This Thanksgiving might pose a variety of uncomfortable political discourse swapped back and forth with the dinner rolls and cranberry sauce. Climate change deniers might strike up some of the most frustrating conversations at this year’s holiday. Read on for the best way to navigate these uncomfortable conversations at the peak of our global climate crisis.
One of your family members who remembers you as a kid even though you have no recollection of their existence may ask you over the sound of a screaming child this Thanksgiving: More carbon dioxide just means more plant food, right? To this obscure family member I say, have you ever heard of the concept of “too much of a good thing?” Plants can only handle so much carbon dioxide. The idea that having more carbon dioxide will help all plants is comparable to growing crops in a flood. It simply isn’t good for anyone. Plants need three things in order to thrive: sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide. However, an excess of one of these things will hurt the plants more than it helps and can cause some serious damage. As carbon dioxide increases, temperatures will increase, rainfall patterns change, and some kinds of severe weather will become more common. More carbon dioxide is not a good thing at all.
Your uncle might tip back his MAGA hat and ask you “if the planet is getting warmer like you are suggesting, why are there articles claiming ice is increasing at the poles? Here is the response you should give in order to keep yourself from destroying the hat on this family member’s head. There is a major difference between sea ice and land ice. Sea ice is floating, frozen seawater and land ice (like glaciers) is ice that has accumulated over time on land. Antarctica’s land ice has been melting at an extremely alarming rate for quite some time now, while Antarctic sea ice has been stable, but that does not disprove the fact that our climate is warming. When land ice melts, it flows as water into the ocean, contributing to sea-level rise, and this poses a direct threat to hundreds of millions of people living on islands or near coasts. The increase that these articles refer to is the increase of ice from the summer months to the winter months, but when observed long term, ice is declining at an alarming rate. Hopefully, you make it through that explanation without throwing up at the sight of that hat.
Your cousin you haven’t talked to since last Thanksgiving may ask you “How can there be global warming when there’s a snowstorm?” Please inform your cousin of the simple fact that climate change throws natural systems out of balance. Just because a place that usually gets snowstorms actually gets a snowstorm does not negate the years of global warming that scientists from around the world have measured for years. Over the past 70 years, hot days have become more common and cold days have become less common. Whether a snowstorm occurs in a cold climate does not have anything to do with climate change. The bottom line is that ‘less cold’ doesn’t mean ‘never cold.’ Cold days and snowstorms will happen less often as the world warms, but they won’t disappear entirely.
Your sibling’s new significant other may destroy any respect you had for them by saying “The scientists researching this don’t even have a consensus that this is happening.” Inform this new significant other that this is a common misconception. More than 97 percent of climate scientists agree that global warming is a serious issue and we are the cause. If this cousin tries to say that three percent disagree ask her this question: “If 97 percent of doctors diagnosed you with a serious illness, would you listen to the remaining 3 percent and skip treatment?” Of course, you wouldn’t even the most ignorant climate change denier would opt to get the treatment. There is an overwhelming consensus around the world that man-made global warming is happening. Just hope that they retain this information if your sibling is infatuated with them, because you may have to deal with them for a long time.
The mom who can’t stop taking pictures may say “Maybe it is getting warmer, but how do we know that humans are at fault. How do we know that it’s not just the sun or a natural cycle?” This mom needs to cool it with the camera and research the greenhouse effect. Tell her that more carbon dioxide traps more heat in the atmosphere, and ever since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve been releasing more and more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Today, humans are putting more and more heat-trapping carbon pollution and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by burning dirty fossil fuels like oil and coal, and this is causing the planet to warm significantly. Climate change happens for a reason, and right now, that reason is us.
The family member who cannot talk without food in their mouth may chime in by saying “everyone knows we breathe oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, so what should we do — stop breathing? As you attempt to avoid the food shrapnel flying from this family member’s mouth, inform them that breathing has nothing to do with climate change. A human exhales about 1 kilogram of carbon dioxide a day. That sounds like a lot when you consider there are about 7 billion of us on the planet. However, this carbon doesn’t come from out of nowhere — it comes from the carbon-based foods in our diet. It is a closed cycle. Plants take in carbon dioxide to make their own food, and the carbon taken in by plants becomes food for us. This cycle only continues over and over again. The problems we are facing in regards to carbon dioxide are due to the dirty energy we burn on a daily basis. We are adding carbon to the air that had been stored underground as deposits of coal, oil, and gas. This carbon then stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, and this is the reason we are facing climate change dilemmas. You can breathe easy now.
The aunt who clearly needs to stop drinking may ask in a slurred speech, “What’s wrong with a few degrees anyway? As this aunt firmly grips her wine glass, tell her that a global temperature rise of two degrees celsius will seriously disrupt life on Earth and challenge our ability to cope. The difference between zero degrees Celsius and one-degree Celsius is the difference between ice and water. One degree can make an enormous difference, and at the rate, we are going, we are facing much more than a two-degree temperature change. This dramatic change in temperature will accelerate glacial melt, increase sea-level, and make so many other changes. We are already seeing the repercussions of this rise in temperature. Intense rainstorms, severe droughts, and heat waves are becoming much more frequent, and some populations of animals are starting to die out.
At some point during the day, your grandfather will wake up from one of his several Thanksgiving naps and might add, “If we limit our carbon emissions, won’t we hurt the economy and our citizens?” Gently inform this tired old man that this is a claim that is made over and over again by people in this current administration. They say we can’t afford to address climate change, but the truth is, we can’t afford not to. Climate change is already contributing to over 400,000 deaths and costing the world more than $1.2 trillion every year. We are losing so many people to extreme weather conditions caused by climate change, and this is not something that we can let continue any longer.
Hopefully, after listening to your arguments some of your family members may show some interest in fighting climate change. To completely convince them and get them on their way to becoming climate change activists, you need to tell these family members this:
It is not too late to act! How much the climate warms in the future is up to us. Arguing that we are too far into climate change to do anything is akin to telling a friend who’s in debt that she should ignore what she owes and go on a shopping spree. Lack of action on climate change threatens to make the world our children inherit a completely different world than we are living in today. We’re already feeling the effects of climate change. But that’s precisely why we need to both prepare for the climate change impacts we can’t avoid and act quickly to cut the carbon pollution that’s causing the problem. The longer we wait to make the transition to clean energy, the worse this problem will get for our children and future generations. Here’s what you can do to help! At the most basic level, we should take measures to reduce the amount of energy we burn overall. If we’re smarter about how we use energy and design our cities, buildings, and appliances, we’ll be able to do just as much or more than we do now, only using less energy. One step to help us do so would be to pass laws correcting for the fact that companies now get to profit from fossil fuels without paying for the damage they do we should continue to have a conversation with our leaders and the public about the real cost of carbon pollution and what we can do about it. We have many options. We can vote, change our personal lives, choose to live cleaner, fight against public policy, and even convince our skeptic family members over a celebrated holiday. However, doing nothing isn’t an option.