.
First, in terms of workers’ rights, India is also at the very bottom with Bangladesh, in the fifth tier, where there is “[n]o guarantee of rights.”
As this person aptly notes, “most of what they make is for export purposes,” which is the case with many countries, such as Bangladesh and China.
Consequently, even though it may seem that The True Cost is about horrible working conditions in far-off places like Bangladesh and Cambodia, it is also about the US and our insatiable consumerism. Indeed, that could have made for an illuminating supplement to the film’s title, as it could well have been called The True Cost of Our Insatiable Consumerism on the Rest of the World.
In this sense, the film holds a mirror up to us. While we can (and absolutely should) be outraged at the corporations that directly exploit people in Bangladesh and Cambodia, some of that anger should be turned in on ourselves, as these companies are doing it for us.
Of course, none of us are authorizing these corporations to violate the rights of people across the planet. However, when we buy things like shirts that cost $5 or $10, yet are sewn by hand, we need to realize that we are enabling a system that does just that. To again repeat the previous comment, “[e]very single employee deserves a livable wage, trade union rights, pension, safe working conditions, and healthcare.” There is simply no way that this can be achieved while producing a shirt that retails for $5.
However, this comment raises the question of “the impact [that] just one person can really have.” We are sometimes told that individual action does little, as it is just a drop in the bucket. For example, why shouldn’t we get on that airplane, as it will take off regardless of whether our seat is filled or empty?
However, if 200 people do this, it will mean that one less flight will happen.
Individual action is part of the equation, but, as I never tire of saying, it has to be coupled with activism and political action. In this case, laws need to be enacted across the planet to protect the rights of workers, as well as protect the planet itself. Although we might think that this only applies to places like Bangladesh and Cambodia, as I noted above, we need major reform in the United States as well.
Incidentally, paying a lot for a product does not ensure that more money goes to the people who actually made it. iPhones are an example.
Let’s assume that an iPhone costs $1000, which is in fact a little less than the base cost of Apple’s current top-of-the-line model. What percentage of this cost do you think goes to the people who actually made that phone? 10%? 20%? 30%
In fact, just 2% of an iPhone goes to the workers who make it. Just $20.
It might seem that because this is such a high-tech device, most of that $1000 would go to the components. However, 51% (i.e. $510) of the cost goes to profits for Apple. Hence, since Apple is already a wildly profitable company, if they reduced the amount of the purchase price that goes to profits by just 2%, they could double the amount that goes to workers.
Think about that for a moment. Apple could double the amount that is going to workers with an almost negligible impact on their profit, yet they don’t.
Just how bad are the working conditions in the factories that make iPhones? Starting around 2010, the number of deaths by suicide in the Foxconn plants that produce iPhones became so great that the company “had large nets installed outside many of the buildings to catch falling bodies.”
I learned about the horrific factory worker conditions in my world history class as well. There was an incident the professor mentioned that was similar to the Rana Plaza collapse that happened during the industrial revolution. In the spring of 1911, a fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. The company was one of the largest garment factories on the east side of Manhattan. There were 146 Jewish and Italian young women working at the time that were trapped inside on the 9th floor of the factory. All 146 of those women burned to death, asphyxiated or jumped to their deaths. The sad truth is that the fashion industry hasn’t really changed since the industrial revolution. There have been so many deaths that have occurred inside of these factories and nothing happens to correct that. The fast fashion industry still exists and people are still dying because of the exploitation of this industry. It’s inhumane, unjust and destroys the planet.
This is an important point. Although fast fashion is relatively new, the problem of worker’s rights is not.
During the 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company this person references, the 146 women were not just, as this person notes, “trapped inside on the 9th floor of the factory,” they were locked in, as “the doors to the stairwells and exits were locked – a common practice at the time to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to reduce theft.”
The 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company proved to be something of a watershed event in worker’s rights, as “public outcry inspired workplace safety laws that revolutionized industrial work nationwide.” One of the people who witnessed fire, Frances Perkins, “subsequently helped organize and implement reforms, later becoming President Franklin Roosevelt’s labor secretary and the first female Cabinet member [in the US]. Perkins later said the fire was ‘the day the New Deal was born.’”
“The True Cost” really made me rethink the harms of the fashion industry. Living in South Korea, fashion is a great influence among all people; determining a critical view of wealth, appearance, and general well-being. People in Korea take fashion seriously and regularly change their clothes according to trend; accurately portraying “fast fashion”…I believe that this documentary holds an important message that Koreans must understand before taking too much value of clothing.
Another great point.
Although we may think of fast fashion as a US phenomenon, something that is part and parcel with the so-called American Dream, this Dream has now spread around the world. As this comment aptly notes, fashion has taken on a symbolic as “a critical…[indicator]… of wealth, appearance, and general well-being. People in Korea [as well as across the planet] take fashion seriously and regularly change their clothes according to trend.”
Although in some sense it has taken centuries, the fact that the fashion industry has yoked our very sense of self with the clothes that we wear is an astonishing achievement, especially as it is now a worldwide phenomenon. Of course, clothes have always played a symbolic role, but it was globally never mass marketed to such an extent – and arguably so successfully.
Instead of looking and listening carefully for signs of inner “general well-being,” we have been trained see clothing as an indicator of a health and happiness, as well as prosperity. Of course, even if you think about it just a little, it is obvious that it is not, in any way, such an indicator. Moreover, now that fast fashion has driven the cost of clothing down, it no longer functions as an accurate indicator of wealth.
And yet, it continues to have this symbolic importance, which marketers are happy to continue to promote and exploit.
This week, watching the 30-minute episode of, “The Ugly Truth of Fast Fashion,” was very refreshing. Its humorous approach delivered important information in a friendly format that was easy to receive, and yet all of the information was a giant slap in the face of just how horrible fast fashion really is. Even though Hasan would joke about the actual ridiculousness of a society that has, “52 fashion seasons per year,” he didn’t take any of the seriousness away from the issue. In fact, just when viewers started to think that maybe the problems weren’t as bad as they seemed, he brought down some very undeniable statistics that really made the audience think. As a person who has trouble getting people to care about some of the things that I think are most important, it was almost revolutionary for me to watching this comedian get just about anyone to stop and pay attention to such an important issue like fast fashion.
How, indeed, do you get people caring about issues that are important, such as the climate crisis?
One option is to entertain while explaining the issue. Perhaps surprisingly, entertaining through comedy can prove to be surprisingly effective.
However, this can be a dicey business, as going too far can make the whole thing seem like a laughing matter. Not something that you would want to do with the climate crisis. Alternately, baiting people with the promise of entertainment only to hit them with some really disturbing information could may want to cause them to turn the show off.
Shows like Patriot Act, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and The Daily Show have worked at perfecting a satirical approach to important issues, with short comedic interludes, that really seems to work (not all the time, but often). Consequently, the host of Patriot Act was able to, as this comment notes, “joke about the actual ridiculousness of a society that has, ‘52 fashion seasons per year,’ [yet] he didn’t take any of the seriousness away from the issue.”
Regarding the notion that there are now “52 fashion seasons per year,” instead of the original Fall and Spring seasons from a generation ago, it may seem ludicrous that stores would need to replenish their slack on a weekly basis. However, as the following, notes, there may indeed be more than one shipment in one week.
I worked in clothing retail, at a mid-range department store (Macy’s, if you care to know). When Hasan says “drowning in clothing” as the model for fast fashion production, I had vivid flashbacks to spending HOURS upon HOURS in the docks unpacking boxes, stripping off plastic bags, and hanging, folding, and adding sensors to garments. We received two shipments of clothing per week, plus whatever trucks came randomly…I couldn’t imagine everything selling at a rate to warrant how many articles we put out on the floor, but people bought it. Everyone is ravenous for cheap clothing. Everyone believes in the fundamental right to express themselves through their fashion choices. It’s unbelievable.
It is interesting to think about their being a “fundamental right to express” ourselves through “fashion choices.” I don’t recall that being in the US Constitution. Yet, as this person really notes, many people seem to believe that this is one of their rights.
This must be enormously rewarding for marketers, as people have been turned into consumers who believe that they have the right to buy as much as they want in order to express themselves. As I noted earlier, our very sense of self has been interwoven into what we wear.
What is rather surprising is that fast fashion has sold us on the idea of quantity rather than quality. In fact, marketers have convinced us to wear poor-quality clothing in order that we may have more of it.
Traditionally, and by that I mean up until roughly the middle of the 20th century, well-off women in wealthy countries had just five or six dresses and men as many suits. In order to add variety to the look, people wore things like interesting scarves and neck ties. Although people didn’t own many items of clothing, these were generally of relatively high-quality and carefully tailored to the individual. In the US, most people wore clothes made in the US.
Exploiting the fact that garments could be made in less expensively in other countries, the American clothing industry entered a period of swift decline, starting about 50 years ago. Although unfortunate for the US clothing industry, this meant that more and more people in the US could have more clothing. In other words, you didn’t have to be wealthy to have five or six nice outfits.
Soon, nearly anyone could, which meant that marketers suddenly had a much larger market than just relatively well-off individuals. And, as have been able to continue to drive costs down over the past few decades, this meant that people could buy more and more articles of clothing.
When someone mentions climate change, the first issues that pop up in our heads are probably rising sea levels, polar ice caps melting, coal mining, oil rigging, or global temperature rise. It would be unlikely for the fashion and clothing industry to make it to that list. Yet little do we know, the fashion industry is the second most polluting industry after oil. (How did I not know this?)…
It’s true, when we think about the climate crisis, we often think about the consequences, like “rising sea levels…[and]… polar ice caps melting,” or root causes, like “coal mining…[and drilling for]…oil.” We do not, however, often think about our own personal actions and the industries, like fashion, encouraging environmentally worrisome practices.
Although we may not think much about its climate footprint, “[t]he fashion industry is responsible for 10% of annual global carbon emissions.” When you consider that many people in wealthy countries like the US are literally purchasing ten times more clothing then they need, you can see how are cutting back on this rampant consumerism could result in immediate and significant reductions of global greenhouse gas emissions
It is also unfortunately the case that, now that the climate crisis is increasingly on our radar, we forget that there are all sorts of other environmental problems caused by industry, such as the polluting of land, air, and water by certain industries. The fashion industry is a prime offender here. For example, “[a]round 20 % of wastewater worldwide comes from fabric dyeing and treatment.”
The silver lining here is that this is something that we can tackle right now. We do not, for example, need technological breakthroughs to tackle this problem. Of course, technological innovations are always welcome. For example, “Textile mills generate one-fifth of the world’s industrial water pollution.” There is promising new technology that can reduce the water used in producing garments.
However, even greater gains can be had by approaching this as a cultural problem. After all, since 10% of global carbon emissions come from the fashion industry, we could cut this in half if we all purchased half as many clothes, everything else being equal.
Moreover, as social justice and environmental issues are deeply intertwined here, by addressing the climate crisis as a cultural rather than just technological problem, we can implement solutions that will improve both.
Film 6, Cowspiracy and Wasted!
