Confronting the Climate Crisis with Margaret Klein Salamon, PhD

In the words of today's guest, "we are in a moment of acute collective suffering." I couldn't agree more. From our nation’s current civil rights struggles to a metastasizing global pandemic, the pain is real, exacerbated by acurrent political system that seems hardwired to exacerbate problems, yet rather inept at actually solving them. Fomenting a collective sense of existential dread is the dark beast of climate change, an accelerating background hum that can leave even the most optimistic among us feeling powerless. Because we are not nearing the edge of a cliff. We have already flung ourselves off. Hitting the brakes isn't enough. We need to jam the engine into reverse. We need an immediate call to action. We need a 'Manhattan Project' scale approach to reckon with the objective truth of our dire predicament. Margaret Klein Salamon, PhD is here to guide us. A Harvard graduate and self-dubbed “climate psychologist,” Margaret is the founder and executive director of The Climate Mobilization, a volunteer organization dedicated to initiating a transformation of the economy, politics, and society to respond to the climate emergency. She is also the author of Facing the Climate Emergency: How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth, an emotional guide to processing our impending apocalypse, and the subject of today's exchange. Recorded remotely in early June, this is a conversation about our emotional response to climate change, and tools for contributing to the positive change required of us. It's about the intersectionality of the climate crisis--it’s ties to the pandemic as well as the protests. It’s about the inherent conflict between capitalism and environmentalism--and how we must de-couple corporate self-interest from the public good. And it’s about how to deal with weaponized media and the way in which we are being spoon-fed lies by conglomerated industry over-invested in maintaining the status quo. But more than anything, this is a discourse about effective altruism--and the actionable steps we can take now to backtrack from the global suicide we are nearing. It's normal to feel disheartened. Action seems futile. And 2020 has maxed out our collective bandwidth when it comes to crises and revolutions. But embracing the truth and finding a way to contribute to positive change is not only mandatory -- it’s a path to hope. To girding your life with more meaning, inclusion and empathy. This is one of my increasingly rare audio-only podcasts. You can find the is streaming wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Margaret’s ideologies have totally reframed how I perceive, address, and talk about the climate crisis. My hope is that her words offer you a perspective that is honest and hopeful. But more than anything, my hope is that it inspires you to do something. Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 1:04Speaker 01

  The truth is, there's lots of really exciting developments in the climate space, but it's about scaling it all up, like, by a thousand times. Something that only federal governments have the resources to do is the kind of system change. It's all there. It's all ready to go. We just have lacked the political will to implement it. That is significantly because of psychological factors. And I think what the climate emergency movement is doing is intervening in that, realizing

• 1:49Speaker 01

  that our enemy is not just fossil fuel companies and their huge network and industrial agriculture, but also denial. Denial and passivity are also enemies. No one, no one can say this system is working.

• 2:08Rich Roll?

  That's Margaret Klein-Solomon, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 2:23Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. How you guys doing? What's happening? I am Rich Roll, indeed. This is my podcast. Good to be here with you guys today. I don't think I'm going out on a limb to suggest that for a litany of unfortunate reasons, our current political system seems hardwired to exacerbate problems and rather inept at actually solving them. Whether it's our current civil rights struggles or managing the pandemic, it can really leave one feeling disheartened. Then, of course, there is the

• 3:03Rich Roll?

  dark beast of climate change lingering in the background, fomenting this sense of existential dread. Because as much as we would like to believe that we are nearing the edge of a cliff, the truth is that we've already flung ourselves off that cliff. This is not a situation that requires we hit the brakes. We need to put the engine in reverse. And I say this not to be cynical, not to overexaggerate, or be some kind of nihilist, although I think those would be normal responses, but rather as an immediate call to action. And the action

• 3:43Rich Roll?

  demanded by us, all of us, requires that we begin by reframing the situation, placing it in its proper, objective context. Today, Margaret Klein Solomon, PhD, is here to guide us. A clinical psychologist turned climate warrior, Margaret graduated from Harvard and received her PhD in clinical psychology from Adelphi University. She is the founder and executive director of the Climate Mobilization, which is a volunteer organization dedicated to catalyzing a worldwide climate emergency movement. In addition, Margaret is the author of Facing the Climate Emergency: How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth, which,

• 4:27Rich Roll?

  in addition to providing the structure for today's conversation, is a really powerful emotional guide to processing the climate emergency alongside tools to help us all rise to this great challenge. Got a bunch more I want to say before we dig into this one, but first.

• 4:53Rich Roll?

  Okay, back to Margaret. So this conversation, which I should point out was recorded remotely back in early June, is about the intersectionality of the climate crisis, its ties to the pandemic, as well as the protests. It's about the inherent conflict between capitalism and environmentalism, and how we must decouple corporate self-interest from the public good. It's about how to deal with weaponized media and the way in which we are being spoon-fed lies by the fossil fuels industry. But more than anything, this is about effective altruism and the actionable steps that we can all take now

• 5:33Rich Roll?

  to backtrack from the global suicide that we are precariously nearing. I know it can sound disheartening, and at times it feels like our personal actions feel futile. Our collective bandwidth, meanwhile, is maxed out when it comes to crises and revolutions. But embracing the truth, the hard facts, the figures, and finding a way to contribute to positive change is not only required of us, it really is, in many ways, this path to hope, to meaning, to inclusion, and also, very importantly, to empathy. Margaret's ideologies have totally reframed how I perceive, address, and talk about the climate crisis.

• 6:17Rich Roll?

  And my hope is that her words will offer you a perspective that is honest and that is hopeful. But more than anything, my aspiration is that this conversation helps to inspire you to do something. So this is me and Dr. Margaret Klein-Sullivan.

• 6:41Rich Roll?

  Margaret, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for taking the time today. I'm very excited to talk to you.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Thanks so much for having me. Me too.

• 6:49Rich Roll?

  So, the first line in your book, I think, is quite apropos to what we're experiencing right now. And it goes like this, "We are in a moment of acute collective suffering." And not only is that incredibly true right now, I suspect that what we're experiencing right now exceeds anything that you were contemplating at the moment that you wrote it. And I have to say, just at the outset here, that what I'm dealing with in this moment is this sense that it kind of just feels wrong to talk about anything other

• 7:31Rich Roll?

  than human rights, civil rights, Black Lives Matter, and social unrest right now. It even feels wrong to talk about COVID. And I guess, on some level, almost indulgent to talk about the environment at the moment. And yet, amidst this age of crisis, economic governance, health, and social structures being overwhelmed and falling apart, beneath all of it, is this accelerating climate emergency that we can't forget. So I'm just wondering how you're thinking about all of this right now.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is certainly a crisis within a crisis within a crisis. And in some ways, I'm surprised. But honestly, I'm surprised at how quickly everything is moving. I've known for six, seven years that we were in an ecological, climate and ecological emergency that... Was going to cause the collapse of civilization in the short to medium term, you know, in the, in the coming decades. I've, I've been aware of that, but I didn't,

• 8:51Speaker 01

  yeah, I thought it was a little further out. Um, the acceleration, both in the climate system and in the like political system, the in, in significant part in response to uh, the climate impacts is it, yeah, it, it has surprised me. But I, I think, I think that viewing both coronavirus and the mass protests in the United States as part of uh, what Paul Gilding, uh, author and former director of Greenpeace calls, uh, the great

• 9:31Speaker 01

  disruption, uh, that, you know, when you live unsustainably, when your system is unsustainable, that means it collapses. It, it, it doesn't go on forever. It, it, it ends. So it, it, it breaks down. So yeah, I think keeping the climate and ecological factors at front of mind when considering every other emergency is really important, both because it's a critical piece of, of every story of everything that's going on. Um, and because we can't

• 10:13Speaker 01

  forget about it. I, I mean, coronavirus is here today, killing people today. The climate emergency is, is also doing that. Mainly it's been in the global south. Most people who have starved because of droughts or, uh, you know, Bangladesh just suffered horrible floods again. So, so it's already taking lives, but it's like coronavirus, it's on exponential growth trajectory, uh, acceleration. And so.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  Yes, there's a ton of crises and they're all interrelated. But I mean, to just stay grounded in the reality that our entire economy, our entire society, everything is, takes place in and is fully dependent on our atmosphere and our, the biosphere. And, you know, the idea that human affairs, however pressing, are separated from that is, I mean, is just never true.

