(00:01):
Well, I'm in over my head. No one told me trying to keep my footprint small was harder than I thought it could be. I'm in over my head. What do I really need? Trying to save the planet over someone, please save me trying to save the planet over someone. Please save me.

Michael (00:25):
Welcome to over my head. I'm Michael Bartz. My guest today is Dr. Sarah Birch. Dr. Birch holds a can research chair in sustainability governance and innovation and is an associate professor in the department of geography and environmental management at the University of Waterloo. She's also the executive director of the University of Waterloo's interdisciplinary center on climate change. Professor Burch is an expert in transformative responses to climate change at the community scale, innovative strategies for making progress on sustainability and unique contributions that small businesses can make to solving this complex challenge. Her most recent book is entitled understanding climate change science policy and practice, and she has taught the first massive open online course on the climate change range, which reached thousands of students in 130 countries. Welcome to over my head, Dr. Birch,

Sarah (01:08):
Thanks for having me.

Michael (01:09):
So in talking about the decarbonization of the electricity grid, I wanna briefly set the stage for our conversation by letting our listeners know what the goal is and where we're going when it comes to reducing emissions. So Canada's aiming to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 45 to 50% by 2030 and be net zero by 2050. So how's that going so far?

Sarah (01:30):
That's right. Yes. Those are very ambitious targets, especially when we consider the path that Canada has been on historically. So, you know, these targets are rather the sort of more ambitious version of them, which is what you spoke about. There were announced just in the last year, in the lead up to the international climate change conference cop 26. And so that was the point where countries around the world that had signed onto the Paris agreement, started to kind of ratchet up their ambition and say, what do we collectively need to do to deliver on these targets that the intergovernmental panel on climate change tell us, we need to set to keep warming to two degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels, or even better. 1.5 degrees. We have these targets with warming. Cause that's what really matters to us of course, is, you know, what effect are we having on the climatic system?

(02:23):
And then what is every country's contribution? So Canada came up with this target of 40 to 45% by 2030 and net-zero by 2050. Generally, the perspective is that that's on the slightly unambitious side, given our historical contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and how high our per capita emissions are right now. But nonetheless, that's what we've said. We do. If we look back since say 1990, which is kind of our baseline year, when we really started measuring our greenhouse gas emissions, our emissions have actually gone up by 20%. They haven't come down at all. So we are, we are now starting to show some signs of coming down the other side of things, but unlike the European Union and countries, they're in, we've seen very little in the way of real, tangible, absolute reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions. So we have an enormous challenge ahead of us.

Michael (03:19):
Yeah. And, and what, why is it going up and, and why aren't we even meeting those targets then?

Sarah (03:24):
Well, there's many, many answers to that, that question. And, and in some ways, you know, the deck not to give us a get out of jail free card, but there, there are some factors that we have to reasonably consider. When you think about why Canada's emissions bringing high one is that unlike some countries in Europe, we are, of course, a major extractor and exporter of fossil fuels. So that, that is one of the foundations of wealth in this country. And there are a lot of jobs and infrastructure that has built up around that. There are livelihoods and values that are built up around that. It's a very entrenched set of circumstances. In the Canadian context, we also are growing in terms of population, both newcomers to Canada for instance, and, and sort of movement within Canada, towards cities, this kind of thing. So, but also we have our, our values in the Canadian context are rooted in high carbon lifestyles. We tend to have very low-density cities. We have the luxury or the curse of space in this country. So, you know, our cities tend to sprawl and then we need to, you know, we rely on vehicles to get us around. Our homes are big. These kinds of consumer behaviours and habits have become forces of really powerful inertia, pushing back against progress towards reduced green gas missions. And our policies have not been nearly ambitious nor nearly tough enough to turn that trend around.

Michael (04:48):
Okay. Wow. That's, there's a lot there for sure. Let's touch on the policies briefly. So you said that they're, they're not ambitious enough. Tell me more about that.

