Is Your Carbon Footprint BS?

12 snips

Mar 18, 2021

Guest

Steve Westlake

Environmental experts and authors Katharine Wilkinson and Anthony Leiserowitz, along with sustainability advocate Steve Westlake, debate the impact of individual actions on climate change. They discuss the importance of systemic changes over personal choices and explore practical environmental solutions like wind energy conversion. The podcast emphasizes empowering individual actions aligned with values to inspire collective change.

Ask episode

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

Introduction

00:00 • 6min

Understanding Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions

05:34 • 11min

Exploring Systemic Environmental Solutions Over Individual Actions

16:24 • 2min

Debating the Impact of Individual Actions on Climate Change

18:00 • 4min

Empowering Individual Actions for Climate Change

21:34 • 18min

Climate Action and Engagement Strategies

39:21 • 5min

This week we tackle a sibling debate: Do your individual actions matter when it comes to climate change? Or is it all about big, systemic change? In this episode, we break down both sides of the argument. We lay out the actions that have the biggest impact on your carbon footprint – and then ask if there's a better way to think about our individual roles.

Guests: Katharine Wilkinson, Anthony Leiserowitz and Steve Westlake

Calls to Action

Draw your Climate Action Venn Diagram – what are you good at? What is the work that needs doing? What brings you joy? Post your Venn diagram to social media (Twitter / Instagram) and tag us @How2SaveAPlanet.
Looking for a job? Climatebase has a jobs directory and organizations directory that can be filtered by Project Drawdown sectors and solutions.
Check out the How to Save a Planet Calls to Action document. All of our episode CTAs can be found there.
Talk to people about climate change, but don’t be annoying about it! For tips, listen to our episode, Trying to Talk to Family about Climate Change? Here's How, and read the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication’s Attaining Meaningful Outcomes from Conversations on Climate.

Learn More

Check out Project Drawdown to learn more about the Drawdown Framework, and to see their Table of Solutions that breaks down solutions by sector(s) and their impact on reducing heat-trapping gases.
Listen to related How to Save a Planet episodes – Party Like It’s 2035, Trying to Talk to Family About Climate Change? Here’s How, and Are Electric Cars Really Better for the Climate?
Listen to the climate podcast A Matter of Degrees, co-hosted by Dr. Katharine Wilkinson and Dr. Leah Stokes.
Check out the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication to learn more about the widespread support for climate policy solutions in America, and other research.
Check out the research paper that provides a comparison of emissions reductions from various individual actions.

If you take an action we recommend in one of our episodes, do us a favor and tell us about it! We’d love to hear how it went and what it felt like. Record a short voice memo on your phone and send it to us via our Listener Mail Form. We might use it in an upcoming episode.

Special thanks to our guests: Katharine Wilkinson, Anthony Leiserowitz and Steve Westlake.

This episode of How to Save a Planet was produced by Felix Poon. The rest of our reporting and producing team includes Kendra Pierre-Louis, Rachel Waldholz and Anna Ladd. Our intern is Ayo Oti. Our senior producer is Lauren Silverman. Our editor is Caitlin Kenney. Sound design and mixing by Peter Leonard with original music from Emma Munger.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices