Can't We All Just Fight Climate Change Together? (Spoiler: Yes)

Facts: Individual action supports system change💧🌊| Feelings: How to stress less💓💬| Action: Talk effectively about climate solutions 🤲✅

Welcome to We Can Fix It, where we tackle the climate crisis with facts, feelings, and action. Written by me, climate scientist Kim Nicholas.

Hi friends,

Thanks for being here! On a dreary rainy day, it’s cheering to know you’re out there, doing Good Climate Things. This week I’m finishing teaching my new Climate Science and Politics course. It’s been a joy to see my students use the SHIFT guide to take and share meaningful climate action. 💚

I’ve found some research on effective climate action, and effective stress reduction, I want to share with you. So without further ado, on to the facts, feelings, and action!

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Facts: Individual Action Supports System Change

The backlash against individual action

You, dear reader of We Can Fix It, know what it will take to stop climate change. Humans must stop burning fossil fuels, and stop destroying nature. (More details.)

To achieve real zero emissions in the real world, we will need both government-led system changes (taxes, regulation, infrastructure investments…), AND behavior change to reduce overconsumption by high emitters.

For decades, research focused almost entirely on system levers for addressing climate change. (Especially carbon taxes. Economists LOVE studying a good carbon tax.)

It was only in 2022, 32 years after its first report, that the IPCC climate panel finally went beyond sectors like “industry” to include “demand-side” measures (changing what and how much people consume, via changes in tech, behaviors, and infrastructures). And hey, they found demand-side measures could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions 40-70%. Better late than never!

So behavior change is an important part of climate action. But recent disillusionment among behavioral scientists has prompted a backlash against individual action. Some worry focusing on individual action may “crowd out” support for system change. Some earlier studies have found support for this concern. For example, a non-peer-reviewed preprint calls individual action a “costly distraction,” and found that showing people only individual climate solutions made them more likely to suggest individual solutions when asked to come up with actions. ♻️

New study: Individual AND system action

A new study tested the relationship between individual and systemic climate action in Australia and Iran. The key finding:

“There’s no need to pit the individual against the system, when we know from research that climate campaigns can be most effective when they both work hand in hand. The success of systemic policies often depends on individual behavior. Our evidence points to a synergistic relationship.”

- lead author Omid Ghasemi, University of New South Wales

Specifically, regardless of their exposure to individual climate solutions, participants in both countries “expressed moderately high support for climate policies, rated them as effective, and perceived them as necessary.” Study participants consistently:

• supported systemic policies and changes

• attributed greater responsibility to the government

• perceived minimal conflict between systemic and individual approaches

• rated systemic policies as more effective than individual ones.

Critically, people more willing to engage in high-impact climate action themselves, and who believed these actions to be more effective, showed more support for systemic solutions and a stronger perceived need for structural change. (They sound like We Can Fix It readers!)

(At the same time, people more committed to taking personal action shifted more responsibility to individuals over governments, and perceived systemic solutions as slightly less effective. However, this didn’t translate to reduced climate policy support overall.)

I have thoughts on how to use these findings to promote effective climate action… keep reading!

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Feelings: How to Stress Less

Whooooo boy trying to stop climate breakdown can be stressful, amiright?? Excessive stress is bad for our precious physical and mental health.

The importance of stress hit home for me recently when a dear, recently cancer-free friend shared that her doctor’s advice for staying cancer-free was to reduce stress as much as possible. Yikes.

So I started looking into how to measure stress, and what works to improve it. (In my case, I’m particularly keen on improving sleep quality; I’d love to get more deep sleep, and wake up less during the night. I already work hard on sleep hygiene, but I welcome your tips on better sleep!)

The most helpful study I found was this meta-analysis of 58 randomized controlled trials (the gold standard of scientific studies), which measured the stress hormone cortisol before and after various interventions.

The meta-analysis found the largest effects for reducing cortisol were from mindfulness or meditation, and relaxation (like yoga).

Two exercises to lower stress

Okay, so meditation and relaxation help reduce stress. But what specifically should I do to reduce stress?

I dug into one of the studies cited in this meta-analysis, a mindfulness intervention called the ReSource Project.

Interestingly, the researchers found the most effective intervention to lower cortisol was

“care-based training of gratitude, lovingkindness, (self)-compassion, prosocial motivation, and dealing with difficult emotions.”

-Engert, Hoehne, & Singer, 2023, Mindfulness

Specifically, this successful stress-reducing training involved two parts: a lovingkindness meditation, and a deep listening partner exercise.

1. Lovingkindness Meditation

Revisit my January post for details, but in essence, you picture someone in your mind and silently wish them well:

May you be happy.

May you be safe.

May you be healthy.

May you live with ease.

There are lots of free tools online, like this Loving-Kindness Meditation for Skeptics by Dan Harris.

You can also find lovingkindness meditations on subscription apps like Headspace or Waking Up, both of which I use and appreciate.

2. A deep listening partner exercise

“[S]peaker and listener take turns describing feelings and bodily sensations during [1] a difficult situation and [2] a gratitude-eliciting situation experienced during the last day.

The listener does not respond, either verbally or nonverbally, instead focusing on active, empathic listening.”

-Kok & Singer, 2017, JAMA Psychiatry

Putting it into practice

I’ve been trying out these two practices for the last week: 5 minutes of meditation before bed (after promising my friend Jessika to try it, accountability!), and a few minutes of the non-judgmental listening exercise with Simon over morning coffee on the balcony. I quite like the partner exercise, and have learned new things.

