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Whether you loved or hated President Barack Obama, you cant deny that the style of leadership and approach to environmental sustainability emanating from the White House has changed dramatically in the past three years compared with his administration. If youre like me, youve been wondering what Obama thinks about the climate crisis and other sustainability issues that have been making headlines as part of presidential campaign coverage.

My curiosity was partially sated last week during the Greenbuild conference, where the former president shared his views about leadership, sustainability and the urgency of climate change.

Below are highlights from Obamas conversation with Mahesh Ramanujam, president of the U.S. Green Building Council. Ive shared several of my takeaways, along with the direct quotes that support them, edited for clarity and length.

Obama: Climate change is an existential issue.

Tax policy, you can have bad tax policy, you can have good tax policy, but if you get that tax policy for four years, for eight years, you can correct it, reverse it. Climate change, its one of those [issues] where you can be too late and find, at least in human understanding and time horizons, it becomes irreversible. So I know of no issue that is more urgent than that.

Now I would combine it, though, with how can we construct a globalized, capitalist economy that actually provides everyone opportunity and is not continually accelerating inequality.

It is hard to figure out how we solve sustainability issues and climate change if you also have huge gaps in wealth and opportunity and education.

So were not going to solve the former unless were also intending to do the latter.

Obama: In a place like California, the way building codes have been constructed, theres almost no low-income housing in certain metropolitan areas. Not just low-income housing, theres no middle-class income housing. So teachers and police officers and others cannot live in those metropolitan areas because building codes there are so onerous it makes construction of affordable housing almost impossible.

Well, over time, those populations are going to push back. Theyre going to think that anything related to creating sustainable building codes is somehow adding to our costs, making our life more expensive.

So if we want to think about sustainability, we have to do it in a way that also is thinking about affordability. And if youre not paying attention to that, youre not going to get enough pick-up.

Obama: I do believe that the way that people are moved is by hearing stories and not facts. Now I am a fact guy, Im all about logic and reason and fact. I think those enlightenment values are really important. Obviously, thats contested these days sometimes. What moves people is stories and connection. And when we consider issues of sustainability, connecting peoples sense of place with the work that youre doing becomes critical.

What moves people is stories and connection. And when we consider issues of sustainability, connecting peoples sense of place with the work that youre doing becomes critical.

Obama: Heres the central principle about organizing communities, and Ill be honest with you, its the principle just about living and trying to have an impact. I always tell young organizers working for us, "Your first job is not to talk, but to listen."

I do think one chronic problem of do-gooders is sometimes we like to tell people what they should think is important, instead of actually asking them, 'Whats important to you?'

Obama: This is a larger cultural point how much is enough? All of you are familiar with the fact that one of the reasons that, despite huge increases in energy-efficient technologies, we still have such a big carbon footprint is our houses have gotten so much bigger.

The question is: How much space do we need?

Were America, were used to a lot of space, we dont want to have constraints, we want big everythings big. Big Macs. Whoppers. Thats big stuff.

And I get that. Thats part of our DNA in America; we like being big.

I talk about this with our daughters all the time. Were now at the point in our lives where we can have sort of as much as we want of anything, and its like a good meal. Sometimes just having a nice meal instead of keeping on going back to the buffet, you feel better at the end of it.

Obama: I think what we should all be striving for as a society is to align what we say were about and our core ideals with what we do. So if we say that our children and the next generation are the most important things, then we have to act in accordance with those values.

I worry that any society where how we live strays too far from what we say we believe in is going to have a problem. And currently, there is more divergence than I would like.

And if I profess that the New Testament says we should be worrying about the poor and the weak and the vulnerable, and you say thats what youre about, then presumably that should be reflected in your policies and the people you support.

I worry that any society where how we live strays too far from what we say we believe in is going to have a problem. And currently, there is more divergence than I would like.

Continued here:
Barack Obama on climate, equity and overconsumption - GreenBiz