Sarah (04:56):
Well, they haven't been up until recently, but I, I think that there's reason to be sort of cautiously optimistic and most analyses that I've seen by folks. I respect, you know, energy modellers, economists, you know, environmental think tanks and such look at Canada's current suite of climate change policies and say, okay, here's some serious progress, including of course the price on carbon federally, which is relatively new and intended to ratchet up all the way to $170 a ton by 2030. And that is significant enough to have a real impact on greenhouse gas emissions. And we only have to look at the British Columbia model, which is older than the federal climate-carbon tax, rather see that that has had impact perhaps not significant enough, and it's not high enough, but it's getting there to reduce emissions, setting realistic targets, and then backing those up with incentives to move towards broader, faster uptake of zero-emissions vehicles and the charging infrastructure and, and everything that's needed there transportation's a really a tough nut to crack in the, in the Canadian context.

(06:02):
But of course, it's our oil and gas industry that is, is the toughest Nut to crack in the Canadian context. And I would say, you know, there was an announcement last year in advance, again, of the international climate change negotiations that Canada would cease any new funding of international oil and gas projects. There's a whole lot of caveats on that that make it less exciting than it seems. And it was to come into effect one year later, which obviously makes me sort of suspicious. If anything can happen in one year, it means it was already happening before it was declared, but those are subsidies to fossil fuels. So fuel projects elsewhere. So what that does is it sets the stage for conversations that are much tougher about where subsidies go here domestically. And that's what we're in the thick of now is how can the Canadian federal government make different decisions about where our tax dollars flow so that we incentivize the production of renewable energy and move away, from processes?

Michael (07:01):
Yeah, no, I think it sounds like we are moving in, in the right direction. So that's positive. And of course, this is about decarbonization, the electricity grid specifically. So you talk a bit about renewables. How is Canada doing as far as producing its power by renewable energy?

Sarah (07:16):
Well, we're extremely fortunate that our electricity supply is largely low carbon already because of hydroelectricity. So, I mean, that's not universally true, and certainly, we rely on nuclear and there's coal still in existence in some provinces and, and that sort of thing. So we're not at net-zero or a hundred percent renewable electricity. The problem is that it's not just about decarbonizing our existing electricity supply in order to electrify our vehicles, to electrify our homes, to electrify everything as they say, and move away from fossil fuels, we need a much larger supply of electricity overall. So, you know, there are some estimates that we'd need to, to through three times, 200 to 300%, the supply of electricity that we already had to meet all these new demands. And so how we produce that electricity is the crucial question because an EV does nothing good for the planet. If it's running on electricity that was produced through a coal-fired power plant, it needs to be reduced through renewable energy. So we have, have quite a long way to go there.

Michael (08:22):
And so is there certain renewable energy that is more effective? Like you talk about, we do, we use a lot of hydroelectricity right now. We could talk about wind or solar or biomass or nuclear. Is there one thing that would bring us up to that two or three times more electricity production, or is it a combination of things?

Sarah (08:39):
I think it will always be a combination of things. We need improvements on storage of that electricity and the connectivity of our grid across provinces to even out supply. But I think for me, one of the most positive things about the Canadian situation is that while we have traditionally relied on fossil fuels as the source of energy in this country, we are also thankfully a renewable energy kind of superpower in waiting. We just haven't quite harnessed that yet. And it, you know, I, I spent several years living in Alberta and I always thought it was kind of beautiful irony that Alberta is also these incredibly productive wind areas through, through Southern Alberta. The solar capacity of Alberta is enormous and staying through the central provinces, not so much on the west coast where I lived for many years as well, but throughout our country, because we're such a vast country. And because we have such incredible resources, we have those renewable energy resources to tap. It's a matter of directing incentives and subsidies and requirements regulations in that direction, rather than continuing to prop up. What is in my view will be stranded assets pouring good money after bad into the fossil fuel sector is not, I, I think a recipe for long-term prosperity.