In 2019, author Jonathan Safran Foer published a book entitled We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast, where he argued that each of us should adopt a plant-based diet if we want to save the planet from catastrophic climate change.
Hence, saving the planet begins when we eat, breakfast and otherwise. Since such a switch could make a significant dent in the climate crisis if adopted by everyone, I definitely applaud this as a step in the right direction and think that is on to something.
According to Project Drawdown, which is the most comprehensive plan ever put forth to reverse global warming (and which is a reading for this course), the #1 thing that we can do to roll back global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions does not involve wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles, or any sort of similar technologies.
Instead, what is required is a cultural change regarding food: we need to waste far less of it and to switch to largely plant-rich diets. Doing so will result in a staggering reduction of 155 gigatons of CO2 or equivalent gases (Project Drawdown, “Scenario #1”).
In comparison to this reduction, globally shifting from fossil fuels to electricity generated by photovoltaic (solar) panels will roll back less than half this amount of emissions. The adoption of electric vehicles? Far less than ten percent. We should, of course, work on exploring a variety of technologies to help reduce our emissions, but it is important to keep their relative impact in perspective.
Worldwide, agriculture is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, yet between 1/3 and 1/2 of all the food that we produce on this planet is wasted. Regarding the switch to a largely plant-rich diet, the same amount of greenhouse gasses are released in producing one pound of beef as are released in producing thirty pounds of lentils, also a great source of protein.
I know, changing how we eat doesn’t sound nearly as sexy as a self-driving electric car, but it would nonetheless be ten times better for the planet.
This is not to say that these changes will be easy. Indeed, it is arguably far easier to change cars (such as by making them electric) than to change people’s actions. And what and how we eat is deeply personal and often central to our cultural identity.
Nonetheless, we need to seriously roll up our sleeves and address the climate crisis at the breakfast table.
Cowspiracy is a documentary on the environmental impact of eating meat. Here is how the filmmakers describe it:
“Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret is a groundbreaking feature-length environmental documentary following intrepid filmmaker Kip Andersen as he uncovers the most destructive industry facing the planet today – and investigates why the world’s leading environmental organizations are too afraid to talk about it.”
“Animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation, water consumption and pollution, is responsible for more greenhouse gases than the transportation industry, and is a primary driver of rainforest destruction, species extinction, habitat loss, topsoil erosion, ocean “dead zones,” and virtually every other environmental ill. Yet it goes on, almost entirely unchallenged.”
Please note that filmmaker Kip Andersen gets a few of his facts wrong. Animal products account for about 15% of total greenhouse gas emissions, not over 50%. Nonetheless, it is still a striking, though-provoking film.
By the way, what do you make of the fact that Andersen builds his argument on incorrect facts? Does it help it, by making the situation seem worse than it is? Or undercut it by harming his credibility?
You may already know about the environmental implications of large the plant-based diet, but here is a little fact that may come as something of a surprise: while how we eat (at breakfast and otherwise) can have a real impact on the climate – and the environment more generally – switching to a largely plant-based diet is not the biggest thing that we can do in terms of food.
Instead, we need to waste less food – far less food. This, as Project Drawdown made clear, would have a bigger impact in dealing in climate change than switching to largely plant-based diets.
Hence being freegan can be even more important than being vegan.
Not sure what a “freegan” is? This is hardly surprising, as the word only recently entered the English language. As the venerable Oxford English dictionary notes, a freegan is a “person who eats discarded food, typically collected from the refuse of shops or restaurants, for ethical or ecological reasons.”
I know, when you put it that way, it doesn’t sound very appetizing.
But the idea is important, as food markets throw away an enormous amount of food. For example, if one egg in a carton of 12 is broken, supermarkets are required (at least here in the state of California) to discard the entire carton. If they do so with freegans in mind, they might coordinate with local freegans to allow them to pick up this and all sorts of otherwise discarded food, such as those past the sell-by date listed on the package.
Sound like “dumpster diving” and the fringe activity? In many ways it is, but in one of the films that we will be watching, Being the Change, Peter Kalmus, who is a climate scientist at NASA jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena, CA, notes how he and his family are freegans. While not mainstream yet, freeganism certainly is gaining momentum.
Wasted! is a documentary on food waste. Here is how the filmmakers describe it:
“Wasted! The Story of Food Waste aims to change the way people buy, cook, recycle, and eat food. Through the the eyes of chef-heroes…audiences will see how the world’s most influential chefs make the most of every kind of food, transforming what most people consider scraps into incredible dishes that create a more secure food system. Wasted! exposes the criminality of food waste and how it’s directly contributing to climate change and shows us how each of us can make small changes – all of them delicious – to solve one of the greatest problems of the 21st Century.”
Before jumping into the comments, let’s hear it what Project Drawdown about the environmental consequences of how we eat:
“Shifting to a diet rich in plants is a demand-side solution to global warming that runs counter to the meat-centric Western diet on the rise globally. That diet comes with a steep climate price tag: one-fifth of global emissions. If cattle were their own nation, they would be the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases.”
[Sorry, but I can’t help but repeat that: ” If cattle were their own nation, they would be the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases,” right behind China and the US.]
“Bringing about dietary change is not simple because eating is profoundly personal and cultural, but promising strategies abound. Plant-based options must be available, visible, and enticing, including high-quality meat substitutes. Also critical: ending price-distorting government subsidies, such as those benefiting the US. livestock industry, so that the prices of animal protein more accurately reflect their true cost.”
“Plant-rich diets reduce emissions and also tend to be healthier, leading to lower rates of chronic disease. According to a 2016 study, business-as-usual emissions could be reduced by as much as 70 percent through adopting a vegan diet and 63 percent for a vegetarian diet, which includes cheese, milk, and eggs. $1 trillion in annual health-care costs and lost productivity would be saved.”
“As Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh has said, making the transition to a plant-based diet may be the most effective way an individual can stop climate change.”
In my little lecture that asks “Are you an architect of the future,” I take up the issue of food and climate further. But, for now, I am curious to hear what you make of Cowspiracy and Wasted!
Class discussion of Cowspiracy and Wasted!
Note that the following observations, which are in italics, have not been paraphrased or altered, though I do correct the occasional typo and, because of space concerns, often just part of the comment is reproduced here along with my reply. In working through these, I will first quote a student’s observation, followed by my thoughts.
There were quite a few comments such as this one:
I watched “Cowspiracy” for the first time last year for my Environmental Science class. I haven’t eaten red meat since.
And similarly, this one:
I have officially become a vegetarian!! While I have a lot of critiques on the film, it definitely swayed me over to the green side.
My friend and colleague John Foran, who is a professor in UCSB’s Sociology Department, often takes exit polls when he screens documentaries for his classes. He noted that students responded, and responded positively, more to Cowspiracy than any other documentary that he had ever shown.
This underscores how incredibly important communication can be in mitigating the climate crisis. Many people simply do not realize how simple day-to-day activities, like what they eat (such as beef) and how they get around (for example, by car), can negatively and profoundly impact the Earth’s climate.
The good news is that once they learn, some individuals, like the two people who made these comments, will immediately respond by changing their personal actions. Hence, just getting the word out can be crucial.
And going fully vegan isn’t necessary, as Project Drawdown reveals that a vegetarian diet is also very good in terms of each of us reducing total GHG emissions. Indeed, as roughly 10% of worldwide anthropogenic GHG emissions comes from cattle, and per capita, US citizens consume far more than twice as much beef as the average person on earth, just cutting beef from your diet can make a huge difference for the average American. In other words, choosing a turkey burger over a beef one is, climate wise, a big deal.
However, sometimes, just getting the message out is not necessarily enough. Consider the following comment:
I remember when this film, “Cowspiracy”, was released and people talking about it, I was about 18/19 years old. I remember not wanting to watch it and continue in a state of ignorance because I was afraid of what the documentary would reveal and what I would be told, and I didn’t want to live in a state of guilt; terrible I know.
Well, this attitude is not all that terrible or, for that matter, all that unusual.
This is an essential point, as some people are aware of the validity of the climate crisis, and further believe that we need to collectively act, but when it comes to personal action and changes to our lives, things can begin to fall apart.
A big part of the problem is, of course, that habits, especially deeply personal ones, are tough to change. And the way that we eat is about as personal as you can get, as it is intimately tied up with family and culture.
Back in 2014, journalist Naomi Klein published a book a book about climate change entitled This Changes Everything. It is an app title, as the climate crisis is going to necessitate that we change nearly everything about the way that we live. The way that we eat is just one example.
Because we are facing a range of problems, such as social justice ones, the good news, as Klein made clear, is that this is an opportunity to address a number of issues that have long been with us. In other words, as we have seen, fast fashion is a problem, but as a social justice and environmental issue. Hence, by tackling it, we can address both of these issues at once.
However, many people, like the person who made this comment, want to “continue in a state of ignorance” because, deep down, they suspect that, in big and small ways, including even what they have for breakfast, will have to change in response to this crisis.
This presents a communication challenge. Simply put, how do you reach folks like this when they already suspect they know what you have to say, but don’t want to hear it, not because they don’t believe it is true, but because they fear that it is – and, hence, will require them to change their lives?
Coming into this class with…a consumer-based, animal product heavy, and non-minimalist background makes me feel like the “bad guy” for why the crisis continues, which is why I want to continue to learn about little things I can change to improve how I live. But getting rid of meat is tough for someone who is 6’3 200 pounds and plays sports is kind of hard to ask. I do agree that big corporations need to stop thinking for profit alone and should consider the well being of the planet. As I won’t be cutting meat out of my daily meals, I can agree to be more mindful about what I’m consuming.
We have long been told (for many centuries, in fact) that we need to eat animal products, and especially meat, to be healthy. Hence, to be at the pinnacle of fitness, which is required of competitive athletes, would definitely seem to necessitate eating meat.
Although this sounds intuitively correct, it is, in fact, simply wrong.
If you’re interested in this topic, I suggest starting with the documentary The Game Changers, which may still be streaming from Netflix. As Arnold Schwarzenegger notes in the film, “I ate a lot of meat. They show those commercials…selling that idea that real men eat meat. Serious man food. But you gotta understand, that’s marketing. That’s not based on reality.”
As the filmmakers note, in the film, the narrator, James Wilks, “travels the world on a quest for the truth about meat, protein, and strength. Showcasing elite athletes, special ops soldiers, and visionary scientists to change the way people eat and live.”
Along the way, he meets a variety of competitive athletes who eat almost exclusively plant-based diets. These range from triathletes and competitive cyclists to bodybuilders, weight lifters, football players, and heavyweight boxing champions. Like Kip Anderson in Cowspiracy, the makers of the documentary The Game Changers arguably cherry pick their data, but the basic thesis, that athletes do not need to eat animal products to be competitive, has been proven to be correct.
