By Olivia Rosane and Cristen Hemingway Jaynes
Quick Key Facts
- Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide and is responsible for around one-third of current global heating.
- Atmospheric methane concentrations have increased by 256 percent since pre-industrial times.
- Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide but lasts for far less time in the atmosphere; over a 20-year period, methane traps 86 times more heat per unit of mass than CO2.
- Around 60 percent of methane emissions come from human-caused sources and 40 percent come from natural sources.
- Ninety percent of human-caused emissions come from three sources: fossil fuels, agriculture and waste storage.
- Currently existing strategies, if adopted, would be enough to curb methane emissions from these three sources by 45 percent by 2030.
- It is possible to cut methane emissions from oil and gas operations by 70 percent with existing technologies and methods and by 40 percent at no cost.
- Studies have shown that adding seaweed supplements to the diets of cattle can decrease their methane emissions by 82 percent for feedlot cattle, more than 50 percent for dairy cows and 42 percent for grazing cattle without harming the animals.
- As of 2023, only 13 percent of all methane emissions were covered by any sort of emissions-reduction policy.
- If everyone in the European Union limited their meat and dairy consumption by 34 percent, they would prevent six million metric tons of methane emissions per year.
What Is Methane?
What has no color or smell and is found in wetlands, cow burps and your basement furnace? The answer is methane — a powerful greenhouse gas that is the second most important contributor to the climate crisis after carbon dioxide (CO2). It is the primary component of natural gas, which currently generates around 25 percent of the world’s electricity.
Methane is a hydrocarbon composed of four hydrogen atoms bonded to a carbon atom. It is abundant in nature and can be formed by both geological and biological processes. Geologically, methane is typically created when heat and pressure are applied to decomposing plant and animal matter over millions of years. This is the source of most natural gas. Methane can also form deep underground without any organic matter through other processes. Biologically, methane is generated through something called methanogenesis, when certain underwater microorganisms called archaea produce methane as part of their oxygen-free respiration process. This is how methane is generated above ground, such as in wetlands or in the digestive tracts of termites and cows.
How Is Methane Measured?
Methane is measured via two main methods: bottom up and top down. These methods work almost exactly as they sound. Bottom-up approaches begin on the ground with a localized source of methane and expand outward. These assessments can either be based on direct measurements of a given facility’s methane emissions or by estimations based on general knowledge about the emitting animal or equipment. For example, to estimate the methane produced by a region or country’s beef or dairy sector, a bottom-up approach could multiply the methane emitted per cow by the number of cows being raised. A similar approach could be used to calculate the methane released by a county’s natural gas facilities or a region’s oil drilling operations.
Top down approaches often literally start in the sky with measurements of atmospheric methane, usually via airplane, high-altitude platforms or, increasingly, satellites. This data can then be combined with knowledge of where there are methane sources and sinks and used to create models of methane emissions.
Satellite image of methane emissions from a landfill in Kyrgyzstan on Feb. 4, 2021. GHGSat
As satellite technology improves, it is detecting super-emitting incidents that are not reflected in bottom-up approaches. For example, if a gas company assesses its methane emissions by multiplying the standard leak rate of a piece of equipment by the number of pieces of that equipment it uses, it will miss the five percent of extraordinary leaks that are responsible for more than half of all gas-industry leak emissions. Overall, direct measurements — whether from the ground or the air — are important for accurately measuring fossil fuel methane emissions in particular. One study found that direct measurements of U.S. oil and gas methane emissions were 60% higher than U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates. In general, improving methane measurements is essential for understanding and therefore controlling its emissions.
How Does Methane Contribute to the Climate Crisis?
Methane is a greenhouse gas, which means that, when it enters the atmosphere, it absorbs heat energy emitted from the planet and redirects it back toward the ground. There are natural methane sinks — namely soil and the troposphere, where methane is broken down into carbon dioxide and water vapor. These sinks are able to counteract naturally occurring methane emissions so that the gas does not build up in the atmosphere. However, human activities since the start of the industrial revolution — particularly the burning of fossil fuels, more intensive forms of agriculture and waste storage — have raised the concentration of methane in the atmosphere faster than natural sinks can absorb it.
As of 2023, the most recent year for which data is available, atmospheric methane concentration had soared by 265 percent to 1,934 ppb compared with pre-industrial levels. Around 60 percent of that methane was emitted due to human activities. That methane has contributed to around one-third of current global heating, second to CO2 at around two-thirds. If nothing is done to reduce methane emissions, they are projected to rise by 13 percent between 2020 and 2030.
Controlling methane emissions is essential for addressing the climate crisis because methane is both more potent than CO2 and also lasts for a shorter period of time in the atmosphere, approximately 12 years compared with hundreds. Over a 20-year period, methane traps 86 times more heat per unit of mass than CO2, which falls to 28 times more over 100 years. The combination of methane’s potency and relatively short atmospheric lifespan means that reducing methane emissions delivers a powerful bang for one’s buck in terms of rapidly curbing greenhouse gasses and stabilizing global temperatures. In fact, the Global Methane Assessment concluded that curbing methane “is very likely the strategy with the greatest potential to decrease warming over the next 20 years.” The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has calculated that methane emissions must be reduced by around 34 percent by 2030 when compared with 2019 levels in order to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
What Are the Main Sources of Methane?
Methane comes from both human and natural sources, with human-caused emissions responsible for around 60 percent of atmospheric methane and natural sources around 40 percent. More than 90 percent of current human-caused methane emissions come from three sources: agriculture, fossil fuels and waste storage. The burning of biomass and the use of biofuels also emit methane but are less important, as they are responsible for around five percent of emissions. Wetlands and freshwater are the leading source of natural methane emissions, followed by geological sources such as gas-oil seeps and volcanoes, termites, oceans, wild animals and permafrost. In addition, there are natural sources of methane that could play a larger role in the future as the climate crisis triggers various feedback loops.
Agriculture
Around 40 percent of human-caused methane emissions come from agriculture. The vast majority of these emissions are from livestock, which alone generate around 32 percent of human-caused methane emissions. This is primarily from enteric fermentation, which is how ruminant animals like cows, sheep and goats digest their food. Microbes in these animals’ digestive systems break down nutrients and produce methane as a byproduct. When it comes to methane emissions, cows raised for meat or milk are the primary contributors. Another way that livestock agriculture can generate methane is through the storage of manure, particularly that of pigs and cows. As meat consumption increases, these emissions are projected to rise by six million metric per year by 2030.
A second important agricultural contribution to human-caused methane emissions is the cultivation of rice at eight percent. Rice is grown in flooded patties, an environment that encourages the growth of methane-producing microbes. Finally, around one percent of human-caused methane emissions are caused by the burning of agricultural waste.
Fossil Fuels
The extraction and burning of fossil fuels contribute around 35 percent of human-caused methane emissions. Primarily, this occurs through the extraction, transport and use of oil and gas, at 23 percent of human-caused emissions. Methane is typically released during venting, when unwanted gas is released into the atmosphere during the extraction process, as well as through accidental leaks from extraction to transport to use. Emissions from oil and gas are expected to increase by 10 million metric tons per year by 2030, in particular because of the use of natural gas.
Around 12 percent of human-caused methane emissions are released during the process of mining coal, or from leaks from abandoned coal mines. Methane naturally occurs along coal seams, and can be released in several ways during the mining process: through seepage when the coal is exposed to the surface, through drainage systems, through ventilation systems to reduce methane buildup in a mine for safety reasons and from the coal itself as it is removed from the mine. Underground mines tend to emit more methane than surface mines, at 70 percent of mine emissions.
Certain fossil fuel projects emit massive amounts of methane at once, usually due to leaks or venting. These are called “super-emitters” and are detectable through satellite imaging. In 2022, researchers detected more than 1,005 human-caused super-emitter incidents — 559 at oil and gas fields and 105 at coal mines. The worst, in Turkmenistan, spewed 427 metric tons of methane per hour, the equivalent of the hourly emissions of France. As methane emissions increased in the 2010s, experts think that fossil fuel activities contributed as much as agriculture and waste storage combined.
Landfills and Waste
Around 20 percent of human-caused methane emissions come from landfills and waste management systems. This is because microbes present in wastewater treatment facilities and landfills release methane as they decompose the waste. This can generate lots of methane at once: Of the 1,005 super-emitter events identified by researchers in 2022, 340 were from waste sites.
Because of population growth and projected development in poorer countries, emissions from waste are expected to grow faster than from any other human-caused methane source at 13 million metric tons per year by 2030. The amount of human-disposed solid waste overall is expected to rise by 73 percent by 2050.
Wetlands
Wetlands are the predominant source of natural methane emissions, accounting for around one-third of total methane emissions. This is because wetlands — which cover around six percent of the Earth’s land area — are defined by having their soils saturated with water for all or part of the year. This creates a wet, oxygen-poor environment that creates ideal conditions for the archaea responsible for methanogenesis.
While wetlands would produce methane no matter what humans do, the climate crisis has led to an increase in wetland methane emissions in recent years due to temperature increases and changing rainfall patterns. This is known as the “wetland methane feedback.” Between 2000 and 2020, wetland methane emissions increased by 1.2 to 1.4 million metric tons per year, which is a higher rate than anticipated by the most pessimistic emissions scenarios. Scientists noted that these emissions saw “exceptional growth” in 2020 to 2021 in particular. The researchers traced this increase to two sources: tropical wetlands and permafrost wetlands.
