Dr. Katharine Wilkinson, All We Can Save Project
Today's guest is Dr. Katharine Wilkinson, best-selling author, strategist, teacher, and one of 15 “women who will save the world,” according to Time magazine.
Dr. Wilkinson leads the All We Can Save Project, which she co-founded with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. As an emergent nonprofit, the project's mission is to nurture the leaderful climate community we need for a life-giving future using the tools of narrative change, community building, deep learning, and tending the emotional and spiritual route from which climate leadership grows. She is the creator of All We Can Save Circles, a unique model for deep dialogue about the climate crisis and building community around solutions, and Climate Wayfinding, a program that supports people in finding or deepening their place in climate work. Last but certainly not least, Dr. Wilkinson co-hosts the podcast A Matter of Degrees with Dr. Leah Stokes, which tells stories for the climate curious.
Dr. Stokes recently had an insightful conversation with Jason (listen here), but Katharine brings a unique perspective and experience to the climate discussion, given her different background. In this episode, we dive into Dr. Wilkinson's journey to working on climate, her theory of change, and how it’s evolved. We also cover the role of activism, the arts, education, and a bunch of things that aren't typically associated with climate discussions, especially in Silicon Valley technology and innovation circles.
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Episode recorded on November 4, 2022.
In this episode, we cover:
[4:00] Dr. Wilkinson's portfolio of projects
[8:11] Her thoughts on the nature of the climate problem and how they've evolved
[11:31] The myth of separation and the interconnected web of life
[15:17] The urgency of creating more just solutions in partnership with communities
[21:37] Humans are more hardwired for cooperation than competition
[22:53] Dr. Wilkinson's theory of change for cultivating a different kind of leadership across sectors and the importance of community
[24:38] Need for deep learning
[28:01] Climate Wayfinding course with Terra.do
[33:34] Her thoughts on the narrative of abundance vs. sacrifice
[35:50] Some tensions in the Inflation Reduction Act and ways of overcoming them
[38:45] Direct activism tactics
[40:52] Dr. Wilkinson's thoughts on the good vs. evil narrative in climate
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Jason Jacobs (00:02):
Hello, everyone. This is Jason Jacobs.
Cody Simms (00:04):
And I'm Cody Simms.
Jason Jacobs (00:06):
And welcome to My Climate Journey. This show is a growing body of knowledge focused on climate change and potential solutions.
Cody Simms (00:16):
In this podcast, we traverse disciplines, industries, and opinions to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change and all the ways people like you and I can help.
Jason Jacobs (00:27):
We appreciate you tuning in, sharing this episode, and if you feel like it, leaving us a review to help more people find out about us so they can figure out where they fit in addressing the problem of climate change.
(00:41):
Today's guest is Dr. Katharine Wilkinson. Dr. Wilkinson is a best selling author, strategist, and teacher working to heal the planet that we call home. Time Magazine featured her as 1 of 15 women who will save the world. Dr. Wilkinson leads the All We Can Save Project, which she co-founded with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. An emergent nonprofit, the project's mission is to nurture the leaderful climate community we need for a life-giving future using the tools of narrative change, community building, deep learning, and tending the emotional spiritual route from which climate leadership grows. She also co-hosts the podcast A Matter of Degrees with Doctor Leah Stokes, which is telling stories for the climate curious.
(01:28):
Now, I was excited for this one because Dr. Wilkinson has done so much in climate and I recently had her co-host for A Matter of Degrees, Leah Stokes, on the show. And while Katharine is Leah's partner in crime, she brings a very different perspective and experience to the climate discussion. And I should add one that's quite different from my background and experience as well. So I felt like I'd have a lot to learn, and this episode does not disappoint.
(01:57):
We cover a lot of things including Dr. Wilkinson's journey to working on climate. We talk about her theory of change and how that evolved from when she first started working in climate to today. And we also talk about the role of activism, the role of the arts, the role of education, the role of a bunch of things that aren't typically associated with the climate discussion, especially in the Silicon Valley technology and innovation circles that I grew up in for my entire career. At any rate, I really enjoyed this one and I hope you do as well.
(02:31):
Dr. Wilkinson, welcome to the show.
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (02:33):
Well, hi Jason. It's good to be here.
Jason Jacobs (02:35):
It's good to meet you. I have to say, one, I think this is a really interesting follow-up to your fellow podcast host, Leah Stokes, because in listening to a bunch of talks that you've given and stuff, you're equally as impressive as her, but you're so different. So I can see you're like the odd couple or something. I can see why you paired up, but also the things that you're strong in and your areas of pursuit I think are really important. But they're so foreign to me, so I'm kind of nervous to talk to you because I'm so out of my depth here. But I think that's where the growth happens. So I'm really grateful for you making the time to come and share your work with me and with listeners.
