Transcripts
Do you think we're going to keep temperatures below
Amy Martin:one and a half degrees of warming?
Jim White:Ah......
Amy Martin:Be honest.
Amy Martin:Welcome to Threshold, I'm Amy Martin, and this is Jim White.
Amy Martin:He's a dean and a professor of geological sciences and
Amy Martin:environmental studies at the University of Colorado, in
Amy Martin:Boulder.
Jim White:Let me answer that question this way. I am
Jim White:fundamentally an optimist, and as a climate scientist, that may
Jim White:sound a little unusual, but I have a great deal of respect for
Jim White:the ingenuity, for the inventiveness, for the ability
Jim White:of human beings to recognize problems and solve problems.
Amy Martin:Over the last 18 months of reporting for this
Amy Martin:season, many of the conversations I've had have
Amy Martin:ended up in places like this, explorations of core questions
Amy Martin:about who we are as a species. The climate crisis is provoking
Amy Martin:an identity crisis. We're all trying to figure out what it is
Amy Martin:about humanity that led us into this mess, and if we've got what
Amy Martin:it takes to get ourselves out of it. And here, in our final
Amy Martin:episode this season, I'm going to share parts of a few of those
Amy Martin:conversations with you. I'm starting with Jim White, because
Amy Martin:I think the ideas he brings up are a really powerful frame for
Amy Martin:the other conversations you'll hear this time, and for the
Amy Martin:climate crisis overall. I talked with Jim for almost two hours in
Amy Martin:July of 2021 and we spent most of the time talking about
Amy Martin:climate science, the carbon cycle and tipping points and the
Amy Martin:climate stability of the Holocene, a lot of the same
Amy Martin:things I talked about with Johan Rockstrom, back in our first
Amy Martin:episode.
Jim White:The last 10,000 years was remarkably stable. We did
Jim White:not have very many challenges, climatically speaking, and as
Jim White:far as humans go, that was really beneficial to us.
Amy Martin:But toward the end, the conversation took a turn
Amy Martin:when I asked Jim this.
Amy Martin:So what are the top three things like, if you were king of the
Amy Martin:world, Jim White, and you could wave your magic wand and say, in
Amy Martin:2022 I'm going to institute these three things are going to
Amy Martin:happen to help keep us below 1.5 degrees of warming. What would
Amy Martin:they be?
Jim White:Well I'm going to give you an answer that that is
Jim White:not going to be nuts and bolts, you know, things like better
Jim White:windows, better doors, drive electric cars, you know,
Jim White:generate electricity from, you know, sunshine, all that, you
Jim White:know, stuff like that. Yes, I think we know all that stuff. I
Jim White:think there's some other fundamental issues that we need
Jim White:to address.
Amy Martin:Like so many other guests we've talked to this
Amy Martin:season, the issues Jim is most concerned about are social and
Amy Martin:political, not technological. He said he would use his magic wand
Amy Martin:to solve global economic inequality, improve our long
Amy Martin:term thinking and planning abilities and make us smarter
Amy Martin:about recognizing the value of diversity. Basically, he'd get
Amy Martin:people working together, respecting each other and being
Amy Martin:fair to each other.
Jim White:The pathway to sustainability, the pathway to
Jim White:living sustainably on the planet, is actually paved with
Jim White:some very good changes that we need to make as human beings. We
Jim White:need to all care about each other from that economic status
Jim White:point of view, we need to care about our kids and grandkids,
Jim White:and we need to understand that there is no reason why one
Jim White:gender or one race should run the show.
Amy Martin:I'm moved by the idea that in this crisis, that
Amy Martin:the things that we need to do to get through it are things that
Amy Martin:are part of making us better people. That's kind of beautiful
Amy Martin:to me.
Jim White:Yeah, I always view challenges as learning lessons,
Jim White:what challenged us and what is it we need to do to adapt to
Jim White:that challenge, and what lessons can we learn from that? And to
Jim White:me, you know, as you said, the beauty, if you will, of our
Jim White:current situation is that the way out of our current situation
Jim White:is to actually be better people. And honestly, is that a bad
Jim White:thing? Hell no, it's not a bad thing. It's a good thing. And,
Jim White:and that's, you know, it's slow. We're not going to get there
Jim White:right away, but the faster we recognize that that a lot of the
Jim White:fundamental problems we have really generate with us, and
Jim White:they're fixable, then I think the the faster we can get to a
Jim White:point where not only can we live sustainably on the planet, but
Jim White:we can be, you know, much nicer people. You know, I, I would
Jim White:love the world to be a much nicer place for my grandkids and
Jim White:great grandkids, etc, and and that is, you know, the sort of,
Jim White:if there's a silver lining in any of this, Amy, it's that, you
Jim White:know, if we can get to that point, then the world will be a
Jim White:much better place for those who come after us.
Amy Martin:It's really inspiring to have something to
Amy Martin:work toward, versus just some horrible thing to try to avoid.
Amy Martin:You know?
Jim White:Right. This is not just a question of, you know, we
Jim White:don't want to run the car into the ditch, but we actually have
Jim White:a, you know, there's a, there's a goal up here, and let's get to
Jim White:it.
Amy Martin:In some circles, it feels like being anything other
Amy Martin:than nihilistic about the climate crisis is kind of
Amy Martin:uncool, like if you express hope, you're burying your head
Amy Martin:in the sand, blind to reality. And it's true, naivete can blind
Amy Martin:us, but so can cynicism. So I want to challenge you and myself
Amy Martin:to entertain the possibility that we can do this, that we can
Amy Martin:hold global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, prevent the worst
Amy Martin:impacts of the climate crisis, and eventually turn this ship
Amy Martin:around, return global temperatures to pre industrial
Amy Martin:levels. I think one of the bravest things we can do is risk
Amy Martin:imagining that we can solve this, not because we're
Amy Martin:convinced that we will, but because we know we have to.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: Humans are highly, highly social species,
Amy Martin:and we are so social because we cannot survive without each
Amy Martin:other.
