Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: I never thought of myself really as a deep naturalist.
Speaker 2: I'm not the kind of person who studies bees and
Speaker 2: bugs and lizards. I'm not a studier of nature, but
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: This is Adam Eric.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of that had to do with
Speaker 2: my growing up in a rural place and having just
Speaker 2: nature spilling into the garden.
Speaker 1: Adam grew up in Swaziland, in southern Africa.
Speaker 2: There were monkeys jumping in the trees and birds and
Speaker 2: all sorts of things, and it was just so proximal
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 1: But Adam left the monkeys behind and moved to uc
Speaker 1: San Diego to start a neuroscience lab. As a world
Speaker 1: expert on the neurobiology of movement, he spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time thinking about things like Parkinson's disease, and that
Speaker 1: meant that other big issues took a back seat.
Speaker 2: I didn't know, of course, that we had an ecological crisis.
Speaker 2: I knew, of course, about what was called global warming
Speaker 2: then and now we referred to usually as global heating,
Speaker 2: and I think in the nineteen nineties I remember being
Speaker 2: quite worried about it, but I was just so busy,
Speaker 2: kind of building my career and doing things I loved
Speaker 2: and enjoyed and being a parent and writing papers and
Speaker 2: doing experience of my lab that I was just so
Speaker 2: consumed with that that I didn't have any space or bandwidth.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing you might relate to this Like Adam. You've
Speaker 1: probably heard of global heating and seeing all the extreme
Speaker 1: weather events that result from it, the wildfires, the droughts,
Speaker 1: the storms. It might really worry you, but you still
Speaker 1: feel like you don't have the bandwidth in your daily
Speaker 1: life to do much about it. Yeah, you might switch
Speaker 1: to driving a hybrid or change your light bulbs, but
Speaker 1: doing anything more feels like it'll be a major pain,
Speaker 1: a continued overload on your already hectic schedule. Sound familiar well,
Speaker 1: As we'll see in this episode, Adam decided to throw
Speaker 1: himself fully into the fight against climate change, and far
Speaker 1: from making him miserable, this choice set him on an
Speaker 1: unexpected path to purpose, connection and even more happiness.
Speaker 2: You're part of something very beautiful, and it's extremely gratifying
Speaker 2: to me and makes me feel better.
Speaker 1: Honestly, you're listening to the Happiness Lab with doctor Laurie Santos.
Speaker 1: Tales of our gradually warming planet have been a background
Speaker 1: hum for decades. Neuroscientist Adam Aaron certainly wasn't relaxed about
Speaker 1: the build up of greenhouse gases, but it wasn't at
Speaker 1: the front of his mind either, and.
Speaker 2: I think frankly, I also didn't realize how serious it
Speaker 2: was until about twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: Twenty eighteen was the year of a famous report by
Speaker 1: the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It outlined
Speaker 1: what would happen if the world left temperatures to keep rising.
Speaker 1: The report explained that if we acted quickly and kept
Speaker 1: the heat bumped to only one and a half degrees celsius,
Speaker 1: things would be very bad, but allowing a far more
Speaker 1: likely jump of two degrees celsius would be catastrophic.
Speaker 2: For example, the differen between one point five celsius and
Speaker 2: two celsius is like seventy percent of coral reefs being
Speaker 2: completely destroyed by ninety nine percent. So I you know,
Speaker 2: we want to keep the coral reefs and all the
Speaker 2: marine life that depends on that, we need to keep eating.
Speaker 2: To two cells is what beneath to celsius, and.
Speaker 1: Coral reefs won't be the only casualties of unchecked warming.
Speaker 1: Ice caps would disappear in sea levels would drastically rise,
Speaker 1: so say goodbye to coastal cities and small island nations.
Speaker 1: The report's list of catastrophes went on and on, and I.
Speaker 2: Just thought, oh my god, you know this is dramatic stuff.
Speaker 2: If you haven't really sobbed and cried and really sat
Speaker 2: down and had your body racked by sort of thinking
Speaker 2: about how grave this isn't the threat our little planet
Speaker 2: is under here, then you haven't really seen it. And
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people haven't really seen it.
