How small actions can save a big planet

[Applause]

[Music]

this

is my grandmother

born in 1911 a true depression baby

mynona spent her nearly 109 years yeah

you heard that correctly she lived to be

109 years old

embracing behaviors of learned frugality

and sometimes deviancy

you see growing up we were regularly

banned from buffet restaurants because

nona would stuff dinner rolls in her

pockets and one time even put an entire

piece of lasagna in her purse and

straight up walked out i mean she was a

spicy lady

[Applause]

but waste and excess were unthinkable to

nona and even though she really didn’t

know much about climate change she was

kind of an

unlikely sustainability hero to me

now i have spent the past two decades

working to make sustainable habits stick

with the mainstream

i’ve done over 250 tv segments i’ve been

a policy advisor to two governors and

written countless pieces and even a book

all on eco-friendly living

and what i found through my work is that

sustainable policies and practices they

just don’t work

unless one

individuals believe they are somewhat

responsible for climate change that’s

kind of an important one

and two

people believe that their individual

actions

can actually make a difference

now something happened in the united

states after world war ii that changed

the trajectory of the planet pretty much

forever

and i’m talking about the us

specifically here because i don’t mean

to brag

but up until just a few years ago we

were the biggest carbon polluter on the

planet

and considering that we make up for less

than five percent of the world’s

population that is like really bad y’all

really bad

and by 1945 we had four million troops

coming home from war and those dudes

needed jobs

so production became the word of the day

we started to see industry ramp up and

pivot and we’d see factories that were

making machine guns and propellers start

to make

peace time pleasures like garbage

disposals and dishwashers

here’s the challenge

how do you make someone like my nona who

had been going without for many years

suddenly want to buy all this crap

well you start an advertising campaign

of course

so at this time we don’t just see

industry ramp up we see the advent of

the modern day advertising agency

yep sterling cooper draper prices were

popping up all over the dang place

and their mission was

clear create demand for items americans

had gone without for basically ever or

had never even seen before like what the

heck is this thing y’all

for reals is that a flying lawnmower i i

have zero

idea

so we start to see a shift from this

wartime advertisements that are

encouraging people to live lightly to

ration to carpool or else you’re going

to be riding with hitler that is

frightening

to this

a post-war advertising campaign

emboldening americans to go completely

freaking ham

and yeah that’s a baby wrapped in

cellophane that is a totally terrible

idea

always a bad idea

this one’s my favorite

after total war

can be total living

and what total living in this case meant

was off the rack fast fashion meat at

every meal bigger homes and a shiny new

car in every garage and the rise of a

material that so many consider

disposable even though it is not

plastic

and these advertisements were working

just look at the meteoric spike in

attendant emissions during this time

you see americans we were consuming and

producing ourselves into a global

climate catastrophe isn’t that fun

and what was supposed to be the antidote

to total war

created arguably the biggest battle of

our entire lives

because we’re fighting it right now

that’s why i’m up here and that’s why

you’re there

and you would think that our consumption

habits would slow down from there but no

they just kept going up like some kind

of phallus shaped rocket taking jeff

bezos to space

hey jeffy

space cowboy

i worked really hard on that graphic it

took me

[Applause]

like a whole evening um

but look we are the cause of accelerated

climate change

and i truly believe that because we are

the cause we can be the cure

now how you might ask well one people

are actually really powerful you are

incredibly powerful as an individual

just look at the rise in plant-based

food options and electric vehicles over

the past few decades these are classic

cases of shifting supply and demand

because individual consumer habits

shifted

and what about the uh current campaign

against plastic straws y’all familiar

yeah they suck right oh my god i’ll see

myself out i’m so sorry what a dad joke

[Laughter]

