Everything is Connected.

Part 1 of 3: Untangling the Climate Web

I’ve been sitting on the idea of writing this particular post for a while. 

I was worried it might come off…preachy. Alarmist. This makes me sound like a hippie. It’s too long, too much. And worst of all: it will do the exact opposite of what I want it to do, which is to inspire people to act. What if it pushes them away instead? What if they shut down?

Also, I don’t know about you, but in the U.S.- we’re but a few days out from a consequential election. “Consequential” is my attempt at capturing the stakes fueling the full-blown anxiety spiral that most of us might be in right now. Or maybe that’s not you, and you aren’t anxious; but certainly you are on the receiving end of a million different content platforms, all trying to capture your attention, all aimed at getting you to react. I’m fully aware that we’re all burnt out- the last thing anyone wants or needs is another reason to raise their blood pressure. 

Can this wait?

Let me start there: take a breath. I’ll tell you why I’m doing this now, and maybe (hopefully) why I think it is worth your time to read this now too.

For me, I’ll be fully transparent- I need to channel some of this anxiety. 

My general litmus test for hard conversations is that if it keeps me up at night, then it’s time to have the talk. This topic has kept me up for many nights. For months, even. No, I don’t think it can wait.

Perhaps more importantly- I think this is part of how we’ve gotten here in the first place. We are too burnt out, too full of short term outrage or angst or frustration- that we are losing the stamina to think about what we’re actually trying to accomplish, what we even want. Next Tuesday has some very big implications- I’ll get to that in a bit. But it’s also just one of many levers, one of many tools in our arsenal to make progress. And it’s the progress we need to anchor on- rather than thinking of single outcomes or single truths. Everything is connected.

And because I truly believe that the act of voting is a big part of what is going to save us. For someone coming from big tech- that might feel like blasphemy. Yes, I’m saying that new technology, new innovation, new science- that’s less important right now than the power of community. Participating in a bigger system. Everything is connected. 

Have I lost you yet? 

This felt meaty enough to divide into separate posts, so please bear with me. I promise the things are related. For those that like previews, I’m starting with some very real talk, what I’m calling “Untangling the Climate web” for people who do care about climate, agree on paper that we need to do something, but don’t really have time/energy/resources to go beyond that “in theory” kind of support. 

Part Two will include some thoughts on what is holding us back, and what we can do about some of that hard-wiring. I’m not an expert here, but I’m sharing what I’ve learned in my own climate journey. 

And finally, in Part 3: I’m going to make a call to action. Lots of action, big, transformative action. Breaking or undoing some systems, which is a tough thing to wrap your head around- and even harder to get a lot of people to do at once. The thing is…we need to. The time has come, and it’s something I’m working on figuring out for myself. Incremental steps are great, but they aren’t enough. 

But, and. 

Here we go.

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A few weeks ago, I was talking with my husband about some frustrations I’m having with volunteering; I was sharing with him that a lot of the organizations that are doing crucial lifts in the green transition are nonprofits, volunteer-run, and not well funded. As I’m sure many folks who have worked in this space know all too well, I’m just starting to experience some of the burnout that comes with the slow rate of change, communication, and progress. I’m closely following the talks coming out of COP16 (for my new to climate readers, this is the UN’s Conference of the Parties, a meeting of nations that have agreed to support sustainable development and protect biological diversity on earth). The news has been stark and clear that we aren’t doing enough, and we aren’t doing it fast enough. We have already overshot our 1.5 degrees Celsius target to limit warming, and we are rapidly getting farther off track.

He was of course empathetic. And he understood that the work I’m trying to get involved in and learn more about is not glamorous (ie: a unicorn climate tech company).  Then he offered up some well-intentioned support.

“I think this is just the way we’re set up. Just like with COVID, I think scientists are going to have to jump in and save us. When things get scary for enough of the Western world, some new technology or scientific innovation is going to have to rapidly be deployed. By then, so much damage will already have been done- but that’s probably what it’s going to take to wake everyone up.”

It hit me like a punch in the gut. 

I understood immediately what he meant and why he felt that way- but I also had a visceral reaction to digesting this. This core belief that is held by so many smart people, this hope that we will turn things around on climate change when things become dire enough. This is the trap we’re falling in: that tech will save us, that the Western world has the unique knowledge and resource capital to make it happen…..or that we are doomed otherwise. We’ve seen this happen before, so we have no reason to think it might not happen again.

