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Choosing joy over guilt and shame can make climate-friendly habits easier to sustain while improving your own well-being along the way.
Summary: Fear may grab our attention, but research suggests joy is what helps us make meaningful, sustainable climate choices. On this episode of The Science of Happiness, discover how small shifts can have a big impact. Scientists Elizabeth Dunn and Jiaying Zhao share how reframing climate action around happiness instead of guilt can help us build healthier habits, strengthen our communities, and care for the Earth.
How To Do This Practice:
- Choose one everyday habit: Pick a part of your routine like eating, commuting, shopping, or reducing food waste where you'd like to make a climate-friendly change.
- Focus on what you can add: Instead of thinking about what to give up, ask yourself what you can enjoy more, such as eating more seasonal produce, walking outdoors, or spending time tending a garden.
- Notice how it feels: As you try your new habit, pay attention to moments of enjoyment, connection, pride, or calm. Positive emotions help make new behaviors stick.
- Make it easy: Remove small barriers that get in your way. For example, keep fresh fruits and vegetables where you’ll see them first so they don’t go bad, and pack light when you fly to avoid the extra carbon emissions from checked bags.
- Share it with someone else: Invite a friend or family member to join you or tell them about a climate-friendly habit you've enjoyed. Positive experiences are more likely to spread than guilt.
- Reflect on the impact: Consider how your small change affected both your well-being and the planet, and choose one joyful habit you'd like to continue.
Today’s Guests:
DR. ELIZABETH DUNN is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, who studies the ways that time, money and technology affect our wellbeing.
Learn more about Dr. Elizabeth Dunn here: https://dunn.psych.ubc.ca/
DR. JIAYING ZHAO is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at UBC, Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Sustainability, and UBC Sauder Distinguished Scholar.
Learn more about Dr. Jiaying Zhao here: https://psych.ubc.ca/profile/jiaying-zhao/
Related Science of Happiness episodes:
Climate, Hope, & Science Series: https://tinyurl.com/pb27rep
The Case for Hope, with Rebecca Solnit: https://tinyurl.com/4cj3umbz
What Humans Can Learn From Trees: https://tinyurl.com/48te84ps
Related Happiness Break episodes:
How To Ground Yourself in Nature: https://tinyurl.com/25ftdxpm
How to Be in Harmony in Nature—Wherever You Are, With Yuria Celidwen: https://tinyurl.com/5n6pfsn2
Contemplating Our Interdependence With Nature, With Dekila Chungyalpa: https://tinyurl.com/3v84vye6
Message us or leave a comment on Instagram @scienceofhappinesspod. E-mail us at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or use the hashtag #happinesspod.
Help us share The Science of Happiness! Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or share this link with someone who might like the show: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap
Transcription:
JIAYING ZHAO: Liz approached me and she said, "Can we make climate action feel happy instead of miserable?" And that gave me a light bulb moment. The vast majority of Americans and people around the world care about climate change. They're concerned. They wanna do something. Almost everyone wants to act on climate change, and I think joy is one kind of powerful tool to bring everybody on board, instead of using the current narrative, which is divisive.
ELIZABETH DUNN: It's just been dominated by gloom, anxiety, fear, and those emotions are powerful and, you know, they have an important role to play in the conversation on climate change, but I think they just kind of elbowed everything else out. I think there's this whole sort of multiplicity of benefits of centering joy, and it doesn't mean shame and anxiety and fear. They can still come to the party if they want. I just want happiness there, too, playing an important role.
SHUKA KALANTARI: Welcome to The Science of Happiness. I'm Shuka Kalantari. Centering joy in our lives can feel radical, especially when it comes to climate change, but sometimes it's exactly what we need to move us forward. The science is clear that human activity is affecting our planet, and we have three years to make significant changes to ward off catastrophic global warming. This reality can feel heavy, often bringing up overwhelm, anxiety, or guilt as we start to wonder if we're doing enough. Fear may grab attention, but studies suggest it's positive emotions that more reliably drive climate action, helping people turn good intentions into sustained habits. On today's show, scientists Dr. Elizabeth Dunn and Dr. Jiaying Zhao share a different engine for change, how happiness can motivate us in ways that fear and shame can't.
ELIZABETH DUNN: In fact, so many of the things that we need to do in order to tackle climate change are actually good for our happiness, too.
JIAYING ZHAO: We spent thousands of hours working together in the last couple years to develop this happy climate approach to focus on joy.
SHUKA KALANTARI: Later, they share some interesting facts about food consumption.
