Have you noticed how high gas prices are right now? As inhabitants of planet Earth, to varying degrees, we are all responsible for the changing climate and environmental impacts through our consumption habits of fossil fuels. We need to reckon with the reality that we are all part of — and complicit in — capitalist-dominated industrial and societal systems.

We also must not fall into individualization traps; to address these challenges at the required scale, we have to see these as fundamentally collective and collective action challenges. Yet, it is critical to keep in mind that some are also much more culpable than others. There is a cruel paradox that people at the forefront of climate impacts are rarely those who have contributed much to the environmental problems. Keeping the status quo through inaction (as a form of action) or resting on “false solutions” (e.g., I recycle, therefore I do my part) effectively becomes a choice to leave some people behind, and to allow others to suffer in the face of climate change.

While the price of a barrel of oil is currently spiking, it is an opportune moment to engage in resonant and meaningful conversations about climate change, sustainability and the environment, and these fundamental truths are part of this work together. Many of us see that this involves commitment to systematically work to overcome divides.

Without providing outsized attention to — and oxygen for — outlier or extreme views, we seek to find common ground with those that have been called the “movable middle.” These may be our neighbors, friends or classmates who haven’t thought too much about sustainability, climate change or environmental issues in their everyday lives and do not really have strong views about them. These folks may perceive these challenges as incremental in the face of acute concerns about the price of eggs, the quality of their kid’s school lunches or their paltry hourly or salary work pay that isn’t keeping up with inflation. Such woes can challenge anyone’s “finite pool of worry.” Frankly, day to day, most of us are inundated by immediate challenges surrounding us, and we often may feel that our actions are shaped more by external circumstances than by internal passions, commitments and desires.

Yet our inaction and silence may be reinforced by three key facts:

• It takes significant and sustained time commitments to significantly confront climate change and environmental challenges. For example, because of the long amount of time that greenhouse gases often stay in the atmosphere, in 2026, we’re still grappling with the impacts of emissions from a Model T Ford that was driving around in 1911.

• It takes a lot (e.g., resources, perceptions) to overcome indifference and confront the unsustainability of our present-day habits and path-dependent decisions as a society.

• Collective action demands overcoming cultural and political distance between interests, organizations and people involved and impacted.

It is much easier to pollute the waters of communication about sustainability and environment than to keep them clean, productive and useful in a 21st-century ecosystem. It does not take much to create a communications environment of misunderstanding and mistrust through the proliferation of mis- and disinformation. Moreover, ways of knowing about climate change, sustainability and environmental challenges are steeped in social, political, cultural and ideological histories.

Engaging with the movable middle requires sensitivity to (in)difference and relations of trust.

Sometimes this may be trust in what our favorite athletes, musicians or actors may have to say about sustainability, climate change or other related environmental issues. Or they can be a trusted family member or co-worker. These interactions are helped by not accepting communications conditions and environments as they are, but by a willingness instead to meld them into more productive spaces of engagement in different contexts. This instead, is a recognition that circumstances are made, not found, so they can be unmade or made differently.

Sometimes these conversations are productive through many discussions over time. Moreover, these are helpful when one leads by example, as research shows that leading by action can significantly influence others’ awareness and inclination to act themselves, as well as lower psychological barriers to engagement. In other words, positive actions can be infectious.

This is a biweekly sustainability and environment column authored by Max Boykoff. Max is a faculty member at the University of Colorado Boulder, though these the views expressed here are based upon his scholarly expertise and research/creative experience as well as personal views and should not be considered the university’s official position on any specific issue.

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