The problem of climate change is disconcerting. Many people are frustrated. They would like to do something, but are uncertain about whether any action they take can make a difference.

A couple dozen—myself included—of these millions of concerned people gathered together at a recent Meetup event in my community, Rockville On Tap. The topic of the evening was “Climate Change on a Community Level.” The guest speaker was Doug Weisburger, Senior Planning Specialist for Sustainability Programs with the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection.

Since one of Weisburger’s most important points that evening was that social communication is key, I thought I’d type up my notes and share them with you. The items below are in the order of presentation at the event, which was a bit random, as Weisburger took questions from the audience throughout.

As a disclaimer, I am not a scientist or policy specialist. But I am a concerned citizen and a writer—and I can take notes with the best of them (which Weisburger was kind enough to review for accuracy). So here are the lessons shared that evening about what you, as an individual, can do to help prevent a global catastrophe.

So put on your superhero cape, and let’s go!!

Avoid wasting food.

I was surprised to hear that this is the third most important thing that people can do to fight climate change. Food production and delivery are huge contributers to global warming. Americans are notorious for wasting food. Don’t do it!

Choose electric heat over gas heat.

This is particularly important in states with high and growing percentages of renewables in their electricity grid. Locales with aggressive “Renewable Portfolio Standards” include D.C., New York, California, New Mexico, Hawaii, Washington State, Nevada, Maryland, Vermont, and Oregon.

Talk to people about climate change.

Social learning is key. This can make a significant difference. Don’t give up on the problem of climate change. We need to come together now. According to the environmentalist and author Paul Hawken, this is not game over. This is game on! He says it’s very clear where our hearts belong: this is our job in history.

Vote at every level of government.

Elections matter at every level: federal, state, and local.

Work to influence decision makers.

Activists make a difference.

An audience member recommended the Citizen’s Climate Lobby, a nonpartisan, nonprofit, grassroots advocacy organization that works to fight climate change.

Eat less meat.

Plant-based diets are significantly more carbon friendly than meat-based diets. It takes 30 times more energy to produce a pound of beef than a pound of corn. This is the fourth most important thing people can do to fight climate change.

Support small, local, organic farms.

We need to transition away from agriculture that destroys the ecosystem. Regenerative agriculture is a term that refers to farming that reverses climate change by rejuvenating the soil and restoring biodiversity. Buy food that is labeled either “USDA Organic” or “Certified Naturally Grown.” Support local, organic farms.

Weisburger said that if you want a great overview of regenerative agriculture, check out the award-winning indie documentary The Biggest Little Farm. As it happens, I recently saw this movie! It was fabulous. The cinematography was incredible, and the story was even more amazing. Do check it out if you get a chance.

Curious to learn more, I poked around the Internet and found this website on regenerative agriculture. Here’s a quote from the site:

“If you’ve never heard about the amazing potential of regenerative agriculture and land use practices to naturally sequester a critical mass of CO2 in the soil and forests, you’re not alone. One of the best-kept secrets in the world today is that the solution to global warming and the climate crisis (as well as poverty and deteriorating public health) lies right under our feet, and at the end of our knives and forks.” —Ronnie Cummins, Regeneration International Steering Committee Member

Use clean energy.

Put solar panels on your roof. If you can’t afford to do this on your own, join a solar co-op. If trees block sunlight from reaching your roof, buy a subscription to a solar farm for your home energy.*

Wind farms are another source of clean energy.

Take advantage of programs offered by local governments and electricity providers.

A local program in Maryland offers free home energy checks.*

There is also a program in Maryland whereby you can pay a small amount to receive an energy audit. This makes you eligible for a large amount of savings when you make any home improvements that reduce energy consumption.*

Replace incandescent and CFL lightbulbs with LED lightbulbs.

There are even programs that will give you free LED lightbulbs in exchange for your incandescent lightbulbs (if you still have any).*

Use electric cars.

Gas-powered vehicles damage the environment. Some of the newer models of electric cars have a great range: many have a range of over 225 miles, and some have a range of over 300 miles!

Take fewer airplane flights.

A round-trip flight from New York to Los Angeles equals 10-12 percent of the average American’s annual carbon footprint. If you have to fly, choose nonstop, if possible, since the takeoff and landing account for much of the footprint.

Renewable energy credits (RECs) work.

We ran out of time at the event and did not discuss this. But I found this website about RECs.*

Don’t release refrigerants into the atmosphere.

We ran out of time to discuss this one, too. So I’ll just say—don’t do it.

The time is now, folks. The earth is heating up.

How are you joining in the effort to fight climate change?

*Doug Weisburger sent an email after the event with further information. I have reproduced it here with his permission. Some of the following is applicable to everyone, but much of it is particularly for people in Montgomery County, Maryland.