Leah Stokes:The more we can work together, the more
Leah Stokes:structural change that we can get. And climate change is
Leah Stokes:ultimately a structural problem.
Lori Latham:The planet is on fire. We need to do something.
Lori Latham:Folks are being discriminated against. We need to do something
Lori Latham:about that.
Bruno Rodriguez:I think that the story we need to tell that
Bruno Rodriguez:climate crisis is the story of the potential of building a new
Bruno Rodriguez:world.
Amy Martin:We're going to spend the first half of this episode
Amy Martin:focused on cooperation. It's been a running theme throughout
Amy Martin:this season of our show, and as we witnessed firsthand in
Amy Martin:Glasgow, it's the key to our ability to contain the climate
Amy Martin:crisis. We know what we need to do. We know what we need to stop
Amy Martin:doing. We have the technologies we need. The primary thing
Amy Martin:that's holding us up here is the level of cooperation required.
Amy Martin:So can we do this? Are we capable of cooperating at the
Amy Martin:level that the climate crisis requires? Pondering that
Amy Martin:question sent me to my bookshelf to reread the work of a
Amy Martin:scientist and thinker I've admired for years, primatologist
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: I'm of Dutch origin, and I'm a specialist of
Amy Martin:chimpanzees, bonobos and a few other primates.
Amy Martin:Frans is professor emeritus at Emory University in
Amy Martin:Atlanta, Georgia. His books and TED talks have been read and
Amy Martin:watched by millions of people, and he says, People are
Amy Martin:fascinated by chimpanzees and other great apes because we're
Amy Martin:so similar to them. We study them as a way of understanding
Amy Martin:ourselves. But the problem, Frans says, is that until
Amy Martin:relatively recently, we focused almost exclusively on one of our
Amy Martin:closest non human relatives, the chimpanzee, and ignored the
Amy Martin:other- the bonobo.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: But the bonobo is exactly equally close to us,
Amy Martin:genetically and anatomically, I would say, even a bit more
Amy Martin:similar to us than the chimpanzee.
Amy Martin:Bonobos look a lot like chimps. They both have
Amy Martin:those intelligent eyes and big, protruding mouths, but bonobos
Amy Martin:are a little shorter and more lightly built. What really
Amy Martin:distinguishes them from chimps though, are not their physical
Amy Martin:characteristics, but their social lives. Chimp societies
Amy Martin:are led by an alpha male, and violence is a regular part of
Amy Martin:chimp life.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: People always present our species as hyper
Amy Martin:aggressive warlike, we have war in our DNA, and they always
Amy Martin:bring up the chimpanzee as the example to prove their point.
Amy Martin:Like chimpanzees do it, we do it. So it must be very old.
Amy Martin:But bonobos live in female dominated groups. They
Amy Martin:use sex to avoid and mitigate conflicts, and they're generally
Amy Martin:much more peaceful than chimpanzees.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: Scientists have tried to avoid the bonobo, have
Amy Martin:tried to downplay the importance of the bonobo, partly because
Amy Martin:they didn't know what to do with the sexiness of the species,
Amy Martin:partly the peacefulness, certainly the female dominance
Amy Martin:throws them off, and they don't know what to do with that.
Amy Martin:I can't help but immediately flash on gender
Amy Martin:dynamics, when you're saying that, do you think that emphasis
Amy Martin:on competition and on the violence and battles is in part
Amy Martin:because the academic world has been dominated by men?
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: Yeah, yeah. Men are obsessed with competition.
Amy Martin:We we love competition, and we compete quite a bit, although I
Amy Martin:would say, that females compete quite a bit too, but men are
Amy Martin:very focused on that.
Amy Martin:So what we see when we observe our nearest relatives
Amy Martin:has of course, been heavily influenced by who's looking and
Amy Martin:the biases they've brought into those observations, and that has
Amy Martin:consequences for how we think about ourselves. Franz says that
Amy Martin:by ignoring bonobos, we've ignored all kinds of pro-social,
Amy Martin:cooperative tendencies that are just essential to primate
Amy Martin:identity as competition. Take the question of response to
Amy Martin:outsiders. It's very different in these two species.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: Chimpanzees hate strangers, and if they get a
Amy Martin:chance, they would attack them. But bonobos, they like
Amy Martin:strangers, and so you can bring bonobos together who don't know
Amy Martin:each other, and set up a situation where one can help the
Amy Martin:other, and the bonobos will do that kind of thing. And it's
Amy Martin:even looked at as if that's an overture to contact, like this
Amy Martin:is, this is my gift. I bring you a gift and that way we have a
Amy Martin:good relationship.
Amy Martin:Frans says, In the wild, bonobos have also been
Amy Martin:observed sharing food and adopting orphan babies of
Amy Martin:different groups.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: Yeah, the bonobos have a very different
Amy Martin:relationship between the groups. In the wild, the groups may even
Amy Martin:mingle instead of fighting like chimpanzees do, and this may be
Amy Martin:partly because the females are in charge, and the females
Amy Martin:actually have a tendency to try to meet other females of other
Amy Martin:groups and groom with them and look at their babies and things
Amy Martin:like that, something that the males don't do. The males are
Amy Martin:more territorial.