Speaker 1: Our planet that IPCC report said will be totally devastated
Speaker 1: unless we enact rapid, far reaching and unprecedented changes in
Speaker 1: all aspects of society.
Speaker 2: When it dawned on me how serious this isn't, how
Speaker 2: fast this is moving, and what the threat is, this
Speaker 2: triggered considerable anxiety on myself that much of what I
Speaker 2: hold dea that plants, the animals, the whole biosphere is
Speaker 2: under threat, and that, of course is also trigger for
Speaker 2: me to get much more engaged.
Speaker 1: But what forms should this engagement take? Adam was all
Speaker 1: read doing the sorts of things that many of us do,
Speaker 1: like driving an electric car and eating a bit more sustainably.
Speaker 1: What else could he fit around a full time job.
Speaker 2: Now I was a well regarded world expert at a
Speaker 2: sort of twenty year career.
Speaker 1: Doing this, Adam was in a quandary. The dire warnings
Speaker 1: demanded that he act to help save the planet, but
Speaker 1: how could he abandon his life's work, his students, and
Speaker 1: his lab. It was then that he came across the
Speaker 1: activist phrase find your own frontline.
Speaker 2: Find your front line is a lovely idea. You look
Speaker 2: around and you say, what are the front lines? What
Speaker 2: are the places of society or the institute's I live in?
Speaker 2: Where actually can make a difference.
Speaker 1: Adam's front line was his university and its students. His
Speaker 1: neuroscience class was packed with eighteen to twenty year olds,
Speaker 1: so Adam nervously approached his boss with an idea, Can I.
Speaker 2: Teach a class on the psychology of climate change? He said? Okay.
Speaker 1: Things started slowly. The first class only had a dozen students,
Speaker 1: but Adam's concise global heating message cut through.
Speaker 2: It is absolutely essential that we all strive right now
Speaker 2: to at any increase. Every fraction of a degree is
Speaker 2: very significant.
Speaker 1: Pretty soon the class swelled to more than one hundred students,
Speaker 1: and inspired by Adam's example, many went off to find
Speaker 1: their own frontlines, joining demonstrations to push for local climate action.
Speaker 2: And it's extremely gratifying to me. I'm quite exciting to
Speaker 2: see students taking the trolley downtown and getting in front
Speaker 2: of the city council and railing against the city councils
Speaker 2: to do something better for the climate, and getting their
Speaker 2: sense of civic engagement and recovering their voices.
Speaker 1: But Adam didn't just wave his students off on their
Speaker 1: protest marches and then return quietly to his lab. He
Speaker 1: wanted to recover his voice too. He wanted his climate
Speaker 1: concerns heard by both his bosses and his peers.
Speaker 2: So if you're a university professor, your frontlines are the
Speaker 2: academic Senate, the faculty governance, the administration, your ability to
Speaker 2: influence your colleagues, your ability to influence the institutions you're
Speaker 2: part of the Society of for Neuroscience. Thirty thousand people
Speaker 2: jump on planes every year and flight to a yearly meeting,
Speaker 2: which is preposterous, frankly, and so part of your frontline
Speaker 2: is trying to do something about that. Make the meeting
Speaker 2: harps big or make the meeting e.
Speaker 3: Each thousands of students showed up to join the climate movement.
Speaker 1: Less than a year after his environmental awakening, Adam took
Speaker 1: a lead in one of the biggest climate strikes his
Speaker 1: university had ever seen. As part of a global Day
Speaker 1: of Action, he joined hundreds of UCSD students, faculty, and
Speaker 1: staff who left their desks and took to the streets
Speaker 1: to push for change. By joining other concerned citizens and
Speaker 1: demanding action on climate change, Adam found a vital ingredient
Speaker 1: for happiness, a practice we talk a lot about on
Speaker 1: this show, Social Connection. Adam began to feel a deep
Speaker 1: sense of belonging with his fellow activists. He was part
Speaker 1: of a group and couldn't let them down by skipping protests.
Speaker 2: I feel I need to go, I need to be there,
Speaker 2: I need to turn up. I feel that the group
Speaker 2: won't do so well without me.
Speaker 1: I'm the first to admit that global heating is really scary.
