Cleo Carney, Annabelle Brothers, and Dorje Dixey represent the members of the Emerging Leaders Program with the Bluedot Institute in this Climate Conversation with Jonathan Foley of Project Drawdown.
Project Drawdown's mission is to help the world reach “drawdown”—the point in the future when levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline, thereby halting catastrophic climate change—as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible.
The Bluedot Institute is bringing together middle and high school students from all over North America to share their progress on and toolkits for tackling local environmental projects. The Emerging Leaders Program is a group of fully engaged students who conduct climate interviews, write essays, take photos or do projects at their schools and submit them to the bluedotinstitute.com for publication. They work with professional editors and selected projects also are featured in bluedotliving.com.
Cleo Carney
My name is Cleo Carney.
Annabelle Brothers
I'm Annabelle Brothers.
Dorje Dixey
And I am Dorje Dixey.
Annabelle Brothers
And these are Climate Conversations. We're not 60 minutes.
Cleo Carney
We're 25 minutes with a great guest, Jonathan Foley, Executive Director of Project Drawdown, one of the premier carbon reducing advisory groups in the country.
Cleo Carney
Dr. Jonathan Foley is a prominent environmental scientist, public speaker, best selling author, and Executive Director of Project Drawdown. Project Drawdown is a nonprofit organization that provides resources and a step-by-step guide, or a “drawdown” map to equip institutions and everyday people with the necessary knowledge to push the world to draw down when greenhouse gases in the atmosphere begin to decrease. So without further ado, welcome, Jonathan or Dr. Jonathan, thank you so much for spending your time with us.
Jonathan Foley
Yeah, happy to do it. Thanks for having me here today.
Cleo Carney
So firstly, to provide a bit of context for our listeners, what does your day to day work at Project Drawdown entail?
Jonathan Foley
Well, Project Drawdown is kind of a funny organization. We exist for just one purpose, to be a guide to the world to help stop climate change. In a way, we're kind of like a Consumer Reports or Wirecutter for climate change. Because you know, now that we're paying attention to climate change, there are a lot of people kind of pitching their ideas, their companies, their solutions to the problem, somebody needs to be kind of the traffic cop and say, well, slow down, hang on, let's test this, let's make sure it's actually true. Let's do the science, let's do the vetting of climate solutions, and say, “Hey, that one makes sense. That's a good one, that's a go, they get green light.” Others like “Whoa, no, not so much that hits the brakes.” So we're a group of scientist and like, kind of environmental communicators and kind of analysts. And I'm a scientist by training myself, I was a professor for a long time at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Minnesota. I wanted to be an astronomer growing up, I ended up being a planetary scientist instead. And so I spent a good chunk of my time doing some science, but also I have to run a place. So that means like, you know, building partnerships, raising money, administering teams, and all that kind of stuff. So every day and every hour is a little bit different.
Cleo Carney
Wow. Well, you sound very busy. Very interesting and important nowadays.
Annabelle Brothers
Yeah, that's incredible. Now, there's been inconsistent information about how much power individuals actually have when set alongside larger corporations and forms of government. So in your opinion, what degree of power do individuals have in the fight against climate change? And how can individuals increase their influence?
Jonathan Foley
Yeah, you know, as you said, there's kind of a debate out there, or they're a fake debate, it's not really a real thing. But it's presented as an either-or choice, as if only working on your individual carbon decisions matters, or it's just the big bad oil companies and the politicians that they paid off. Those are extreme and not really true pictures of the world, the world is actually more nuanced than that. We talk about systems change, and the systems include us, includes people. So our decisions matter a lot, it turns out, and it's not just me saying this is the science. It turns out about a third of the climate solutions we need are best done by households. They're things like changing our diets, reducing food waste, how we set our thermostats, what kind of car we end up buying, how we get to work, and where we choose to live. Please don't tell me that only corporations and politicians are going to make those choices for us. We get to do that, too.
