TED Radio Hour - Less guilt, more joy: A new chapter for climate action

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

Climate action usually means sacrifice: eat less meat, buy less, drive less. What if there's another approach? Researcher Elizabeth Dunn shares climate hacks that help the planet AND make us happier.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

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From Ted and NPR. I'm Manushe Zamoroti. And today's show starts with conflict in a relationship. So when I moved to Vancouver, I lived with my boyfriend, Chris, and he was a passionate advocate for climate change, which I really respected. But honestly, it made him pretty hard to live with. This is social psychologist Elizabeth Dunn. For one thing, when I left a room, if I didn't turn off all the lights, he would shoot me this withering look.

Like, why do you hate the earth? You know? And there was a lot of sort of shaming. And so I kind of associated that feeling of not being good enough, of not living up to this high standard with the climate change movement. And honestly, I think that kept me outside of it for a long time. Liz felt like a lot of us do, that it's impossible to live an environmental. friendly life and that climate warriors like her ex just make us feel bad about our habits and not want to think about the warming planet at all. But Liz started to see things very differently when

she talked to a colleague at work, climate expert Zhang Zhao, who goes by Jay-Z for short. I learned that, you know, Chris's shaming looks were actually misplaced. She calculated for me that I could leave the lights on in my two-bedroom condo for the rest of my life, and the carbon emissions cost would be equivalent to eating 13 hamburgers. Oh my gosh. Are you kidding me? Now, here's the thing. Where you get your energy is a very important question.

But if you live in a place with clean energy, then the choice to kind of leave your lights on just doesn't matter that much. And again, some people have gotten mad at me because they're like, it's so important to turn the lights off. Like, it's going to bother me to leave the lights on. And I am not saying you've got to leave the lights on from now on. Like, by all means, if it gives you a sense of satisfaction to turn the lights off, turn those lights off. That's great. But don't shame other people for not turning the lights off and show yourself some compassion. If you just ran out of the house and realized the lights are still on, that's okay. It's not going to matter that much.

And in fact, so many of the things that we've been told are really important, just turn out to be pretty trivial when you really do the math. That said, other things really do matter. And so one of the things that I wanted to figure out, once I learned this, I wanted to figure out, okay, so what really matters and what doesn't? And can we just let those things go that don't matter and focus on those higher impact actions and find the ones that actually make us feel good? The idea that climate change has gotten too depressing to talk about much less act on really bothered Liz, because she is a very well-known happiness researcher who has spent more than two decades at the University of British Columbia studying which habits bring us more contentment and joy.

Happiness is kind of nature's reinforcer. So if we can change our behavior in a way that actually makes us feel better, we are going to be much more likely to stick with it. So today on the show, how caring for the environment can make us happier, from the food, we choose to eat to the way we travel to how we spend our money, specific habits that have been shown to be both good for the planet and good for our own contentment. It's the premise behind the book, Leave the Lights on, how joyful decisions can save our species by Liz Dunn and her colleague Jay-Z. They believe that this new, more positive approach to climate change can stop

making individuals feel like there's nothing they can possibly do to stop global warming and make them feel more empowered to take actions that actually matter. Before we get into sort of what you discovered, can we talk about how sentiment towards talking about climate change has changed? I feel like there was this moment maybe, I don't know, a few years back, where, climate was everywhere. Everyone was talking about it. And now, honestly, journalists are told, do not put the word climate in your headline because people won't click it. And you even say in your acknowledgments that a book editor said to you, yeah, books about climate don't sell. What is going on with the public image of climate? Is it just too depressing? I think that it did get too depressing for people. People felt like there are a of it. So I think, you know, I would call the 2010s maybe the doom and gloom era of climate change communication. And the thing is that it got people's attention. So I think the focus on kind of scaring people and talking about how, you know, awful everything was made people sit up and listen for a period of time. But the problem is doom and gloom messaging doesn't necessarily. It doesn't