Speaker 1: It's terrifying to doom. Scroll on social media and see
Speaker 1: starving polar bears and burning forests. The anxiety that comes
Speaker 1: from confronting climate change can feel parallel. When Adam first
Speaker 1: read that brutal IPCC report. He too admits to being scared,
Speaker 1: but facing the problem directly with like minded friends has
Speaker 1: helped him overcome that fear.
Speaker 2: You get together with five or six or eight people
Speaker 2: and you talk about it, you immediately feel better. You
Speaker 2: have agency together, We're going to do something about it.
Speaker 2: We're hearing each other.
Speaker 1: Adam's activism gave him a ton of satisfaction, the same
Speaker 1: satisfaction he used to get from his neuroscience research. Organizing
Speaker 1: against climate change gave him a new community, but also
Speaker 1: a sense of purpose, which is vital to our well being.
Speaker 1: But all this rewarding green activism began demanding more and
Speaker 1: more of his time and attention.
Speaker 2: So I think there was a gradual process of getting
Speaker 2: more and more concerned about this, so sort of a
Speaker 2: gradual letting go of one kind of career in shifting
Speaker 2: to something else.
Speaker 1: Adam made the difficult decision to close his neuroscience lab,
Speaker 1: turning his back on decades of hard work and dedication.
Speaker 1: Activism became his new full time occupation.
Speaker 2: Even though it's been challenging for me to make this
Speaker 2: shift and to kind of jettison my court Korea, I
Speaker 2: do feel a strong sense of purpose and I feel
Speaker 2: what I'm doing is very meaningful.
Speaker 1: I find Adam's story inspiring, but realistically, most of us
Speaker 1: aren't going to emulate him.
Speaker 2: People running around putting food on the table, or taking
Speaker 2: their kids to soccer practice and just barely struggling to
Speaker 2: get them in out of school and feed them, They're
Speaker 2: not going to have time to do this.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing most of you listening right now can't realistically
Speaker 1: quit your jobs to join the climate fight. But what
Speaker 1: can we learn from Adam's journey? Are there smaller ways
Speaker 1: we can each find our own front lines and reap
Speaker 1: the joy and purpose that Adam did. The Happiness Lab
Speaker 1: will be right back.
Speaker 2: We are like a little boat going down the river
Speaker 2: right now, humanity okay, and we can get to the
Speaker 2: side of the river. We could get to the bank.
Speaker 1: Climate activist Adam Aaron reckons we still have time to
Speaker 1: avert total disaster if we collectively agreed to start paddling
Speaker 1: very hard in the right direction rather than letting the
Speaker 1: rapids sweep us away.
Speaker 2: Now. The problem is if we keep dilly dallying, then
Speaker 2: we're going to hit the waterfall and we will incur
Speaker 2: these very large geophysical tipping points, we could set in
Speaker 2: motion things that are so enormous that then may become
Speaker 2: a sense. Then in that timeframe, in ten years roo
Speaker 2: we'd be like whoops.
Speaker 1: Adam's new book, The Climate Crisis explains the sorts of
Speaker 1: actions that can save us from that feet, things like
Speaker 1: a switch to wind in solar power and the rapid
Speaker 1: electrification of our homes and transportation, and Adam says such
Speaker 1: actions aren't the stuff of science fiction. All these positive
Speaker 1: steps are totally doable.
Speaker 2: It's just that there's not enough people coming out saying
Speaker 2: we want you to do that. And if they did,
Speaker 2: and they droves, we'd get it.
Speaker 1: So why aren't citizens taking to the streets to push
Speaker 1: for this green revolution. Sure, there are some people who
Speaker 1: refuse to accept the science.
Speaker 2: They don't believe bubble heating is happy, they don't believe
Speaker 2: it's human cores. They don't believe the impacts will be
Speaker 2: grave or are grave. And that characterizes one set of people.
Speaker 1: But Adam says there's also a second kind of climate skeptic,
Speaker 1: one that he worries about even more.
Speaker 2: This is people around me here in californ Any probably
Speaker 2: people around you where you are, who definitely believe we
Speaker 2: have a problem. They may know quite a bit about it,
Speaker 2: they may feel threatened by it, they've got young kids,
Speaker 2: but they're just not going to act, and so they
Speaker 2: are skeptical about response.