• 11:23Rich Roll?

  Right. I think that, that what we're seeing is the limitations of, of, you know, the human bandwidth to pay attention to too many things at once. You know, the media's very good at centering in on one specific issue and its acuteness. But when we look at the climate emergency, it's more difficult to identify the enemy that we're marshaling against. When we have COVID, we see the virus and we can kind of intuitively understand the things that need to be done in order to tackle that. And we've seen, you know, the incredible power of the public to kind of rally around, you know, it's like everywhere

• 12:06Rich Roll?

  you go, people are wearing masks. For the most part, people are social distancing, like they're adhering to certain protective protocols in order to deal with this threat. Now we're seeing the social unrest and everything that's going on with that. And we're seeing, you know, a massive public awakening and awareness to a societal ill that is in dire need of redress. The climate right now just feels like something that is on a low hum, on the back burner. Think, you know, with this idea like, we'll get to that, but we just, you know, we don't have the bandwidth at the moment to really talk about that or think about that until we can kind of get over the hump on these other things. And yet, there

• 12:47Rich Roll?

  is this indelible, irrefutable, interrelatedness to the breakdown of all the systems that we're seeing right now.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  Yes. I do think attentional bandwidth is, is a real issue. But I also see a lot of opportunity coming from these two emergencies and, and our reaction to them.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  With the central thing being just that normal is over. And I, I am very glad about that because normal was leading us straight to catastrophe. And, you know, we, this is, I, I think this is an opportunity to create a new normal with, for example, a Green New Deal as the stimulus that puts people back to work. And also, the fact that the public has experienced an education about emergency situations,

• 14:03Speaker 01

  about how we can act together in order to protect life and radically alter the economy in order to protect life. Yeah, just, just at what is possible for an emergency response. Suddenly, Congress comes up with $2 trillion. Suddenly, everyone can work from home. Suddenly, people don't have to fly across the planet. Like, these changes are possible and they can happen very quickly. The public's also getting an education about exponential risk and exponential acceleration of existential risk.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  The fact that these things happen on a curve and you have to respond as soon as possible or else they can get away from you.

• 14:53Rich Roll?

  Hmm. Yeah, I think that's certainly a lesson that everybody is taking from this. And there's definitely this sense of being awakened from the sleeping self, I guess, on some level. And so with that, let's take it back a little bit. I mean, how, you know, how did your awakening occur with respect to your advocacy around climate? I mean, I know it had to do with Sandy, so if you could just, like, you know, tell that story, I think it would be informative.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  So I came to New York City in 2009 to pursue my clinical psychology PhD.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  And Hurricane Irene happened, Hurricane Sandy happened, or Superstorm Sandy. And as I was walking around my neighborhood in the days following, and just seeing all of this destruction, so much damage, I, there was a car with a smashed windshield, and someone had put a sign on it that said, "Is global warming the culprit?" And when I saw that, it's like my stomach dropped, you know, I, because I, I knew. And that's what, that's what's so amazing with the climate emergency is

• 16:17Speaker 01

  there's so much awareness about the emergency and so little, both discussion and action. So that sign helped me become actually aware of what I already knew, if that makes sense.

• 16:34Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Um, so yeah, the process of becoming aware of the emergency happened through those events as well as for, for many years I was in denial and especially had practiced willful ignorance, meaning I knew that this was a scary situation, so I just would avoid it at like, sometimes I would read the first few lines of an article on climate and then say, "Oh, my God, I can't handle this, you know, X." Uh, and but as I was, you know, getting older and also through my own psychotherapy, I was just getting, you know, internally stronger

• 17:21Speaker 01

  and more able to not do that, to actually look at this.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  So my awareness was kind of growing, but what really changed my life from which there's like, it's a clear kind of before and after, and there's no going back, is my good friend said to me, I was planning, I was very alarmed and I was planning to do some writing. I was planning to, yeah, be kind of a climate commentator and author. And my friend said to me, don't start a blog. Discourse isn't enough. Think, what could you do to actually solve this problem?

• 18:09Speaker 01

  And it was like my brain exploded because it's like it had, I had never thought about it like that. I was an academic. I was a, you know, yeah, a student. The idea of, I've been a little bit involved in politics, but not really. So the idea of, oh, actually try to solve this huge global emergency is just too big to think of. But when he threw down that gauntlet, I just realized, oh, that's it for me. Right? That's the only thing that I want is to, as we say at the Climate Mobilization, cancel the apocalypse.

• 18:51Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  And I've been on that mission for the past six years.

• 18:57Rich Roll?

  Hmm. Well, what's interesting is that you've been able to leverage this specific skillset that you have, you know, towards that solution. And when we kind of canvass the climate emergency, there's many onramps here. You could have been a commentator, a journalist, a writer and author on this subject matter in general. There's political battles that we can pick. There's technological innovation that can help solve this problem. But fundamentally, if you want to get to the root of what's arresting the level or the rate at which we can address and overcome these problems, it really does boil down to our psychological

• 19:37Rich Roll?

  makeup and how we're thinking about this issue, because that's the true barrier towards us actually doing anything about it. You know, I come from

• 19:48Rich Roll?

  Addiction recovery and there's a certain architecture in your steps that remind me of the 12 steps, specifically, you know, acceptance and breaking these chains of denial that are so important to solving any personal problem. But on top of that, I'm also like plant-based. I'm part of the vegan community and I'm very aware of the various strategies that are deployed within that subculture to try to convince other people that becoming vegan is a good thing to do with varying degrees of success and failure. And I think in the Venn diagram, there's an overlap that's applicable to the conversation around environmentalism, because your entry point and on-ramp is so relatable. It's not that we're not aware that

• 20:30Rich Roll?

  there's a problem. It's the extent to which we're really willing to face it and then translate that increased level of awareness into some kind of tangible action that potentially can actually make a difference.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I would just add to that. That's, it's awesome that you're vegan and part like a leader in that movement. That's obviously extremely important for animal agriculture and industrial agriculture is such a huge contributor to the climate emergency and just general ecological emergency. And, you know, there's been such huge movement towards being plant-based and all sorts of meat alternatives going more mainstream. I mean, so that, that is a really exciting development. And the truth is, there's lots of really exciting

• 21:27Speaker 01

  developments in the climate space. Bicycling is resurgent and solar panels are continually getting more efficient and cheaper and new technologies are being created and so forth and so forth. But it's about Scaling it all up at like by a thousand times, something that only federal governments have the resources to do is the kind of system change. It's all there. It's all ready to go. We just have lacked the political

• 22:07Speaker 01

  will to implement it. And I agree with you, but that is significantly because of psychological factors. And I think what the climate emergency movement is doing is intervening in that, realizing that our enemy is not just fossil fuel companies and their huge network and industrial agriculture, but also denial, that denial and passivity are also enemies.

