The Liz Moody Podcast - Climate Change: What Matters, What’s BS, And How We Can Have Hope with Dr. Katharine Wilkinson

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

Dr. Katharine Wilkinson discusses recent updates on climate science, what actions we can personally take to combat climate change, and why we shouldn’t feel hopeless in the face of climate change. Concrete reasons for hope when it comes to climate change What’s often misunderstood in the doomsday scenarios  Pragmatic ways we can actually get our government to act  The individual steps that make an ACTUAL difference (they’re not what you think) An exact script for talking to climate change deniers  How to include children in climate conversations How climate change should factor into decisions about things like where to live and whether to have children And so much more! For more from Dr. Wilkinson, you can find her on Instagram @DrKWilkinson and on her website, www.kkwilkinson.com. Dr. Wilkinson is the co-founder of The All We Can Save Project and co-host of A Matter of Degrees. To join The Liz Moody Podcast Club Facebook group, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/thelizmoodypodcast. Ready to uplevel every part of your life? Pre-order my new book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now!  This episode is sponsored by: Seed: go to seed.com/lizmoody and use code LIZMOODY for 25% off your first month. Paleovalley: go to paleovalley.com/lizmoody for 15% off your order. Thrive Market: go to thrivemarket.com/LIZMOODY for $80 in free groceries. Pique: go to piquelife.com/LIZMOODY for 15% off plus a special gift. The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. The Liz Moody Podcast music by Alex Ruimy. Formerly the Healthier Together Podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Liz Moody podcast. Formerly known as the Healthier Together podcast, we are the same podcast, but with even more of everything you love. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a best-selling author and longtime journalist. This podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest, happiest life, whether we're learning how to eliminate bloat and constipation, discovering daily habits to gain more energy, or finding out how to heal our childhood trauma. And yes, those are all real episodes, so if any of those topics sound good to you, scroll on

back in the archives. Today, I am so excited to welcome Dr. Catherine Wilkinson to the podcast. Dr. Wilkinson is an author, strategist, teacher, and one of Time Magazine's 15 women who will save the world. A former Rhodes scholar, Dr. Wilkinson holds a doctorate in geography and environment from the University of Oxford. She is the co-founder and executive director of the All We Can Save project and co-host of the podcast of Matter of Degrees and her books on climate include the best-selling anthology All We Can Save, the New New York Times bestseller Drawdown, The Drawdown Review, and Between God and Green. This is an episode that I think will leave you feeling hopeful. The conversation certainly left me

feeling hopeful, but not in a bullshit, toxic positivity way. I came away feeling a lot more empowered than I thought was even possible, but in a completely different way than I expected. We get into concrete reasons for hope when it comes to climate change. What's often misunderstood in the doomsday scenarios. Pragmatic ways we can actually get our government to take action. The individual steps that make an actual difference, they are not what you think. An exact script for talking to climate change deniers. How to include children in climate conversations. How climate change should factor into decisions about things like where to live or whether to have children. And so much more. As always, we would love to hear your takes

as you're listening, so definitely screenshot and tag us on Instagram. I am at Liz Moody and Catherine is at Dr. Kay Wilkinson. And please, please, please share this episode with everyone in your life. As you'll hear in just a second, these conversations unto themselves are hugely powerful and we all need to be having them far more often and far more openly. So please, if you were ever going to share an episode, make it this one. Before we dive in, I would be remiss if I did not announce that we are two weeks, two weeks away from my book launch. That is so surreal to say. Definitely make sure you snag your ticket to my book tour if I'm coming to a city near you before your stop is sold out. We've already sold out Boston and New York. So hop on to

Liz Moody.com slash tour. It is going to be a life-changing evening. You will make new friends. Solo guests are highly encouraged. You will laugh a lot. You will learn a lot. Again, that is Liz Moody.com slash tour so you can get your ticket before they sell out. And then if we are not coming to a city near you or you just want to stack up for the holiday season, this book makes such a good gift. Get some copies for pre-order. Just go to 100 Ways to Change Your Life.com. Our $1,000 giveaway is ending on pub date. It is pre-order only because pre-order is so hugely important to authors and to publishing houses and to bookstores. It basically is the thing that signifies that people are about the book so the people behind the book should get excited about the book too. And friends,

I promise this book will change your life. It is designed as a tool you will come back to again and again depending on what part of your life you need accessible science and action steps for, whether it's your relationships, your career, your physical health, your mental health, or more. Literally every two pages you will get science made fun, made easy, made enjoyable to read, plus an action tip that will change your life. So you can flip through, you can read for five minutes, and you can get a ton of value. It is literally like getting 50 books in one. You can get that at 100 Ways to Change Your Life.com. Okay, let's talk about climate change. I really promise this conversation. It is thoughtful. It is important. It is not too depressing. It is actionable. You're going to feel

empowered after. And I am so excited to get into it with Dr. Catherine Wilkinson. Catherine, welcome to the podcast. I am so excited to have you here today. I have so many questions for you. I've actually been looking forward to this interview for a very long time. Liz, I am very eager to get into those many questions. And I'm so glad we're sitting down together today. I am too. Okay, let's just start off with, I think the thing that's been on a lot of people's mind, which is this has been a very scary last few months in terms of the climate. Canada is experiencing its worst fire season in modern recorded history. Multiple cities have hit their highest ever recorded temperatures. We have heat waves and droughts and hurricanes. I would love, in the face of all of that, for you to start us with a few reasons, if there are any, to be hopeful.

Yeah. I just want to also take a moment to honor that it has been a really rough summer in the Northern Hemisphere and hard to be awake, right, to what's happening on the planet. And so I think the first thing if we're interested in hope is to make space for those hard feelings, right? Not to sort of require that we like whiplash ourselves in the other direction. With that said, you know, the biggest reason that for me, there is hope or I often orient to the idea of possibility, right? First of all, science tells us that we've got some possibility left, the intergovernmental panel on climate change. they literally used the words, the window is rapidly closing, but it is not closing yet. Emphasis on the word yet, right? We can still sort of shove something in that remaining crack

to move us in a direction of a more livable and ultimately life-giving future. So thank you, scientists, for that. The second is that we are in the midst of an incredible transformation of our global energy system. The solutions that we have to stop burning fossil fuels and electrify everything and have that electricity predominantly come from renewable energy, all of that is possible. And certainly when I got into climate, that seemed like a really, really distant possibility. So that's really exciting. Science tells us we've got some possibility. We have the solutions to kind of open that crack of possibility up. The third thing I would say is that the team is growing.