Now, where I think that debate, so called debate was useful is I don't think individuals and families and you know, just regular folks like all of us on this call, should feel guilty so much about our environmental choices and say, “Oh, it's all on us.” Because the systems we're part of that we were born into, and we participate in were largely shaped by corporations and big political forces that are bigger than us. So I would say don't make it a guilt trip. Make it a power trip, or an empowering trip, maybe I should say. It's like, no, I don't have to reduce my carbon footprint, but I get to. That's freaking awesome. Because I can save money, I can help the planet. And I can give a big middle finger to the Exxon Mobil's of the world and say, “I'm not even buying stuff from you anymore. The hell with you guys.” Or I can drive by in my electric vehicle or I can, you know, eat differently and make my life better save money. And when you do this, it's like voting everyday with your pocketbook. And your social media and your conversations with your neighbors and the life you live, you're sending really big, economic, political, social signals to the world, which are part of how systems change.
So I think individual actions are really important. But I don't think they let corporations and politicians off the hook, not at all. In fact, by taking individual action we actually make them more responsible because we're kind of disempowering people who are living off of our money and our votes. By saying we're doing it differently, we're going to live a different life. So I don't think it's a contradiction. I think it's important to do climate work when you vote every four years or so. But let's be honest, when we vote for a politician, we're just renting them for the day, corporations are buying them for four years. We don't have the same level playing field there. But when we take the individual actions at home, that adds to our power it gives us like, economic, social and political signals that you're sending to the world, and also to your neighbors by saying, “Hey, it's you know, this is better.” Climate solutions are going to win when they're cheaper and better and cooler than the other solutions. Like an electric car first controlling what's that until they drive a Tesla. And they go, “whoa, this is pretty cool. I want one of those.” Or they might say, :I don't like those vegan burgers” until they try an Impossible Burger like, “Hey, this tastes pretty good. I like this.” Or a heat pump in your house like, “Oh, I don't know if I trust that.” But when your neighbors have one and they rave about it they go, “Oh, yeah, maybe I should get one too.” So let's not take the power away from us. Why would we want to do that?
So sorry for the long winded answer. But I feel very passionately about this individual action is a way of empowering ourselves, to decouple our lives from a broken system. And to remind the world of that every single day. It saves you money and makes your life better. It sends signals. It's like doing political activism every day, but with your pocketbook and your everyday actions. And how could that not be a good thing? But again, don't feel guilty about it. Don't feel pressured about it. That's not all your fault, but it is within your power to change the world.
Cleo Carney
A perfect follow up from that–and you did touch on some things. But if you could give a little list or just your top things are what are some habits people can implement in their day to day lives that will make a difference in reducing their carbon emissions?
Jonathan Foley
Yeah, well, I would step back a little bit more, I might not answer your question perfectly. Because, you know, we have a lot of different impacts on the environment, not just carbon. So I would say if we want to think about our impacts on the environment writ large, including biodiversity, including water, including other things that we affect, I usually remind people to think about the kind of the your your food, your energy, and your water. Those are kind of the big three things that we do as a society that drives problems in the environment.
So it turns out food, foods a really powerful place to begin by maybe shifting our diets a little bit. You don't have to go to the extreme. So you can do a little bit at a time or as much as you feel comfortable with. But reducing our consumption of beef and dairy matters a lot. No matter what way you do in the math, it matters for climate change, it matters for water, it matters for biodiversity. These are the most land and energy, or greenhouse gas and water intensive kinds of ways of producing protein we've ever had. So lightening up on that. And you know, what your doctor would probably tell you to do the same to. It doesn't mean you have to become a vegan if you don't want to do that. I myself am not a vegetarian. But I very rarely eat beef. I might on a very special occasion. But most of the time chicken will do just fine or better yet beans and lentils or something. So you know, your mileage may vary.
Food waste–another big thing. We Americans have too many big portions, which make us eat too much and we get a little bit tubby. And we also have a lot of food waste. It turns out 30-40% of the world, not just the United States, of all the food grown in the world is thrown away. That's insane when food is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. It's the biggest contributor to biodiversity loss and water use and water pollution the world has ever seen. So food waste is kind of the “duh” solution of a lot of environmental issues and we don't take it seriously enough. We can't solve all of it but we can solve some of it around our homes, our schools, our workplaces, our community places by having smaller portion sizes, having to go bags and to go boxes, eating our leftovers, learning how to freeze and can thanks. But most of all, maybe some portion controls, smaller portions. Get rid of cafeteria trays. You want more, go back to the line, but big, hulking trays we can load up with extra food–half of that gets thrown away. So let's do better and be smarter about food waste.