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (03:17):
My pleasure. And don't worry, we'll just hold hands like little otters floating in the sea. It'll be fine.
Jason Jacobs (03:23):
I see what you did there. That's like a poem. Is that haiku? My mother-in-law is very into haiku. I don't know how haiku is structured, but I have to learn because it's her birthday coming up and we all need to make little haikus for her.
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (03:40):
Oh, that's nice. I think it's five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables, if my elementary school haiku writing still serves.
Jason Jacobs (03:48):
It seems like you have a real portfolio approach to how you're spending your professional time. So maybe for starters, just give an overview of what that portfolio comprises, at least today.
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (04:00):
My partner might say that the portfolio is a little bit too expansive. I've been trying to reign it in, in the last couple of years, but most of what I spend my days doing now is building the All We Can Save Project, which is an emergent nonprofit that grew out of the best selling anthology, All We Can Save, that came out in September of 2020, which I co-edited with Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. This work of nurturing a leaderful climate community is bigger than a book. And the project in many ways is meant to carry that mission forward through lots of different channels. So we can talk more about what that looks like, but that's the primary hat I wear.
(04:42):
And then I also co-host A Matter of Degrees with Doctor Leah Stokes, who has become actually just a really dear friend through the process of making this podcast together. We have an interesting mix of moving in the world differently, but also with some really similar roots. We both studied religion in undergrad and some of those formative things that the fruits are in the roots as they say. So we've got some shared roots there.
(05:09):
And then I do a fair bit of what I think of as kind of teaching outside of academia, teaching in the public square, which looks a lot like speaking panels, interviewing, all of that kind of jazz. So that's most of what I'm up to right now.
Jason Jacobs (05:23):
I think I read that in undergrad you studied religion and geography. So when and how and why did climate fit into all of this and how did those worlds come to intersect?
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (05:35):
My geography credential actually arrived in graduate school, so my PhD is in geography and the environment from Oxford. Those two things sort of sit together in a shared department. I'm not sure I ever took a class called geography, so make of that what you will. But in some ways my journey in this space started when I was quite young in school, but it was really kind of lit on fire in a good way, which feels necessary to say these days, when I was in high school. I spent a semester at this amazing place called the Outdoor Academy. I had just turned 16 and I lived in the woods with 25 kids and we continued our coursework, but everything was infused with a focus on the environment, on sustainability. This was the spring of '99, so this is way pre An Inconvenient Truth, climate is on the radar, but it was kind of an ecological environmental focused writ large.
(06:35):
It was an experience that really deepened my environmental ethics, so to speak, but also fired me up politically. I cannot remember what the details of forest policy were in the late nineties, but it was the first time I visited a clear cut in a national forest, for example. Hiking up through Pisgah National Forest, which for anyone who's been there, this is Western North Carolina, near Asheville, absolutely extraordinarily beautiful, and we came up and out onto this totally denuded ridge side. It was one of those moments of just sort of the heart cracking open and grappling with this chasm between the way that we can do things and the way that we do do things. Particularly when I say we there, I mean dominant society capitalism.
(07:29):
I returned home to Atlanta and got very involved with student activism in high school and then carried that through into college. And at some point in college I remember having this moment of like, I guess if I'm going to do this work it's going to mean focusing on climate change. That was kind of that.
Jason Jacobs (07:49):
So, well there's a couple, well there's a lot of different threads I want to pull on there, but two in particular, at least for starters. One is before we get into your work, when you just think about the nature of the problem, how did you think about it then and how do you think about it now? And what are some of the biggest changes, if any, to your perspective and theory of change now versus then?
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (08:11):
I think some of my, in some way moment of deflation in college of like I think this is going to mean working on climate change was my perception at that time, and this was very much how the issue was framed, was that it is just an energy issue. And of course energy is such a huge part of the problem, but I was like, "I'm not that excited about solar panels and wind turbines and batteries." And so I think that sort of dominant framing of what is the root of the problem and that emphasis on technology I think is still very prevalent and still a very much too narrow way of thinking about the situation that we are in.
(08:53):
My first job out of college, I worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council on what they had at the time, which was this BioGems campaign. I worked on land use issues in the Southeast on the Cumberland Plateau, which is this incredible kind of bio region that runs from Northern Alabama through Tennessee into Kentucky and up into West Virginia. I wasn't really connecting the dots between working on forests and climate change at that time, so I think certainly my perspective has become more holistic. I could not have done the work of writing most of the book Drawdown and then The Drawdown Review and not seep in the very wide swath of solutions that we have and need to get our arms around this thing.