Speaker 1: Response skeptics know a crisis is looming, but assume their
Speaker 1: individual actions won't matter all that much. These skeptics might
Speaker 1: think that only people with money or power can make
Speaker 1: a real difference, and that ordinary people are wasting their
Speaker 1: time and energy trying to do something meaningful. Did you
Speaker 1: ever go through periods of response skepticism yourself when you
Speaker 1: started like just that it's too big or my actions
Speaker 1: don't matter.
Speaker 2: Well, I go through that all the time, little micro moments,
Speaker 2: and you know, sometimes frankly, I recognize the speed and
Speaker 2: scale of what is needed is so enormous, and the
Speaker 2: timescale is so short that I have my doubts, And
Speaker 2: so I think it is a fluctuation between feeling at
Speaker 2: moments hopeful and seeing a way forward, and seeing policy wins,
Speaker 2: and seeing a sense that yes, we have the technology
Speaker 2: we need, Yes we pretty much have everything we need,
Speaker 2: Yes we could do these things principle, And sometimes I
Speaker 2: see evidences happening, and then other moments in the day
Speaker 2: it's like, oh, this is overwhelming.
Speaker 1: It is easy to lose hope. But whenever Adam feels
Speaker 1: his optimism weakening, he looks to all the campaigners of
Speaker 1: the past, abolitionists, suffragettes, civil rights activists.
Speaker 2: You have to kind of be acquainted somehow with the
Speaker 2: history of social movements, the history of how political and
Speaker 2: social change is made by groups of people advocating locally.
Speaker 2: But we have lots of fantastic examples to look at.
Speaker 2: I mean, you think about the same sex marriage struggle.
Speaker 2: You know, in twenty fifteen, the Supreme Court rules boom,
Speaker 2: it's law of the land. Now, that's preceded by decades
Speaker 2: of town by town, city by city, in fact, conversation
Speaker 2: by conversation. If you look at the suffragettes fighting for
Speaker 2: women's rights, I mean, people forget that until nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 2: a women in the United States was the property of
Speaker 2: our husband. That wasn't so long ago, right, We've made
Speaker 2: enormous changes, you know. A really nice example of how
Speaker 2: local leads to national change is, of course, the Nixon era.
Speaker 2: Nixon was a deeply conniving politician, certainly no environmentalist, and
Speaker 2: yet he brought the most far reaching environmental legislation probably
Speaker 2: the world's ever seen so that the United States has
Speaker 2: ever seen in the early nineteen seventies. Now, what happened
Speaker 2: was that town by town, city by city, people came
Speaker 2: out and started confronting polluters and pollution and clamoring to
Speaker 2: the point where it became so onerous on the corporations
Speaker 2: that the corporations required the federal government to create standards. Now,
Speaker 2: I mean, that's a very nice history to look at.
Speaker 1: And movements that start in your own backyard can truly
Speaker 1: be felt around the world. History shows social change doesn't
Speaker 1: tend to stop at national borders, you know.
Speaker 2: In one sense. Obviously, the struggle to arrest or prevent
Speaker 2: really bad global heating is a global struggle, right, and
Speaker 2: it needs to happen everywhere, but particularly in the United States,
Speaker 2: because we have our hands on a big level here,
Speaker 2: and if we get policy wins locally, we trigger change nationally,
Speaker 2: and what the United States does influences the whole world.
Speaker 2: A sober analysis of much of the great legislation, much
Speaker 2: of the great social change made the United States and
Speaker 2: many other countries, starts with a recognition that it often
Speaker 2: starts locally by local actors. And groups of people pushing
Speaker 2: for something.
Speaker 1: The reason individuals can have such a huge impact comes
Speaker 1: down to something psychologists call behavioral contagent. Let's say you
Speaker 1: switched to an EV, put solar panels on your roof,
Speaker 1: and go to a climate march. Research shows these activities
Speaker 1: can serve as honest signals to the people around you.
Speaker 1: When we see people behave in certain ways, we implicitly
Speaker 1: assume that those behaviors are the accepted community norms, and
Speaker 1: once certain actions are seen as the norm, more and
Speaker 1: more people adopt them. Adams is the climate fight has
Speaker 1: seen lots of great examples of behavioral contagion.