Here’s the thing though: climate is different. Climate is not a singular issue, like COVID. We don’t need a single vaccine. In fact, we don’t even need dozens, or hundreds of vaccines. 

I wrote in a previous post that “we aren’t going to fix anything, we have to change”. Our current systems will not support a single fix going anywhere.

Let’s take one example: electrification. 

Electrify everything! is a slogan and a strategy that is incredibly important in our fight against climate change. Saul Griffith’s book Electrify, and one of my favorite nonprofits Rewiring America lay out an optimistic and inspiring action plan for moving towards an economy that is largely run on electricity (and therefore, little to no carbon). Less carbon, less pollutants. Cleaner air. Longer term, electric sources are also more efficient, which means more savings for consumers. It’s a win-win-win.

And yet, we are moving VERY slowly towards widespread electrification. Untangling the electrification web is no easy task. First, there’s the bureaucracy. There are a complicated set of policies and aging infrastructure to content with. Utility companies, existing energy providers, and government red tape mean that actually getting agreement on where and how to tackle updates to the energy grid could take many years. There are sticking points around what other renewable energy sources should offset them (nuclear, solar, wind- they all have similarly complex implementation problems). The rapid scaling of AI and data centers now requires a LOT more renewable sources of energy to be prioritized. 

Then, there’s funding. The Biden administration passed the IRA (all of which could change with this election), but the way that electrification incentives and rebates are distributed to businesses and consumers is messy at best. I am an electrification enthusiast that is spending most of my day talking about climate, and even I don’t have a straightforward plan to electrify my home in the next 10 years- I’ve spent weeks just trying to figure out how the rebate process might work. Politicians and policy makers have diverse interests and the technology to help streamline process just aren’t there yet. And they won’t be, without more funding- there are not enough skilled workers that can help, that have the subject and technical expertise to scale out these programs. There are entire organizations dedicated to training HVAC installers with these new skills, and even so- very few have enough workers trained to do any kind of mass implementation.  

Without more policy and government funding, private companies are also hesitant to fund more innovation, to take the risk. Though we’ve made lots of progress on the technology (think heat pumps)- some other industries (like long-haul trucking or chemical manufacturing) are difficult to electrify and will require even more development time. Without investor funding and innovation, there is also less capital to support job growth in this area (which is needed). Fewer people are incentivized to skill up or build here. Instead, our greatest tech minds gravitate towards where they can make a profit- vertical SaaS, anyone? But I don’t blame them- we all have bills to pay, families to support, there aren’t enough paid jobs for more people to move into these careers.

In parallel, we would need to replace more than 280 million gasoline-powered cars, more than 200 million home appliances that run on natural gas- which means we need massive behavioral shifts for individuals to make the high-cost switches, invest in the logistics of taking on home renovation, or even just….be interested. 

And this is just one tiny piece of the puzzle. In one small market. 

Take a breath. 

You might have read this and felt a deep sense of dread- I certainly do. You could also have read that and heard something buried in the text: we have the technology. Most of the issues I mentioned are about unblocking cooperation and funding hurdles, not about inventing something new. We don’t need science to electrify- we need community. We need cooperation. We need to put something ahead of profit first.

Rebecca Solnit summed this up in The Guardian- we have the lifeboats now. We are not implementing them because the solutions we have don’t benefit the power and capital systems we have in place…and we can’t waste time trying to find solutions that do. Time is a thing we don’t have. 

That might feel like a heavy place to end today. If you’re looking to direct some of that into a productive outlet, I’m going to follow each post with a few donation recommendations. Each will be for a systems organization that I think is doing the really impactful stuff. I hope you’ll consider funding and supporting their continued work. With the election coming up, I want to highlight two groups that are thinking about really moving the needle on climate policies that work.

Climate Cabinet: Think Moneyball for Climate. CC identifies “undervalued” down ballot races in high priority states, backing candidates to meaningfully advocate for climate (think- your local water commissioner!) because that’s where real action happens- in your own community, in your own neighborhood. If you are feeling like your presidential vote doesn’t get at all the things you are about, this team is doing AMAZING work- identifying, educating, and holding legislators accountable. Donate here. 

Environmental Voter Project: Did you know that the vast majority of Americans care about climate, but that not all of them vote? In fact, most environmentalists don’t consider themselves political, and therefore aren’t registered voters? This org mobilizes and tracks first time voters, turning them into a powerful voting group for climate. Feel like your vote doesn’t matter? EVP is doing the hard work of mobilizing folks in districts that DO matter, on issues that you care about. Donate here.