Amy Martin:So our close primate relatives exhibit a lot of
Amy Martin:cooperative behaviors, and that disrupts the notion that primate
Amy Martin:survival is all about dominating competitors.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: And so the bonobo has been marginalized in the
Amy Martin:whole story. Because the story of human evolution, according to
Amy Martin:anthropologists, is a story of war and conquering, and that's
Amy Martin:the story they like to tell. And I'm not convinced at all that
Amy Martin:that's the story of human evolution, but that's the one
Amy Martin:they tell.
Amy Martin:So what does all of this have to do with climate
Amy Martin:change? Well, we humans are strongly influenced by our
Amy Martin:expectations. We see what we think we're going to see, and
Amy Martin:behave the way we believe we're expected to behave. And it runs
Amy Martin:deeper than behavior, actually. It's about identity, who we
Amy Martin:believe we are. So if we approach the climate problem
Amy Martin:believing that we are essentially aggressive, violent
Amy Martin:creatures and ignoring our deeply rooted cooperative
Amy Martin:capacities, I think we're at real risk of creating a self
Amy Martin:fulfilling prophecy of our own doom. If we convince ourselves
Amy Martin:that we can't cooperate well enough to solve climate change,
Amy Martin:that will become the truth. But the reverse is probably also
Amy Martin:true if we understand ourselves to be inherently cooperative
Amy Martin:animals that will help make us more so. And Frans says
Amy Martin:cooperation is deeply rooted in us. He says, we can see it, even
Amy Martin:if we focus only on our chimp lineage. He tells me about an
Amy Martin:experiment that he and his team set up involving a group of 11
Amy Martin:chimpanzees kept in a large outdoor enclosure in Georgia.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: They were all together, and there was an
Amy Martin:apparatus from which could get food, which which required two
Amy Martin:or three chimps.
Amy Martin:This apparatus was sort of like a self-feeding
Amy Martin:machine, but the only way to get the food was if two or three
Amy Martin:chimps operated it together. And the question was, would they do
Amy Martin:it? Would they moderate their aggressive tendencies and figure
Amy Martin:out how to collaborate in order to get the reward? Frans and his
Amy Martin:team set up the apparatus and then sat back to watch the
Amy Martin:chimps in action.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: In the beginning, they competed, and we had more
Amy Martin:fights than cooperation, so to speak.
Amy Martin:Before they realized that they had to work together,
Amy Martin:many of the chimps shoved each other away from the apparatus,
Amy Martin:hoping to keep all the food for themselves. But over the course
Amy Martin:of an hour, things started to change.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: Almost halfway, they started to change their
Amy Martin:behavior, and by the end, they were almost entirely
Amy Martin:cooperative. There was almost no fighting anymore.
Amy Martin:They ran the experiment two to three times
Amy Martin:per week for 10 months.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: And our analysis of the data showed that what
Amy Martin:they did actually, is becoming more selective. It's like if I
Amy Martin:work with you and you are competitive, and you try to take
Amy Martin:all the foods and so on, or you try to keep me away from the
Amy Martin:apparatus, I'm not going to work with you anymore. So they became
Amy Martin:selective. I'm going to work only with those who work well
Amy Martin:with me. And as a result, you got more cooperation and
Amy Martin:individuals who were too competitive, there's always
Amy Martin:individuals who are like that, they were sort of excluded. And
Amy Martin:these individuals learned, if I want to get access to the
Amy Martin:apparatus and get some food, I need to behave a bit nicer than
Amy Martin:I did before. They all learned in the process how to cooperate.
Amy Martin:And you would expect that if you look at a group of wolves or
Amy Martin:killer whales or lionesses, you see very high levels of
Amy Martin:cooperation between animals who are all maybe hungry and have
Amy Martin:reasons to compete, but they must be able to suppress that,
Amy Martin:and a single suppression of competition is probably very
Amy Martin:widespread.
Amy Martin:So the ability to suppress competitive impulses in
Amy Martin:order to achieve a common goal is easily found in nature. Birds
Amy Martin:do it, bees do it, whales and wolves and even chimpanzees do
Amy Martin:it. But what about us? Aren't we essentially selfish creatures?
Amy Martin:Isn't that what survival is all about according to Charles
Amy Martin:Darwin? Beating the competition, winning the game of life?
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: What you need to realize is that survival in wild
Amy Martin:animals is not necessarily based on who's the toughest and the
Amy Martin:strongest. That may play a role on occasion, but if my hearing
Amy Martin:is better than your hearing, or my eyesight is better, or my
Amy Martin:immune system is better, or I am better at finding food, that's
Amy Martin:also survival. And so most of the selective forces in nature,
Amy Martin:so to speak, have more to do with that kind of qualities,
Amy Martin:like, are you healthy enough to travel? Are you healthy enough
Amy Martin:to fly? If you cannot fly as a bird, what are you going to do?
Amy Martin:You can be strong and big and mean, but that doesn't mean that
Amy Martin:you're going to get anything. And so physical strength and
Amy Martin:fighting abilities are sometimes important, but I would say it's
Amy Martin:really in the minority of cases, and we should emphasize all
Amy Martin:these other qualities too. And Darwin did that.
Amy Martin:Huh, fascinating. Do you think that cooperation is
Amy Martin:one of the things that nature selects for?
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: Absolutely.
Amy Martin:This is not how Darwin's theories tend to get
Amy Martin:referred to in popular culture. The complex ideas behind natural
Amy Martin:selection are often reduced down to a very simplistic mindset of
Amy Martin:"might makes right." The strongest wins.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: The problem is that we have depicted
Amy Martin:competition as the natural thing and cooperation as some sort of
Amy Martin:invention and empathy and morality, things that we have
Amy Martin:invented, and we have not emphasized how that is also
Amy Martin:connected with our nature.