1. Quick Home Energy Check-Up Through Pepco – This is a fast, easy way to reduce energy use in your home and save money. A contractor will come to your apartment/condo/house and provide you with energy savings upgrades such as LEDs (up to three, in exchange for incandescents), high-efficiency showerheads, etc. The entire check-up takes about 45-60 minutes to complete. For more information, check out https://homeenergysavings.pepco.com/quick-home-energy-check-up-program. Note that you can buy reasonably priced LEDs at local hardware stores and all the big box stores, as they are subsidized through the state. Also, here’s a blog post on LEDs versus CFLs and how to dispose of the latter: https://mygreenmontgomery.org/2018/cfls/.

2. Home Performance With Energy Star Audit Through Pepco – A contractor will perform a comprehensive Home Energy Assessment, typically valued at $400, for only $100 (because of a state subsidy). Following the assessment, you will receive a detailed report on the energy savings you can obtain by making the recommended improvements. This takes about 2-3 hours to complete. For more information, check out https://homeenergysavings.pepco.com/home-performance-with-energy-star-program.

3. Other Energy Assessments Through Pepco – For low-income households and multi-family properties, check out these additional Pepco incentive programs: https://www.pepco.com/WaysToSave/ForYourHome/Pages/MD/EnergyAssessments.aspx.

4. Clean Energy – You can put solar panels on your home (purchase outright or lease) or, if you can’t or don’t want to install panels, you can participate in what’s referred to as a “community solar” project. Essentially, you purchase a “share” from a local solar farm and receive credit on your electricity bill for the solar energy produced by your share (which varies depending on the amount of sun shining that month). During a really sunny month, your share might generate more electricity than you need, in which case you’re credited for the surplus. Community solar can actually be less expensive than your standard offer service. For information on available projects, check out Solar United Neighbors. Another option is to buy what’s referred to as Renewable Electricity Credits (RECs), which are the green attributes (bought and sold on the market like a commodity) associated with electricity. It’s a bit complicated, but with the purchase of RECs, you’re essentially helping to stimulate clean energy projects. Here is a useful article outlining these options: https://mygreenmontgomery.org/2018/buying-green-electricity/.

5. Montgomery County Green Business Certification Program – See http://www.mcgreenbiz.org/, a voluntary recognition program for businesses and organizations that go above and beyond in terms of greening their day-to-day operations. It’s for businesses that lease or own their space, since it’s not about the building per se, but everything that goes on inside.

6. My Green Montgomery – Here is a link to Montgomery County’s one-stop-shop for green living: https://mygreenmontgomery.org/.

7. Rare’s Analysis of Top Behavioral Changes – Here is a link to the Climate Change Needs Behavior Change report by Rare, in which they evaluated the GHG reduction potential of the top behavior change solutions gleaned from Paul Hawken’s Drawdown.

Today I’d like to share with you an example of the importance of getting the words right. The language we use is immensely consequential in not just how we think about real-world issues, but also how we handle those issues as a society: how much money is allocated, what kind of care people receive, and other important effects.

Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., exposes the faulty language we use surrounding trauma, and then he makes a fascinating argument for a change in the language—with a corresponding change in people’s decisions and actions.

(Note that this blog post is a brief synopsis of and commentary on a long and complicated expostulation. I encourage you to read The Body Keeps the Score to understand and appreciate Dr. van der Kolk’s full evidence and argument.)

Dr. van der Kolk argues that, over the past century or so, there has been a cover-up surrounding the scientifically demonstrated fact that abused children experience detrimental psychological effects. Moreover, he explains, these detrimental psychological effects are not random; there is what he calls a “consistent profile,” which he describes in detail. Not all abused children exhibit the same symptoms (just as, for example, people can experience different symptoms despite being infected by the same virus). However, such children have commonalities such as trouble regulating emotions, trouble concentrating, trouble getting along with others, sleep disturbances, unexplained pain, and doing things like rocking and cutting to relieve tension.

But, Dr. van der Kolk laments, there is no established diagnosis for this consistent profile. Instead, children are being given multiple diagnoses that describe symptoms, not the underlying cause. For instance, many children are being labeled as having “oppositional defiant disorder” or “disruptive mood dysregulation disorder.” As a result, children who desperately need care that addresses trauma are instead receiving care that addresses bad behavior. Such care, since it does not focus on the core problem, does not come close to resolving the core problem.

