"Saving us" by Katharine Hayhoe

Summary

Many of us, me included, struggle with how to speak with others about Climate Change. The topic can seem so vast, so daunting and demand such an in-depth understanding of the science that we find ourselves uncertain how to approach it. This amazing book by Katharine Hayhoe walks us through this challenge, informing and encouraging and equipping us for these conversations.

“To care about climate change, you only need to be one thing, and that’s a person living on planet Earth who wants a better future. Chances are, you’re already that person - and so is everyone else you know”.

“Beginning a conversation with something that unites us instead of something that divides us means we are starting at a place of mutual respect, agreement and understanding - which is pretty much the opposite of where most conversations about contentious issues like climate change begin these days”.

The folksy, first-person, apple-pie-and-motherhood style of the book caught me somewhat by surprise. But don’t let the style fool you, Saving Us remarkably effortlessly conveys complex ideas through simple and powerful language and analogy. It’s a masterclass in “KISS” - “keep it simple stupid” or “less is more”.

I learned a lot from this book and in this review, I will share with you some of the many ideas and techniques that resonated with me. Katharine recalls so many different conversations and arguments that I can’t possibly do justice to more than a fraction of these, so I would urge you to read this book for yourself as there will undoubtedly be lots more you can get from it than I am covering in this review.

Katharine is an evangelical Christian and explains pretty early on how she engages with other people of her faith - something that I don’t feel particularly well-equipped to comment on being atheist, but this is something that would be of interest to many of those reading the book. I hasten to add this book is not proselytizing, the discussions of religion are about Katharine’s own motivations and how to engage others from a point of commonality, which may be religion. Indeed, Katharine’s worldview seems deeply human, compassionate, principled and, dare I say it, liberal. The empowerment of girls and women including their reproductive choices, for example, is cited as part of the solution to our climate situation - something that resonates very strongly with me.

This book confronts face-on the overriding problem that we have when discussing climate change - the polarisation of the debate along political lines. At the start we learn of the work of Anthony Leiserowitz and Ed Maibach called Global Warming’s Six Americas [1], which divides Americans into groups based on their level of concern about climate change. In 2020 there were 26% in the Alarmed category; Concerned 28%; Cautious 20%; Disengaged 7%, Doubtful 11% and finally Dismissive 7%. Since 2008, when the survey started, the number of Alarmed etc has risen.

The single most significant predictor of where Americans might sit on this spectrum of climate concern is their political affiliation. Conservatives lean much more strongly to the Dismissive viewpoint while liberals to the Alarmed. Dismissive are a hard group to convince because their drive to challenge climate science is not based on facts per se, but on the frame of reference through which they see the world and themselves.

"For a Dismissive, disagreeing with the science of climate change is one of their strongest frames. It's so integral to who they are that it renders them literally incapable of considering something they think would threaten their identity. Time and time again on social media I've seen Dismissives refuse point-black to even click a link that answers the question they've posed to me. And while I believe I've witnessed a few miraculous conversions, so to speak, I don't believe my arguments had much to do with making them happen.”

So what is to be done? Your only real chance of engaging a Dismissive is if you can find common ground to start a conversation. This book is all about how to have effective conversations, even with the people who disagree most vehemently with your viewpoint. It is practical, informative, insightful and empowering. I have rated it a must read. Read on to find out why…

The book

Before I leap into some of the many practical suggestions that Katharine has collected for us, let me tell you a little about the structure of the book as a whole. You will have gathered that it is written in an extremely accessible and readable style, broken down into 22 brief chapters, each focusing on a key theme. There is a great index as well as copious additional notes. The latter was the one aspect that I found slightly irksome - instead of some indication in the 250 pages of the main text, one has to turn to the notes section and find the page number where there would be a precis in a few words linking back to part of the text. I presume this was done to aid readability, but if there had been some sort of visual indication in the main body of the book such as an underline or symbol of some sort, I think it would have been easier to access the further reading which, I hastened to add, is excellent. Another aspect of the book to be aware of is its very strong US and Canada focus, but that in no way diminishes the content.