• 22:40Rich Roll?

  And the vested interests that, you know, are doing everything they can to buttress that level of denial.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 22:46Rich Roll?

  I mean, I think that, you know, the political will to address and solve these problems at the highest level that we see in so many ways is lacking right now is also simply a reflection of public consciousness and awareness. So the way to shift political will is less about browbeating and more about raising that awareness from a grassroots level up. So in terms of, you know, advocacy and the kind of psychological makeup of the average human being, learning how to crack that code, I see as fundamental to this whole thing. But at the same time, the strategies and the tactics for doing that, it's like

• 23:28Rich Roll?

  a minefield, right? Like you didn't become a climate activist because somebody browbeat you into it. And I didn't become vegan because somebody pointed a finger in my face and told me that I had to. I had my own personal kind of evolution into it that began with health and kind of a self oriented sense about my own body that then evolved over time into a greater sensitivity and awareness about the larger issues. But I had to come to that myself. And, you know, had I been browbeaten at an earlier stage, I might not have made that adjustment. So.

• 24:08Rich Roll?

  Communication becomes critical and learning how to effectively translate a message in a way that's digestible for people to hear is important, but also, at the same time, being mindful of not soft pedaling everything. Like, you have an interesting perspective on fear and the importance of how fear plays into this in a positive way. So I'm interested in how you think about the communication aspect of all of this.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  The first thing we should recognize is the amount of propaganda and misinformation and lies that have been propagated incredibly successfully by the fossil fuel industry, the most profitable industry in history. We're talking about billions of dollars. Everybody, anyone listening to this podcast, has been lied to very intentionally by this industry. And they're very clever. So it's about, yes, denial and casting doubt on the science, which is the same technique that the tobacco industry used. Indeed, they use many of the same scientists and lawyers and everything.

• 25:20Rich Roll?

  Doubt is our product.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. Doubt is the product. And also, that the idea of a carbon footprint, that this is on you, right? Individuals need to clean up their own act because as long as there is a demand for our product, we have no choice but to sell it, basically. And then also, one of their other lies is, yeah, it's a problem and we need to decarbonize in the long term and through gradual policy mechanisms like a carbon price. And so, starting to understand the different ways that we have been manipulated and propagandized, as

• 26:03Speaker 01

  well as the greater American consumerist delusion that we've also been sold virtually from the time of our birth, that buying things is how you are happy and compete, get yours, and then buy things. This is like the American dream, the point of life. So, first of all, unpacking all of that and realizing that...

• 26:32Speaker 01

  If we are going to solve this emergency, it will only be through a political solution. Individual action is fine. I also do some of, you know, whatever. We have solar panels on our roof and whatnot. But it's not politics. And we need a political solution here at emergency speed. And realizing that gives a lot of guidance, though not, obviously, it's not, doesn't answer every question. But in terms of where people should direct their energy, which is towards building a movement. Because a social movement, I mean, honestly, I think about it

• 27:16Speaker 01

  sometimes in terms of it's like it plays a psychological function or a therapeutic function. It intervenes in denial and says, no, we have to pay attention to this. So realizing that raising the alarm, telling the truth and raising the alarm in the political arena is a critical part of this. How we're going to get out of this needs to be done.

• 27:44Rich Roll?

  Hmm. I'm sure from time to time, you're confronted with people who are intelligent or at least seem intelligent, who are not buying that climate change is a thing. They'll say, the science is exaggerated. We don't really know. There's not adequate science on this. How do you interface with somebody who's coming from that place, who's seemingly immune from having you, basically, list a bunch of resources and scientists and articles, et cetera, books, that dispute that point?

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's two things I do. One is I say, God, I wish that were true because that's, that's really what it is, is it's, it's wishful thinking and that's something we share. We both want that to be true. And I also say, listen, the, the most profitable industry in history has spent billions of dollars to intentionally lie and mislead the American public. And I'm sorry to say you've fallen for it. And you know, that's it. You've been lied to. But I do want to say with people my age, I'm 34, I hear a lot

• 29:04Speaker 01

  more, we're fucked than it's not real. There's a lot of nihilism and just defeatism out there.

• 29:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's its own beast, right? Like, how do you catalyze interest and activism from somebody who, who just perceives that the ship has sailed and there's nothing much to be done? There's a sense of powerlessness. Yeah, we can, you know, look at electric cars and ride our bikes, but it seems like such an ineffectual drop in the bucket compared to the larger problem. And when the cycle of these environmental cataclysm seems to be accelerating from, you know, the fires that ravaged Australia and the flooding and, you know, everything that, that, you know, seems to be happening at a quicker rate than we've ever seen, there is a despair

• 30:02Rich Roll?

  that comes over people where they just feel like there's nothing that they could personally do that would be impactful.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And for a long time, that was somewhat true. I mean, I, that's, of course, people can always make a difference. But until about two years ago, there really wasn't an active climate emergency movement in this country, or really globally. I mean, so my, my organization, the climate mobilization, has been demanding a World War II scale climate mobilization to eliminate US emissions in 10 years or less.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  For the last five years and for a long time, that was a really fringe position. But with the advent of Extinction Rebellion, the Sunrise Movement and the youth school strikers and, you know, the Green New Deal, which is considerably based on our work, it is possible now, very possible, to go and join a movement that is fighting for transformation, not reform, not gradualism. So that's the good news. So, so yeah, the first thing to do

• 31:32Speaker 01

  is just, you know, try to give movement education, right? Did you know all this stuff that's going on? Because people's nihilism and cynicism, which yeah, absolutely does result from a sense of helplessness, it can change. I mean, based on internal factors and also based on political conditions. Like, right now, the huge unrest in the United States is making different political outcomes very different and, and changing people's calculus about whether or not to engage in this movement. Because obviously, people want to fight

• 32:14Speaker 01

  winnable fights, and this is starting to feel more winnable.

• 32:18Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Yeah. And I think what's cool about not just your organization, but your book, I mean, your book is essentially a self-help book. It's about the climate emergency, but it's really about wrapping your head around the power that we all have to not just address, but actually participate in this change. And you kind of walk people through these steps that we can undertake to reframe our psychological perspective on how we're thinking about this problem with actionable steps that we can take to move the ball forward. And I like, like I said earlier, it starts with acceptance, like coming to this understanding and having to break the denial.

• 33:02Rich Roll?