We know that in the U.S., for example, at least two-thirds of Americans are now somewhat or very worried about climate change. That number is higher in most other countries in the world. So lots of folks are now clued in. and there's growing support for the things that we can do to address this issue. We have the solutions and we have the people power that we're going to need, although I would say we need a lot more of those folks to come off the sidelines and into the game. But for me, those are the things that really keep my sense of possibility and hope alive.

So there's a few different things there. There's the technology and the solutions and we're going to get into all of that. And then I would say there's also this idea of power and who has the power to make the changes that we need to make. So that IPCC report said that we need to keep within this 1.5 degrees Celsius limit to not have catastrophic effects. But to do that, emissions need to be reduced by at least 43% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels and at least 60% by 2035, which are fairly large numbers. I feel like this report came out and everybody was like, oh my gosh, this is really scary. But then that was in March. And it feels like governments, at least from where I'm sitting, aren't actually doing anything with this information.

And then in a lot of ways, they can't do anything because of lobbying and political partisanship and other things. So what do we as average people do would we hear these numbers and we see our government continue not to act? I find it personally really disheartening and really scary. Yeah. I'm right there with you on feeling disheartened and scared and some days pretty angry, right? That there are people in power who are holding the levers of big climate-related decisions, and they're not pulling them in the way that they could or should. That is particularly true in parts of the world where the fossil fuel industry has a great deal of influence,

as it does here in the United States, which is where I live. I often repeat this simple, but I think critical insight, that there is a leadership crisis at the heart of the climate crisis. And that is not about individuals. It is about the heads of government, the heads of industry, right? The people who can address the big structural elements of this. Like, Liz, you and I could go out and spend the rest of our days, trying to do every last little thing that we possibly could on an individual basis. And it's just not

going to get there because we've got to do things like build new electricity generation and transmission lines and roll out EV charging infrastructure and more walkable cities, right? These are big systemic decisions. The first thing is that for any of us who are lucky enough to live in a democracy, a relatively functioning democracy anyway, is to get involved in that way. And in climate action. I'm not saying, you know, give up the swapping your car for your bike or opting for plant-based food. But absolutely the most important thing you can do is to get involved in getting climate savvy, climate committed leaders into office and then holding them accountable when they get there. And the best way to do that is to join a group, right? And that may be

in your city, a climate-oriented advocacy group. It might be a national group. It might be focused on one particular issue like ecosystem protection or renewables. But don't go it alone, I think is really, really important. Right after that sort of getting engaged in democracy, getting engaged in politics and policymaking, the other thing is that almost all of us can engage with climate in some way in our professional lives, right? If you're a teacher, teaching. If you're a lawyer using those skills. If you're an engineer, we need those skills. You're an amazing communicator, Liz. We're in it today, right? We think that climate action sits in some other sphere from our regular day-to-day life. And I think it's so powerful and so important to think about how we can

actually use our professional context and our professional superpowers to, you know, help be part of this rising tide. When you say get involved in a group, first of all, I would love for you to highlight any groups that you're particularly excited about. But second of all, what do these groups need? Do they need us to show up at meetings? Do they need us to call representatives on their behalf? Do they need just donations and just take our money and not have us muddling the conversation? It's a great question. I would say that the best advocacy groups that are out there are really good at telling you exactly what they need and giving really good ways to be involved. I live in Georgia, which has been a pretty interesting place to be politically for the last few years. So a lot of what I have done personally is get involved in sort of voter registration, voter mobilization. We were lucky enough to have some real client. I met engaged folks on the ballot at the state level and for national offices. And so that for me was one way that I got really engaged.

There are kind of big national groups, but I think some of the most important efforts really are local. I'll just give an example from my own backyard. People may have heard about this effort around stopping cop city in Atlanta, which is a new, proposed, very large police. training center that's going to involve cutting down about 85 acres of forest right in the city, which is such a precious resource for so many reasons, but certainly for resilience in an already hot city that is only getting hotter. Trees are like the most important infrastructure

we could have. There are lots of other reasons people are concerned about Cop City. This is not sort of a formal organization. It's a more kind of diffuse organizing. effort. And here, this is where I've gotten involved in trying to get signatures to have this issue put on the ballot here in Atlanta and let voters decide if this is what they want to do with public land and public dollars. And also, on the using your professional superpowers front, I just recently published an op-ed about this with CNN from my perspective as a climate expert and a homegrown Atlanta and why I think this is such a concerning issue. So the internet, I think, can be a good place to start, right?

There are some international groups like 350.org, for example, for younger folks, the sunrise movement might be really interesting. There are just so many. And whatever piece of the climate puzzle you feel really energized about, there's probably a group in your neck of the woods that's working on it. You've mentioned getting people to register to vote in the political needs. nature of a lot of these things. And obviously, we need our governments to take action. Do you have any advice for what we can do as individuals to take some of the partisanship out of the climate change issue? Yeah. Man, for anyone who straddles the fence of liberals and conservatives, progressives and conservatives, or sits in the conservative camp, we really need you to talk to your people. And this is one of

the things that's really frustrating that we see in polling that a majority of Americans support things like clean, renewable energy. And yet, this has become this very partisan issue and something that politicians on the right play into to rally their base. That's one thing we really need. The other thing is coming to the conversation, most of us listen most deeply to people, that we're close to, right? Not to talking heads on the TV, not to pundits, not to journalists, but people that we trust and that we have a sense of shared values and shared concerns, starting a conversation from that place, right, of what is it that we love? What is it that we feel is at stake? What is it that we can imagine about a climate-safe future that also happens to be a