Amy Martin:Yeah, you're so right. I think I have had that
Amy Martin:unconscious assumption of like, oh, cooperation is sort of like
Amy Martin:this later thing, this add on to this core. And what you're
Amy Martin:saying is the core, it contains the cooperation as well. Very
Amy Martin:much.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: Yeah, our whole body and the body of every
Amy Martin:animal is a cooperation between cells. So, I mean, cooperation
Amy Martin:is ingrained in nature. So even bacteria plants, there's all
Amy Martin:sorts of cooperation in the world. And I think we have been
Amy Martin:a little bit late in realizing that. I don't blame this at all
Amy Martin:on Darwin, because I think Darwin was fully aware of the
Amy Martin:levels of cooperation and altruism that exist in nature.
Amy Martin:But I think it's partly for political purposes that people
Amy Martin:have been emphasizing that.
Amy Martin:And it's not that competition. Isn't important
Amy Martin:among primates and in nature overall, Frans says. It's just
Amy Martin:that it's not the only important thing, even among chimps. He
Amy Martin:says male chimps actually spend far more time grooming each
Amy Martin:other than they do fighting. And females sometimes wield enormous
Amy Martin:power, but it might be exerted in different ways. Just like
Amy Martin:humans, chimps and bonobos are extremely complex creatures
Amy Martin:living in intricate, multi layered social webs.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: Well, humans are a highly, highly social species.
Amy Martin:The biggest punishment we have, apart from execution, is
Amy Martin:solitary confinement. So we are a super social species, very
Amy Martin:dependent on each other, and I think that needs to be
Amy Martin:emphasized much more than this competitive side, which we also
Amy Martin:have, clearly, no one is going to deny that we have that side.
Amy Martin:But I think we are, first of all, a good living animal, like
Amy Martin:many other animals.
Amy Martin:I think this has huge consequences for how we
Amy Martin:think about our odds of getting through the climate crisis. What
Amy Martin:Frans is saying is that our cooperative tendencies are just
Amy Martin:as old and deep and intrinsic to us as our competitive ones, that
Amy Martin:the instinct to collaborate is just as much a part of human
Amy Martin:nature and human survival as the urge to dominate. So the idea
Amy Martin:that we're all in this together, that we're dependent on each
Amy Martin:other, this isn't some modern idea that's been bolted onto our
Amy Martin:core nature. This has been with us all along our evolutionary
Amy Martin:journey. Another very old part of our nature is a concern with
Amy Martin:fairness. Frans says this comes with being highly social. Being
Amy Martin:a group living animal makes us very sensitive to how resources
Amy Martin:get distributed. Monkeys have this trait too. They, like us,
Amy Martin:are very aware of who's getting what, and react strongly when
Amy Martin:they feel like they're not getting their fair share. Frans
Amy Martin:says there's a name for this in his field. It's called inequity
Amy Martin:aversion.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: It is that you watch what you get, and if you
Amy Martin:get less than somebody else, you need to protest to make sure
Amy Martin:that you get equal to somebody else.
Amy Martin:He says inequity aversion is a logical part of
Amy Martin:being a member of a cooperative species.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: If two monkeys hunt and one catches the
Amy Martin:squirrel, then there needs to be sharing. Otherwise, why would I
Amy Martin:hunt with you and help you catch a squirrel?
Amy Martin:But in apes, this trait goes way beyond the level
Amy Martin:of self protection, of wanting to make sure I get what's owed
Amy Martin:to me. Frans says, many chimpanzees and many humans
Amy Martin:demonstrate aversion to inequity even when the imbalance tips in
Amy Martin:their favor. For instance, he says, if a chimp is offered a
Amy Martin:higher reward than another for the same task, sometimes they'll
Amy Martin:refuse it.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: And that has, we think, to do with the fact that
Amy Martin:if you create these inequalities, you reduce the
Amy Martin:cooperation. And so chimpanzees realize, as humans, I think,
Amy Martin:that if you take everything and the other gets nothing, you're
Amy Martin:going to lose a partner, because that partner is going to look
Amy Martin:for a better partner. And so that means that we're also
Amy Martin:interested in equal distribution from the winner's perspective.
Amy Martin:Winners need to be generous if they want to keep the
Amy Martin:cooperation going.
Amy Martin:The idea that we have an inherent aversion to
Amy Martin:inequity strikes me as one of the more hopeful things I've
Amy Martin:heard in a long time. It's a recognition that the line
Amy Martin:between helping another and helping oneself is in many
Amy Martin:instances, a false one, that our fates are intertwined and
Amy Martin:therefore helping you helps me. This is precisely the kind of
Amy Martin:mindset that we need to bring to the climate crisis, and
Amy Martin:especially the UN climate negotiations. We need to grasp
Amy Martin:that cooperation is essential to our survival, and therefore it's
Amy Martin:in the interest of the so called winners to be uncomfortable with
Amy Martin:their advantage, to want to even things out. But if this is kind
Amy Martin:of baked into who we are, why aren't we doing it? Why are the
Amy Martin:climate negotiations moving so slowly, and why, in general, are
Amy Martin:so many of us okay with the inequality in our world? Frans
Amy Martin:says that probably has something to do with another human
Amy Martin:characteristic. We are a very in-group, out-group, kind of
Amy Martin:animal.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: We cooperate very well within the group, but
Amy Martin:between groups, what you're talking about with the climate
Amy Martin:change is now you have different groups who need to cooperate. I
Amy Martin:think that's a challenge for us. Now you're asking different
Amy Martin:groups to come together, but what we actually need, in this
Amy Martin:case, is a common enemy, like an extraterrestrial invader, who
Amy Martin:says we're going to invade you unless you clean up your mess,
Amy Martin:so to speak, and then we might do it.