I’ve summarised the chapters in my own words, in the list below:

1. Setting the scene and “Dismissives”
2. Find the connection with others
3. Start with yourself and your motivation
4. Humans are causing climate change and the zombie arguments which refuse to die
5. The limitations of facts
6. Is fear a useful emotion?
7. Use guilt sparingly
8. Make things local/relevant
9. What are the “canaries” telling us
10. It’s urgent and every action counts
11. It’s your health!
12. “Solution aversion” and how to deal with it
13. It’s not really you but the system
14. Making carbon cost to stop free riding
15. The 2 E’s: efficiency and electricity
16. Removing carbon
17. Move away from fossil fuels, now
18. You matter!
19. Take personal actions but they aren’t the solution
20. Why talking matters
21. Bond, connect and inspire
22. Courage, mes amis!

These chapters fall into five sections as follows: 1-3 The problem and the solution; 4-7 Why facts matter but aren’t enough; 8-11 Threat multiplier; 12-17 We can fix it; 18-22 You can make a difference.

I hope that this gallop through the structure gives you an insight into the breath of coverage of the book. In it you can expect to learn a lot about the climate science in a highly accessible way, you will learn about human psychology, but you will keep circling back to the core of the book “how can I have a meaningful conversation about the subject of climate change”. Not only will it equip you for those conversations, but it will give you confidence to broach the subject in the first place.

Our strange brains and why facts are not enough

“We all know that if someone says ‘gravity isn’t real’ and steps off a cliff, they’re going down whether they ‘believe’ it or not. So it's reasonable that individuals or institutions that want to change the way people think apply the knowledge deficit model: the idea that, if people disagree with some fact or scientific explanation, it's because they don't know enough. If that's true, then by implication, more information —better education, clearer explanations-will prevent people from making misleading claims about climate change.

This approach can work if were talking about issues that don't have any moral or political baggage attached to them, like black holes or insect behavior. It can also work if we're talking about an issue that doesn't require immediate action, like astronomers' warning of a comet that might approach the Earth too close for comfort a century from now. But when politics, ideology, identity, and morality get tangled up in science when our frames, as George Lakoff calls them, get in the way then all bets are off.

Frames, according to Lakoff are cognitive structures which determine how we see the world. If we encounter facts that don’t fit our frame then it’s the frame that stays and the ‘facts are either ignored, dismissed or ridiculed’”.

You will probably have heard of the expression confirmation bias. That is the description of a heuristic which are short-cuts to decision making humans make in order to be able to complete the huge number of decisions we face each day. I covered some of these in my earlier review of Doug McKenzie-Mohr, Ph.D. 's outstanding “Social Marketing ”. Chapter 19 of my own book also touched on a number of these heuristics.

Katharine explains why the notion of knowledge deficit doesn’t really work.

“There’s so much information available in the world today that there is simply no way our brains can contain everything we need to know. There’s a term for this: nearly all of us are cognitive misers. In other words, we look for solutions that take the least thought. And to do that, we often rely on what others think”.

This explains the tribalism around climate change. If leading Republicans argue that the costs of renewables are too high, then folks who consider themselves Republicans will then tend to accept that as fact. Agreeing with people we trust, whose values we share and who we identify as being part of our tribe gives us comfort, reassurance and reinforces our sense of acceptance into that community.

This emotional link between self and common beliefs, which Doug McKenzie-Mohr referred to as self-perception, means that whenever the belief is questioned, the individual feels that their identity as tribe members is being called into question.

I was amused by an example given by Katharine:

“At a workshop on how climate change affects agriculture in Texas, one farmer came up to me afterward, shaking his head. "Everything you said makes sense, and I'd like to agree with you," he confessed. "But if I agree with you, I have to agree with Al Gore, and I could never do that."