Tropical wetlands are expanding their area due to climate-fueled changes in rainfall patterns and were the major driver of increased wetland methane emissions in the early 21st century. Permafrost wetlands are located in the Arctic and, as the name suggests, are partially frozen in addition to being waterlogged. When warmer temperatures cause permafrost to melt, they also unfreeze the microbes that release methane. Arctic wetlands have also expanded by 25 percent during the summer due to a rise in precipitation.
Oceans
The ocean is responsible for one to 13 percent of natural methane emissions through various mechanisms including geological marine seepage; emissions from ocean sediments or melting underwater permafrost; emissions near coastal areas where groundwater enters the sea; and the destabilization of methane hydrates, which are ice-like formations of methane and water on the seafloor. The largest concentration of methane on Earth is stored in these hydrates, and there are concerns that, as the climate crisis causes oceans to warm, these deposits might melt and release massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere. However, there is no evidence that any methane from these hydrates is currently reaching the atmosphere.
Positive Climate Feedback Loops
A positive feedback loop occurs when a change to a given system triggers other changes that amplify that initial change. In the case of the climate emergency, a positive feedback loop occurs when the impacts of global heating interact with Earth’s systems in ways that trigger more warming. When these changes pass a certain threshold, it can alter the system in dramatic and irreversible ways. This is called a climate tipping point.
Methane is involved in several positive feedback loops, of which the wetland methane feedback is just one example. Another related example is the thawing of the Arctic permafrost, frozen soils on land as well as beneath the Arctic Ocean. The material that is frozen beneath the permafrost contains plant and animal matter, as well as microbes that would produce methane if they thawed out. The permafrost beneath the ocean contains methane hydrates. This means that the Arctic currently contains 2.5 times more carbon underground than exists in the atmosphere. Thawing the permafrost would release all or some of that carbon, triggering a major tipping point. This process has already begun, with Arctic and Boreal methane emissions increasing by 9 percent since 2002. Scientists don’t know exactly how much methane the melting permafrost might ultimately release, but the region is currently on pace to release the greenhouse gas emissions of a major industrialized nation if nothing is done to reduce warming.
Another positive climate feedback loop involving methane is the increase in the frequency, severity and size of wildfires. A warmer climate makes the hot, dry conditions that fuel wildfires more likely, and these fires in turn release carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere as they burn, fueling more warming. Larger fires also tend to release more methane. One study found that California’s record-breaking 2020 wildfire season contributed almost 14 percent of the state’s total methane emissions for the year.
Methane and the ‘Bridge Fuel’ Myth
Another reason methane emissions might spike in the future is the expansion of gas production, including an increase in exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG). The development and spread of fracking in the U.S., Canada and Australia in particular has made gas much more abundant and set off a construction boom in infrastructure to export and import the fuel. The U.S. has massively increased its LNG exports since it lifted a ban on them in 2016, becoming the No. 1 natural gas exporter in the world by 2022. These exports doubled between 2019 and 2021 and will double again in four years if they continue.
Advocates of natural gas have argued that it is a “bridge fuel” from coal to more renewable sources of energy. This is because when burned for energy, coal emits twice as much carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour as natural gas. In the U.S., direct power plant emissions decreased by almost 40 percent in the first decades of the 21st century, as gas overtook coal as the country’s leading electricity fuel source. Proponents of exporting U.S. LNG argue that it would similarly displace coal use in Europe and Asia. However, this ignores the methane that leaks during the process of extracting and transporting LNG. If only 0.2 percent of methane leaks, it makes LNG as climate-warming as coal, and new data, including satellite imagery, suggests that the amount of methane leaks have been vastly underestimated. A 2023 study calculated that, when methane leaks are taken into account, LNG has a 33% greater global warming potential over 20 years than coal. Further, the Department of Energy recently concluded that LNG exports are more likely to replace renewable energy sources than coal.
This new understanding comes as more gas fields and LNG export and import terminals are being planned. A 2022 analysis found that there are 55 “methane bomb” gas fields whose future methane leaks would equal 30 years of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The current and proposed construction of LNG export terminals in the U.S., meanwhile, would cancel out any climate progress the nation has made, keeping its greenhouse gas emissions frozen at 2005 levels. As U.S. climate campaigner Bill McKibben warned, “If the LNG build-out continues — here and in Canada and Australia — its sheer size will overwhelm our efforts to rein in global warming.”
What Are Other Benefits to Reducing Methane Emissions?
While stopping the acceleration of the climate crisis is a major argument for reducing methane emissions, these emissions don’t just heat the atmosphere. They also contribute to ground-level ozone, which forms as methane reacts to the atmosphere. Ozone at ground level is a major public health and environmental hazard because it damages human lung tissue, triggering respiratory ailments, and harms plants including agricultural crops. Currently, methane-generated ozone causes about half a million extra deaths per year. However, every million metric tons of methane emissions avoided would also prevent 1,430 yearly deaths from respiratory and heart diseases; 4,000 asthma-related emergencies and 90 hospitalizations per year; and annual losses of 145,000 metric tons of wheat, soybeans, maize and rice.
What Can Be Done to Reduce Methane Emissions?
There are many ways to reduce methane emissions that range from large-scale transformations of energy and food systems to smaller technical fixes. Most likely a combination of methods will be necessary to control methane emissions to reduce global heating and ozone pollution. However, currently existing methods, if adopted, would be enough to curb methane emissions from the three main human-caused sources — fossil fuels, agriculture and waste — by 45% by 2030, in line with the IPCC’s pathway to 1.5 degrees.
From Agriculture
There are two main ways to reduce the amount of methane produced by the food system. The first is to transform the food system altogether by reducing meat and dairy production. This can be done in part by reducing food waste, as 30 to 40 percent of all food produced is lost and does not make it to a person’s stomach. According to one calculation, the waste of ruminant and rice products is responsible for around 50 million metric tons of methane per year, and reducing it could cut those emissions by around 20 million metric tons. Another way is to shift toward more healthy, sustainable or plant-based diets, including by reducing overall consumption in wealthier countries. According to the IPCC, doing so would reduce greenhouse gas emissions overall by 5.3 to 20.2 gigatons of carbon-dioxide equivalent by 2050. Potential emissions reductions from dietary shifts run from 0.7 to eight gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year by 2050, under scenarios ranging from half of the planet adopting a “healthy” diet that includes less than six grams of animal protein per day to a global embrace of vegetarianism.
The second main strategy for reducing methane emissions from agriculture is to make changes to existing production so that it releases less methane. One way to do this is to increase the efficiency of animal agriculture so that more meat or milk is produced per animal, especially in poorer countries. This can be done without sacrificing animal welfare by feeding animals better diets, including highly digestible feed; improving animal health overall; and breeding. Another solution is to add enteric methane inhibitors to the diets of ruminants, which prevent methane production in their guts. Promising examples are the chemical 3-NOP and seaweed. Studies have shown that adding seaweed supplements to the diets of cattle can decrease their methane emissions by 82 percent for feedlot cattle, more than 50 percent for dairy cows and 42 percent for grazing cattle without harming the animals in any way. Researchers are also working to breed ruminants who produce less methane and to develop a vaccine that would limit gut methane production.
Another major source of agricultural methane that can be targeted for reduction is manure storage. Solutions include reducing the amount of time manure is stored; covering tanks holding semi-solid waste; separating liquid and solid manure; and adding acid to manure storage facilities, which inhibits the growth of methane-producing microbes. Another solution that has been adopted in recent years is the use of manure digesters, which turn manure into biogas, reducing manure’s methane emissions and providing a non-fossil form of energy. However, there are emerging concerns that methane leaks from these machines may undermine their impact.
Finally, emissions from rice can be curbed by various methods. One strategy is to grow either higher yield or lower-methane varieties of rice, which reduce the amount of methane emitted per kilogram. Planting lower-methane rice could cut emissions by 22 to 51 percent. Another option is to change how rice is grown by using Alternative Wetting and Drying. Instead of keeping rice paddies flooded, this method involves letting them dry out completely before flooding again and can decrease emissions by 40 to 45 percent. Finally, adding phosphogypsum and sulphate to rice fields can decrease microbial methane production.
From Fossil Fuels
The No. 1 way to reduce methane emissions from fossil fuels is to phase out their use entirely as soon as possible while rapidly transitioning to renewable forms of energy that do not emit methane and in particular to halt the buildout of LNG infrastructure. However, there are also ways to reduce the methane emissions from fossil fuel infrastructure still in use, and in fact reducing methane emissions from ongoing oil and gas operations is considered the strategy with the most short-term potential for significant methane cuts.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), it is possible to slash the oil and gas sector’s methane emissions by 70% with existing technologies and methods and by 40% at no cost. These methods include leak detection and repair, installing devices to detect methane and phasing out equipment that releases methane when used. For coal, it is more difficult to reduce emissions while still mining and burning coal, but there are strategies such as requiring new mines to use degasification wells and drainage boreholes to capture methane and capturing and reusing methane in existing mines. It is also possible to avoid methane emissions from equipment no longer in use by capping abandoned gas wells and flooding retired mines.
From Landfills and Waste
Ideally, the best way to reduce methane waste from landfills would be to move toward a zero-waste circular economy that reuses all material throughputs. Specific strategies toward this goal include reducing food waste, keeping organic waste out of landfills and diverting it toward composting systems, capturing methane emissions from landfills and covering landfills with soil containing organisms that can break down methane.
Reducing methane emissions from wastewater can mostly be achieved by upgrading treatment facilities. This includes replacing latrines with actual wastewater treatment plants and making sure that facilities that provide primary treatment — removing solid pollution — also provide secondary treatment — removing organic matter and nutrients with the help of bacteria and microorganisms — and tertiary chemical treatment. Wastewater treatment plants can also be built to capture and reuse biogas.
Direct Removal
While it is important to rapidly move to reduce human-caused methane emissions, some scientists are investigating methods of directly removing methane from the atmosphere to augment these efforts. This can be achieved in two main ways: by bolstering the abilities of natural ecosystems to remove and store methane and through direct geoengineering.
On the ecosystem side, scientists have discovered that tree bark has remarkable methane-absorbing abilities, as it contains organisms called methanotrophs that essentially eat methane. Preserving forests, reforesting or intentionally planting tree species that have greater methane-storing ability could all be ways to take advantage of this nature-based solution.
A potential geoengineering method would be to release iron salt into the atmosphere. This would mimic what happens when dust from Sahara sand storms collides with the sea spray of the Atlantic — instigating a chemical process that breaks down methane. However, more research is required to determine if and how this could be done both safely and effectively. Ultimately, it is safest to rely on the methods that we know work to stop methane from reaching the atmosphere in the first place.
What Progress Has Been Made to Reduce Methane Emissions So Far?
At the COP26 United Nations climate change conference in 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland, the UK and United States launched the Global Methane Pledge. As of January 2025, a total of 159 nations had joined the pledge. Pledge members agreed to work toward cutting global methane emissions by 30% of 2020 levels by 2030. Doing so would be consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and could prevent 0.2 degrees Celsius of warming by 2050. While the pledge’s website claims that it has “generated unprecedented for methane mitigation,” this is yet to manifest in real-world reductions.
Methane emissions broke a new record in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available. Even though the oil and gas sector offers the most possibility for rapid methane cuts, and roughly 80% of that sector falls under a methane-reduction pledge, its total emissions have continued to rise since 2020 and remained past 120 million metric tons per year in 2024. All methane pledges made by governments and companies as of 2023 would in theory be enough to reduce fossil fuel methane emissions by 50% by 2030, but to do this the industry must close its implementation gap. Further, there are major gaps in these commitments. As of 2023, only 13 percent of all methane emissions were covered by any sort of emissions-reduction policy.
What Can Individuals Do to Reduce Methane Emissions?
The two simplest, most effective things that people can do to reduce their individual methane emissions are to switch to lower-methane diets and to reduce their daily food waste through measures such as meal planning, buying “ugly” foods and composting. If you feel intimidated at the thought of going entirely vegetarian or vegan, even just reducing your meat and dairy consumption can make a difference. One study found that if everyone in the European Union limited their meat and dairy consumption by 34%, they would prevent six million metric tons of methane emissions per year.
If you are a homeowner who either cooks on a gas stove or receives heat via a gas furnace, you can replace your gas range with an electric or induction option and swap your furnace for an electric heat pump. Renters may not be able to swap out appliances, but they can still reduce their gas use by finding creative ways to save energy — such as air-drying clothes — or supplementing gas heating and cooking appliances with electric devices like space heaters, rice cookers, microwaves or induction burners.
Ultimately, methane emissions — like all climate pollution — are the products of complex energy, food and waste systems that are kept in place partly because they benefit powerful people who are currently profiting from them. Reducing your personal methane emissions will not remake those systems on its own, but you can also join together with like-minded people to campaign for change. This could range from lobbying your city government to create a municipal composting system to joining or supporting groups like 350.org, Third Act, Oil Change International, Louisiana Bucket Brigade and South Texas Environmental Justice Network that are working to stop the LNG buildout globally, nationally and in their communities.
Takeaway
Methane emissions present both a threat and an opportunity. Because methane is so much more potent than carbon dioxide, it can further turbocharge the global heating that is already raising the thermostat and fueling more extreme storms and other weather events. However, its shorter atmospheric lifespan means that acting urgently to cut its emissions would enable us to make important and timely headway on combating the climate crisis overall. That is why it’s important to spread the word about methane — how it’s released and how to reduce it — and to put pressure on political and business leaders to act on that knowledge.
The post Methane 101: Understanding the Second Most Important Greenhouse Gas appeared first on EcoWatch.
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Green Living
Sustainability In Your Ear: GoodPower’s Leah Qusba on Selling Clean Energy as Pocketbook Power
In 2024, 91% of new large-scale renewable projects around the world made electricity for less money than any fossil-fuel option, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency. Solar power was 41% cheaper than the lowest-cost fossil fuel, and onshore wind was 53% cheaper. The technology that can lower energy bills, keep the grid stable, and create jobs is now the most affordable way to build power almost anywhere. So, here’s the big question our guest faces every day: if clean energy is this good and this affordable, why is it still so tough to get people to support it? Leah Qusba leads GoodPower, a nonprofit focused on strategic communications and research. For almost twenty years, it was known as Action for the Climate Emergency, but it changed its name during Climate Week 2025. Since Leah took over, the group has grown about ten times bigger, built a network of over 8,500 content creators who share facts about renewables, and started running live messaging tests through its Good Data Lab. The new name highlights that renewable power is good power, and the best way to win support is by showing how it affects people’s monthly bills. The decision to rebrand was based on data. Leah’s team learned that words like “climate” and “emergency” can shut down conversations in rural, conservative areas where most new wind and solar projects are built. GoodPower shifted its message to focus on jobs, community investment, and steady power bills.
GoodPower also works to fight anti-renewables disinformation, which Leah says spreads fastest in the first day or two after a grid emergency. When Winter Storm Fern knocked out power in more than 20 states in January, the organization had a few days’ notice and quickly got its creator network ready to “prebunk” the usual claim that renewables caused the blackouts. This strategy, based on the Debunking Handbook, starts with the truth, points out the false claim, and then repeats the truth to make it stick. GoodPower uses the same idea in its AI tools: CleanCast predicts where local fights over new projects might start so communities can get accurate information early, and TrueVoice spots AI-generated comments in public records. Still, Leah says the best messengers are neighbors, since people trust those who share their experiences. For instance, when Boulder City, Nevada’s Republican mayor, Joe Hardy, talks about how solar and storage helped his town’s budget, it connects with other conservative communities in a way ads can’t.
GoodPower’s network of creators shares clean-energy messages through car-repair, food, and gaming videos. Leah calls this the raisin bread theory: the regular content is the bread, and the renewables message is the raisin. For communities already dealing with climate impacts, she highlights groups like Extreme Weather Survivors, which gives wildfire and flood survivors a way to push for policy changes from the ground up.
To learn more, visit goodpower.org and follow Leah Qusba on LinkedIn, where she is active and easy to reach.
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Interview Transcript
Mitch Ratcliffe 0:10
Hello! Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are on this beautiful planet of ours. Welcome to Sustainability In Your Ear. This is the podcast conversation about accelerating the transition to a sustainable, carbon-neutral society. And I’m your host, Mitch Ratcliffe. Thanks for joining the conversation today. Let’s talk about accelerating that shift to renewables in detail.
The technology to lower our energy bills, build a more secure grid, and create millions of jobs already exists. Renewables are now the cheapest and fastest power to deploy almost anywhere on the planet, so here’s the puzzle my guest today wrestles with every single day. If the solutions are this good and this affordable, why is it so hard to build public support for them?
Part of the answer is that we’re trying to make the case for sustainable technologies in an openly hostile environment. Federal climate policy has been rolled back, and there are coordinated disinformation campaigns ready to blame wind and solar within hours of any grid emergency, whether or not the facts support those accusations. And the social platforms where most people get their information will quietly bury anything labeled climate, handing it only to people who already agree that it’s a concern. The audiences you need to reach most never see your message about sustainability.
Leah Qusba has built a career breaking through the noise to reach audiences intent on climate progress. She’s the CEO of GoodPower, an organization you may have known until recently as Action for the Climate Emergency, or ACE. She’s led it for more than 15 years, growing it roughly tenfold into one of the sharpest media and research operations in the climate space, and she runs real experiments on what messaging actually changes behavior, working with thousands of content creators to carry the conversation to people the movement has never reached before. Her own path started along Wisconsin’s Fox River, in a stretch of water she played in as a kid that later became an EPA Superfund site before she finished high school.
We’re going to explore how to sell the benefits of clean energy when the word climate itself becomes a liability, and how you fight disinformation when a lie travels faster than the truth, and why Leah ultimately believes affordability, not alarm, is the door most people will actually walk through when asked about climate. So, what can we do to shift the climate conversation? Let’s find out after this brief commercial break.