Michael (09:57):
And, and you know, of course, we're here in Alberta and yeah, our tiny house is powered by solar by the sun. And I know firsthand how great that feels and how effective it can be. And especially here, because we have so much sun, to me, it just seems like that's the way of the future. Renewables are the way of the future. And even if it's more of an investment upfront, so would, would you agree with that?

Sarah (10:16):
I absolutely agree. It's the way of the future. I resist the idea that this is entirely about individual choice, however, because as you said, the costs upfront remains significant, and those are absolutely insurmountable to many, many people. And our cities are designed in a way still. I lived, in Calgary for many years, and I'm from the prairies originally from Manitoba and the cities that I know best are sprawling, and it's hard to work close to where you play and where you live. And if you're not well served by public transit, then there are few options available to you. So I think we have to be really conscious of the fact that this isn't a matter of convincing more individuals just to step up and make different decisions. There are lots of forces pushing back against those decisions right now.

Michael (11:07):
Yeah. But, even on the bigger scale of when you talk about policy implementation and, and ging rid of fossil fuels, I'm just talking about the economic incentive to go to renewables. Is there, or an economic incentive when we talk about, is it the way of the future to go to renewables versus fossil fuels?

Sarah (11:24):
Yeah. For so many reasons there are economic incentives. So the main reason which I realize is longer term than most people think, but then, the money that we as a society invest like the tax dollars that we choose to invest in the transit towards renewables are part of avoiding the costs of climate change. And the costs of climate change are enormous unbridled climate change, the cost of extreme weather and floods and heat waves and the loss of life and the loss of livelihoods, even in this country, which is wealthy and well-governed. Generally speaking, those costs are, are enormous. And if we push ourselves into a three or four-degree warming scenario, we are over a tipping point where the world becomes extremely uncertain and not hospitable. So the first thing that we need to think about in terms of those costs is that they are an investment in a safer, more, just healthier, even more, beautiful future.

(12:24):
And then I think that's, there's the question of how, you know, how, how people transition their livelihoods and their careers. So that's a different aspect of, of the transition and a much more immediate one for people who actually have jobs in extractive sectors in the oil and gas sector. And so this is where I think a conversation around adjust transition is a really important one. So how do federal and provincial governments harness all of those skills, the unions, the, you know, the sort of, of structures, the supportive infrastructure around people who work in those jobs to help them retrain upskill, move from a job rooted in fossil fuels to one that, that focuses on renewable energy or, or the green transition, or even better is helping them keep their job, but shift that job within their current employer. So taking, encourage that employer to move towards, you know, a renewable energy pathway so that the person isn't without a job for a long period of time and, you know, suffering, suffering in that transition. And that's in a really, really important role, for the government to play.

Michael (13:27):
And, and obviously, that's probably more of the case here, say in Alberta where we have more fossil fuel extraction. And do you see that shift happening where, where people are able to transition to more renewable-type jobs, even within those industries?

Sarah (13:43):
It, well, it, it certainly is possible. And I've seen examples or stories of skills in the sort of heavy machinery fields and moving from oil and gas to building turbines, wind turbines, and this kind of thing. There are a lot of transferrable skills, but it's not just in Alberta. And there are other aspects of the transition that are a bit trickier. For instance, here in Ontario, we have a lot of vehicle manufacturers, of course, and it turns out that fewer people are needed to manufacture EVs than internal combustion agents, right? So there are actually fewer jobs per vehicle until that sector grows until the electric vehicle manufacturing sector grows and the internal combustion engine manufacturing sort of declines. So there's a tough transition point there where you may have people out of work that transition needs to be eased for them, but it all depends on how much we when we set these targets of 40 to 45%, do we mean, you know, is this, is this something that we're going to, where we're gonna put our money where our mouth is, or are we going to keep stepping two steps forward one step back, which is what we've been doing historically?

Michael (14:47):
Yeah. And I think if we're going to set those goals as a country, we need to set people up to succeed and not just have to have them figure it out on their own. And then, and then, as you said, fail, some of your research looks at the small business side of this equation. So how does the private sector fit, into the solution?

