This article was written by Michael J. Coren and was published in the Washington Post on December 14, 2023.

Your decision to buy that heat pump or induction stove might feel like it came after much deliberation and research. You might want to thank your friends and family.

Your trusted inner circle is one of the most potent and overlooked weapons to stave off the worst of climate change. Our individual actions appear small, but they act as billboards for others looking for cues on what to do in their own lives. These social comparisons can add up.

The most powerful thing that gets people and politicians to support biking? Seeing other people ride their bikes, says Michael Brownstein, an associate professor of philosophy at the City University of New York. “It’s a shift of perspective to see yourself as a member of the community, as an entrepreneur of norms,” says Brownstein, who studies societal change.

While policy, regulation and clean technology are essential to reduce emissions, they aren’t sufficient. Humans evolved, says Brownstein, to pay incredibly close attention to what others are thinking and doing as models for their own behavior.

If you’re interested in helping curb global warming, that means becoming a mirror for others to see themselves.

The surprisingly simple way to convince people to go green© Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Facts vs. deeds

Scientists have observed again and again that what we do and don’t do are profoundly influenced by how others act.

Researchers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this March examined data from 430 individual studies to see what factors influenced people’s environment-related behaviors, from recycling to switching modes of transportation.

Providing data or facts ranked last, persuading an average of 3.5 percent of people to change their behavior compared to a control group. Setting personal goals and appeals to act more sustainably fared better, but were still middling performers. Financial incentives such as subsidies or savings performed relatively well, persuading about 12 percent.

But leading the pack were what scientists called “social comparisons” — people’s ability to observe the behavior of others and compare it with their own.

This persuaded more than 14 percent of people to change their behavior in experiments from around the world. Those comparisons could be as passive as observing a neighbor’s solar panels or receiving notices about household energy use.

An HVAC technician installs electric heat pumps at a home in Windham, Maine.© Tristan Spinski/For The Washington Post

It’s about the messenger

There’s an assumption that good data speaks for itself. In reality, it usually whispers. Take vaccines. About 21 percent of eligible Americans say they still haven’t gotten a coronavirus shot. “Maybe we underinvested in behavioral research,” Francis Collins, then leading the National Institutes of Health, said to “NewsHour” on PBS in 2021. “I never imagined a year ago, when those vaccines were just proving to be fantastically safe and effective, that we would still have 60 million people who had not taken advantage of them.”

Sadly, the climate issue is not much different. In 1979, behavioral scientists were invited to share the table with geophysical scientists as the U.S. government began planning a response to global warming, says Baruch Fischhoff, a Carnegie Mellon University social scientist who has worked with multiple government agencies. They helped sketch an ambitious program to inform public messaging, policies and future research. But as funding dried up during the Reagan administration, behavioral science fell off the agenda.

“We basically were no longer at the table for the next quarter-century,” says Fischhoff. “The natural scientists trusted their story would tell [itself]. … We blew it.”

A subsequent misinformation campaign led by fossil fuel companies skewed the public’s perception of climate risks, while programs failed to live up to their potential. Weatherization efforts, even free ones, often faltered because people didn’t want strangers entering their homes, the journal Nature reports. Similarly, owners of office buildings refused to install energy-saving technology because they didn’t want to take on debt to pay for it or fill out extra paperwork, even if doing so would save money in the long run, a second Nature study found in 2016.

Scientists are trying to rectify the situation now. Last year, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change explicitly encouraged governments pushing climate change efforts to consider behavioral, social and cultural factors for the first time.

Teslas leave the factory in Fremont, Calif.© Stephen Lam/Reuters

What sells for the climate

Today, many people remain hesitant to make the switch to cleaner tech. Nearly half of U.S. adults say they prefer to own a gas-powered car or truck, and only 19 percent prefer an all-electric vehicle, according to a July Washington Post-University of Maryland poll. The number of people who say they are considering buying EVs and home solar panels in 2023 is lower than in 2021, despite rising rates of adoption, a recent survey of public attitudes by the conservation nonprofit Rare found.

These are warning lights blinking for the future of electrification, argues Erik Thulin, a behavioral scientist and co-author of the Rare research now under peer review. “It’s certainly not going up in the way we had hoped,” he says. “Interest is declining.”

The study found that fewer people perceived personal benefits from these technologies or felt confident they could incorporate them into their lives. Thulin says turning around these perceptions will be essential to persuade most of the public to jettison inefficient or fossil-fuel-driven technology.

