Turning climate change alarm into action

Last fall, Yale Climate Connections profiled Massachusetts climate activist Jeremy Ornstein’s anxiety that global inaction on climate change would lead to catastrophe. As a child, “I would cover my ears whenever anyone mentioned the words ‘global warming,” he said. And our most recent national survey by finds that more Americans are alarmed about global warming than ever before.

 Several recent projects highlight ways to transform alarm into action: The new book A Better Planet presents insights on how to spur citizens to act; work from scholar Robert J. Klee highlights state and local climate policies that inspire hope—and create a framework for replication; and the Financing and Deploying Clean Energy certificate program at the Yale Center for Business and the Environment provides a model for building a global network of leaders advancing clean energy.

First, the alarm. Our prior research has categorized Americans into six groups – Global Warming’s Six Americas – based on their climate change beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. Nearly six in ten (58%) Americans are now either “Alarmed” or “Concerned” about global warming. From 2014 to 2019, the proportion of “Alarmed,” the group most worried about global warming, nearly tripled. Our latest survey (November 2019) finds that the Alarmed segment is at an all-time high (31%). In an essay in A Better Planet: Forty Big Ideas for a Sustainable Future, I describe how the Alarmed represent an enormous potential social movement—if organizers can recruit, train, and deploy them to demand that elected officials act. 

What should that policy response entail? Robert J. Klee, Yale lecturer and former head of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, has some suggestions. Klee recently explained in the Hartford Courant how a vanguard of states, cities, and companies create hope for climate action. In the Clean Energy Finance Forum, he laid out in detail how those efforts could be replicated across the country: establishing clean energy mandates and economy-wide emissions reductions targets, transforming the electric grid, creating incentives for electric vehicles, and much more. 

It’s not enough, though, to wait for policymakers to move. The Financing and Deploying Clean Energy certificate program at Yale is one example of how to train and catalyze a network of leaders to fight climate change. The online program connects professionals working to advance the clean economy with Yale faculty, and offers policy, financial modeling, and systems-thinking skills to deepen their work. The result is an international network of changemakers – in fields like finance, policy, research and the power sector – with each member working to transform the energy system. The program is currently recruiting its second cohort and applications are open until March 1. 

Jeremy Ornstein’s story demonstrates that the enormity of climate change need not lead to paralysis. His worry turned to resolve: after graduating from high school, he became a full-time climate activist and helped elect a state legislator opposed to a fossil fuel pipeline. The right organizing, policy, and training can multiply such efforts and help us, in Ornstein’s words, “stop this climate crisis and make a better world.”