But then you get to energy. The food areas diets and food waste are the big ones for us. Around energy, I'd say look at like electricity, heating and cooling, and your car or how you get around. Those are all different ways we use energy and different forms. Electricity, it's going to be replacing appliances, when they kind of go bad whether it's a light bulb, replace it with the LED light bulb, of course. Refrigerator, that's one of the biggest uses electricity in a home, so old refrigerator, get the energy efficient ones next time. Air conditioning, huge use of electricity, make sure when those go to replace them with energy efficient systems. Heating and cooling, update your attic, update your basement, insulate the walls, especially weather stripping. And by the way, there are huge tax breaks for that right now, thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act. So if you own a home, it's pretty good deal for you. Programmable thermostats, another really good solution. Water is another big area, transportation is another big area, I guess. So you know, those are the obvious things of like a smaller, more efficient vehicle, whether it's electric or not, try to walk try to take mass transit, try to bike when you can–not everybody can, not all the time.
But you know, again, don't go bankrupt doing this, do things when it's time to get the new car, or it's time to get the updated water heater, it's time to renovate the attic for some reason. This is when you can naturally fold this stuff in. This is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. Do a little at a time, and take advantage of good tax breaks, take advantage of low interest loans, take advantage of know how and take advantage of the things that save you money, as well as help the planet. There are a lot of wind winds out there because our current systems are like so bad and so inefficient. How can we help but not improve them?
Cleo Carney
Yeah, I completely agree. I love how it goes hand in hand that often the things that are best for the climate are actually best for your wallet as well.
Jonathan Foley
Yeah, almost all the time. Nature is efficient, nature has no waste, nature recycles everything. Nature doesn't destroy stuff to live a good, prosperous life. We're the only species on Earth that have like waste and have to destroy an ecosystem in order to power our economy. Every other form of life in the last four and a half billion years on this planet work differently. They're powered by the sun with no waste, all using available materials from their environment. That's kind of amazing. Maybe we can learn a few things from nature. Nature's a hell of a good engineer.
Dorje Dixey
Earlier you spoke about your work on university campuses. As someone who's just about to graduate high school, what can I do to help on a college campus?
Jonathan Foley
I don't know. What can you do? W
Dorje Dixey
What have you what have you seen–?
Jonathan Foley
Well, I'm joking, because that's, I get that question all the time, as you might imagine, what what can I do to help climate change? I'm like, I don't know, what can you do? Because we're probably going to need it. And are you an artist? Great. We need that we need better storytelling, we need more inspiring arts and culture to inspire the world to not just look at climate change as a disaster, but as an opportunity to make a better world and like inspire people to go make a difference? Oh, you're an engineer? Well, we really need you to, because we need innovations in like practical technologies that are available today. Not science fiction, but science now. How do we make things happen today? Oh, you're a political scientist, you like organizing people? Oh, gosh, we need that too. You're business student–Wow, we need entrepreneurship. Every job is a climate job. And every major is a climate major today.
So I don't know what the right answer to that is. It's more like what can you do? Because we will need it. We need health people, we need organizers, we need engineers and scientists, we need lawyers, we need everybody. Every field has something to offer. It's not the politicians and the activists and the media pundits are not the people who are making the big differences all by themselves. There are a lot of other people out there doing really important work. And I think we kind of need them all. That might be a flippant answer. But again, we have a saying at Drawdown for for companies who say every job is a climate job now. And you know what, that's kind of true. I used to work at universities that often will have like a minor on the environment, which I think is so much better than a major on the environment. I would rather have a minor where like, okay, let's get the best physics majors, the best history majors, the best English majors, the best artists, the best, pre-law students, whatever, and have them all get a minor together as a community. And we're going to take what we know what to do in our disciplinary home, but we're gonna apply that to the environment. I'm going to bring the best of the best engineers, the best of the best pre-law, pre-med, whatever, whatever, to the environmental challenges of our time. That's cool. I don't know where you're gonna go to college, but look for stuff like that.