a few years ago i was in texas taking

nona to get a milkshake because that

used to be our way to bribe her to hang

out with us because as she got older she

was just really over us anyway

so exhibit a

nona

and her milkshake

and as we’re at this fast food joint a

lady rolls up in a hummer she orders a

cheeseburger and a sweet tea to go and

while the gentleman behind the counter

is stuffing her to-go bed with enough

ketchup packets and plastic cutlery for

like five gajillion people this woman

says with such

unironic conviction oh god no straw they

are so bad for the environment

all right i mean it’s better than

nothing

but what i’ll call the final straw

actually started with

one person

a nine-year-old boy and his

well-intentioned but somewhat misguided

statistic that claimed that americans

use enough plastic straws

every day to fill 125 school buses

one kid one home crunch statistic

launched thousands of news articles and

government referendums and even got

starbucks to swap straws for those way

worse plastic lids

one person

started that movement

now just since i’ve been standing up

here you have been

eight miles of the ozone layer have been

restored

a healing process that began some 40

plus years ago when individuals not

governments not corporations individuals

began to boycott items that used harmful

cfcs

chlorofluorocarbons it’s just really

hard to say when you’ve been talking

this long and your mouth gets dry anyway

government eventually got on board with

regulating those cfcs but it was many

years after this individually sparked

movement

and just look

look at what we can accomplish what we

can restore

when the actions of powerful individuals

that is you and me

are met with the macro actions of

industry and government

now another reason why you are essential

in the fight to save the planet

individuals for better or worse are

actually very influential

how many all grew up here and well if so

and so jumped off a bridge would you

yeah

and uh for many people actually an

astonishing staggering amount of people

the answer to that question is actually

yes it’s frightening

and in a recent poll 81

of respondents said they were so

influenced by their friends social media

posts they would be willing to change

their own behaviors and values what

and research shows us that our sphere of

influence goes way way beyond this

that our behaviors are so powerful

they’re like a contagion through our

networks influencing people

three degrees removed from us

see we don’t need any like tick tock

dances and weird instagram filters to be

climate influencers

we just need to recognize that the

impact of our behaviors extends so far

beyond ourselves

and with that comes the responsibility

to make good choices that we actually

want to have catch on

all right i’m going to take a

temperature check here how many of y’all

are feeling a little bit more powerful

and a little bit more influential you

can lie to me just make me feel good

yeah

talk it’s working amazing

all right allow me to throw one more you

can save the planet iron on this fire

all right

taking care of the planet is a powerful

form of taking care of ourselves

and of others

how many of you experience some form of

climate anxiety

show of hands

that’s not enough hands y’all are fibbin

well congratulations you are like 68 of

the population which i think is a pretty

conservative estimate

and what we know about climate anxiety

is that it doesn’t rally us around a

solution no it does the opposite it

makes us want to grab a cheat box wine

and a weighted blanket and give up

and we see this so overwhelmingly in the

younger generation

a recent study had 75 percent of people

aged 16 to 24 saying that their future

feels frightening

this isn’t some kind of ashley piper

smear an eyeliner listening to the cure

slamming her door teenage angst this is

young people feeling the very real and

intense weight of a problem created by

prior generations who’ve since either

pieced out or worse

deny the problem all together the nerve

okay

and then you couple that with a 24 7

news cycle and the daily manifestations

of climate change the wildfires

earthquakes hurricanes flooding rising

temperatures

and the problem feels

inescapable

so what do we do

what do we do when an issue is so large

so persistent

that it paralyzes us

well after the prozac and the bath bombs

we’re going to need to take action

yep we’re going to take action because

taking action no matter how small

actually builds feelings of hope and it

eases anxiety

and after all anxiety is just energy and

that energy can be channeled into

anything anywhere anytime you can

channel that anxiety into biking to work

starting a compost going meat free for a

week

these micro actions build hope like a

muscle

they help us leverage that sphere of

influence i was just talking about

and frankly they just make us feel way

better

i tell these people all the time

sustainability is a powerful and

effective form of self-care

now my nonna passed away last summer

and up until her final days her pockets

were still laced with pilfered mints and

bingo chips and even a washed and reused

piece of tinfoil i’m pretty sure she was

keeping at the ready for the next time

she went to the buffet

but her legacy of living lightly

continues to inspire me

and after today maybe you too

see now is the time for us to meet the

moment with courage

to become re-acquainted with our

personal power to understand that

because we are the cause of accelerated

climate change by golly we can be the

solution

and because we are more anxious and

influential than ever before

we have to be

it’s my hope that you now feel

mightier

that you truly believe you are an

important part of saving this planet

because

that’s just the truth

you

and we

are the ones we have been waiting for

thank you

you