As with most things I look to the rational and reasonable middle for solutions and hope. Doomerism isn't helpful but neither is denial or dismissal, i.e. It's not real or it's caused by man or it's not that serious. Without hope we end up at defeatism or despair. When it comes to climate change, we must never give up or surrender.
4. In 2022, "renewables met 90% of last year’s global growth in electricity generation. Solar PV and wind generation each increased by around 275 TWh, a new annual record." , https://www.iea.org/reports/co2-emissions-in-2022# .
6. Young adults are more likely to believe that climate change is real and caused by man and willing to take action and vote based on those beliefs, i.e., Time is not on our side but things will get better/easier as deniers and contrarians age out.
We need to be optimistic but realistic about changes that we can make at a personal, local and national level. Maybe 1.5 C is out of reach but as Zeke Hausfather says "Every tenth of degree matters" and we should do what we can to make a difference.
The biggest negative, and probably least useful, emotion I feel is that which I feel towards seemingly intelligent people who make one or more of the incoherent claims along the lines of "hoax", "it's real, but not nearly as bad as the doomers think", "how can changing my lifestyle change anything, anyway?", etc.
Most of us reading this live in democracies and we have to take those opinions into account for the policies that are adopted, but there's a real fear that there's two minutes left in the game and we're a goal down and we're being forced to get the ball to the player that doesn't have a chance to score because their parents own the stadium.
Climate change has already tipped the natural world into a series of cascading changes we humans are incapable of grasping...where numbers from the past to predict a future become increasingly suspect.
I agree we should use hope to avoid despair, but we can't hope for things to be like they were. Let's instead use hope to imagine a world where political and economic ideas deviate from the ideologies that accelerated the change toward theories and practice that help repair the damage.
There are two seeming gaps in your argument that it would be great to hear how you address:
1. You use "We" in multiple ways. When you say "think of what can be done if we commit to changing things" are you referring to humanity, tech innovators, 'policymakers, governments, and industry,' or civilians like most of your readers? Your readers can "commit" all we want, but that's not the same as making government policies fundamentally change, and even the limited advances of the recent U.S. IRA legislation are far too little and still vulnerable to political backsliding and outright opposition.
2. When you say "there is something we can do about it," you don't state what that means in practice. It's great that you "try to focus on solutions" but what does that actually mean for readers here, who are far too intelligent and well-informed to believe that their individual behavior buying a Tesla, doing Meatless Monday, or taking one or two fewer plane flights a year are meaningfully bending the curve of global carbon emissions.
Very good. In my experience, the stages/aspects of grief are a fair and helpful model through which to observe, identify and “process” what’s happening as we begin to get this crisis “in our bones.” It’s hard to make a paradigm shift like this, and anyone who’s sincerely looking and learning will move through them all, and more, as that transformation progresses. “Stages” isn’t right, because we do repeatedly cycle through them all, punctuated also by active agency and hope and joy at a beautiful sunset…yes, you’re right, we’re complex beings and this situation is the mother of all complexity. ☮️♻️🌍🧡
Dear Hannah, Do you know a small psychological experiment that shows how our brain works in front of complex problems ? You take 100 people and make a test : 50 will get 10 easy anagrams to do and the others 10 very complex anagrams with even some impossible to do. The 3rd word will be the same for both groups. And after 10mn you see the results :
the first group has succeeded for 80% to get all the words and nearly 100% get the third word.
The secund group has, of course, all failed (some words were not existing) but more surprisingly only 30% have found the third word !
It seems that when we think that we could not solve a problem, our brain gives up !
So I think your work is vital : inform about the positive things that are happening in climate change will keep our brains alive and our body ready for actions !
Great piece Hannah! I actually wrote a Substack article about the intersection of feelings and climate change for the publication I oversee as well (Proven Sustainable). Beyond your key points, I addressed the societal / economic systems we're a part of that influence our emotions and efforts to be sustainable. Would love to hear your thoughts (or anyone else who finds this interesting) https://provensustainable.substack.com/p/what-do-feelings-have-to-do-with
My main emotion for years now has been anger at the way in which "climate change" is being used as an excuse to increase inequality.
For example, instead of the government doing a crash, emergency, full-scale programme of insulating the housing of lower-decile people, it's taking the VAT that the poor pay, and handing it to the well-off in the form of subsidies for new electric vehicles, or for PV feed-in tariffs for roof-top PV installations, or any of the other "incentive schemes".