For now, unfortunately, we just don’t know what’s going on in people’s heads, says Fischhoff. Few rigorous studies have been done on why people change their climate behaviors. “We don’t know how people are making these decisions,” he says.

Solar panels atop homes in Santa Clarita, Calif.© Mario Tama/Getty Images

How your life influences others

We do know the climate-related actions of trusted friends, relatives and neighbors can have a profound effect on the people around them.

Solar panels are a classic example. In a 2021 paper published in Nature, researchers found the most important factor that determined whether someone installed panels on their roof wasn’t subsidies, geography or policy. It was whether their neighbor had them. A single solar rooftop project increases installations by nearly 50 percent within a half-mile radius, a second study found.

Solar panels, in other words, are contagious.

Various clean technologies share this characteristic, and many of them are cheaper than their fossil-fuel counterparts over a lifetime. The primary barrier in getting a lot of people to make the leap is finding enough of those trusted others to show the way. Organizations are trying to amplify this climate influence.

Solarize Campaigns, a grass-roots effort in Oregon that has become a blueprint in more than two dozen states, signs up “ambassadors” to show neighbors how to go solar. The ambassadors organize barbecues where people can watch live solar panel installations or share years of low electricity bills to entice more customers. In Connecticut, one such campaign tripled solar installations while lowering average costs by 20 percent through bulk discounts and prescreened contractors, a case study published by Yale University found. People can join existing campaigns or start their own.

Similarly, the nonprofit Acterra recruits EV and e-bike owners in the Bay Area to share their experiences, offering “ride and drive” events. These often give people their first taste of such technologies, and it comes from a member of their community who can answer questions and clear some of the hurdles to adoption.

Early adopters, roughly 15 to 20 percent of the population, have driven record sales of clean technologies in recent years. It’s a mistake to assume this growth is inevitable. The mainstream market, people who are far less tolerant of the uncertainty and inconveniences of new products, will remain on the sidelines unless these concerns are addressed.

Persuading them will take a different approach, says Brooke Betts, a former marketing executive who now runs Rare’s climate campaigns. “What worked for early adopters,” says Betts, “won’t work for later ones.”

The most persuasive argument might be you.

Ford government puts out call for clean power projects

This article was written by Marco Chown Oved and was published in the Toronto Star on December 12, 2023.

After a five-and-a-half-year hiatus, Ontario is getting back into the renewable energy game.

Once the Canadian leader in solar and wind, the province halted construction — and cancelled partially built projects — when Doug Ford was elected premier in 2018, railing against renewables for being expensive and driving up hydro bills.

Since then, Ontario’s clean energy has become increasingly carbon intensive, dropping from 94 per cent non-emitting to 89 per cent, and eroding the province’s competitive advantage in attracting businesses looking for low carbon electricity.

Renewable energy has also gotten cheaper, with solar now the cheapest form of energy in history. On Monday, Energy Minister Todd Smith announced Ontario would end the backslide, putting out a call for 2,000 megawatts of non-emitting generation, including wind, solar, hydro and bioenergy.

That’s approximately five per cent of all electricity generation in the province.

“Many communities have already reached out to me to share their interest in hosting new energy projects,” said Smith at a speech at the Empire Club in Toronto.

“(They) can start working with proponents today to ensure that projects can be built that are going to bring new opportunities, they’re going to bring new jobs to their communities, and they’re going to contribute to the province’s electricity grid at the same time.”

Smith isn’t stopping there, saying this is just the first round of procurement and an additional 3,000 megawatts would follow in what he called “a regular cadence” of new generation.

The Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) says these non-emitting generation sources will allow the province to reduce output from natural gas plants with an eye to eliminating emissions from the electricity grid — an essential precursor to eliminating carbon emissions and mitigating climate change.

“The procurement of additional renewables is definitely overdue,” said Evan Pivnick, clean energy program manager at Clean Energy Canada. “With the cost reductions we’ve seen in renewables, there’s never been a time when the business case for these stands up more so than today.”

The first projects will be announced next year and will come online before the end of the decade. They will include re-contracting of existing renewable generation as well as the construction of new projects.

The shift to renewable generation represents a big pivot for the province, which has focused on new nuclear reactors and gas plants since Ford came to office. With growing demand for electricity, the gas plants are meant to ensure no blackouts during peak demand periods over the coming years.