Sarah (15:06):
Yeah. In so many ways, a lot of my research focuses on how small businesses think about sustainability and what kind of experiments they're doing that have greater potential than just a kind of incremental change. So this is the question that I continually obsess over is are the changes being made in the private sector, just nibbling around the edges, 5% reduction, 10% reduction it's still contributing overall too, an unsustainable pathway, or are they starting to unearth the kind of deeper roots of transformation, which is what was, is required to get to net zero. This isn't a, this isn't a marginal change. So what I've found is that small businesses as a whole are an enormous part of the Canadian economy. They're an enormous employer of private-sector workers, a generator of wealth. We often talk about the large corporations because, you know, single-handedly, one large corporation has the emissions of a small country or whatever, and, and helping them ratchet those down is a big win.

(16:07):
But the reality is that the majority of our economy is actually made up of small firms and yet, you know, very little about how to mobilize them and how to build capacity in them to do this stuff well. So, I mean, I think it'll be fair to say that the landscape of small businesses as a whole is generally pretty capacity strapped. We would say they have few financial resources to kind of do wild sustainability experiments or change anything dramatically. It's costly, as you say, upfront. And these firms run with razor fine profit margins, and they do what they do very well. They're a small architecture firm, they're a little coffee shop. They produce, you know, textiles or something, but they may not have designated folks who understand circular economy or sustainability at large, they generally have low capacity, but the ones do anchor sustainability in their core values.

(16:56):
Like the ones for whom sustainability is a, is part of their purpose. They tackle these issues with ambition that is kind of unheard of. They ratchet down their emissions by 60, 70, 80% within two or three years, they do really cool stuff, engaging their employees so that everybody can be imaginative about how to, how to sort of living more lightly or, or reduce their waste or reduce their emissions. And they, they shed light, I think, on the broader transformation, what is it about a company about the private sector, about the way we produce and consume that is locking us into these high carbon trajectories and these vulnerable trajectories. And how can we start to unpack that? So I think there's a lot of promise there, and I don't think they should get a pass. I think this is not just a task for the government by a long shot, but they also need support.

Michael (17:46):
It seems like, although we said, it's not necessarily about individual change, hearing that, to me sounds inspiring because yeah, even that little coffee shop or that small architecture firm can make a difference as, as long as more and more and more of them are doing that. So would you say that's the case that if that kind of grows into other small businesses, that that could be a bigger change?

Sarah (18:08):
I think it can. I think small businesses if there are ways for them to share their experiences with other small businesses, that's really helpful because what happens in an enormous firm with 10,000 employees has almost no bearing on a firm with 20. It's just absolutely comparing apples to donkeys or whatever. So I think connecting those small companies together to share what they've learned and how they've tackled their problems is, is really important. I've found really cool examples of small firms in the same sector, like sustainable brewers, for example, coming together to share what they've learned and view each other, not as competitors, which, you know, through a capitalist lens is what they should view each other as, but they actually view unsustainable firms as the competitor. So they want to bring themselves collectively along as a community and outperform their unsustainable competitors, which is a really different way of viewing what business does and what businesses should do with each other. So I think there's a lot of potential there.

Michael (19:04):
Yeah, it's really cool. And, and so it doesn't really matter if it's, it doesn't have to be a health food store or a renewable energy business. It can be a brewery or an architecture firm or something.

Sarah (19:14):
Absolutely. And I think that this is, you know, this applies to buildings and jobs and all sorts of things. If we fast forward 50 years from now, we don't want there to be a distinction between a green business or sustainable business and a not green or unsustainable business. We don't want green buildings. We want all whole buildings, all of them to be deeply and fundamentally sustainable. That distinction should evaporate if we've moved enough along this pathway. So no, it doesn't need to be only a small firm producing reusable straws and beeswax wraps. It needs to be your steel fabricator. That is net-zero emissions. It needs to be all firms across all sectors.

Michael (19:53):
And you said that they need support for this. What kind of support would require that change?