[COMMERCIAL BREAK]
Mitch Ratcliffe 2:41
Leah Qusba, welcome to Sustainability In Your Ear. How are you doing today?
Leah Qusba 2:45
I’m doing great. How are you?
Mitch Ratcliffe 2:46
Well, I’m well, thanks for taking the time to talk with me. It’s always interesting to speak to somebody who’s been dedicated to climate awareness for so long. You grew up in Wisconsin’s Paper Valley, and a river you played in, the Fox, became an EPA Superfund site while you were in high school. How much of your work derives from the experience of having played in that river, which was polluted and needed a cleanup?
Leah Qusba 3:10
Yeah, I certainly didn’t know it at the time, growing up in small-town USA in northeastern Wisconsin. I think it has impacted me dramatically and greatly. I kind of look back — it’s over, you know, 25 to 30 years ago at this point. I look back at that time and think, wow, there’s nobody organizing people around that type of environmental disaster. People were angry, they felt powerless. It took over a decade, and then the EPA said, well, we did our best, we can’t really fully clean this up in terms of all the PCBs in the river. So I look back on that time, and I think it did set me on the path that I’m on today.
Mitch Ratcliffe 3:52
We know so much more about the world, and part of the experience of living by a river that turned out to be so polluted is your own recognition. How do you use that approach to storytelling to help other people make the leap to understand where we are with regard to the climate?
Leah Qusba 4:09
Well, I often think about my dad, and what’s interesting about my dad is he’s a staunch conservative — he believes climate change is not man-made — and he recently became a supporter of solar, not because of me, not because of his own daughter’s influence, but actually his HVAC guy has a side business doing rooftop solar, and it was that conversation that convinced my dad. So I think what I take away is: rural speaks to rural, conservative speaks to conservative, neighbor speaks to neighbor.
I think in an internet environment where people trust what’s on the internet less and less, and with the rise of artificial intelligence and related content, I think all we have left is really each other, and so we really leverage that. How do we find stories of communities that already have solar, wind, and batteries, for example, to demystify what these technologies are for a neighboring town, county, or state? It really works.
Mitch Ratcliffe 5:11
In September, you changed the name of the organization from Action for the Climate Emergency to GoodPower. What stopped working about the words climate emergency?
Leah Qusba 5:21
Yeah, I mean, I think as the years went on and we were using this brand, we don’t want to fall into traps where climate, decarbonization, and energy issues are sort of unfairly politicized as left versus right. When we say words like climate in a rural conservative community, that can be a non-starter. When we say things like emergency, do we fall into the trap of being climate alarmists, as we have been dubbed? There’s a different way — there’s a bigger-tent approach where, depending on the audience you’re speaking to, there’s different ways in to showing the economic promise of the energy transition.
Right, what do communities get? Jobs, community investment, long-term leases for farmers and landowners that are, you know, nervous private equity is coming to buy their land for an Amazon logistics warehouse or a data center or something like that. So I think for us, our brand wasn’t working for enough of the American people, especially where, you know, ground zero for the energy transition happens to be rural red America, where a lot of this infrastructure needs to be built and is being built.
So we did it because we wanted a bigger tent that more people could get under and feel a sense of belonging — that, wow, I see something for me in the energy transition. I see something for me in what community benefits I could potentially reap from decarbonized power being built in my town or community. So it was really about creating that bigger tent for more people to get under.
Mitch Ratcliffe 6:51
Well, your dad’s experience is recognizing that there’s economic opportunity in advanced technology. Funny thing, it wakes you up to the opportunity, but it doesn’t address the fact that we’re being told that there’s a crisis all the time, and one of the issues that I seem to run into a lot is that even within the climate community there are very rigid differences of opinion about where to focus our effort and investment. How has the movement torn itself apart to a degree, even as it establishes real credibility because of the fact of the climate changing so rapidly?
Leah Qusba 7:25
I mean, when you just break it down to scientific terms, right? Climate change happens very slowly, and then all at once, I think, is the famous quote, right? How did I go broke? It started slowly, and then all at once. I think for us, what we have learned — we’ve been in business for about 18 years, and I’ve been at GoodPower for about 17 of those years — the number one voting issue, cycle after cycle, and now even young people in 2024, in the last presidential, even young people rated the economy as number one. Usually they’re voting on values issues, you know, racial justice and all sorts of other things. They rated the economy. So the economy isn’t working for most people. Nearly 70% of us in the US live paycheck to paycheck.
So we really, at GoodPower, recognize that people want immediate change. How are my energy bills going to go down? Why are prices at the gas pump going up and down like the stock market? Why aren’t they more predictable? The answer: homegrown power — solar, wind, batteries. It’s not exposed to global commodity risks like oil and gas, right? There’s no far-off war that is going to make the cost of the wind and the sun, which happen to be free — there is no fuel cost — it’s not going to make those go up and down in that way.
So I think it’s about connecting the everyday experiences and things people are constantly worried about. How am I going to keep my job? Am I going to be laid off? Will I be able to afford groceries this week? My energy bill doubled in the last year, and there’s no sight. How do we look at the energy transition as unlocking this generational economic opportunity, right? This potential economic renaissance for the middle class. It’s not just saving money and having more predictability and control and autonomy around one’s bills. It’s also about the wealth regenerating and the economic investment.
I’m from a rural community. These communities are emptying out. Young people are leaving. They need investment. They need new schools, new infrastructure, new roads. Farmers are struggling — hundreds close every year in the US. Well, great: let’s farm 300 acres of solar, along with my 3,000 acres of soybeans and corn. When I have a rough year, the solar still pays the bill. So I think there’s incredible economic potential here, and that hasn’t really been communicated effectively.
Mitch Ratcliffe 9:39
You argue that renewable power is good power, but at the same time, as you just pointed out, our energy bills are going through the roof. Are you arguing for truly distributed energy generation, or are you saying that there is a path to a collectively owned — whatever form that takes — infrastructure that allows us to really meet the electrical demands of the era we’re entering?
Leah Qusba 10:00
I think that’s a false choice. Our position is all of it. We are huge proponents of distributed energy resources, dispatchable power, some of the virtual power plant policies and investments that we’ve seen. We’re huge proponents of utility-scale and community-level renewable projects. We think battery energy storage — when you pair that, right, that’s the invention of the battery — is how we get to more reliable power. So all of it. I think we need all of it.
I think, you know, global energy volatility is really a hidden tax on American families that people are really exhausted having to pay, in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis where everything else is going up — healthcare, housing, groceries. When energy goes up, by the way, everything else goes up too. So I think it’s the predictability, it’s having more control and not being at the whims of these sort of global markets and importing that volatility into people’s lives that already feel chaotic.
Mitch Ratcliffe 10:59
And yet we need to press through the capital investment phase of this with determination, and it seems like the determination is being shaken by, let’s say, people at the White House. How do you tell a story in the face of such rigorous and often completely misleading responses from the other side of the political argument?
Leah Qusba 11:20
Well, I think the American people are pretty smart. Only 40% of Republicans actually approve of their own president’s energy policies right now. That’s from GoodPower’s own national poll we did with the University of Chicago back in mid-March. So there’s extremely low approval. People understand — they feel it. You have to fill your gas tank up, right, probably once, maybe twice a week. If you’re going on vacation, a lot more than that. You have to pay that energy bill and open it up, or go online and pay it every month. So it’s in your face constantly. Nobody’s seeing change, and when you have only 40% of your own party approving your energy policies and your agenda, that’s pretty abysmal.
So I think, from my perspective, when we look at the sort of all-of-government approach to kill renewables, we’re choosing energy winners and losers, and Americans are left kind of holding the bill. It’s simple economics 101 here — supply and demand. If we’re restricting the fastest, most affordable electrons from coming online, which happen to be from solar, storage, and wind right now, we’re going to drive up bills. I mean, my 11-year-old daughter would understand the economics of that.
Mitch Ratcliffe 12:28
AI is going to play a big part in how we ultimately tell the story, and part of the solution in terms of how we optimize everything that we do — simply because we have visibility into how things work in ways we would never have been able to pre-AI. How do you integrate that part of the story, that some of this investment is necessary to develop the intelligence that is going to help us untangle the crisis that we face?
Leah Qusba 12:53
I think the stark reality is that data centers are highly unpopular right now, and land use in general — land use projects across the country are really facing increasing public opposition. I am seeing some really bright lights within the news cycle around land-use development that is being done very responsibly, transparently, in an innovative way. I think about some of the Google data center announcements recently in the MISO region, where they’re looking creatively at how do we get electrons through virtual power plants, how do we invest in infrastructure, how do we invest in community benefits, how do we procure clean electrons to power our digital infrastructure. So I think there are some really good actors out there lifting up those stories where these developments are happening in a very positive way.
I think we can look to the utility-scale renewable energy sector — I mean, this is a lot of GoodPower’s work — but just telling the stories: people have reaped enormous benefits and are very happy with this infrastructure when it’s done in the right way, and it’s transparent, and it’s with stakeholder input. I think there’s a way to do land use that can be really uplifting to communities, but getting their input and involving them as stakeholders, I think, is absolutely essential.