  You know, welcoming the emotions that flood in with that. I mean, you kind of talk about Tara Brock and her, you know, rubric for how to think about this, then reimagining the story, you know, entering this emergency mode and then joining the movement. And I think, you know, when you kind of walk through that, you start to realize that we are more powerful than we think that we are. And when we turn on the news and we see all of the social activity in all its forms right now, I think that there is an empowerment lesson in there for all of us, that we can provoke the change that we want to see in the world and that there is quite a bit of hope to be mined from what we're seeing at the moment.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think when you view the climate emergency from the perspective of psychology and social psychology and allow that to inform your understanding of what the social movement needs to accomplish, it is, okay, we are living in a lie that things are normal and that there's not a climate emergency. And again, that's why the coronavirus and mass protests are, you know, I'm glad not to be fully in that delusion anymore, but we're

• 34:27Speaker 01

  still in the mass delusion that we don't face a near term existential threat, not other people, you and me and my family and your family and the whole human family is in danger because of the climate emergency. That understanding, we're in mass collective denial, like Václav Havel pointed out in the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, that there was mass understanding that the state was corrupt, just like there's, there is mass understanding in the United States that this is an existential threat. But by just

• 35:11Speaker 01

  living within the system, living as if things were normal, rather than talking about it and raising the alarm and changing your life in response to this, we're perpetuating this sense of normalcy.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  And so what's so important about this recognition, and again, that Václav Havel used to create the Velvet Revolution and peacefully democratize the Czech Republic, is through, if you're in this situation where there is something that is true and is largely understood as true, and yet, there is not action attached to that, yet, that there is an understanding that that is a bubble that can be punctured, right? That is a situation that can flip really quickly.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  Once we start a collective awakening, and it is starting, it just needs to massively expand.

• 36:18Rich Roll?

  Right. A little more inflation there to get it to that point.

• 36:35Rich Roll?

  Like so many problems, it seems that part of what's preventing an acceleration of the solution is this misalignment of incentives. As individuals, we're all kind of programmed to go out and get what's ours, to satisfy our material urges. And with lobbying efforts who are invested in the status quo and kind of diluting the public, is there a way in which capitalism and environmentalism on the level that you're talking about can coexist? Or how do we decouple corporate self-interest from the public good?

• 37:19Rich Roll?

  It seems that we need to find a way to realign these incentives so that systems kind of auto-direct towards solutions rather than exacerbating the problem.

• 37:28Speaker 01

  So absolutely, we need to realign incentives. I definitely agree with that. However, we are just so advanced in the climate emergency, like we're not heading off a cliff. We are off the cliff and we need to hit reverse, not the brakes. So.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  I think that in order to move as quickly as humanly possible, it involves enlisting business as well as labor and the whole society into an effort. But what changes, what absolutely needs to change is that basic orientation and, let's say, power arrangements that at the moment, there is an understanding that, you know, it's like the neoliberal assumptions that the government can't successfully intervene

• 38:41Speaker 01

  in the market in order to deal with issues or pass strong legislation, command and control legislation, rather than just incentive based legislation, right? Like, we don't have to charge 10 cents for single-use plastic or whatever. We could just ban it. Like, that is a policy instrument that we've kind of forgotten how to use. But during World War II, FDR said, "No more consumer cars are going to be sold in this country because we need all of this capacity to make tanks, planes, and ships."

• 39:21Speaker 01

  And so they're still participating, but the government's in the driver's seat. So that's the kind of emergency mobilization element in which very planned and emergency speed transition of the economy happens, and that's just the overriding top priority. So, which, yeah, it just needs a lot of active intervention. So then what comes after that? I don't worry about too much for me getting to, you know, beyond zero emissions to negative emissions and stopping this six-mass extinction of species. That's like enough for me.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  But absolutely a society that doesn't have financial incentives that lead us to legislative governmental structure that leads us to destruction. I mean, it's like, no one, no one can say this system is working, you know, if they live in the reality of physics.

• 40:21Rich Roll?

  This reality in the third dimension.

• 40:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:23Rich Roll?

  You know, you mentioned FDR. That made me think of your bystander effect example. You use this analogy of the fire alarm going off in the office and the extent to which people respond to that is cued by the urgency level of the boss, the person at the top. And when you speak about FDR, we're talking about a strong leader who had a vision, you know, about a certain solution. We're lacking that at the moment. Like, how important is it that at the very top, we have somebody who takes this seriously so that we can all kind of, you know, fall in step with this bystander effect? We can raise the consciousness level from the ground up, but on some level, there's

• 41:06Rich Roll?

  something to be said for leadership that takes this seriously.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, the climate mobilization endorsed Bernie Sanders, who is proposing a $16 trillion World War II scale climate mobilization. So, I mean, we, yeah, we thought he was the leader that we need. I mean, Trump is utterly incompetent. I mean, we don't, we don't waste our breath trying to advocate for Trump to do this. We would try to convince Biden administration to take this on. But, yeah, I mean, and, okay, so, yeah, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, I think, provides inspirational leadership for the climate emergency movement.

• 41:54Rich Roll?

  Right. She certainly filled that vacuum.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  She did some. But while it is absolutely true that we need leadership from the top, it is also true that if you're in a burning office building, you don't have to be the boss to yell and tell everybody to get out and take the fire drill seriously. So, the mission that I am inviting readers to take on is really about...

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Becoming a leader, I mean, joining this movement and bringing in others through spreading the word and, I mean, yeah, recruiting, yeah, to just try and increase their power and influence as much as possible in order to spread this message and save humanity. So it is both true that we need leadership at the top and true that each of us have to summon all of our strengths and courage in order to offer whatever leadership we can in our families and workplaces and communities.

• 43:12Rich Roll?

  Hmm. How do you think about greenwashing? Like, there seems to be a lot of, you know, kind of commercial co-opting of people's interest in environmentalism to the extent that, you know, products are developed and pitched and presented to the marketplace that appear to be solution oriented and yet, in fact, are not. And that kind of lulls people into a placated state that they're actually doing something or that they're active when, in truth, it ultimately ends up making the solution more difficult, preventing activism, because people feel like they're already playing their part. So do you think about that issue at all?

• 43:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I, I don't believe that it's very effective, anyway, any kind of activism that is based on something you buy. I think that that really reinforces the idea of Americans as consumers. And whereas I really, I mean, I really want...

• 44:22Speaker 01

  To emphasize the fact that we are citizens and that we make the government. And it is, it's up to us to create a system that cancels the apocalypse and protects humanity and all, all life. And that no one is going to do that for us. Again, maybe Bernie Sanders could have taken care of it, but even then we would have need a robust movement, making sure that he does. So to have the assumption that no one is coming to save us. So, you know, we're gonna create the leader that we need.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  You know, the, the saying, the feminist saying, uh, be the man you always wanted to marry. It's like, be the leader that you crave to see at the national level. Like just, just try to find that within yourself and bring that into your endeavors.

• 45:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I like that. No one's coming to save us. You've got to take that mantle on for yourself. Back to this World War II kind of Manhattan Project approach to solving the problem. Like walk me through the ideal version of, you know, what that looks like from your perspective. Like what are the biggest problems that we need to tackle? How are we going to, you know, deconstruct and reimagine those systems, whether they're agriculture or energy, et cetera? Like what does that specifically look like?