Amy Martin:Well, yeah, because that's what I was just gonna say
Amy Martin:is like what we need to do is understand that this is not
Amy Martin:between groups, but that we are one group. And to ask all humans
Amy Martin:around the world to understand themselves to be one group
Amy Martin:involved in one giant, complicated, long-term group
Amy Martin:project is is daunting, but it sounds like I hear you say that
Amy Martin:it is deep within us, these cooperative abilities. This
Amy Martin:isn't like something we have to just suddenly, oh, learn how to
Amy Martin:cooperate on a, on a big scale tomorrow, like we actually have
Amy Martin:a lot of the skills we need if we can employ them in this
Amy Martin:direction.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: Yeah. So I think what especially about human
Amy Martin:cooperation is the scale. So in chimpanzees, you have a bunch of
Amy Martin:individuals, maybe a dozen, who may do things together and help
Amy Martin:each other, but what humans do is set up a cooperation where
Amy Martin:you have thousands and thousands of people do each each their own
Amy Martin:own thing and their own task. It's extremely complex. There's
Amy Martin:an element of self organization in there that is not fully
Amy Martin:understood, but there's also a hierarchy of ordering, and that
Amy Martin:kind of scale of cooperation of humans is really exceptional.
Amy Martin:And humans are very good at that. We are actually excellent
Amy Martin:at cooperation. And nowadays, many people believe that the
Amy Martin:secret of the success of humans is actually cooperation. It's
Amy Martin:not so much competition and warfare, but it's how well, well
Amy Martin:we cooperate with each other.
Amy Martin:I just want to underline that Frans said we're
Amy Martin:really good at cooperation, and especially doing it at big
Amy Martin:scales. In fact, the ability to cooperate is one of our key
Amy Martin:tools for adapting to changing circumstances. It's been refined
Amy Martin:over millennia, and there's no reason it can't continue to
Amy Martin:develop as we face new challenges. I kind of want to
Amy Martin:shout this stuff from the rooftops to help bolster our
Amy Martin:confidence in ourselves.
Amy Martin:Frans de Waal: People say that's how nature works, we are
Amy Martin:competitive, and that's how we need to structure society. And
Amy Martin:they have completely forgotten that we come from a very long
Amy Martin:line of animals that are not so competitive necessarily,
Amy Martin:certainly not all the time, and that live in societies because
Amy Martin:they survive by living together and helping each other. And so
Amy Martin:we have never made that connection.
Amy Martin:The climate crisis is teaching us plenty of things
Amy Martin:about ourselves that we would rather not know, that we're
Amy Martin:capable of creating very serious global problems and being way
Amy Martin:too slow to try to solve them. But maybe this challenge is also
Amy Martin:an opportunity for us to learn some more positive things too,
Amy Martin:because to get through this, we're going to need to exercise
Amy Martin:our cooperative capacities in ways we never have before, but
Amy Martin:we're not starting from scratch here, those muscles exist. We
Amy Martin:just need to make them stronger. We'll have more after this short
Erika Janik:Hey, everybody, this is Erika Janik, Threshold's
Erika Janik:break.
Erika Janik:managing editor. Did you know that we have a Threshold
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Amy Martin:Welcome back to Threshold, I'm Amy Martin, and
Amy Martin:we're going to turn now to something I've been really
Amy Martin:preoccupied with throughout this whole season of our show: how to
Amy Martin:tell the story of the climate crisis. We humans make sense of
Amy Martin:the world through stories, and stories have structure, a
Amy Martin:beginning, a middle and an end, but the climate crisis doesn't
Amy Martin:feel like that most of the time. There's no plot. It's just every
Amy Martin:day, everywhere, all the time. And I think this is part of the
Amy Martin:reason why we're having such a hard time solving it. There's no
Amy Martin:narrative arc. It's just an amorphous, endless blob of bad.
Amy Martin:I think that kind of fries our circuits and opens up this void
Amy Martin:in our imaginations that's often filled with images of
Amy Martin:apocalypse. It's pretty remarkable, really, when you
Amy Martin:think about it, we've made story after story about ourselves
Amy Martin:ruining the world or fleeing from it, but almost none about
Amy Martin:continuing to live here on this planet far into the future, in a
Amy Martin:way that's healthy for us and for everything else. To be
Amy Martin:clear, I don't think simply telling the right kind of story
Amy Martin:about the climate crisis will solve it. Obviously, we can't
Amy Martin:get to the other side of this with stories alone. But I also
Amy Martin:don't think we can get there without them.
Bruno Rodriguez:I think that the story that we need to tell
Bruno Rodriguez:about the climate crisis is the story of the potential of
Bruno Rodriguez:building a new world.
Amy Martin:This is Bruno Rodriguez, one of the founders
Amy Martin:and leaders of Youth for Climate Argentina, a branch of the
Amy Martin:global Fridays for Future movement. We first introduced
Amy Martin:you to Bruno back in our fourth episode this season, when we
Amy Martin:explored what's at stake if we fail to act decisively on
Amy Martin:climate. Bruno and I agreed that talking about that stuff, the
Amy Martin:consequences of inaction on climate is important. It's one
Amy Martin:potential reality, and we can't sugar coat that, but we also
Amy Martin:agreed that it was crucially important not to present those
Amy Martin:consequences as if they are inevitable. So no to pollyanna
Amy Martin:stories, no to doom and gloom stories, but what kind of
Amy Martin:stories can we tell here? How do we make space to think about
Amy Martin:something this big without either trivializing it or being
Amy Martin:overwhelmed by it?
Bruno Rodriguez:I think that needs a different kind of story,
Bruno Rodriguez:a very positive and and a story about alternatives, but not to
Bruno Rodriguez:naive story. We need to be strategic. We need to be bold.
