A bonus Turnstone

Reflections on a conversation about climate change (6 minute read)

When I first heard about climate change, it was called global warming, and I was still a teenager. I can’t remember exactly what I felt about it, although this was during the dying days of the cold war, and I suspect that I was still more worried about nuclear weapons. What I can remember is that I accepted, without question, that it was a problem.

Over subsequent years, however, I kept seeing and hearing things that gave me a nagging sense of doubt. It wasn’t that I stopped considering climate change a problem, but there were questions that I couldn’t answer, graphs I couldn’t explain, arguments I couldn’t counter. Whenever climate change was mentioned on television, there would always be someone saying there was too much uncertainty, or that it wasn’t real. The sense of doubt caused me to ask myself: why do I think climate change is a problem? What if it actually isn’t a problem after all?

Although I had studied science at university, I thought that the science was far too complex for someone like me to understand. How, then, could I answer the questions that I had?

After a great deal of thought, I realised that I didn’t need to understand the intricacies of the science. What I did understand was how the institutions of science worked. I had confidence in these institutions and in the process of science. It wasn’t about what an individual scientist said, it was bigger than that. If I looked at the big picture, I could see that research agencies like New Zealand’s National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were employing many scientists who published research saying climate change was a problem. This research was published in important scientific journals like Nature. I respected and trusted these institutions. And so I accepted their conclusions.

That was some years ago now, but I found myself reflecting on it when I hosted my first Living Room Conversation on climate change. One of the suggested questions for that conversation was the following:

• Do you see climate change as a natural cycle of the earth, caused by human actions or both? What experiences bring you to that understanding?

Living Room Conversations provide a method for hosting conversations among groups of people who have very different views on a particular issue. The approach is all about connecting despite differences and divisions. In that respect, my first conversation wasn’t a shining example – we were four women of similar age and with broadly similar views on climate change. But I could still see the potential of the method, because it really drew out the differences as well as what we had in common. It was a fascinating and beautiful conversation.

As we talked, I was struck by the very different journeys we had taken to reach our present understanding on climate change. The conversation gave me an opportunity to reflect on my own journey. But it also made me think about those who have good reason not to trust institutions, or who don’t have the experience I have which gives me confidence in science. We didn’t have anyone in the group who was convinced climate change was a hoax or exaggerated or just too uncertain to act upon. But I could see how the approaches taken in Living Room Conversations would make it easier to speak with people who did.

You don’t need to speak with someone who holds a vastly different viewpoint to get value from a Living Room Conversation. One less-discussed aspect of climate change is how we feel about it. Does that matter? I believe that it does, because people don’t make decisions based on thinking alone – emotion is a very important part of decision-making. What we feel about climate change affects what we do.

One of the questions we discussed in the Living Room Conversation was:

• What are your hopes and concerns for your community and/or the country?

I love this question, at least the part about hopes and concerns. Asking the question in relation to the country worked less well, I thought, because there were hopes and concerns for the whole planet which we wanted to discuss. This question drew out some deep feelings, such as the grief and anger that many of us feel in the face of a problem which we’ve known about for decades but which is still getting worse. This question also drew out our anxieties for the future, especially considering what coming generations will have to face.

When it came to thinking about the future, again we each had a different perspective, some more optimistic, some less. Much of the time, I admit that I don’t feel optimistic. So many opportunities have gone by. But we are making progress, and there are some amazing minds working on solutions, so I can’t feel completely hopeless.

A new fern frond always makes me feel hopeful (image credit: Melanie Newfield)

One of the most interesting questions for me was the one which asked about actions:

• Have you made any changes to your lifestyle/energy consumption due to your views on climate change? What happened?

There is so much to this question. It’s not just about what people do and don’t do. It’s about the balance between voluntary action and regulation. It’s about what we feel we could lose. It’s about having enough control over our lives to make choices.

The question of how much choice we have is an important one for me. Years ago, I signed up for a challenge to cut my carbon footprint (it was called 10:10, since the year was 2010 and the goal was a 10% cut). There were quite a few things that I could do towards that goal. But, since then, I’ve had years when it was far more difficult. It’s not so easy to reduce meat consumption when you are feeding children and young people who are not used to a diet that’s mostly vegetables, or to reduce fuel use when you are constantly having to drive them places. It is also harder to make better choices when you’ve got no energy left, or when you are unwell, or when you have to count every cent at the supermarket. Our discussion reminded me of times when it was much harder for me to act on climate change, and to reflect on the barriers that others face.

The discussion about taking action was, for me, the most inspiring part of the conversation. I struggle sometimes, wondering whether what I’m doing is largely futile – too little, too late. Hearing the perspectives of the others in the group gave me a new way of looking at personal action, something I’d never thought about before. One member of the group described personal action on climate change as an “act of faith in humanity”. I’d never heard climate change action described in that way before. And yet it made perfect sense to me.

When we take our own actions, we don’t know what others will do. To some extent, we are trusting that others are going to act as well. We are trusting that scientists will find solutions, that politicians will offer incentives, that industries will change, that other people care about the planet too. We can’t predict the behaviour of people, of governments or of societies in the way that we can predict future trends in the climate. But we can hope. And we can act on that hope.

Over the next few months, I will be sending out more bonus content for The Turnstone. The next piece is an interview with a retired scientist who spent their career working on issues related to climate change. The interview includes a fascinating insight into how the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change produces its comprehensive reports. I’ve also got an interview with a geothermal geologist, as a supplement to an upcoming article about geothermal energy. For now, I’ll be sharing this bonus content with all subscribers, however in future it will be for paid subscribers only. My weekly Turnstones will remain free.