necessarily motivate action. Negative emotions get exhausting over time. So there was a really incredible global mega study looking at 60,000 participants from 63 different countries and testing 11 interventions that were all designed to promote action on climate change. Now, one of these messages was kind of a traditional doom and gloom message about how terrible climate changes and how bad everything's going to be. And at first glance, it looks like that message worked really well. It was one of the messages that people were most likely to share on social media. However, this doom and gloom message actually undermined people's willingness to take a more effortful form of action. So it's not surprising to me that people started to tune out. They felt like, I know what you're going to say. I don't really want to hear this again. And I think that has left us in a moment. moment where people really don't want to talk about climate change and almost just want to pretend that

it's not happening or perhaps that it's not our responsibility as individuals to care. If everything's going to be terrible anyway, why bother taking action, right? Let's dive into the book then. It all starts with a bike ride for you. Set the scene, if you would, and take us there and what you discovered. So I was biking to work. It was a study autumn day. I was enjoying my bike ride, but I was also thinking about climate change, as you do. And I was thinking how it's kind of a bummer that my life's work on happiness had no bearing whatsoever on what I believe is the most important existential challenge of our time. Then I started thinking about biking. So I bike to work because I arrive in a much better mood than if I drive my car. But of course, biking is also one of the most sustainable forms of

transportation. And then it kind of dawned on me that in fact, so many of the things that we need to do as individuals and as societies in order to tackle climate change are also good for our happiness. So when I got to work, I made a B-line for my colleague, J-Z. She's one of the world's leading experts on the behavioral side of climate change. She's also known among our friends as the human carbon calculator because she knows the carbon emissions of basically everything we do. So I kind of spilled out this idea to her. I probably had a little bit of a crazy look in my eye because I was so excited about this idea. But she told me later that she had kind of a light bulb moment where she realized that happiness might be the missing weapon in the fight against

climate change. And from that day forward, we really started working together to try to find what we call sweet spots. So behavioral changes that people can make that, not only help tackle climate change, but also make them happier. So why behavioral changes? Why not, I don't know, nudge for policy change? So there's this notion that governments and businesses need to deal with this problem and individuals have no role to play. And I think governments and businesses have an enormous responsibility to tackle this problem. But all of us have a a role to play too. And in fact, the International Panel on Climate Change says individual behavior change can reduce global emissions by 40 to 70 percent. So in other words, about half of the

difference that could be made in carbon reduction can come from individual action. So I also think that it disempowers people when we make them feel like they have no role to play. Like it's just up to governments and businesses. And then, you know, if it happens to be the case that the government of your country is not prioritizing climate change, then there's just nothing for you to do except maybe sit back and wait a few years until you can vote in a federal election again. And I think that's the wrong message to give people. It's factually wrong and it's disempowering. Okay, I want to push back a little bit. We know that it was BP, British Petroleum, that sort of pushed this concept of every person having a carbon footprint and that each individual

can calculate it for themselves. There are some people who say that this was an attempt by the energy sector to shift the responsibility to individuals off of them. I mean, we see that time and time again. So what is the thinking right now of where actually doing something as little old me makes a difference? Like I just think of, you know, I went to the coffee shop this morning and it said, there was a sign that said, if you'd like a straw, please ask for one. And I feel like we don't even talk about like, straws are terrible. Now it's just a choice.

But like it does that make a difference? Where is that line of like, you know, feeling like being a good citizen versus actually contributing to lessening or protecting our planet? So I think many of the things that we as individuals have been told we should do in order to be good environmentalists or to tell. climate change are indeed trivial. So for example, the straw that you choose is not going to have a massive impact. But there are other things we can do that genuinely do matter. And I think that part of the problem here is that indeed, you know, BP, the oil and gas company, was behind the original carbon footprint notion. And it was a question. And it was a question. And it was a calculated attempt to shift the blame from, you know, big businesses onto individuals. And so that's left

the idea of sort of individual action with this kind of taint. But it's still the case that individual actions can matter. So as one example, you know, we need governments to build safe infrastructure for active transportation. So we need governments to build governments to build. So we need governments to build bike lanes, but we also need individuals to get on their bikes and use those bike lanes. So it's really a yes and kind of situation where we need governments to take action, but then we need individuals to respond. And it's really a kind of reinforcing cycle. And so the notion that we can take individuals out of the equation just makes no sense to me. Because our choices go beyond our own individual action and can influence others.