I think the other piece of the story that we forget: big tech, right — technology has been the number one global procurer of decarbonized electrons on planet Earth for the last 15 years. So in other words, the growth of the renewable energy sector has been commensurate with the growth and advancement in the sort of digital revolution and technology. So again, there’s a right way to do it, and if we can uplift stories of where the community is on board with this infrastructure — because they’ve been consulted and they’ve gotten to weigh in, and they’re really getting a good deal out of it — I think the more we can do that, the better off we’ll be.
Mitch Ratcliffe 14:47
On the other hand, AI is also part of the problem, because it is used by algorithms to direct people away from the issue. You’ve said that when you mention climate in a video, it immediately gets relegated to a pile of links to people who already agree. In other words, we’re talking to the converted. How do you articulate that to somebody who is focused on the concerns they have about their community — particularly a rural community, where I live in one as well — when talking about the need for the investment in electrification and AI, which is also potentially part of the problem that we face in terms of being relegated to pools of people who agree and never get the opportunity to evangelize to others?
Leah Qusba 15:28
We don’t say anything to rural communities. We let rural communities talk to each other, so that’s what we enable. We basically find stories that are under-told and under-platformed. For example, here’s a farmer in rural Oklahoma, in western Oklahoma. They’ve had wind on their land for 20 years, put their kids through college. They were able to keep their generational farm that was handed down to them for six generations, and they wouldn’t have been able to keep it without the wind industry, right? So that could be very convincing to another farmer who’s facing closure in a neighboring plains state, or even within the Midwest generally.
So brands, I think, need to say less. I think what we need to do more of is find and mine those stories where the projects were built responsibly, the land-use development was done in a way that enriched the community and, you know, consulted the community. How do we find those stories? We’ve produced hundreds of these now over the last five years, all over the United States, all over Brazil, the UK, right, where we were trying to really build positivity and social permission and social acceptance of this infrastructure. The stories are all out there, and it’s just about platforming and telling them and breaking through when we see this news cycle that has been so anti-renewable from this particular administration. This is the counterbalance. Just go and ask the communities, and they’ll tell you how they feel about this infrastructure.
Mitch Ratcliffe 16:55
Can you give an example of a story that, for lack of a better word, sells the idea of economic prosperity built on renewables?
Leah Qusba 17:03
Yeah, I mean, really authentic, genuine stories. I’m thinking of a story from Mayor Joe Hardy in Boulder City, Nevada. Mayor Hardy is a Republican. He’s a staunch conservative. His story is about how economically secure Boulder City, Nevada, is for the next 25 years. He talks about solar and storage. He takes us out to the fields and shows us what that looks like, and that the community has no economic worries in terms of property tax revenue, and where those revenues are going, and how it’s investing in community infrastructure, schools, etc.
I think of another story in Oklahoma, of a school superintendent who talks about how the community benefit agreement that they signed with this wind developer built a new school, and what that means for children in a community that has not seen a lot of investment over the last few decades. And then we have countless stories of farmers, landowners, neighbors to these projects who talk about the community benefits agreements — what’s in them: long-term leases, new infrastructure, donations of emergency management vehicles, police cars, fire trucks.
And again, when you position the community as a stakeholder and it’s transparent and you consult them, we can strike deals here that really work for the industry and for building decarbonized power, and that really work for people in the communities who feel like, “Wow, I’m being invested in, I’m not being extracted from.” We’re not replicating those systems of extraction; we’re investing in building something together. I think that’s really special.
Mitch Ratcliffe 18:35
Is there a risk in the movement swinging so hard toward pocketbook messaging that it no longer talks about climate, or clean in contrast to the dirty systems — or is that exactly the point?
Leah Qusba 18:45
I also think this is a false question, because we do talk about climate. It’s important to talk about climate. 8% of voters under 35 rated climate as their number one issue in 2024. So a front-door climate message, and increasing the awareness and the pie — you know, the slice of people who are really motivated by a climate message that’s front-door — I think there is a huge audience out there. We speak to that audience.
I think the point is, this is not a one-size-fits-all solution, right? The internet and social media are increasingly fractured. Audiences are tribalized. Knowing what platform you’re on and who you’re speaking to — once you know that information, you should have a very sophisticated segmented strategy. How do we connect audience to messenger and message? If you’re trying to have a silver bullet, sort of, you know, one campaign to rule them all, I think that’s a recipe for failure, and in fact you can have polarizing effects. You can make people feel less inclined to support energy and climate policies that are going to drive forward a decarbonized economy by not having the right messenger, or even a polarizing messenger that could make them more entrenched in that opinion. So I think you can do more harm than good in some cases.
I think having empathy — whether you’re talking to somebody on the left side of the ideological spectrum or the right side of the ideological spectrum, or somewhere in between — really knowing who those people are and what moves them and what they’re about, and really trying to seek to understand them and not label them as something other, or “these are not my people.” I kind of hear a lot of that sometimes. Everybody’s our people. If you’re a person, you’re our people. And I think there’s a way to speak to literally anybody about these issues in a way that’s going to land with them, and that’s really the science of communication.
Mitch Ratcliffe 20:37
To be a people person takes real work, especially when you’re telling stories. There’s a lot to unpack in this strategy. Let’s take a quick commercial break and come back to continue this fascinating discussion. Stay tuned, folks.
[COMMERCIAL BREAK]
Welcome back to Sustainability In Your Ear. Now, let’s continue the conversation with Leah Qusba. She is CEO of GoodPower, which is a strategic communications nonprofit working to highlight the need for and benefits of renewable energy. Leah, how do you see the world of storytelling changing because we have the tools that AI unlocks to target and reach people better? Or are we going to be overwhelmed by misinformation? I’m just — where should we set the bar in our expectations about the future of storytelling?
Leah Qusba 21:25
What a deep and complex and fascinating question. So let me start with the platforms themselves, where people are now using Claude and ChatGPT and other AI platforms almost as Google search platforms, right? So they’re looking for information. So I think one way that we’re using these tools is really, how do we set the terms of what information comes up when people are searching around: is solar good or bad? You know, will this raise my bills, lower my bills? Right, so it’s basically like SEO, but for these AI platforms — it’s called AEO and GEO. So how do you do search optimization and get the facts, not the fiction, to pop up in search results? So we do some of that work, going to the source of when people are searching, what information are they getting.
I think then, you know, we think about AI as a technology when it’s really a set of complementary capabilities, right? We’ve got automation — how do we automate the tedious and repetitive things that humans don’t want to do, so we can focus on higher-level creative work? Predictive — right, how do we forecast where siting and permitting battles are going to be through 2030 around clean energy projects, or where opposition might be forming? So how do we predict the future? And then we’re all familiar with the generative capabilities around doing better analysis and communications and content creation, etc. And the way we look at these capabilities at GoodPower, it’s less about a single piece of technology; it’s about leveraging these capabilities to build custom models. So I can walk you through a few pieces of those technologies that we’ve sort of housed.
One product is called CleanCast, and this is a piece of predictive, AI-enabled technology. It helps us forecast where the renewable energy industry might build their projects, so it pipes in public opinion research from local counties, it pipes in the governmental, environmental, and regulatory constraints that might exist. Are there existing bans and moratoria? How does that state do permitting? Does it do it at the county level through a county commission, or is it a state process through a PUC or PSC? So all sorts of intelligence to help us predict: where are these projects going to be built? What’s the prime location? Can we get there first and inoculate the public to disinformation? Can we make them resilient and less vulnerable to disinformation?
The disinformation we see out there is astounding. There was a disinformation cluster last week trying to scare potato farmers, saying Frito-Lay won’t buy your potatoes if you host solar on your land, because they’ll have glass shards in them — your potatoes will have glass inside from the solar panels. We traced this disinformation to some potato trade industry associations that are funded predominantly by the fertilizer industry, and fertilizer is petrochemicals, right? So if you follow the money — how do we anticipate where disinformation or opposition is going to be? Where is the industry going, and how do we get there first? Generally, people remember what they hear first, right? So before the public understanding hardens around the disinformation, how do we get there first? So that’s an example of one product. I have a few more I could share with you as well.
Mitch Ratcliffe 24:41
Well, you also have a small army in what you call the Creator Collective — 8,500 creators, 350 to 400 million followers in food and fashion and gaming and all the things that creators do. How does the sustainability message travel through a network like that? Maybe the message begins with a car influencer, then you run into it in a fashion commentary as well.
Leah Qusba 25:03
Well, I think, going back to your previous question around the tribalization problem on social media — like, how do we break through when the algorithms just sort us into the, you know, left-of-center green climate bucket? We don’t want to be sorted into that bucket. So creator marketing is a way to get around that. We don’t generally lead with a sustainability message with everyone. We lead with the message we think is going to work with that audience.
So if we’re trying to reach a bunch of car bros or commuters that really could save thousands of dollars annually from switching to an EV — maybe they live in a rural commuter town, they drive to the city for work — we want to hire a bunch of car bros, right, creators that are talking about fixing cars, and they slip EV messaging into their regular content streams that are more entertaining for their audience. We call it the raisin bread theory, where most of the content stays the bread, and you’re sprinkling in the raisins.
