How to Talk About Sustainability With Your Family at Thanksgiving

Holidays are a time when families get together, dinner is served, and Uncle Rick starts talking about how climate change is all a conspiracy. But take a deep breath, Risers! Instead of diving into the argument with gloves off (and right into an episode of family feud), here are some tips and tricks to tackle those difficult discussions about sustainability with skill and compassion (and still be excited to see everyone come Christmas).

First of all, it’s good to acknowledge that the topic of sustainability does get emotional. If you’re dialed in and worried about the current state of the climate, it can bring up a whole range of emotions. As a matter of fact, ‘climate grief’ is reported to affect mental health as much as it does physical health. So it’s no surprise that if a sustainable lifestyle is near and dear to your heart, you get, well, triggered by someone who seemingly sits on the opposite end of that spectrum.

When emotions are running high, it’s so easy to see people who don’t feel the same way as the enemy. But that starting point rarely leads to a productive conversation. As Katharine Hayhoe, Professor and Director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University, says that having those difficult conversations is the first step towards solving the problem. She points out that “it turns out that about three-quarters of people in the whole U.S. don’t even hear somebody else talk about climate change more than once or twice a year. And if we don’t talk about it, why would we care, if we don’t care, why would we act. So the action begins with the conversation.”

Bottom line, we need to talk about it. But how?