(09:40):
I think I also, really starting in that time at the Outdoor Academy, I read Daniel Quinn's seminal book, Ishmael. I started reading Mary Oliver's poetry, beginning to think about the stories that we tell about this planet and ourselves and our relationship to it and our responsibility to it, or lack thereof, and to one another.
(10:04):
All of that started to happen and that was part of, I think, what made me really interested in studying religion in undergrad, that religion is so often the source of these pervasive public discourses and cultural mythologies and values and ethics that shape so much of how we move in the world for better or for worse. And I ended up taking some of those core questions with me into graduate school and doing research on what was at the time sort of a burgeoning climate movement within American evangelical Christianity. And I wanted to understand in the thick of the second term of the Bush administration was this possibly a way to bridge what was already a very clear partisan divide on the issue of climate change.
(10:50):
So you never know, sometimes these seeds that get planted and where exactly they're going to take you going forward. And clearly this commitment to communication and storytelling has been a really consistent and pervasive thread in my work.
Jason Jacobs (11:04):
And before we talk about looking forwards, I talk to a lot of different kinds of people with a lot of different perspectives and there's different narratives that people tell and that people believe as it relates to even looking backwards, what got us to this point. I mean there's like the good versus evil narrative, and there's the we've made tons of human progress and now we just need to recalibrate for the next wave of human progress. What's the narrative that you believe about how we got to the place we're in today?
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (11:31):
I think a lot of the mess that we are in relates to a kind of core myth of separation, and kind of a falling out of relationship with one another and with the beyond human world. Like when you really trace it back, back, back, that is how you get I think to the kinds of basically manifestations of a myth of separation and disconnection and hierarchy that play out in colonialism, that play out in most forms of capitalism.
(12:07):
And so I think at the root of what we're dealing with is a remembering of who we actually are, which is that we are one species within this extraordinary interconnected web of life, and what is the way we are made to move in the world is in reciprocity just like the rest of life. But we have, again, we in the dominant society frame, there are of course cultures and communities that have not ever fallen out of step with this reciprocal relationship that I think that is the root of where we are. And I think what worries me sometimes in the discourses around "climate solutions" is that there are still solutions being proposed in the same kind of modalities and belief systems of command control, hierarchy, power over, as opposed to kind of this I think deeper transformation that needs to happen. I feel like I have not sold you on that, Jason.
Jason Jacobs (13:16):
I mean it's too early for me to even weigh in. Right now, I'm just listening and absorbing and then I'll ask questions and then I'm not shy. So I think my opinions, whatever they are, will come out. But I've learned that to just jump right to squaring off and like, that's not productive. I'm not here to debate or win. I'm here to learn to be clear.
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (13:36):
Awesome. I love it.
Jason Jacobs (13:38):
And to work through the nuance. That's actually why I love this long form audio format is that if it's 140 characters at a time, there's going to be a scoreboard and it's like about who can win. And this is not that. The purpose of this show is to try to build bridges and enhance our collective understanding. And when I say collective, that includes my own and our listeners, but it's not to convert, I don't know why I got on the soapbox. It's not to convert to any one worldview, it's to help everyone just inform their own worldview and even if they end up in different spots.
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (14:07):
Yeah, yeah. Love it.
Jason Jacobs (14:08):
So you talked about how it's like, okay, the frame that we've evolved into, if I'm hearing right, has maybe pulled us away from our roots and in doing so it has put us out of harmony with the planet that we rely on and with each other since we're all so interconnected with each other and with the planet. And so when we look at solutions, we can't just work within the context of the mode we're in now as a species. We need to look at shifting that mode, otherwise it'll just be more of the same. Did I get that right?
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (14:44):
Yeah, I think there's a risk that we potentially figure out ways to turn down the dial, turn down the quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but we don't actually create a more just or life-giving future. And to bring in some language from Doctor Beth [inaudible 00:15:06], we need to be multi-solving the crises that we're grappling with and the many ways that we are out of stuff with life, one of which is the parts per million problem.
Jason Jacobs (15:17):
And so the narrative for example, that says we have 12 years to live or we're all going to die and there's a cliff and we're going to go off the cliff and this is an emergency, how does that resonate with you? And by the way, there was some embellishment in there just to be clear when, I don't know that that's quite the narrative, but I mean it is kind of the gist of some elements of the climate community really latch onto that as a hard cliff. And I'm just curious how you think about that and if you would describe where we are as an emergency.