You could apply this to any one of these content verticals. If we’re talking about regenerative agriculture and getting toxic chemicals out of our food supply, MAHA moms are a great example — suburban white women in the MAHA movement, right? We want to find a bunch of them, or doctors and nurses who are really universally credible messengers who talk about health content. So depending on the audience and the campaign’s goals, we look into that community and we decide: okay, who do we want to engage for this campaign, and who’s the right credible messenger for the audience?
Mitch Ratcliffe 26:26
So would you describe that as: you coordinate and plan a sequence of messages? Or is this something that continues to happen organically based on your urging?
Leah Qusba 26:35
We do both. We do long-term campaigns that are multi-year, sort of patient-capital investments to changing an entire community’s way that they think about these technologies, where maybe there was a huge gap in understanding. One example would be: over 55% of Americans say they’ve never or rarely even heard about battery energy storage. They don’t know what it is. Great — it’s a fantastic opportunity to provide some baseline education to a huge group of people, where these projects are probably going to be built. We can get there first, before any disinformation gets out around these projects.
Then we have things that are more reactive and tied to the news cycle. So, almost two decades I’ve been in this work, and we keep losing during these rapid-response, sort of high-attention moments. The wildfires in LA are a really great example from last January, and we actually lost that narrative — DEI was blamed, that we were too busy with DEI in California to, you know, do proper forest management. It was ridiculous, but when you looked online and did advanced social listening analysis of the narrative, there were more mentions where the disinformation around DEI took over the conversation, instead of “hey, climate change is making these disasters more costly, more dangerous, and by the way, insurers are leaving the market in California.” Who’s holding the bag for that? It’s not the polluters that caused the problem; it’s the ratepayers, the premium holders that live in that state. So how do we make those connections? So there’s both a rapid-response element where we’re gathering this intelligence from the news cycle and responding, and then there’s more long-term strategies that we’re building as well.
Mitch Ratcliffe 28:14
Talk a little about the rapid response. In January, Winter Storm Fern caused up to $6.7 billion in damage, and there were a lot of disinformation initiatives around that storm almost immediately, and they were blaming wind and solar for the grid not having stayed as resilient as it needed to be, ignoring the fact that it’s an ancient grid. What does an effective, fast counter-messaging effort look like? How do you move the truth at the speed of a lie when lies are propagating so quickly?
Leah Qusba 28:46
We actually did a rapid-response activation with our creator community that last weekend in January — I remember that vividly — and because Winter Storm Fern was a forecasted storm, we actually had a few days of lead time, so it wasn’t a same-day activation. We could plan and really activate our community.
So what we did: we used the best practices — sort of the gold standard for inoculation, or prebunking, is another way you can name it. It’s to prepare the audience for disinformation they might see, so that when they see it, it bounces off of them instead of sinks into them. So we follow the Debunking Handbook, and there’s a way to do it where you’re not reinforcing the disinformation. There’s a huge risk in social science of actually reinforcing the lie if you don’t do it in the right way, in terms of introducing the truth, talking about the disinformation, and ending with the truth. We call it the truth sandwich.
So we did that. We activated a couple dozen creators who got millions of views on their content, basically saying, look, the lights are going to go out because of this storm. It’s affecting over 20 states. It’s happening this weekend. If you see blaming or scapegoating — that, oh, the power went out because of those unreliable renewables — don’t be fooled, that’s not the reason. It’s actually inter-regional transmission in our aging grid, and literally frozen coal and gas supply.
And we can look back — we had people who went through Winter Storm Uri. We had some Texas moms who were in our rapid-response creator community that could talk about their own experience. Oh, the same thing: Governor Abbott actually said disinformation on national television in Texas, saying, “Oh, those frozen wind turbines, that’s why the lights went out.” So we actually had people from Winter Storm Uri, who went through that in ’21, that were part of this collection of creators that were activated and were able to speak to their own experience — that, oh, every time there’s extreme weather and the lights go out, renewables are scapegoated. Don’t be fooled, that’s not what it is, it’s this. And so it was very effective.
Mitch Ratcliffe 30:45
Now, you do a lot of randomized trials of different kinds of messaging, and I’m wondering if there’s an example of something that you didn’t expect to work but really did when you put it in the market — or conversely, something you thought was a surefire win that didn’t work at all.
Leah Qusba 30:59
You know what was surprising? We saw a speech that was televised on the Senate floor with Senator Brian Schatz from Hawaii. He was giving a speech on the Senate floor around how the Trump administration’s policies to block renewable energy were driving up the cost of electricity and utility bills for Americans, and that that will continue to happen. We said, wow, this is great — most people in our testing think Congress isn’t talking about these issues. So we said, why don’t we give this speech to our creators, have them clip it up and add some commentary to it, and we’ll have a bunch of them share it. And then we’ll do a randomized control trial, where the treatment audience saw the content — one of the pieces of creator content — and the control group saw nothing, or a placebo. Let’s see how this works.
And our research question was: does this help Democrats, or does it help Republicans? Like, what happens when we have people in Congress talking about this? And it turns out not only was it extremely effective at solidifying the idea that these policies to block renewables from being built are driving up bills — so it was very effective at education and awareness — it was very bad for the Republican party generally. Eleven points we were able to get in the treatment group on disfavor for how Republicans were handling energy policy and utility issues. So we found that to be fascinating. We didn’t think a single exposure of a speech of somebody in Congress talking about these issues would be that effective, or have that outsized of an impact.
Mitch Ratcliffe 32:27
One of the things I noted: you started off focused primarily on youth climate education, but as you pivot toward everyone’s energy bill — which is a very dinner-table kind of 30s-and-40s, you-got-kids, you-got-to-think-about-this-stuff kind of problem — how do you stay relevant to youth who continue to grow up into what they can see plainly is a crisis, but that is increasingly being cast as a pocketbook issue?
Leah Qusba 32:53
I think what’s fascinating, and the unique part of this story, is that I’ve been at GoodPower almost the entire time, so many of the young people I personally worked with in high school are now into their 30s. They’re working for social impact investors, they’re working at the EPA, they’re working for big foundations, some are working for hyperscalers and AI companies, and what’s fascinating is they’re taking those values around these issues into their professional lives.
I think, you know, this idea of kind of growing up and maturing within the movement — and I think post-COVID, when we see how COVID really affected the youth movement in general, and college campus organizing: nobody was in person, and you kind of got to be in person to do organizing, to build those relationships and pass the baton to underclassmen, etc. So I think, for us, seeing some of these young people mature themselves into the professional working world — this generation has now permeated the private sector, the public sector, and they’ve carried this sort of generational youth climate movement, sparked by Sunrise, you know, sparked by our organization, Power Shift Network. They have a whole new view, I think, that they’re bringing into corporate America right now, around their values and around how much they prioritize climate and energy policies that make sense.
I think they’re also living in a world where they can’t attain the same things their parents did financially. They can’t own a home, they can’t afford to buy a car, or even move out of their parents’ house. So I think our messaging around the economy — I think it works for young people that have kind of grown up in this movement and are very angry, like most Americans are, around this cost-of-living crisis.
Mitch Ratcliffe 34:37
The number of jobs represented by the capital that is being held in abeyance because of the misinformation must be incredibly frustrating for younger people. I mean, we can see the explosion of economic opportunity that would happen — it might look more like China, for instance. I was reading your 2030 plan; you’re leaning into AI and product development and breakthrough technology, and I’m wondering what those breakthrough technologies that you think are most important to understanding where we can go might be.
Leah Qusba 35:07
I think geothermal is really fascinating. Of course, anything that is zero carbon, I think, is really interesting to our organization when we think about the climate problem and decarbonizing the global economy. I think it’s a very nascent technology, so there’s some fair criticism there, but I would say uniquely it has this bipartisan support because it uses the same rigging and tools and equipment and skills as the fossil fuel industry, right — oil and gas and fracking workers. So I think there’s incredible bipartisan support as well, and I think as these technologies mature, we’ll be in a front-row seat, kind of looking and seeing how these develop and mature over time.
When we think about artificial intelligence tools, we think about it in a bit of a different way. I think one pervasive issue we’re seeing right now is AI manipulation and fabricated opposition in local siting — so AI-generated comments flooding decision-makers, and they don’t know what’s real and who’s real. So we built a product for that called TrueVoice that separates authentic local input from AI-manufactured opposition. We’re going to give it to community stakeholders, county commissioners, public service commissioners, the developers — everybody deserves to know: okay, what’s the probability that there was AI manipulation on this docket, and now how much do we weigh this? Maybe it’ll create new systems of what we prioritize and how we gather community input. Maybe there’ll be a premium on in-person hearings and showing up, you know, and reinvesting in local organizing.
So I think our use of these tools is really around identifying the cracks that could become fissures that could become huge cliffs for the work that we do in our pathway to accelerating decarbonization — and how do we fit within those, and how do we problem-solve and deliver solutions that don’t just solve our own problems at GoodPower, but sort of solve big, big systemic, sectoral problems.
Mitch Ratcliffe 37:04
As you think about where we are right now, and everything you just said in the context of what we’re looking toward in terms of the world we want to build — what are you most hopeful about right now?