Nor are things like upgrading public transport, urban densification and removal of green belts, basing taxation on unimproved land value with real penalty surcharges for unnoccupied housing, or proper taxes on air travel being undertaken.
Poor people don't buy new cars or rooftop PV systems. These "incentive schemes", handouts to the wealthy, are the least effective and most socially harmful of the things governments could actually do about climate change. They are just handouts to the groups most likely to vote.
From where I sit, it looks like politicians are using "climate change" as cover to bribe voters. Neither politicians nor grey voters actually want to do anything effective.
You hit on an important point. Protest is not change. Its understandable and it may lead to change but protesting is not doing something about the problem. I am not convinced that concern, fear, guilt etc will carry us very far either. All logical reactions to the climate crisis but at a population level these things don't drive change.
I don't have the answer to what does. But its some combination of defending what you have and desire for a better future. Almost everything in the climate debate misses the second half of that. Instead of just "how do we stop this happening" we need more of "why the future world will be better"
Whilst it seems like it is up to the voting public to make the issue(s) a high priority rather than expect those in positions of high trust to act like they have a duty of care all on their own I do think we need economy wide change as a priority - building an abundance of zero emissions energy so everyone's primary energy is low emissions - rather than expect concerned people to somehow fix the problem through personal lifestyle choices.
If invaders were rolling down our streets we wouldn't fob off people's calls for a coordinated nationwide response because they haven't being sacrificing themselves sufficiently in (ineffective) personal actions, let alone claim that therefore the invaders are imaginary - especially as those in government and business already know, with much better resources to make sense of the science based advice than any ordinary citizen.
Well, it is possible to achieve a sense of normalcy even with having to adapt to climate change so that an emotional response or loss aversion does not happen. But society has to start further upstream and allow for more time to make the transition, which so far it has been reluctant to do. It would rather pretend that it is unnecessary. The thing that must happen further upstream is a universal, mandated education program called Human Ecology. It starts in kindergarten and goes all the way through college, every year, in every school - 3 hours/week. It is the study of the relationships each person has with the human ecosystem, all the skills needed, the complex social systems, the psycho-social abilities. Climate and the natural world is one of the sectors in our ecosystem. So, by the time a young person has matriculated and transitioned to adulthood, they are more mature, have realistic concept of living in the climate that is the new natural, and understand how the pie should be divided fairly. Our dream will have become their normal, willingly. This kind of education is what can guarantee democracy and real equality. Start early and teach the whole ecosystem.
I think you’re right about hope. We all need hope or what’s the point.
I’d say we need to take action that will make a difference but also set the right example.
For a developed country such as the UK or the US this needs to be about creating the technology that the rest of the world can use to develop sustainably and affordably.
Poor countries will not voluntarily stay poor to save the world. Why should they?
An optimistic summary for worried people. Peak oil and coal, and soon peak population has been achieved. As sustainable methods of generation and consumption of electricity get cheaper and more ubiquitous, CO2 emissions will reduce hugely. Mammals evolved when the global temperature was 12 degrees higher than now so humankind will survive.
The natural emissions count but how much nature takes back - all the natural plus a big chunk of the human extra or global warming would be worse - doesn't?
Like claiming a hose running into a swimming pool won't make the water level rise because compared to the filter return pipe (that doesn't make the level rise) it is only a small "source" of water , ie either profoundly ignorant of basic facts or don't care about facts.
As with most things I look to the rational and reasonable middle for solutions and hope. Doomerism isn't helpful but neither is denial or dismissal, i.e. It's not real or it's caused by man or it's not that serious. Without hope we end up at defeatism or despair. When it comes to climate change, we must never give up or surrender.
Here are things that give me hope.
1. Most climate scientists no longer believe we are headed towards an IPCC worse-case emissions scenario, e.g. Zeke Hausfather, https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/emissions-are-no-longer-following and "The case for cautious climate hope." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgosvsTWC-k
2. Experts are projecting that we will reach peak global emissions sometime in this decade, https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/oil-and-gas/our-insights/charting-the-global-energy-landscape-to-2050-emissions .
3. The U.S. has reduced it's electrical sector emissions by 40% between 2000 and 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2023/clean-energy-electricity-sources/?itid=sf_climate_climate-lab_article_list .