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (15:46):
I mean I think this is a really good moment to think about positionality and where one sits as one asks that question, because for lots of people in lots of places, it is very clear that we are already way past okay. We are already very much in an emergency. And so where folks sitting in communities of privilege in North America might hold that question is maybe not the most important audience to consider. And so I would just sort of raise that piece of the puzzle. It's very clear from the science that we are in a rapidly closing window of possibility for more livable rather than less livable futures.
(16:34):
It is not at all clear that there is going to be a line in the sand where the work is no longer worth doing because every single fraction of a degree matters when we're talking about not just human life but also non-human life and its capacity to sustain on this planet. So I think we would all be wise to adopt the perspective of there is an opening that we are lucky enough to live within in this moment and we'd better do our damnedest to use the time that we have in that opening to the best possible effect for the sort of largest amounts of life and benefit possible.
Jason Jacobs (17:16):
It seems like there's this tension. There's like the degrees that you talk about and there's the GHGs and the heat trapped in the atmosphere and there might be things that can address that, and I agree that that's just one element of, well, I mean there's a reason why we're a climate fund, but the companies we back, we don't have a specific GHG threshold because we think that is too narrow a view.
(17:42):
I think the downside of that though is without a metric, where's the accountability? And so if you do look at those degrees, for example, there might be a technological solution that can address the degrees, but it's built by billionaires and proliferated by capitalism and there might be a more equal or evenly distributed approach that doesn't address the degree so acutely. So how do you balance that tension?
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (18:11):
I think I'm a bit of either a realistic idealist or an idealistic realist one way or the other. It is clear that we are going to be working within current social systems this decade to see if we can get to these at least 50% emission cuts by 2030. I also think that we do not get to the best answers for the most people, much less the most of non-human life working in these systems where power and resources are held by a tiny, tiny fraction of the human population. It is just not the way we get to the best solution. So I think that there's maybe some both and here. You could take the same technology, but the question of well, who's deciding and who's benefiting and how are any drawbacks being considered much less addressed? If we're talking about building new companies, for example, around climate tech, well, what if those looked like more in keeping with the way that life would solve for this, which is not hoarding of resources in the hands of a tiny population. It would be a more egalitarian spreading of profit for example.
(19:31):
What would it look like to be doing these things more in partnership with communities rather than plopping something down in a community that it has very little say over? What would it look like if these are actually community owned resources and technologies as opposed to things that are being used primarily to enrich a small group? I think it's not necessarily the technology as it is how are we moving a technology forward at speed and scale.
(20:03):
And then there's a whole question of which solutions are actually solutions and which solutions are actually being sort of framed as solutions but are mostly intended to sustain the status quo, particularly the fossil fuel status quo as much and as long as possible. That's a whole other conversation, which there are probably people better positioned to have that with you than I am, but I think that is a concern as well.
Jason Jacobs (20:29):
We're going to take a short break so our partner Yin can talk about the MCJ membership option.
Yin Lu (20:34):
Hey folks, Yin here, our partner at MCJ Collective. I want to take a quick minute to tell you about our MCJ membership community, which was born out of a collective thirst for peer-to-peer learning and doing that goes beyond just listening to the podcast. We started in 2019 and have since then grown to 2,000 members globally. Each week we're inspired by people who join with differing backgrounds and perspectives. And while those perspectives are different, what we all share in common is a deep curiosity to learn and bias to action around ways to accelerate solutions to climate change.
(21:04):
Some awesome initiatives have come out of the community. A number of founding teams have met, nonprofits have been established, a bunch of hiring has been done. Many early stage investments have been made as well as ongoing events and programming like monthly women in climate meetups, idea jam sessions for early stage founders, Climate Book Club, art workshops and more. So whether you've been in climate for a while or just embarking on your journey, having a community to support you is important. If you want to learn more, head over to mcjcollective.com and then click on the members tab at the top. Thanks and enjoy the rest of the show.
Jason Jacobs (21:37):
Back to the show. One thing that comes to mind, is I guess it's a question of do you build things for how people actually are, or do you build things for how you hope that they will be? Because there's a cynical view that says that human beings are selfish by nature and that competition and market forces and self-enrichment will mobilize us to move the fastest to get from A to Z for better or for worse, not condoning or not complaining, it's more just like an observation at least with where we are as a society today.
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (22:14):
I would just say, Jason, I mean I think that is one framing that I think quite a bit of the work of neurobiology and other spaces have debunked that actually we are more hardwired for cooperation and relationship than we are for competition. And just because one interpretation has been a dominant interpretation, that doesn't mean that it is the truth of who we are as human beings.