This phenomenon is called motivated reasoning, which states that we base our opinions and judgements on the emotional effect that they may have on us and our existing frame of reference. Thus, we will actively seek out information that supports our existing viewpoint and completely ignore information that contradicts it. In fact, information that questions the existing beliefs can backfire as our strong emotional attachment to the beliefs means that we refuse to accept even the most solid facts and dig into our own beliefs even more doggedly. As Katharine says:

“We will use all the intelligence we have to show why we’re right, rather than admit we’re wrong”?

As well as the notion that facts alone are not enough to persuade someone to change their perspective, I took a couple of other lessons away from this narrative.

First is how important it is that the tribes we all inhabit are drawn widely to encompass a wide range of opinion. I can understand now why Trump’s supporters in the US try to brand other Republicans as Republican In Name Only or call out critics like Liz Cheney as traitors – they are effectively trying to kick them out of the tribe so that their opinions are considered invalid or irrelevant.

Second is the notion that if we are discussing climate change with folks in a particular tribe, say Republicans or Conservatives, that it actually helps if you can point to other voices who are in the tribe who support your arguments. On LinkedIn, for example, I will sometimes quote Arnold Schwarzenegger or Margaret Thatcher when I am talking to folks who might admire them for their conservative values. Indeed, Katharine quotes Arnie as having “signed the very first law in the history of the United States requiring mandatory greenhouse gas targets” and quotes Ronald Reagan saying in 1984: “Preservation of our environment is not a partisan challenge; it's common sense. Our physical health, our social happiness, and our economic well-being will be sustained only by all of us working in partnership as thoughtful, effective stewards of our natural resources."

Returning to the previous idea of finding something in common, I realize now that this is really about finding a tribe that you share with the other person and then discussing ideas from inside the tribe rather than questioning the validity of the tribe.

The challenges with using fear in communications

Another aspect of human psychology that Katharine explains very well is the general ineffectiveness of fear as a motivator for action.

Many environmentalists understand that the science is telling us that climate change is a dire risk to our futures and so believe that convincing people of the severity of the risk will be sufficient to spurn them into action. Unfortunately, fear has quite the opposite effect – often leading to negative responses like, depression, a sense of powerlessness, uncertainty, despair and anxiety. All those emotions are counterproductive.

So, while fear can be very good at getting our attention, it can also be very good at frightening us into paralysis! Indeed, one of the reasons why fossil fuel proponent like to talk in apocalyptic terms about the transition to net zero, is because that has the effect of shutting down people’s desire to act. They will amplify people’s sense of powerlessness by saying things like “the UK is only 3% of global emissions, what we do will make no difference”. Another trick is to introduce uncertainty into the mix. When we are exposed to something that induces fear but don’t know how to respond which also creates paralysis.

In my earlier review of Doug’s book and my own textbook, I talked about “vivid messaging”. That is to say messages that capture the attention rapidly and viscerally. One example I give is the Bloomberg Businessweek cover:

While such powerful images can grab our attention, they can also be scary. So how does Katharine advise we handle these?

“Fear-based messaging can motivate us very effectively if we know how to turn that fear into tangible action. A practical application of this concept is the following: if negative news about climate change is immediately followed with information explaining how individuals, communities, businesses, or governments can reduce the threat, then this information can empower rather than discourage us. Sometimes we are even able to do this ourselves, internally.”

In other words, frightening folks only works when you accompany that with a clear, practical course of action that they can take to address the risk highlighted. Leaving people in “limbo” to figure out the consequences and actions is usually counterproductive unless they are already well informed and feel that they have agency to make changes.

At this point I would encourage readers to follow Katherine on Linked in and subscribe to her regular LinkedIn newsletter “Talking Climate ”. If there are new developments in the field of climate communications then she will almost certainly raise them in her posts, such as this week’s commentary on a research project [2] involving a highly diverse sample of over 59,440 participants in 63 countries which reinforced the paralysing effect of fear.

