How optimism research can help us fight climate change
Swap 'doomism' for small shifts with positive psychology
There was a time when the idea of “optimism” repelled me. I had always assumed it was a form of toxic positivity — mainlining a constant stream of inspirational memes on Instagram while the world burns — so I figured it had nothing to offer. But I came to learn that the practice of optimism isn’t about pretending bad things don’t happen. In fact, it’s particularly helpful when you’re coping with trauma and disaster. And it’s been absolutely essential for my own emotional resilience, both in getting through the ongoing pandemic and helping me reframe my view of the climate emergency towards positive action.
One of the researchers that really changed my thinking on all this is Eranda Jayawickreme, PhD. Jajawickreme studies “post-traumatic growth” in people who have experienced serious adversity, including survivors of civil war and genocide. He told me Americans in particular can get stuck chasing a certain kind of redemption story, narratives in which survivors emerge even better than they were before. That’s because we love a happy ending a lot more than the messy complicated parts of life, what “resilience” really looks like. It doesn’t always get better, and it especially doesn’t get better all at once.
If we could zoom out and look at the big picture of the climate emergency, that’s exactly what we’d see: a lot of mess and complexity. It’s usually a mix of bad and good news — ok, maybe mostly bad with a handful of hopeful opportunities sprinkled into the mix. But here’s the thing — the practice of optimism doesn’t require you to ignore the bad news. How could we? Many of us are living the reality of climate-linked disasters like forest fires, drought and heat waves, and we feel helpless. We’re watching Putin invade Ukraine and there’s nothing we can do about it.
But even in the case of literal bad news — like reading reports that some countries are not keeping their deforestation commitments or how polluters are working to evade regulation — we shouldn’t turn that off either, at least not entirely. Stay informed, though don’t doom-scroll if it’s not helpful and you can avoid it.
So what can we do?
It’s important to separate out what we can and can’t control. Most of us can’t do anything to stop corporations or governments, at least not immediately, but we can vote, organize and make the kinds of choices the evidence shows to be most impactful. For climate change, that includes eating less meat, as you’ve seen me say before.
If we take a lesson from positive psychology and the practice of optimism, we shift away from trying to fix everything to focusing instead on taking small steps in a positive direction. These small actions can add up and, quite helpfully, this reframing towards incremental action can boost our mental health in the short-term too.
Here’s a specific example that’s kinda meta. I tweeted recently about a new study from the World Resources Institute. Researchers found that messages like “small changes can make can make a big difference” were more effective in getting people to eat more plant-based foods. A write up in Fast Company explained the thinking: it’s called “nudge theory,” using little pushes in the right direction to achieve change.
This is incredibly important to learn because all big sweeping climate actions plans are, in fact, just a series of small steps. Scientists say it all the time but I’ll repeat it again here: there is no silver bullet solution, no single fix that will allow us to reverse climate change and go about business as usual. Arguing about whether transportation is worse than agricultural emissions makes it sound like we still have a choice. The research shows, again and again, that we need to deploy all of the effective solutions we have in order to really and truly curb emissions.
So, we can’t feed cows seaweed additives to reduce methane while continuing to eat meat at the same levels we always have. That won’t work. We need both: to make meat production better and eat much less of it to bring down emissions. On its own, each solution is not enough. But taken together, we have the makings of an effective climate plan.
It’s more complicated than that, of course, as each solution has its criticisms and its challenges. Ultimately, it’s important that we stay nimble and open to new information, which brings me to another really important mental shift that we can learn from optimism research: the value of curiosity.
Science is not static. As researchers learn and discover and argue amongst themselves, the body of evidence on any given subset of study related to climate change could possibly shift. When that happens, we need to change our way of thinking, our policy goals and our behaviors. But if we can stay curious in this process, we might be able to make all of those necessary shifts just a little bit more easily. It might not be big and it might not happen all at once, but staying curious rather than entrenched can hopefully help us get there.
Hits and Misses: What I cooked for my non-vegan family this week
Hits: Vegan birthday cake! This is a delicious and fairly easy vanilla layer cake recipe. My only tweak would be to add more vanilla, scrape some actual beans if you have ‘em. I made a chocolate ganache frosting and a berry filling, and then placed it on my new cake stand, which is so darn fancy! Also, in a desperate attempt to make sandwiches and wraps more fun, I made vegan quesadillas (hate to even call them that as these are quite Americanized) with vegan cheddar and sautéed mushrooms and fried stuffed banana and sunflower seed butter sandwiches for my younger kid during mid-winter break (that’s the second winter vacation this year if you’re keeping score at home, and I am).
Misses: In the last couple of weeks, the toughest part of cooking for omnivores has been having to look at all the meaty items in the freezer. It’s not just the meat consumption but how unhealthy these foods are. But I can’t cook everything from scratch every night. So, we have some planning to do as a family. Stay tuned…
What I’m reading
Two new (to me) examples of big important evidentiary shifts in climate science:
The Energy Mix ‘Buried’ Science Shows Fast Carbon Cuts Can Stabilize Temperatures in 3-4 Years
Quanta Magazine A Soil-Science Revolution Upends Plans to Fight Climate Change