Bruno Rodriguez:And certainly the worst story that we can tell, I think, it's
Bruno Rodriguez:a story about irreversible collapse that's even worse than
Bruno Rodriguez:a naive approach may be.
Amy Martin:Both Bruno and I have an interest in being able
Amy Martin:to communicate effectively about climate. He's an activist, I'm a
Amy Martin:journalist. But the issue I'm trying to get at here is deeper
Amy Martin:than just how to write or speak about the climate crisis. What
Amy Martin:I'm grasping for are storylines that help all of us process the
Amy Martin:climate crisis psychologically, make space for it in our minds,
Amy Martin:help us get oriented toward it and organize our thoughts and
Amy Martin:feelings around it, because that process is crucial for action.
Amy Martin:It's really hard because this crisis is so unlike anything
Amy Martin:we've ever faced before. I mean, humans are story making
Amy Martin:machines. We have a million stories for every kind of
Amy Martin:scenario, love and war and you know, times of want and times of
Amy Martin:plenty. But we don't have something like this where the
Amy Martin:entire world has to try to solve something together. And I
Amy Martin:wonder, are there archetypes that you go back to, or what you
Amy Martin:use to to start to build a different story here?
Bruno Rodriguez:I think that we have a very rich artillery of
Bruno Rodriguez:narrative resources in Argentina and in Latin America.
Amy Martin:As an example, Bruno mentions a famous Argentinian
Amy Martin:comic called The Eternaut by Hector German Oesterheld.
Bruno Rodriguez:Which is like the most important political
Bruno Rodriguez:comic in the history of my country, written by a man who
Bruno Rodriguez:was assassinated by the last civic and military coup. The
Bruno Rodriguez:comic is about an invasion, an alien invasion, in Buenos Aires,
Bruno Rodriguez:and how a group of people struggle to you know, work
Bruno Rodriguez:together, not only to survive, but also to to fight against
Bruno Rodriguez:this menace, which is an unknown menace, a menace that we don't
Bruno Rodriguez:understand much of.
Amy Martin:I think it's really interesting that aliens kept
Amy Martin:coming up in these conversations. It seems like an
Amy Martin:indication of how big the climate crisis feels. In The
Amy Martin:Eternaut, the alien invasion is a way of talking about the
Amy Martin:military dictatorships in Argentina, which were rising at
Amy Martin:that time and which eventually came for the author himself. But
Amy Martin:Bruno says the power of Oesterheld's work lives on and
Amy Martin:can help us find a way forward in the climate crisis. I haven't
Amy Martin:read it yet, and I want to, but I want more stories too, stories
Amy Martin:that are explicitly about ending the climate crisis, or about
Amy Martin:life after it's over. Something that could be turned into a
Amy Martin:super compelling screenplay, like maybe something set in a
Amy Martin:future reality, looking back at the 2020s as this pivotal
Amy Martin:decade, and as we watch that movie, we can imagine ourselves
Amy Martin:as one of the characters in it, feeling the call, doing heroic
Amy Martin:things. To be honest, I tried to sketch something like this out
Amy Martin:for an episode of our show this season. Didn't really work. Who
Amy Martin:knows, maybe I'll try to write that screenplay someday. But I'm
Amy Martin:also skeptical of my own instincts here, because it feels
Amy Martin:like that narrative template may not be up to the task.
Amy Martin:It's the hero's journey, right? You must take this quest, you
Amy Martin:know, Luke, go do your thing. And yet, I'm very suspicious of
Amy Martin:the hero's journey and the narrative that that all entails,
Amy Martin:because it's so often, well, it's super male, it's almost
Amy Martin:always a lone actor and, and I don't see that it is getting us
Amy Martin:where we need to be. If that worked, we would have solved
Amy Martin:this, because that one we've got coming out our ears, you know?
Amy Martin:So I'm wondering what to do with that tension. I think we are
Amy Martin:called to be heroic, and yet the template of the hero's journey
Amy Martin:doesn't feel like the right way to go, to me.
Bruno Rodriguez:Yeah, I totally agree with the suspicion you
Bruno Rodriguez:have towards the heroic journey narrative. But I also believe
Bruno Rodriguez:that other narratives are as well, emerging and which are
Bruno Rodriguez:extremely different of that traditional heroic path
Bruno Rodriguez:narrative.
Amy Martin:Bruno says that comic he mentioned, The
Amy Martin:Eternaut, is one of those alternative narratives. There's
Amy Martin:this scary, mysterious threat, he says...
Bruno Rodriguez:And the way we have to take it on and the way
Bruno Rodriguez:And Bruno says he looks to other non fiction narratives too,
Bruno Rodriguez:we need to confront it does not buy this narrative of the lonely
Bruno Rodriguez:hero, of the hero in individual terms that the group and
Bruno Rodriguez:collective hero, which was the main idea of this comic. He
Bruno Rodriguez:spoke about how in the dictatorship in Argentina, the
Bruno Rodriguez:only way we can get out of this situation and recover our
Bruno Rodriguez:democratic system was indeed a collective expression of hero,
Bruno Rodriguez:united by a certain values of justice, of social justice, of
Bruno Rodriguez:economic justice, of racial justice, of the intersection of
Bruno Rodriguez:old social problematics. And I think that's, that's a very
Bruno Rodriguez:meaning history, because even though this situation we're in
Bruno Rodriguez:strong narrative.
Bruno Rodriguez:is novel, people have gone through all kinds of other hard
Bruno Rodriguez:stuff in the past, and we can learn from that.
Bruno Rodriguez:For example, when I study the history of my country, the
Bruno Rodriguez:history of social transformations. One common
Bruno Rodriguez:characteristic of those processes in Argentina is the
Bruno Rodriguez:level of engagement and participation of the youth.