• 45:53Speaker 01

  Great. So you can imagine that we have gotten this question a lot for, for years. And so my co-founder of the organization, Ezra Silk, wrote a hundred-page victory plan that spells this out for any listeners that want to take the deep dive. But I'll, I'll give some top lines and, and it just goes to show also how incredibly complex this is because even the victory plan, the, the hundred pages, it's still a high level overview. So, so anyway, what, what do we need to do? We need to transform

• 46:31Speaker 01

  our energy agricultural and industrial systems of our economy as if, yeah, and I mean, it'll, it'll have implications, obviously, for the financial sector and, and other sectors, but at emergency speed. So how do you do that? Um, oh, and yes, transportation sector. I mean, it's just on and on and on. It's everything. So yeah, how do you do that? You immediately ban all new fossil fuel infrastructure and development. So no new export terminals for gas, no new coal plants, no new pipelines, no new anything. This is

• 47:13Speaker 01

  obvious, but it's still somehow radical. Okay. So we shut all that down and then we create a 10-year timeline to shut down the existing fossil fuel capacity in the United States. So the plants. And then you create a massive program to ramp up renewables and energy conservation in order to replace the fossil fuel that's getting phased out so quickly. So that's going to take a lot of jobs to put solar or green roofs on every roof and insulate every home, you know, winterize every home and to create just a renewable

• 47:58Speaker 01

  energy production miracle. We want to convert factories into

• 48:04Speaker 01

  Solar and wind producing factories. So that's a little bit on the energy side. On the transportation side to immediately make zero miles per gallon, the new mileage per gallon standard. So all new vehicles must be electric. And then to work on getting fossil fuel vehicles off the road through a cash for clunkers program. In some cases, retrofits are possible. Cars with an internal combustion engine can be electrified and move towards public transportation. Obviously, we need to build out a huge, high-speed rail network. We need to so and drastically curtail flying. We

• 48:48Speaker 01

  need to ban factory farms and transition all agriculture to regenerative practices through a combination of, you know, banning pesticides, phasing out pesticides, as well as, you know, education and providing support for farmers to do that. I mean, so yeah, we need huge research grants. We need to create a super smart grid. We need bike lanes. I mean, it's, it's huge, the amount of stuff we need to do. And the only possible way we would do it is if we realized that we have no choice, because if we don't do this, we will literally all die in chaos.

• 49:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And getting people to understand the level of that existential threat seems to be not only is, you know, that's not only like the most important piece, like that's really the focus of your expertise, right? Getting them, you know, to this level of acceptance and then activated and self-directed, you know, on the right path. How does your, you know, kind of solution oriented perspective on this square with the work that Paul Hawken is doing with Drawdown? Do those things line up? Or is there a, you know, a kind of a difference of perspective there? Because he's somebody I've had on the podcast who, you know, spoke about his various channels for addressing this on a global level, because

• 50:13Rich Roll?

  a lot of what you're talking about also is it's about, you know, kind of the United States and what we can do. But as we know, like this crisis doesn't respect national borders if we're doing this, but China isn't. Like, how are you thinking about all of that?

• 50:26Speaker 01

  So Drawdown is awesome.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  And it lays out areas like refrigerants and educating women and girls and that, for example, that can reduce carbon emissions. And so, as I said earlier, in terms of solutions, we've got them and they do such a good job of demonstrating this and it's really just about achieving scale. I do think we have some differences in terms of theory of change of how that happens and what kind of policy should be sought with myself and the climate mobilization

• 51:11Speaker 01

  coming in for incredibly strong legislation, massive spending in order to get all this done, it's gonna, it's gonna be super expensive. And just, you know, kind of doing whatever it takes at a legislative level, an emergency mobilization. I think Paul Hawken has a vision that's, involves businesses and other sectors kind of taking action on their own.

• 51:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, not, not through necessarily command and control.

• 51:42Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  And, yeah, the kind of emergency mobilization type approach.

• 51:48Rich Roll?

  When we, when we think about, you know, the psychological aspect of this, you know, my sense is that everybody thinks they're, look, everybody, you know, thinks that they're a good person, you know, that they're doing the best that they can. And when confronted with certain aspects of this movement, it's not uncommon for people to be defensive or self-protective. So when I experience that myself, I'm reflective of my own kind of inherent biases. And I think, you know, what am I being defensive about? Is there some underlying, you know, thing that I need to look at in my own behavior?

• 52:31Rich Roll?

  And I think beneath that is perhaps some unconscious shame or my attempt to protect my own self-esteem because I feel like my identity is being threatened.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  Can, can you give me an example of the kind of situation that you're talking about, what might make you feel this way?

• 52:50Rich Roll?

  Oh, I mean, it could be as banal as my wife saying, you know, why didn't you take the garbage out last night? You know, it can be anything. Like, I'm a sensitive person. You know, I will get defensive and protective and then I'll react rather than, you know, take a moment to pause and respond mindfully to what is actually being said to me. So I'm just thinking about, like, if I'm called out on some character defect of mine or some behavior, my natural inclination is to be defensive. And I think that's a natural thing. And I've done a lot of work over the years to not behave in that way. But as we all know, we all have our buttons. And when they get pushed, we're going to, you know,

• 53:32Rich Roll?

  basically play whatever loop is programmed into our psyche.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, but and by being aware of them and mindful of them is the best that we can do towards growth. So it's, that's great.

• 53:46Rich Roll?

  Right. So, so in terms of, of kind of creating an architecture around, around communication on these subjects, like you're, you're out there, you're trying to get people excited about this movement, you're trying to empower them. But we all have people who are, who are kind of resistant out there. So knowing what you know about, you know, the human brain and human behavior, I think it would be instructive and helpful to kind of provide some guideposts to people who want to learn how to be better communicators about this, or how to think about their own participation in this movement for themselves, for their own personal self-actualization.

• 54:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's such an important point, what you, what you bring up about people's self-esteem and how if someone feels criticized, that is not their most, when they're most receptive to what you have to say. And it can be hard, because when we talk about the climate emergency, I mean, it's such bad news. It's such challenging, painful, awkward news. So I do think it's really important for people to really think about how they engage and how they communicate and always try to be improving on that. So I really appreciate the question.

• 55:07Speaker 01

  I think that one of the most important things is to speak from the heart. With climate, we have gotten so far down the road of science that, you know, people read about climate in the science section and they look to scientists to tell them what's going on and what we should do. And it's like, this is not a science issue. This is an everything issue. And scientists play an important role, but, you know, we can talk about this from a perspective of our values and our emotions and our futures. So, yeah, I would probably recommend against a kind of, let's say, PowerPoint-type,

• 55:52Speaker 01

  science-driven approach. Plus, people don't generally feel comfortable doing that. So I invite people to have personal conversations about the climate emergency with your friends and family, in which you talk about your reaction. How are you feeling about what's going on? And obviously, this includes COVID and the mass protests against police brutality and racism that we're seeing. To talk about how you're feeling, what you think the future holds, and your fears about the future, and how you're processing this.

• 56:36Speaker 01

  And ask them the same. And how are you feeling about it? And what are your thoughts about the future? And how are you processing it? And you don't have to have all the answers. You don't have to have everything worked out. It's just to connect on the level of, like, holy shit. Have you seen the most recent updates about what's happening in the climate? Do you know what's happening in the climate? It is accelerating so quickly. I'm so scared. That is so impactful to to share what's in your heart. I'm really, you know, if to say, I'm really thinking about not having children, given what I'm seeing and think the future

• 57:15Speaker 01

  holds. I mean, a huge amount of people are experiencing painful feelings consciously related to the climate emergency.

• 57:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  Fifty six percent of Americans say we're in a climate emergency and eighty percent of young people think that global warming is a major threat to life as we know it. But yet there's still very little personal conversation going on. So that's, yeah, that's definitely the number one thing, I would say.