Sarah (19:59):
Well, they need technical skills. So they need to understand where the emissions, if we're talking just about climate change, you know, where the emissions are coming from in their business. So that's a greenhouse gas inventory kind of skill, some sectors, need engineering skills and abilities to understand how to change their processes and their technologies to reduce emissions, but they also need to understand how to engage employees across their, their business to implement a whole range of behavioural decisions. So, you know, reducing employee commuting to reducing their water use or their waste use or whatever. So thinking about all aspects of sustainability in their operations is one thing, but even deeper again, if we peel back the resource efficiency stuff, which is kind of the technical stuff on the surface to what is the purpose of the business? What is the purpose of business? This is very philosophical. What is, what is the purpose of business in general? Is it the singular and sole purpose of the private sector to generate profit or do they have social and environmental responsibilities that are not nice to have, but absolutely crucial and on par with their desire to make a profit? And I'm heartened to see that there's more of a conversation now about sort of critically reflecting on that and thinking about the private sector as having real responsibility to society and at least the responsibility to do less harm

Michael (21:27):
And you're right. Cause I think people think of businesses that we're here to get the job done. We wanna keep our costs low, we wanna make a profit. So I think it's a really interesting addition that there's also that, that social component, you said that you're seeing people are shifting their attitudes. What would you say to someone who, who says, Nope like it's all about profit, I don't have time to think about reducing paper or, or transportation or anything like that. I want to focus on my business. What would you say to someone, who has that argument?

Sarah (21:55):
I would say that you're frightfully shortsighted and companies that consider sustainability are more profitable, including investment portfolios. Now that have decarbonized, for instance, are actually outperformed, you know, mutual funds and investments that focus on oil and gas. So even from a profit perspective, sustainability tends to win the day. I think that you know, it's incumbent on all of us to reflect on what sort of world we're creating and whether or not we are contributing to a situation in which the costs, even for our business, even through this narrow lens of costs and profits, you are contributing to escalating costs for your business in the future. I think that that is true. If we continue to be sort of locked into a high carbon high emissions pathway, either the volatility, you know, in the prices of fossil fuels will continue to go up and their availability might go down.

(22:48):
The impacts of climate change are going to be escalating. And now we have to pay for those and we have to get more insurance or we have to protect ourselves against supply chain issues and all of the stuff that comes because of climate change. I think in general, the long-term thinking that sustainability strategy forces us to do as a company says is one that serves us well in the long run from both a profit and a social and environmental perspective. We can, we can look to small businesses for a lot of inspiration, I think in terms of what is possible and just how fundamentally firms can transform to advance our communities, our neighbourhoods, you know, along this pathway towards sustainability, it's pretty rare to see meaningful policies that target small business sustainability in a way that will really help them, you know, ratchet down their greenhouse gas emissions.

(23:40):
So I think there needs to be a lot more capacity building in the, in the small business community and incentives and, you know, preferential tax structures and this kind of thing that would, that would help them along. And I hope I desperately hope that we will start to think about sustainability as more than just a technical phenomenon. This isn't just about disseminating, you know, just distributing and, and you using technologies that reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. It's a much deeper transformation than that. And it's the values that underpin the use of those technologies. For instance, in the Canadian context, our definition of the good life of, you know, of accomplishment of wealth, being a single-family detached and potentially multiple vehicles and leisure trips outside the country to warm places. And, and those are all beautiful things. And I was raised in that context as well.

(24:34):
And I have no intention of being flippant about how powerful those values are and how deeply held they are. But I think a conversation is happening, especially among younger people about D different ways to live and how beautiful it can be for cities to be more compact denser so that you can get out of your car so that you're not commuting an hour and a half to work so that you are more active and you're physically healthier, or you're more connected to people on the street to your communities and neighbours so that you're less distant from one another. And you spend less time working and more time with those people. Those are pretty deep conversations. I think about what a sustainable future actually looks like. And it may not be one that looks exactly like our cities and houses look today, except when you heat your home, it's not heated by natural gas.