After two decades of flat electricity demand, the IESO says Ontario needs more electricity to meet a growing population and the new industries, including EV production and green steel, being set up in the province.

While the province has had trouble convincing towns to host the plants, the IESO is confident enough it will secure enough new gas that it can now turn its attention to longer term renewables to build a net zero grid for the future.

“With new supply on track to meet demand mid-decade, we are now addressing energy needs going into the 2030s and beyond,” said IESO CEO Lesley Gallinger. “The next round of procurements will be a perfect complement to our storage fleet — generating energy to charge recently procured batteries that can be deployed when needed to meet system needs.”

Grid scale batteries are being deployed across the province and the world because they unlock much of the potential of renewables that had previously been wasted. Since the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine, renewable energy was unable to guarantee generation at any given time.

Batteries ensure that renewable electricity can be captured and stored until it’s needed.

At Monday’s speech, Smith was quick to contrast this new round of renewable energy from the previous build out that took place under Liberal governments.

“When we talk about this much renewables, many minds are immediately going to turn to the absolute fiasco that was the Liberal’s Green Energy Act … when wind and solar projects were forced on unwilling host communities,” he said.

Smith highlighted how the Progressive Conservative approach of competitive procurement has already resulted in recontracting existing generation at 30 per cent below what was being paid before. The IESO estimates the next round of wind contracts will go for less than half of what the province paid in the mid 2000s.

While Smith is embracing renewable energy, he emphasized that gas is still needed for the foreseeable future.

“We need to face reality. Sometimes the sun doesn’t shine and sometimes the wind doesn’t blow, which is why natural gas is still needed,” he said.

Several studies have contested this, showing that a combination of renewables, batteries and conservation measures can alleviate the need for any new gas plants.

‘‘ Many communities have already reached out to me to share their interest in hosting new energy projects.

ENERGY MINISTER TODD SMITH

Exclusive: Simon Stiell says leaders must ‘stop dawdling’ and act before crucial summit in Dubai

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The natural world is caught in a vicious cycle – extreme weather is destroying natural habitats and wildlife, yet these are crucial to fighting the climate crisis

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The climate crisis, invasive species, overexploitation of resources and pollution could break down crucial ecosystems. We asked experts to lay out the risks and offer some solutions

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Municipalities were given a veto, and they’re using it

This article was written by Marco Chown Oved and was published in the Toronto Star on November 30, 2023.

Local municipal councils in Eastern Ontario rejected one new gas plant but welcomed another this week, complicating the province’s plan to build new fossil fuel projects.

At a meeting on Monday evening, Loyalist Township declined to support a new gas plant, with councillors saying they could not support energy projects that both pollute local air and make climate change worse.

“We should not entertain at all any fossil fuel developments in our township,” said Loyalist Coun. Paul Proderick.

On Tuesday, Napanee council endorsed a bid by Atura power — a subsidiary of the publicly-owned Ontario Power Generation — to build a new gas plant in their community, citing the growing demand for electricity.

“I believe we are going to need more power than wind and solar (are going to be able to provide),” said Napanee Coun. Dave Pinnell Jr.

The conflicting decisions testify to the way that energy planning in Ontario has transformed from a top-down decree to a courtship road show, in which energy planners and electricity developers have to make their cases to each and every community where they want to build.

In Napanee, Atura offered annual payments of $400,000 as part of its pitch to get the town to accept a new gas plant.

The local votes went from being a courtesy to a requirement when Premier Doug Ford promised to give locals a veto over new energy projects in their communities.

While pitched as a way to combat wind and solar farms, the new found local power has evolved into a way to stymie fossil fuel projects.

“Essentially, we have a veto,” said Loyalist Coun. Lorna Willis.

And communities across the province have been using it.

In addition to Loyalist township, Thorold, in Niagara region, rejected a new gas plant in September. Last January, Windsor became the first community in the province to welcome a new gas plant.

All these communities already host gas plants. Loyalist township is close to three: Lennox, Kingston and Napanee.

“This area has probably shouldered its fair share of poor air quality,” said Loyalist Coun. Jake Ennis. “The community has strongly raised concerns, particularly with regard to the expansion of the cogeneration plant, and concerns with environmental impacts and impacts on human health.”