When we come back, more with author and social psychologist Elizabeth Dunn will get into the nitty-gritty, why eating more maple syrup is good for the planet and why you should go ahead and treat yourself to that non-stop flight. I'm Manushe Zamoroti and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR. Stay with us. Hey there. If you are loving this show, then I have a favor to ask of you, would you mind giving us a review wherever you listen? Like this one from Claire, who says, Ted Radio Hour is a great way to gain knowledge and insights from the brightest minds on the planet. This is my go-to podcast when I'm road-tripping or between true crime binges. Thank you, Claire.

Please consider leaving a rating or a review of your own. It helps more people find us. Okay, back to the show. It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Manus Shumeroody. On the show today, we're talking to Elizabeth Dunn. She is a social psychologist and co-author of the new book, Leave the Lights On, how joyful decisions can save our species. Liz and her collaborator, Zhang Zhao, who goes by Jay-Z, say that by focusing on high-impact climate actions that also bring us joy, we will stick with those habits. we will avoid burnout and help the planet in the long run. Let's dig into that. Should we start off with food and my favorite most delicious tip of yours,

which is that maple syrup is actually good for the planet in addition to being extremely tasty? So maple syrup is like the magical elixir of climate change in the sense that the more maple syrup trees we have in production, the more carbon they're sucking out of the air. And, you know, as a Canadian, I am legally obligated to encourage people to seek out Quebec maple syrup, which in particular has this really great profile of actually reducing carbon. And here's a cool thing. If you have just a teaspoon of maple syrup a day, you can put a whole other maple tree into production. Let's contrast that to chocolate, which unfortunately not great for the planet. You did a study actually. about how one can responsibly enjoy chocolate. Can you tell us about that? So as a happiness researcher, I buy a lot of chocolate. It's a great way to study pleasure. And in one experiment, we brought

students into the lab and asked them to a little bit of chocolate. We observed them and we had them fill out surveys about their enjoyment of the chocolate. Then we politely asked one group of students to please refrain from meaning any chocolate for one whole week. Meanwhile, we sent other students home with a big bag of chocolate and asked them to eat as much as they comfortably could over the ensuing week. And finally, we had a control group that just didn't get any special chocolate-related instructions. Then we brought everybody back into the lab a week later, and once again, asked them to eat a little bit of chocolate. Now, the first thing that popped out of the data is that people enjoyed eating chocolate in our lab less the second week than they did

the first week. And this is like the sad reality of the human experience encapsulated in a single study. When we repeat a pleasurable experience, we tend to enjoy it a little bit less. But there was this important exception. So students who had been asked to temporarily give up chocolate exhibited this enhanced capacity to savor it, to really appreciate it and reap enjoyment from it. So what this tells us is that having high carbon foods that we enjoy, like chocolate, like chocolate, having these high carbon foods we enjoy a little less often, can actually enhance our capacity to savor them. So I've put this into practice with steak. I will admit, as somebody who wrote a book on climate change, I really enjoy steak. Now, the traditional advice

would be I need to give up steak, but instead what I do is I went from having it pretty often, pretty regularly, kind of as a habitual dinner, to having it as a treat. And when I have it, I really enjoy it in a way that I did not when I was having it more regularly. I am curious when you mentioned something like steak, I think oddly, of politics. Because I feel like so from what I've observed is that people, you know, red meat Republicans is something that is a phrase, right? So how do you begin to bridge that divide when a habit becomes associated with a policy? Yeah. So I would say climate change has become a very polarizing issue, at least in the United States.

In contrast, the desire for happiness is universal. So people actually Google how to be happy even more often than how to get rich. So that's one of the reasons that we really want to center happiness in this conversation about climate change because it draws more people in. So I don't think that promoting self-denial is a winning strategy. And when we make environmental policy be tied to this sense that you have to give up things that you enjoy or that somehow you need to display your political identity by making this very specific set of choices, I think it's a losing strategy. I guess I would contrast that, which is, you know, the alternative meat industry that was sort of like taking off three, four years ago. it has kind of not taken off anymore. It is tanking, in fact. Do you think that's related that it was seen as some sort of, I don't know, the people were denying themselves or it was seen as like, oh, those lefty hippies who eat their fake meat? Like, what do you account that for? I mean, I just think fake meat is not that delicious. Maybe that's me. Not only that, beyond meat burgers actually aren't that great in terms of carbon emissions. So you would be better.