One other quirk of the human mind is the way we compare losses and gains. Let’s look at a piece of fossil fuels misinformation, which gives us further insight into the use of fear:

The image above is taken from an advertisement in 1997 by the Global Climate Coalition, a front group for utility, oil, coal, mining, railroad and car companies, who, with a $13m campaign successfully convinced President Clinton to reject the Kyoto agreement which started the phase out of greenhouse gases. You can see that it is inducing fear that American’s “Economic Future” will be harmed. The text underneath the image says:

“Generations of American families have worked hard to make America's economy the strongest in the world. But that success - and the economic security of our future generations - is suddenly at great risk. Because right now, our world competitors - countries like China, India, Mexico, and Brazil - are pressuring the United States to support a U.N. global climate agreement that would force American families to restrict our use of the oil, gasoline, and electricity - that heats and cools our homes and schools, gets us to our jobs, and runs our factories and businesses. We'd have to pay more for energy, and, in turn, prices for goods and services would rise.

The big countries that compete with America for jobs, trade, and economic security have everything to gain and nothing to lose. Because according to a prior agreement, they won't have to make the sacrifices Americans are expected to make. This also means America's sacrifices will not produce environmental gains.

That simply isn't fair, or effective.

The climate agreement that President Clinton is under pressure to sign has a big price tag - mostly for American families.

It's a bad deal for America. Today. And tomorrow.”

In this example, the technique employed is called loss aversion. Virtually all the messages are about what Americans will lose, the sacrifices that will arise. One could have argued that rejecting Kyoto would give Americans some gains, like greater competitiveness, or freedom over policymaking or the ability to develop their own oil and gas industries, but just about everything is deliberately framed in terms of what American Families will have to give up.

Loss aversion [4] behaviour states that people are place greater weight when making a decision on possible losses than on possible gains. Essentially it is the fear of loss that is the most motivating, which is why the fossil fuel misinformation painted this picture of the great (untrue) losses that would happen if Clinton signed the Kyoto Agreement.

This is how it works. If people are given a choice A) to definitely receive ￡100 or B) a 50% probability of receiving ￡200 or nothing, the vast majority will choose A. On the other hand, when offered the choice C) of definitely losing ￡100 compared to option D) a 50% probability of losing ￡200 or nothing, the overwhelming majority of respondents will take the risk and go for choice D). The psychology of these choices appears to be related to a greater desire to avoid the pain associated with a loss than to experience the joy of a gain. ?In the first case, our choice A) is avoiding the 50% probability that we would lose the ￡100 which was certain. In the second case, choice D) gives us a 50% possibility of preventing any loss, which is better than C) where the loss is definite, albeit smaller. The results of these kinds of experiments show that on average people needed to gain about twice (1.5x – 2.5x) as much as they were willing to lose to proceed forward with the bet.

One simple consequence of the loss aversion behaviour is the way we might present a climate action like installing solar panels. Instead of saying “this will save ￡800 a year” you might say “each year you delay you will lose ￡800”.

So, let’s turn our attention to the central messages in Saving Us, how to be an effective climate action communicator.

Areas of commonality

The starting point for an effective conversation about climate change is usually not climate change! If you leap straight into this topic, you are likely to encounter a number of immediate barriers, such as people’s anxiety about the subject (fear or denial), or their unwillingness to move away from the viewpoints of their peers (a challenge to their own identities), or their perception that the problem is real but the solution worse (solution aversion), or their fear that they will be asked to justify their own actions (purity test), or simply that they may be harangued by a climate change bore!

To avoid these barriers, one can start by exploring the other person’s background, interests and experiences - ideally using open questions like “what do you do”, “have you lived in this area for a long time”, “do you have any kids / pets” and so forth. Hopefully, you will find something in common - like you both have teenage kids, or you come from a farming background, or you enjoy winter sports and so forth.

At that point, having established common ground, you might raise the subject of climate change by exploring if you agree on some evidence of it and the possible solution. An example is folks who are into snowboarding and the observation that snowfall is becoming less predictable and the seasons shorter, and the “solution” to join a group is a group called “Protect our Winters” which focuses on the effects that climate change is having on winter sports.

I’ve picked out just some of Katharine’s points of connection and included possible solution or actions that folks might consider in a Common Ground->Observation->Solution format. There are many more of these triplets, of course - why don’t you think of some that are relevant to your circles and interests when you get off reading this review?