Another point to bring up is that people just might not know the amount of emissions agriculture produces. Honestly, I didn’t know about it until I watched this documentary. So, how are people, who don’t have an education on the environment, supposed to know the stop eating meat? It goes back to the narrator questioning why no environmental groups have shined a light on the issue. We need to get the word out there and help people ease into an environmental way of living. We can’t just expect them to do it themselves without the right type of guidance.
Since its release in 2014, Cowspiracy has greatly helped in getting the message out to the public about the climate footprint of what we eat. And plenty of environmental groups, including some of those critiqued in Cowspiracy, are also doing their part.
Ideally, this information would be available wherever we purchase food. As I have noted “Denmark is planning, as part of his effort to become a carbon neutral country, to put ‘climate’ labels on food in the same way that we have nutritional labels. In this case, such a label would tell you just how good or bad the food is – not for your body – but for the planet.”
As this person rightly notes of the general public, “[w]e can’t just expect them to do it themselves without the right type of guidance.”
The problem, of course, is that the food industry he’s not likely going to voluntarily do such labeling. They didn’t do it with nutritional labeling until the FDA got involved in the early 1970s. Even so, there is a long history here, as the FDA did not mandate such labels until the 1990s.
As with so many issues that we are taking up in climate crisis 101, what is needed here is the government intervention to mandate climate labels on food. And this, in turn, would require us to put politicians into office who would champion such climate actions.
This week’s documentary “Wasted” highlighted the lack of consideration human’s take regarding food waste. To accommodate our population growth since the industrial revolution, humans have mastered the mass production of food. Humans have ended up producing more food than we actually eat. One shocking statistic that came from the documentary was that “10 millions tons of produce goes unharvested each year.”
Through the application of “fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation to create conditions in which high-yielding modern varieties…[of plants, like corn, soybeans, and wheat]…could thrive,” the so-called Green Revolution of the 1960s and 70s was, rather astonishingly, in some ways able to keep up with the population explosion in the last 70 years (the global population in 1960 was about 3 billion people, today it is over 7.75 billion).
Incidentally, the Green Revolution is not necessarily a good thing, as it is introduced agricultural practices that are hardly sustainable.
In any event, while we might hope that this increased food production would have alleviated hunger worldwide, unfortunately, we are now simply wasting a good deal of this increased production. This is happening both in wealthy countries like the United States, as well as low- to middle-income countries.
The great irony here is that “1 in 9 people [on earth] go to bed hungry” and a “child dies from hunger every 10 seconds.”
In other words, we grow enough food so that no one on the planet need to be hungry, and because we waste nearly half of what we grow, people are dying and all this wasted food is unnecessarily contributing to the climate crisis.
The film “Wasted” was one of my more enjoyed films thus far. I am always so interested in what I can do personally and using my food to the fullest is something I never considered. The fact that it takes 25 years for a head of lettuce to fully decompose in a landfill is wild!… This fact was absolutely surprising to me and has already made me rethink what I will do with my food waste in the future, but after seeing all of the solutions available to fix these problems I was upset with our government again. The system of charging people for the food waste they throw away we see in South Korea is a great way to do it.
If you enjoyed and benefited by watching Cowspiracy, you might also want to watch Wasted! The Story of Food Waste.
One of the reasons that I selected this particular documentary is that it surveys a number of solutions to the food waste problem that are currently being implemented. One example is South Korea, which, in 2013, introduced a compulsory food waste recycling program nationwide. Prior to the introduction of the program, only 2% of food waste was recycled through composting and other means. In 2021, that number dramatically increased to 95%.
By comparison, “[o]ver 90% of wasted food in the US ends up in landfills,” Where, as this person rightly notes, it can take 25 years for a head of lettuce to fully decompose.
I’ve heard of “Cowspiracy” before but have always been afraid to watch it because I thought it would be another source of vegan propaganda where they show gruesome videos from slaughterhouses. Thankfully, I was wrong and the film takes a much more logical than emotional approach. I think this tactic makes the movie much more digestible to the general public that isn’t already vegan or vegetarian.
This is interesting comment for two important reasons.
First, the notion that there is “vegan propaganda where they show gruesome videos from slaughterhouses.”
Although animal rights activists have existed for at least 400 years in the West (and much longer in other parts of the world), in the past 60 years or so there has been a definite uptick of activity. I suspect that many people do indeed see it as “vegan propaganda.”
But it is worth clarifying that Cowspiracy is not, generally speaking, a documentary advocating for animal rights. In other words, the documentary is not primarily suggesting that we reduce or eliminate the consumption of animal products in order to reduce the suffering of livestock animals. Filmmaker Kip Anderson certainly seems sympathetic to animals (for example, he is definitely moved when a backyard farmer slaughters a duck in the film), but that is not the primary focus of the film.
Instead, Cowspiracy urges us to eat a largely animal-based diet for environmental reasons, especially with respect to the climate crisis.
Similarly, one could eat this way for social justice reasons that have nothing to do with either animal rights or the environment. It has been argued “that if humans consumed the crops [i.e. corn and soybeans] instead of feeding them to animals, the world supply would be enriched by approximately 70 percent more food, which would adequately support another 4 billion people.”
Of course, someone could eat a plant-based diet for all three of these reasons: animal rights, social justice, and environmental. In that sense, it is a win-win-win proposition.
Returning to this comment in the observation that Cowspiracy did not show “show gruesome videos from slaughterhouses,” the decision to not do may have stemmed from the fact that animal rights were not the focus of the documentary. Instead, the horrific consequences that we saw generally had to do with how our planet and its climate are being harmed, rather than animals.
The film “Cowspiracy” immediately made me think back to a steak house I went to that had a sign saying “Hey Vegetarians stop eating my food’s food”. After watching this film that slogan is even more ridiculous to me because if we used this food’s food to feed humans we could feed so many more people using a lot less resources such as land and water. Seeing how much water is used to produce beef upset me because I had recently learned about environmental injustice in California that makes it so a lot of people don’t have access to clean running water.
Another apt comment, which makes clear that consuming meat and animal products has wide-ranging implications.
If, as this person notes, we used the crops that we currently used to feed livestock animals to instead “feed humans we could feed so many more people using a lot less resources such as land and water.” Although I just made a similar statement in response to the last comment, this person adds an important additional social justice issue to the discussion.
Not only are livestock animals fed food that could feed people, the production of animal products, especially meat (and in particular beef) consumes all sorts of resources, such as land and water. As this person notes, there are people here in California (which is, generally speaking, a wealthy state) who do not have access to clean running water. While there are a range of reasons why this is the case, it is noteworthy that California ranks #3 in the nation for states that have the most livestock animals and has more milk cows than any other state.
In other words, not only would we have enough food to feed everyone on the planet by a long shot if we fed the food that we grew to people rather the livestock animals, we also have more than enough water to ensure that everyone in California has access to access to clean running water.
As I noted in response to the last comment, eating animal products touches on a range of environmental, animal rights, and social justice issues.
Watching this movie, I was incredibly disturbed, not only by our inhumane treatment of animals, but our wastefulness as humans. I knew from my environmental science classes that as you go up the trophic levels, the amount of energy conserved is less and less, so eating meat is not, and never will be, the most efficient way to consume food. That being said I had never really pictured just how wasteful this system really is. We grow all these crops, like grain and corn and instead of feeding it to the 3.5 billion people in poverty and with food insecurity, we feed it to livestock. In addition to the grain, we use 2,500 gallons of water to produce a single pound of beef, a statistic that is literally baffling to me. In a world where we are already running out of resources, we are taking precious farmland, water and food and essentially wasting it, by feeding it to animals which only a small percentage of our population can afford to consume.
Although we have been addressing a number of the issues that this comment touches upon, it nicely brings them together.
First, as this person noted in reference to trophic levels, it is simple science: “eating meat is not, and never will be, the most efficient way to consume food.”
Second, well I noted that one and nine people go hungry every night, this is in many ways just the tip of the iceberg, as nearly half of the worlds people live, as this person writing the notes, “in poverty and with food insecurity.”
Third, the production of animal-based food consumes all sorts of resources. For example, it takes “2,500 gallons of water to produce a single pound of beef.”
Fourth, as this person succinctly notes, “In a world where we are already running out of resources, we are taking precious farmland, water and food and essentially wasting it, by feeding it to animals which only a small percentage of our population can afford to consume.”
And finally, there is the climate issue. One study has shown that replacing beef with a plant-based diet would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a factor of 25. Allow me to restate that, plant-based food has just 4% of the climate footprint of beef.
Film 7, The Green New Deal
In a way, the Green New Deal, and the debate over it, pulls into sharp focus much of what we have been considering in this course.
As I have repeatedly suggested, if we are to successfully mitigate the climate crisis, we will need to make sweeping changes to human cultures across the planet – especially the American consumer culture that we have exported nearly everywhere at this point.
In the case of the US, this is a big job, as it will require us to rethink the American Dream, at least insofar as we in the US (as well as the rest of the wealthy countries) need to take a long hard look at the aspects of our culture that require the emission of enormous amounts of greenhouse gases.
This fact is not lost on the opponents of the Green New Deal, such as Donald Trump who tweeted that “I think it is very important for the Democrats to press forward with their Green New Deal. It would be great for the so-called ‘Carbon Footprint’ to permanently eliminate all Planes, Cars, Cows, Oil, Gas & the Military – even if no other country would do the same. Brilliant!”
To be clear, the Green New Deal proposed by AOC and her colleagues did not suggest that “all Planes, Cars, Cows, Oil, Gas & the Military” be “permanently eliminate[d].” Nonetheless, Trump has certainly put together a nice, short list of issues that we need to consider.
We have already taken up the first three, cars, planes, and cows, as largely writing these three things out of our lives would, for quite a few Americans, cut their climate footprints in half – perhaps far more than half if you are a frequent flyer.
And we have also noted that it is imperative that we dramatically reduce fossil fuel extraction, which includes the next two things on Trump’s list: leaving coal, oil and, so-called natural gas in the ground as much as possible.
Finally, some Green Party candidates (not to be confused with the Green New Deal that we are considering) have suggested that we cut military spending in half, in part because the US military is frequently used to protect fossil fuel interests, which was arguably the case with both Gulf Wars, rather than protect our land and people. Hence, they argue, if we stop acting as a global police force for the fossil fuel industry, the US. could cut its military spending in half.
(Incidentally, have you ever wondered why the US. military has been so active in the Middle East? In recent decades, we have fought two Gulf Wars there, costing billions of taxpayer dollars and where scores of US. lives were lost. Well, 80% of the planet’s proven oil reserves are located in this region of the world. Maybe this is just a coincidence…)
In any event, it is important to note that that the Green New Deal proposed by AOC and others (House Resolution #109 of the 116th Congress) makes no mention, to use Trump’s list, of “Planes, Cars, Cows, Oil, Gas & the Military.”
With respect to transportation, for example, the Green New Deal proposes “overhauling transportation systems in the United States…including through investment in (i) zero-emission vehicle infrastructure and manufacturing; (ii) clean, affordable, and accessible public transit; and (iii) high-speed rail.”