• 57:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, it's certainly an issue that should not be political, that should have bipartisan support. And yet, like so many, you know, big issues that we're contending with right now have become politicized, tremendously politicized, you know, this trend that really kind of entered the public consciousness around the 2016 election has only accelerated the tribalism, the weaponization of social media, the fake news, and the increasing extent to which we are siloed in our chosen media information

• 58:29Rich Roll?

  diets of choice. And when you're talking about, you know, trying to confront this issue, you're inevitably going to butt up against people who are getting their information from a very different source and have become very calcified around any idea that contravenes what they've acclimated themselves to, which just is this extraordinary complexifier to this whole thing, like how to untangle that knot when everything is political now and we're so self identified with whatever tribe, you know, it is that we choose to belong to.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. This is a huge central problem in our politics, generally speaking, and on the climate in particular. One thing I would say is, don't worry about the deniers, or don't focus on them. They're going to be the last people to join this movement, but even they perhaps can get there, but it's not going to happen now. So don't waste your time. Spend your time talking to people who do understand what's going on with the climate, but are still going on with their lives as usual.

• 59:52Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 59:52Speaker 01

  Move them to greater action. Like, people say, "Oh, but that's preaching to the choir" or something. And it's like, no, that's getting the choir together. Our choir has not been doing a very good job recently, and we need to really grow it and its power.

• 1:00:08Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  So, yeah, you don't, I, yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't waste time, honestly, talking to climate deniers. You could tell them, if you're interested, you know, if you are reconsidering, or if you're interested, or whatever, we, we could talk. But there's so much low-hanging fruit, like the 80% of young voters who think that global warming is a threat to life as we know it. Like, organizing them, bringing them into the movement, it's easy. All you need to do is show them how.

• 1:00:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  And get, you know, and encourage them to do it. So, there's so much to do there. I would say that's where it's at.

• 1:00:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, that's the low-hanging fruit and the easy sell and the on-ramps. It's just building the appropriate on-ramp to activate those people in the most effective way.

• 1:00:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:58Rich Roll?

  You know, another thing that's somewhat unique about this problem is, and you point this out in the book, is that we are, together collectively, all victims of the climate emergency, but through passivity, we're also its perpetrators. And from a psychological perspective, that's confusing, right? We're suffering as a result of this, but we're also active participants in its acceleration. And untangling that knot seems to be kind of a psychological minefield as well.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  Right. And this gets into, or back to what you were saying about self-esteem.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  And that guilt to be a part of this problem is one thing that holds us back from fully engaging with it and doing what we can to stop it because we've been told that it's our fault. And I like to say it's not your fault, but it is your responsibility. You know, no one has to be born into this terribly destructive and broken system. We're here at this time and this is the reality that we're faced with.

• 1:02:22Speaker 01

  And I don't see what someone could do with their time on this planet that would be more meaningful or noble than to fight for humanity in the living world. Take that on as your personal mission and just decide that this is not going to happen on your watch.

• 1:02:50Rich Roll?

  Right. And once you've, an individual has kind of faced that truth and grappled with the, you know, the fear and the grief and all these other emotions that come up with breaking that chain of denial about what's actually going on, you have this third step, which is entitled reimagining your life story. So walk me through what that means.

• 1:03:12Speaker 01

  So in the step before, welcome your fear, grief and other painful feelings. I encourage readers to grieve not only the people and nature, animals that have already been lost, but also to grieve the future that they thought they had their hopes and plans, realizing that it's, it's just not going to unfold the way you hoped and planned. And instead there's this other reality of that's going to be. You know, accelerating chaos.

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  Once you do that, and I did realizing that, you know, being a psychologist and writing books and having a family, which is what I had planned, and it seemed like a great plan. But when I realized that it wasn't going to work if civilization was just collapsing all around me, I no longer saw satisfaction down that road. And what that does is open up space for a new identity, a new future, a new trajectory, and a new story of self. So I invite people to ask, what if this is why I'm here? And what if everything in my life had been leading up to this?

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  All my challenges, all my skills and talents? Like, what if this is really what it's all about? And imagine what it could be to have that heroic mission to take that on. So, yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a tall order. You know, it's, it's hard, but I just think it's so worth it.

• 1:05:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah, i- i- it's very much in the ilk of the Joseph Campbell hero's journey. And there's this trajectory from self-interest to being kind of community oriented, right? Like, the self-esteem that comes with devoting yourself to something that's bigger than you and more important than, you know, your own personal concerns that I think girds people's lives with meaning and to the extent that they can identify with this movement or perhaps an aspect of it. Maybe it's animal agriculture, maybe it's solar energy, you know, like, sometimes I feel like, well, Global climate change, it's so vast and all-consuming.

• 1:05:50Rich Roll?

  Like, is there wisdom in identifying one aspect of it that speaks to you personally, that you feel like you have an emotional connection to and can do the best good? Like, how do you think about parsing this into various sectors where you can channel people's energy in a direction that feels like a fit for them?

• 1:06:10Speaker 01

  Definitely, people all need to find their place in this movement. And I absolutely, some people are, you know, drawn to regenerative agriculture and others to trains and, you know, every, and that's great. And, you know, people should follow their heart in those ways. But make sure to make it or to also be political. Because if you're just having a regenerative farm, for example, that's great. It's certainly much better than having a conventional farm. But I just don't think that's gonna change the world.

• 1:06:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you're thinking in terms of scale. Like, whatever you choose, like, it has to have a lever that can move things beyond, you know, the immediate, like, thing that you're involved in.

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  Right. But, and maybe that's, I have a regenerative farm and I bring people from my community there to educate them about the climate emergency and regenerative agriculture. And I share my insights with other regenerative farmers. You know, there's ways to make a lot of different things a part of this movement. It just has to be, you know, consciously part of what you're doing.

• 1:07:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I guess what I'm thinking of, you know, I'm just analogizing it in my mind to the vegan movement and understanding that, you know, certain people are very good at being, you know, brazen with their messaging and unapologetic and kind of, you know, edgy. And other people... Are more effective at provoking change in more subtle ways just because of their natural disposition. And I think you need all different types in, you know, every shape and form. But finding the vein that, you know, you can tap that fits you is, you know, what I'm always thinking about in terms of how I direct people and think about my

• 1:08:10Rich Roll?

  own messaging. But I do think that piece of figuring out how that's going to be effective in a broader sense is the important part of the calculus that, you know, perhaps I've overlooked or should think more deeply about.

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, choosing your place in the climate movement and it's, and it's also, it's not just like one and done. It's a, it's an evolving thing. You should always be reaching for, you know, how is this going? And how can I have a greater impact? That's just an ongoing process. But choosing it is as complex and personal as choosing a career. Right? There's just so many different factors.

• 1:08:56Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:08:56Speaker 01

  And so that's why the final step, step five, I try to say, okay, well, this is what the movement needs, these different categories of things. And, you know, think about how you fit into them. So just like for some concrete examples, movements need bookkeepers and graphic designers and people to help with childcare and people to make, you know, meals for events, whatever catering, people to do tech support, people to offer childcare at meetings, translators. There are so many different things as well as, of course, they always need.

• 1:09:39Speaker 01

  Organizers and fundraisers, if you want, if you want to be welcome in any social movement organization, tell them you're willing to raise funds. So there's, I mean, there's just so many different ways to do this. And yeah, I mean, and, and you know, on the, on the high end, and I always encourage people to go all the way. I mean, run for office, start an initiative, get your business or organization to declare a climate emergency and to reckon with their role in this movement. There's so much that is helpful to the listener. You know, there's something you can do. There's something for you in this movement.