Jason Jacobs (22:39):
Then if we have gone astray as you are describing and the truth of who we are as human beings is something different, then how do we get there? What's the theory of change?
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (22:53):
The theory of change, at least is kind of animating my days, is to think about how we cultivate a different kind of leadership. And I wrote this in the opening essay in All We Can Save, that the climate crisis is a leadership crisis. That is not the whole story, but that is a big part of the story, that people in positions of power and influence and decision making have not been doing a good job of using that power and influence and decision making capacity for the benefit of our species, much less the rest of the species we share this planet with. It's not going to get us where we need to go and we need a different kind of leadership rising up in every place, in every community, in every organization. And that's a lot of what we are trying to do at the All We Can Save Project.
(23:47):
And we do that through narrative change. We've got to tell different stories. We have to tell a different story than this. We are hardwired for competition and to take each other down. That's one example. But if people cannot see themselves in the evolving collective climate story, fat chance they're going to show up to participate in it. That was part of what animated the anthology. It's part of what Leah and I try to do with A Matter of Degrees. That piece is really important. Community building is really important. It is very hard to go it alone in this work. And we need to feel connected not just to Earth but also to kindred community and have folks that we can collaborate with because so much of the magic happens in the collaborative relationships and what we're able to do together. It's not all you can save, it's All We Can Save.
(24:38):
And then we also think about the need for deep learning and learning in a way that touches not just our prefrontal cortex but head, heart, and hands, how we ensure broader understanding of climate truth, just solutions, leverage points for change and ultimately also how we ensure that we're able to stay connected to a sense of possibility in this work and a sense of deep joy and authentic power, which for me, that combination of power and joy is kind of the best way I can articulate this life force dynamic on this planet. The way that life has moved forward to more life for 3.8 billion years. It's the most extraordinary thing that is happening on this earth. And we are the inheritors of that. And I think at our best we can be part of continuing that legacy. That's what I think about.
(25:40):
And I think what we are seeing is we now have very full sidelines, roughly three quarters of the American public understand that climate change is happening. They're concerned about it or very concerned about it, but there's a much smaller percentage of people who are taking action in any way. And so helping people, and I think this is part of what your work is about, Jason, helping people step off the sidelines and participate in a way that taps into their skills and superpowers, works in their kind of context and communities and ultimately invites so many more people to be the nodes of possibility in this ecosystem of transformation that I believe we already are. We already are nodes of possibility and so much of the work is to allow forward movement of that latent possibility that's already there.
Jason Jacobs (26:40):
If you look in different areas besides climate, for example, politics, there's been some programs that have come along that try to get more first time candidates to run for example, and it's like a bootcamp to get more first time candidates to run or what's another example? Teach For America where it's trying to get more people to come out of school and become teachers. It's focused kind of tangibly on, it's like, well, leadership in a more specific leaders in X roles. What I'm hearing from you, it sounds almost more like narratives, subliminal advertising, unhealthy body images for women and how that gets beaten into, and I'm going to start speaking out my knowledge zone real quick, but it's in magazines and on TV and on stage at fashion shoots and things like that.
(27:28):
It's like these unhealthy body images and this disconnect between society's perception of beauty and what's actually beautiful and healthy in a more durable, sustainable way. When you're talking about leadership, are you talking about almost this distributed in the ether, anything and everything, the images, the narratives, the storytelling? Or is it actually like we need different government officials, we need different CEOs of companies, we need different heads of nonprofits in a more, I guess I don't want to say practical because that minimizes the option A, but in a more tangible way I'll say.
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (28:01):
I think we need all of that. If you look at the histories of other moments of social change, what we know is that cultural change and narrative change almost always leads political and policy change or economic change. So I think that's not just a fluffy thing. It is a super powerful lever for change that is harder to measure, but we know we don't get to the other things without it. I'll put that stake in the ground and then I'll maybe just give you, kind of answer this question with an example of one of the programs that we've been building and piloting this year, because it may sort of make the answer more tangible. So on this note of the challenges that folks face of trying to figure out how to best be of use as one individual within this global crisis, we know that people are struggling with that in the early stages of their career.
(28:57):
They're trying to figure out, I've got a professional life ahead of me, how do I use this to be of benefit? There are folks who have been in other careers like you who are thinking like, "Okay, now I'm awake to the climate crisis and I want to contribute in some way. How do I do that?" And there are folks who have been in this work for a long time and I've certainly had these moments on my own journey of feeling stuck or restless or just seeking a deeper sense of purpose and impact.
