Understand Climate Change in 7 Minutes Using Your Bathtub
Why the Big Picture Matters
If you want to help solve climate change, you need to understand the big picture. Without it, it’s easy to chase shiny distractions that don’t move the needle, fall for greenwashing, or get lost in the weeds.
That’s what happened to me. When I first dove into climate work, I read several books, listened to dozens of podcasts, and tried to learn about every solution I could find. Before I knew it, I was overwhelmed. The more I learned, the more I realized I didn’t know. I kept wondering:
What’s actually driving climate change?
Which solutions matter most?
How do all the pieces fit together?
This article is my answer, built to get you grounded in ~7 minutes using a simple metaphor: your bathtub.
The bathtub has been used before to explain climate change, especially the balance between emissions and carbon sinks. But I’ve expanded it to include adaptation, equity, and the tradeoffs we face in deciding what to do first. Because to make smart climate choices, we need to see the whole system, not just the tub.
Big thanks to Nan Ransohoff, whose piece "A Mental Model for Climate Change" gave me a helpful foundation when I started and served as inspiration for this piece.
The Climate Change Bathtub in 30 Seconds
Picture climate change as an overflowing bathtub in your home:
Your bathtub is Earth's atmosphere, filling with greenhouse gases.
Faucets gushing water are emissions from fossil fuels, agriculture, industry, and more.
The drain is our planet’s ability to absorb carbon—through forests, oceans, and soil.
Putting on rain boots to walk on the wet floor is how we adapt to climate damage already underway.
Water seeping through the floor to the apartment below represents climate inequity
To solve climate change, we need to:
Turn off the emissions faucets: Reduce the ~50 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalents (Gt CO2e) we emit annually to net zero by 2050 to stay below 1.5°C warming (we aren’t past 1.5°C…yet)
Unclog the drains to restore carbon sinks: Protect and restore natural carbon sinks that absorb approximately 27.5 Gt CO2e yearly (~55%), while developing man-made carbon removal.
Mop up the water to adapt to the climate impacts that are already here.
Support downstairs neighbors: Protect vulnerable populations who are most impacted by climate change, but who didn’t cause it.
The climate change bathtub is already overflowing with emissions.
Step 1: Turn Off the Emissions Faucets
?? First, we need to turn off as many of the emissions faucets filling the tub as quickly as possible.
We pour about 50 gigatons of CO₂e (carbon dioxide equivalents) into the tub every year. To avoid catastrophic warming, we need to get that number close to zero by 2050—and cut it in half by 2030.
Unfortunately, there’s not just one faucet. There are many:
Faucet 1 Making things (31% of emissions): This includes emissions from manufacturing steel, cement, and other industrial products. Today, we rely on fossil fuels to generate the high temperatures required for these industrial products. But research and investments in alternative manufacturing processes and ways to generate heat from renewables will help here.
Faucet 2 Electrification (27%): This includes all coal, oil, and natural gas power plants. We need to generate electricity from renewables (solar, wind), improve grid infrastructure (transmission), and scale up energy storage for a renewable future.
Faucet 3 Growing Food (19%): Land use loss from agriculture, food waste, livestock emissions, and fertilizer production / use generate significant emissions. We need to shift toward sustainable farming practices that sequester carbon back in the soil, use fewer fertilizers, waste less food, and shift diets to be more plant-heavy.
Faucet 4 Getting Around (16%): This includes all transportation by land (cars, trucks, SUVs, trains), water (ships, boats), and air (planes). Public transportation, 15 minute cities, walking & biking more, switching to electric vehicles, and flying less help here.
Faucet 5 Heating/Cooling Buildings (7%): This includes heating and cooling residential and commercial buildings, and gas for cooking. Centralized heating/cooling systems, electrical heat pumps that can heat AND cool, and electrical cooking methods are needed.
Each faucet needs its own wrench to shut off.
Step 2: Unclog the Drain
🚰 Next, we need to ensure the world’s carbon sink ‘drains’ stay unclogged.
Natural carbon sinks, like oceans, forests, wetlands, and soil, are the drain in our bathtub. They pull carbon out of the air. But we’ve been clogging them with deforestation, industrial farming practices, and degradation. In our bathtub metaphor, if we pour 10 gallons of emissions into the tub each year, natural carbon sinks drain away about 5.5 gallons per year (source).
A common question at this point is: "Why can't we just eliminate all emissions?"
Two critical reasons:
Technical challenges: Some industrial processes remain difficult to decarbonize. Cement and steel production require extremely high temperatures that are challenging to achieve with renewable energy. For these hard-to-abate sectors, carbon removal becomes essential.
Historical emissions: There's already too much CO2 in the atmosphere warming our planet. Even if emissions dropped to zero tomorrow, Earth would continue warming from the greenhouse gases we've already released.
Our most powerful natural carbon sinks include:
Oceans: Our oceans absorb ~25% of annual carbon emissions and 90% of excess atmospheric heat
Land: Land-based carbon sinks absorb ~30% of annual carbon emissions.