Since the wording here is not specific, there is still room for zero-emission cars. Similarly, although the inclusion of high-speed rail seems to be offered up as an alternative (at least in certain instances) to air travel, there is no mention of eliminating planes in the Green New Deal.
Moving down on Trump’s list to “cows,” the Green New Deal proposes “working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible.” As farmers are generally people who raise crops and ranchers raise livestock like horses, cows, and sheep, the wording here is interesting, as beef and lamb, the two chief problems with respect to methane, or not at all ruled out.
Finally, regarding Trump’s final three issues, “Oil, Gas & the Military,” the Green New Deal proposed by AOC makes no mention of any of these, nor, for that matter, does it reference coal or fossil fuels at all. It also makes no mention of the military.
Why isn’t any of this mentioned when it is obvious that we will need to confront “Planes, Cars, Cows, Oil, Gas &…Military” spending to protect fossil fuel interests?
Having not drafted it, I am not exactly sure, but it seems likely to me that, at least in part, the proposal is intentionally vague to avoid the sort of attack that Trump made on it.
Why was Trump eager to discuss these issues and AOC and her colleagues reluctant – especially when these issues will clearly need to be addressed if we are to substantially mitigate the climate crisis?
It seems pretty clear: in drawing attention to them, Trump is hoping to turn public opinion against the Green New Deal, as Americans like beef, cars, air travel, and all the things that fossil fuels give us. Americans also tend to get anxious at the suggestion that we won’t have a strong military to protect us from the rest of the world, as the rest of the world is not always happy with us (often for a variety of pretty good reasons relating to our military acting as an international police force for the fossil fuel industry).
Knowing this in advance, AOC and her colleagues likely kept from referencing “Planes, Cars, Cows, Oil, Gas…the Military” and a range of similar issues, lest public opinion be swayed away from the proposal because Americans tend to like these things.
Nonetheless, as Americans, we could, and arguably should, be doing far more than is even intimated in the Green New Deal.
For example, “One out of every five people around the world without access to power lives in India.” The government of India would, quite reasonably, like to see this situation remedied. One easy solution would be coal, as India is sitting on vast stores of it. However, it would, of course, be a worldwide climate catastrophe if all this coal was dug up and burned in order to generate electricity.
What’s to be done?
Thirty years ago, in his 1992 book Earth in the Balance, Al Gore proposed the idea of a “Global Marshall Plan,” which would “require the wealthy nations to allocate money for transferring environmentally helpful technologies to the Third World and to help impoverished nations achieve a stable population and a new pattern of sustainable economic progress. To work, however, any such effort will also require wealthy nations to make a transition themselves that will be in some ways more wrenching than that of the Third World.”
The idea here is simple enough, as wealthy countries like the US would help less wealthy countries, like India, develop sustainably. In practice, this could involve knowledge and technology exchange, as well as loans and funding. Incidentally, in her book This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein rechristened the idea as a “Marshall Plan for the Earth.”
How might this work in practice? If you watched Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Sequel, you might recall that at COP21 Gore was feverishly negotiating with the US. company Solar City to license part of their solar technology to India – free of charge, which they, quite commendably, agreed to do.
Why should wealthy countries, and the US in particular, go along with this proposal for a Marshall Plan for the Earth? There are a number of reasons, but two stand out:
1) The US. “has been the world’s leading economic power since the end of the 19th century.” Not coincidentally, this corresponds with our developing a massive fossil-fuel economy. Unfortunately for our global climate, this had a byproduct: as I have noted before, 25% of the carbon dioxide put into our planet’s atmosphere by human beings was put there by the US. Since we caused so much of this problem, we have a clear – as least as far as I am concerned – moral obligation to help remedy what we have done.
2) Even if we are not moved by the above moral argument, it is in America’s best interest to help the world develop sustainably. Why? If the rest of the world follows our lead and develops by way of fossil fuels, it will be a disaster for the planet. Sooner or later, that coal burned in India will translate into problems for the US, such as coastal flooding, wildfires, extreme weather, etc.
But here is the problem, if just mentioning the fact that we will need to curb our love of beef and cars risks turning the American public against climate action, how do we get Americans to go along with something like a Marshall Plan for the Earth in an era increasingly defined by nationalism, reduced international aid, and closed borders?
This takes us to the root of the problem with climate action. At least climate action in America.
On the one hand, we need to make sweeping changes to our America way of life that will involve cars, planes, cows and a whole lot more. In this sense, the Green New Deal does not go far enough – at the very least it could be far more specific – in outlining just what sort of changes that we will need to make if we hope to get through this crisis, such as a Marshall Plan for the Earth.
On the other hand, just mentioning cultural changes related to beef, cars, and airplanes risks turning Americans away from serious climate action – which is likely why AOC and her colleagues didn’t mention them but Trump did.
To put the issue more simply: while the Green New Deal is the best proposal for climate action that we currently have – and, let me be very, very clear in noting that I certainly endorse it and will vote for it – it is at once not doing enough and at the same time is too much for many, likely most, Americans to get behind.
I am curious to hear what you make of the Green New Deal, now that you have read the legislation proposing it and watched some short documentaries on it. Is it enough? Or is it too much to endorse? Most importantly, how exactly do we get enough Americans to go along with the Green New Deal to vote it into being?
Class discussion of The Green New Deal
Note that the following observations, which are in italics, have not been paraphrased or altered, though I do correct the occasional typo and, because of space concerns, often just part of the comment is reproduced here along with my reply. In working through these, I will first quote a student’s observation, followed by my thoughts.
Quite a few of the comments on the Green New Deal expressed sentiments similar to this one:
Unfortunately, I was one of the people who was misled and misinformed about the Green New Deal due to the media’s portrayal of it. All I knew was that it was about climate change and that it was radical.
Here is another similar comment:
When you assigned the reading of The Green New Deal, I had mentioned it to my parents and they immediately started talking about how radical the idea of getting rid of all cars, planes and cows was. But once I read it, I was super confused because [I felt] like I was missing something. The Green New Deal said nothing in detail, and I felt almost tricked. After watching the videos, I realized that the media and politicians have been overtly tricking Americans into believing this solution is worse than our current situation. Platforms only talk about the negative effects of the Green New Deal, leaving passionate activists to sound like they are crazy. Because they are so outnumbered, the voice of reason is being trampled by climate deniers and those who are desperate to continue business as usual. As a nation, it is our job to implement a change. Maybe if we take this first step, other countries will follow in our footsteps and we can save the planet.
The Green New Deal is the most sweeping climate plan ever proposed in the US Congress. Arguably, it is the one of the most important Resolutions ever proposed in Congress, period.
Why? Because it outlines the sort of changes that we need to make to mitigate the climate crisis, which is one of the greatest collective challenges that humanity has ever faced. The Green New Deal really is just an outline (and looks and reads like one), as it doesn’t go into any issue in any detail. This is one of its greatest strengths, as it can be read in a single siting – really, it can be read in just a few minutes. (As you are going to be reading House Resolution #109 of the 116th Congress for Climate Crisis 101, you might want to note how long it took you to get through it.)
Given that it is such an important document, it is not surprising that many Americans have heard of the Green New Deal. And given that the American public has been, in various degrees, polarized on the climate crisis, it is not surprising that many Americans have an opinion on the Green New Deal.
But what is surprising – in fact, really surprising – is that very few people that have actually read this short document. And yet, many Americans have definite opinions about it. Many, like the person who made the first comment here, just know “that it,,,[is],,,about climate change and that it…[is]…radical.” Or, like the parents of the person who made the second comment, that it is about “getting rid of all cars, planes and cows.”
For a democracy like ours to work, the voting public needs to understand the issues impacting our country, our planet, and all of us, individually and collectively. The difficulty is that there is a layer between us and the lawmakers that we elect to serve as our representatives in government. That layer is the media.
In general, where do we get many of our ideas? Sometimes, it’s through direct human contact with friends and family. But where do they get many of their ideas?
In the third quarter of the 21st century, most of us, either directly or indirectly, learn about the world through various media that is disseminated on the Internet. Thus, when it comes to learning about something like the Green New Deal, we generally learn about it indirectly. Unfortunately, all sorts of perspectives are bandied about on the Internet.
For example, when I entered “Green New Deal,” into my browser (Google), while I was offered a NY times article on “What Is the Green New Deal? A Climate Proposal, Explained,” a Fox News Op-ed also popped up entitled “Green New Deal would destroy American Dream, create American Nightmare.” If you knew little or nothing about the Green New Deal, the idea that you formed of it would be very much guided by which of these articles you read. This is in part why perceptions of the Green New Deal vary significantly among Americans.
But what if you just took a few minutes and sat down and read House Resolution #109? After doing just that, as it was assigned for Climate Crisis 101, someone made this apt comment:
The Green New Deal seemed honestly confusing, but after…[I read it]…I was surprised to see that the whole document has two major goals: What we need to do to solve the climate crisis and how the American people will be protected. Looking at it like this, makes it seem much more simple and doable.
The advantage of directly in countering something like the Green New Deal is that we can form our own opinions of it. I am firmly of the belief that most Americans are capable of doing this.
Given my research and teaching interests, it is hardly surprising that people ask me what they can do to help mitigate the climate crisis. Many people expect me to say something like eat less beef, or drive or fly less. While I absolutely endorse these actions, I believe that the #1 that each of us can do is to read and learn about this crisis.
Once a person learns the truth about this unfolding crisis and its severity, it seems more than a little likely that they would not only want to do something about it themselves, but to elect politicians who would put forth, to use this person’s words, a plan to “solve the climate crisis,” while making sure that “the American people will be protected.”
Last fall, I took a course on news, politics and democracy within the Communication program. We learned about how the media relies on sensationalism, and is not fulfilling its responsibilities to our democracy. Unfortunately, consumers are attracted to the spectacle and don’t want to be shown things they don’t understand. So rather than teaching voters about the details of policies and issues, the media “dumbs-down” the message and relies on partisanship to tell voters how to feel about a policy. In this class, we discussed tactical framing by the media in great detail. It’s a strategic move by the media to attract viewers and make it more difficult for people to form educated opinions. Tactical framing doesn’t care for the capacity to solve the problem, only the political debate. While the media is supposed to be summarizing relevant issues on behalf of the citizens (in order for them to formulate opinions of their own), they often complicate the narrative and make voters more cynical about politics and its ability to get anything done. In this way, rather than educating voters, the media serves as a tool for polarization. With the Green New Deal, the media (and the politicians themselves in their discussion of the bill) focus on its controversy. More specifically, Republicans have correlated the deal with socialism, creating fear within their supporters that the bill is not about the environment, but more about a complete restructuring of our system. Therefore, anyone that doesn’t support socialism is likely to reject the bill before learning any of its contents.
Unfortunately, not only do some media outlets downplay or outright deny the severity of the climate crisis, nearly all media outlets are in the business of, as this person succinctly notes, “attract[ing] viewers.” Consequently, instead of, to again quote this person, “summarizing relevant issues on behalf of the citizens (in order for them to formulate opinions of their own),” they instead stage a media spectacle of two sides facing off on the issue. In this way, as this person aptly notes, “the media serves as a tool for polarization.”