(29:26):
And so what we designed is a program that we call Climate Wayfinding, that is meant to help folks coming from any of those starting points to do an interweaving of looking inward and looking outward and looking forward to be able to move their climate journey with greater courage and clarity and connection. And so we've been testing that out this year. We've run some online courses in partnership with Terra.do, which is this fabulous online climate school.
Jason Jacobs (30:02):
We're investors in Terra.do, actually.
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (30:03):
Oh, awesome. Well, we love them. We are investors of our time and energy and partnership.
Jason Jacobs (30:10):
Just as important or more important.
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (30:11):
Yeah, it is. And we've also piloted, we piloted in partnership with the Omega Institute in New York, an in-person workshop of Climate Wayfinding. And a lot of what 2023 will be about for us is there's a thing that people really want and need and this seems to be working and helping. And so how do we take that to a broader scale and meet the much wider need that is clearly out there? So that's not saying, "Okay, we're only going to focus on people who want to lead in government or only people who want to do this in a tech capacity."
(30:48):
It's really designed to work across those particular sectors. But one of the things we're excited to test out in 2023 is maybe trying this program with some more focused audiences, folks who are coming into climate philanthropy for the first time, for example. How could this be helpful for supporting and igniting that and also ultimately helping folks connect to their own roles in this work with a depth and soulfulness and focus that I think we need no matter what spaces we're in.
Jason Jacobs (31:27):
What I think I'm hearing from you is that, I mean there's one school of thought that says the more invisible this is to everyday people the better, in the sense that the buildings that we work in or live in should just be more efficient. They should use better materials. They should be a more compressed supply chain so that the goods don't have to travel as far. There should be better insulation. We should use cleaner energy sources. But as a habitant of a home or office, I shouldn't have to think about it, it should just be better. But I think what I'm hearing from you is all that stuff should happen, but we can't stop there.
(32:00):
We also need to reframe how we think about success, for example, and maybe it's not about accruing more and more and more and more or a fashion. It's not about compressed cycles and constantly swapping out outfits, but it's having a more durable wardrobe that's more timeless both in terms of its quality and its style. Is that what I'm hearing, that it's not either or? But it's like chocolate and peanut butter, the more kind of utilitarian types of solutions and then the more aspirational, inspirational, awakening, almost religious type solutions or perspectives.
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (32:34):
Yeah, so I also think we potentially don't get to those really embedded and as you described them invisible solutions. I think they will still be visible because things are visible. We will see things, but they will be more embedded into the way that the world works. But I'm not sure we get to those things without more of the leadership rising up to be leading the charge on all of that. We need climate leadership on every single city council in every single company. The need for better decision making about all these things is so vast and there are some big levers that we can pull. And I'm sure you and Leah talked about some of those in terms of federal policy, but still, okay, now you've got a whole bunch of federal funds available, but who takes the action to pick those funds up and move things forward? So much of that still comes down to leadership at a more local level.
Jason Jacobs (33:34):
I'd love to get your thoughts on the narrative, and I'm not suggesting this is your narrative, but of abundance versus sacrifice. Because just to play devil's advocate, if I am out in the world trying to earn a living and feed my family, and I hear that we need climate leadership in every city council in every, I actually just full disclosure, I agree with you, but if I'm out there in the world and just trying to live my life, it might sound to me like the sacrifice police who are going to come along and put the collective good of three generations after me, over me feeding my family today. How do you think about that and what would you say to those people to the extent that those objections or concerns come up?
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (34:17):
Well, I think we know from the world of social science that solution aversion is real in part because of the way that solutions have been framed, particularly by parties that would like to see those solutions not happen. So I think we need to think about where does that come from? And a lot of it has been really artfully orchestrated and well funded to confuse people and make them think that there are huge drawbacks to these solutions. This is part of why I was so passionate about the work that we did at Project Drawdown because when you paint the picture of what these solutions look like, you actually start to see a more vibrant, more beautiful world where you save more money on things like home electricity or home energy costs. You see cities that are greener, where the air is cleaner to breathe, where your kid is less likely to have asthma.
(35:14):
All of these things start to emerge, I think when we paint a fuller picture of what the solutions are. And so I think there's a real onus on any of us in this work to not just talk about what the it is, but to talk about how these things actually make our lives better. And of course, one of the big things we talked about around the Inflation Reduction Act or around the idea of a Green New Deal is the job creation. The creation of good well-paying jobs that are going to be needed everywhere because of the nature of distributed energy, because of the nature of what it's going to take to retrofit our existing buildings, install charging infrastructure. These are going to be jobs that we need everywhere that there are people and also where there are other things happening like food production.