Forests & plants capture and store carbon via photosynthesis. When we protect old-growth forests and restore degraded land, we're unclogging this vital drain.
Soil: Healthy soils store huge amounts of carbon. Regenerative agricultural practices can enhance this natural capacity by sequestering gigatons of carbon back in the soil, which makes the food we grow more nourishing.
"What about man-made carbon capture and carbon offsets? Are these solutions needed or just distractions?"
There’s a lot of debate here, so perspective is important. The world's current man-made carbon capture capacity is about 50 million tons of CO2e—merely 0.1% of our annual 50 gigaton emissions (source).
In bathtub terms, if our yearly emissions fill the tub with 10 gallons of water, current carbon capture technology removes just 3 tablespoons, while natural carbon sinks drain away 5.5 gallons.
Yet most venture capital money is chasing those 3 tablespoons. Why? Profit.
This doesn’t mean man-made carbon capture has no role, but restoring forests, wetlands, and natural systems is many orders of magnitude more impactful. For more on carbon offsets, check out this comic book explainer.
Step 3: Adapt to the Water Already on the Floor
💦 We need to mop up the water that is already on the floor.
Earth has already warmed approximately 1.2°C since pre-industrial times. This warming has triggered major climate disruptions—intensifying hurricanes, amplifying monsoon rains, prolonging droughts, and strengthening heat waves. In our bathtub metaphor, water is already pooling on the bathroom floor. Since we can't instantly turn off all faucets and drain away the excess water, we need to adapt—roll up our pant legs and put on rain boots while continuing to address the root causes.
Adaptation efforts must address the most severe climate impacts:
Extreme weather & disasters: hurricanes, flooding, & wildfires threaten communities worldwide. Resilient infrastructure, restoring natural flood buffers like wetlands, and creating buffer zones can help.
Chronic environmental stressors: air pollution leads to about 7 million premature deaths while heat waves kill ~490,000 annually according to the World Health Organization. We need to reduce pollution from factories, expand access to air purification & cooling technologies, and provide community shelters.
Resource scarcity: water shortages, food insecurity due to drought or heavy rain events are another major impact. Solutions include water conservation & purification technologies, drought-tolerant crops, and diversified food systems.
In the face of climate disruptions, developing resilience is key. A helpful framework to guide how to build resilience is below:
What are the boundaries of the system of interest (which social, cultural, technical, economic, political or ecological factors are included)? Resilience of what?
Which disturbances should be included in the analysis? Resilience to what?
Resilience for whom?
What is the timeframe for analysis and planning? Resilience over what timeframe?
Step 4: Help Our Neighbors
💦 Even if we turn off the faucets, the floor is already flooded. Water is already spreading to the neighbors next door and into the homes below. They didn’t leave the tub running, but they’re getting soaked. This is climate inequity.
This is not just a problem between countries. It is also a problem within them. Around the world and close to home:
Residents of New Orleans, Puerto Rico, and other coastal cities rebuild again and again after stronger hurricanes.
Farming communities in Sub-Saharan Africa face drought after drought.
Families living on the wildfire frontlines in California and Australia face rising insurance costs — or no insurance at all.
Low-lying island nations like the Maldives are losing land and livelihoods.
Frontline communities, especially Black, Indigenous, and communities of color, bear higher risks because of historical disinvestment, proximity to pollution, and systemic inequities.
Solutions exist like fully funding the UN’s Loss & Damage Fund or providing tax incentives and financial support to retrofit old buildings or replace old infrastructure.
Justice means paying attention to who’s wettest, not just who is closest to the faucet.
Tradeoffs and how we get there
The good news is that we know what we need to do to address climate change and we have most of the tools and technologies to do so. The bad news is tradeoffs. Budgets, political capital, and social will are not infinite. People disagree about what to do first, whose needs are most important, and how to allocate limited resources.
An island nation might say:
"We’ll be underwater before the emissions even drop."
A fire survivor might plead:
"We need to rebuild now, not wait for long-term cuts."
A startup founder might pitch:
"Let’s 1000x carbon capture—it’s scalable and sexy!"
Meanwhile, a climate scientist would caution:
"Carbon capture is not as effective as preventing emissions in the first place."
Here’s my take, if I got to steer the ship for a day:
70% to shutting off emissions
15% to protecting and restoring carbon sinks
15% to adaptation and equity
You might make different tradeoffs. But you should know what’s in the tub before picking up a wrench.
In Summary
To keep global warming below 1.5°C, we need to cut emissions from ~50 Gt CO₂e today to near-zero by 2050—halfway there by 2030.
The big picture looks like this:
Turn off the faucets (emissions)
Unclog the drain (primarily natural carbon sinks and maybe some man-made ones)
Mop up the floor (adaptation)
Help the neighbors downstairs (equity)
That’s the whole system, in one tub.
Every ton of carbon we don’t emit, every forest we protect, every community we adapt adds up. Every 0.1 degree of warming averted makes a difference.