4. In 2022, "renewables met 90% of last year’s global growth in electricity generation. Solar PV and wind generation each increased by around 275 TWh, a new annual record." , https://www.iea.org/reports/co2-emissions-in-2022# .
5. The U.S. Senate recently passed a bipartisan bill in support of the development of advanced nuclear energy, https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases-republican?ID=A9A2059C-DC4A-4716-BFB1-FF5A384B4BB0 .
6. Young adults are more likely to believe that climate change is real and caused by man and willing to take action and vote based on those beliefs, i.e., Time is not on our side but things will get better/easier as deniers and contrarians age out.
We need to be optimistic but realistic about changes that we can make at a personal, local and national level. Maybe 1.5 C is out of reach but as Zeke Hausfather says "Every tenth of degree matters" and we should do what we can to make a difference.
The biggest negative, and probably least useful, emotion I feel is that which I feel towards seemingly intelligent people who make one or more of the incoherent claims along the lines of "hoax", "it's real, but not nearly as bad as the doomers think", "how can changing my lifestyle change anything, anyway?", etc.
Most of us reading this live in democracies and we have to take those opinions into account for the policies that are adopted, but there's a real fear that there's two minutes left in the game and we're a goal down and we're being forced to get the ball to the player that doesn't have a chance to score because their parents own the stadium.
‘Researchers do not know what emotion is ‘most effective’ in driving climate action. Good studies on this are lacking.’
Activists fixation on doom appears pretty counterproductive, and fueling the inability to find compromises that transcend tribal politics.
Climate change has already tipped the natural world into a series of cascading changes we humans are incapable of grasping...where numbers from the past to predict a future become increasingly suspect.
I agree we should use hope to avoid despair, but we can't hope for things to be like they were. Let's instead use hope to imagine a world where political and economic ideas deviate from the ideologies that accelerated the change toward theories and practice that help repair the damage.
There are two seeming gaps in your argument that it would be great to hear how you address:
1. You use "We" in multiple ways. When you say "think of what can be done if we commit to changing things" are you referring to humanity, tech innovators, 'policymakers, governments, and industry,' or civilians like most of your readers? Your readers can "commit" all we want, but that's not the same as making government policies fundamentally change, and even the limited advances of the recent U.S. IRA legislation are far too little and still vulnerable to political backsliding and outright opposition.
2. When you say "there is something we can do about it," you don't state what that means in practice. It's great that you "try to focus on solutions" but what does that actually mean for readers here, who are far too intelligent and well-informed to believe that their individual behavior buying a Tesla, doing Meatless Monday, or taking one or two fewer plane flights a year are meaningfully bending the curve of global carbon emissions.
I honestly believe that climate doom is causing more suffering than climate change, at least at the moment.
But climate change is worse than it needs to be, because of many people who claim to be concerned.
https://www.mattball.org/2023/08/net-zero-in-practice-is-war-on-poor.html
Very good. In my experience, the stages/aspects of grief are a fair and helpful model through which to observe, identify and “process” what’s happening as we begin to get this crisis “in our bones.” It’s hard to make a paradigm shift like this, and anyone who’s sincerely looking and learning will move through them all, and more, as that transformation progresses. “Stages” isn’t right, because we do repeatedly cycle through them all, punctuated also by active agency and hope and joy at a beautiful sunset…yes, you’re right, we’re complex beings and this situation is the mother of all complexity. ☮️♻️🌍🧡
Dear Hannah, Do you know a small psychological experiment that shows how our brain works in front of complex problems ? You take 100 people and make a test : 50 will get 10 easy anagrams to do and the others 10 very complex anagrams with even some impossible to do. The 3rd word will be the same for both groups. And after 10mn you see the results :
the first group has succeeded for 80% to get all the words and nearly 100% get the third word.
The secund group has, of course, all failed (some words were not existing) but more surprisingly only 30% have found the third word !
It seems that when we think that we could not solve a problem, our brain gives up !
So I think your work is vital : inform about the positive things that are happening in climate change will keep our brains alive and our body ready for actions !
Thanks a lot.
Great piece Hannah! I actually wrote a Substack article about the intersection of feelings and climate change for the publication I oversee as well (Proven Sustainable). Beyond your key points, I addressed the societal / economic systems we're a part of that influence our emotions and efforts to be sustainable. Would love to hear your thoughts (or anyone else who finds this interesting) https://provensustainable.substack.com/p/what-do-feelings-have-to-do-with
My main emotion for years now has been anger at the way in which "climate change" is being used as an excuse to increase inequality.