Winter sports -> shorter seasons -> join Protect our Winter

Birdwatching -> species declining -> join Audubon Society

Duck hunting -> species declining -> join Ducks Unlimited

Live in Texas -> wild weather recently -> contact your Congressman

Knitting -> wool is dearer -> knit patterns for Hawkin Stripes [5]

Fly fishing -> fewer fish -> lobby for water conservation

Farmer -> unpredictable weather -> help in adaptation

Investor -> risks -> check for climate exposed stocks

Pro-life belief -> deaths from CC/pollution -> stop fossil fuels

Arctic community -> Ice roads thaw early -> mobilise community

You get the picture! Sometimes the “call to action” or solution will be a more general discussion around the actions one can take in one’s own personal life, the things that one can do to get other folks involved and broader forms of lobbying and political engagement to get policymakers aware of this subject. Indeed, the universal action in all the suggestions above is to encourage others to also talk about climate change with folks!

Later in this review I will discuss some of the specific objections that folks raise about acting on climate change. But first lets looks at some of the top tips that Katharine provides.

General principles for effective engagement

First, is the notion that we get greater engagement by reducing the distance. If climate change problems and solutions appear distant, or impact on social groups that are far from us or will happen a long time in the future, then the urgency to act will be greatly diminished, even if we accept that there is a problem. If we can, we should localise the issues - don’t express the problem as a tenuous, distant “climate change” problem, but, for example, as the amount of flooding we are getting the North West of the UK. We can also reduce the social distance by personalising things such as talking about the effect of climate change on children and grandchildren and we can ground the discussion in the groups that we mutually identify with, as described earlier.

Another important principle is to focus on people’s efficacy when proposing solutions.

“Stanford psychologist Albert Bandura has been studying human behavior since before I was born. In 1977, he proposed-and proved - that people change their behavior if they feel self efficacy, which he defined as "the belief in one's capabilities to organize and execute a course of action." "Feel" is not really the right word, as efficacy is not technically an emotion. Rather, psychologists refer to it as a cognitive process. Perhaps it's more accurate to say that if you think you can do something, like hiring your neighbor's installer to put some [solar] panels on your roof, you're more likely to. And if you think what you do will make a difference (for example, you'll save money and feel good about yourself), that's even better.”

In my own textbook I refer to this as developing both people’s motivation to act and their capacity to act. Another term used is agency, the sense that one can make a decision and see it through to completion. Doug McKenzie-Mohr emphasises the importance of making the change you seek as easy and effortless as possible. These are all aspects of efficacy.

But Katharine reminds us that efficacy isn’t just about signalling that an action is easy and within someone’s capabilities but is also about ensuring that the call to action is not encumbered by ideological barriers such as being associated with a political party at the other end of the spectrum to our own. We should not forget that “by a mile, the biggest barriers are emotional and ideological”.

Let’s turn to Katharine’s story of “John’s dad”, the father of another great climate communicator, John Cook who created some great cartoon books and videos called Cranky Uncle Vs. Climate Change, which I will review at some point, and which I highly recommend as a useful adjunct to Saving Us. Anyhow, John’s dad is quite conservative and unconvinced about climate change. So, when John raised the idea of putting solar panels on the roof of his house, his dad was quite resistant since he thought that this was just a “green-y thing to do”. However, sometime later, he went ahead and installed 16 panels on his home. It turned out that dad had crunched the numbers on the savings he would make and the rebates from the electricity company and concluded that it was “a financial no-brainer” to get the panels. Saving money was a core value for John’s dad, and the act of installing the panels actually reinforced his identity as a thrifty conservative and so it was an easy choice.

“A few years later over dinner, John's dad told him, unprompted, in the course of their conversation, “Of course humans are causing global warming.” John nearly fell out of his chair. It was the last thing he’d expected, having gotten nowhere on this subject with his father for years. When John asked, dumbfounded, "What changed your mind?" he was even more surprised by his dad's response: “What are you talking about? I've always thought this.””.

