In Hot Water
To talk climate, we need to talk class, comfort—and coffee.
A couple of weeks ago, at our Friday morning coffee gathering, our good friend Blair asked the table what we thought about hot water heating. I know, makes you wish you could’ve been there. Blair is building a house in a small rural town nearby and the question about what type of hot water heater he should install was top of mind. My initial, unspoken, reaction is that he should install an electric heater, since the alternative of natural gas fired heat would involve adding environmental GHGs. Understood by the coffee crew was this question was not about the impact on climate, but all about the lower cost alternative.
Before we try to answer Blair’s question, let’s dig a little deeper into the reasons we have trouble talking in a constructive way about climate change. In a recent article in The Atlantic, Xochitl Gonzalez talks about wealth disparity, class, and politics. 1 Nothing about climate change was in the article, but many of the same forces she discussed apply pretty directly.
We have all had the experience of bringing up a topic that we care about — for us, climate change — only to notice people “checking out” of the conversation; eyes glaze over, cell phone comes out…. It is just that our agenda of climate change doesn’t relate to their world at that moment.
Gonzalez's article talks about how to politically connect with people who are lower income (30% of American households) and with those living in poverty. Most of the policy decisions that affect the poor are made by people who are not poor. Many elected law makers are millionaires and none are living in poverty. The designation of middle class (>50%) has become too broad to ascribe to it any coherent attributes.
Gonzalez defines a group she calls the “comfort class”, who are not wealthy, may live paycheck to paycheck, but have credit and are able to handle an unexpected financial disruption in their lives. For the poor, an unexpected car repair or children’s dental problem present existential crises in their lives, resulting in questions about whether they eat beans for a month, skip their rental payment, or do without a car. The question about which water heater to install can seem otherworldly. 2
For the ultra-wealthy, billionaires and multi-millionaires, climate change is easily ignored unless they decide to take it on as a cause. This group is the least affected by climate change, while also having the most ability to do something about it. The people in positions to make policy, laws and organizations related to climate change tend to be in the wealthy and comfort classes, and naturally rely on their lived perspective when making decisions.
Good-intentioned law makers (not all are) who are trying to take into account the impacts on those in poverty often struggle to understand their perspective. Gonzalez relates a story that illustrates “unexamined presumptions”; she was asked during an Indie Bookstore Day to share a childhood memory of an independent bookstore and couldn’t, because her childhood neighbourhood had no bookstores of any type. No one could afford to buy books: they used the library.3
Little wonder, therefore, that societies and the international community have so much trouble reaching consensus on what to do about climate change. Beyond wealth inequality, social inequality (gender, age, race, ethnicity, etc) both within and between nations results in those who are disadvantaged being disproportionately affected. These impacts occur in three dimensions: more exposure to climate hazards, more susceptibility to impacts of climate, and decreased ability to cope and recover. Climate events create a vicious cycle wherein an adverse climate event often leads to greater subsequent inequality. 4
It is easier to see these forces at play in poorer countries in Africa, which have little or no infrastructure or support for communities dealing with increased flooding or heat. There are also examples of this in North America. Higher income neighbourhoods have more resilient infrastructure for flood and heat compared to lower income areas that lack the same infrastructure.
Policy decisions related to the transition to renewable energy are easier in urban and wealthier areas that can spend on renewable infrastructure and incentives in pursuit of a cleaner environment. In rural and fossil-fuel -dependent areas where the switch to renewables results in job losses and economic decline, the conversation about climate change is much more difficult.
If we are going to get better at responding to climate change, we need to get better at talking about it with each other. Here are some ways to try and make the conversation better. 5
Make it Local. Climate change is global and it is easy to get drawn into a conversation in those terms. The statistics on CO2 percentages or global heating are far less effective than messages on creating local infrastructure jobs or how energy costs can be reduced.
Engage and empower youth. Studies show that youth can create parental concern and action. Daughters are particularly effective at this intergenerational communication.
Trusted messengers make a difference. Even though scientists in some quarters in our present times don’t carry the weight they once did, they are still effective messengers especially if they are relatable and use anecdotes and stories.
It is important to listen. When policy or laws are being rolled out they often involve a lot of telling and little listening. Everyone wants be heard especially when their lives are being impacted by change.
Okay, back to Blair and his water heater decision. We didn’t land a definitive answer for him but we offered a variety of perspectives. In our area, the lowest cost alternative is a natural gas fired hot water tank system due to the lower energy (operating) cost. We did make the point that since this is a new house, if there was a plan to use solar power for all or part of the electrical installation, this could change the decision. When we got home after coffee, talked with the Sweet Lightning team and looked a bit more into this question, it turned out to be more complicated than we thought, especially when factoring in how electricity is generated and the efficiencies of various devices like hybrid heat pump water heaters.
… coffee makes all such conversations better!
Reading
- Gonzalez, Xochitl. “What the Comfort Class Doesn’t Get.” The Atlantic (blog), April 6, 2025. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/class-money-finances/682301/.
- Kochhar, Rakesh. “The State of the American Middle Class.” Pew Research Center (blog), May 31, 2024. https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2024/05/31/the-state-of-the-american-middle-class/.
- Climate Analytics. “How Do Socioeconomic Barriers Inform Limits to Adaptation?” Accessed April 16, 2025. https://climateanalytics.org/projects/embark-temporal-evolution-of-barriers-to-adaptation-and-their-relevance-for-climate-related-loss-and-damage.
- Islam, S Nazrul, and John Winkel. “Climate Change and Social Inequality,” Department of Economic & Social Affairs, DESA Working Paper No. 153, October 2017
- “Climate Change Communication | Accountable Climate Action,” March 7, 2023. https://www.amacad.org/publication/proven-principles-effective-climate-change-communication.