Into the Clear Blue Sky: Moving from climate despair to climate repair

The Last Judgment, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel masterpiece, provides a powerful analogy for what Stanford climate scientist Rob Jackson calls “climate restoration.” Conservators who cleaned away centuries of dirty oils and resins left small blackened patches untouched as testimony to how badly discolored the famous fresco had become from air pollution, candle smoke, and carbon dioxide in people’s breath. Jackson describes the scene at the outset of his new book Into the Clear Blue Sky: The Path to Restoring Our Atmosphere,” a blend of scientific research, personal anecdotes, and policy recommendations pointing the way toward a cleaner atmosphere and healthier lives.

In the book, Jackson illustrates the challenges and successes of the clean energy transition around the world, ranging from how his own family replaced gas appliances with electric alternatives to how a profitable multinational energy company flipped its portfolio from 85% fossil fuels to predominantly renewables within a decade. Below, Jackson, the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Provostial Professor of Earth System Science in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, discusses the book, which he describes as a “journey from climate despair to climate repair.”

What does climate restoration mean? What might it look like if it happened?

Jackson: It’s the idea that we can restore the atmosphere to preindustrial levels for gasses like methane. Doing so would save half a degree Celsius of warming, and could happen in our lifetimes. That’s my holy grail as an environmental scientist. Is that likely in my lifetime? Certainly not. But is it possible? It is. I use the Endangered Species Act as an analogy in the book. The ESA doesn't simply keep species alive. Its mandate is to restore a species to health. When we see bald eagles and gray whales and peregrine falcons and grizzly bears, they're here because people took the time to help those populations recover. We can apply that mentality to the atmosphere. It's not just about stopping climate change. We want to repair the air and the planet and become healthier as we go.

In the process of writing this book, was there anything that surprised you or struck you in a powerful way?

Jackson: That we can’t just build our way out of climate change. I was struck by the need for people in wealthier countries (including me) to use less, to consume less. That's not a popular message in a growth-first economy. It's much easier to discuss new technologies that will let us keep doing exactly what we do. In the book, I use an analogy for cars. If everyone owned cars at the rate we do in the U.S., there would be 7 billion cars worldwide instead of one and a half billion. Even with EVs or hydrogen vehicles or whatever, the world wouldn’t be a more sustainable place with 5 billion more vehicles.

How can we bridge partisan divides to unite people to work on the climate solutions you describe in your book?

Jackson: Almost all of the major pieces of environmental legislation in the U.S. were bipartisan, including the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. Health and safety link us all, regardless of one’s politics or background. We all want to leave a better world for our kids. Sometimes we forget that people who disagree with us want that, too. I hope to motivate people to adopt climate solutions because doing so will also make us healthier—breathing less air pollution, drinking cleaner water.

How are the climate issues you discuss in the book intertwined with environmental justice?

Jackson: We live in a time when the top 1 percent of the world’s population contributes more fossil carbon emissions than half the people on Earth. Yet it’s the poor and people of color who breathe the most fossil pollution. Particulate pollution from coal and cars still kills more than a hundred thousand Americans a year. Globally, one in five of all deaths is attributable to burning fossil fuels—ten million senseless deaths a year—when cleaner, safer fuels are already available. The clean-energy transition is a chance to remedy past injustices in pollution exposures and to improve water, air, and soil quality for all.

You write “I’ve watched years of climate inaction roll by like floats in a parade,” and you describe policymakers’ “sloth and apathy” in combatting climate change. How do you maintain the will to continue your work toward restoring the climate?

Jackson: Optimism and hope are muscles we can exercise. My first homework assignment in every class is for students to find things that are better today than they were 50 or 100 years ago. The list is long: life expectancy and childhood mortality; water and air quality; the decline of global poverty, despite the injustices that remain. Targeted regulations have caused lead levels in the blood of young children in the U.S. to drop 96 percent since the phaseout of leaded gasoline. Half a century of action through the bipartisan U.S. Clean Air Act continues to save hundreds of thousands of lives a year at a thirtyfold return on investment. Workers are healthier and more productive. We breathe easier and pay lower medical expenses.

Jackson is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Precourt Institute for Energy.