The psychology of this fascinating. John’s theory was that by taking an action that was more climate-friendly, his dad’s perception of who he was had altered at such a fundamental level that he couldn’t even recall having had a completely different viewpoint previously. This ties in with the notion of self-perception that I mentioned earlier.

This brings us neatly to the notion of contagion, where the actions of people around you cause others to follow suit. It seems that when folks like John’s dad install solar panels, their visibility encourages others to follow suit.

Research has shown that solar panel installations often develop in clusters, where several early adopters have pioneered their adoption and then folks living nearby will talk about it, the initial buyers can tell their neighbours about their experience with the installation and the overall transaction cost associated with researching the alternatives, finding an installer and determining the benefits all reduce dramatically. This is another big aspect of efficacy.

Another way to build people’s efficacy is to encourage them to participate in collective or communal actions. One example quoted is that of the Citizens Climate Lobby, which is a non-partisan body which fosters collective efficacy by providing a non-political space where people can discuss climate change and take practical steps to address it. The visible actions of others in a group provides a social license to follow suit.

Solution aversion, deflections, and answers

Having looked at some of Katharine’s techniques for encouraging action, I want to reflect the enormous wealth of useful information about climate change and possible solutions to be found in Saving Us. I should point out here that Katharine is a distinguished climate scientist having worked on the Fourth National Climate Assessment for the US, she is also chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy and a recognised expert in climate change communications with many accolades to her name. So the information the gives us in the book, is highly authoritative.

What I am proposing to do is focus on another concept that Katharine explains eloquently in Chapter 12 of her book. I hadn’t heard about “solution aversion” before, but the idea resonated with me particularly strongly as this is a phenomenon that I think is dominating social media like LinkedIn. Dimissives, Big Oil and their apologists are no longer saying that “climate change doesn’t exist”, but instead they try to persuade us that “the cure is worse than the illness”, in other words the solutions put about by folks who want to transition away from fossil fuels are impractical, authoritarian, will impoverish us all or will destroy or freedoms/way of life etc etc.

So what I will do now is to look at some prototypical examples of the “solution won’t work” memes I regularly encounter on LinkedIn and use Katharine’s text, with additional inputs of my own to counter these.

“Fossil fuels are the cheapest form of energy and turning our back on these will deny 2 billion poor people any chance of development”.

In fact, oil and gas are staggeringly expensive, not just because the price is regularly manipulated by the OPEC+ cartel but because, as Katharine points out

“According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), fossil fuel use is subsidized to the tune of 6.5% of global GDP, or nearly $165,000 USD per second. Nearly half of that goes to coal, then petroleum; only 10 percent to natural gas. In the US the IMF estimates that fossil fuel subsidies top $600 billion per year. That is slightly more than the Pentagon’s budget, ten times more than the US spends on education every year and twenty times the clean energy subsidies”. In countering this meme, we should also acknowledge that the world’s poorest are the ones who will be most servery affected by climate change, so if we are concerned for them, then that should mean more action on the climate, not less.? Further, Katharine quotes a study [6] that “the entire US power grid could be transitioned to 90% renewable energy by 2035 at no net cost and with a reduction of average electricity costs of 13 percent.”?

“An energy system using 100% renewables is impossible, we will end up with long blackouts” or “Renewables are intermittent and can’t function without fossil fuel backup”.

Katharine reminds us that Scotland hit 97% renewables in 2017 and “other countries at or near 100% clean energy include Iceland, Norway, Paraguay, Costa Rica and Uruguay”. The work of Mark Jacobson from Stanford which I covered in my review of “No Miracles Needed ” shows that a 100% renewable energy system is not only feasible but considerably cheaper than a fossil fuel energy system.

“It’s about individual choices, your demand for oil and gas is what is causing the problem”.