ELIZABETH DUNN: If I were to leave the lights on in my home for the rest of my life, it would be equivalent, in terms of carbon emissions, to eating 13 hamburgers.
SHUKA KALANTARI: And joyful ways to help people make better decisions.
ELIZABETH DUNN: The piece of this that worked on my 13-year-old son in getting him to eat more fruits and vegetables is that there's some research suggesting that when you start eating more fruits and vegetables, it improves the color of your skin.
SHUKA KALANTARI: We'll hear Dacher Keltner's conversation with them after a short break.
SHUKA KALANTARI: Welcome back to The Science of Happiness. I'm Shuka Kalantari. I'm excited to share today's show with you because we're talking about something that impacts all living things.
BBC WORLD SERVICE: Spring is arriving earlier by the decade, so we know that trees are blooming earlier in spring almost everywhere in the planet.
SBS NEWS: The emperor penguins are struggling in a changing climate.
FRANCE 24 NEWS: Now, here in France, half the country is now under red alert as temperatures are expected to climb further amid a brutal heatwave.
SHUKA KALANTARI: In an historic ruling for climate justice, the International Court of Justice recently affirmed that it's a human right to live in a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. And while global powers and profit margins continue to leave their mark, there's everyday choices we can make to make a real difference. Our guests are Dr. Elizabeth Dunn, who studies the ways that time, money, and technology affect our wellbeing, and Dr. Jiaying Zhao, a behavioral and sustainability scientist studying what drives changes in human behavior. Together, they're working to shift how we think about the climate in their new book, Leave the Lights On: How Joyful Decisions Can Save Our Species. Here's their conversation with our host, Dacher Keltner.
DACHER KELTNER: Liz and JZ, thanks for being here today, and congratulations on your book. Oh, thank you so much for having me, Dacher. I'm so happy to be here. You know, there are so many great collaborations in science, in psychological science, that we often head into new terrains when we join forces. JZ is the founder of the Behavioral Sustainability Lab at the UBC, University of British Columbia, and Liz is a scientist of happiness. But there's a story about how you guys joined forces that has to do with a bike. So what happened?
ELIZABETH DUNN: So I was biking to work one day, and I was thinking about climate change, as you do. As I was biking, it kinda dawned on me that I bike to work 'cause I arrive in a better mood than if I fight traffic driving. And then I realized that so many of the things that we need to do in order to tackle climate change are actually good for our happiness, too. So it was sort of a striking thought for me, so when I got to work, I actually made a beeline for my colleague JZ, knowing that she's one of the world's leading experts on the behavioral side of sustainability. At the time, JZ and I did not know each other very well. I think I walked over to her with kind of a crazy look in my eye- ... and started just spilling this idea out to her.
JIAYING ZHAO: So Liz approached me that day at the end of a faculty meeting when I was deadly bored. And she said, "Can we make climate action feel happy instead of miserable?" And that gave me a light bulb moment. This is actually the first principle of behavior change. It's operant conditioning, meaning if we do something and we feel better, we are more likely to do it, repeat it, and do more of it. At the time I was designing the perfect compost bin so people would throw all food waste into compost as opposed to garbage.
DACHER KELTNER: So you're working on a composting bin. I've just started composting, and I do find it very joyful, but like, so how does this new frame get you to think about the composting bin and encouraging people to do that?
JIAYING ZHAo: So instead of saying zero waste or you need to compost or worse, shame people for not composting, I think the joy-focused approach will be, you know, actually would like to ask you what brings you joy in composting?
DACHER KELTNER: I love the idea that I'm not putting big bags of trash into my trash can, and my trash has been diminished dramatically. And most importantly, I love mixing it in with the soil near the plants-
JIAYING ZHAO: Ah ...
DACHER KELTNER: that I've planted.
JIAYING ZHAO: So contact with soil is actually very good for our health. Even being outdoors in nature, all of that is great for our happiness. So now you can turn composting into a joyful action. I think that's one of the things I do as well. I put my compost in the freezer so it doesn't smell, it doesn't drip, and then I bring that whole frozen paper bag down to the compost bin, and it's actually not that hard. It's easy, and I feel good for not wasting a lot of things.
DACHER KELTNER: So Liz, what did your knowledge about the social science of emotion and happiness tell us about how people respond to these different ways of framing climate action?
ELIZABETH DUNN: I think for one thing, as well as providing this really powerful reinforcer, it can also make us wanna tell other people about it. So if I really enjoy something, I may wanna share it with others, right? And it's a much more fun way to approach people than with sort of a wagging finger and this kind of shame approach.
