“What do you think is the most misunderstood thing about climate?”
I’m excited to be doing a lot more speaking on climate change this year, with EarthX this month and TEDx in June serving as two especially big opportunities on the horizon. Giving talks is one of my favorite things to do, and climate is one of my favorite topics.
But with that being the case, I should probably be a little bit more prepared for questions like one I got from a fellow speaker at one of these events.
“What do you think is the most misunderstood thing about climate?”
It’s not that I had a hard time coming up with an answer… but that I could probably come up with too many.
The things that people misunderstand about climate are all over the place. There are people who aren’t taking the issue seriously enough. There are people who take it seriously, but who are so frozen by a sense of dread that they’ve resigned all hope.
Both are common misunderstandings that require opposite counter-messages.
There are some concepts that aren’t necessarily misunderstood, but that I think are vastly overlooked and should be getting more attention. Like the way most climate actions have so many co-benefits that investing in them should be a no-brainer. The way planting trees on farmland helps prevent famine for subsistence farmers while also soaking up carbon, for example. Or for a more urban example, the way walkable cities not only reduce emissions, but make for more fun social environments where I’d actually want to live.
Then there are the conversations where people frequently get hung up on. Like the tension between being able to do something as individuals while acknowledging that the action we need in order to prevent climate disaster sits at a more systemic level.
See what I mean? So many conversations within the broader climate conversation deserve a closer look.
With that said, I think I can settle in on what might be the most dangerous misunderstanding when it comes to climate change. We often believe that we’re unable to do something that actually matters.
It’s easy to get fatalistic about climate change. You read the latest reports and they often only seem to confirm your worst fears. We are running out of time.
Perhaps at another time you were more motivated to do the simple things. Recycle. Use coral safe sunscreen. But then you realize most of the things you tried to recycle were probably shipped off to Malaysia. And your coral safe sunscreen didn’t do much with 1.2 million tons of oil being spilled in the same ocean that same year.
I’m not surprised many people have felt disempowered by this experience. But there’s a reframing of things that I find really helpful.
Our planet is basically one giant interconnected community. Within an ecosystem, every part affects all the other parts. That’s why when you introduce or remove a new predator or food source, things quickly get thrown out of whack. Everything is interdependent, and our current understanding of how the atmosphere works drives home this reality even further.
My daily choices have an effect that extends all the way to rural communities at sea level in Ethiopia or Bangladesh. Their impact may be diluted, averaged out with all the behaviors of the rest of the world, but it still contributes.
This interconnectedness doesn’t just apply to environmental things like emissions and hydrology. I think ideas and behaviors can spread out and influence our world similarly. And just like our environmental impact can be positive or negative, our social influence can be as well.
When it comes to climate action, I do believe influence works. There’s something about seeing somebody commit to a behavior or action with joy, enthusiasm, or earnestness that spikes curiosity.
Conversation works. Being able to honestly and healthily express your concerns for the planet can stop the human imagination from getting siloed.
Finally, pressure works. Taking it to the streets, the airwaves, TikTok, or the mailboxes of elected leaders pays off. It might not always feel like it, but it does. I can’t not acknowledge the uptick in climate action since the student climate strikes really took off in 2019. Right before the U.S. ratified the Inflation Reduction Act, our strongest climate legislation to date, young people staged hunger strikes at the White House, and sit-ins in Senate offices.
We don’t have to worry so much about whether or not we can singlehandedly change things. Singlehandedly, we can’t. But as members of a community? We can’t not change things. Our very existence changes things. We simply get to choose what changes we’ll try and lean into.