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Roula Khalaf, editor of the FT, picks her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
One morning, not too long ago, I came to my desk in the office and told everyone within earshot that I had just done something unexpected and depressing.
My 19 year old Toyota died suddenly and in the rush to replace it, I ended up buying another petrol-electric hybrid instead of the all-electric plug-in car that my partner and I always thought would come next.
Most of my colleagues listened politely as I rambled on about how my partner urgently needed another car as he was in the middle of a project that required him to make 340 mile round trips to a remote part of Wales at short notice.
They chattered sympathetically about those journeys and my unfortunate visions of said partner stuck in a Tesco car park staring at a pile of broken electric car chargers on a wintry Welsh night.
They agreed that, even at home in London, finding a working, empty charger can be daunting. That is, most of them agreed. One colleague had neither sympathy nor understanding. He was visibly disgusted.
What I did, he said, was incredible. Now there were plenty of chargers on all the main roads. Anyone who said otherwise was wrong. He has been crossing half of Europe in his electric car for years without any problems.
When I started stuttering that price was also a factor, and that even the cheapest decent used electric cars were beyond my ideal budget, he jumped online and started searching Auto Trader to show that I wasn’t looking hard enough.
I prayed he’d find Tesla, so I could sublimely remind him that I just did written about the way Elon Musk’s antics put me off buying his cars. But work commitments intervened and the conversation ended, relieved that we were sitting just steps away.
The incident sticks in my mind for several reasons, the main one being the realization that my colleague, who is one of my favorite FT people and an inspiring early adopter of green technology, was almost certainly right. I would probably find a more satisfactory EV with more effort.
At the same time, being on the receiving end of a powerful onslaught of climate shaming was a poignant reminder of how carefully peer pressure needs to be applied to encourage more environmentally friendly behavior, whether at work or at home.
There is no doubt that influencing others can be a powerful tool for climate policy. Research has long shown that one of the main reasons people put solar panels on their roofs isn’t because they’re affluent or environmentally minded. That’s because their neighbors did it first.
If you live within 500 meters of a visible rooftop solar system, you are more likely to install it yourself analysis households in Connecticut, with each visible plaque increasing your odds of following suit by 6.5 percent.
Other studies of solar energy adoption have found similar evidence of this so-called social contagion effect, which can also have an impact companies and farms.
There is also the classic green push case of Opower, an American home energy management software group. Its products enable utilities to offer people personalized reports that show how their energy use compares to that of their neighbors.
Early studies showed that such reports led to an average 2 percent a drop in household energy consumption, which has decreased in the meantime billions of dollars from customer accounts.
But there is a catch, says climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe.
The long-term analysis found political conservatives wield more power than average and don’t actually support green charities increased their electricity consumption after receiving this type of information.
“If we think we’re ashamed of doing something, it makes us feel—or sometimes even do—just the opposite,” Hayhoe writes in his book on climate communication, Saving us.
She thinks people are more likely to be persuaded if they are simply shown the benefits of an environmentally friendly behavior or product, whether it’s taking the train instead of flying — or buying an electric car.
I’m sure he’s right, but I don’t blame anyone who suffers from the frustration my colleague felt at my poor EV effort.
At a time when the deepening climate threat is becoming visibly worse, and fears about the problem are getting upthere should be no need for poking, shaming or showing off. System-wide policies should make green behavior the obvious, easiest and most financially desirable choice. Unfortunately, this is still more the exception than the norm.