Dr. Mili Roy, co-chair of Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), Ontario, said the cavalcade of municipalities rejecting gas plants is heartening to see.

“I hope we’re going to see a domino effect where a no vote in one municipality empowers the next municipality to stand up and say no as well,” she said.

CAPE has been speaking out against natural gas expansion because of its serious implications for human health.

“Natural gas is not a benign bridge fuel, it’s methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas,” she said.

“Climate change is the single greatest health threat that we face around the world.”

Aric McBay, a campaigner with the Providence Centre for Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation, said the case against gas plants is based on three arguments: health, climate and economics.

Healthwise, the toxic pollutants that emerge from the smokestacks of gas plants have been linked to preterm births, increased hospitalization and a higher incidence of childhood asthma. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, air pollution causes more than 15,000 premature deaths each year.

From a climate point of view, natural gas was once hailed as a transition fuel that would help wean the world off fossil fuels while emitting less carbon than coal. Unfortunately, research now shows that natural gas actually produces just as much greenhouse gasses as coal when all the methane leaks in the extraction and pipeline system are factored in.

Economically, the volatility of global fossil fuel prices contrasts dramatically with the consistently dropping price of renewables, making natural gas one of the most expensive ways to generate electricity and wind one of the cheapest. Layered on top of that is the province’s promise to pay gas plants to sit idle if they are forced to shut down due to the federal government’s clean electricity regulations.

“These plants, if expanded, would harm the health of regular people, put greater burdens on our health care system and needlessly delay a transition to renewable energy. All the while making the cost of living more expensive for regular Ontarians,” McBay said.

As a Star investigation revealed last month, Ontario’s gas plants run far more often than advertised. In downtown Toronto, the Portlands gas plant ran 21 hours a day last summer.

As a result, Ontario’s electricity grid, which is one of the cleanest in North America, is getting far dirtier. Projections put out by the IESO show that gas plant use — and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions — is set to triple in the next three years.

This rise in electricity emissions risks undermining efforts to reduce carbon in virtually every other sector.

“The plans of most municipalities and most organizations and even individuals to decarbonize depends on electrification. That’s been the push in really every sector from home heating and cooling to the steel industry,” said McBay.

“If the amount of electricity produced from fossil fuels increases instead of decreases, then it’s going to not only harm the planet and the health of people, but it’s going to undermine our efforts to fight climate change in the long term. And more specifically, it will actually deceive regular people because it will make us think that we’re fighting climate change with electrification when we’re just consuming fracked natural gas without even realizing it.”

The IESO said more gas plants in the short term is compatible with moving to net zero by 2035.

“We do need to add some gas as we move through the energy transition,” said Chuck Farmer, chief energy transition officer and vicepresident, planning, conservation & resource adequacy at IESO.

“We are supporting an orderly transition to a net zero electricity system and economy in a way that balances reliability and affordability.”

Over the last 20 years, electricity demand has been flat in Ontario. But in the next 20 years, the IESO projects a need for at least 40 per cent more power.

“There is an urgent need to get infrastructure built to ensure we meet the growing needs of the province,” he said.

Three new battery and electric vehicle plants alone will use as much energy as the entire city of London, Farmer said.

The grid “is a key enabler of decarbonization in other sectors of our economy. But it does need to increase in size to support electric vehicles, people switching to heat pumps and the electrification of industrial processes. And the emissions reductions we’re achieving from those efforts are greater than the incremental emissions that we will see from new natural gas generation.”

Gas will be needed into the early 2030s, at which point it will be replaced with a combination of energy conservation and new non-emitting generation, like wind, solar and hydro, Farmer said.

“All of these things will contribute to our net zero future. But they will take time to deploy and we need incremental generation now,” he said.

Jack Gibbons, a former commissioner with Toronto Hydro and the Chair of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, said he hopes Ford will start listening to the municipalities that don’t want more gas plants.

“Municipalities are fighting back and saying no to new gas fired power plants. This is great news and shows very clearly that Doug Ford’s plans don’t make political or economic sense. It’s time for the province to rethink how we’re going to meet our provincial power needs. We need to look to Quebec which will be massively expanding its electricity grid with 100 per cent renewable power.”

‘‘

I hope we’re going to see a domino effect where a no vote in one municipality empowers the next municipality to stand up and say no as well.

DR. MILI ROY CO-CHAIR OF CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF PHYSICIANS