better off eating a BLT than a Beyond Meatburger in terms of carbon emissions. So we actually entitled our chapter on food in defense of bacon because bacon is actually not like a super high carbon emissions food. It's very delicious. And you can use just a little bit of it. So like one strip of bacon like sprinkled over some Brussels sprouts makes those Brussels sprouts so much better. And so again, I don't think we should be pitting the desire for pleasure against the desire to fight climate change because really these are compatible approaches to life. Can we just touch back on the point we mentioned earlier about individual action and whether it makes a difference? Because I can imagine someone's like, seriously, lady, you want me to

eat a bacon sandwich and tell me that that's saving the planet. But how do these behavioral changes add up in terms of reducing global emissions? Do we know? So individual choices, while each one you know, doesn't necessarily make a massive difference. So your lunch choice today is not going to determine the future of humanity. It is the case that all of these little choices that we're all making all the time kind of add up. And not only that, but the choices that we make can actually influence the choices other people make in ways we would probably never imagine. So thinking about this in the area of food, one of my favorite little studies on this, was actually done by my colleagues at the University of British Columbia.

So we have this little cafe on our campus where each day there's a vegetarian entree and a meat entree available for lunch. And what my colleagues did was just to surreptitiously observe people placing their lunch orders. So people are just standing in line at this cafeteria, placing their lunch order. What they discovered was that 72% of the time people ordered the exact same dish as the random stranger standing in front of them. I'll have what he's having. Exactly. Right? And so what this means is that your own little action of like choosing that vegetarian entree is actually influencing the person behind you.

And what I think is cool about this study is like if you're somebody who you're trying to make pro-climate choices, you're trying to choose more vegetarian food, you don't need to lecture your friends about this or talk to them about how the world's going to end. Just when the waiter comes over and says, you know, are you ready to. order, you just say yes and place your vegetarian order first. Other people are then going to be more likely to copy you. Can we shift to other habits? We've talked a lot about food. Let's talk about shopping in general. One of the things that I know people say often, at least in my neighborhood, is like, oh, I ordered it from Amazon and then they sort of look at you stricken. Like, I know that's really bad, but I did it anyway. I'm a terrible person. Is that, true? Is ordering online terrible for the environment? Let's leave aside monopoly big tech companies

and whatever people think about Jeff Bezos, but actually for the environment. So the idea that ordering online is inherently bad for the environment is a myth. In fact, online shopping can actually cut emissions in half compared to driving around to all the stores that you need to go to. The The exception there is that online shopping could be a problem if it spurs us to buy things that we don't need. And we want to minimize returns. So it's not so great if you're ordering like seven pairs of jeans online, trying them on and then returning six of them. So that's going to be a problem because most of those jeans are actually not going to get resold. But as long as you are ordering things online and keeping them and using them, then that's actually a pretty efficient strategy. And the reason for this

is that online delivery services typically use highly efficient vehicles and highly efficient routes. So they're actually doing a better job of getting these goods around than we would probably do ourselves. And this is especially true again if you have to drive around to different stores. If you happen to be so lucky as to live in a highly walkable neighborhood where you can just walk to everything, get everything that you need that way, I mean, of course, that's going to be an awesome strategy. But for so many Americans who need to get in their cars to buy the things that they need, it would actually be better to let those things come to you. While we are on the subject of how we spend our money, one of your best known findings is on the

happiness that comes from spending money, not on buying things for ourselves, but actually spending money on other people and giving it away. Can you remind us about that finding? Because, well, we could all always use that reminder. Yeah. So my research suggests that people actually get more happiness from using money to benefit others than to benefit themselves. And in one of our earliest studies on this topic, we actually went out on our beautiful campus at the University of British Columbia armed with cash. And we literally

walked up to people and handed them either a five or a $20 bill, which we asked them to spend by the end of the day. But there was this one catch. So we told half the people they had to use this money to benefit somebody else. We told half the people they had to use this money to benefit themselves. And what we discovered was that people who had been assigned basically by the flip of a coin to use this money to benefit others ended up feeling happier that day compared to people who had been assigned to use that money on themselves. And so when it comes to climate, you know, there's opportunities to make a difference in terms of fighting climate change by donating money to organizations that are doing really wonderful work there. And I think that can be a