Katharine’s response is as simple and logical as you could possibly ask for:

“Individual choices control at most 40 percent of emissions in wealthy countries. If you assume that the 28 percent of people in the U.S. who are Alarmed about climate change are willing— and financially able-to cut their carbon footprint in half, that would mean no more than a 6 percent drop in U:S. emissions [ 0.4 x 0.28 x 0.5 = 0.056 = 5.6% ]. Add in everyone who's Concerned, and you can get to 10 percent, maybe.”

In other words, individual actions will have little direct effect on emissions. So what will? Well, Katharine again gives us some ideas

“According to the Carbon Majors Report produced by the Colorado-based Climate Accountability Institute, one hundred fossil fuel companies have been responsible for emitting 70 percent of the world's heat-trapping gases since 1988. And even more tellingly, the top eight of them—in order: Saudi Aramco, Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Gazprom, Royal Dutch Shell, National Iranian Oil Co, and Petroleos Mexicanos — have accounted for almost 20 percent of global carbon emissions from fossil fuels and cement production since the Industrial Revolution”

so clearly the issue is with a small group of companies, not people. Then she goes on to explain how a carbon tax, shareholder divestments and the inexorable rise of renewables can put a stop to those corporations polluting. It’s a system change not individual choices that will make the difference.

“If you eat meat or fly you’re a hypocrite and shouldn’t preach to us about climate change”.

This type of response is called a purity test and it is quite closely aligned with the previous claim about personal choices, with the added advantage that it implies a loss so kicks in the loss aversion response. This is what Katharine has to say: “Peer pressure is effective when there is a viable alternative” so the response to these kinds of arguments should mirror the previous observations about personal choices and I would make the point that “I don’t control what fuels airlines use or the availability of alternative modes of transport. I eat meat because that is in my culture, but I would very much like to see lower-carbon forms of meat available to me.” I should point out that it is not just fossil-fuels apologists that bring up the purity test, but also many environmentalists and to them I would say that I appreciate their choices but that I believe that success doesn’t generally lie in banning everything that currently produces emissions but by changing those things is such a way that we eliminate the emissions. For example, we aren’t proposing to ban cars, just to ban fossil-fuelled cars.? ???

Katharine expands on the issue around our current lifestyle being intrinsically linked to fossil fuels. “It's no surprise, then, that when it comes to climate change, we feel helpless. Were told that essential aspects of our lives - driving to work, or to the doctor, or feeding our kids, or going on vacation with our family-are bad. But we can't envision how to live otherwise. Or even, how to exist otherwise. So when were shamed, we defend ourselves because we feel, just like I did that day in Austin, that we have no other option. We are just doing our best to get by.”

The solution to this conundrum is to show that we do have alternatives that do not pollute and that can cost less, and which do not require major changes to our lifestyles. This is where some folks may feel “Saving Us” leans too much towards techno-optimism and that we will have to make some changes to our lifestyles in order to address climate change - in particular we may need to eat less red meat.

“Ending fossil fuels means we will have no medicines, clothes, plastics etc”

This objection to climate action, with the implication that we will have to forgo a wide range of modern comforts to combat climate change, plays to our loss aversion, so it is particularly effective. This is what is called a “straw man argument”, where people claim you are saying something you are not. Climate activists are not saying we must abandon hydrocarbons as chemical feedstocks – they are saying that we should just stop burning them as a fuel! The clue is in the name “fossil fuels”, duh!. There are, of course, concerns about methane leakage and other pollution in the petrochemicals industry and supply chain, which do need to be addressed, as well as about the amount of plastic that ends up in the environment – so the industry isn’t being given a free hand to continue as it is today, but no one sensible is proposing that we stop making these useful materials. That is why campaigns like “Just Stop Oil” could misfire – they are sending the wrong message.

“Offshore wind farms are killing whales and onshore wind turbines kill birds”

These objections are ones that I see fairly frequently on LinkedIn. The first version about whales is simply not supported by the science [7], although we should certainly do more research on why whales beach themselves. The second, claim about birds is true, with one estimate putting the number of bird deaths at 366,000 a year [8]. However, the same study estimates that cats kill 2.41 billion birds a year, building glass, about 600 million and cars about 200 million, so in that context wind turbines are an insignificant cause of bird mortality. ?

