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