(25:23):
It may actually look very different and it may be very different from community to community as well. There are many visions of what sustainability looks like in the future, but I think the important thing, and, you know, one thing that can sort of concerns me about this way we talk about sustainability these days is that I want to acknowledge that there are lots of different ways to behave sustainably and to live a sustainable lifestyle. And we don't all share an identical set of values and that has to be okay. And that's why it's really important to build single-family detached homes, to a higher, more efficient standard that needs to be written into the building code so that people who choose those ways of living can do so with a much smaller carbon footprint or, or impact on the planet and not all jobs allow work home, although many more do now. So that's really caused a shift, but not everybody is going to stop eating meat or move towards veganism. And I, I find the purity tests that on the sustainability side, we tend to apply to each other to be quite unhelpful because there are just a lot of ways of practicing sustainability. And some of those choices are because of our income or because of our education or because of our culture out of reach. So a diversity of views in terms of what sustainable living can be, I think is more inclusive.

Michael (26:40):
Do you feel like that conversation is shifting in that we can have different lifestyles that are still sustainable?

Sarah (26:46):
I don't know. I honestly sense it's actually getting more polarized and more extreme. I hear this more commonly now from folks I know who are excellent climate change, communicators and sustainability scientists that when they used to give talks about climate change, you know, 10 years ago or so you would expect to be criticized or attacked from those who don't think climate change is, is a thing, or, you know, this sort of full-on climate skeptic or those kinds of voices. But now, and I certainly experienced this, the more frequent critiques come from people who think that we're not being extreme enough in what we're prescribing or, or what we're suggesting needs to be done. And so this kind, this kind of fracturing on the side of folks who generally would've been aligned, that sustainability is important and making progress on climate change is important.

(27:34):
So while this is an incredibly urgent crisis, I think it always serves us well to pause and to think about where somebody might be coming from when they express hesitation or skepticism about changes that they do or don't want to make personally. And, and that's why I think it's quite helpful to move away from this story around individual responsibility and guilt and how you should turn off your lights freeze in the dark, you, as they used to say, 30 years ago, to pursue a sustainable lifestyle. And, and if you are personally not making these choices, then you're to blame because I really do think this is a collective action problem. The way our cities are built, what energy sources we cultivate, what kind of vehicles are even on the lot for us to buy to what standard is our apartment building. You know, if we're a tenant and an apartment building up exactly zero control over the way it's built, those are collective decisions. So voting really matters putting pressure on our elected representatives really matters.

Michael (28:35):
Are there any nature-based solutions that we should be considering with lowering our emissions?

Sarah (28:39):
Absolutely. I, I think that there's so much that's promising and inspiring in the nature-based solutions or ecosystem-based world. And part of the reason for that is that we don't only have one goal. We don't have just the singular goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. There are a lot of other things I think I could say that collectively matter to us, for instance, is that we know climate change impacts are already happening. We know that the severity and the frequency of floods are going up. We know that wildfires, of course, are taking a greater tool. We know that heatwaves are increasing. We know that crops will need to be drought and heat resistant in this kind of thing. So there are climate change impacts layered on top of our need to reduce our greenhouse gas. So that means we need to adapt to impact while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the same time.

(29:33):
And my concern is that as impacts escalate, we'll just be in emergency mode. We'll just be shelling out all of our money to protect people from impacts as a handful. And then our eye will be off the ball of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And those aren't the only two things that matter, perhaps biodiversity matters. You know, how, how vibrant is nature? Does nature have a right to exist? How healthy are our bodies, how closely knit our communities, how beautiful are our cities, what do they feel like to move through and breathe in and play in how just and inclusive are our cities can people afford to live there? Can people afford to play there? So in other words, these are all the aspects of sustainability beyond simple greenhouse submissions and nature-based solutions are one of these, you know, the set of tools that can help us to deliver on many of those at the same time.

(30:28):
So a really good example is using, instead of relying on storm sewers and traditional kind of flood management techniques to move towards constructed wetlands. So wetlands cushion a community from storm surges in the case of coastal communities or floods, protect them, giving water, a place to drain. It can purify that water, all the green and growing things in wetlands sink carbon. So, they end up being a carbon sink rather than a carbon source, like a big old concrete wall would be if you're trying to protect a community from a flood, of course, that it's biodiversity, cuz nature can thrive there. It can be a recreational area. So our health improves aesthetically more beautiful than a concrete wealth. So, you know, nature-based solutions are all of these kinds of things. How can we use nature to help us check all of these boxes of what we think it means to live in a healthy, beautiful, low carbon resilient community?

Michael (31:23):
Yeah, and I think that's really nice cuz it, it touches on not just we're solving greenhouse gas emissions, where we're making our cities more beautiful and, and making things more, hopefully, more enjoyable with biodiversity and nature-based solutions. So this show is about empowering citizens to take action on climate change. And it's not always about personal responsibility, but what can individual citizens do today to make sure that these bigger changes are being made?

Sarah (31:48):
Such a good question. So, you know, in the words of Katherine Hayhoe, a very famous climate change, communicator and scientist, the first thing you could do is talk about it. So having conversations with your friends, family, community members, from the perspective of shared value, you know, find, find out where you share values rather than where you diverge on values to start talking about what matters to you. But here's how I think about them, the connection between the individual and collective behaviour change. So as I've said, I think that climate change is the, you know, that the drivers of greenhouse gas emissions are so embedded in our economy and in the way our cities are built and our regulations and our tax structure and all this stuff, they're so rooted in that, that they need to be changed by the government at multiple levels, municipal, provincial federal.

(32:37):
So in order to nudge that change along, of course, we need to exercise whatever capacity we have to, to vote, to participate in the political process, to turn up to those public consultations, to coordinate our neighbours, to write letters or send emails to, to people who make decisions on our behalf and to weigh into those collective decisions. How, from my perspective, making individual behaviour changes like changing my own lifestyle is crucial as well because it's soothing actually in some ways because I feel like I'm living in a way that's aligned with my values. It brings that consistency between my values, my own research, my work and the way I live. But it also loops back to the collective change because it sends a signal to those who make decisions on our behalf that this matters to us. They won't, if nobody's doing it, if nobody's taking the risks or paying those up upfront costs or moving first, there's very little indication that this is what their constituents want.

(33:35):
So there's a direct connection between our own individual behaviour change and then what decisions are made collectively and on and on it goes. So of course those things are, you know, reducing your need for an internal combustion engine or a, you know, a personal vehicle. So either moving to a hybrid or an EV or moving away from those vehicles entirely towards active transportation like cycling and walking and public transit, doing the small things we can, if you own your home, or if you're able to, you know, make changes to your home to make it more efficient, it is remarkable how much windows and insulation and, and simple changes to your building can do without having to, you know, move to an extreme kind of passive house example, eating less meat, travelling less. These are all major influences on our personal carbon footprint, but I wouldn't stop. I think we need to keep our eye, on the collective change that actually shifts the whole course, of the way our communities function.

Michael (34:27):
Great. All right. Well, that's very helpful. I think we'll end it there. So thanks so much for your time. Professor Birch.

Sarah (34:33):
Thanks so much for having me.

Michael (34:35):
So that was my conversation with professor Birch. I think the thing that stood out for me the most was the idea of values. What are your values? What are other people's values and how can we come together to make a collective change? So I found that really inspiring. Well, that's all for me. I'm Michael Bartz. Here's the feeling a little less in over our heads when it comes to saving the planet. We'll see you again, soon. In Over My Head was produced and hosted by Michael Bartz. Original theme song by Gabriel Thaine. If you would like to get in touch with us, please email info@inovermyheadpodcast.com Special thanks to Telus STORYHIVE for making this show possible.

(35:10):
I'm trying to save the planet or will someone please save me.