There can also be a bit of a slight of hand here, as something like socialism can be made to take the place of the issue at hand, the Green New Deal. Hence, by tactically framing this is an issue of socialism, viewers will likely dismiss this important Resolutions without ever knowing what it is actually about.
This is, of course, a vexing state of affairs, as the media is often not only failing to explain important issues like the Green New Deal to the public, they are allowing (arguably, encouraging) it to be seen as a polarized political issue, which greatly reduces the chance of it being supported by the very voters that it would benefit.
[T]here has been an active campaign to confuse and misdirect the public from the true facts surrounding the Green New Deal, just as we saw in Merchants of Doubt just a few weeks ago. With all this being said, how is the average American supposed to make any sort of informed decision about whether this proposed plan is a good idea or not? Yet again, I found myself sitting at my desk, frustrated with the cyclical nature of the fight against climate change and how all the efforts being made seem to be going to waste.
This person rightly notes that the fossil fuel industry and its affiliates have made enormous efforts to discredit the Green New Deal. This is, indeed, more than a little frustrating, especially, as the previous person noted, the Green New Deal is a plan to “solve the climate crisis” and to make sure that “the American people will be protected” while doing so.
Simply put, the Green New Deal is designed to protect the planet and the American people. So, what’s not to like?
Well, if you happened to be in the fossil fuel business, it is more than a little disconcerting. After all, as Bill Gates has noted, “30 years from now, some of those oil companies will be worth very little” when we replace fossil fuels with renewable energy. If the Green New Deal were to be enacted, their lease on life could be far less than 30 years.
Hence, as they are in a life and death battle for their companies and industry, it is hardly surprising that they would be working hard to turn public sentiment away from the Green New Deal, even though it is meant to benefit and protect the planet and Americans.
I am assuming that the title of this deal is a reference to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. This is most likely meant to mirror the circumstance of that time to our present day. America is facing one of the world’s most pressing issues and the government needs to create sweeping change in order for its people to thrive again. Similar to the New Deal, the Green New Deal aims to assume the responsibility for transitioning the American people from one stage to another.
The Green New Deal is indeed meant to reference Roosevelt’s New Deal from the 1930s.
“The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by…Roosevelt…between 1933 and 1939.” Through programs like the National Labor Relations Act and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the US government stepped in to protect the rights of workers and citizens, often against businesses that were exploding them. Consequently, the goal was to provide things that we now often take for granted, such as “a forty-hour workweek, a minimum wage, worker’s compensation, unemployment compensation, a federal law banning child labor, direct federal aid for unemployment relief, Social Security, a revitalized public employment service and health insurance.”
But why invoke the New Deal, with its focus on protection for workers and citizens, when proposing sweeping climate legislation?
Consider coal, which is in certain ways the most problematic of all fossil fuels. In order to get the same amount of energy, coal releases roughly twice as much CO2 as does natural gas. Hence, we need to immediately act on legislation that would leave as much as coal as possible in the ground.
The problem is that there are certain areas of the United States, such as West Virginia, where a significant number of people have for generations made their living from the mining of coal. What would happen to them if we quickly phase out the coal industry?
Like Roosevelt’s New Deal, the Green New Deal aims to provide all sorts of safeguards to protect these workers by “providing resources, training, and high-quality education, including higher education, to all people of the United States, with a focus on frontline and vulnerable communities [like these coal extracting communities], so that all people of the United States may be full and equal participants in the Green New Deal mobilization.” If we did not implement protections like these, many people would potentially suffer as we transition into a new, sustainable, economy and world.
I appreciate how the Green New Deal addresses many different promises such as jobs, healthcare, education, and economic freedom. I also appreciate its commitment to helping ordinary Americans in the transition away from fossil fuels as I feel as that is of utmost importance…I feel as if the changes it proposes have many ways to help Americans that may be negatively affected by them.
Although detractors to the Green New Deal frequently draw attention to the fact that it will cost millions of jobs and hurt displaced workers, it is worth pausing to consider what sort of jobs will be lost. For example, as we have noted, the coal industry needs to largely go away.
However, in terms of working conditions and other impacts of this industry, this is not a bad thing. “The rate of fatal injuries in the coal mining industry…[is]…nearly six times the rate for all private industry.” Indeed, it is the seventh most dangerous job in America. In addition, there are range of other health related problems associated with this industry, such as heart and lung disease.
There are also significant environmental consequences here that are separate and apart from the CO2 released when coal is burned. For example, “[i]n 2018, methane emissions from coal mining and abandoned coal mines accounted for about 11% of total U.S. methane emissions.” The great deal of attention has rightfully been given to the beef industry, which is responsible for releasing 28% of methane emissions. However, the coal industry is responsible for methane emissions that are around 40% of this. In other words, you would need to convince 40% of the US population to stop eating beef – which would be quite a feat! – to be the equivalent of shutting down the coal industry.
Finally, coal industry causes significant environmental devastation in mining areas. For example, “[s]trip mining destroys landscapes, forests and wildlife habitats at the site of the mine when trees, plants, and topsoil are cleared from the mining area. This in turn leads to soil erosion and destruction of agricultural land. When rain washes the loosened top soil into streams, sediments pollute waterways.” This causes “an increased risk of chemical contamination of ground water when minerals in upturned earth seep into the water table, and watersheds are destroyed.” All this can cause whole communities to be displaced as these areas become largely uninhabitable.
So, while jobs will certainly be lost, these were by no means good, safe jobs. Moreover, this industry causes a host of environmental problems separate and apart from the manner by which it contributes to the climate crisis.
Setting aside the environmental and climate implications of coal mining, there is much to suggest that this industry needs to go away on social justice grounds, as it is simply wrong to subject human beings to working conditions of this word.
There were more than a few strong, positive reactions to the short film “A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.” Here is an example:
That video made me have hope again on politicians, mostly because the words from her mouth were positive and hopeful, instead of the usual pessimistic and narcissistic comments we usually get. This is refreshing, this made me have hope that we are in the right direction to change how government acts and to have a better chance in fixing our problems. It was depressing to hear Dianne Feinstein, someone who is representing OUR state, say that it cannot pass. But then who have someone like Cortez, who is bringing a new optimistic point of view to the muddy and toxic waters that is politics and it is definitely what we need when most of us react with cynicism.
There is a whole sub-genre of science fiction known as climate fiction, or more commonly, simply “cli-fi.” For the most part, these works imagine a rather dismal future. As such, they are important, as they are something of a cautionary tale of what could happen if we do not act quickly and decisively to mitigate the climate crisis. However, they are often disturbing and depressing.
In a decided contrast, AOC lays out a wonderfully optimistic future – an entirely different kind of cli-fi. As far as I’m concerned, she presents an inspiring model of what is needed: for us to imagine a better future and then tirelessly work to bring it about.
Incidentally, AOC may have coined the term “climate delayer” in an Instagram video as a response to Dianne Feinstein, one of the two US senators from California. So, in addition to climate deniers, we need, according to AOC, to also be concerned about individuals who we might expect to help the cause, like Feinstein, who nonetheless failed to act to mitigate the crisis.
Here is another comment on the AOC film:
I loved AOC’s film and her narration. I am a huge fan of hers, so I was immediately drawn to what she has to say. I am also majoring in art and have always had a love for painting so listening to her powerful language associated with the beautiful watercolor time-lapse was quite beautiful to watch and see. I was left wondering, after watching these films, “who in their right mind could watch these and not agree with and support the Green New Deal? It baffles me, honestly.
“A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez” is a rather remarkable little film. It is shot with a single camera from above with a fixed-focus on an artist’s worktable. The entire film is composed of a series of paintings made in response to the voiceover by AOC. In many cases, we actually see the hand of the artist, Molly Crabapple, making the paintings. The only editing is to speed up the creation of the images, which likely took quite a few days.
It is rather remarkable that such an effective film can be made in such a simple fashion. Of course, there is quite a bit of artistic skill on display here, but this is not some expensive and complicated Hollywood production. It is just an artist caught in the process of visually bringing some important words to life.
I mention this because it makes clear the central role that imagination and communication has to play in the climate crisis. However, need not be elaborate or expensive in the age of YouTube, where a talented person (perhaps like you) can and send out a moving and effective message to thousands, even millions, of people.
By increasing government spending and revolutionizing infrastructure, it is possible to create millions of “good, high-wage jobs to provide security for all of those in the US” (GND). It is crucial that these jobs provide equal pay for everyone regardless of race, class, gender, citizenship, and physical aptitude. Moreover, the Green New Deal will give Americans the right to a living wage, welfare services, adequate, affordable housing, quality education, and health care; all of which will help mitigate the fears that customarily accompany periods of significant change. These efforts will create healthy, sustainable, inclusive communities that are ready and willing to adapt to major policy reforms.
Wow, I couldn’t have said it better myself!
So, allow me to conclude with that thoughtful comment.
Film 8, Being the Change and Tomorrow
Ok, we have talked quite a bit about what each of us can do about the climate crisis. This has included personal actions, climate activism, becoming political active, communication, etc.
In terms of personal actions, we have talked about largely plant-based diets, food waste, automobile ownership, air travel, a minimalist approach to stuff, and so forth.
But what if you wanted to jump ahead to the endgame? In other words, what if you wanted to actually live a largely sustainable life right now? Would it be possible, here, in America, in California?
To be clear, what we are talking about here is reducing our greenhouse emissions to 1/10 of the average American’s climate footprint.
And would it be possible for more than just an individual? In other words, could a family, let’s say two parents and two children, live this sort of lifestyle in America today?
If so, what kind of life would it be? Could it possibly be a good life? A fulfilling life that made everyone happy?
At one point in the 2009 documentary No Impact Man, the lead character, his partner, and their small daughter are huddled in their dark Manhattan apartment, with seemingly no electricity and only candles for light. Is this what a sustainable future would be like?
Fortunately, there are other options.
The documentary Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution chronicles the life of Peter Kalmus and his family (Kalmus, his partner, and their two children) as they attempt to live sustainable lives.
Incidentally, as Peter Kalmus is a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, he is particularly well position to accurately assess his own climate footprint.
And that footprint, as it turns out, is exceptionally small.
As Kalmus notes in the book of the same name upon which the documentary is based, his personal greenhouse gas emissions are about 1/10 of the average Americans. Specifically, Kalmus’s emissions are about two metric tons annually. You might recall that this is about where we should all be to be in accord with the Paris Agreement from the COP 21.
As Kalmus notes in the book, “[t]his level of reduction, while incomplete, allows my family and me to continue a normal suburban life. This suggests that a similar reduction is well within reach for many of us. And as more people make significant reductions, and systemic alternatives to fossil fuel become increasingly available, going the rest of the way will become easier” (page 145, Kindle location 2561). Kalmus adds that “I still emit nearly twice the average Bangladeshi, and infinitely more than a wild, nonhuman Earthling [ i.e. animals].”
It is interesting to note that this approach comes from a scientist – and a climate scientist at that. Given his background, we might expect that Kalmus would advocate for technological solutions like self driving electric cars and a new generation of solar cells made with nanotechnology, instead he talks about bicycle riding and humanure.
By the way, the title, Being the Change, is a reference to that quote attributed to Gandhi that I keep mentioning: “Be the change you want to see you in the world.” What might being the change be like in this context? Watch the film or read the book.
Here is how the publisher describes the book on which the film is based:
We all want to be happy. Yet as we consume ever more in a frantic bid for happiness, global warming worsens. Alarmed by drastic changes now occurring in the Earth’s climate systems, the author, a climate scientist and suburban father of two, embarked on a journey to change his life and the world. He began by bicycling, growing food, meditating, and making other simple, fulfilling changes. Ultimately, he slashed his climate impact to under a tenth of the US average and became happier in the process.
Being the Change explores the connections between our individual daily actions and our collective predicament. It merges science, spirituality, and practical action to develop a satisfying and appropriate response to global warming….
The core message is deeply optimistic: living without fossil fuels is not only possible, it can be better.
Wait, “living without fossil fuels is not only possible, it can be better?” Really?
We are often told that the climate crisis will mean that we will need to do without a great deal: cars, planes, spacious houses, beef, scores of appealing consumer goods, and so forth. At face value, this sounds like a bland life of deprivation, especially when we think about the people that have all this – people who, as we say, “have it all” – like some people in my generation in the developed world.
Moreover, influencers – the people that we are encouraged to want to be – unabashedly flaunt the fact that they have mountains of this stuff.
Consequently, it may seem that the road to happiness is paved with carbon. Or more accurately, that you need to be responsible for the release of literally tons of carbon per month if you want it all – if you want happiness.
Peter Kalmus, in his own humble way, boldly suggests otherwise. That, in fact, we have it all wrong; this stuff (and our preoccupation with it) will not make us happy. In fact, such preoccupations will likely have the opposite effect.
I know, this runs completely counter to what the companies hourly selling us all this stuff tell us: that having it will make us happy – and not having it will make us miserable. And all those images of contented influencers posing in private jets confirms it.
Not only does Peter Kalmus believe – from personal experience – otherwise, a range of people are now coming to the same conclusion.
The film Tomorrow (Demain) documents the lives and efforts of some of these people. Here is what the filmmakers have to say about it:
TODAY, we sometimes feel powerless in front of the various crises of our times.
TODAY, we know that answers lie in a wide mobilization of the human race. Over the course of a century, our dream of progress commonly called “the American Dream”, fundamentally changed the way we live and continues to inspire many developing countries. We are now [however] aware of the setbacks and limits of such development policies. We urgently need to focus our efforts on changing our dreams before something irreversible happens to our planet.
TODAY, we need a new direction, objective… A new dream! The documentary Tomorrow sets out to showcase alternative and creative ways of viewing agriculture, economics, energy and education. It offers constructive solutions to act on a local level to make a difference on a global level…
TOMORROW is not just a film, it is the beginning of a movement seeking to encourage local communities around the world to change the way they live for the sake of our planet.
I am curious to hear your thoughts on Being the Change and/or Tomorrow. Is this indeed “the beginning of a movement,” the beginning of a profound change in the way that our species inhabits this planet?
Class discussion of Being the Change and Tomorrow
Note that the following observations, which are in italics, have not been paraphrased or altered, though I do correct the occasional typo and, because of space concerns, often just part of the comment is reproduced here along with my reply. In working through these, I will first quote a student’s observation, followed by my thoughts.
After watching the documentary, I was fascinated by how Peter Kalmus reduced his emission by more than a factor of ten yet still kept an average lifestyle.
I got really irritated by Peter’s description of himself as any old “Joe Shmoe” who cut down his emissions because he made a concerted effort to do so, just like how anyone can. Ol’ middle class Petey is a scientist for NASA who went to college at Harvard. Most people are not Harvard educated NASA scientists. Most people are poor. There’s something about this guy’s self aggrandizing aura that’s deeply concerning. I think it’s because he’s found a way to make himself the hero of the climate movement for himself. All he talks about is himself, and we watch three to many guitar solos to understand that’s not by mistake. Maybe if he spent less time making documentaries about his sacrifice or putting vegetable oil into his car, he could see that climate is intersectional and has a lot less to do with people not wanting to poop outside and a lot more to do with the structures of capitalism that leave the majority of the population with nothing to think about but surviving.
I too felt that Peter Kalmus completely fabricated a false persona in the film “Being the Change”. As you stated, this guy is a Harvard grad jet propulsion scientist, and a simple google search will reveal that he’s worth anywhere from $1-5 million dollars!! In my mind, it’s hard to ‘walk the walk’ and inspire others to take personal action to mitigate the climate crisis from an elevated socioeconomic status.
[From buzzlearn.com: “Peter Kalmus’s net worth or net income is estimated to be $1 million – $5 million dollars. He has made such an amount of wealth from his primary career as a Physicist.”and from the same buzzlearn.com page “Peter Kalmus is a famous Physicist. He was born on January 25, 1933 and his birthplace is Slovakia.”]
This week’s film truly made me rethink the way I live. Seeing such a happy, mentally healthy family living their lives in a very sustainable way was eye opening for me. The most eye-opening part of the film for me was just the simple fact that Peter went to Harvard, works for NASA, and has all the brains and probably money in the world to live in a massive mansion with ten cars, yet he lives in a quaint home in Pasadena with his vegetablebomile of a car and his happy little family.
I also agree that Peter Kalmus is the perfect example of living a happier life without fossil fuels. His life isn’t a situation where he is simply making the best out of what he has. In fact, he has the brains and the resources to make a lot of money, especially with his Harvard degree. He had the opportunity to drive a nice car, live in a big house, and do all the things that we think will make us happy. Instead, he gave up a potentially lavish lifestyle to live one that involves less things, and more happiness. More relationships, mindfulness, peace, and joy.
While we are not all scientists, and it is not very realistic nor practical to choose the same kind of lifestyle as Peter, we can all share his optimism. We can practice things like gardening, biking, and meditation to whatever extent we would like, and it still delivers a message louder than words. Personal action is a motivating example, and it demonstrates to others the importance of the climate crisis, without overloading them with a list of facts that leave them
Watching Peter Kalmus’ day-to-day routine was really inspiring to me! Where he lives, in Pasadena, is about 20 minutes away from my hometown! Seeing him in Pasadena really opened my eyes to how possible it is to live an incredibly climate-conscious lifestyle, while still living in a desirable place, and having different aspects of the so-called “American Dream.” While it was inspiring to see Kalmus so close to my hometown, it was also a bit disheartening, because I realized how little I know about the efforts toward mitigating the climate crisis in my community! Peter spoke about collecting veggie oil, free fruit stands, and going to community meetings, none of which I even knew about! And they’re right in my backyard!
[T]he American education system needs to do a better job at teaching people life skills so that they can have confidence to try acquiring other skills. I used to live in Mexico and over there they start teaching kids in middle school about mechanics and electricity amongst other useful life skills, which I have noticed mostly no one here has and it is no surprise that most people here just wait for someone else to fix the problem rather than attempting to contribute to the solution and that is a big problem.
When watching the film “Tomorrow” I was reminded that there are many good people in this world who want to make a difference. Sometimes I get really discouraged, not only by the damage that we are inflicting on our planet, but also by the number of people who are willing to do nothing and watch the world fall apart – or worse yet, continue to actively support the systems that are causing all this harm. It was refreshing to hear people discuss their solutions. I love how the film took us to different places around the world and showed us how people are making real changes in various locations. One of my favorite little changes was the public space gardens they introduced in the U.K. Not only do these gardens provide sustainable foods, but the fact that they are out in public on busy roads allows space for people to open up in conversation about them. Their public appearances spread awareness. I like this change because it doesn’t seem difficult to do. People in the US seem to be resistant to major changes, but I feel like many would support a small change like the gardens.
Since Ken asked if this is the beginning of a movement, I personally feel like it is. I think that there are more people than before that care about saving our planet and are finding simple and even creative ways to reduce their carbon footprint. It really doesn’t seem that hard to do so, we just have to remember it’s not about owning more, but about owning less and just living a simple life. Walking or riding a bike to places instead of driving there, growing some of our own food, using less electricity, buying less stuff, wasting less food, and switching to a plant-based diet are not impossible things to do like older generations make it out to be.
As I scrolled through these comments, I noticed that many people said the most interesting part of the film, “Being the Change”, was the connection between meditation and the climate crisis. I can’t help but agree. I first thought, why is this part of the documentary so long? What does it have to do with global warming, and why am I watching it? But now that I think about it, the connection is rather obvious. We have learned in this class about how in the US, often the idea of happiness is linked to the American Dream and consumerism, which drives our carbon footprints through the roof. Meditation, as well as other practices (such as religion, lifestyle changes, minimalism, etc.) help us to detach from the idea that happiness must come from owning more stuff, having a bigger house, driving a nicer car, and flying to extravagant places.
[O]ne other thing I took away from this documentary was his [Peter Kalmus’s] motto/phrase about the climate issue. The motto: “head, hands, heart” was really meaningful and impactful for me and I loved how he put it all together. He explained that hands symbolize action. Actions we can take such as riding bikes and gardening that benefit us both personally and on a bigger level too. Head symbolizes having the realization that there is a problem, and realizing the impacts of actions on each other. Lastly, heart ties it all together. As he stated, “It’s where you find meaning in this. Where you translate understanding and action into making your life more satisfying.” What a beautiful way to put it. This is the approach we should all take when dealing with this issue. We need to first make an effort to realize and accept that we are facing a large problem. With this, we can begin to do research about it and learn what actions we can take on a personal level, and on a broader level. And as we take action, we need to remember why we are doing it. For example, we need to find meaning in our decision to stop eating meat. While some of us may love it, we need to remember that we are helping not only ourselves by excluding it from our diets, but we are also helping the planet. I took away a lot from this documentary. “Head, hands, heart” is something that I will definitely be reminded of constantly and hope to apply in my life.
Power does, indeed, corrupt. This is why the government is viewed as untrustworthy by most Americans. As the documentary states, it would be wonderful if the powers that be had the humanity to change their ways, but wealth and power will corrupt anyone. Thus, I was really intrigued by the documentary’s suggestion of local power, local economies, and local business.
Most documentaries focus on important probems, allowing the audience to reexamine their own ways to provide solutions, but Tomorrow gives its viewers choices about their future instead of frightening them into change. Of all the films we have watched in this class, this one has instilled the desire to change in me the most. I will definitely try to stop eating red meat after watching this.
