This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

For people involved with research and advocacy about climate change, the results of last week’s presidential election sting.

To get a sense of what’s to come and what’s needed to ensure domestic climate action continues, I spoke with Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and author who teaches at Texas Tech University and is chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy.

She is one the country’s best-known communicators about climate change and often talks about how her religious faith informs her views about protecting the environment. Her 2021 book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World, was not written for this moment, but might as well have been.

She specified that she was speaking for herself and not for her employer or any organization. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

How are you feeling about the election results?

Disappointed and concerned. I was a lead author of the National Climate Assessment under the last Trump administration, and, as you know, I am firmly of the conviction that a thermometer does not give you a different answer depending on how you vote. A hurricane does not knock on your door and ask you which political party you’re registered with before it destroys your home.

Climate change is no longer a future issue. It’s already affecting us today. It’s affecting our health. It’s affecting the economy, which was a big factor in this election. It’s affecting the safety of people’s homes, the cost that they’re paying for insurance and for groceries, and it’s putting our future and that of our children on the line.

I want to see politicians arguing over who has the best solutions to climate change. I want them arguing over how to accelerate the clean energy transition. I want them to have competing proposals for how to build resilience and how to invest in the infrastructure and the food and the water systems that we need to ensure that people have a better and more resilient future. And unfortunately, I don’t think that’s what we’re going to see with this administration. Of course, I would be absolutely delighted to be proved wrong.

What’s a good mindset going forward for people who care about supporting the energy transition?

That’s a great question, because our mindset really determines what we focus on and what we can accomplish. So in terms of our mindset, I am an advocate for recognizing, first of all, that the situation is dire, and on many fronts. It’s already getting worse. People might be surprised to hear me say that, because often I’m tagged as a relentless optimist. But for me, hope begins with recognizing how bad the situation is, because you don’t need hope when everything’s fine. And I’m a scientist, so I have a front row seat to what’s happening in terms of climate impacts, and the biodiversity crisis, the pollution crisis and more. So our mindset has to begin with a realistic look at what’s happening and how it is already affecting us. We cannot sugar coat it.

But that is only one side of the coin. The other side of the coin has to be focused on what real solutions look like. And when we lose hope, we tend to look for silver bullets, for one solution that if everybody did this, it would fix the problem. There are no silver bullets, but there’s a lot of silver buckshot, so to speak. If we put it all together, we have more than enough of what we need.

And often, too, when we lose hope and when we’re discouraged and frustrated, I see a tendency to turn on each other, to say, ‘Well, you know, you’re not doing exactly what I think should be done, so I’m not going to talk to you or even work with you. I’m going to criticize what you’re doing.’ Now, more than ever, is a time to come together, to focus on what unites us rather than what divides us, to be focused on what we can accomplish together, even if different people come at it for different reasons. 

I really feel like, in the next four years, we need to lean into collaborations and partnerships and solutions that have multiple wins for both people and the planet. So one group of people might be advocating for solutions because it has an immediate health benefit. Others might see the immediate economic benefit. Others might see the benefit for nature. For too long, we’ve worked in silos, and now we don’t have time for single wins. We need multiple wins. We need partners that are in it for multiple reasons, and the more we focus on what we can accomplish together, I think the more positive outcomes we’re going to see, and the more allies we’re going to gain, especially at the local to regional level.

You’ve talked about your faith and how it informs your thinking about climate. Does that help when facing the potential for adversity like we’re seeing now?

Oh yes, it definitely does. If you’re familiar with the Bible, you know that there are many, many passages that talk about incredibly negative circumstances and our mindset when confronting and addressing those. All through the Bible, whether you’re looking at David or whether you’re looking at the apostle Paul, there are so many stories and histories of people who confronted suffering and felt discouraged and frustrated at the situation that they were in.

I love the fact that you’re bringing up mindset multiple times. The most important part of my faith is not what it says about nature, but what it says about our attitudes and our mindsets. For example, there’s this one verse in Second Timothy, where Paul’s writing to Timothy, who he mentored, and he says, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, rather a spirit of power, of love and a sound mind.” And for me, that’s so impactful, because when I start to feel overcome or overwhelmed by fear, as many of us do when we’re dealing with these situations, I remind myself that that’s not coming from God.