(36:04):
And so I think that's also a really exciting vision as well, that this is actually a really cool collective effort and we're going to need such a wide range of skills from HVAC technicians to filmmakers to get it done. And I think there's something really beautiful about that, but I'm sure Leah talked about this just in the examples of what is supported for families, particularly low and middle income families in the Inflation Reduction Act. There are very immediate monetary upsides for people for doing things like installing a heat pump or an induction cook stove.
Jason Jacobs (36:50):
The Inflation Reduction Act is actually a good thing to double click on for a moment. And gosh, I hate that word. I can't believe I just said it, but on the one hand you've got this big interconnection bottleneck of approvals for permitting and transmission lines and things like that. And on the other you have these community groups that say, "But we need our voice, But we need our voice." And I'm not an expert on either one of those, but both of those seem valid to me. It's like I see why the communities can't lose their voice, but I see why the permit needs to go a whole lot faster. How do you reconcile those two things?
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (37:22):
I think it's a tension that we have to hold and work through. It is way outside my zone of expertise.
Jason Jacobs (37:28):
And mine to be clear, I'm not asking from a place of expertise, I'm asking from a place of longing for more expertise.
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (37:35):
Totally. And I think having good participatory processes feels really important and making sure, because when we think about the piece around downsides and who bears the brunt of those, we know who that has been in the fossil fuel economy. That has mostly been low income communities, communities of color, and what that looks like is higher rates of cancer, higher rates of asthma. These are very real impacts on people's lives. And I think as we move into the clean energy economy, we cannot be repeating the same thing around sacrifice zones and communities that are treated as if they don't matter. That just feels really critical.
Jason Jacobs (38:18):
When you think about activism it takes all kinds. And so I come from startups and innovation, it's where I spent my whole career. But one thing I know for sure is that there are no silver bullets and that startups innovation are not only just one piece of the bigger puzzle, but everything is so interrelated. I fully believe that, and that includes activism, although I'm not an activist, although I'm not allergic to participating in activism, but it just hasn't been a big part of my history.
(38:45):
But I'm curious when it comes to tactics, are there some tactics, and you could ask this about anything, you could certainly ask it about innovation, but I want to ask it about activism specifically because there's been some examples recently of laying in traffic, blocking traffic at rush hour so people can't get to their jobs, throwing soup on historic artwork in museums and stuff like that. Are there some tactics that you think are detrimental to the cause, even if the intent is right?
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (39:07):
It's helpful to look at history and see that direct action has been a critical part of many movements for social change. And it is often those actions that then create the space for other progress to seem extremely moderate. So there's actually this useful kind of interplay between these things. What we see from the research, I think also in the climate movement is generally that these direct action tactics are net-net helpful.
(39:41):
I'm not going to wander into soup gate or particular things. That's not a tactic that I would pick up, but I also realize that we're in a situation where the things we've been doing haven't gotten us to where we need to be. And so I think the spirit of experimentation and seeing what it might look like to push the envelope seems reasonable to me. And I think we're in a situation where we're not always going to agree with how other people who are also working on climate are approaching their work. And I think that's okay. And I think that's just the nature of a rapidly thankfully growing team, that the team is not always on the same playbook.
Jason Jacobs (40:23):
Getting back to something you said before about how at the roots, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it was something to the effect of how we're more collaborative and at one and interconnected. And one of the narratives I hear a lot in climate is this kind of good versus evil. Half of the fossil fuel companies are cast to be evil. And that's not to say cast because I'm not suggesting they aren't evil, I'm just observing that there's some subset of the climate community that truly believes that the fossil fuel companies and the people that run them or have run them are evil.
(40:52):
And I guess my question is, if we are at the core more collaborative and people are generally good, is fossil fuel an exception to that or does that include the people in the fossil fuel companies too? And relatively, directionally, one of the tensions that I see is that on the one hand, we need to move faster and we're behind and so we need to take bold measures and we to need to push ourself off the cliff and build a parachute on the way down because we don't have time to wait until the parachute's fully done before we jump off the cliff.
(41:19):
So I get that, but on the other hand, when people say, "All we need to do is this, everyone just needs a Y or Z, or ..." it's like, well, but where the rubber meets the road, in this geography or in this type of home or with this type of ship, or it's like there are actual real constraints where it's going to be a transition that's going to take some time no matter how fast we go. So I guess it'd be helpful to get your reaction on both of those things. One, the good versus evil, and two, the patient versus the accelerated impatience.