This week, I watched Tomorrow since I already saw “Being the Change” last quarter in Engl22. After watching it I’m honestly inspired. I feel like I want to go down to my local garden supply shop, go out into the backyard, and really get my hands dirty. Having grown up in a more rural place before moving to the suburbs at a young age, my family farmed and grew crops on the side while working their other jobs as a hobby (and took it as a supplementary income after retirement). I have fond memories from being a kid and going to the farmers market and selling our crop, and I still love going to markets and picking up whatever fresh produce looks good or whatever artisan goods look tasty. ..To be fair, the way that the whole urban farming movement has been brought to the public sphere has been pretty pastoral. It’s being made to seem super simple, and to be fair, it is inherently simple as a facet of nature. But the interactions that happen between the crops, trade secrets, and the general finesse that goes into producing crops is a serious skill (like that farm in France that was working on their biodiversity). I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t killed my share of crops, since my thumb isn’t very green. But farming is just like any other skill. Understanding what goes into it, what works, and what doesn’t work, are really the most important facets to success. As time goes on and you work to improve the skills, you can really hone your craft and turn it into something successful.
The film “Tomorrow” also reminded me a lot of my childhood. I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky which is the 15th largest city in the United States (despite people assuming there’s nothing in Kentucky). A big part of my summers in elementary school was “Garden Camp” which was hosted at a church run by some of my parents’ friends. The entire day is spent learning how to grow food, how to harvest it, and how to turn it into yummy meals. We picked tomatoes to make into pasta sauce, we ground up corn to make into fun dishes, and we learned about edible flowers to make pretty cakes. This was such a fun experience for me but because I was so young, I didn’t see the value in these skills and just saw a way to get dirty…I really appreciated this film because it did more than just show us everything we’re doing wrong. It showed us more than just “be vegan.” I think it’s extremely important to see how interconnected our society and culture is with environmentalism. Being able to see these examples of communities doing their part brings me lots of hope that we can hopefully implement this in the United States more. Yes, it feels small. But it more and more small towns and cities are able to implement this, I feel like our larger government might start listening.
Film 9, Happy – Are we destroying the planet in a misguided pursuit of happiness?
Happy is not an environmental film. Why, then, are we watching it?
Lately I have been thinking about what may well be the greatest irony of the human race. If we do not survive the climate crisis, it will be a sad epitaph for our species.
From even before Plato, thinkers in the West have long pondered what constitutes the “good life.” In the United States, we have been preoccupied with this question ever since we declared ourselves an independent country and made the “pursuit of happiness” one of three “unalienable rights” in our Declaration of Independence.
What now constitutes the “good life” in the US.? In other words, how are we pursuing happiness? The American Dream now seems to center on wanting more, wanting bigger, and wanting better. More stuff, bigger houses, better cars, etc.
The problem is that this has not at all made us happy. In fact, in recent decades, Americans have become less and less happy. While this would be a sad irony in itself, the great tragedy is that many of these pursuits are destroying our planet. Americans put nearly a quarter of all greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Indeed, at the same time that Americans have been becoming less happy, we have been pumping more greenhouse gases into our planet’s atmosphere.
What is in many ways even worse is that we are now exporting this environmentally disastrous aspect of the “American way of life” to the rest of the planet. It would be one thing if we were releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere for more noble reasons, such as to ensure that everyone on the planet received enough to eat, but this is all largely unnecessary. Do we each really need sixty or more items of new clothing every year?
In short, we have frenetically and futilely been pursuing happiness at the cost of the planet. As noted above, the great irony is that, as greenhouse gas emissions soared as a result of our pursuit of happiness, our happiness has actually declined.
So, here is my question: Are we indeed destroying our planet in a profoundly misguided pursuit of happiness?
In order to wrestle with this question, let’s look at happiness compared to greenhouse gas emissions for a number of pretty happy countries.
First, it’s true: after many decades of studying depression and unhappiness, a range of scholars, from psychologists to sociologists, have recently turn their attention to happiness, as has the United Nations. The United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, using Gallup Polling data, released the World Happiness Report in 2019.
The report revealed that United States ranked #19 worldwide in terms of happiness (source). With respect to the climate crisis, we emit about 16 metric tons of CO2 per person (source), which gives us the dubious distinction of being one of the world leaders when it comes to GHG emissions.
Alternately, the five countries with the happiest people on the planet (Finland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and the Netherlands) all have individual emissions that are on average about half of the United States, in spite of the fact that they are all in very northern climates and hence use quite a bit of energy just for heating.
In fact, a whopping 81% of Finland’s greenhouse gas emissions comes from the energy sector (source), which is hardly surprising, as the capital of Finland, Helsinki, is further north than the capital of Alaska, which is Juneau. In general, living in a cold climate demands far more energy than living in a warmer one, even if air conditioners are widely used in the later. One study found that living in Minneapolis demanded three-and-a-half times more energy than living in Miami (source).
Living in places that are even further north consumes even more energy. Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions for the average Alaskan are twice as large as the average person in the US. (source).
Moving from Finland to the sixth most happy country in the world, Switzerland, average per capita greenhouse gas emissions there are one third of the United States in spite of the fact that it too is not a very warm country (two thirds of Switzerland is in the Alps mountain range).
Number seven on the list of happy countries in Sweden, also a pretty cold place (Sweden’s capital, Stockholm, is also further north than Juneau, Alaska). Nonetheless, their per capita greenhouse omissions are approximately one fourth of the United States.
Let’s pause for a moment on this: the seven countries on the planet with the happiest people, in spite of demanding significantly greater energy use because of their northern locales, have climate footprints that are one half, one third, or one fourth ours.
The climate footprints of happy people can be even smaller if they live in warmer climates. Costa Rica, which ranks number 12 in terms of worldwide happiness (hence Costa Ricans are significantly happier that Americans at number 19) has greenhouse gas emissions that are about one seventh of the United States. That’s right, the average American contributes as much to the climate crisis as seven pretty happy people in Costa Rica.
The example of Costa Rica reveals an interesting element here, as the average American is thirteen times wealthier than the average person in Costa Rica (as measured by mean wealth per adult, source). As our relative climate footprints reveal, we Americans are presumably using quite a bit of this wealth in ways that are damaging the planet.
However, with respect to income, let’s face facts: it is difficult to be happy if you are a very poor. If you are trying to raise a family in the US on an annual income of, say, $40,000, a range of hardships would certainly threaten your happiness. However, studies have found that beyond a certain point, more money does not bring greater happiness. That number may be lower than you would imagine, as these studies revealed that it is around $75,000 in annual income for an individual (source). While this is more than the annual median personal income in the US, it is certainly not Kardashian wealth.
Moreover, no one (to my knowledge) has attempted to isolate and remove the influence of the overwhelming marketing bombarding us, which tells us daily (or hourly or even by the minute. especially online) that we need to buy a range of products to be happy.
Let’s return to the example of Costa Rica, as it reveals, simply put, that you don’t need a lot of money to be happy. Nor does a greater happiness necessarily come with, comparatively, a relatively high climate footprint.
Now, let’s return to those very happy but very cold Scandinavian countries. For the most part, their economies and cultures are built on something called the “Nordic model.” While these are, of course, democratic countries, they also very much embrace things like collective bargaining and strong unions. Hence, they are sometimes called “democratic socialist” countries.
Bernie Sanders nicely explains what these countries offer: “So long as we know what democratic socialism is. If we know that in countries, in Scandinavia, like Denmark, Norway, Sweden — they are very democratic countries, obviously, the voter turnout is a lot higher than it is in the United States. In those countries, health care is the right of all people. And in those countries, college education, graduate school is free. In those countries, retirement benefits, child care are stronger than in the United States of America, and in those countries, by and large, government works for ordinary people in the middle class, rather than, as is the case right now in our country (the US.), for the billionaire class.” (source)
Even though we might think that happiness is a deeply personal matter, governments have a major role to play in facilitating our “pursuit of happiness.” When they are doing their job responsibly, caring for the wellbeing of their citizens rather than large corporate sponsors, we are likely to be much happier.
But, specifically, how are people in these Scandinavian countries happier and how does this relate to the climate crisis?
Let’s look at Sweden. Recall that the average Swede is considerably happier than the average American even though their climate footprints are one fourth of ours.
The average person in Sweden, who makes almost as much money as the average person in the US, works five days a week, six hours a day. That’s right, the average work week is 30 hours. Only a very tiny percentage of people (1%) work more than 50 hours per week. By contrast, 40% of Americans work more than 50 hours per week; half of them work than 60 hours per week (source). Hence, one in five Americans literally works twice as many hours per week as the average Swede.
Everyone in Sweden receives 25 paid vacation days per year, and larger companies typically offer even more. All parents receive 480 days of paid paternity leave to split between them (source). As there are 235 working days per year (52 weeks times 5 day minus 25 vacation days), that’s one year of paternity leave – per parent.
There are, of course, differences between Sweden and the U.S that impact their climate footprints. For example, Sweden currently relies more on nuclear energy than the US.
However, over a third of their electricity comes from hydroelectric sources – a whopping three times more than the US. (source). In terms of consumption rather than production, we have twice as many cars per person as they do. Our houses are, on average, roughly twice as larger than theirs.
I am not saying that life in Sweden is perfect. There are problems there, like everywhere else.
But just look at the relative climate impact between Sweden and the US. Everything else being equal, the average Swede has a carbon footprint that’s a quarter of the average Americans. But everything is not equal, as it is a much colder climate. Americans living in a comparable climate (Alaska) are emitting twice as much carbon dioxide as our nation’s average. Hence, adjusted for their colder climate, the average Swede is may well be emitting something like one eighth of the average American’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Currently, the average person in Sweden is responsible for 4.54 for metric tons of CO2 per year. If, for reasons of argument, we adjusted that for the average American climate, it would then get cut in half, to around 2.25 metric tons of CO2 for American – which would be right around where we need to be to meet the goals of the Paris Accord signed at Cop 21.
Of course, these are back-of-napkin calculations, but people in the developed world can – and do! – not only get by, but live quite well with relatively small climate footprints.
In terms of our current discussion, they can also live happier lives than most Americans.
We are often told that adapting to climate change will mean that we have to live drab of deprivation and require us to do without quite a bit.
However, if we make this sort of changes that we have been looking at in this course, might we come out the other end, decades from now, happier? I will leave you with this question.
Class discussion of Happy
Note that the following observations, which are in italics, have not been paraphrased or altered, though I do correct the occasional typo and, because of space concerns, often just part of the comment is reproduced here along with my reply. In working through these, I will first quote a student’s observation, followed by my thoughts.
“I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.” – Jim Carrey
[W] hile the message of the film has good intentions, I would find it difficult to convince those who are in deep struggle or poverty that money won’t give happiness. Security is an amazing feeling, and the United States, it is apparently not a right for everyone to be house or to a basic income.
One of my favorite quotes from the film is “…with happiness, the more you have, the more everyone has.” I think the statement is a stark contrast with our concept of money and material wealth. I also believe that this statement symbolizes humans’ motivation for cooperation, rather than the motivation for competition between one another.
What really resonated with me is when a person in the film explained that happiness is a skill that you have to develop.