For example, instead of the government doing a crash, emergency, full-scale programme of insulating the housing of lower-decile people, it's taking the VAT that the poor pay, and handing it to the well-off in the form of subsidies for new electric vehicles, or for PV feed-in tariffs for roof-top PV installations, or any of the other "incentive schemes".
Nor are things like upgrading public transport, urban densification and removal of green belts, basing taxation on unimproved land value with real penalty surcharges for unnoccupied housing, or proper taxes on air travel being undertaken.
Poor people don't buy new cars or rooftop PV systems. These "incentive schemes", handouts to the wealthy, are the least effective and most socially harmful of the things governments could actually do about climate change. They are just handouts to the groups most likely to vote.
From where I sit, it looks like politicians are using "climate change" as cover to bribe voters. Neither politicians nor grey voters actually want to do anything effective.
You hit on an important point. Protest is not change. Its understandable and it may lead to change but protesting is not doing something about the problem. I am not convinced that concern, fear, guilt etc will carry us very far either. All logical reactions to the climate crisis but at a population level these things don't drive change.
I don't have the answer to what does. But its some combination of defending what you have and desire for a better future. Almost everything in the climate debate misses the second half of that. Instead of just "how do we stop this happening" we need more of "why the future world will be better"
Well worth the reading. Thanks.
Whilst it seems like it is up to the voting public to make the issue(s) a high priority rather than expect those in positions of high trust to act like they have a duty of care all on their own I do think we need economy wide change as a priority - building an abundance of zero emissions energy so everyone's primary energy is low emissions - rather than expect concerned people to somehow fix the problem through personal lifestyle choices.
If invaders were rolling down our streets we wouldn't fob off people's calls for a coordinated nationwide response because they haven't being sacrificing themselves sufficiently in (ineffective) personal actions, let alone claim that therefore the invaders are imaginary - especially as those in government and business already know, with much better resources to make sense of the science based advice than any ordinary citizen.
Well, it is possible to achieve a sense of normalcy even with having to adapt to climate change so that an emotional response or loss aversion does not happen. But society has to start further upstream and allow for more time to make the transition, which so far it has been reluctant to do. It would rather pretend that it is unnecessary. The thing that must happen further upstream is a universal, mandated education program called Human Ecology. It starts in kindergarten and goes all the way through college, every year, in every school - 3 hours/week. It is the study of the relationships each person has with the human ecosystem, all the skills needed, the complex social systems, the psycho-social abilities. Climate and the natural world is one of the sectors in our ecosystem. So, by the time a young person has matriculated and transitioned to adulthood, they are more mature, have realistic concept of living in the climate that is the new natural, and understand how the pie should be divided fairly. Our dream will have become their normal, willingly. This kind of education is what can guarantee democracy and real equality. Start early and teach the whole ecosystem.
Well said.
I think you’re right about hope. We all need hope or what’s the point.
I’d say we need to take action that will make a difference but also set the right example.
For a developed country such as the UK or the US this needs to be about creating the technology that the rest of the world can use to develop sustainably and affordably.
Poor countries will not voluntarily stay poor to save the world. Why should they?
An optimistic summary for worried people. Peak oil and coal, and soon peak population has been achieved. As sustainable methods of generation and consumption of electricity get cheaper and more ubiquitous, CO2 emissions will reduce hugely. Mammals evolved when the global temperature was 12 degrees higher than now so humankind will survive.
It might be an optimistic summary, but I'm afraid it's also false.
Oil demand for 2023 is the highest ever (https://www.iea.org/reports/oil-market-report-july-2023).
Coal production is also still rising (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/coal-production-by-country?country=~OWID_WRL).
And for population I think 'soon has been achieved' could more reasonably be formulated as 'has not been achieved'.
It's fine to be optimistic just try not to rely too much on falsehoods and delusion
The natural emissions count but how much nature takes back - all the natural plus a big chunk of the human extra or global warming would be worse - doesn't?
Like claiming a hose running into a swimming pool won't make the water level rise because compared to the filter return pipe (that doesn't make the level rise) it is only a small "source" of water , ie either profoundly ignorant of basic facts or don't care about facts.