Leah Qusba 37:13
Well, I think the market forces, much to President Trump’s chagrin, are just too strong to stop the industry. You know, we have a deadline coming up on July 4, where the PTC and ITC — right, if you haven’t begun substantial construction, and now this is being litigated, or this 5% test, you know, have you spent 5% of the project budget — you will not be eligible for the PTC and ITC, these important tax credits that make these projects more lucrative and more profitable and more desirable from a financial investment perspective.
But when you look at the impacts of this sort of arbitrary deadline that we’re all racing toward — yes, Rhodium Group says, you know, the industry is going to take a hit, and a lot fewer projects will be built, there’ll be more consolidation — but the industry is too mature, and decarbonized power is too attractive and affordable and clean and just desirable and homegrown and stable and secure. There’s just too many good things, I think, wrapped up in decarbonized power to stop it.
I think the same is true for electric transportation. If we look to the global south — we work in the global south and non-OECD economies — where you see these two-wheelers and people buying electric vehicles in droves, because they don’t want to import this volatility of the global oil market into their households either. We look to food and agriculture, the MAHA movement of regenerative agriculture, the best carbon capture solution nature offers. People don’t want poison in their food, and we’re seeing a movement around that, and we’re seeing people get very exhausted and disgusted with, you know, the administration’s actions with Monsanto recently.
And so I think there is too much momentum for any one person or one administration to stop what’s happening right now. Can we throw roadblocks? Can we create friction? Can we run interference? Of course. We see our role as removing those bottlenecks, and kind of the counterbalance to that. So I think that gives me hope. The question is, how much time will it take? Time is our greatest enemy, and if we can save time, I think that’s the point. That’s where we avoid the worst consequences, and we seize the most opportunity. So how do we save time?
Mitch Ratcliffe 39:22
How does the adaptation story fit into what you’re doing today? Obviously, we’re going to need to prepare for this.
Leah Qusba 39:28
I think there are fantastic organizations out there working more on adaptation, disaster relief, mutual aid — community-based organizations that are doing a lot of that work. I think it’s hugely, hugely important. We’re going to need to figure out how to live and thrive and support people. The stories out of New Orleans, you know — hey, people have to move; this is going to be us; we’re going to lose 60 miles inland, right? So it has to happen. That’s not work that GoodPower is leading.
There’s a group of organizations, and also environmental disaster survivors. Extreme Weather Survivors is a great organization led by a dear friend of mine named Sierra Kos. They’re doing incredible work to really platform disaster survivors and what it’s like to live through wildfires, lose everything, lose your insurance — what does it look like to be on the front lines of these climate consequences, and how do we really tell those stories and use them, I think, as a warning signal, but also as an education tool to move local, state, and federal policies further toward supporting people.
I think the last thing I’ll say is some of the insurance subrogation laws that are being proposed in Rhode Island and New York, California, Hawaii. These are some of the leadership states saying, wait a second, polluters caused this knowingly for four decades — why are my constituents being left holding the bag? Why are they footing the bill when this industry was complicit? There’s actually a huge state policy movement right now called insurance subrogation, where insurance companies can actually go and make the industry pay for this and clean up — have a superfund, basically, where these companies pay into it, and when these disasters happen, they have to help clean it up, and that bill should not go necessarily to the community or the homeowner. And the insurance companies, too, I think, always get the blame and the ire, but as this continues to happen, that market is going to be more and more difficult over time. So I think having a solution where those most responsible and complicit with driving this situation are also going to be helping to pay for it.
Mitch Ratcliffe 41:46
Leah, thanks so much for this incredibly inspiring conversation. How can folks keep track of what GoodPower is up to?
Leah Qusba 41:52
Oh, good. Go to goodpower.org. We’d love to hear from you. You can contact us, you can reach me on LinkedIn, where I’m active as well, and we’d love to be in touch. Thanks for having me.
Mitch Ratcliffe 42:02
Thank you very much for spending time with us today.
Leah Qusba 42:04
Take care.
[COMMERCIAL BREAK]
Mitch Ratcliffe 42:11
Welcome back to Sustainability In Your Ear. You’ve been listening to my conversation with Leah Qusba. She’s CEO of GoodPower, the climate and media research organization known until recently as Action for the Climate Emergency, and you can learn more about Leah and her team’s work at goodpower.org. GoodPower is all one word, no space, no dash — goodpower.org.
Let’s consider what it means when an organization that spent 18 years with the words climate emergency in its name concludes those words themselves have become an obstacle to connecting with an audience. Now, this was a data-driven decision. Only 8% of voters under 35 rated climate as their top issue in 2024, and young people ranked the economy first and most important. And that’s the movement’s critical base. If it’s to transform this economy, affordability is what people — especially young people, who want to buy their first home, want to buy their first EV, or would like to be able to put their kids through school. Those folks are the ones who are going to make the change that we’re talking about, who are going to vote — both with their wallet and at the ballot box — for a new world. GoodPower’s rebrand is a bet that the movement can meet them at the crossroads of economics and sustainability.
Leah accurately described global energy volatility as a hidden tax on American families. Every far-off war and commodity swing shows up in the utility bill and at the pump, while wind and sun carry no fuel costs at all. There’s only the capital investment involved in building the solar and wind systems in the first place; then you get free power. But with oil, those taxes are effectively paid to companies, not governments. And as we heard in last week’s interview with Shareholder Democracy’s Gabriel Grant, shareholders have not yet leveraged their voting power to exert control over the companies whose stocks they own, and those companies are ultimately accountable to those shareholders.
When you see the problem through the lens of the Trump administration’s hypocritical approach to market competition, in which they suppress emerging technology, the renewables argument becomes simple supply-and-demand mathematics. The fastest, cheapest form of energy is being blocked from coming to market, and the result is rising rates rather than economic resilience. This isn’t the proverbial 500-miles-per-gallon carburetor purportedly suppressed by the oil industry in the 1970s. This is a real technology ready to reduce the cost of living while doing immense good for the environment, and people see this. GoodPower’s polling with the University of Chicago found just 40% of Republicans approve of their party’s current energy policy.
There’s a real tension as we continue to reinvent the economy, and Leah’s decision to lean entirely on pocketbook messaging is a clear path to building support for solar, wind, geothermal, and other renewables, which will only become more plentiful, not run dry, over the next century, like fossil fuels ultimately will. Leah’s answer is audience segmentation: one message — a front-door climate message — for the audience that wants one, the people who are already convinced and who want to share that message; and on the other side, economics-based messaging for everyone else. The messenger now matters more than the message, and in an era of influencers, this really comes through bright and clear.
Leah’s father, a conservative who doubts human-caused climate change, went solar because his HVAC contractor made the case — not his daughter, who runs one of the country’s largest climate communication shops, but an HVAC contractor. As Leah said, rural speaks to rural, neighbor speaks to neighbor, and GoodPower has operationalized that instinct at scale. They have a creator collective of more than 8,500 content makers with a combined audience in the hundreds of millions, and they’re slipping what Leah calls raisins of clean energy content into the bread of car videos, food channels, and gaming streams. And they measure it. That’s a discipline that separates persuasion from wishful thinking. What you can measure, you can change. It remains too rare in a movement that too often assumes its urgent warnings will carry the day by themselves.
The last idea to revisit is a leading indicator, and that is that artificial intelligence has become the new front line of the information fight, on both sides of the aisle.
Mitch Ratcliffe 46:29
People now ask Claude and ChatGPT whether solar will raise their electric bills, so GoodPower practices answer engine optimization to make sure accurate information surfaces in the first AI response. Its CleanCast tool predicts where siting battles over solar installations, wind installations, and so forth will erupt, so that developers can inoculate communities before disinformation arrives — like the recent industry-funded campaign that told potato farmers that solar panels would result in glass shards in their crops. Another tool that GoodPower has come up with, the TrueVoice tool, launching now, separates authentic public comments from AI-manufactured opposition flooding county permitting dockets and congressional mailboxes.
So one of the good things about AI, at least, is that it allows us to cut through a lot of the noise that we’re being flooded with. But look, this is an arms race, and Leah is candid about the tools being young. These are nascent movements and a nascent set of technologies we’re building on. But the prebunking playbook worked with Winter Storm Fern in January, when creators reached millions with the truth about the aging grid before the wind-turbine scapegoating could harden into what would be perceived as truth by many people. There’s a clear strategic method evolving in real time, and we will keep tracking that race for the American mind here on Sustainability In Your Ear.
Hey, look, if today’s conversation was useful to you, could you pass it along? Sharing an episode with a friend or leaving a review on your favorite podcast website is a great way to get the word out there, because folks, you are the amplifiers that can spread more ideas to create less waste. And you can tell folks they can find more than 560 episodes of Sustainability In Your Ear at Earth911.com/podcast, or you can check us out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audible, or whatever purveyor of podcast goodness you prefer.
Thanks for your support. I’m Mitch Ratcliffe. This is Sustainability In Your Ear, and we will be back with another innovator interview soon. In the meantime, folks, take care of yourself, take care of one another, and of course, let’s all take care of this beautiful planet of ours. Have a green day.
The post Sustainability In Your Ear: GoodPower’s Leah Qusba on Selling Clean Energy as Pocketbook Power appeared first on Earth911.
