This episode we were joined by Robert Miller, a progressive activist and organizer based out of Edmonton, Alberta. One of the groups he works with is Extinction Rebellion. Since this was an interview episode, a research note is a bit tricky to do. So, what I’ve done here is just include the prep notes that I did, to give a sense of themes.

Belief and the Climate Crisis

Johnathan Safran Foer in We Are the Weather writes about the psychological difficulty that humans experience in truly believing climate science. What he means by that is that many of us know the climate science, but we don’t really believe it – not enough to really change the way that we live in the ways that the climate crisis demands.

One of the threads throughout the book is this question that he raises around his grandmother’s decision to leave her village when the Holocaust was beginning. And the decision of family members who stayed. All of them had access to the same knowledge, but there is something different going on when it comes to really believing it and acting on that belief.

And we see this a lot with the climate crisis, I think: this idea that we are in the middle of the greatest crisis that humankind has ever faced, that we know we have a decade to take radical leaps to prevent runaway climate change.

And yet my life goes on more or less as normal. And I think that’s the way it is for a lot of people. So, I guess my question is: how can we get people to really believe in climate change, in the deep-seated way that we needed to?

Climate Anxiety and Climate Grief

One idea is that we can’t really conceptualize the climate crisis until we acknowledge its ability to kill us. That’s a pretty heavy thing to accept.

Do you experience climate anxiety? How do you deal with it?

Of course, the other side of climate anxiety is climate grief – coping with what we’ve already lost and what we cannot save. I think for me at least, climate grief is harder to cope with than climate anxiety.

What would you say to people that are just starting to confront climate grief, or to even realize that climate grief is a thing?

Which Personal Behaviour Changes Are Best?

Nearly two-thirds of global emissions are linked to direct and indirect forms of human consumption. So, in theory at least, there’s a lot that we can personally do to address the climate crisis.

What, in your view, is the single most important personal behaviour change people can make to address the climate crisis?

Eating a plant-based diet

We’ve talked on the podcast before about the environmental benefits of eating a plant-based diet – whether that means going fully vegan or becoming a ‘flexitarian’ or ‘reducetarian’. By one suggestion, a climate-sensitive flexitarian diet would mean eating about 1.5oz of meat daily (or, about three hamburgers worth per week). And just a reminder from our previous episodes that the world is an animal farm – about 30% of the earth’s land mass is used for animal agriculture or animal feed. Emissions from food production could surge by 87% by 2050.

Robert, you’ve been vegan for a while. Was it the climate crisis that motivated you to become vegan, or something else? What advice would you give to someone who cares about the climate, but who is intimidated about the prospect of going vegetarian or vegan?

I just want to quickly highlight some of the other personal behaviour changes that are often recommended:

Reducing your food waste

GHG emissions associated with food loss and waste is as much as 8-10% of all global emissions.

Composting

By the time this episode comes out, we’ll have already released the zero-waste episode. In that episode we talked about how organic waste is the majority of garbage people throw away. Composting can help us fight climate change because landfilled organic materials produce methane, a super potent GHG.

In an episode on biogas, we talk about the potential for turning food waste into energy!

Driving less, cycling, walking, and taking public transit more

In 2010, the transport sector was responsible for over 25% of global energy demand.

Having kids?

There is one last lifestyle change that I want us to reflect on a bit, and that is having children. A lot of people worry about bringing children into a world that is quite likely going to look a lot worse in a generation than it does today. Others have concerns that producing more humans contributes to the increases in consumption that are causing the climate crisis. What are your thoughts on becoming a parent in the climate change era?

What’s wrong with fighting the climate crisis with personal behaviour changes?

Some articles say that lifestyle changes are the only answer to the climate crisis, while others say that we can’t address climate change through personal behaviour. So, who’s right?

Themes within this: inefficiency (there’s so much we cannot personally control); personal behaviour changes are way easier for some than others; and climate justice, environmental racism.

Do We Need Mandatory Rationing?

A lot of people have used wartime rationing as an example for how personal behaviour can address the climate crisis. For instance, Bill McKibben has said, “it’s not that global warming is like a world war. It is a world war. And we are losing.” The suggestions along this line usually include stuff like marshaling extraordinary public investment to build solar panels, wind farms, electrified public transit, tree-planting et cetera. It could also include meat rations and, more controversially, retreat and re-wilding.

What are some of the benefits and drawbacks of taking a wartime approach to the climate?

As we get closer to 2030, are we running out of other options?

The Green New Deal

One thing that I’ve started to hear a lot in climate discussions is how we need to focus on the opportunities of decarbonization as well as the costs. We often hear this in the context of the Green New Deal.

What is the Green New Deal, in a nutshell? What are some of the benefits that we could achieve from acting collectively on the climate crisis, aside from averting catastrophe?

Learn more about the Green New Deal for Canada.

How to Promote Collective Action Changes

Political scientists love to talk about climate change as a collective action problem. Basically what that means is that the benefits of addressing climate change are diffuse (and mostly in the future), while the costs are specific (and mostly in the present). So, there are huge incentives to free ride, which makes collective action difficult. Or, to put it in the slightly flashier language of journalist Oliver Burkeman: “If a cabal of evil psychologists had gathered in a secret undersea base to concoct a crisis humanity would be hopelessly ill-equipped to address, they couldn’t have done better than climate change”.

We hear this narrative a lot in Canada from climate delayers: that Canada is a small part of the world’s global emissions and we can’t take on climate change, so why bother. What would you say to that?And what about the idea that the world still needs oil, so someone has to supply it? What does collective action on climate look like, from your perspective?

How Can You Support Collective Action?

Vote!

Vote for the candidate that has the best climate stance. If you live in America, the Sunrise Movement identifies Green New Deal champions. What should someone do if they don’t see sufficient climate policies reflected in any of their major parties or candidates?

Sign petitions, write your MP, your MPP, your councillor

Petitions are helpful for advocacy groups, because it helps them talk to politicians. When an advocacy group meets with an MP, it’s a lot easier to get his attention when you can show that people in the constituency care about that issue. The Citizens’ Climate Lobby has good tools for talking about the climate crisis.

Go to climate rallies

Protests make issues visible, and crowd-size matters. Activists often talk about the idea that non-violent revolutions have, historically, usually been successful when they mobilize 3.5% of the population. (From Erica Chenoweth’s research). In September 2019, roughly that percentage of Canadians participated in the climate strike. Do you think anything has changed as a result of recent climate strikes? And if not, why not?

Donate to or volunteer with a climate group of a climate champion candidate

There is a lot you can do with your time as a climate action volunteer: door-knocking, calling, pamphleting, flyering, postering, et cetera. Let’s say a listener is interested in helping out, but showing up at protests isn’t something they’re comfortable with. What would you say to them? What are some helpful ways they could get involved?

Become a citizen climate scientist

If science is your jam, there are ways to get involved as a citizen scientist.

Bring up climate change in your social circles, even if it’s awkward

This is where I think personal behaviour can spur social change, too. Any tips on how to raise the climate crisis with climate agnostics in a way that won’t alienate them.

Personal Behaviour Changes ARE Collective Action Changes

That is why acting matters, even if it is small. Because “the most contagious standards are the ones that we model” (JSF). So be the person at the protest, even if there are only a few hundred people there – even if there are only a dozen people there. Try to reduce your carbon footprint. Go flexitarian, or reducetarian, or vegetarian, or vegan. The people who love you will notice. And when they change, even just a little, it matters.

Also mentioned in the episode:

Wet’suwet’en Solidarity
350.org
Fridays For Future Climate Strikes