My practice is less intense than the intervention studied. The authors recommended 20 minutes meditation and 10 minutes partner listening per day, 5 days per week, over 3 months.

But the most effective stress-reducing exercise is the one you actually do! I have struggled to maintain a meditation practice lately; for me, 5 minutes a day feels doable.

Why does this work?

The research team measured cortisol upon awakening, which is related to anticipated stress in the day ahead. While Engert et al. found the partner listening exercise “may have ‘immunized’ participants against the stress of negative social judgement,” the lovingkindness meditation helped through “activation of the care system owing to the cultivation of gratitude, self-compassion, and the ability to deal with difficult emotions through acceptance… [which] may be key to reducing the anticipated stress load at the beginning of a new day.”

In this study, mindfulness alone (e.g., paying attention to mental thoughts and bodily sensations) actually increased cortisol. The authors speculate that just being more aware of internal stress signals might amplify stress response. What helped reduce stress in this study was cultivating empathy and emotional regulation through the lovingkindness meditation and partner listening. These skills may have created “an ethical or socio-affective ‘anchor’” that helped people handle the increased awareness of stress.

Any success stories to share (or frustrations to vent) about reducing stress, or sleeping better? Please drop them in the comments below. 🙏

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Action: 5 Steps to talk effectively about climate solutions

Talking about climate action is important to break the false perception that others don’t care, to build community, and to inspire others.

So how do we avoid falling into the zero-sum-thinking trap of framing climate action as EITHER individual or systemic? Here’s some quick advice on how to talk about both together. Try it out this month and let me know how it goes!

1. Acknowledge power and accountability

• Climate responsibility scales with power. Of COURSE governments must be held accountable to deliver their climate pledges. Most of their policies are currently insufficient, to say the least. (Check out your country’s performance on Climate Action Tracker, and engage with a climate group or contact your rep directly to push for better.)

• Hold corporations accountable, including the fossil fuel industry’s history of denial, delay, and obstruction. Call out powerful interests using an individual frame (like oil producers claiming they are “just meeting demand”) to avoid their systemic responsibility. Take action at work and as an investor to stop supporting fossil fuel companies.

2. Present solutions together

• Talk about individual and systemic solutions together, not in isolation. Show their complementary roles, rather than treating them as alternatives. As Omid Ghasemi and colleagues write, making a false dichotomy reinforces the “mistaken belief that one kind of policy is sufficient, whereas the success of systemic solutions often hinges on individual trust, support, and behavior.”

3. Focus on high-impact actions!!

• Prioritize effective climate actions! (No mention of recycling allowed.) Research shows people are really bad at identifying effective actions. There’s also too much focus on consumer actions.

• Increase people’s sense of efficacy; provide evidence and direct experience of high-impact actions making a difference.

• Use the SHIFT guide to prioritize actions, and link personal to system action through the roles of citizen, professional, investor, consumer, and role model.

4. Take accountability for what you can change

• Holding titans of industry and politicians accountable doesn’t fully let you off the hook. If you’re a high emitter (quick test, if you flew on a plane in the last year), you have work to do too!

Personal changes from high emitters (not marginalized low emitters) are also needed; it’s both/ and, not either/ or.

The argument that the only changes needed are political and not individual is one way of denying responsibility. I fully agree that those with low incomes are constrained in their ability to make lifestyle changes— but they don’t need to; these are the individuals who already produce the lowest emissions. I’m less sympathetic to relatively well-off carbon overconsumers arguing they’ll change if and only if everyone else is forced to change too.

Responsibility scales with power. Certainly, there are people with much more power and responsibility than I have: deceptive oil executives; politicians who have kicked the climate can down the road for election cycle after election cycle. But that doesn’t let me off the hook for being accountable for doing what I can to help prevent climate breakdown now, starting with where I am.

-Kimberly Nicholas, Under the Sky We Make

5. Connect to values

• Link actions with personal values. Research shows “reflecting on behaviors in connection to one’s values or identity actually increases climate policy support, and leads people to feel that policies like a carbon tax, even if personally costly, reflect their values and identity.”

There you have it folks, the final word on the mutually reinforcing relationship between personal and collective action! That should settle this debate for good… or at least until the next social media post making this false dichotomy pops up. 🫠 Feel free to share this post in response!

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Parting Tidbits

In the news

I was so psyched yesterday to come across this video by awesome science communicator Simon Clark (@simonoxfphys) in my Instagram feed! In 84 seconds, he gives a fantastic tour of our SHIFT climate action guide. As he says, “Not sponsored, just cool!” 😁 Thank you Simon, please check out his video!

Upcoming talks, come see me here

November 11, 12:00-13:15 CET, online talk: Social media for researchers

November 22: I’ll give a virtual keynote for the Climate Psychology 2025 conference.

Book Recommendation

The Long Heat: Climate Politics When It’s Too Late, by Wim Carton and Andreas Malm. I got to join the discussion this week for the launch of my Lund colleagues’ new book. It’s a beautifully written, disturbing and infuriating indictment of the hubris of geoengineering; an urgent reminder to keep laser focus on shutting down fossil fuels; and an ambitious reflection on the nature of the physical and social worlds.

xo,
Kim