Bruno Rodriguez:Every time a new human right was recognized, every time we made a
Bruno Rodriguez:step forward in terms of social and economic progress in this
Bruno Rodriguez:country and in the region, the youth was a key component. The
Bruno Rodriguez:youth was a very, very strong, strong element of those
Bruno Rodriguez:processes. And right now, when we talk about the climate
Bruno Rodriguez:crisis, we're now seeing the youth engage in a massive level
Bruno Rodriguez:again. So I think that we need to read our historical moment
Bruno Rodriguez:when you have the leaders of the future becoming leaders of the
Bruno Rodriguez:present in a very, very important crisis involved the
Bruno Rodriguez:struggle for fighting against that crisis. I think that
Bruno Rodriguez:stories and solutions can be inter winded, very in a very
Bruno Rodriguez:virtuous process. It is a very hard exercise, because, given
Bruno Rodriguez:the fact that this crisis is like none of all the crisis that
Bruno Rodriguez:we've suffered worldwide before, none of us have a very, you
Bruno Rodriguez:know, fast answer and a concrete answer to this, because it is
Bruno Rodriguez:just impossible to imagine it right now.
Amy Martin:It is hard, and I'm convinced we have to keep
Amy Martin:trying. We desperately need more and different and better stories
Amy Martin:about the climate crisis, stories that end with something
Amy Martin:other than apocalypse. Even thinking of it as something that
Amy Martin:has an end, feels like such a different way of orienting to
Amy Martin:this problem, and that makes me realize how much we're just
Amy Martin:bobbing around aimlessly in a sea of bad news alternating
Amy Martin:between terror, boredom, confusion, denial and a kind of
Amy Martin:numb dissociation, and that is just not functional. We need to
Amy Martin:snap out of it.
Rachel Kyte:It's a little like being in a boat and there's a
Rachel Kyte:hole in the boat at one end, you know? There's no scenario
Rachel Kyte:whereby if you're sitting at the other end of the boat, you do
Rachel Kyte:okay if the other end of the boat is taking on water. We only
Rachel Kyte:have one boat. We have to plug the hole wherever it is, and we
Rachel Kyte:have to collaborate to do that.
Amy Martin:This very helpful, very concrete image comes to us
Amy Martin:compliments of Rachel Kyte, the dean of the Fletcher School, the
Amy Martin:graduate school of international affairs at Tufts University,
Amy Martin:which is just outside of Boston. Rachel is a major mover and
Amy Martin:shaker in the climate world. In the run up to the Paris climate
Amy Martin:negotiations, she was the special envoy for climate at the
Amy Martin:World Bank Group, and she was part of building the financial
Amy Martin:package that helped to make the Paris Agreement possible. And
Amy Martin:she thinks a lot about narrative too.
Rachel Kyte:We also tried to change the narrative from an
Rachel Kyte:economic point of view, in the run up to Paris, people would
Rachel Kyte:still argue that our action on climate change was somehow
Rachel Kyte:different or divorced from action on poverty, and we made
Rachel Kyte:the case very clearly that you could not eliminate poverty
Rachel Kyte:unless you were acting on climate change, because the
Rachel Kyte:impacts of climate change would just push people back into
Rachel Kyte:poverty.
Amy Martin:Today, in addition to her role at Tufts, Rachel is
Amy Martin:a member of the UN secretary general's high level advisory
Amy Martin:group on climate action, and she says the thread that runs
Amy Martin:through all of this work is the quest for sustainable
Amy Martin:development. Trying to figure out how to make the puzzle
Amy Martin:pieces of eliminating poverty and containing the climate
Amy Martin:crisis fit together. A crucial element of that, she says, is
Amy Martin:helping leaders understand that investing in solving these
Amy Martin:interconnected problems is in their own interest.
Rachel Kyte:If we start from the premise that we can't leave
Rachel Kyte:anybody behind, we only solve this if we solve it for
Rachel Kyte:everyone, then when we come to discuss burden sharing, when we
Rachel Kyte:come to discuss how we're going to finance our way into that
Rachel Kyte:cleaner, greener future where there are good jobs and there
Rachel Kyte:are opportunity, that these are investments which make sense,
Rachel Kyte:that the cost of action is less than the cost of inaction. But
Rachel Kyte:this requires leaders, for political leaders, religious
Rachel Kyte:leaders, community leaders, business leaders, to, to, to own
Rachel Kyte:the truth in that right and to act accordingly. And it means
Rachel Kyte:system change.
Amy Martin:And as we've heard over and over, some have more
Amy Martin:responsibility than others.
Rachel Kyte:China has an extraordinary role to play at
Rachel Kyte:home and abroad. The United States has an extraordinary role
Rachel Kyte:to play at home and abroad. So does the European Union. If
Rachel Kyte:those three power blocks really aggressively commit to the kinds
Rachel Kyte:of reductions we need, that puts us on the right pathway. But
Rachel Kyte:then we need Saudi Arabia and Brazil and South Africa and
Rachel Kyte:Indonesia and Russia and Iran and Iraq all to do the same. We
Rachel Kyte:are called to lead right and the largest economies have to lead
Rachel Kyte:both the ones who historically have caused the problem and the
Rachel Kyte:ones who are in position to cause the problem now. We've run
Rachel Kyte:out of space and time. Everybody has to do what we have to do.
Amy Martin:But Rachel says what we need to understand is the
Amy Martin:enormous potential for positive change that awaits us in this
Amy Martin:transition. She mentions some of the things you've heard about
Amy Martin:previously this season, developing green hydrogen,
Amy Martin:building a smarter grid, decarbonizing our homes and
Amy Martin:buildings.