healthier and more vibrant and more beautiful future and hopefully a more equitable and more just future. Talking about things that we wish for, right, that we yearn for, that we want to see come alive in this world is so much more powerful than getting into the right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, that can often take us in a really sort of frustrating and depleting kind of space. And I will say the sad thing is that this is a partisan issue. And while we do not have good climate leadership coming from one side of the political aisle, we really need to be supporting and allying with the politicians and the parties that do get it because that rapidly closing window

doesn't give us a lot of time and we've got to really get things moving. This feels sort of like a base level of question, but is there any tools you would give somebody who would have to find themselves in conversation with somebody who didn't believe that human-caused climate change was occurring? Is there any kind of internet resources or direction you would point them? Totally. The very best place I would steer people is Dr. Catherine Hayho's wonderful book, which is called Saving Us. Catherine is a Canadian who married an evangelical pastor from Texas and teaches at Texas Tech. And she's just about the best I know at kind of bridging divides when it comes to a climate conversation. But I think Catherine would also give this advice that our time is

not particularly well spent engaging with folks who really just aren't willing to understand or hear the science. And the really good news is that that kind of fractal, of the population is getting smaller and smaller. At some point, I think that will basically become a non-issue. But what we know is that that stance has very little to do with fact and science, and it has a lot to do with identity. And identity is a really hard thing to try to nudge, right? When you have a sense that, like, your worldview is at stake in acceptance. the reality of this issue, you may just find yourself at a dead end in that conversation, but we have so many folks who are concerned, super alarmed, all of those folks, right?

Particularly the folks in the middle who are like, yeah, this doesn't seem great, but, you know, what am I going to do? Like, that's a much better place to spend your time and your energy rather than banging your head against a wall trying to get someone to release something that just in the way that this has been framed from fossil fuel lobbyists and their messaging allies as something that people somehow think is going to threaten their way of life or their most deeply held beliefs if we take action on climate change. And that is really sad because it just couldn't be further from the truth. I mean, again, to give an example from the state of Georgia, our Republican governor

saw the opportunity in the Inflation Reduction Act that was passed last summer in 2022 and the federal dollars that could flow into this state for electric vehicle manufacturing. Well, my goodness, that's all of a sudden some real across-the-isle collaboration on a critical climate solution. And so far, what it seems to be doing is creating more jobs in Georgia. And that's a really good thing. Examples like that also kind of can let you set aside the climate conversation and focus on areas where there might be, you know, more shared interest or shared energy around, in some cases, energy-related solutions. What does the research show as a whole about climate change positive solutions. Like what are the effects on the economy? What are the effects

on systemic injustice, et cetera, of taking these positive steps? It's a great question. And one of the places I would point folks who are interested is to the work of Project Drawdown, where in full disclosure, I worked for a number of years. But it's a fantastic resource for understanding what's in the toolbox of climate solutions. and how much can we expect from these things? And also, what are the other positive ripple effects that they might bring about? One of the things that we know is that this longstanding myth of it's either the economy or the environment is just not true. Again, it's a myth, right? It was created to give a sense that it's either one or the other and there is no middle ground. And I think what we're already starting to see, again, from the Inflation Reduction Act is that there's actually really positive economic outcomes from moving these climate solutions forward.

Now, that doesn't mean that we can just kind of not think about, for example, communities where the local economy has been predominantly about coal mining or oil extraction, right? there are specific communities that we really need to think about under the framework of what we call a just transition, making sure that as we go through this big evolution and transformation of our energy system, that we're not leaving people behind because that's exactly what the fossil fuel economy did. It left a lot of people and communities behind. Specifically, it left behind low income and predominantly communities of color that have borne the brunt of the pollution, the high cancer rates, the very kind of damning downsides of this current fossil fuel economy. And I'm not interested in a climate future that doesn't address those issues and certainly not one that repeats the same mistakes. It's incredibly possible to be building equity and justice into this system. And it takes not just good intentions, but really clear policies and processes. not to get too wonky, but one that folks might have heard, again, from a U.S. example, is called Justice 40, making sure that 40% of these federal investments in climate solutions go to

benefit the communities that have been hardest hit and most marginalized in the fossil fuel era. We've got a lot of work to do, I think, to make sure that a low emissions future is also a more just future. The other thing I'll say that's just a huge upside that we often don't hear about is around public health. So the number one killer of people worldwide is actually burning fossil fuels. That's from the particulates, the air pollution that is caused when we burn gas, when we burn oil, when we burn coal. We're talking about enormous numbers of lives that could be saved in this transition. The greenhouse gases go up into the atmosphere and stay there for a long time.

But that particulate pollution, that goes away really, really quickly. So this is a near-term benefit that could be super powerful. And again, often hits people of color and women and girls and low-income communities the hardest. Well, and then there's the effects of the climate change weather-related incidents happening themselves. I know there was a study that came out recently that showed the, extreme health effects of wildfire smoke in a way that it hasn't been evidence before. And so many of us are just going weeks where we breathe in wildfire smoke every single day. Totally. The quicker we can get a handle on emissions, the quicker we may get a handle on these other follow-on impacts.

I was just listening the other day about the people in Phoenix who were fainting in the street or on the sidewalk because of the extreme heat and then the sidewalk or the street being 160 or so degrees and then they land in the hospital with burns literally caused by fainting in the heat and then hitting this hot pavement. And we're not at that 1.5 degrees threshold yet. We're getting very, very close. And we probably will cross it and then hopefully if all moves quickly, we can actually bring that back down. But this is not a good scene, right? You think about kids, you think about the elderly, you think about people who have mobility challenges, flooding, storms, like all of it is hard for anyone, but it is especially hard for people who are already among the most

vulnerable. You just said something that I find interesting, which is we're probably going to cross that 1.5 that everybody's like, we can't cross it. It's catastrophic. It's catastrophic. It's catastrophic. How do you frame that in your head? Is it going to be catastrophic when we cross it? And then you also said we're hopefully going to bring that down. Is that through manmade carbon capture solutions? Or what are you talking about in the most simple of terms there? These are great questions. So I think the first question about sort of what is catastrophic depends so much on who you are and where you are and what your access to resources and support looks like, right? There are communities that have been struggling with climate impacts now for a very long time.

Farmers that have lost their entire livelihoods, coastal communities that are no longer livable, right? So in some ways, we're already in a catastrophic situation. I very much follow the line and the understanding that every 10th of a degree matters. So we know the difference between 1.5 Celsius and 2 degrees Celsius seems kind of intellectually small, but is actually enormous for what it means around losses of biodiversity, people that will be forced to migrate and on and on and on. The reality is we're not in a rosy situation even now, but we want to try to avoid going to much worse possible scenario. in the future. But it really, you can think of it, I think, more as a, you know, gradation than like a line in the sand. And certainly if we cross that 1.5 line, that is not a reason to give up. Yeah, that's what I think of in my head is like I read the IPCC report. It's like, don't cross

the 1.5 line. All the government seemed to be largely ignoring it. So I'm like, oh, no, we're going to cross it. And then we're going to be screwed. And then everything's going to go to shit. the planet won't be inhabitable anymore. So that's not true. Yeah, I think this is the really tricky thing about like we need sort of goals, right? And the way that I think they land in the public imagination sort of seems like this is a cliff we're going to go off. Yeah. Certainly, I'm not going to be giving up. I don't know anyone in the climate movement who's like, yeah, at that point, you know, we're done for because truly that every fraction of a degree really does matter. And because we have the solutions moving at the speed and scale that they're moving,

I mean, there is a lot more to do. But we are in motion. And so if we can actually get to this point of drawdown, which means we have concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and society keeps adding to them year after year, well, we can actually hit a tipping point where those start to come down because they don't stay there forever. Depends on which kind of gas, methane, carbon dioxide, but over time they do naturally make their way out of the system. And so there is a possibility that if we hit that point, we may need some extra help from carbon removal, kind of tech-based.

Also, hopefully our ecosystems, both on land and at sea, keep helping us out. we've hit some pretty scary points in Canada. You mentioned, Liz, the forests are no longer drawing in more carbon than they are emitting due to wildfires. So we can't just think Mother Nature is going to sort it out for us. But there is a constellation of the solutions that keep emissions from going up and some others that may bring some of that carbon back home. And if we work hard on all of those fronts, we may be able to get to that really critical moment of drawdown. When you think about strength and resilience, like your ability to feel energized, to recover well,

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Exclusions apply. Do you have any favorite tools or techniques or innovations that are coming down the pipeline for people who want to kind of get excited about the real solutions that aren't just like, plant a tree. One of the things that I think is worth thinking about around solutions is now is better than new. The solutions that we already have in hand are the most important solutions because of the way carbon aggregates over time. And so the things that we can do today are the most powerful things. Like, I think wind turbines are extraordinary. I think solar panels are extraordinary.

I think that the ways that cities are being redesigned for people to walk and bike and take transit rather than have to get in their car is extraordinary. I think what we're doing around green buildings that are not so energy hungry and are often much more kind of beautiful and pleasant and healthy places to be are extraordinary. I think there's so much that is in most. that said, I have a lot of hope around or maybe anticipation around the future of batteries, for example, right? As we move towards everything being electrified, particularly things that are powered by the energy of the sun or the energy of the wind, while the sun's not shining all the time. The wind's not blowing all the time. We need a way to hold that energy for future use in our buildings, obviously in our cars if they are electric. And so batteries have a really critical

role to play. And lithium batteries have some downsides around the mining and processes that are required. It certainly pales in comparison to the mining and extraction of fossil fuels, but it is still a very real issue. And so these kind of future battery technologies that may get us away from lithium and be less intensive on the planet in our own. other ways, I think are exciting and really important. I read something years ago that because of the resources it takes to build a battery for an electric car, there was debate about how much better for the environment it actually was. Was that ever true? Is that still true? There's definitely this thing that scientists call

life cycle analysis of not just like, well, what's the energy that it takes for you to get from home to work in your vehicle, right? But like the whole kit. in caboodle. I think it's worth thinking about, and certainly you can peep at the analysis that Project Drawdown is done. It takes all of that into account, and there is still a really clear upside to electric vehicles. But what you will also see is that electric vehicles are not the whole transportation solution. Like, we really do need these other solutions that actually get us out of cars and create cities and communities where it is more possible not to have to get around in a car. That's really important.

I know I wish every city was a walking city. Sometimes I think about that time in L.A. where the car lobby basically made it so it turned from a public transportation city into the driving city it is today, which I didn't know about until recently, but it just makes me so palpably angry when I picture L.A. being this oasis for public transportation. Oh, I get so mad. Totally. I have this old map of Atlanta and you can see the street car lines that all got ripped up, right, to make way for cars. And it is so sad, right? That it's like, wait, some of this is not about a newfangled future. I mean, there are those pieces, but it's also sometimes just about like, there were things we did better in the past. A lot of the things that fall under

the umbrella of regenerative farming, for example, a hundred years ago, we just would have called farming. Yeah. Or when people travel to Europe and they're like, oh, I love walking around the city center. It's so fun. And it's like, yeah, that's because we built cities on a human scale in the past. And we've now built cities on a car scale, which is a really different experience, not from just a climate perspective, but just from like an enjoyment of where you are perspective. Totally. And that's the thing I'm like, this is not some Spartan. horrible future we're talking about here. The possibility in climate solutions is that we have actually end up with a world that is a lot better than the one that we're in now in ways that

make our lives fun and beautiful. And I think we don't hear or tell that part of the story enough. I want to talk about some of the individual responsibilities that we bear and also the individual actions we can take. So you mentioned solar panels. Let's start there. If we can get solar panels, is that just like we should do it? It's an amazing thing to do if you can. If you are a homeowner, or if you're a part of a homeowners association, like a multifamily structure where you've got some enlightened neighbors and y'all can work on that together, it's a huge opportunity. There are more and more kind of tax breaks and incentives to do it. And the technology is cheaper than it's ever been. So yes, go for it. You can also think about home electrification more broadly.

My podcast co-host, Dr. Leah Stokes, often talks about these fossil fuel machines that we have in our lives. Our cars are fossil fuel machines. Our water heaters are often fossil fuel machines. Our stoves are often fossil fuel machines. And our furnaces are often fossil fuel machines. So again, if you are a homeowner and you can make a choice around, yeah, actually, an induction stove is also great to cook with and isn't going to give my kids asthma. Yeah, I was going to say it's better for your personal health as well. It's better for your personal health. Like, get that stove out of there, right? If you have a water heater that is coming to the end of its life, is that a good moment to switch from a gas powered water heater to a, a heat pump water heater could be. Again, there are more and more incentives and tax breaks for this and just more and more options that are out there. Heat pumps for heating and cooling are absolutely

extraordinary, much lower energy use than our typical heating and air conditioning systems. And again, can be fully electric. So there's really cool stuff to do. And all of those are kind of durable changes, right? You do it once and it's done and you've taken a huge bite out of a big problem. We have more than a billion fossil fuel machines in the U.S. alone that we've got to get rid of. So if you can work on a handful of fossil fuel machines in your life, that is amazing. And then tell your neighbors about how you do it. Help your parents get it done. And if you're not a homeowner, there are still induction cooktops that you can use instead of using gas. And certainly you can be a good coach and supporter of other folks in your life who might be able to make those choices. Or if you've got a friendly landlord,

you know, you never know. And then another kind of durable change that's powerful on the individual level has to do with our money. We don't really think about this. But a lot of us have our savings, our retirement accounts, sitting in institutions that fund. Fossil fuels. How does fossil fuel infrastructure get done? Well, the big banks for the most part, J.P. Morgan Chase, City, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo are the four biggest funders of fossil fuel infrastructure. And that's what's making the continued expansion of fossil fuels possible. Your money that's in your savings account, as you sleep, may be undoing the good work that you have done during the day. It's like a pretty easy thing to do. It takes a little bit of administrative lift,

but there are really great options out there for having your money not in fossil fuels. I use a bank called Atmos, but there are lots of options. Do a Google. There's plenty of good possibilities. It was a huge victory for me a couple years ago when I got my 401K from an old job out of Vanguard, which is also a big fossil fuel funder and into a totally not just climate-friendly, but climate-focused retirement fund. My money as I sleep is actually helping solutions move forward rather than the bad stuff. I love that. It feels really powerful. You're basically defunding climate negative organizations. Exactly. You like do the paperwork to get that 401k out of one place and into another. And then it's done. You change your bank and then it's done. So that's another kind of durable

change that you can work on. And Dr. Marilyn Waite is a really amazing expert on those topics that I'd recommend as well. How do you weigh in your own life the pleasure that you get to have, especially at like, as we've talked about, the individual can't make the same level of change as the corporations or the government can? My dad, for instance, he is more or less stopped flying because he doesn't want to contribute to climate change. And I find that so frustrating because there are billionaires cruising around in private jets and he's this middle class dude in his 70s who I believe should be able to enjoy his remaining time on the planet.

So I'm curious how you weigh that equation personally. Yeah, I think it's fraught, right? And this speaks to the challenges of a liminal time that we live in. I mean, I hold this myself around. Is it worth it for me to get on a flight and go give a workshop or give a talk that hopefully has some real benefit for growing team climate, getting people more engaged? Or is it better for me to stay home and do what I can from here? I have not stopped flying, but I definitely am flying a lot less than I used to. And I think from the perspective of the emissions that we control as individuals, if we are people who fly, flying is by far the biggest thing that we do that is not good.

Is that above like if we stopped eating meat or things like that that are also decided? This is not the precise stat, but a single round trip flight could outweigh not driving for a year. And not eating meat is nowhere near that? it's nowhere near it. It's hard because it's a relatively easy thing to do to not eat meat. I know there are a lot of people who don't feel that way. I've been vegetarian for a long time. I'm like, it's working. See? This last weekend, someone was like, what do you eat? And I was like all the things that aren't animals. But like there's a very real option, right? You can flip one thing for the other. And depending on where you live and where you're going, you might be able to drive. You might be able to take a train. But you might also find that flying is the only option. option. And so it's one of those what we call hard to decarbonize sectors. Air travel is especially tricky. This is an area where I hope that there will be some good innovation because I believe in being part of a global community. And I think travel can be an incredibly wonderful and powerful thing. Right now, it is a real doozy when it comes to the climate. So I hope we get that

sorted while your dad is still enjoying his retirement. It just feels like such bullshit, though, that because people with more money than God are sitting around and not making certain decisions while my dad is, you know, taking three-minute showers and buying organic and recycling and blah, blah, blah, that he can't go and see a country that he's never been to before he dies. And you've got, you know, the yachts, like making their way around the world. I'm so with you. Can we just get rid of the yachts and the private jets? It feels incredibly unfair. I feel like the whole plastic straws thing was a grand distraction

where we're all just like, oh, we're not using plastic straws anymore. And I'm like, this is distracting us from putting the pressure on the people who have the power to make the real change. And this feels like its own version of that where you're taking the people who don't have the power, making them bear the responsibility while the people who do have the power do nothing. Yeah. This issue of fairness to me really sets at the heart of the whole climate conversation. And there's the dimension of fairness of like your sweet dad and the billionaires who are like using airplanes to hop LA traffic. If we think about from a global perspective, you have these parts of the world. I think a lot about small, low lying island.

countries like Vanuatu, for example, have barely added a drop to our global climate problem. And they have everything at stake and talk about feeling powerless, right? They're not a major political player in the world. And like, what an incredibly awful situation to be in. And so the issue of fairness is just it is at the heart of so many things around climate. For a lot of the world, they look at the emissions that come from the wealthiest 10% of the population. And it's like, well, yeah, you guys are the problem. So you guys need to sort it out.

And also, you need to send money here so we can survive while that sorting out happens. And there's just so much work to be done on that front. it's really hard to be alive in a consumer culture. We're just the way that our days go, even if we are as thoughtful as your dad is. Like, we're just living on this planet so much more heavily than others. And that is why I so deeply want those more systemic changes to happen so that that is not the case. Is there anything that you tell yourself that you find comforting in terms of not just feeling disheartened in the face of that unfairness? Climate or no climate, there is so much unfairness in the world. And I think there is the

possibility that climate tunes human society into that unfairness in a way that is deeper and more potent than it has been along any other issue, right? Along income inequality, along, you know, you can rattle off the things. As we are forced to try to solve this issue as a global community, those issues of fairness have the possibility of getting baked into some of the solutions. My hope is that in the way that we try to heal the climate crisis, we may end up with a world that is more fair than the world before it started warming. That's a high bar, but I think that is where that could be, right? That could be if we collectively chose to make it so.

Is recycling bullshit? Recycling? is overrated, which is such a bummer because, man, people are really like recycling. That's the thing, right? I'm like, I wish, I really wish recycling were 90% of the solution. It is a piece of the solution, particularly when we think about something like aluminum. Aluminum can be recycled indefinitely. It's quite amazing. So get cans, recycle them. That's a great option. Cardboard. is recycled pretty well. Plastic is kind of a hot mess. And of course, there's just so much single-use plastic. So here's how I think about it. The recycling system is very far from perfect.

It is very imperfect in many ways. I keep recycling because I think it's better than the alternative. And I think that it at least keeps us tuning in a bit to the need for a more circular economy than the one we have now. And that there is no a way, right? We say like, throw it away, but there is not an away. There is no waste in nature. And so we've got to be designing things for genuine recyclability. I'm really into the idea of producer responsibility, which is like, hey, you know, Chevrolet, you made this car, you've got to take it back at some point and break it into parts and deal with all those materials. You know, clothing is like an absolute nightmare, right? When it comes to both emissions, but also the waste stream, how amazing would it be if it was like, all right, H&M, you made it. Now you have to deal with it and like really deal with it, not just send it to a dump in a poor country, which is what happens with a lot of our waste, particularly our plastic waste.

And then composting is like excellent, right? That's like a win all around. Composting is magic. If you can do composting in your backyard, that's amazing. In Atlanta, we have industrial composting where my HOA has some bins and they pick it up once a week. And then it goes to school gardens or to local farms. I just think it's awesome. We're not going to solve the climate crisis by composting, but it is one of those things that's like, this is a way to be in alignment with our values with pretty little effort and no or low cost. And at the end of the day, all of this really valuable material, our rotten banana peels and our pizza boxes gets to go back into the system and be a source for goodness. Like, that's great. Even if we didn't have a climate crisis,

we should be doing that. Is there anything else like composting or like getting solar panels that you think is very worthwhile that we might not be thinking to do that has maybe an outsized benefit for the amount of effort that we're being asked to put into it? Yeah, we talked about plant-based or plant-rich eating. That's definitely one of those things. I've really tried to just buy less. and certainly when I'm buying clothing to try to buy used clothing or to, you know, be super thoughtful

about where it's coming from. Mostly, that's just had a real upside for my bank account. And it's not that hard to do. So I think that's one. I think e-bikes are really amazing. I have an e-bikes. You do? Okay, do you want to preach about it? I love it so much. I love it so much. The thing that's cool about e-bikes, is that they take things that might feel not like a doable commute on a regular bike because it would take too long or you'd be too sweaty or you'd be too tired or you couldn't wear the outfit or whatever, right? And all of a sudden is like, oh, yeah, that is actually a commute that I could do not in a car with the extra help of a battery.

You know what they do? They split the difference in the way we were talking about. Like we used to have human-centered cities and now they're car-centered cities. And this is a way of taking something that was built on this automobile level and bringing it back to a human level in a way that you're not having to walk like 20 miles. You're still on the road. You're utilizing the road. But you're noticing things as you pass. You're going faster.

You're more involved on a human level with the city. I think that is exactly right. Do you have more things we should be doing that we're not talking about? My friend and former colleague, Jamie Alexander, has said that every job can be a climate job. maybe do an asterisk that's like almost every job. Like probably if you're the CEO of Exxon, not going to be a climate job. Oh, I disagree. I feel like you could potentially have the most power if you were willing to lose some profit. Yeah. If you could wrangle your board and your shareholders. Yeah, possible. I think it's possible. But look, 99% of jobs can be climate jobs in some way.

You are almost certainly touching something that is or could be climate related in your work life. And I'm really jazzed about the possibility of so many more people figuring out how do I weave climate into the job that I'm currently in? Or how do I take my professional skills and leverage them for climate? I just think it's really, really exciting. And certainly if you are part of an organization or a company, or a government of any size, you are actually closer to some of those more structural systemic solutions than you might think you are, right? Sure, work on your own 401k, but also what is your company doing for their 401k? Like, can the default be fossil fuel-free? Great. You know,

maybe that's something to work on. Anyway, you can start to think about how these individual solutions can scale in a workplace in a pretty cool way. Is there anything that we spend our effort on that isn't maybe a good use of our time or energy? I think if we are obsessive recyclers, like if we are spending all of our climate action chips on recycling, that is probably one. Well, and that highlights something that I worry about personally, which is the fake wins, I guess. That's my issue with the straw thing, is that we feel like we're,

saving the environment, but actually it's a big distraction. I think the hope with the straw thing was like, this is a piece of single-use plastic. People touch all the time. And it's one that we could not use and it wouldn't make people cry. Right. The hope was this could be a gateway drug. Low-hanging fruit. And that it would get people thinking. And instead it was like, you just have people like who are like, I'm done. I save the climate. Single-use plastic cups, you know, like tumblers and. No strawed. You're like, wait, you've like totally missed the point. Yeah, I think it didn't work in the way that people had hoped. I'm going to answer this with a slightly different twist, which is sometimes we underestimate the power of talking about climate and climate solutions.

So one of the things we know from polling, Yale does all of this amazing polling of Americans about climate and there's lots of other good organizations out there doing this research globally. is we don't talk about this issue. We don't talk about it with our friends, our family, our coworkers. And what we know is that particularly for women, often we don't do that because we think we don't know enough, which is just so gutting, right, that we feel like we've got to be Al Gore and have a PowerPoint presentation and a PhD before we can talk about our concern for this incredible planet that we get to live on and what's happening and what's not happening. happening that should be happening. The only ticket to entry for this party is being a human on this

planet in this moment. And so I think we actually can make a really big difference by having the conversation, by sharing things on social media. We are making culture in small ways all the time. And from like a systems change perspective, culture and mindsets and paradigms and these shared narratives that we have in the world, these are the most powerful tools for change. And we think, like, oh, they're fluffy or they're meaningless. And I think that couldn't be further from the truth. It's not enough. We still need the solar panels and the batteries and the walkable cities and all those things. But it's the narrative context and the cultural context that makes all of those things possible. So I would just say, please join in on that. And if you're not sure where to start, we have

have an amazing resource at the All We Can Save project called All We Can Save Circles that are basically like a small group climate learning and conversation journey. And they've happened everywhere from like high school eco clubs to groups of C-suite executives and everything in between. Like if you've never had a climate conversation before, you can do this. And it could be, yeah, just a great way to get more of that climate culture shift happening in whatever spheres you move in. I'm genuinely confused how master class gets literally the absolute top people in every single field to teach every single one of their classes. I use it when I want to learn things directly, like the cooking class from Thomas Keller

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than ever to make the switch. And if you want to grab their premium starter kit, you can use code Liz Moody for 15% off at branchbasics.com. That's code Liz Moody for 15% off the premium starter kit at branchbasics.com. And when they ask you where you heard about us, please make sure to mention the show. That is branch basics.com and use code Liz Moody. We have podcast clubs all over the country where people meet up and discuss the podcasts. And definitely we'll have to utilize those resources for a meeting at some point. I think that'd be a ton of fun. I love it. Yeah, I love any sort of community. I wish we could end on that because it's so hopeful, but I do have two hard questions for you. One, from a moral and from a pragmatic perspective, how much should we be factoring climate change into our decision

about where to live? So moral, I'm talking places that are lacking water, places that are using outsized resources from other places. Are we contributing to? the problem there. And then from a pragmatic stance, I'm talking, how much should we be factoring in the future of wildfires, of smoke, of hurricanes, of things like that. Yeah. So I think this is a really great question. And where there are cities, because this is largely a city issue, that are just clearly kind of way beyond the support systems, right? The Earth's support systems that they need, I wouldn't add myself to that city if I had another option, right? Sometimes we don't have options. You're caring for your aging parents. You got a job there. I don't want to

pick on any particular places. But I do think it's a really important thing to think about. Where is there already a very heavy burden on a place that maybe you don't need to add to? I think is a great question to sit with. And maybe one that is hard and also generous in certain ways. The question about the climate impacts and where to be, I think if this summer has showed us anything, it's that there are not, quote, unquote, safe places, right? Like, how many years did you hear people be like, well, you know, at some point, we'll all just move to Canada? Or the East Coast with smoke, I think was really interesting. When we moved back to California from the East Coast, they were like, aren't you so nervous about wildfire smoke? I can't believe you're willing to live

there. And then it was so interesting to see the East Coast get hit with wildfire smoke this year? Yeah, there are not going to be places that are not dealing with climate impacts of some kind or another. They're going to be places with too little water. They're going to be places with too much water. There's just going to be a whole mix of challenges. I think it's worth knowing a bit about what you might be signing up for in a particular place. The national climate assessment is something that actually breaks out region by region in the country, what's the future likely to hold for these places? Particularly because then you can think about ways that you might need to be prepared, right? Or you could help support your community. And I think it's

that piece that actually is the most important, which is the sort of, quote unquote, safest or most resilient places to be are places where there are strong ties between the people who live there. There's trust, there's empathy, and there's a sense of support. There's research out there that also will tell you about what those places are. But I think, you know, if you were to plop there as a newcomer, you might have some work to do. One of the things I think we can all be doing that has more to do with how we survive this mess that we're in is to be helping to build the social fabric around us in our communities with our neighbors so that when something hard happens, which it may well happen, you know those people and you can support each other and you can help keep each other safe.

And I think, again, that's something that we discount because it feels soft. It feels fluffy. It's not hard technology. It's not, you know, emergency intervention stations or whatever. and yet it has so much to do with how communities cope when something like a disaster hits. Okay. Number two, in a moral and in a pragmatic way, do you have any advice for how we should think about having children? I think this one is so hard because questions about having children, I think are often fraught, even without. the context of the climate crisis, right? There's personal desire, there's bodily collaboration,

there's lack of bodily autonomy increasingly in our political system, there's social pressures and family pressures, like there's just so many things. The first thing is that, like, I just feel a lot of empathy for anyone who's grappling with questions about this or desires about it and struggling in some way because I think a lot of us are. I'll just speak to my own personal decision, which I think there's no right or wrong or rule here. But for me, you know, we started this conversation talking about the very clear possibility that science says still exists for a livable future. I wake up every day because I believe in that. And And it's not a guarantee, right? And the biggest question mark is what are humans going to do?

And for me, I've just tried to imagine bringing into the world someone who I will probably love more than anything I've ever loved. And to have to like hold those odds and that love in my own being every day. And I just didn't think I could do it. Layer into that, I think this is a hard moment in America to have children. The support systems are terrible. It's very expensive. All of those things. And some very real ways that my partner and I love what our life looks like without children. All of these things are at play. Right. And my mom's like, when are there going to be grandkids? You know, it's all in there. I may really. regret this at some point down the road. That's a possibility too. I really haven't talked about

this very much because it's such a hot button. And I think if folks are out there and wondering about this, thinking about this, looking for guidance and community about this, Dr. Britt Ray has shared her own grappling and ultimately decision to have a child as a climate expert. And she is just brilliant and thoughtful. And I highly recommend understanding more. from her perspective. And there's also a group called conceivable futures. And I think that the biggest thing here is like, I mean, talk about a world where maps no longer work. Like, even having to ask this question is really hard. And of course, throughout human history, people have chosen to have children under incredibly dire and difficult circumstances because, you know, they

wanted to, believed that a better future was possible. Like there's a whole host of reasons. And I think all of that is very real in this moment too. I'm curious. So would you put not having a child, whether it's your first, second, third, whatever, where would you put that in terms of like flying, vegetarianism? Like, is that the most impactful thing a person on an individual level can do? This is a very fraught question that has a lot to do with like some challenging philosophical questions about like are my parents responsible for my personal emissions? Would I be responsible for the life of a child that I might have? It gets you into some profound philosophical quandaries that are really complicated. I just fundamentally don't want us to think about.

children as polluters. I want us to think about them as like the youngest members of this community of life. And we owe so much to them and to make sure that they have a place where they can thrive. And I think that's just such a profound responsibility. It's really a gift to be people of intellect and agency and heart in this moment when we are so very needed. You know, I have a lot of friends in the climate space, the climate community who are parents. And many of them have talked about their sense of responsibility for equipping the children that they elected to bring into this world for the futures that may be ahead of us, right? It may not be the same things that our parents were thinking about when they were trying to support us and equip us for a life ahead, right? It may be

some different skills and mindsets. But I think that same thing that we talked about in terms of where we live and resilience, like nesting our most loved people of any age into community and making sure that we are building these webs of support, that is the most important thing we can do. And I think knowing that your kids are likely to learn about this at some point, have feelings about this at some point, getting equipped for having those conversations with openness and groundedness and some skill is important for parents. And there are some wonderful resources out there in the world. I think we recently shared something from NPR on All We Can Save Project, social media,

which is just one example of what's out there to help support parents to support their kids. Can you leave us with just one homework assignment? Actually, I might want one in both categories, unless you feel like there's an overlap, but one homework assignment that we can shift our thinking. So we're not in a place of despair, which I don't feel like, is beneficial for action around climate change. And then one homework assignment of an action we can take today to make a difference. Can you give us one in both of those categories that we can do as soon as we stop listening to this podcast? Sure. So I'm going to quote someone who's

been a really important teacher for me in all of this, who I met at a moment of real kind of climate despair who said, this is Sherry Mitchell, Winahama Quassett, who is an amazing author, teacher, indigenous leader in Maine. And she says that these feelings, these distressing feelings, are not a sign of something wrong with us. They are a sign of something being righted within us. And so the first thing I would say is to honor those hard feelings, to give them space. to maybe find a journal or a good friend or confidant that you can share some of that with. Like, don't shove it away, feel it is the first thing, I would say, which in some ways is an action item. And on the action front, I think a lot about the way that social movements get

built is really by one person reaching out their hand to the next person and saying, we need you. right so if you've got someone in your life who is already really climate engaged reach out to them and say I'm ready to be needed like can you pull me into the world that you're already in if you are already climate engaged reached out to someone who may not be and welcome them in and if you're not sure how to do that like it might be like listen to this episode and then let's have coffee, right? Or let's read all we can save together. Like just take a starting point with someone that you love and trust or have fun with. This work is not always easy and it is the people that we do it with, whether that's like at the scale of our household or the scale of our country,

that make it really worthwhile. And it's good to have folks that you can commiserate with when things are hard or celebrate with when we get big wins, which we are getting more and more of. Do you want to talk about your book or spotlight anything else that you're working on in your own words? Sure. So all we can save is an anthology of writings by 60 women climate leaders, poetry, essays, art. It is just an incredible treasure trove of wisdom that the New York Times did say could fill you with, dare I say hope. So if you are looking for some of that, get into those pages, it's pretty delicious. And I can say that because I was the editor that are not my pages for the most part.

And to be clear, you could say that if you were the writer too. Well, yes, but it's much easier to be like, you know, a hype woman about other people. For sure. But we like to talk about being hype women for ourselves on this podcast too. Okay, I like it. I'm here for it, Liz. That will be my action item takeaway. from this conversation. If you want to do more podcast listening around climate,

a matter of degrees is the podcast that I co-host with Leah Stokes. Oh, and I should say, I co-edited All We Can Save with the wonderful Dr. Ianna Elizabeth Johnson. And a matter of degrees, a narrative style, like super accessible listen. I think folks may dig it. All We Can Save circles, I mentioned. And the other thing that we're working on at the All We Can Save project that I'm really excited about is a program called climate wayfinding, which is meant to support people who are in one of these moments of holding a big question about their own contribution, their own kind of purpose around climate in this moment. And we are beginning to train professors, staff in higher education to bring this to their campuses. So if anyone out there is engaged

on a university campus with students and climate, this could be an awesome program for you. I love that you said we don't have maps anymore, so you created a compass. Totally. We got to have a compass. And again, like I'm a big believer in bring a thoughtful kindred group of people together to hold these big questions and work our way into some answers. Well, thank you so much, Catherine. I really appreciate you taking the time to chat today. Liz, this was really great. I hope that this is just the beginning of the conversation we get to continue. I hope so, too.

Thank you all for coming along on that journey. Climate change can be really hard to talk about because it can feel really disempowering, as you likely felt from the frustration that I expressed in this conversation, and because it's just really scary. But Catherine made me think about my approach to climate change really differently, and I realize that there are ways that I have a lot more power than I think. I'm already talking to Zach about moving our money. And I'm so glad that we are all even having this conversation in the first place because

talking about this stuff, getting it out in the open, it's all so important. So when it does come time to elect officials, it's front of mind. In that vein, please share this episode with someone in your life, literally anyone. Let's spread the conversation. And if someone shared a link with you and you were new to the podcast, welcome. This was an important one to begin with. and I am so glad that you're here. Make sure that you're following on whatever platform that you like to listen on.

All you have to do is go to the main podcast page. That's the one that lists all of the Liz Moody podcast episodes, and you will see the word follow under the logo on Spotify. And then there's a little follow with a plus sign button on the top right of that same page on Apple Podcasts. This way you will not miss out on any new episodes. They will appear right in your feed every single Wednesday. And you do not want to miss out. We have some very exciting ones coming up, including an episode that has completely changed my approach to skin care.

And another one helping you tackle your biggest money fears. This one was also transformative for me. And remember to go to lizmody.com slash tour so you can come hang out with me on tour. It will truly be one night to change your life. Or just go to 100 Ways to Change Your Life.com. Just now your copy of the book. Okay. I love you.

I'll see you next Wednesday. on the next episode of the Liz Moody podcast. The number one rule of habits is to make the things that you want easier and the things that you don't want harder. Yet so many of us want to eat healthier, but so few of us actually take the steps to make eating healthier easier. That's where Marley Spoon comes in. What I love about this company and what's different than all of the other companies

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