As we are in the middle of both a climate and mental health crisis, our leaders aren’t more focused on the correlation pointed out by Ken and the film “Happy.” The American ideals such as big homes, cars, and lots of stuff are carbon fueled desires. It is absurd to me that as a country, we are not concerned more about how the people whose lives aren’t aimed towards this carbon lifestyle are living much happier lives than us. A man like Bernie Sanders, who simply tries to point out the kind of democracy in Scandinavian that do provide things like healthcare and education to their people, is often called radical or laughed at by conservatives in America. I feel almost as though we’ve been brainwashed. Despite being presented with the fact that big homes, nice cars, and a surplus of stuff do not correlate with happiness, consumerism is still shoved down our throats on the daily and we eat it up. As a generation I feel like we must take initiative and start acknowledging that these ideals are causing most of us to live tireless, and unfulfilling lives. If we don’t, a small portion of people will continue to hoard wealth while over half of the country will suffer and and work to survive, all while we destroy our planet its life in the process.
The part of the documentary that stood out the most to me was the co-housing opportunities in Denmark. It is such a counter-cultural lifestyle when considered in our rather greedy American context, yet I found it to be a very attractive idea. It made sense in every way I could think of. It is more practical, as it gives you more time (since chores and cooking are shared responsibilities). It provides community to watch over your children and be extra helping hands. It also appears to be more fun. It sort of combines the best part of college, where you can be living in close proximity to many friends while still having your own space, with the best part of adulthood, growing a community with friends and raising a family. I found myself wishing I grew up in Denmark, where there is additionally free healthcare and public education through college. People in Denmark might not have their own room in a giant house, or their own car, but they seem to be just as happy as us Americans, and most-likely even happier. There is a lot to be learned from Denmark. I believe that if they can live fulfilling and more sustainable lives, so can we
I could not help but make connections to the Climate Crisis while watching this film. This film highlights the higher levels of happiness humans can achieve when working as a community or team. The Climate Crisis is going to take a unprecedented amount of teamwork to be addressed effectively. Through breaking down our fetishized relationship with the individual we can work to attain higher levels of cohesiveness in society that will work in our benefit when addressing the climate crisis. This climate aware community could not only be a strong force of climate action, but also serve to uplift the happiness in each and every person. The film provides the example of Okinawa, Japan and the people’s ability to work as a cohesive unit. Although not directed at the climate, this unification of peoples that are interested in the betterment of things other than their own personal wealth, can be a powerful framework to follow in the years to come.
This film was purposefully made, and made well. It’s deep and scientific approach to happiness intrigued me and made me analyze myself. I was curious to see what others had to say about this article, and as I was reading the comments, I saw a lot of the same thoughts as mine. This film made me think, and ultimately I decided that a lot of the things in my life that I thought made me “happy” are just not doing it. Of course I got the message that materialism doesn’t make me happy, but that really wasn’t a big takeaway for me. I began to realize during this film that happiness needs to come from the mundane. It doesn’t need to come from Mexico trips, or Disneyworld, or going to a party, it should come from the things I do everyday. It was so amazing to see everyone’s perspective in this. The analysis of happiness is always an important facet of life. I really enjoyed this connection to the course, I love how it somehow fits right into the material, even though it is not outwardly tied to the climate crisis. This is such an important moment in all of our lives, we have so much time in life to make change, and this is the time where we get to figure out what makes us happy. Like the woman who was run over by a truck, motivation is key. Everyone has something that can motivate them to push through and forge a better life, and hopefully I, and we all, can find that soon.
After watching happy, I think has brought our central topic of the Course to another level. Before I have watched the movie, I have heard a lot about the studies on happiness from my major. As presented at the beginning, psychologists have been trying to seek the factors that influence happiness and they have found that to live a happy life, one needs to have basic needs met, then have friends and families, and have time to do activities one enjoys. On the opposite side, psychologists claimed that the material goods can’t make a people happier than those who don’t have them, rather, these kind of people will be more stressed and depressed since they need to work hard for their desires. This information further supports the things we have discussed in earlier weeks that we don’t need lots of clothes, lots of cars, biggest house to be happy and if we don’t want these things, we can protect our climate at the same time.
One person that I remembered the most was the lady in Denmark who was divorced with three girls. According to her, she was depressed because she had no goals in life and can’t stand the pressure on her shoulders. However, she found the co-housing community where 20 different families live together to share meals, spend times together. This kind of co-housing concept has been so popular in Denmark as a way to reduce environmental pollution and connect people together. Each family is only responsible for two meals in a month and they will have more time to do what they want each day and be able to communicate with each others to increase their satisfactory level for life. As the lady in the film, she was able to find a place where she is cared by her neighbors and her kids were loved by others kids and adults in the same community. It helped them to get over the depressing past and face a better future. So as one can see, the co-housing solution for climate change seems hard and uncomfortable at first, but it can better increase the satisfaction in life and make people happier overall yet at the same time protect the climate.
It is great that Ken has been talking about how climate protect is important not only for the earth but also for ourselves. Maybe people will have doubts toward climate change and its solutions, but it is clear to see that these solutions can impact how good we live and our happiness even when people didn’t apply these solutions for climate protection.
I watched “Happy” in English 22, but it was a great refresher after taking the course in 2019. What caught my attention this time were the people from developing countries who prioritized the happiness of their people. For example, Bhutan does not prioritize economic policies, but instead focuses on the happiness of their people. They do this because they began to see people losing their cultures, environments, and social systems. The Rickshaw driver at the beginning of the film stated that despite angry customers and his tiring job, he was happy. He said “I feel that I am not poor, but I am the richest person,” after describing how his family brings him happiness. This reminds me of my grandparents who are Mexican immigrants. They didn’t grow up rich nor were they rich when they came to America so they always explained that they found happiness in people and their family. They always taught me to appreciate what I had, to care for family and others, and to help those around me. One particular story my grandpa told me at a young age stood out after rewatching this film. He told me that when he was young he used to help his mom sell tortillas door-to-door. Every once in awhile his mother would give him a small portion of the money he made to treat himself and his brother. He would specifically buy a coca-cola drink in these instances. He said that even though he was poor, helping out his mother and this small treat made him the happiest little boy. Similar to what the film stated, the more people help each other and appreciate those around them, the happier they are. The intrinsic values that the film explains are personal growth, relationships, and the desire to help others. It is proven that these values improve happiness more than extrinsic values, which leave you less satisfied with life.
I expected to feel hopeful and comforted while watching “Happy,” and at first I did, but I mostly felt disappointed. I knew a Western capitalist lifestyle wasn’t treating me right, but now a better lifestyle is staring me in the face asking why I’ve wasted so much time. I’m inspired by these people living simple lives in tight-knit communities, and I want to abandon my suburban home filled with stuff I don’t need surrounded by neighbors whose names I don’t know to go live a life with more meaning, but if I do that then what was the point of all the time I’ve spent working? So many of my goals revolve around capital success, and coming to terms with the fact that maybe that shouldn’t be a top priority means accepting that I’ve made a lot of sacrifices that I didn’t need to. I know I’m young and there’s ample time to change course, but I feel like the capitalist spirit of competition has taken years off my life.
Realistically, I know the answer is to gradually model my life after those that inspire me. This is doable, and that’s comforting. I think it’s really interesting that so much of a climate crisis class has centered on happiness (minimalism, mindfulness, community, etc.), which seems entirely unrelated to the climate. I think there’s a lot to be said about being connected with the world and how harm to the planet is harm to ourselves, but I’ll leave that to a more spiritual person than myself. I also think it’s worth noting that a lot of the changes we’ve been advised to make, for both the environment and our wellbeing, bring us back to a way of life that our culture would consider “primitive.” We owe indigenous peoples and developing nations a MASSIVE apology for – among many, many other wrongs – demonizing parts of their lifestyles that are exactly what’s going to get us out of the deep hole we’ve dug. We should be begging for their input on how to solve the climate crisis and the cultural problems we caused, because in a lot of important ways they know a lot better than us.
While watching the film “Happy” I was reminded of the Positive Psychology seminar that I have been taking for the last two quarters. I found it so interesting and incredibly inspiring that psychologists want to study happiness instead of studying the things going wrong in our psyches. Both the seminar and this film help to reaffirm my gratefulness for what I have in the present moment; they also give me time to reflect on all the privileges and wonderful memories I had while I was growing up. Yes I did not have much because my family is poorer than others, but I am almost positive I have had more laughter in my life than most people I know. I pride myself on enjoying the little things and telling people I love them with every ounce of genuineness I can muster. I haven’t always been able to count my blessings or smile/laugh from deep in my gut because for the longest time I did not think I deserved life, let alone happiness. I am so utterly grateful I can enjoy my life with the ones I love and look to a bright future even with all of the atrocities that are happening all around the world and me. Life is a perfect gift and there is no one out there who can change my mind about that.
“[C]are about something bigger than yourself to cultivate happiness”, is the quote that stuck with me from this film “Happy”. Happiness has been proven to be more about feelings of compassion, gratitude, and acceptance rather than successes checked off on a checklist. People who are happier are not striving just for their own happiness but for the betterment and happiness of those around them. Just as the man in the film quit his banking career to volunteer and help those in need felt more whole than the following pursuit of money and material things. I think this message has been said within my life quite a bit, but I feel like it speaks to me more than ever as I decide what kind of career/life path I want to start setting myself down. I could choose a profession that guarantees a great income or I can set aside material things and look to what I am truly compassionate about and also see how I can strive to make the world a better place. That sounds so cheesy but it’s true as the world is so focused on material wants and gains rather than how a certain job or action makes a person feel.
I think what most connected to me was the guy who had been surfing since 1966. While my life definitely revolves around more than surfing, it brings me a certain type of happiness that only surfing gives me. If you’ve ever paid attention, you’ll see that there are always surfers in the water, even if the waves are absolutely terrible. Sometimes people will surf “just to get in the water”. There’s something very calm and serene about just sitting out in the lineup in your own thoughts. In today’s world, people are impatient; they need things done down to the second. In surfing, you have to wait for waves, sometimes for 10-15 minutes. Whether you’re sitting waiting for a wave or actually surfing on one, the whole experience is refreshing. If I’ve had a long day or I’m frustrated about something, paddling out always seems to help. In my experience, you can’t beat a good sunset session.
After watching this film, I immediately called me Grandma and urged her to watch it. I’m honestly not too sure why I thought of her from the get go because she is one of the happiest people I know, and you’d think maybe you’d refer this film to someone who needed one happiness in their life. Nevertheless, my Grandma called me back within hours and told me how much she enjoyed the film and how she resonated with it. My Grandma has been around the world and has talked to probably millions of people of different countries, languages, and cultures at this rate and I’m sure she saw some of what “Happy” portrayed in those people. What I got from my conversation with my Grandma was that we don’t need much to be happy. All we need is the happiness of life, friends, and family. Most people get so caught up on the little things and forget what really matters in life. I think we all should take a step back and evaluate what brings us joy, and if these things are temporary joys or are really fulfilling. I feel like I’m rambling at this point but I just really enjoyed this week’s film and hope that everyone else who watched felt the same as I did after watching it.