What God has given us is a spirit of power, which is a bit of an old-fashioned way to say that we should be empowered, because research shows that when people are overwhelmed with fear it will paralyze us, and that’s the last thing we need right now. We need to be empowered to act.

The second part is the spirit of love, because love considers others. It’s not just about ourselves, it’s not selfish. It’s about other people and other things that are being affected, in most cases, more than we are.

And then the last part is about a sound mind. Our sound mind can use the information that we have to make good decisions, and so that is really my own litmus test for how I’m making decisions…not out of fear, but out of power, love and a sound mind.

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

For people involved with research and advocacy about climate change, the results of last week’s presidential election sting.

To get a sense of what’s to come and what’s needed to ensure domestic climate action continues, I spoke with Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and author who teaches at Texas Tech University and is chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy.

She is one the country’s best-known communicators about climate change and often talks about how her religious faith informs her views about protecting the environment. Her 2021 book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World, was not written for this moment, but might as well have been.

She specified that she was speaking for herself and not for her employer or any organization. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

How are you feeling about the election results?

Disappointed and concerned. I was a lead author of the National Climate Assessment under the last Trump administration, and, as you know, I am firmly of the conviction that a thermometer does not give you a different answer depending on how you vote. A hurricane does not knock on your door and ask you which political party you’re registered with before it destroys your home.

Climate change is no longer a future issue. It’s already affecting us today. It’s affecting our health. It’s affecting the economy, which was a big factor in this election. It’s affecting the safety of people’s homes, the cost that they’re paying for insurance and for groceries, and it’s putting our future and that of our children on the line.

I want to see politicians arguing over who has the best solutions to climate change. I want them arguing over how to accelerate the clean energy transition. I want them to have competing proposals for how to build resilience and how to invest in the infrastructure and the food and the water systems that we need to ensure that people have a better and more resilient future. And unfortunately, I don’t think that’s what we’re going to see with this administration. Of course, I would be absolutely delighted to be proved wrong.

What’s a good mindset going forward for people who care about supporting the energy transition?

That’s a great question, because our mindset really determines what we focus on and what we can accomplish. So in terms of our mindset, I am an advocate for recognizing, first of all, that the situation is dire, and on many fronts. It’s already getting worse. People might be surprised to hear me say that, because often I’m tagged as a relentless optimist. But for me, hope begins with recognizing how bad the situation is, because you don’t need hope when everything’s fine. And I’m a scientist, so I have a front row seat to what’s happening in terms of climate impacts, and the biodiversity crisis, the pollution crisis and more. So our mindset has to begin with a realistic look at what’s happening and how it is already affecting us. We cannot sugar coat it.

But that is only one side of the coin. The other side of the coin has to be focused on what real solutions look like. And when we lose hope, we tend to look for silver bullets, for one solution that if everybody did this, it would fix the problem. There are no silver bullets, but there’s a lot of silver buckshot, so to speak. If we put it all together, we have more than enough of what we need.

And often, too, when we lose hope and when we’re discouraged and frustrated, I see a tendency to turn on each other, to say, ‘Well, you know, you’re not doing exactly what I think should be done, so I’m not going to talk to you or even work with you. I’m going to criticize what you’re doing.’ Now, more than ever, is a time to come together, to focus on what unites us rather than what divides us, to be focused on what we can accomplish together, even if different people come at it for different reasons. 

I really feel like, in the next four years, we need to lean into collaborations and partnerships and solutions that have multiple wins for both people and the planet. So one group of people might be advocating for solutions because it has an immediate health benefit. Others might see the immediate economic benefit. Others might see the benefit for nature. For too long, we’ve worked in silos, and now we don’t have time for single wins. We need multiple wins. We need partners that are in it for multiple reasons, and the more we focus on what we can accomplish together, I think the more positive outcomes we’re going to see, and the more allies we’re going to gain, especially at the local to regional level.

You’ve talked about your faith and how it informs your thinking about climate. Does that help when facing the potential for adversity like we’re seeing now?

Oh yes, it definitely does. If you’re familiar with the Bible, you know that there are many, many passages that talk about incredibly negative circumstances and our mindset when confronting and addressing those. All through the Bible, whether you’re looking at David or whether you’re looking at the apostle Paul, there are so many stories and histories of people who confronted suffering and felt discouraged and frustrated at the situation that they were in.