DACHER KELTNER: It seems like a lot of the messages that I get about, "Don't drive," and, "Don't fly," and, "Don't eat red meat," and, "Don't eat sugar," and, "Watch out for cheese," this is what you shouldn't do, and they moralize it and, and then I justify alternative behaviors. It gets complicated.
ELIZABETH DUNN: Yeah. When people get really focused on moralizing, I think it's easy to lose sight of the real impact of our actions because it all becomes about who you are as a person as opposed to, you know, just a more rational look at how much of an impact you're having. I really experienced this with my now ex-boyfriend. He was a passionate advocate for climate change, which I really appreciated, but if I happened to wander out of the room without turning off the lights, he would shoot me this look like, you know, "Why do you hate the Earth?" And it was a source of tension in our relationship. And since then, I've actually learned from JZ, who everyone calls the human carbon calculator, that in fact, if I were to leave the lights on in my home for the rest of my life, it would be equivalent, in terms of carbon emissions, to eating 13 hamburgers.
DACHER KELTNER: And you guys are really advocating for a much more practical approach about just focus on the good things that you can do. Tell us about how that works and how you apply it.
JIAYING ZHAO: So it's a very simple reframe to tell people what to do instead. I think in a study we published this year shows that people are more likely to take those, do more good actions as opposed to do less bad, and actually feel happier thinking that they were taking those actions than do less bad.
DACHER KELTNER: There are a lot of scare tactics and illusions that may be leading us astray. So alongside, worried about the lights, like what are other kind of misconceptions we have?
JIAYING ZHAO: Oh, there are tons. One thing is a shopping bag. You know, we all obsess over getting a reusable cotton tote bag–I have plenty of. But do you know that a single organic cotton tote bag needs to be reused 20,000 times to offset the environmental impact of a single-use plastic bag? That's beyond my lifetime. So, so the lesson here is, if we do care about the actual impact on the environment, let's, you know, maybe have a few of those reusable items, one in the car, one at home, but don't have a ton, 'cause actually it generates the opposite impact.
ELIZABETH DUNN: And that said, there are lots of high impact things we can do to make a difference, and so it's worth actually just stopping and, like, learning what really matters, and that's why I've had so much fun spending all my time with the human carbon calculator and actually training up my intuitions to understand what matters and what I can just let go.
DACHER KELTNER: Give us a sense of, like, joyful climate decisions you both recommend. I'd love to hear from both of you for our listeners out there. I'll start with one. If you're flying this summer, you probably know that flying is pretty problematic for climate change. We can think about some flights we might cut, but if you need to fly, just bringing a carry-on bag instead of a checked bag makes a surprisingly big difference. In fact, I learned from JZ, the human carbon calculator, that bringing a typical checked bag on board a flight is equivalent to bringing an extra six-year-old child along with you in terms of carbon emissions. And you know, it turns out this really is the sweet spot because I don't spend nearly as much time standing anxiously by the baggage carousel thinking my bag is never gonna come. And so yeah, this is one that has really worked for me in my own life.
DACHER KELTNER: Travel light, don't check bags. Let's keep going. What else should we do?
JIAYING ZHAO: One thing is about money. So turns out it's not so much what we buy, it's where we keep our money. Every thousand dollars that you keep in a typical US bank or Canadian bank generates about the same carbon emissions as one flight from New York to Seattle every year. And that's because big banks take our savings and investments to put in the fossil fuel industry. What this is just a one-time decision is switch our banks to a climate friendly credit unions, and you can go to bank.green to look at which banks and credit unions are actually good for the climate.
DACHER KELTNER: Awesome. I love the practicality of this.
ELIZABETH DUNN: We've talked a lot about some of the small decisions we can make on a daily basis, but there's also an opportunity to make some big decisions and to think about incorporating climate change and happiness into those decisions. So one of the most important decisions that people make is where to live. It turns out that if you live in a place with clean energy, you can enjoy a very nice lifestyle while keeping your carbon impact low. So just as a concrete example, if you run an air conditioner in a typical living room in Vermont, which has clean energy, for one week, you'll emit about eight pounds of carbon, so the weight of a newborn baby. In contrast, you run that same air conditioner in Wyoming for a week, you're gonna emit a thousand pounds of carbon, the weight of a full-grown horse. And sometimes we don't have control over that, but the typical American moves about a dozen times in their lives. So if you are gonna move, maybe you're gonna start a family, you're thinking about taking a new kind of job, it's worth considering climate change and happiness in that decision.