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (41:47):
I mean, I think maybe I'm not so into the dualistic narratives of good versus evil. It's just kind of not the way that I see the world, but I do think evil doesn't always look like a monster. I think about Hannah Arendt's work, for example, in The Banality of Evil. Sometimes evil looks like bureaucracy or a huge fossil fuel company continuing down a path that is really deadly. And I think we should have our eyes wide open to that. That may not be why people are showing up to that work every day, and yet the impact of them showing up to that work every day may be the same. Ultimately, I think something that I have wondered about and would love to do some more thinking about sometime, someday, is ultimately I hope that the world we're moving towards is one where we're beyond a, these people care about the future of life and these people are trying to destroy the future of life, that we are back into alignment.
(42:52):
And so I think that there are questions about what does restorative justice look like, for example, with the fossil fuel industry and what would it look like to do some, I think really deep society wide healing. And we're not there. We're still in a place where we've got green washing and misinformation and we're way, I think still far away from that. I hope that we're moving in a direction where at some point wrongs can be righted materially, and also that we can move towards some kind of apology and reconciliation, I don't know, that may be overly helpful.
(43:35):
And for sure, there are heaps of challenges to things, to solutions as you're saying. And also there are a lot of places and circumstances where things can move forward really quickly and easily. And I think we need to be taking every single foothold that we possibly can, both the ones where the skids feel greased and the ones where it feels like it'll be hard. And just keep going at this with as much gusto as we can muster.
Jason Jacobs (44:00):
Well, I wish we weren't, but we're running up on time. So two final questions. One is just if you could wave your magic wand and change one thing outside of your control that would most accelerate our progress towards the vision that you aspire, what would you change and how would you change it?
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (44:15):
I think there's so much good work that is not resourced. And so if I could change one thing, it would be to magically have all of the sparkles, all of the money move into all of the good work that is happening and could be happening if it was fully resourced. And just take the limitation of money out of the equation.
Jason Jacobs (44:40):
And last question is just who do you want to hear from? And for people that are inspired by your work, how can listeners learn more about it?
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (44:47):
Who do I want to hear from on this show?
Jason Jacobs (44:50):
Well, that too, but I was actually asking like if listeners are inspired by your work, I guess one, where can they learn more? And two, is there anyone that you want to hear from that would be helpful for the work that you're doing, like people you're looking to hire or anything like that?
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (45:02):
Lovely, lovely. So for the podcast, A Matter of Degrees, you can find us on whatever podcast platform you love or at degreespod.com, and the All We Can Save Project lives online. Our website is allwecansave.earth, and you can learn more there about Climate Wayfinding, about All We Can Save Circles, which is also a wonderful kind of DIY program for folks who want to build community and discussion around this topic and a whole host of other things live there.
(45:35):
And you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at DrKWilkinson. And I would be remiss not to say that we are a startup nonprofit, we are actively fundraising for some big plans we have in the works. So if there are folks out there that have a philanthropic vent to how they're trying to resource work in the world, we would love to hear from you. No hiring right now, but if the resources come, the hiring could follow. So we'll see. And thank you so much, Jason.
Jason Jacobs (46:02):
And then in terms of perspectives, we didn't have a ton of time, but you at least got a flavor for how I think and where I am on my journey. Are there any perspectives that jump out at you that you think would be particularly impactful for us to focus on here on the show? Either specific individuals or organizations or just perspectives?
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (46:17):
Well, I think you should have everyone that wrote for All We Can Save. There are 40 essays in there, so that's a good starting point. Really amazing folks. That's my suggestion. Once you've worked through those, come back and I'll give you some more.
Jason Jacobs (46:30):
Okay. Well, Katharine, thank you so much for making the time to come on the show. It was a really insightful discussion and thanks for all the important work that you're doing as well. I'm excited to follow it and support it and to keep in touch.
Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (46:42):
Awesome. Thanks for having me, Jason, and more to come.
Jason Jacobs (46:46):
Thanks again for joining us on My Climate Journey Podcast.
Cody Simms (46:50):
At MCJ Collective, we're all about powering collective innovation for climate solutions by breaking down silos and unleashing problem solving capacity. To do this, we focus on three main pillars, content like this podcast and our weekly newsletter, capital to fund companies that are working to address climate change, and our member community to bring people together as Yin described earlier.
Jason Jacobs (47:12):
If you'd like to learn more about MCJ Collective, visit us at www.mcjcollective.com. And if you have guest suggestions, feel free to let us know on Twitter at mcjpod.
Cody Simms (47:27):
Thanks and see you next episode.