great way to use some of our money. So instead of obsessing over what exactly we should buy and whether what we're buying is environmentally friendly enough, instead using some of that bandwidth to just pick a really great climate organization and make a donation, I would love to see people think about their money in that way. So I have saved the final category for last because really what you've said so far works for me. I mostly eat vegetarian. I try to give. charitably, I love maple syrup. But it's the travel. I love to travel. It is the way I like to spend my money. I'm not big on shopping. And I just feel so guilty about it. And it's a huge bummer because I know a lot of people like this is their pleasure to see the world. And the question

that my husband and I are always wrestling with is like, should we just stay home? Give us the low down. on flying and what we should and should not do. So as a happiness researcher, I have done work on how buying experiences provides more joy than buying material things. And this is definitely something that I embrace in my own life. I also love travel. I love vacation. And we wanted to write a chapter of our book on vacation.

But we honestly kept putting it off because we were like, I don't know. This is like we're not going to be able to find any sweet spots here. This is just going to be bad news. But I was so joyfully surprised to discover that I was wrong and that actually there are great ways that we can reduce our carbon emissions while still enjoying the pleasure of travel. For one thing, let's just start by acknowledging that flying does have a really outsized impact in terms of carbon emissions. And this is particularly the case for long haul flights. So, for example, somebody who eats vegan all year long, but then flies from new. to Thailand for the holidays will end up with the same carbon emissions as somebody who was eating

meat all year but stayed home for the holidays. No way. So it really does matter these long-haul flights. But again, that's a New York to Thailand flight. So how far you go really matters. And often we can get somewhere pretty awesome in a two-hour flight and then the carbon emissions aren't going to be all that high. We can also think about making those long-haul vacations, something that we do, but something that's really a treat, something I try to think of it like the Olympics. You know, I want to take my son to Europe. He really wants to see Spain play soccer. I'm like, okay, we will do this, but it's going to be, you know, a very special thing as opposed to just a standard summer vacation. Now, if you are going to fly, taking a nonstop flight really makes a difference. So nonstop flights are going to come with a much lower carbon. price tag than even a one-stop. And this is because fighting gravity to get into the sky burns a lot of fuel. And so we can both save ourselves time and cut carbon by taking direct flights. You can think about taking carry-on baggage only. It turns out that just taking a typical

checked bag on a flight is equivalent to taking an extra six-year-old child on board with you. And I never really thought about that. I just thought of the luggage is like a little accessory to me. But of course, it counts. It matters. So that's that's one strategy that I really like. We can also think about without necessarily eliminating some of those bigger trips, building in some vacations closer to home. There's a really cool study that was conducted in the Netherlands, surveying tourists at different kinds of attractions, doing different kinds of activities. And the goal of the research was to figure out, like, what type of tourist really makes people the happiest. And the short answer was it didn't matter whether people were visiting museums or shopping or eating or exploring. Like they were just having a great time because being a tourist is fun. The one exception was that when people had spent most of that day traveling, they weren't in such a good mood. So it's the travel part of tourism that actually drags down our pleasure. So if we can take that shorter flight or that 20-minute car trip to get to our destination, then we may actually be maximizing the pleasure of tourism.

It can be frustrating to think like, okay, I can do all this and be happy, but there are so many extremely wealthy people who are taking their private jets to their multiple homes that are offsetting any little thing that I do to help the plan. planet. What do you do with feelings like that? Yeah, I mean, I think it's easy to say, oh, well, other people are, you know, having this outsized impact. So what I do doesn't matter and I should just go ahead and enjoy myself. But I think that ultimately that is disempowering. It takes any agency away from us as like regular people going about our lives. I mean, the good news is there aren't that many billionaires. There's a lot more of the rest of us. So potentially,

we have the power to, you know, make choices that actually, again, do add up and make a difference and that other people who are like us are seeing. So it's true that we do sometimes look to, you know, much wealthier people as setting the standard for our own behavior. But we also look to people who are similar to ourselves. And so, again, our choices extend beyond just what we're doing to affect other people who are like us. And we're probably more similar to most folks than they are to billionaires. And actually, that's reminding me of another study that you cite an example that you use in your book about contagious behavior.