Speaker 2: Basically, five or six people in Massachusetts about fifteen years
Speaker 2: ago got together and brought this policy idea. And the
Speaker 2: policy idea was that when you pay some of your
Speaker 2: electricity bill, let's make sure that some proportion of electricity
Speaker 2: bill go to a not for profit that tries to
Speaker 2: make sure that that money is actually used to procure renewables.
Speaker 2: And that's called community choice aggregation. Now there are now
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty million Americans that have community choice aggregation.
Speaker 2: It jumped all around the countries of policy issue. Now
Speaker 2: that's a nice example of contagion.
Speaker 1: Of course, no matter how passionate and persuasive you are,
Speaker 1: you can't win them all. But Adam says, the struggle
Speaker 1: itself can still make a difference.
Speaker 2: Sometimes we fight for things, and often we lose legislatively
Speaker 2: and we don't get the constructional win, or it may
Speaker 2: not come for years. But in the process of struggling,
Speaker 2: we have an enormous impact on people's consciousness, and that
Speaker 2: is incredibly important and valuable.
Speaker 1: If you started this episode as one of those response skeptics,
Speaker 1: if you accepted that climate change was happening but didn't
Speaker 1: think you could do anything about it, I hope you
Speaker 1: now feel empowered by Adam's story and ready to make
Speaker 1: at least some small changes.
Speaker 2: I don't expect everyone needs to do something that draumatic,
Speaker 2: you know. I don't think everyone should drop everything they're
Speaker 2: doing and become climate activists immediately. I mean, look, activists
Speaker 2: are always going to be small in number. Right now,
Speaker 2: I'm estimating that we're about one in a thousand here
Speaker 2: in San Diego, and I hope we can get to
Speaker 2: five and one thousand, But we can't expect that ever,
Speaker 2: perhaps to be too big, And I don't expect everyone
Speaker 2: needs to do something that draumatic, and people can of
Speaker 2: course get engaged at night or on the weekend a
Speaker 2: little bit during the day on the stuff while keeping
Speaker 2: their key careers going. And I think, by the way,
Speaker 2: it's important to do what you love, you know, I
Speaker 2: don't think everyone should drop everything they're doing and become
Speaker 2: climate activists immediately. I mean, during World War Two, when
Speaker 2: people are fighting the Nazis, we wanted people to develop
Speaker 2: radar and develop techniques, but we also wanted the people
Speaker 2: just keep starting sixteenth century Renaissance literature, and no matter
Speaker 2: what happens on planet Earth and how bad this gets,
Speaker 2: we want the best of humanity to flourish. And of
Speaker 2: course that is creative, wonderful things that people study and
Speaker 2: do because they're curious about it. So I simply don't
Speaker 2: feel that everyone should drop what they're doing.
Speaker 1: Not everyone's going to be an activist, but I've got
Speaker 1: an activist then what Well, just as he did back
Speaker 1: when he was a college professor, Adam suggests that you too,
Speaker 1: look for your frontline.
Speaker 2: Just about everybody in their profession or in their space
Speaker 2: has got frontlines on this. I mean, if you're a teacher,
Speaker 2: you can teach. If you're an architect, you can absolutely
Speaker 2: be part of a revolution in new building design. But
Speaker 2: if you're in a different situation society, you might fork aunt,
Speaker 2: will work for a nonprofit, or you might be a
Speaker 2: retired person. Almost everybody has the capacity to identify frontlines
Speaker 2: professionally or in their personal life where they can actually
Speaker 2: be a communicator on the climate crisis.
Speaker 1: Climate scientists have done an excellent job explaining the devastating
Speaker 1: consequences of our collective inaction. As I researched this series,
Speaker 1: I was terrified by all the predictions. Things right now
Speaker 1: are very bad for our planet. It could get a
Speaker 1: lot worse if we don't act quickly. But Adam says
Speaker 1: there are hopeful stories for what our future could look
Speaker 1: like if we put in the work. He thinks we
Speaker 1: all need to become more positive climate communicators and to
Speaker 1: share these optimistic visions of what society could be like
Speaker 1: if we changed our ways.