“Poor children in the Congo are dying for cobalt for batteries in electric cars”, and “there are not enough minerals to complete the transition to renewables”.

These aren’t subjects directly covered by Katharine, but I though I should raise them because of their prevalence as a criticism of climate solutions. The issue of children in the Congo is designed to either force us to somehow justify the appalling human rights abuses in the Congo or to accept that we can’t take cobalt from there, leaving us open to the claim that there will not be enough cobalt without the children’s suffering. A study about “conflict materials” by the International Institute for Human Development [9] says that approximately “20 per cent of the DRC’s total cobalt exports come from ASM operations”, where AMD means “artisanal and small-scale mining”, the kind of mining where child exploitation can occur. More recent data from NRCAN [10] has the Congo supplying 70% of world cobalt and 34% of that going into electric cars. So about 14% of the cobalt used in electric cars could have originated from mining where child labour could be a problem. That clearly is a concern but, given the relatively low percentage, one that could be solved by sourcing the cobalt ethically – the best outcome would be to still source from artisanal mines but to make sure the folks get paid decently and that safety is guaranteed.

On the topic of mineral availability, like lithium and cobalt, the expectation is that the transition to net zero may increase demand for these fivefold [11]. In the case of lithium, we are unlikely to see shortages, whereas for cobalt the picture is more nuanced since it is only usually mined as a byproduct of other mineral mining, like nickel. That having been said, there is a lot of work being undertaken on removing cobalt from batteries altogether as well as creating alternative battery chemistries that use sodium rather than lithium – sodium is extremely abundant. If we factor in that almost all batteries are likely to be recycled, given their value, it seems increasingly unlikely that minerals shortages will prevent the transition to net zero, although we should be vigilant about the possibility of supply chain bottlenecks causing problems. For now, the supply is adequate and so there is no reason not to proceed at the fastest possible rate.

Conclusion

This review has taken me much longer than I expected, reflecting the depth of useful ideas in this excellent, highly readable book.

What this book achieves, apart from relatively effortlessly make us better informed in a wide range of subjects, is to give us the confidence to have better discussions around climate change. It starts out with the simple premise that addressing climate change starts with being able to have effective conversations on the subject.

And there is no doubt in my mind that we can talk about climate change, even with some of the most resistant folks, if we first start by establishing common ground, if we describe why the solutions we are suggesting are compatible with the values of our audience.

I am also reminded of the old adage “God gave us ears and mouths in a 2:1 ratio to reflect how we should use them” – an effective conversation is about active listening not just persuasive speaking. Katharine is encouraging us to think before we leap into a conversation.

Its important to state that Katharine doesn’t claim that we can change the views of many Dismissives, but her advice will certainly allow us to open a line of communication. These techniques will be much more effective with the other five categories of people we encounter. The degree to which we feel we should spend time and effort on changing the most recalcitrant minds is entirely a personal choice.

For us to tackle the climate emergency we need to work together collectively and show that the vast majority of people want urgent action on the 60% of issues we do not control through our personal choices. By emphasizing the need to be inclusive not combative, Katharine has done the movement a great service. For that this book is a must read.

There were a few minor areas where I disagreed with Katharine, such as on Direct Air Capture or Carbon Capture and Storage. There was also little on the importance of protest as a means of communication, which is something that is quite important to Europeans. These are very minor quibbles, however.

There are many practical things I will personally take away. In terms of LinkedIn, I will endeavour to be kinder (I tend not to suffer fools and Dismissives easily), will try to try to establish common ground with folks, I will emphasize solutions that are easy to implement, and I will try to disagree more amicably. Thank you for that, Katharine.

Folks - if you have read this book please leave your own thoughts in the comments below - you may have picked out different aspects which others would find useful! You may also find my own textbook on energy and resource efficiency helpful - it's free to download :-)

Found this interesting/helpful? This is a link to all the book reviews so far with a brief summary and evaluation.