• 1:10:23Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:10:35Rich Roll?

  One of the questions that you ask in the book is, you know, how we got to this place? Why are we passively accepting collective suicide? And, you know, underneath that, kind of underscoring this thing is this idea that it's because in so many ways, our society treats life as if it were a cheap commodity. Like, that's a line out of your book. To overcome that, it seems to me to require a shift in our, in our value system, right? And when I read that, it's a provocative line. I immediately think of all the things that I do that are, that are not perfect. You know, I'm talking to you through a microphone and a computer that's full of all kinds of minerals that I don't know where they came

• 1:11:18Rich Roll?

  from. And I'm certain that, you know, they weren't mined in a way that was protective of the environment. Like, we are all complicit on some level in participating in a system that is creating the undoing of the planet. And that dissonance becomes, like, I want to think that, like, my value system

• 1:11:38Rich Roll?

  States that I don't treat life as if it were a cheap commodity. And yet, you know, it goes back to what I was saying before, like this idea that we're both victim and perpetrator here. But in order to truly like shift this value perspective away from treating life as if it were a cheap commodity and towards valuing it more seems to be, you know, that's a, that's a big thing, right? Like, we can all get involved in causes, we can participate, but are you optimistic that we can arrive at that place where, I mean, it would seem like there would need to be total system upheaval of governments and, you know, political systems to arrive at that place?

• 1:12:21Speaker 01

  Because at present, we value life so poorly.

• 1:12:24Rich Roll?

  Hmm. I guess I'm not like, that's not really a question. It was more like an observation, I suppose.

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:12:30Rich Roll?

  I mean, you know, I just thought of that in that moment.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:12:36Rich Roll?

  I guess what I'm saying above anything else is it's just a recognition of the complexity and the difficulty, like the, the difficulty factor of what we're trying to accomplish here, what you're trying to accomplish here is extreme.

• 1:12:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:12:48Rich Roll?

  And I take great comfort in, in your optimism around it and the activism that you've, you know, shouldered for yourself and your organization. And I am hopeful and I'm surrounded by young people who are extremely, you know, activated by this cause. And, you know, I want to believe that we're going to be able to tackle and overcome this. And I have to juxtapose that against some level of admitted despair that I see when, you know, I, you know, scroll through today's news cycle and I see the violence and I see the, you know, level of hatred being perpetrated. And on some level, like there's a, this process has to occur for us to get to the other side

• 1:13:32Rich Roll?

  and, and transcend these age old problems that we have. But in my own mind, the attempt to kind of reconcile all of this, you know, leaves me at times like less hopeful or confused.

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  So, one element that I really want to emphasize is thinking about our system and our role within that.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  Because we participate in this system, there is not really a way out. I mean, you could be like a renunciant, you know, like a monk or something. But it's you have to take really extreme measures in order to not participate in the basic global economy and energy system and, you know, all of it. And I certainly don't think we should shame people for that. But I actually don't think, I mean, yeah, okay. So by living in the system, by consuming, there is some level of guilt and responsibility.

• 1:14:45Speaker 01

  But I think about passivity and lack of political engagement as the larger, like that to me is where the responsibility lies. And I think it was Naomi Oreskes who said that the abolitionists in this country knew that their clothes were made by slaves and that the cotton was picked by slaves and that this was a slave process. But they knew they had to change the system, not their clothes. And I just, I mean, I feel like looking back, you can, it seems obvious, right?

• 1:15:27Speaker 01

  That a movement to ask people to change their consumption patterns and try to buy clothes that were made only by free workers, it would not have been as effective as fighting the institution head on, on the field of politics and public opinion.

• 1:15:47Rich Roll?

  Hmm. One of the things, well, the sort of, you know, step five, final chapter in your book is about like how to actually, you know, join the movement and be effective. In my experience, there's a lot of people who are energized by this movement, but they're not quite sure where to direct that energy. You know, you can go to the Climate Mobilization Project website, or you can go to an Extinction Rebellion. Rally, et cetera. But I think, you know, it's important to try to provide people with some guidance about how to direct that in the most effective way. So talk a little bit about, you know, somebody who's listening to this or read your book and they're excited and they're ready to go. Like, how do you then channel that in the right direction?

• 1:16:32Rich Roll?

  Like, what can somebody who's just living in the suburbs somewhere begin to do?

• 1:16:36Speaker 01

  Great. So, the first thing is to find out what's happening in your area. Even, I mean, in this moment, even that is going to be virtual. But it's good to just find out what groups are operating, as well as to start to understand the landscape. I encourage people to look for some criteria in what groups they're going to join. Do you call it an emergency? Language matters. This is a climate emergency. This is not a little change. Even more important, do they advocate transformational change, not reform? Okay,

• 1:17:17Speaker 01

  so, an example of reform is carbon pricing. And many, in many sectors of the environmental movement, carbon pricing is considered the gold standard of what we need to do. But it's too late. Carbon pricing perhaps can play a role in a larger mobilization, but it is not worth it to campaign for carbon pricing alone. So, look for a group that is talking about 10 years to zero emissions, an emergency response, an emergency mobilization, and that's growing, right? So, Extinction Rebellion, the Sunrise Movement, the school strikers, the climate mobilization, and many local organizations as well, you know, have

• 1:18:01Speaker 01

  taken on this platform. So find out what's going on with those organizations and what the advocacy platforms are of the other organizations available is a great first step, thinking about your own skills and resources and networks and doing an inventory of that. So, I mean, obviously, I would love to recommend that people read the book and that chapter, Facing the Climate Emergency: How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth, because it's a really, I mean, it's quite involved. You got to think about how much time you have and if you're willing to donate money and, you know, yeah, what skills you have, what you're willing to do,

• 1:18:43Speaker 01

  what you're not willing to do. Are you willing to get arrested? So to really take seriously that kind of self-assessment and bringing that together with an understanding of what the movement needs and what's going on in your local area is what I would say. As well as the addendum to that is, and, and this is to everybody, talk about the climate emergency as much as possible and do it personally.

• 1:19:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah. On the subject of philanthropy, and from kind of an effective altruism perspective, if somebody wants to donate money, who are the best recipients of that that are provoking the greatest amount of change? I mean, there's so many places to donate now. It's hard to know, you know, who's doing the great work and where those funds can be used most effectively for the most amount of change.

• 1:19:39Speaker 01

  Yes. So I would strongly recommend funding newer, smaller organizations. And I really recommend not funding the big green organizations such as NRDC.

• 1:19:58Speaker 01

  Sierra Club, Greenpeace does some good work. I guess, I guess, maybe they're okay. But there is a nature conservancy. These organizations are not on top of how bad this emergency is. League of Conservation Fodder, they are in denial. They are in the gradualist paradigm, and that is significantly because they've gotten too cozy with power. They value being insiders more, you know, and they don't want to do any kind of agitation. So, give to the organizations I mentioned previously, Extinction Rebellion, Sunrise Movement, Climate Mobilization, School Strikers, and that's, you know, the Future Coalition

• 1:20:37Speaker 01

  is one of the key school strike organizations. And so, yeah, look at, look at their demands. Again, we are out of time for weak demands. If someone is promoting the decarbonization by 2050, it's just, I mean, come on, we don't have 30 years. And it's certainly not worth funding an environmental group that is advocating such a, like, weak and not reality-based message. So, yeah, I think that kind of targeted giving, I mean, this new movement, this climate emergency

• 1:21:15Speaker 01

  movement that has emerged, it is a tiny fraction of the resources that the big green has, and it has made a much more significant impact through its passion and willingness to tell the truth. So, I would strongly direct people towards climate emergency organizations that are operating in the political and social sphere. It's a tiny fraction of climate funding goes to that. It's like a new area. So, another, another group to mention is the Climate Emergency Fund, which sprouted to fund groups like this, and new groups, right, that have no

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  track record, but that want to get started. And, you know, the Climate Emergency Fund will give them small grants, like 500 bucks to You know, host their first protest or whatnot. So that they're pretty cool. They take risks that other funds don't. So if you don't feel comfortable giving directly to an organization, that's a good approach.