Like, for example, that people in neighborhoods where they start putting solar panels on their roof, the neighbors were more likely to do so as well, regardless of their level of income. That's right. So it looks like solar panels are contagious. And so if you do have a little bit more, you know, you know, know, disposable income, and you use some of it to install a heat bump or install solar panels and maybe put them in a highly visible place, that will actually influence those around you.

Conversely, if you buy a new car, other neighbors are more likely to buy a new car. There's actually like randomized controlled trial evidence supporting this idea. So our own choices are influencing those around us in ways that it's hard to even understand. When we come back, Liz's collaborator, Jay-Z, shares some more happy climate hacks, like how to organize your refrigerator. I'm Minnuch Zamoroti, and you're listening to The TED Radio Hour from NPR. Stay with us. It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Manus Shumerodi.

On the show today, a conversation about living a more climate. friendly life and still actually feeling happy. But so far, Elizabeth Dunn walked us through a few of her favorite climate hacks. But her co-author, Zhang Zhao, has even more, which she shared on the 10th stage in 23. Let's start with my pet bunny. A few years ago, my partner and I adopted Greenwich. She's adorable.

She's also a vegan. We have so many plants with vegetables and fruits in our house thanks to Greenwich, and because of that, I'm eating a lot more vegetables myself than I used to. And I'm not kidding. I'm feeling a lot happier. Eating more plants can reduce agricultural emissions by up to 80%. I guess that part you may have known before. But do you also know that a plant-based diet can make you feel happier? decades of medical studies suggest that a plant-based diet can increase both physical and mental health.

In a recent experiment, researchers recruited people from North Dakota who barely ate any vegetables. And they fed these people a plant-based diet for two months. These people on this diet felt a lot happier at the end of two months, and they did before they started the experiment. So researchers think that this is because plants, so fruits, vegetables, are heightened vitamins and phytochemicals that provide both antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits to the brain and the body. So the happy climate action here is eat more plants. But this does not mean never eat meat,

because I can tell you that deprivation is a disaster for happiness. Instead, we should aim for the right balance of meat and plants in our diet that will make us maximally happy. And beyond food, we can turn other things into a treat as well, like shopping. Now, you know that fast fashion has a huge climate impact. So instead of shopping often, make shopping a treat. And here's the happy climate hack. Jackets, jeans, shoes have a lot of greenhouse gas emissions.

So treating ourselves the high-quality versions of these products that won't fall apart after a few wears, is actually good for the planet. Underwear, on the other hand, have pretty low emissions. So, you know, please buy those whenever you need them. You're welcome. Now let's talk about waste. Do you know that if your space is clean, zero waste,

and organized, you may feel happier? Let's take a look at perhaps the messiest part of everybody's home. The fridge. Some environmental experts recommend that we put perishables into the drawers and put the condiments at the door. I hate to say this, but I disagree. I don't think the fridge is designed with human behavior in mind. We often forget about the things in the drawers, right? Out of side, out of mind.

And that can lead to a lot of food waste and emissions. So what's the happy climate action here? Fong Shre your fridge. This is how I fomshade my fridge by moving the perishables to the door and the condiments into the drawers so I can catch things before they rot. I also fiefled my fridge, that is first in, first out, meaning moving older items to the front of the fridge so I don't forget about them. This way you can have a zero-waste clean fridge, and you may feel happier. Now, beyond waste, we have to talk about travel.

Here's the happy climate hack. Instead of saying drive less, we should say drive more people. Some studies suggest that the more time we spend with our friends and family, the happier we feel. So what this means is that instead of driving alone in our car, we should drive our friends. Because carpooling can turn those dreadful minutes behind the wheel into joyful moments of socializing. or you can ditch the car all together and bike. Better yet, bike with your bunny. Biking is virtually carbon-free,

and it also offers moderate exercise that activates our endocannabinoe system. And that contributes to a sense of euphoria, that's biker's high, and greater mental well-being. I think you get the gist here. And I encourage you to take a moment and think about the actions you're going to be. can take in your own life and not only reduce emissions, but also can make yourself feel happier. There's probably a lot of those in this sweet spot. So please get creative. Okay, so Liz, a lot of the tips you and Jay-Z suggest are fun. They're kind of low effort. Like eating more maple syrup, it is the ideal scenario. But there are some things that we probably

