From “A Gift for Conversation. Let’s discuss Climate Change: Why it matters. What to do about it.” A Book by Dr Louis Keal

Previous Chapter 1: All you need to know

Chapter 2: Troubleshooting

It’s completely understandable to have misgivings at this point. Is this all true? How can it be? It’s all bollocks. It’s not that bad. Our kids will fix it.

Historically the communication of Climate Change has been, for the most part, terrible. Clear, simple and emotionally resonant messages about it have been painfully absent for decades. And, as we’ll explore later, we’re in a battle with our own psychology, which wants us to do anything but face distant, slow-moving, impersonal future threats. This makes Climate Change an almost uniquely tough threat to act on.

But this book is designed to make this easier. In this chapter, we’ll look at 12 common ideas that are thrown around on Climate Change that allow people avoid thinking about it.

1: “Why aren’t we acting then? If this threat is so urgent, why don’t our actions show it?”

Climate Change is a tricky issue, poorly suited to human psychology. This fact, and how poorly climate campaigners over the last 40 years understood it, explains a lot about where we are today. This is explored in the insightful book ‘Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired To Ignore Climate Change’ by George Marshall.

As George notes, there are threats that humanity finds easy to grasp, and easy to be motivated to act on, and threats that are very hard to grasp and that inspire little action in us. Psychologist Daniel Gilbert summarises the key aspects that separate these threats with the acronym ‘PAIN’¹. Easily faced threats have the characteristics on the opposite page:

Personal – narratives in support of familiar friends or allies, or against our perceived enemies.
Climate: We are all responsible, nobody deliberately decided for it to happen.

Abrupt – We are attuned to spot sudden changes in our surroundings and ignore slow-moving threats, however deadly.
Climate: No threat in our history has been(at least initially) so slow moving, or more deadly.

Immoral – Against our sense of right and wrong.
Climate: Climate Change is far from indiscriminate – but few in the UK make the connection between a worsening climate and global inequality².

Now – Our brains are not well designed for long- term planning. Any issue that is happening now is likely to take mental priority.
Climate: Although Climate Change is here, now, few in Western nations realise it.

Discussion Points

1. How do other threats, such as terrorism, pandemics and nuclear war fit into this model?

2: ”I’m not a hippy, left-leaning tree-hugger. This isn’t for me.”

This is another massive mistake in the communication of the scientific study of Climate Change. Somehow this clear and relatively simple set of facts and observations ended up lumped in with left-leaning politics and the environmentalist movement.

The facts of Climate Change don’t care who you vote for, and the human species’ most deadly and urgent threat in history is a poor fit with environmentalist campaigns to save the orangutan or pick up litter.

No matter your politics or values, Climate Change is affecting you and requires your voice. If you don’t feel represented by current Climate movements and organisations, there is an even greater need to make your voice heard so you too can shape your country’s response.

Discussion Points

1. Do you know the attitude of your local or national government representatives towards Climate Change, or the views of the people you vote for?

3: “You’re just trying to make me feel guilty for the way I live.”

Who is responsible for Climate Change? Uniquely for a problem of this scale, every one of us contributes in a large or small way to making this problem worse. But pointing the finger at individuals doesn’t help. What will help is unflinching honesty, and forgiveness.

Why not focus on what we can change, instead of what we can’t? Every one of us, even those actively working to stop Climate Change, still struggles with their own day-to-day choices and actions, and the emissions that can’t currently be avoided while living in our society.

You don’t need to feel guilty. You don’t need to be perfect. We’ll be forgiven for our mistakes. Let’s all move forward together, not looking back.

Discussion Points

1. Is it possible to avoid all personal carbon emissions in our society?
2. “Climate campaigners love to tell us what to do, without following that advice themselves”. Have you come across this view? What do you think?

4: “Sure it’d be nice to fix the environment and save the planet.”

Actually a key barrier in the widespread understanding of how much Climate Change is affecting and will affect our lives is to label it as an “environmental” issue. This is the idea that, like river pollution and littering, Climate Change affects a separate natural world that is ‘out there somewhere’ beyond the edges of our towns and cities. Acting on Climate Change is then seen as goody-goody, as “saving the planet”, only discussed by environmental correspondents on the news, and by powerless environmental committees in politics.

This is a dangerous misunderstanding. Climate Change will deeply affect every aspect at the core of our lives, as well as our environment. It is the defining economic issue of our generation¹, the defining food security issue, health issue, national security issue and more.

5: ”We have more pressing things to deal with first, like the economy, jobs and the NHS.”

In the face of COVID, Brexit, a struggling healthcare system and challenges to the UK economy, surely focusing on ‘environmental stuff’ can’t be a priority?

You can be the judge of how high a priority you would consider action on Climate Change after reading this book – however, there are also elements of this action that can provide opportunities and the push needed to deliver massive progress on other issues¹.

Lowering meat consumption and eating more locally- produced, freshly farmed foods, along with increasing walking and cycling through an overhauled transport network has massive potential to change Britain’s health. Air pollution too is one of the most significant health issues of our time, especially given the link between poor air quality and deaths from COVID-19².

Discussion Points

1. Do you know the air pollution levels where you live?
2. How could action on Climate Change help with other issues that matter to you most?

It’s wise to invest in a strong economy to pass on to our children, but what could be more foolish than to invest in things that will kill them? Fossil Fuel investments do just that, yet world governments are still focusing on them. Worldwide, taxpayers are funding $800 billion a year in subsidies to Fossil Fuel companies³ to artificially lower prices.

Nothing is stopping a ‘green’ economic recovery from COVID but the decision to have one. One key aspect will be the creation of massive numbers of ‘green’ jobs at all levels of society. New jobs in the manufacturing and fitting of solar panels, insulation for more efficient buildings, and planting trees and managing new natural habitats will more than provide for those needing to move from polluting industries.

6: ”It might be a big deal for some countries, but it won’t affect us here in Britain.”

Here in the UK, April 2021 saw five times less rain than normal, the least ever recorded, damaging fruit crops. 2020 saw the wettest February ever, 2.3 times normal¹ and extreme weather led to the worst wheat crop in 40 years². 2019 set new summer and winter temperature records. Britain must also start preparing now for unprecedented flooding – this may hit Britain hardest of all European countries³. The collapse of the world’s food network, should we not act on Climate Change, will endanger our entire global civilisation.

But it’s true that the most underprivileged people in the world, in Africa, Asia and central America, to whom Britain has a history of providing aid, and who did least to cause this crisis, will suffer the most from its effects. Would you knowingly make that worse?

7: ”But what about China’s emissions? What about India?

AndtheUSA?”

Climate Change is currently on course to drastically harm the people of China. Droughts and heatwaves are predicted to be so fierce that some of the most densely populated areas on the planet, home to half a billion people, will become largely uninhabitable if we don’t act¹. It’s unsurprising then that surveys in 2017 showed 70% of Chinese people wanted their government to do more to tackle Climate Change².

We can point the finger at other countries all we like, but the reality is that they too will be facing hard truths and making changes. We must ask ourselves: What is under my control? What can I influence? Where can I show leadership? That is where we must begin.

8: ”Overpopulation is the real issue, there’s simply too many of us.”

The global population is around 7.9 billion people at time of writing¹. It’s easy to point to all those people and say “it’s them, not me”, especially in fast-growing African and South Asian countries like Nigeria, Ethiopia and Bangladesh.

But sorting countries by their carbon emissions paints a very different story. How carbon-intensive a country’s industries, agriculture and transport systems are determines its emissions, not its headcount. Currently the average Brit accounts for 30 times the carbon emissions of the average Nigerian². Yet even within countries, the wealthy emit far more than the poor^3,3.

We in the UK therefore bear even more responsibility to spearhead a revolution in decarbonised living that less developed countries can follow us into.

9: ”Climate Change might be a big problem for future generations. But not for me.”

For decades, the overwhelming story of Climate Change has been of a future problem, faced by future people, and tackled by future action. There are many reasons for this grounded in psychology, politics and chance¹. But Climate Change is here, now, and already permanent. By delaying decarbonisation, we have let Climate Change become the deadliest and most urgent threat the human race has ever faced.

The grain of truth in this ‘future’ narrative is that the worst is yet to come. It is children alive today who will experience that. But it is now that we decide whether our children experience a stable, happier world, or an unimaginable hell. We’ll see in the section “How fast do we need to act” how a delay of even five years in drastic, society-wide reduction in emissions will guarantee the second outcome.

10: “Look at how fast things have developed – technology will save us.”

It’s an appealing idea. It goes: “Surely we have a decade or so before the effects of Climate Change really kick in? Look at how fast technology moves, surely we’ll have a solution by then. No need to act on reducing emissions now.” Even politicians fall for this trap¹.