Speaker 2: There are ways of our living with much less carbon intensity,
Speaker 2: with much more kind of sharing and common purpose that
Speaker 2: actually would be very healthy for people. And I think
Speaker 2: this is a really important topic to explore, and World
Speaker 2: War two is perhaps a good example of that in
Speaker 2: the United States, people, we are prepared to tolerate rationing.
Speaker 2: You know, air conditioners and metallic devices were requisition for
Speaker 2: the warf Shoes and clothes were made from four or
Speaker 2: five items on standard production line specified by the government.
Speaker 2: There was no pleasure driving of cars. You had to
Speaker 2: have four people in a vehicle with a proper purpose
Speaker 2: and to prevent price gouging. That was rationing of all
Speaker 2: sorts of clerosene and food. And people not only tolerated
Speaker 2: to some extent, they thrive. And of course that's an
Speaker 2: exceptional situation. It was an emergency with a common sense
Speaker 2: of purpose. But people rally and we see that over
Speaker 2: and over again.
Speaker 1: It's comforting to think that our grandparents and great grandparents
Speaker 1: faced a similar existential threat and made exactly the kind
Speaker 1: of lifestyle changes we need to accept today. Many older
Speaker 1: folks look back on those warriors fondly as a time
Speaker 1: of unity and cooperation. It just goes to show that
Speaker 1: being an engaged citizen has a ton of happiness benefits.
Speaker 1: When you fight for a good cause, you'll inevitably form
Speaker 1: bonds with fellow activists. You'll get a sense of belonging
Speaker 1: and a powerful feeling of purpose. You'll experience the reward
Speaker 1: of doing good for your fellow humans. Just ask Adam.
Speaker 1: He may have given up his comfortable former life and
Speaker 1: thrown him into the scariest threat facing humanity, but he's happier.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I have losses and sometimes I have wins, and
Speaker 2: sometimes I'm encouraged and sometimes I'm discouraged. But generally speaking,
Speaker 2: I have a strong sense now of purpose and it
Speaker 2: makes me feel better.
Speaker 1: Honestly, so, even if only for your own well being,
Speaker 1: it might be worth making twenty twenty four the year
Speaker 1: to do a little more for the planet. You can
Speaker 1: find your own front line. Maybe that's going to a
Speaker 1: climate march, or pushing your local government to electrify new buildings,
Speaker 1: or becoming a green trendsetter in your neighborhood, or just
Speaker 1: sharing the special Happiness Lab series on climate Hope with
Speaker 1: the people you know. The actions you pick might be
Speaker 1: big or small, but the science shows it's likely there'll
Speaker 1: be more contagious than you think. And above all, Adam
Speaker 1: says you need to drop that response skepticism, just commit
Speaker 1: to getting involved without worrying. If little old you can
Speaker 1: really make a difference.
Speaker 2: I think of Wendell Berry, who says, you know, we
Speaker 2: don't have any right to ask whether we're going to
Speaker 2: succeed or not. The only right we have is to
Speaker 2: ask what's the right thing to do on Oh, what's
Speaker 2: the right thing to do to keep living on by
Speaker 2: the earth. It's not a question of big be hopeful.
Speaker 2: It's a question of being the right thing to do
Speaker 2: and having dignity.
Speaker 1: That's the end of the short season about how we
Speaker 1: can navigate the climate challenge a little happier. To be sure,
Speaker 1: global heating is a difficult and depressing topic, but I
Speaker 1: hope you've found some hope and optimism in these episodes.
Speaker 1: And if you've learned nothing else from the guests I've
Speaker 1: spoken to, it's that even in dark times, we need
Speaker 1: to remember the happiness essentials of social connection, a sense
Speaker 1: of purpose, and doing good for others. The Happiness Lab
Speaker 1: will be back soon, and we're shifting gears in store
Speaker 1: for February, the month of Saint Valentine's Day, We'll be
Speaker 1: looking at love.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: I think on our second date, John said, you know,
Speaker 3: I was in another relationship, but I've told her I'm
Speaker 3: not going to see her anymore. I immediately had a
Speaker 3: pianic tat. It was like really already, But five months
Speaker 3: later he proposed
Speaker 1: So make a date and listen again to the Happiness
Speaker 1: Lab with me, Doctor Laurie Santos