This week I’m excited to be handing this newsletter over to Leah Stokes . Leah is a fellow Canadian and University of Toronto grad who also lives and works in the States, like I do. She teaches environmental politics at UC Santa Barbara, has worked and spoken tirelessly on U.S. climate policy and climate solutions for many years, and has just written a new book, The Carbon Wave: A Story of Democracy, Parenthood, and the Race to Protect Our Planet.
In recognition of her work on and advocacy for climate solutions, Leah has been named to the TIME100 Next list and as one of Business Insider’s top 30 global climate leaders.
When not talking climate policy on CNN, Leah likes to garden, go on canoe trips (very Canadian), crochet, chase her twins, and spoil her cat.
Take it away, Leah!
Pundits keep insisting that talking about climate change is a losing strategy for candidates in the U.S. As I recently explained, though, data show the opposite is true.
My colleagues at UC Santa Barbara ran a national survey asking Americans to choose between two hypothetical political candidates. When one talked about climate change, voters were more likely to pick them. And candidates who made climate a top priority got a 4.5-point bump, bigger still among committed Democrats.
Voters are not forcing a choice between climate and affordability, healthcare, or childcare. Politicians shouldn’t force one either. Talk about all of it! Talking climate wins votes.
(👋 KH here – if this is true even in the U.S., where climate change has topped the list of the most polarized topics for over two decades, imagine how much more this could be the case in other countries!)
I live in California where, just a few weeks ago, Governor Gavin Newsom killed a program called CalSHAPE. This program helps California schools electrify with heat pumps, putting air conditioning in classrooms because kids need a safe place to learn. Heat pumps cool classrooms, clean the air, and cut pollution for the whole neighborhood.
I worked for years to save this program. The fund had almost $200 million sitting in the bank, money the state sat on and then let slip away. This happened while El Niño is already hammering Southern California, increasing the risk of autumn heatwaves, and in the same week that half a million kids in Southern California had their school days shortened or even taken online by extreme heat.
Failing to extend this program puts our kids at risk. I’m hopeful our state’s next governor will pick this back up and finally electrify California’s schools.
I often wrestle with the question of “what can we do to solve this problem?” So, I built a tool to answer it: the Carbon Wave Calculator. This interactive tool shows how everyday people can change the fossil fuel system through clean electricity and electrification.
As I write here, “This isn’t about your carbon footprint. Carbon pollution doesn’t fall because individuals perfect their ‘lifestyles.’ It falls when people create waves of change that transform our energy system away from dirty fossil fuels towards clean electricity and electrification. A footprint is what one person leaves behind, and the tide erases it. A wave is what people make together.”
Change starts at home: a heat pump, an electric vehicle, even an electric bike. Then it scales up — to your community, your city, your state, even federal policy.
That leap from your garage to the government can feel abstract. The calculator makes it concrete, and helps you find your next step. (👋 KH here – I love Leah’s new calculator. Check it out, and encourage others to do so as well!)
Thank you, Leah, for creating this helpful tool that encourages us all to act—and for reminding us that climate progress doesn’t just happen on its own. It takes all of us, working together, to keep pushing for change. That’s how we make it happen.
Leah will be taking her book across Canada and the east and west coasts of the United States this year! To find a tour date near you, read her book, or just check out her Carbon Wave Calculator tool, click here. You can also subscribe to her free Substack newsletter, listen to her podcast A Matter of Degrees, and follow her on Instagram, Bluesky, and X.