SHUKA KALANTARI: Up next, we separate fact from fiction when it comes to food consumption and explore the simple choices that can make a real difference for ourselves and the planet.
ELIZABETH DUNN: When people have the foods they enjoy a little bit less often, it seems to enhance their capacity to savor those foods.
SHUKA KALANTARI: More with JZ and Elizabeth after the break.
SHUKA KALANTARI: Welcome back to The Science of Happiness. I'm Shuka Kalantari. We've been listening to a conversation between Dacher and scientists Elizabeth Dunn and Jiaying Zhao about the power of reframing climate action. Research shows that when it's presented as an opportunity rather than a sacrifice, people are more motivated to act and expect to feel happier doing it. That shift in perspective can begin with one of our most everyday decisions, what we eat. In this next part of the conversation, Elizabeth and JZ unpack the food choices that have the biggest impact and a few surprising misconceptions along the way.
DACHER KELTNER: In Leave the Lights On, your new book, you identify a number of sweet spots, just everyday choices, fundamental choices that we make as part of our daily life that can be part of effective climate action, and one is food. We know we waste 40% of our food in the United States. I don't know about Canada. Tell us just the broader picture before we dive into specifics, like why food? Why is it so important to the climate crisis?
JIAYING ZHAO: It's a decision we make multiple times a day, and food production is one of the drivers of carbon emissions around the world. As you said, in the US, that is actually below the global average. Globally, it's about half of the food produced is wasted, and it's not the farmers, it's not the truckers, it's not the businesses. It's actually 30% of that is consumers. We waste food ourselves, from the fridge, for instance. So there's a lot we can do to reduce food waste and choose better what we eat to be healthier, happier, and have a less carbon impact.
ELIZABETH DUNN: I would say, as a happiness researcher, I want people to enjoy food. I love food. I actually will admit, as somebody who wrote a book on climate change, I love steak, but what I do is I really do try to make it a treat, so have it as a special thing that I really enjoy and savor. And actually, some of my older research has shown that when people have the foods they enjoy a little bit less often, it seems to enhance their capacity to savor those foods. So this is a strategy I really put into action in my own life. I have not given up the high-carbon foods, but I do treat them as special, and I really savor them.
DACHER KELTNER: Talk to us a little bit about just a very rational, reasonable approach to beef. We know it's a problem. How else should we think about kinda just a rational approach to minimizing beef and shifting towards a plant-heavy diet?
JIAYING ZHAO: So instead of saying, "Eat less meat," we say, "Eat more plants." So it's a very simple reframe to tell people what to do instead.
ELIZABETH DUNN: Yeah, if I can just add, I think it's also just wonderful to shift the focus and go, "Let me just eat more fruits and vegetables." And especially in the summertime when there's nice produce available, just trying to incorporate more of it into our diet, and there's really exciting new research suggesting that eating more fruits and vegetables might actually improve our psychological wellbeing, too. And this is why we see eating more fruits and vegetables as a beautiful sweet spot for enhancing happiness and reducing emissions.
DACHER KELTNER: So you gotta expand on that, Liz. And it's so interesting culturally here in the United States, we've kinda moralized fruits and vegetables as, like, the stuff you should do. And I even have that attitude, like, "Okay, I gotta eat some kale. Ah." But tell us how... What are the specific pathways or mechanisms by which if I eat that kale or broccoli or some nice blueberries, how does that make me happier?
ELIZABETH DUNN: First off, some longitudinal research shows that when people start eating more fruits and vegetables, they seem to get happier, and it can't be explained away by things like, you know, "Oh, I got married, so I started eating kale." And some amazing randomized controlled trial evidence, too, is emerging suggesting that this really is a causal effect. And what I think is super exciting about it is we all, you know, we already knew that fruits and vegetables are good for our health. Some evidence suggests we can start to see psychological benefits from eating more fruits and vegetables in as little as a week. So we can get that kind of return on investment really fast. I will also just add the piece of this that worked on my 13-year-old son in getting him to eat more fruits and vegetables, is that there's some research suggesting that when you start eating more fruits and vegetables, it improves the color of your skin. So I think some of these immediate, more exciting benefits can potentially be a good draw to get people, even teenagers, eating more fruits and vegetables.
DACHER KELTNER: We've always got to appeal to vanity in order to produce effective change. JZ, Human Carbon Calculator, give us some basic facts to orient us to food and the meats and so forth in terms of carbon emissions. What do you want people to sort of take away from, like, here's what we think about the Impossible Burger or cheese or chicken or so forth. What should we know?