The other thing is, you know, travel in unusual circles don't don't just hang out with the granola heads and the hipster environmentalist and stuff, go talk to the conservatives–if there are conservatives left on campus– go talk to them too, because you know, we need to kind of get out of our bubbles and out of our kind of, you know, headspace and be challenged a little bit and have, you know, interesting conversations with people we might not always want to talk to. We have to do that–have to, have to, have to. We've got to engage rural communities, we got to engage conservatives, we got engaged business, you know, we can't get there without the other half of the country. And too many college campuses lean pretty heavily one way into culture and politics. Make sure you don't just get into an echo chamber. That's the other advice I'd have: go seek out the real world, it's actually kind of a cool place.
Dorje Dixey
I fully agree. That's a great answer. It kind of goes into my next question, which I think you've kind of already stepped into a little bit. But what ways can workers hold their hold their businesses accountable in terms of being climate friendly? And how can Project Drawdown help that?
Jonathan Foley
Yeah, I think that's pretty important. The way we approach it, again, is we have we have a little campaign, we've actually run with companies for their employees called “Every Job is a Climate Job.” And a lot of people in companies especially–it's not totally generational, but it does skew younger, a lot of the younger employees seem to be really like, “I want to work in a place I believe in”– this mission aligned and hard aligned with their values. Absolutely. That's great. I wish more people had done that over the years. But also recognizing businesses do still have inherent contradictions. No one's perfect. So I, you know, some companies get vilified, like doing really great climate work. But oh, they had to give a donation to some member of Congress to kind of grease the wheels on something else they needed. And maybe that member of Congress isn't such a great climate hero or heroine, you know? Yeah, I think a mature conversation of saying, “Hey, yeah, we recognize their inherent contradictions in life,” that, just like us, we're all kind of hypocrites. We might want to be environmentalists, but we really do want to go to Maui or something, you know we personally have to wrestle with these things. Companies do too. And so I think holding companies accountable saying we can do better, we can be more transparent, we can move towards real progress. And we could stop, BS-ing their way through greenwashing will be great, but also to be I don't think it's always helpful.
Personally, this is not a science opinion, I'm taking off my science hat. Now. I don't know that the flame thrower approach of you know, like, you know, “I know better than everyone else in the company. And my virtue is more virtuous than your virtue,” kind of stuff that plays well. So I don't know, I think tempering like, you know, let's push and engage companies, but also be a little bit forgiving of when they're not perfect. And then say, “Yeah, I get that you fell down this time, but let's do better next time. And let me help you.” I'm a kind of a “good cop” version–I like carrots, not sticks. I like to encourage people rather than vilify people, that's just a personal take. Sorry for the detour, but like the world has gotten really good–our activists, our media empires, our social media platforms, our politicians–they've all gotten really cynical lately. In the last 10 to 20 years and have gotten really good at saying, “The world is going to Hell and those people are to blame for it.” That's not leadership, that's bullying. A real leader would say, “Hey, a better world is possible, if we work together to get there.” So I would say that kind of approaching companies to win friends and allies say, “Hey, look, we can be a better company, we can be more competitive, more profitable, and be more responsible and better stewards of our planet.”
At the same time, this is a good business plan, not just an activist's social agenda. You win more friends and kind of get everybody on board. And that's hard. It's difficult. It takes a little forgiveness, a little meeting people halfway. It requires negotiation and wisdom and humility. But I think it's necessary. I really don't think the environmental movement will succeed if we fall into the trap of just you know, starting off with a supposition, “the world is evil, and they're my enemy.” That never won. Like Martin Luther King didn't go around the country saying, “I have a nightmare.” You know, that's not what inspires. That's not what enables change. I think we need to think of the dreams. Think of the opportunities, think of the things that bring us together. I've never met a single person who says, “Yeah, I want the world to be worse. I want the future generations to have a really crappy planet.” I've never met that person, neither have you. And so I think if we can appeal to people's better, the better angels of their nature and to bring people together in companies and schools and other places we can do wondrous things. But we that's a different kind of leadership than we often see today.