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This week’s quote is a Somali proverb: “Be a mountain or lean on one.”
Earth911 inspirations. Post them, share your desire to help people think of the planet first, every day. Click to get a larger image.
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Ballet flats have long been a staple in my wardrobe, but in the past few years have experienced a significant resurgence — and for good reason. The right pair can be practical, versatile, and oh so chic through days at work, with family, or out for the evening. But finding that “just right” set that’s well-crafted and sustainably made can be a whole other story. That’s why this sustainable flats guide exists.
Comfort, style, sustainability, and longevity are a lot to ask in a shoe, but I don’t believe it’s too much. It just takes some extra digging. And thankfully, I’ve done that digging for you. Because I get it! I want a flat that looks beautiful. I want a flat that’s made responsibly in line with my values. I want a shoe I can actually wear for my life. And I want that shoe to be worth the investment — it has to last. That’s why I vetted through dozens of brands to create this curated list of flats.
What Makes a Flat More Sustainable?
Material Sourcing
Footwear is a tricky category when it comes to sustainable fashion because we ask a lot of our shoes. We wear them in rain or sunshine, paved paths and cobblestone, day in and day out for years. And through it all, they have to remain beautiful. Because when they’re unwearable, there’s not much left to do with them: there is no viable footwear recycling today. Anywhere that calls it “shoe recycling” is really repurposing that footwear. But once it can no longer be worn, it’s simply trash.
In other words, our shoes need to be incredibly durable, even though the most durable materials don’t always come with the lightest footprint. In footwear, when we talk about durability, we usually rely on leather or high-performance synthetic materials. Leather can hold up with many years of wear, getting more beautiful with wear, and is easy to repair when needed. Synthetic materials are also durable, particularly for withstanding the elements like snow and rain.
But sourcing these materials conventionally is highly polluting — so how can we source these materials better?
For synthetics, we have recycled options. Today, that’s largely recycling from plastic bottles, which isn’t without it’s controversies, but there is much innovation happening in the industry around true textile-to-textile recycling.
For leather, I look for:
- Vegetable-tanned (rather than chromium tanned)
- Locally-sourced leather (more traceability), and/or
- Leather Working Group certified leather, which covers responsible management of water, energy, and waste; safe chemical management, traceability of the raw material, and occupational safety for workers.
Notably, there is no certification for animal welfare, so these are imperfect systems. But the alternative is footwear made from synthetic plastic materials or vegan leather alternatives that don’t yet meet the same durability standards as leather. Sustainability within today’s constraints requires trade-offs.
That said, there is always secondhand leather — by buying shoes secondhand you can access the quality of leather without adding further demand for the material.
Responsible Manufacturing
When considering responsible production practices, I look for first and foremost: transparency. Seeing what the brand shares about their material sourcing, their process, and who made their shoes where. And then I look at the details of that process: were the shoes made locally or within a geographic region? How are the workers paid and treated — and under which conditions do they work?
And, sometimes a brand employs an out-of-the-box approach to manufacturing entirely. There are a few slow fashion footwear brands challenging the traditional fashion system of ordering in mass quantities before demand is assessed —which inevitably leads to overproduction. These brands use an “on demand” model instead, producing their shoes only after they’ve been ordered. This reduces the risk of overproduction (i.e. producing more than what gets sold) while also encouraging more thoughtful consumption. You can’t impulse buy a pair of Mary Janes that you have to wait 8 weeks for.
Wearable and Beautiful
The most perfectly environmentally sustainable flat in the world is useless if no one wants to wear it. And as I mentioned earlier, footwear cannot be recycled into new footwear at the end of its life, so we want our shoes to last a really long time. That means they need to be design forward and comfortable, too.
My Top Picks for More Sustainable and Ethical Flats
Keeping all of that in mind, these more sustainable flats brands meet this criteria, albeit to various extents. Some err more on comfort while some more on style. Some have admirable levels of transparency and social impact, while other brands have more of a focus on their ecological impact. I’ve included descriptions alongside each brand as well as a summary of conscious qualities so you can find a brand that meets your priorities best. And, of course, a price range so you know what makes sense for your budget as well.
Some that this guide includes affiliate links which means we may earn a commission if you shop through these links. As always, brands featured in shopping guides are brands that meet our strict sustainability criteria that we think you’ll love.
1. ALOHAS
Spanish brand ALOHAS flips the typical fashion production system on its head with its on-demand model.
Instead of overproducing thousands of shoes to later discount them, ALOHAS does the exact opposite. Its newest styles are available for pre-order at a discount of 30%, so the footwear brand can more accurately forecast demand. Then the shoes — like their flats — are primarily made by local artisans in Spain and Portugal. The brand regularly shows the behind the scenes of their production on their social media.
Conscious Qualities: On-Demand Production, Locally Made
Size Range: EU 35-42 (US 5-11)
Price Range: $195-$225
2. Rothy’s
If you’re looking for flats for all-day wear at work or running errands, Rothy’s is my recommendation with their cushy insoles. The brand makes their more sustainable flats from recycled plastic bottles, as well as materials like hemp and merino wool, but they still look sleek enough for the office.
While I might not wear Rothy’s flats to a fashion event (I prefer smooth leather for more elevated occasions), they are more than stylish enough to wear to most of my real-life scenarios. My favorite part about Rothy’s, though, is that they are machine washable.
Materials: Recycled & Natural Materials, Owns One Factory (undisclosed percentage of production)
Size Range: US 5-13
Price Range: $99-$165
3. Vivaia
Vivaia has the most adorable sustainable Mary Janes made from recycled plastic bottles. The adjustable straps and arch support make Vivaia’s Mary Janes suitable for all-day comfort, even if your feet are typically prone to slipping out of flats.
This vegan footwear brand also makes square-toe and pointed-toe flats for a more elevated look. And of the several recycled plastic bottle footwear brands on the market today, Vivaia tends to have the most elevated designs in my opinion.
Conscious Qualities: Vegan, Recycled Materials
Size Range: US 5-11
Price: $97 – $116
4. The RealReal
The RealReal is an authenticated luxury resale platform with contemporary, designer, and high-end luxury brands. Depending on your priorities you can find shoes in anywhere from pristine condition (but higher priced)) to “fair” or even “as is” for the largest discount from full price.
You don’t always have as many options aesthetically when shopping more sustainably, so I like to go to The RealReal when I’m looking for specific styles. I was recently looking for Mary Janes with feminine detailing and came across Larroude Flats on The RealReal, where I purchased a pair of neutral scalloped accent flats. (Pictured here!)
Conscious Qualities: Secondhand
Size Range: US 3.5-14
Price Range: $9+
5. ESSĒN
ESSĒN elegant, minimalist footwear is artisan handcrafted from Leather Working Group-certified leather in solar-powered facilities in Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Each shoe also comes with a product passport where you can view the step-by-step journey that product took through the brand’s supply chain from raw material to manufacturing to packaging and distribution.
Beyond transparency and responsible manufacturing, ESSĒN’s slow fashion business model prevents overproduction by operating on a made to order basis. Meaning while sizes and styles are predefined, the shoes are only produced after they’ve been ordered.
Conscious Qualities: LWG Certified, Supply Chain Transparency, On Demand Production
Size Range: EU 35-44 (US 4-13)
Price Range: $295-$450
6. Allbirds
Another comfort-first footwear option besides Rothy’s is Allbirds. The brand creates lightweight, super smooth and breathable flats from tree fibers, aptly called “Tree Breezers”. The (washable) shoes are also soft enough to wear without socks.
The Allbirds Tree Breezers are far more comfortable than typical flats, though I find that the Rothy’s are slightly comfier.
Conscious Qualities: Natural materials (FSC-Certified eucalyptus, castor mean oil, sugarcane EVA)
Size Range: US 5-11
Price Range: $105-$125
7. Darzah
Fair trade certified by Fair Trade Federation, Darzah’s ethical flats are entirely hand-embroidered and handcrafted in Palestine from locally sourced leather.
The tatreez flats from this nonprofit are embroidered by refugee and low-income women artisans in the West Bank with this traditional Palestinian techniques.
Conscious Qualities: Sustains Heritage Crafts, Fair Trade Certified
Size Range: EU 36-41 (US 6-10)
Price Range: $199 – $209
8. Nisolo
If you’re seeking a quality pair of classic leather flats ideal for your capsule wardrobe, Nisolo is a strong pick. Nisolo’s flats are handcrafted by artisans using leather sourced from a Leather Working Group certified tannery.
I’ve been wearing my Nisolo shoes for many years and can attest to their quality and durability.
That said, the brand has recently turned over to new ownership and now has significantly less information about their sustainability and ethics in their supply chain. I will be keeping a close eye on this brand to see if it continues to uphold the values Nisolo has long held.
Conscious Qualities: LWG-Certified, Artisan Handcrafted
Size Range: US 5-11
Price: $138 – $198
For More Slow Fashion Content:
You May Also Want to Check Out:
The Best Affordable Ethical Fashion Brands
Responsibly Made Vegan Shoe Brands
15 Brands with Ethical Boots to Rock this Fall (and Beyond)
The post 8 Best Ethical & Sustainable Flats That Are Effortlessly Chic appeared first on Conscious Life & Style.
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