Leave the Lights On: How Joyful Decisions Can Save Our Species

by Elizabeth Dunn, Jiaying Zhao

How to make an impact on climate change by taking actions that bring you joy

What if the most effective ways to fight climate change made you happy?

Psychologist Elizabeth Dunn and climate behavior scientist Jiaying Zhao challenge everything we think we know about sustainable living. While most climate advice demands self-denial—eat less, travel less, want less—this groundbreaking book offers a counterintuitive you can make your life better while saving our species at the same time. The authors reveal how tweaking everyday decisions around food, travel, housing, and shopping can nudge us toward a tipping point of mass action—without tipping us into burnout.
You will discover
Joy is a powerful climate strategy. When you enjoy the changes you’re making, you’re more likely to stick with them—and spread them. You don’t have to go vegan or give up flying. Smart substitutions (chicken over beef, carry-on over checked bags) make a real dent in emissions with less personal friction.Small talk matters. Normalizing climate conversations with friends and family helps shift social norms and catalyzes cultural change.Give yourself permission to leave the lights on. Focus on higher-impact actions instead of smaller interventions.
Leave the Lights On is a bold invitation to reimagine climate action not as a burden, but as an opportunity to build a brighter future—without guilt, without gloom, and without giving up the things that make life worth living. With warmth, clarity, and a refreshingly optimistic voice, Zhao and Dunn reframe what it means to “do your part.” Because sustainability doesn’t lie in doing everything, it lies in doing something, joyfully.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sustainability

288 pages, Hardcover

Published June 16, 2026

About the author

Elizabeth Dunn is an associate professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. At age twenty-six, she was featured as one of the “rising stars” across all of academia by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Her work has been featured in top academic journals, including two recent papers in Science, and in hundreds of media outlets worldwide.

Reviews

[Qing Chen · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are two things that I just love about this book:
1) It champions a cultural narrative where personal happiness and the environment aren't at odds but rather support and follow each other.
2) The book is delightful.

I think a lot of the time when I think about climate change, the predominant cultural narrative is kinda framed in terms of a trade off between your own wellbeing and the wellbeing of the Earth - Like I can take a shorter shower to save water or turn off the air conditioner or not have a kid or write to my local representative and like these are all things that I don't want to do? Under this narrative, the actions I'm supposed to take are framed as personal sacrifices to my happiness that maybe I'm supposed to make if I'm actually committed to reducing emissions; the environment's wellbeing and my personal wellbeing are at odds.

I think that narrative is actually pretty damaging because it encourages a feeling of futility? Like sure I personally know that I took a certain action but I'm not going to see its positive impact.

Elizabeth Dunn and Jiaying Zhao deconstruct that narrative. In its place is a thesis where they argue that choices which encourage personal happiness and choices that are environmentally responsible are often one and the same, and our misconceptions about what's good for the environment can often prevent us from taking actions that would benefit both our own happiness and the Earth's wellbeing.

To illustrate, an example that kinda struck me was that the environmental impact of someone's diet switching from beef->vegetarian to beef->chicken/pork is pretty similar. That is to say if you look at emissions produced from all three diets, if your starting point is regularly eating beef then switching to chicken/pork has a similar magnitude of emissions reduction as going vegetarian. Though not all the points in the book are that level of surprising, the book is chock-full of that kind of insight which, for me at least, really alleviates the guilt I have about a lot of choices which have environmental consequences, which is kind of a lot of choices.

The book is also just accessible and fun, which I thought was a funny contrast to the 32 pages of sources in the back of my copy. I think my favourite quote was in the section where they talk about how communicating heat pump uptake within a community can encourage other people to also adopt a heat pump, and they write that it's "worth thinking about ways to pimp your pump." Happiness experts really leading by example.

So yeah I'd recommend this book to anyone who's been feeling jaded or doomer-y about the environmental movement and maybe wants to stop feeling bad about their environmental impact. It's information packed, it's practical, the ideas were novel (to me at least maybe I'm just like uninformed), and it promotes a joyful way to fight against one of the most existential threats to humans. And what more can you really want in a book?

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent companion piece to Hannah Ritchie’s “Not the End of the World.” A lot of the material is similar, but “Leave the Lights On” is more actionable, and also brings in the dimension of psychology. Dunn and Zhao argue that fighting climate change and building a more sustainable future doesn’t need to entail deprivation or doomerism – in fact, it can’t. The only way we’re going to succeed is by doing things that are both good for the planet and that make us happy. For each of a number of areas (food, travel, spending, etc.), they focus on what changes are more high-impact and which don’t actually matter that much, and also show how those changes can be made joyful, social, and eye-catching. For example, when it comes to food, you don’t need to go fully vegan – cut cutting out (or cutting back on) beef will have a major impact. (This is, in fact, one of the changes I myself have made since learning more about the impacts of various foods on the climate.) My one quibble with the book is that it’s very individual-focused, as opposed to suggesting changes at the governmental level, like regulations or carbon taxes. (It’s discussed briefly in the final chapter, but not much more than that.) However, that’s not really the point of the book. Bottom line, an excellent book for people who are trying to figure out how to lead a more sustainable life without feeling miserable and deprived about it.

[Austin Dunlop · Rating 5 out of 5]

My second biggest takeaway from the book was how to actually spell smorgasbord.

My first was a little harder to put into words, this book does such a fantastic job or taking you through what meaningful change looks like for each individual person's circumstances. I think it's greatest gift is just helping me realize I don't have to be burdened with this guilt of not doing enough. The mix of both what changes are actually meaningful and in what ways am I preserving/jeopardizing my happiness in spirit of these is very insightful. I think my greatest takeaway is the knowledge to help me find my own middle ground, that retains both my happiness and allows me to take sizeable actions to be green.

[Jim Tolbert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spot on. A solid evaluation of how personal changes to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions can be accomplished while taking joy from our lives. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions requires individual change. These changes are accessible today - there are no laws saying we can not reduce our emissions. And yet people concerned about climate change frequently want governments to change and corporations to change (both necessary) while ignoring the personal change they can make in their daily lives - today - with no new laws.
Highly recommended book for anyone concerned about climate change living in a developed economy.

[Kirstin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A prescription for joyful climate action couldn't come at a better time. This book changed how I approach decisions big and small. I now make sure my veggies are visible in the fridge, I allow myself the occasional steak treat, and I bundle my trips to get the most out of them.

[Todd Kashdan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I often think of whether the authors are the right people to detail a subject. Well who better to discuss the best strategies to deal with an environmental mess than one of the world’s leading happiness scientists?

Fascinating and timely topic.
There is nothing out there like this.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easy read from two UBC psychology profs.

[Sarah Evangeline Norman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really helpful book. For example, cheese is worse for the climate than chicken.