How did we get ourselves into this predicament of language? Why has there been a cover-up surrounding childhood trauma? Dr. van der Kolk takes us back to the time of Sigmund Freud:

“In 1896 Freud boldly claimed that ‘the ultimate cause of hysteria is always the seduction of the child by an adult.’ Then, faced with his own evidence of an epidemic of abuse in the best families of Vienna—one, he noted, that would implicate his own father—he quickly began to retreat. Psychoanalysis shifted to an emphasis on unconscious wishes and fantasies, though Freud occasionally kept acknowledging the reality of sexual abuse.”

It’s a hard topic. It’s not a great issue to talk about, politically speaking. What would you rather give a public speech on, child abuse or unconscious wishes?

But Dr. van der Kolk gives the reader hope with his historical analysis of another kind of trauma, today known as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. When governments came to realize that fighting in WWI caused “shell shock,” they worked to hide this fact. Publicizing shell shock would cost money (soldiers experiencing it would need treatment and disability pay) and destabilize the war effort (governments wanted to encourage men to enlist, not emphasize war’s dangers). So WWI veterans were not treated for shell shock. Neither were WWII veterans. The politics during the Vietnam War era, however, were different; and a new diagnosis, PTSD, entered the books and the lexicon. Along with this new language to describe a medical condition came new awareness, treatments, and funding.

There was another huge benefit of the language change. As it turned out, veterans were not the only ones who had this medical condition:

“The adoption of the PTSD diagnosis by the DSM III in 1980 led to extensive scientific studies and to the development of effective treatments, which turned out to be relevant not only to combat veterans but also to victims of a range of traumatic events, including rape, assault, and motor vehicle accidents.”

Dr. van der Kolk argues that we are overdue for a language change in the realm of child abuse. He proposes the term Developmental Trauma Disorder. I am not a doctor and cannot comment on his suggestion with authority. However, I can comment with authority that I have read over and over about falsehoods told for political purposes. I don’t know about you, but I am tired of the fake news. If there is a problem and a solution, let’s name the problem in plain language and implement the solution. Covering up the problem and addressing symptoms never works over the long term. The doctor says it best:

“You would not want to have your appendix removed when you are suffering from a kidney stone, and you would not want to have somebody labeled as ‘oppositional’ when, in fact, his behavior is rooted in an attempt to protect himself against real danger.”

Do you fight for truth in language . . . despite the risk that someone will label you as “oppositional”?

A few weeks ago, a reader of this blog sent me the following message:

I very much appreciate the question, and I would like to attempt an answer today. For a long time after receiving this message, I could not think of how to answer it in less than a full-length book. Mounting a comprehensive defense of the humanities would result in a huge (and probably staggeringly boring!) treatise.

I would have to go through each discipline—not just literature, philosophy, and history, but also visual art, linguistics, religious studies, theater, women’s studies, modern and ancient languages, classics, music, anthropology, et cetera—and detail all the ways in which they are useful to humankind. Yes, dear reader, listen to me spout forth: communication skills are essential to maintaining healthy relationships and sharing ideas with others; and art provides a bulwark against existential despair and empowers the disenfranchised; and studying the past sheds a powerful light on the present and future; and philosophical and religious ideas help people think about old dilemmas in new ways; and so on.

I am yawning already!—not because these topics aren’t interesting, but because the humanities don’t need justification at this juncture in history. Their worth was established long, long ago. Think of the flourishings of Ancient Greece and, later, the European Renaissance, as well as flourishings of art and technology in non-Western civilizations. Great cultural moments bring together advancements in both the arts and the sciences: they have always gone hand in hand. As a result, most of today’s great universities still combine these foundational disciplines into one large “college of arts and sciences.”

We may as well mount a shiny new defense for the roundness of the earth, or the evolution of species, or the dangers of smoking, or the virtues of calling your mother every once in a while.

Don’t get me wrong; these things all needed to be defended, at some point. And we should not take their defense for granted. If there is a serious debate going on about whether it’s virtuous to call your mother every once in a while, and there are complicating facts and factors on both sides of the argument, and the best scholars in the world are concerned with getting to the bottom of this issue—why then, by all means, mount your defense! Write that treatise!

But here’s what I suspect is really going on, behind the scenes of your question. It’s not our society’s foremost thinkers who are debating the usefulness of the humanities. It’s your bitter uncle Rusty who tries to engage people in false debates during family gatherings, so he can prove what a deep thinker he is. It’s muckraking radio commentators who make a living getting people riled up about nonissues, while ignoring the truly important questions. (Getting to the bottom of the important questions might cause some tycoon to lose money.)

One summer break when I was an undergraduate, I went hiking with some friends from high school. Enamored with the beauty of the swampy, forested area through which we were walking, on a cute wooden platform, and thinking about my indecision about whether to major in biology or English, I suddenly cried out, “Oh, I’d love to know the names of every one of these plants!”