I love the fact that you’re bringing up mindset multiple times. The most important part of my faith is not what it says about nature, but what it says about our attitudes and our mindsets. For example, there’s this one verse in Second Timothy, where Paul’s writing to Timothy, who he mentored, and he says, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, rather a spirit of power, of love and a sound mind.” And for me, that’s so impactful, because when I start to feel overcome or overwhelmed by fear, as many of us do when we’re dealing with these situations, I remind myself that that’s not coming from God.

What God has given us is a spirit of power, which is a bit of an old-fashioned way to say that we should be empowered, because research shows that when people are overwhelmed with fear it will paralyze us, and that’s the last thing we need right now. We need to be empowered to act.

The second part is the spirit of love, because love considers others. It’s not just about ourselves, it’s not selfish. It’s about other people and other things that are being affected, in most cases, more than we are.

And then the last part is about a sound mind. Our sound mind can use the information that we have to make good decisions, and so that is really my own litmus test for how I’m making decisions…not out of fear, but out of power, love and a sound mind.

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The final days of this election season are wearying for the people who do research and advocacy on the transition away from fossil fuels.

For this group, the Biden administration has been a champion, developing landmark legislation and building a policy team that included some of the brightest experts from universities and think tanks. Vice President Kamala Harris would continue on this path.

And yet, polling indicates that there is about a 50-50 chance that President Joe Biden’s successor will be former president Donald Trump, whose antipathy for the energy transition includes talk of “wind cancer” and close ties to the oil industry.

I spoke with four nonprofit leaders this week to get an idea of how they are feeling about the election. All of the groups they represent are nonpartisan, but their worldviews tend to be much more in line with those of Harris than Trump.

“We need to pick up the pace, and that certainly will not be the case under the wrong federal leadership.”

“I feel very nervous, because this election seems like it’s going to be very close, and one of the candidates is an anti-democratic fascist who seems not to be interested in respecting the results of what are very safe and secure elections,” said John Farrell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

His organization, with offices in Washington, DC, Portland, Maine, and Minneapolis, works to make energy systems more democratic by decentralizing the sources of electricity and encouraging community ownership of utilities.

The Biden administration has taken many actions that support the institute’s agenda, including extending and expanding incentives for rooftop solar.

“This could be really stressful next week for people, and everybody’s going to react in different ways,” he said. “Some people might be like, ‘I just want to bury myself in my work,’ and other people may be like, ‘I need to take two days off and just not look at anything.’”

Sonia Aggarwal, CEO of the think tank Energy Innovation, came to her current role after serving in the Biden administration as special assistant to the president for climate policy, innovation, and deployment.

“Just looking at the two paths we have in front of us, I would say they could not be more different in terms of American leadership, in terms of our economy and, of course, in terms of climate and our energy choices,” she said. “I think they couldn’t be more different in terms of the capability for people to have good lives and take control of their energy bills, reduce those energy bills and make them less volatile.”

Energy Innovation, based in San Francisco, does analysis of what various policy options would do for the climate, public health and energy markets.

“I think it’s a stark choice, and there’s no minimizing that,” she said.

One comfort, she said, is that renewable energy technologies are inexpensive and will grow in the market regardless of who is president. But policies matter a lot, and can hinder the rate of growth. “We need to pick up the pace, and that certainly will not be the case under the wrong federal leadership,” she said.

I found less alarm when talking to people who mainly work with state governments.

“Clean energy is a bipartisan issue,” said Simon Mahan, executive director of the Southern Renewable Energy Association, a trade group based in Little Rock, Arkansas. “While all eyes will be on the presidential election, arguably the state-level elections have a larger impact on the nation’s energy policy.”

Inside Climate News has written about some of these state-level races, including three seats on the Arizona Corporation Commission and one seat on the Texas Railroad Commission. “State-level energy policy has been an underappreciated venue for supporting reliable, clean, low cost energy resources,” he said.

Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director of the California Solar and Storage Association, agrees. Her trade group is based in Sacramento.

“Obviously there’s a lot of attention on the top of the ticket this year but what matters most for the transition to clean energy is who sits in your governor’s office, who runs your state legislature and how many local mayors champion rooftop solar,” she said.

Her view is informed by recent clashes with California Gov. Gavin Newsom on a variety of issues that affect the financial benefits of solar and energy storage.

“Despite the actions of the Biden administration and Congress, the Newsom administration clobbered rooftop solar, costing us tens of thousands of jobs, dozens of company bankruptcies and set our market back 10 years,” she said. “The same could be said about the experiences of Hawaii, Arizona and other states.”

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The final days of this election season are wearying for the people who do research and advocacy on the transition away from fossil fuels.

For this group, the Biden administration has been a champion, developing landmark legislation and building a policy team that included some of the brightest experts from universities and think tanks. Vice President Kamala Harris would continue on this path.

And yet, polling indicates that there is about a 50-50 chance that President Joe Biden’s successor will be former president Donald Trump, whose antipathy for the energy transition includes talk of “wind cancer” and close ties to the oil industry.

I spoke with four nonprofit leaders this week to get an idea of how they are feeling about the election. All of the groups they represent are nonpartisan, but their worldviews tend to be much more in line with those of Harris than Trump.

“We need to pick up the pace, and that certainly will not be the case under the wrong federal leadership.”

“I feel very nervous, because this election seems like it’s going to be very close, and one of the candidates is an anti-democratic fascist who seems not to be interested in respecting the results of what are very safe and secure elections,” said John Farrell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

His organization, with offices in Washington, DC, Portland, Maine, and Minneapolis, works to make energy systems more democratic by decentralizing the sources of electricity and encouraging community ownership of utilities.

The Biden administration has taken many actions that support the institute’s agenda, including extending and expanding incentives for rooftop solar.

“This could be really stressful next week for people, and everybody’s going to react in different ways,” he said. “Some people might be like, ‘I just want to bury myself in my work,’ and other people may be like, ‘I need to take two days off and just not look at anything.’”

Sonia Aggarwal, CEO of the think tank Energy Innovation, came to her current role after serving in the Biden administration as special assistant to the president for climate policy, innovation, and deployment.

“Just looking at the two paths we have in front of us, I would say they could not be more different in terms of American leadership, in terms of our economy and, of course, in terms of climate and our energy choices,” she said. “I think they couldn’t be more different in terms of the capability for people to have good lives and take control of their energy bills, reduce those energy bills and make them less volatile.”

Energy Innovation, based in San Francisco, does analysis of what various policy options would do for the climate, public health and energy markets.

“I think it’s a stark choice, and there’s no minimizing that,” she said.

One comfort, she said, is that renewable energy technologies are inexpensive and will grow in the market regardless of who is president. But policies matter a lot, and can hinder the rate of growth. “We need to pick up the pace, and that certainly will not be the case under the wrong federal leadership,” she said.

I found less alarm when talking to people who mainly work with state governments.

“Clean energy is a bipartisan issue,” said Simon Mahan, executive director of the Southern Renewable Energy Association, a trade group based in Little Rock, Arkansas. “While all eyes will be on the presidential election, arguably the state-level elections have a larger impact on the nation’s energy policy.”

Inside Climate News has written about some of these state-level races, including three seats on the Arizona Corporation Commission and one seat on the Texas Railroad Commission. “State-level energy policy has been an underappreciated venue for supporting reliable, clean, low cost energy resources,” he said.

Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director of the California Solar and Storage Association, agrees. Her trade group is based in Sacramento.

“Obviously there’s a lot of attention on the top of the ticket this year but what matters most for the transition to clean energy is who sits in your governor’s office, who runs your state legislature and how many local mayors champion rooftop solar,” she said.

Her view is informed by recent clashes with California Gov. Gavin Newsom on a variety of issues that affect the financial benefits of solar and energy storage.

“Despite the actions of the Biden administration and Congress, the Newsom administration clobbered rooftop solar, costing us tens of thousands of jobs, dozens of company bankruptcies and set our market back 10 years,” she said. “The same could be said about the experiences of Hawaii, Arizona and other states.”

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

A large majority of people tell pollsters they support renewable energy. But when ordinances and projects come before local governments, opponents show up more often than supporters.

Greenlight America, a new national nonprofit, wants to change this. I spoke with its co-founders this week in one of their first interviews about their mission and strategy.

The group launched last year, has raised $5 million and has a staff of about 20. It is incorporated in Washington, DC, with employees all over the country.

Matt Traldi, CEO and co-founder, said he takes inspiration from the way the labor movement prioritizes local voices and focuses on organizing. He was a co-founder of Indivisible, an advocacy group formed to counter the policy agenda of Donald Trump, and previously he spent a decade working for labor unions.

“There’s a lot of support out there for clean energy projects,” he said. But he found that supporters sometimes “don’t know when and where to show up.”

The stakes are high. The United States needs to add vast amounts of renewable energy to be able to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and avoid the worst effects of climate change. Local opposition has slowed or canceled many projects.

“One way to think about Greenlight is as a counterweight to groups that oppose renewable energy, such as Virginia-based Citizens for Responsible Solar.”

Greenlight America aims to alert local groups and people of the issues in their communities, and foster greater participation by people who support a shift to cleaner energy.  “The reality is that most people aren’t reading agendas or minutes of their local government proceedings, and most organizations in the nonprofit space aren’t focused at the local level,” said Ari Appel, chief program officer and co-founder.

He previously ran campaigns for environmental and renewable advocacy organizations, such as Building Back Together, which seeks to support the implementation of President Joe Biden’s climate and clean energy legislation.

Ethan Todras-Whitehill, chief communications officer and co-founder, said Greenlight wants to give renewable energy supporters “the information and the training they need to feel comfortable going up there and standing up in front of their town council.”

He previously founded Swing Left, which works to elect Democrats in state legislatures.

While the co-founders have deep ties to groups that support Democrats, they emphasized that Greenlight is nonpartisan. Public opinion research, such a 2023 report from Pew Research Center, shows that support for renewable energy is strong across partisan lines.

And yet opponents of renewable energy projects are often highly organized at the local level to the point that supporters of projects feel ostracized and are reluctant to speak.

People fight renewable energy for a variety of reasons. The most common one I’ve observed is concern about how a project will change the look and feel of a place, which is something I can sympathize with, especially for people who live closest to the site. The benefits of development—for the environment and the local tax base—get talked about much less.

One way to think about Greenlight is as a counterweight to groups that oppose renewable energy, such as Virginia-based Citizens for Responsible Solar.

“We’re very much students of the opposition,” said Traldi, the CEO. He compared this to how Indivisible took lessons from how the Tea Party movement organized against President Barack Obama.

But it would be an oversimplification to say Greenlight is a pro-renewables version of groups that oppose the projects. Opposition organizations tend to focus on disseminating misleading information to make people fear renewable energy. A common message is to say or imply that solar farms are a threat to human health—which isn’t true.

In contrast, Greenlight views itself as more of an organizer and convener, and won’t necessarily get into the specifics of what is discussed in local campaigns.

Greenlight’s agenda overlaps with that of renewable energy developers, but it doesn’t take money from developers.

An example is how the group participated in a debate this year in Erie County, Pennsylvania: The County Council was considering revisions to its solar ordinance that contained a provision saying a project needed to have an interconnection agreement with the regional grid operator to be able to apply for a building permit.

The provision would essentially shut down new permits because the grid operator is working through a years-long backlog of processing applications for interconnection. In most other jurisdictions, a developer would get their building permit at the same time they are waiting in a queue for grid access.

It’s not clear to me whether the proposal was a deliberate attempt to hinder development. Regardless, Greenlight learned of it and then got in touch with groups that typically support renewable energy to speak to the County Council.

Records from council meetings show that local representatives from Solar United Neighbors and PennFuture, nonprofits that support renewable energy development, spoke about what the proposal would do and urged the council to remove the provision. The council followed this advice.

“A coalition came together really quickly,” said Jenny Tomkins, a PennFuture clean water campaign manager, who is based near Erie.

The ability of local and national groups to collaborate was essential and Greenlight helped to bring the parties together, she said.

“Local folks provide firsthand knowledge of the proposed projects, community concerns and tight-knit relationships with local elected officials,” she said. “The statewide and national groups bring lessons learned from other communities, relationships with the solar industry and legal and policy expertise.”

Greenlight’s agenda overlaps with that of renewable energy developers, but it doesn’t take money from developers. This is an important distinction because opposition campaigns like to say supporters are acting out of financial self-interest.

Success for the organization means local people show up to participate, and this helps to nudge officials. Don’t expect Traldi or his colleagues to stand up to speak in your town. But if Greenlight can find ways to fill seats and dockets, it could change the dynamics of local debates.