Unfortunately, it is just that – a trap. Firstly this timescale is utterly wrong. But examining the technological requirements, as we do in some detail on Page 68, reveals the utter absurdity of the idea when it collides with reality and the scale of this challenge. Moving most of humanity to Mars might be easier.

But as is so often the case with Climate Change, truth and facts can seldom compete with an appealing but false story, especially given what technology has managed to achieve in the past.

11: ”The damage is done. It’s already unfixable. We’re all f#!%$d. There’s no point fighting it.”

My friend shared a story with me of when, studying a scientific PhD, he spoke to his supervisor for the first time about the scale of Climate Change. Both a scientist and a climate activist, my friend was doing his best to act in the most powerful ways he could. But the feeling wouldn’t leave him that he should do more, and this was draining his mental health. His supervisor was not sympathetic: “We didn’t act when we could have – we missed our opportunity. Now I’m going to bury my head in the sand” was his view. But the supervisor has a young son: it was not his own life, but his son’s life he was giving up on.

This is a too common view, one I hear often in the street. In the face of apparently relentless bad news, it’s understandable. But it isn’t true. This is a failure of courage long before there is a failure of options.

Perhaps one of the scariest things about Climate Change is that it’s not unfixable. There is so much that we can do. This is a heavy responsibility. This is our choice: hope, peace, and fulfilment through action, or guilt and despair through denial and inaction.

To look the next generations in the eye, we must instead channel the courage of the millions of people, like my friend, working diligently to bring about change. But we will all have days where it gets on top of us. We must accept that too.

Discussion Points

1. Have you ever felt a goal or cause was so hopeless, you wanted to give up, but achieved it anyway? How did that feel?

12: “Okay, but I’m already doing my bit.”

We get the impression from the media that some things are important in the fight for Climate Change: Bamboo straws, re-usable coffee cups. The most common response to Climate Change being mentioned is talking about recycling – that’s one of the few ways the media has offered to apparently reduce our impact.

The truth, as you probably already suspect, is that such things are either irrelevant, relating to environmental pollution not carbon emissions, or insignificant in the face of this crisis¹. Even larger “lifestyle changes” such as giving up meat or not owning a car, while important, won’t move the needle significantly.

So, what is the new ‘doing my bit’? We’ll explore this later.

Story One: An entrepreneur’s vision brings light to dark places

Illac Diaz started his professional life as an actor. His first career transition was into advertising. But, born in the Philippines, Illac frequently came face to face with desperate poverty, and strove to contribute more to the people of his country, and the world.

15 million households in the Philippines have no electric lighting, and many live in simple huts with no windows. These families rely on finding money for Fossil-Fuel-powered kerosene lamps and candles to work indoors, even during the day.

All it took to bring light to these families was one simple idea. Fill a used plastic bottle with water, add bleach to prevent algae, and slot it into a specially cut hole in the roof. Light from the sun bounces through the bottle into the room, providing as much light as a 55-watt bulb for free, and for 12 hours a day.

Illac helped bring this idea to hundreds of thousands of people in poverty across the Philippines and the world – but he went further. In 2006 he founded the organisation MyShelter Foundation¹. MyShelter would go on to teach local people how to install a small solar panel, a second-hand battery and a bright LED bulb into the lighting system. This gives more hours of workable light, without dangerous kerosene lamps.

Today, millions of poor families around the world have helped themselves and each other bring light into their lives, through this grassroots approach. As an island nation, the Philippines is on the front line of Climate Change. Decentralised solutions like this help build the resilience of communities against the coming storms.

Still have questions?

See the links below to explore additional sceptical questions, and for more information on topics raised this chapter.

YouTube: A Skeptical Look at Climate Science youtu.be/R7FAAfK78_M Journalist Neil Halloran makes a frank and objective exploration of the scientific evidence around Climate Change, and how much it can be trusted. [24m]

SkepticalScience.com – bit.ly/3CQ37 This award-winning website explores sceptics’ questions around Climate Change with explanations of and links to the scientific literature.

YouTube: Climate Lecture by Professor Kevin Anderson– youtu.be/jt5bobk5wpQ Assessment of action on Climate Change from a former petrochemical engineer, now head of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, UK. [1h5m]

Air Pollution-scientistsforxr.earth air-pollution Thorough overview of air pollution, how it affects you, and what to do and not to do to limit your family’s exposure. Written by Pete Knapp, air quality researcher at Imperial College London.

Next Chapter 3: What’s happened