One of my friends, who was studying engineering, replied, “That’s stupid! What good would knowing the names do? The important thing is to know what the plants are useful for. Their names are irrelevant, and learning them would be a waste of time.”

As the insecure young woman I was at the time, I had no reply. I was stunned. I felt ashamed for having said the wrong thing (though I shouldn’t have). But I did make one good decision in the aftermath of the event: I stopped hanging out with that person. In retrospect, I think that’s the best decision I could have made. What was I supposed to do, mount a defense for the existence of language?

Interestingly enough, this brings me back to Brené Brown. Here is what she writes in Dare to Lead about judging others:

“Based on research, there are two ways to predict when we are going to judge: We judge in areas where we’re most susceptible to shame, and we judge people who are doing worse than we are in those areas. So if you find yourself feeling incredibly judgmental about appearance, and you can’t figure out why, that’s a clue that it’s a hard issue for you.”

So what was going on with my friend? I suspect, based on what I know about his background, that he was under constant, intense pressure while growing up. He was expected to work part time while in high school to help support his family, and also to perform at a high academic level so he could get a scholarship to a good college and work toward a degree that would guarantee him a high-paying job. Meanwhile, there I was, a walking, talking placard for the arts, whose daddy was paying her way through an expensive school, just so she could dither around in indecisiveness about whether or not to major in literature. From his perspective, I probably seemed to be doing worse than him in the area of striving to get a high-paying job; and he probably felt insecure about his ability to measure up and actually one day get that job. So he made his judgmental remark about language.

If you know someone who looks down on the humanities, try not to take it personally. It’s not about you. It’s not even about the humanities. It’s about a fear of not measuring up.

If Uncle Rusty tries to engage you in any more “friendly debates,” it’s important to tell him clearly to stop, or else you won’t hang out with him anymore. Then stick to that. My story about my high school friend is only the least dramatic of instances in my life where I had to take that hard line—even with people very close to me. I learned the hard way, unfortunately, that not setting such boundaries is detrimental to my physical and mental health.

This might seem harsh, but as someone who reads and writes for both a vocation and an avocation, and who, as a result, both earns money to live on and enjoys the benefits of art and creativity and communication and curiosity, I can’t let people try to shame me into thinking that what I do is not worthwhile. If I had to spend all my time continually justifying the value of the humanities, and the rising of the sun in the east, and the whiteness of snow, and the aliveness of Elvis (well, maybe not that one!)—I wouldn’t get anything else done. Let’s not waste our time rehashing the logic behind old truths that everyone already agrees with, deep down, underneath the screen of fear.

Of course, if Uncle Rusty wants to ask you a genuine question about your humanistic pursuits (your writing, your philosophical ideas, what you learned from the last history book you read, etc.), and listen to your answer, and perhaps share with you something he’s passionate about, that’s different. In that case—let’s get this party started, Unc!

Do you have a question you would like me to answer in a blog post? If so, send it to me in a private message. Thanks again to the author of today’s question!

Yep, it’s hard to avoid getting caught up in the cultural biases of one’s own time. However, there is a way out of this trap—as Albert Einstein knew.

Adam Becker, in his book What Is Real?, explores how historical events and philosophical ideas affected theories of quantum physics over the decades. He reveals that just because nearly everyone believes in a theory does not mean it is true. Some theories stick around because of historical accidents, charismatic leaders, or philosophical trends.

Becker shows how physicists of the twentieth century tended to jump on the bandwagon instead of learning about and engaging with a variety of ideas; and he notes that this issue is still relevant today. He ends the book by endorsing Einstein’s antidote to the bandwagon trap. In 1944, Einstein wrote:

“So many people today—and even professional scientists—seem to me like somebody who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is—in my opinion—the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth.”

Amen, Albert.

On starry nights, far from the technicolor of cities, when no responsibilities are boring into the mind and dulling the senses, it’s easy to romanticize the heavens. The stuff above and the stuff below seem radically different. We are earthly; they are ethereal.

We are made of dust; they are made of stardust.

But what is stardust? The word seems Shakespearean, but it’s not, having arisen less than 200 years ago. It first described the cloudlike look of masses of stars, as seen through telescopes. Then, less than 100 years ago, the word began to refer to a hopelessly romantic quality of mind.

These are very different definitions: one describes the visual semblance of objects far away, the other an intimate feeling close to home. Alan Lightman, however, in Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine, links these ideas together—the distant stars and human dreaminess—by pointing out that earthling dust and ethereal stardust are one and the same:

“It is astonishing but true that if I could attach a small tag to each of the atoms of my body and travel with them backward in time, I would find that those atoms originated in particular stars in the sky. Those exact atoms.”

And so . . . science and romanticism meet again.

It’s a match made in heaven!