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“The most important thing you can do about climate change is talk about it.”
That’s the advice climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe gave during a 2019 TED Talk that has now been viewed more than 4 million times.
You might find that advice surprising, coming from a scientist. But talking about climate change really is the first critical step to stopping it.
When we don’t talk about it, people around us assume it must not be that big of a problem. That means they don’t talk about it either.
As a result, our lawmakers don’t hear much about it, and they don’t work on solutions as much as they could.
The Santa Barbara chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby is participating in a national goal to achieve 25,000 climate conversations during April, Earth Day month.
Our volunteers are planning to have open and honest conversations about climate change with friends, families and community members.
The goal is to break the silence about climate change and pave the way for action. After all if nobody is talking about it, how serious can it be?
2023 was the hottest year on record, and 2024 is likely to beat it. In addition to rising global temperatures, Santa Barbara is vulnerable to many climate change impacts.
Sea level rise is shrinking beaches, eroding ocean bluffs and threatening coastal infrastructure. Changing rainfall patterns are increasing flooding alongside streams and low-lying areas. More frequent and extreme droughts, wildfires and storms are putting our families in danger.
More than most communities, Santa Barbara knows what oil pollution looks like and understands how emissions from burning fossil fuels are overheating our planet.
So, we need to talk about climate change more. Just one conversation can interrupt that cycle of silence.
And lots of conversations can bring more attention to the issue and make solutions more likely.
Many of our local volunteers have shared conversations they’ve had locally with swimmers and surfers along our shores who are concerned about coastal changes and are now determined to get involved in doing something about it.
Some reported conversations with farmers at local farmers markets that raised their awareness of how drought is affecting our food security.
Like many local environmental groups, Citizens’ Climate Lobby has reserved a booth at the April 27-28 Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival in Alameda Park. We’re looking forward to hundreds of conversations with community members.
Here’s a bit of what we heard at last year’s event:
- A woman who had just returned from a cruise to Alaska said the sight of melting glaciers convinced her to become active in an environmental group.
- A passerby who said he was skeptical of global warming suggested that the real issue is overpopulation, the Earth can’t accommodate so many people.
- Some young people said they were concerned for their future — the kind of world they would inherit from this generation.
- A few people questioned how clean solar and wind energy or electric cars are since they depend on mining scarce resources and create a lot of pollution in their production.
- A man who had just purchased an electric car praised this technology and described the joys of “riding on sunshine.”
- Knowing that our organization focuses on lobbying Congress, several people wished us luck but lamented that Congress today is so divided that they fear it won’t be able to act.
- A few people talked about what a joy it is to live in a city that is committed to clean energy and is represented in Congress by someone who understands climate change and is working hard to move Congress to act.
Some of these conversations leave you hopeful, others are discouraging.
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People from all walks of life and all political stripes care about climate change and want to see the problem fixed as soon as possible.
According to polling data from Yale Climate Change Communication, 77% of residents in the 24th Congressional District (which includes Santa Barbara and parts of San Luis Obispo and Ventura counties) say that global warming is happening, 65% say that citizens and Congress should do more to address it, but only 42% say they discuss it, even occasionally.
To leave a healthy, stable world for future generations, we need to act now.
That’s what we’re talking about in Santa Barbara, and we hope Congress is talking about it on Capitol Hill.
Montecito resident Robert Taylor is a volunteer with the Santa Barbara Chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby. The opinions expressed are his own.
Mark Reynolds is executive director of Citizens’ Climate Lobby, a national nonprofit, nonpartisan grassroots organization of more than 200,000 volunteers, with chapters in every congressional district. The opinions expressed are his own.
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