In a previous post, I included a text which quoted Gus Speth, former dean of the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies at Yale as saying “The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy.” That statement is especially true of oil companies like Exxon and Shell which knew for decades that fossil fuels were and still are dramatically changing ecosystems while they “greenwashed” their response to the growing crisis. But I think selfishness and greed do not apply to most people who may just feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of climate change if they are paying attention to it at all. According to an August 9, 2023 report from the Pew Research Center, “Overall, a majority of U.S. adults (54%) describe climate change as a major threat to the country’s well-being.”

However, this majority view has not translated into making climate change a priority issue. According to the Pew Center report, “Climate change is a lower priority for Americans than other national issues. While a majority of adults view climate change as a major threat, it is a lower priority than issues such as strengthening the economy and reducing health care costs.” Unfortunately, politics has played a role. According to the report: “. . . there’s a striking contrast between how Republicans and Democrats prioritize the issue. For Democrats, it falls in the top half of priority issues, and 59% call it a top priority. By comparison, among Republicans, it ranks second to last, and just 13% describe it as a top priority.”

Recent news reports about the climate crisis are certainly discouraging. One disturbing example: According to Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, “It’s not just an entire year of record-breaking ocean temperatures, but it’s the margin it’s breaking them by — it’s not even close to what the previous record was. . . That’s what’s raising the eyebrows of a lot of people.” Higher ocean temperatures will lead to higher coastal temperatures, more extreme rain, more extensive bleaching of corals, and an increase in greater and faster-moving hurricanes.[1] And efforts to curb global warming are falling short, in large part because there hasn’t been the needed follow-through on commitments by companies and governments to reduce fossil fuel production. According to an article in The Guardian, “A mere 57 oil, gas, coal and cement producers are directly linked to 80% of the world’s global fossil CO2 emissions since the 2016 Paris climate agreement, a study has shown.”[2] According to a Carbon Majors report, “most state- and investor-owned companies have expanded their production operations since the Paris Agreement.”[3] Little wonder that individuals feel helpless to do anything about the climate crisis.

While political polarization has slowed progress in the US, Katharine Hayhoe, Chief Scientist at The Nature Conservancy and Professor and Endowed Chair in Public Policy and Public Law at Texas Tech, offers another way of looking at Americans’ attitudes toward climate change. In her 2021 book Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World, she writes that instead of seeing an irreducible divide between climate change believers and deniers, researchers have identified six groups representing a spectrum of opinion on global warming. Following the work of Tony Leiserowitz and Ed Maibach who tracked the six groups nationally from 2008 to 2020, Hayhoe outlines the groups and their percentages of the American population as of 2020:

• The Alarmed who are “convinced global warming is a serious and immediate threat but many still don’t know what to do about it” – 26%
• The Concerned who “accept the science and support climate policies, but see the threat as more distant” – 28%
• The Cautious “who still need to be convinced that the problem is real, serious, and urgent” – 20%
• The Disengaged “who know little and care less” – 7%
• The Doubtful who “don’t consider climate change a serious risk, or consider it much at all” – 11%
• The Dismissive – those who are “angrily rejecting the idea that human-caused climate change is a threat. . . they are most receptive to misinformation and conspiracy theories” – 7%

Hayhoe’s main point here is that although you probably can’t change the minds of the Dismissives, “the good news that 93 percent of us aren’t Dismissives. They’re the ones we can have constructive conversations with. They’re the ones who can make a difference.” [4]

But can conversations alone make a difference? Hayhoe and others are great believers in the value of people gathering to talk about their deepest concerns.

That’s why, when people ask me “What can I do about climate change?” I don’t respond with a prioritized list of actions to cut your carbon footprint. Instead, I say, “Talk about it — where you live, where you work, where you study. Help people understand why it matters to them, and what we can do together to make a difference.” Even today in the U.S., 65% rarely or never talk about it. If we don’t talk about it, why would we care? And if we don’t care, why would we ever do anything about it? As journalist Sara Peach explains, “Talk is the fertile field in which cultural change begins; in its absence, it’s impossible for a group of people to solve a problem.” Talking about why climate change matters to the people, places, and things we love and having conversations about what we can do together to make a difference — that’s the first essential step to building a better world. [5]

A 2023 report [6] supports Hayhoe’s claim that climate change conversations could make a difference but they aren’t happening enough:

Research has found that non-judgmental one-on-one discussions (e.g., deep-canvassing) can lead to enduring opinion changes about emotionally and politically charged topics by providing an opportunity to exchange personal stories without judgment. Talking about an issue – including global warming – can also lead to deeper processing and understanding, which can motivate people to talk about it with others.

However, most Americans rarely or never talk about global warming currently. According to our latest Climate Change in the American Mind December 2022 survey, only 37% of Americans say they discuss global warming with family and friends either “occasionally” (29%) or “often” (8%), while most (63%) say they either “rarely” (30%) or “never” (33%) discuss it. 

All of which reminds me of the quote attributed to Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

---

Sources

[1] Evan Bush, “12 months of record ocean heat has scientists puzzled and concerned” NBC News, March 15, 2024, https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/oceans-record-hot-rcna143179

[2] Jonathan Watts, “Just 57 companies linked to 80% of greenhouse gas emissions since 2016” The Guardian, Wed 3 Apr 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/04/just-57-companies-linked-to-80-of-greenhouse-gas-emissions-since-2016

[3] Carbon Majors, “The Carbon Majors Database: Launch Report – April 2024.” Accessed April 12, 2024. https://carbonmajors.org/briefing/The-Carbon-Majors-Database-26913

[4] Katherine Hayhoe. Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. New York, New York ; Toronto, Ontario : One Signal Publishers / Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2022, pp. 7-9.

[5] Aspen Ideas. “A World Worth Fighting For: Katharine Hayhoe on Communicating Climate Change.” Accessed on October, 22, 2024. https://www.aspenideas.org/articles/a-world-worth-fighting-for-katharine-hayhoe-on-communicating-climate-change.

[6] Matthew Ballew, Matthew Goldberg, Marija Verner, Seth Rosenthal, Edward Maibach, John Kotcher and Anthony Leiserowitz. “Who is most likely to talk about climate change?” Climate Note, May 18, 2023. Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/who-is-most-likely-to-talk-about-climate-change/