Dorje Dixey
Yeah, I fully agree. You know, nobody's perfect. I don't think you have to be perfect to make a change, as you just said. I think that's it's a, it's a wonderful answer.
Jonathan Foley
We have to be challenged, though, we have to challenge ourselves. But we're all kind of hypocrites. In this world, we've all lived in a world that was powered by fossil fuels and things that weren't so good for the planet–might have been good in other ways early on, but not so good now. We also look in the mirror and go, “Yeah, none of us are perfect.” We never have been, that's part of human nature. But we can always do better that is part of human nature, too, especially in this country. We can do better, we can always do better. And this is a country that was imperfect to the extreme, but it always tries to do better. And so I think that's where I would take that. But again, that's more of a personal opinion. How can we do better and bring people together?
I'm really tired of living in a world where people seem to tear each other apart unnecessarily, and make people the villain that opposes the victim too much. Let's say, “Wait a minute, let's work together, find common ground and move together on an agenda we all agree on.” I think everyone wants a better planet, and a better future for the next generation. I really have never met anybody who doesn't believe that. And so I that's what I would like to try to appeal to. It doesn't work very often, though. Some days, it's hard. But that's, that's where I'd like to see the world go.
Annabelle Brothers
Yeah, thank you. And I think that's like a perfect way. To start our next question. You've already sort of spoken about the intersectionality within the environmental movement. So would you be able to speak to the intersectionality between the environmental justice movement and social justice movements? Already, as outlined in the framework of Project Drawdown, you've named this as the “improved society components,” so could you speak to that a little bit?
Jonathan Foley
Yeah. Speaking of humility, you know, I'm a middle aged white guy, with enormous privilege in the world that we have today. And I've worked really hard, but without the same kind of barriers a lot of other people face. So you know, what I know about this is really quite little from a lived experience point of view. But as a scientist, I think we recognize immediately that climate solutions are not separate from other things happening on this planet, that we have to solve many problems at the same time, not just something in the atmosphere. If we only fix climate change, in an unjust world, we have failed.
So we clearly have opportunities to do better. And the good news here is a climate solutions are really good solutions to a lot of our other equity, and social challenges like health. Did you know that 8 to 9 million people a year on this planet today are dying from the air pollution caused by fossil fuels, not by climate change, but by this soot in the dirt and the crap in the air basically, that fossil fuels produce–8 to 9 million a year. It's more than from firearms, or war, or tobacco. It's like deadly–there's an entire New York City being wiped out every year. And guess who most of those folks are, poor and people of color with not much voice in the state of the world today. That's insane. So a climate solution just helped save 9 million people from misery and death. Like, hello, that sort of Environmental Equity, social justice, win-win in the extreme.
There are others. Most climate solutions also talk about things to do with food. We can improve things like food security for people who don't have enough that also better nutrition for the rest of the world where maybe we're not eating not just enough, but not the right kinds of things. How do we improve the diet so people in the world with associated things like diabetes, obesity rates, cardiovascular burdens, things like that? That can be a climate solution. What do we do about things like building cities, so they're more walkable and easier to get around? That also helps with mobility and health, cardiovascular diseases, and so on, but also make cities more just more enjoyable and stronger communities. So I think these are all potentially win-win so it turns out that the world we've designed is really kind of awful in some ways, but when we fix them for climate change, we can fix them for other things, too. And so as a scientist, I hear the words climate and justice, climate inequity, and I'm like, “Oh, God, I can't wait. Let's dig in. Let's find the best opportunities to fix two things.” So nerds like me, we like to crunch the numbers and say, “Hey, which of these solutions would do the most good for people, especially the most vulnerable people in improving like health or income or access to education or whatever, and reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere,” and turns out there are a lot of these. But the kind of climate justice movement is so kind of new or it's grown explosively in the last couple of years. It isn't new–it's been around for a long time, but it really blew up recently.