JIAYING ZHAO: I think make beef and lamb a treat if you can. Cut that down from, I don't know, if you eat it every day, down to maybe once or twice a week. That will make actually a substantial cut in your carbon footprint. Chicken is actually better than cheese, so you know, go for chicken. Wild-caught seafood is better than farmed, a lot better, actually, about a third of the emissions. And after that you have eggs and actually pork is not that bad. Pork is about a third of the carbon emissions as beef, about double that to seafood and chicken. So that's kind of the carbon ranking of the different foods. And the fruits and vegetables are just, don't even... Ignore them. They are rounding errors.
DACHER KELTNER: I'm gonna get really practical, and JZ, you talk about visual crowding, the clutter in our environments, kinda disrupts rational and principled approaches to things like more climate-friendly eating. And you even suggest that this kinda basic science helps us think about something fundamental, which is the refrigerator, right? That if a lot of our waste is coming out of individuals and families in the refrigerator, and that lettuce that is starting to rot in your drawer, whatever it may be. So how should we approach that practically, given that science?
JIAYING ZHAO: Yeah, so we're taught to put produce in the crisper drawers in the fridge, but then the downside of that is if they're kept away in the drawers, we forget about them. So I can't tell you how many times I have to throw out molded produce in the drawers. So what I've done was the opposite, where I actually put the produce, the perishables at the door of the fridge, and I move the containers that typically are placed at the door to the drawers that can last, that are durable. So this is essentially what I call feng shui the fridge, to bring the perishables more top of mind, more visible, and put the durables to the back of the fridge or in the drawers. And I can tell you I did that probably three or four years ago, and I have not wasted a single piece of food from the fridge.
DACHER KELTNER: Right on. I mean, I'm literally feeling inspired, and I'm grateful for that, as both of your research often leaves me feeling. You're really advocating just a, almost a new philosophical approach to how humans, individuals can take actions that are good for our wonderful earth. And I'd just love your final reflections on how we can sustain the long-term behavior change that we need to produce in these climate crises. How do you guys think about approaching it philosophically?
ELIZABETH DUNN: I think one of the key things is not to try to do this by ourselves in isolation from others. We really wanna get the other people around us on board, too. So my personal dream with our book is that people will take it to their book clubs and not just sort of read the book and move on, but actually talk about, okay, what are the changes we can make in our lives, and really support each other in moving toward more joyful low-carbon lifestyles. Because making change isn't easy, ever, and so having the support of others around us and having others trying to join us in making those changes I think really goes a long way.
DACHER KELTNER: How about you, JZ? How should we approach this?
JIAYING ZHAO: Your work actually gave me the inspiration for this idea, which is awe, and this is relevant to vacation. So instead of flying away for vacation to a faraway distance, one recommendation, stay home. Stay in your hometown. Be a hometown tourist. And the way I did it was we have stayed in pretty much every single hotel in Vancouver, and in particular up on the mountains so we can see downtown where I live. And when I see the view of Vancouver as a whole, that inspires awe. That gives me a sense of, you know, renewed connection to my hometown, and there's an effect called the overview effect, where we gain a renewed sense of appreciation for our home, our place, and that's building on awe that renews our connection, and it reduces carbon emissions from travel. So one recommendation is, you know, staycations. Be a hometown tourist.
DACHER KELTNER: Wonderful. Liz and JZ, thank you for this inspiring conversation. Thank you for the work you're doing. Thank you for your new book, Leave the Lights On: How Joyful Decisions Can Save Our Species, and thanks for joining us here.
ELIZABETH DUNN: Thanks so much for having us.
JIAYING ZHAO: Thank you.
SHUKA KALANTARI: Next time on The Science of Happiness, we explore what it takes to forgive instead of seeking revenge.
JAMES KIMMEL: Forgiveness is the wonder drug. It is the one that we can all use immediately right now, and we're not doing anything for the person who harmed us. We're not pardoning what happened to us. We're just taking care of ourselves and healing ourselves from the wrongs of the past.
SHUKA KALANTARI: We learn the science behind how letting go can bring us greater peace and help us live more in line with our values. Thank you for listening to The Science of Happiness. Our associate producers are Emily Brower and Anna Zou. Our producer is Truc Nguyen. Our sound designer is Jennie Cataldo of Accompany Studios. Our host is Dacher Keltner, and I'm the executive producer, Shuka Kalantari. Have a great day.
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