should do that don't feel great, at least to begin with. You know, like composting, for example. It's kind of a pain in the butt, but after I do it, I do feel good. And I'm glad I did it. So what about moments of delayed gratification? How do those fit in? Well, I think there are some things we do like composting that for most of us are not inherently enjoyable, but we could at least make them less gross. So, for example, keeping compost in the freezer is one good strategy, especially in a hot summer for making it less unpleasant, which can make it easier to stick with. But still, even with the most like elegant composting strategy, it's probably not going to be the most joyful thing you do today. Or at least I hope it's not the most joyful thing that you do today. You know, I would say doing those things are great, but there are actually just so many opportunities that we can find where the environmentally friendly action is also the joyful one. And so those are the strategies that we especially encourage people to look out for. And like you said, to just pay attention to, you know, to pay attention to the fact that, oh, that actually felt really good. You know, paying attention to that and embracing those really enjoyable changes, I think,

can further energize us and help us find even more ways that we can adopt these lower carbon choices. I do like that idea of being further energized. Like, I find that, you know, if I'm happy, that generally does mean that I feel as though I have more energy to do more, as opposed to. feeling shamed or like I'm a terrible person that makes me want to, you know, crawl into the feudal position under my desk and do nothing. Exactly. And positive emotions can also make us more creative. So when we feel happy, we're better at thinking of novel creative solutions, which, of course,

is exactly what we need in the epic fight against climate change. So embracing some of this joy as a way to be more energized and more creative and better at tackling climate change, I think, is a really productive approach. You've been talking about this book out and about to the public right now. What's some of the feedback that you've been getting? Because, you know, it's not a popular topic, right? I feel like there are a lot of people who are just thinking, like, well, we're screwed. Look at every place that's on fire right now.

There are corporations who are missing their targets, governments who are pulling back from agreements. On the flip side, though, we are seeing a shift to renewables across the globe. Where are you finding the people who you're targeting are mentally? Yeah, I mean, the feedback that we're getting is that this more joyful approach reempowers people to take action. So when you feel like everything is terrible and there's nothing we can do, it seems like there's no reason to do anything at all. And so what we're really trying to do is arm people with actual knowledge and facts about where they might have opportunities to make a difference. And again, it's really kind of a choose-your-own-adventure approach where we walk people through every domain of life. So from food and vacation to working and commuting and major life decisions like whether to have kids.

And so one of the things that's interesting to me is that the piece that really resonates for people varies dramatically depending on who they are, what stage of life they're in. You know, I think the nice thing about food is we all have some opportunities to choose what to put in our mouths each day. So that's a really easy opportunity. But there's decisions that really matter for climate that most people don't think of and have told us, you know, before reading our book, they really didn't realize that these decisions had any relevance to climate change at all. So, for example, the decision about where to live has a huge bearing on the carbon emissions of your lifestyle. So if you can live in a place like Vancouver that has clean energy or like Vermont that has clean energy, then the carbon emissions of your

everyday actions are going to be greatly reduced. So let me give one concrete example. If you run an air conditioner in a typical living room in Vermont, which has clean energy, you run that air conditioner for one week, you're going to emit about eight pounds of carbon. So like the weight of a newborn baby. In contrast, you run that exact same air conditioner in the same size room in Wyoming, which does not have clean energy. You're going to emit 1,000 pounds of carbon. So the weight of a full-grown horse. So the idea here is that these choices about where we live actually have a massive impact on our carbon emissions.

And we can feel free. Instead of suffering through hot summers, you know, we can feel free to run an air conditioner if we can live in a place with clean energy. And so one thing we've been hearing from people is that there are, you know, they've been focusing on things like straws and reusable bags and not thinking at all about these much more high impact decisions. Now, not all of us have an opportunity to change where we live, but particularly, I think, when people are some crossroads in life, where they're deciding where to live or what kind of job to do or whether to have children, we can think about how to navigate these choices with climate change as sort of one piece of the puzzle.