I really want to make sure we're bringing good science to the table too, along with our passions for social justice, and make sure we're putting the money into wise things are actually improving the lives of people. It'd be an awful shame if we threw a lot of money at this stuff and it turns out, we just did it as a big symbol, or to kind of feel good. I worry a little bit about that we're doing a lot of “feel good,” and it does feel good–it feels good to want to do the right thing. But also is that the smart thing? Is the you know, is it achieving good. And I don't know if we know that yet. We're gonna have to be very careful and watch this stuff. And also kind of make sure that we're really listening to not just science, but also a lot of other important things. Science is just one little seat at the table. But it's one that can help guide us away from bad decisions sometimes.
Annabelle Brothers
Thank you so much. Now I remember, I just turned 18. But in my youth, I remember being so overwhelmed by the climate justice movement how do we first start? So I think to wrap up, we're asking you, what would be your biggest piece of advice for youth climate activists?
Jonathan Foley
Wow, that's a great question. First, be patient, not about the issue, but with yourselves. To really master something, to really be good at climate change work, it's gonna take you some time. It took, you know, every doctor out there, every nurse, every engineer, spent years and years and years learning their craft. Scientists working on climate change, we spent, you know, like 20 years in school, another 10 years after that. And then, maybe 30 years into this, you feel you begin to know a little bit. So keep learning, keep working, keep honing your craft, keep learning from others. It's going to be a lifelong journey of learning, and humility of what you don't know. So don't expect to know everything all at once. You won't. Nobody did. None of us still do. And I'm a lot older than you–I don't know squat. And the more I know, the more I realized what I don't know. So again, keep a bit of humility of what you don't know, be open to learning and learning from new perspectives. But always learn, always be learning. That's how we're gonna get our way out of this.
But most of all, I try to give a sense of inspiration. The world, this is not new. Okay? A lot of people think this is the existential threat of all of humanity, like I'm from Gen X, we're like, “Oh, hold my beer.” We grew up during the Cold War, you want to talk about existential threat? We lived in a world where 15 minutes from any given moment, we could be in thermonuclear annihilation, which be far worse than climate change. So you know, this is not new, and generations before us fought fascism, and you know, World War II, which is an existential threat to humanity, then. We have faced these kinds of threats before and we've succeeded, and we beat them, we will this time too. I'm convinced of it. So we will, when our backs up against the wall will become our best selves and can solve and will solve climate change. We can totally do this. This is easy. Compared to the Cold War, this is easy compared to World War II, and other things that we've tried to overcome.
We know what to do we have the solutions. We're kind of late getting to them. But we're now beginning to accelerate. This is a race like all human history has been–there's a race between the bad stuff getting worse, and the good stuff getting better. You know, Dickens wrote about the best of times, the worst of times–he wrote that about the French Revolution. That's true today, too. So we're in a repeating pattern of history where a problem looks insurmountable, until suddenly, it's not. And the benefit, the one benefit of being a little bit older now, as you've seen a few things. And I will remind younger people today, like you know, as an old fart, I have been told so many times when I was young, “Oh, that's impossible, that would never happen.” Every time I've been told that it turned out to not only be not true, it was inevitable that was going to change. As a kid I was told the Cold War would never end. Apartheid would never end. We could never have an African0American president, “gay marriage–what's that?,” legalizing pot. Not only have those things all changed, they were inevitable. And it's just like every other change in human history. It's slow, slow, slow, slow, and then all at once. That's what's gonna happen with climate change, too. It's, we're still on the slow part. And the “God is not moving fast enough. It's not moving fast enough.” But then suddenly, we hit tipping points where everything changes. I think we're on the threshold of some big tipping points in technology, in business, in culture, in activism.
People like you give me a lot of hope that way. But also maybe in our politics, but that's going to be the last to fall. They're not going to lead us, they are going to follow us. So don't put your hope in politicians put it in yourselves and in other systems and watch what happens next. It's going to be beautiful. That could be an amazing world we can build together and it's right in front of us. We just have to go out and seize it.
Cleo Carney
What a lovely hopeful note to end on thank you so much for your time.
