It is crystal clear to many people that we are living in a time of climate crisis caused in large part by the burning of fossil fuels , which lead to the emission of greenhouse gasses that trap the sun’s heat, raising temperatures and leading to a cascade of unintended and unwanted consequences.
The climate crisis impacts Earth — its land, its atmosphere and its bodies of water — and it also profoundly affects the health and behavior of the planet’s inhabitants large and small, including humanity. And CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir has a front-row seat to the ever-evolving situation.
When Weir became a new “old” dad at the start of the pandemic — his son, River, was born in April 2020 (his daughter Olivia was 16 at the time) — he had a revelation.
“I looked down at this little squiggling bundle of joy in my arms and realized this kid is going to live to see the 22nd century,” Weir told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta recently, on a special episode of the Chasing Life podcast. “And I started writing, sort of, a letter of apology to him for the planet we broke that he was moving into.”
That letter eventually became the introduction of Weir’s new book, “Life As We Know It (Can Be): Stories of People, Climate, and Hope in a Changing World,” which came out earlier in April, in time for Earth Day.
Weir said that everything in our lives depends on a planet in balance — and currently, it’s not.
“Five million people die prematurely every year just to, just from particulate pollution of burning fossil fuels around the world,” Weir said. “The heat already kills more people, I think, than all the other disasters combined.”
Throughout all of this turmoil, people are all still trying to fulfill their needs, Weir said, pointing to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
“Layer one is just the stuff that keeps you alive: air, water, temperature around 68 degrees Fahrenheit, (the) right amount of minerals, sleep. If you don’t get those, nothing else matters,” he said.
Weir said something clicked for him when he thought about the world his son was inheriting. “What if you can no longer take for granted the bottom of our pyramids, like I did? I never thought about where my water came from or the quality of my air,” he said.
“The Earth I joined in 1967 is gone now, and no one knows what kind of planet will replace it,” Weir wrote to River.
The planet’s degradation has created climate grief — the mourning of a place we still live in, precisely because it is changing so dramatically under our very feet.
Weir draws a parallel between these sentiments and another well-known model: the five stages of grief created by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
“You can take a road trip through America and drive through big swaths of denial,” Weir said. To essentially bargain with rising seas, he said, the city of Charleston, South Carolina, is erecting a seawall and Miami is raising streets. “There’s a lot of anger, a lot of depression. But ultimately, until you get to acceptance, that’s what turns people from survivors into thrivers or leads to a more peaceful end.”
Weir said he hopes humanity can get to the acceptance phase quickly, and band together to address the issues facing us. He is optimistic — perhaps surprisingly, given the dire warnings we continue not to heed.
What can you do to help the story end well for humanity? Weir has these five tips.
End our addiction to fossil fuels
Globally, we have got to get our fossil fuel consumption under control. The United States is among the top three greenhouse gas-emitting countries. When we burn fossil fuel for electricity, heat and transportation, the process generates these heat-trapping emissions .
Weir recalls speaking to a fisherman in Maine, who called our addiction to carbon-based fossil fuels a “Godzilla.”
“Chopping up ‘Carbon Godzilla’ and putting him back where it came from is humanity’s No. 1 job going forward.”
“There are technological ways to do this, various nature-based ways to do it,” said Weir, noting that until that happens at scale, “it’s going to be hard to save this patient.”
Learn to adapt to a hotter climate
Take a page from the camel playbook. Camels are originally from Canada but adapted to the heat when they found themselves in the desert, Weir explained.
“Twenty-five thousand years ago, the camels were dodging bears and jumping over beaver dams. And that big hump of fat was evolved to give them energy over the winter, and their eyelids were evolved to keep out snowstorms, not sandstorms,” Weir said. “After a couple of camels got lost and wandered across the Bering land bridge into Asia, (they) discovered that all these tools work great in sand and on long hot desert treks.”
Humans don’t have time on our side, said Weir, referring to the thousands of years it took camels to evolve, “but we have the technology.” As an example, he cited the whitest paint ever created, which reflects 98% of light back into space and can cool a building by up to 19 degrees Fahrenheit (10.6 degrees Celsius ).
Look for the helpers
Identify the people making positive changes and support them.
Weir said the best tip he ever got for covering a disaster was from Mr. Rogers, who said his own mother told him to “look for the helpers” when he saw a scary event on TV.
“There’s always helpers rushing into disasters,” Weir said. When he’s really down, “I need to look for the helpers — not just people who are managing communities in the aftermath of something like the wildfire in Lahaina, or after a hurricane, but also the folks who are looking for better ideas and ways to fix the problem and to create healthier, more sustainable, resilient pieces of our lives.”
Join forces to save the environment
Become an active member of your community; treat the environment and one another with the same respect and care that many indigenous communities do.
“It is taking care of water and soil and air… (that) fills those (Maslow) needs in ways that we can’t imagine in our modern, convenient world,” he said. “We live in the golden age of self-isolation, whereas we need each other more than ever,” he said.
To do that, help in the way best suited to you, whether it’s organizing a rally, putting your expertise to work for a good cause or helping to clean up a neighborhood park.
“I just want folks to connect with each other and nature in the best possible ways,” he said.
Cut back on emissions where you can
When you have the opportunity, give the environment a break. Think about filling your basic Maslow-pyramid needs in a way that is more sustainable.
In his book, Weir reminds us that Maslow wrote, “Man is a perpetually wanting animal.” But, Weir wrote, “he (Maslow) leaves off ‘on a planet with finite resources.’”
“(It) doesn’t matter how you draw the Pyramid of Needs; what matters is how you fill it,” Weir wrote.
So consider how you fill it. Maybe reduce your dependence on single-use plastics; walk to the market instead of driving; take into consideration the carbon footprint of your diet; take care not to waste food, water, materials, clothing. Small things add up.
Listen to the full episode here . And join us next week on CNN’s Chasing Life podcast when we break down what you need to know about the bird flu virus and explain why it’s appearing in US dairy cows and what it means for milk drinkers.
CNN Audio’s Eryn Mathewson contributed to this report.