I mean, it is, you know, a privilege, though. There are some places in the United States where people live. You cannot get anywhere without a car. How much are we talking about, you know, the sort of stereotypical NPR listening, middle class, upper middle class person who maybe is privileged and can do these things? Is this something, how does that play into it? So again, this is why we don't want to tell people, everyone should do these five things to fight climate change because it really depends on where you live, how much money you have, what opportunities you have to make change in your life. And so I think that everybody, every single person has an opportunity to reduce their carbon emissions in a way that would actually feel,

joyful and they just have to find it. And again, it depends on what the constraints are. So, you know, for people who have no choice but to drive to work, which of course is the case in so many American communities, you know, could they find a carpool to be part of? For other folks who are lucky enough to live in a city that has good public transit or that's pretty walkable, could they think about either giving up a car or going down from two family cars to one car? So again, And there are just so many kinds of changes that we have an opportunity to make that, again, we just have to really think through what are the opportunities in our own lives. And we have to be realistic because one of the biggest things that we've learned as behavioral

scientists is that changing our behavior is hard, like really, really hard. And so having unrealistic aspirations for ourselves about the kinds of changes that we could make is going to be counterproductive and we're going to end up frustrated. And so what we really would love for people to do is think about, hey, what's possible in our community? What changes could we make and how could we support each other to follow through on those changes? So when we run workshops, we actually ask people to stress test each other's plans and think about what's going to be hard about this? Like, what's going to get in your way? What's going to stop you from following through on this plan?

And then figure out ahead of time how to get past those obstacles. One of the things that we have seen more young people talking about is that they don't want to have kids for various reasons. One is that, you know, they feel like the world is too unstable to bring somebody into this world. But also they cite a study that was done, I think, by one of Jay-Z's students, which said that something like having a kid was equivalent to taking 37 transatlantic flights per year. How, you know, there are some things where I'm like, well, listen, having a family is a personal choice. It's also something that humans do to perpetuate the species. Where does that fit into the conversation about climate? Yeah. So it was Jay-Z's own student who did the seminal research that was taken as evidence that if you care about climate change, you shouldn't have kids. And having talked to, this researcher, he never meant for that to be the message because we want our species to continue and thrive. You know, this hard rock that we're all living on is going to be just fine. The planet's

going to be here. It's our species and other species that we want to have survive and having kids as part of that. Now, it is the case that having lots and lots of kids means, you know, there's going to be more carbon emissions. But the good news is that since, that original research was published, the emissions associated with each one of us has actually declined. So there have been, you know, technological innovations, the fact that we're moving to EVs, the fact that we're getting more clean energy, is actually bringing down the emissions, the carbon emissions of having a child, which I think is really exciting. I want to end with asking you about a school of fish, not to eat, but about their behavior

and how it relates to also how humans influence each other. Do you mind sharing that research? Yeah, so when I feel overwhelmed by the massive threat of climate change, I like to watch videos of fish. In particular, there's some amazing videos you can easily find on the internet of fish facing a daunting threat, namely a hungry sea lion who wants to eat them. And the incredible thing is that these fish manage to escape. And the way that they do this is they quickly change direction and evade the sea lions hungry jaws.

And it turns out that it's fish on the edge of the school that are making this miracle happen. And in fact, if just 25% of these edge fish change direction, the entire school will rapidly follow. And what's really amazing is that the same basic principle turns out to apply to humans too. There's recent research showing that when just 25% of us change our behavior, rapid social change can occur just more quickly than any of us would have imagined. So we don't need everybody to get on board. We don't even need a majority of people to get on board. If just 25% of us change what we do, we order vegetarian, we think about doing some staycations, we make any change that others can see, we are like, likely to influence those other people in ways that can provoke much more powerful social change than most of us recognize.

That was Elizabeth Dunn, co-author of the book, Leave the Lights on. You can see both Liz's and Jay Z's TED Talks at TED.com. Thank you so much for listening to the show this week. This episode was produced by Rachel Faulkner White. It was edited by Katie Montalione and me. Our production staff at NPR also includes Sanaz Meshkampur, Matthew Cloutier, Avery Keatley, Fio Giron, Harsha Nahaada, and James Delahousie. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Our audio engineer was Jimmy Keely.

Our partners at TED are Sal Khan, Logan McClure Davda, Helen Walters, Roxanne Highlash, and Danielle Bella Roseau. I'm Manusse Zamorodi, and you have been listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR.