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I鈥檝e been nursing a wasteful idea for a few months. This week, I was afforded the opportunity to workshop said idea, or at least aerate it, like a well-tended compost heap. There is an increasingly codified How To Talk Climate With People Who Aren鈥檛 Like You body of research, and while I agree with the general gist (find shared interest, make it relatable), I鈥檝e long had a gnawing feeling that 鈥渇ind common ground鈥� is not as helpful a directive as it needs to be.

I picture a well-meaning activist talking to a MAGA hat. 鈥�Hey, you like hats? I like hats, too…so…climate change.鈥� For 鈥渇ind common ground鈥� to work it has to be deeply and earnestly felt. It must also be accompanied by a desire to listen, openly and honestly. That鈥檚 soooo hard. Sometimes you have no common ground. Sometimes you need pragmatic, instantaneous agreement. And so I humbly suggest: Get wasted!

Waste is a unifier. You don鈥檛 even have to believe in climate change to hate waste. Both a conservative and a liberal will not let you throw out that that last piece of molten chocolate cake. Both a conservative and liberal will tell you not to pour money into the garbage. Especially if there is already a delicious piece of chocolate cake in there that you can fish out.

At a literal level, waste is carbon emissions. Food waste, languishing in landfills, produces methane, which is 24 times as potent as carbon. And in Canada, a whopping 58% of the food we produce . Holy mother of a buffet! But at the same time, you can skip the emissions talk and keep it all about waste if you鈥檙e talking to a denier. Don鈥檛 save the food because you care about climate, save food because you鈥檙e thrifty and it鈥檚 delicious.

At a  I got to try this messaging out first-hand. The topic was how to make film production more energy efficient here in Canada, how to advocate for climate, how to lobby production and film agencies to level up our goals. An affable audience member raised his hand and said that while he wasn鈥檛 sure whether carbon was a thing (I paraphrase), he had worked on set for a long time and was put off by the waste, and wanted actionable steps to reduce it. Cue my handy, eminently appalling stat about food waste.

While I didn鈥檛 get to do a full exit interview with this friendly carbon skeptic, anecdotal evidence (gentle head nodding) suggests the idea of eradicating waste was landing. You can be as climate dubious as the last remaining Koch brother and still hate the idea of a useful thing going to waste. Fiscally minded conservatives are here for it. Conserving is in their name, after all.

Would this conversational weigh-in hold up to peer-reviewed scrutiny? I鈥檓 not sure, but if you have the opportunity to try out waste as a gateway climate convo, pretty please, with a salvaged cherry on top, let me know how it goes.

THIS WEEK: Waste Audit

What I love about food waste as a climate issue is both its salty salience, and the fact that it鈥檚 a continuum issue-one that can be worked on from the cozy personal dinner plate (buy less food, use it all) all the way to the macro (sweeping policy and industry systems change). What鈥檚 your food waste story?

LAST WEEK: Sleepless Nights

Write lovely Janou-Eve – 

I do not sleep well about climate change. I am afraid for my 8-year-old son鈥檚 future. I try to do everything I can in my power to reduce my waste. I eat biological (organic) food and support my local farmers with Equiterre鈥檚 farmer program. I work from home, and I buy trees to compensate my GES in French (greenhouse gas emission?). And I am about to write this graphic novel book.

(Note: Janou-Eve will be writing/drawing an amazing graphic book about all of this. I know that doing so will help with the sleeplessness! Just writing your thoughts out can help so much.)

CONTENT FOR YOU:

鈥� Dorkily excited about Bill McKibben鈥檚  (though it really could use a better name). Maybe you are too?

鈥� This week鈥檚 newsletter was brought to you by the film . (Well, not literally). It鈥檚 a slightly on-the-nose (to tail) doc that gives you much to think about when it comes to how we eat and waste, with surprisingly hilarious insights from Mario Batali, Dan Barber, and Anthony Bourdain (RIP). 

鈥� Need some climate hilarity and yet another way of reminding friends and ferns to TALK ABOUT CLIMATE? Watch Rick Roberts鈥� and Gord Rand鈥檚 absolutely perfect little video. Climate Mime FTW!

Play

As always, TELL ME HOW TO MAKE THIS BETTER! Shouty caps or no.
And heart if you like, heart twice if you don鈥檛.

Have a beautiful weekend!

Sarah

P.S. I鈥檓 always curious to know what you think. This is my newsletter for the week of February 21, 2020, published in partnership with 猫咪社区! Media You can sign up to get Minimum Viable Planet newsletter emailed directly to you at .