• 1:22:15Rich Roll?

  They know how to disperse it.

• 1:22:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. I would, the last thing I would say is to apply these same standards to political candidates that you donate to. Obviously donations matter a lot in US politics. So letting a candidate know that you're only supporting candidates that call it a climate emergency, that advocate for an emergency response, 10 years to zero emissions, whatever, that's, I mean, that's like one of the most effective ways to influence a candidate. So.

• 1:22:40Rich Roll?

  Other than AOC, who else on the Hill is, is really, you know, pushing this message?

• 1:22:46Speaker 01

  Earl Blumenauer and AOC introduced the climate emergency declaration in the House. Bernie Sanders introduced it in the Senate.

• 1:22:57Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:22:58Speaker 01

  So yeah, that's, that's some people to flag Ed Markey, who's getting primaried from the, you know, centrist Democrat. Joe Kennedy has been a climate champion. There's not a huge amount of people that are doing merely enough. I wish the list was longer.

• 1:23:25Rich Roll?

  You and me both. Well, let's, um, I want to give you an opportunity before we close here to talk a little bit more about the Climate Mobilization Project and perhaps kind of what your immediate focus is right now and some of the work that you're doing.

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  So the Climate Mobilization's key organizing activity is our climate emergency campaign, which has helped achieve more than 1,500 declarations of climate emergency, primarily from local governments, but also from national governments and even the EU. Though unfortunately, some of those governments attached a 2050 decarbonization timeline, totally contradicting themselves in their declaration, and it's quite a cognitive pretzel. But anyway, in other cases, it works really well to help shift the terms of the debate.

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  So for example, Ann Arbor, Michigan, declared a climate emergency and unveiled a billion dollar climate plan that would get them to net zero emissions by 2030, which is quite ambitious for a city of that size. Twenty cities in California and Massachusetts have now, after declaring a climate emergency, banned the natural gas hookups in new construction, making all new construction electric appliances, electric heating. So we work with local organizations and organizers who want to enlist their local governments as allies in the fight with declaring a climate emergency as the start of a campaign.

• 1:25:04Rich Roll?

  That's great.

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  I also, I also want to say, I am working on a project around the book and around creating models for facilitated discussions around these issues in which people can share feelings and process together. And so I'm also personally really leaning into the psychological side and looking to operationalize that as much as possible.

• 1:25:30Rich Roll?

  Oh, that's cool. I like that idea. So in other words, getting like smaller groups of people together to just process and talk about how they're thinking about it?

• 1:25:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:39Rich Roll?

  What does that mean?

• 1:25:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. I mean, right now, there's two kinds of discussions that we do. One is called pain into action, and that's for people who haven't read Facing the Climate Emergency. And in, at first, everyone shares what they're feeling about the climate emergency. And then in the second round, people share ideas about action for themselves, what they might do. And it's a bit of brainstorming. I mean, it's very basic. I mean, it's not rocket science, but people say to me all the time, no one ever asked me how I feel about the climate emergency. And it's like. Huh. Maybe we should be talking about this.

• 1:26:24Speaker 01

  And then we're also putting together a format for people who have read the book. So it's a, yeah, kind of like a, I don't know, a politically engaged book club. Kind of a politically and psychologically engaged book club kind of approach.

• 1:26:41Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, cool. I mean, I love, I love that idea. I love the book. I should say that it's a very easy read. I mean, there's this sense that you think you're going to get into something that's, you know, super heavy about the science behind the climate emergency and it's really less about that and much more about, you know, how to think about it. Like we've been talking about psychologically and how to, you know, channel that into action. I think you did a great job. It's very easily digestible. And I should also point out what's very cool about this that I love is that your publisher is not only a B Corp, but they're like carbon neutral and the book is printed on recycled paper. And they have this like environmental benefits statement on the back page and everything.

• 1:27:24Rich Roll?

  So you are walking your talk with that. It's cool.

• 1:27:27Speaker 01

  Let me, let me also mention that all proceeds from book sales on our side go to Climate Mobilization Project.

• 1:27:35Rich Roll?

  Cool. Of course. Excellent. So if people are digging on Margaret's message, definitely pick up the book Facing the Climate Emergency. Go to Climate Mobilization Project, the website. And any other place that you want to direct people?

• 1:27:50Speaker 01

  So I'm sorry, you said theclimatemobilization.org and facingtheclimbenemergenciedotcom?

• 1:27:57Rich Roll?

  Oh, go to all of them.

• 1:27:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. One is, one is for the book. One is for the organization. Both great sites.

• 1:28:03Rich Roll?

  And you can be followed on Twitter at @climatsych, correct?

• 1:28:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:07Rich Roll?

  Cool. All right. I think we did it. How do you feel?

• 1:28:10Speaker 01

  Uh, I think that went really well.

• 1:28:14Rich Roll?

  I think so too. I think people are going to really enjoy it. So I appreciate you sharing your message. It's powerful with everybody today. And if there's anything I can ever do to help with your work and your cause, please reach out to me. I really enjoyed talking to you.

• 1:28:28Speaker 01

  Well, this is an incredible help to appear like this. So I really appreciate it.

• 1:28:34Rich Roll?

  Cool. Peace. Plants. Namaste.

• 1:28:40Rich Roll?

  So that happened. We did that. Did it bend your noodle? Margaret's an incredible communicator, I think. Hope you guys are feeling more inspired than despondent, because we need you. This crisis is important. We can do this, but we got to do it together. If you're feeling at all altruistic, you can find the aforementioned climate groups in today's episode's show notes. I also encourage you to check out Margaret's book. Please read this book, Facing the Climate Emergency. It will not disappoint. You can find Margaret on Twitter at @ClimatePsych and on Instagram, just go to @ClimateMobilization. We also have another roll-on AMA coming up in the forthcoming weeks. You can leave us

• 1:29:21Rich Roll?

  a voicemail with your question at 424-235-4626. And you can also leave a message on our Facebook group. If you'd like to support the work we do here on the show, subscribe, rate, and comment on it on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, on YouTube. Share the show or your favorite episodes with friends or on social media. And you can support us on Patreon at ritual.com/donate. I appreciate my team, who works very hard, week in, week out, to put on the show. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes and interstitial music. Blake Curtis and Margot Lubin, who typically video the show, but today is audio only. Jessica Miranda for graphics. Ali Rogers, who takes portraits when we do in-person podcasts. DK for advertiser

• 1:30:04Rich Roll?

  relationships. And theme music by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Hari Mathis. Thanks for the love, you guys. See you back here soon with another amazing episode. Until then, peace, plants, namaste. You got this. Let's act together. Come on. Let's do it.