Rachel Kyte:And then think of all the jobs that would be
Rachel Kyte:created when we retrofit every building so that it's hyper
Rachel Kyte:efficient. And then think of all of the jobs that would be
Rachel Kyte:created because we would be swapping out energy intensive
Rachel Kyte:materials for new materials which are less energy intensive.
Rachel Kyte:I think about all the green jobs that would be created if every
Rachel Kyte:township in Massachusetts had a bio-digester, and that we
Rachel Kyte:composted all of our food and our food waste, and that we
Rachel Kyte:actually ran small towns of that kind of energy in addition to
Rachel Kyte:the grid. If you close your eyes, you can imagine that this
Rachel Kyte:could be so exciting and so invigorating and not extremely
Rachel Kyte:expensive, but there is a cost in transition.
Amy Martin:One of the stories I tell myself to help me process
Amy Martin:this moment we're in is that I'm witnessing humanity trying to
Amy Martin:evolve. Almost like watching an organism try to will itself to
Amy Martin:grow a new limb or something. The climate crisis demands new
Amy Martin:things from us. It's forcing us to start thinking together as a
Amy Martin:species, globally at an unprecedented level of
Amy Martin:complexity. And not just think, we have to do things, set
Amy Martin:planetary goals, create new systems and processes for
Amy Martin:meeting those goals, hold each other accountable, and we need
Amy Martin:everyone to be on board, all 8 billion of us. That is hard, so
Amy Martin:we need to be patient with ourselves, even as we push to go
Amy Martin:So my last question then is, what should we do with the time
Amy Martin:faster.
Amy Martin:between now and one and a half degrees of warming? I am so
Amy Martin:struck by the weight of this time, the remaining time that we
Amy Martin:have, and the responsibility of it, but also the possibility of
Amy Martin:it. I mean, there will be a time in the future when we look back
Amy Martin:and think those people alive right then, you know, this could
Amy Martin:be me looking back on myself seven years from now. What you
Amy Martin:know, did you use that window to the best possible effect and and
Amy Martin:help us understand what we should do with that time, with
Amy Martin:this time.
Rachel Kyte:So we're in uncharted territory, and we have
Rachel Kyte:to embrace it. We can't sort of shy away from it, which means
Rachel Kyte:that we need to have processes to collaborate internationally,
Rachel Kyte:among countries, as well as within communities and within a
Rachel Kyte:country, which means we have to hold the space open to make
Rachel Kyte:mistakes, to take risks, to trust each other.
Amy Martin:Like it or not, all of us who happen to be on the
Amy Martin:planet today are the protagonists in a highly
Amy Martin:suspenseful drama, and the next few years are a crucial turning
Amy Martin:point in the plot. So how do we want to play it? Do we see the
Amy Martin:remaining time before 1.5 as a burden or a gift? Do we imagine
Amy Martin:ourselves to be condemned by the mistakes of the past, or
Amy Martin:empowered to prevent suffering in the future? Are we going to
Amy Martin:act out a tragedy here, or are we going to embark on some
Amy Martin:version of the hero's journey altogether?
Amy Martin:Like I said at the beginning of this episode, the climate crisis
Amy Martin:is forcing us to ask big questions about who we are as a
Amy Martin:species, but one of the defining qualities of humanity is that we
Amy Martin:can change the world, including ourselves. So maybe the real
Amy Martin:question here is, who do we want to be? If we choose to surrender
Amy Martin:to our worst impulses, we are headed for a world of hurt. But
Amy Martin:if we choose to work and grow together, then the sky's the
Amy Martin:limit.
Rachel Kyte:We are in uncharted territory, but we can do this.
Becca:I'm Becca from Billings Montana. Reporting for this
Becca:season of Threshold was funded by the Park Foundation, the High
Becca:Stakes Foundation, the Pleiades Foundation, NewsMatch, the
Becca:Llewellyn Foundation, Montana Public Radio and listeners. This
Becca:work depends on people who believe in it and choose to
Becca:support it. People like you. Join our community at
Becca:thresholdpodcast.org.
Amy Martin:This episode of Threshold was produced and
Amy Martin:reported by me, Amy Martin, with help from Erika Janik, Nick Mott
Amy Martin:and Sam Moore. The rest of the Threshold team is Eva Kalea,
Amy Martin:Deneen Weiske, Caysi Simpson and Shola Lawal. Our intern is Emery
Amy Martin:Veilleux. Thanks to Sally Deng, Maggy Contreras, Hana Carey, Dan
Amy Martin:Corona, Luca Borghese, Julia Barry, Kara Cromwell, Katie
Amy Martin:deFusco, Caroline Kurtz and Gabby Piamonte. Special thanks
Amy Martin:to Heloiza Barbosa and Matthew Simonson. The music for this
Amy Martin:season of our show was composed by the wonderful Todd
Amy Martin:Sickafoose. You can download his soundtrack album, called "Time
Amy Martin:to 1.5," on all the major digital music platforms. Huge
Amy Martin:thanks to Todd for everything he contributed to this season of
Amy Martin:Threshold. I also want to say a huge personal thanks to the
Amy Martin:entire Threshold team for all of the work they poured into this
Amy Martin:season of our show. Speaking of cooperation, that's what making
Amy Martin:Threshold is all about and you, our listeners are also part of
Amy Martin:that. Thank you for everything you're doing to help us make
Amy Martin:this show, donating to support our work, telling friends and
Amy Martin:family about us, leaving us reviews, and most importantly,
Amy Martin:listening, listening deeply, thinking with us, graveling with
Amy Martin:these big, challenging questions together. If you'd like to
Amy Martin:continue the conversation about this season and find out about
Amy Martin:future releases, please follow us on social media and join our
Amy Martin:mailing list at thresholdpodcast.org. And again,
Amy Martin:thank you so much for listening.
