How to break free from your silo (spoiler alert: companionship aids)

Eve Driver and Tom Osborn concurred that it was essential for the globe to abandon fossil fuels. However, the Harvard College mates, both actively participating in campus discussions regarding climate change, had distinctly differing ideas on how to achieve that goal.

Driver regarded the movement towards carbon-free energy options as a historical comparison to the Civil Rights Movement.

“But Tom insisted, ‘No, this is much closer to the transition we made from horses and carriages to automobiles,’” Driver remembered.

Both gradually started recognizing the merits of each other’s viewpoints, with open, and often challenging, discussions serving as the foundation for a lasting friendship. Driver and Osborn subsequently released “What We Can’t Burn: Friendship and Friction in the Fight for Our Energy Future” (2024). During a recent event at the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics, they shared readings from the book and exchanged thoughts on nurturing relationships akin to the one they cultivated as members of the Class of ’20. 

“Upon discovering this book, I found it profoundly impactful, integrating it into my own research on friendship and politics,” stated Ethics Center Director Eric Beerbohm, the Alfred and Rebecca Lin Professor of Government and senior adviser of the FAS Civil Discourse initiative. “I remarked to them, ‘You’ve almost formulated a new genre here.’”

Osborn, a psychology student, had become the adolescent founder of a clean cooking fuel business in his hometown in Kenya. During high school, his mother developed a respiratory illness due to smoke inhalation from cooking with charcoal, the typical practice in their area.

“I was raised in a context where government was not particularly effective,” Osborn expressed. “I thought, if anyone is going to resolve this clean cooking dilemma for my mom, it won’t be the government. It required an entrepreneur to tackle it.”

Driver, who enjoyed reading Ralph Waldo Emerson while growing up in suburban Boston, recalled being doubtful about Osborn, partly due to the name he selected for his company: GreenChar.

“I was very wary of greenwashing,” remarked Driver, who is currently a Brooklyn-based author and strategist specializing in the clean energy transition. “I discovered numerous companies that marketed themselves as sustainable but were, in reality, not very green.”

“What We Can’t Burn” shifts between the perspectives of Driver and Osborn during their junior year at Harvard, adopting a memoir-like style that illustrates how adversarial dialog can lead to a cherished friendship that broadens their understanding. “The climate crisis requires radical and uncomfortable forms of collaboration among individuals with various reasons to distrust or avoid engaging with one another,” they express in the introduction.

The discussion on February 27 covered an incident, elaborated upon in the book, which nearly jeopardized their friendship: Driver’s participation in a fossil fuel divestment protest that interrupted a 2019 event at the Kennedy School featuring then-Harvard President Larry Bacow.

“I felt that approach was somewhat disheartening,” stated Osborn, who is presently the co-founder and CEO of the Shamiri Institute, an organization dedicated to providing mental health care to youth throughout Africa. “I thought, ‘If you’re going to be going around the campus disrupting events, I don’t want to associate with you.’”

Event moderator Ari Kohn ’26, a social studies major and undergraduate fellow at the Ethics Center, inquired about navigating their relationship on campus. “My experience at Harvard has been that individuals have largely self-segregated among those who share similar beliefs,” commented Kohn, who also co-chairs the Intellectual Vitality student advisory board.

Osborn attributed these divides to the segmented nature of academia, with specialists from various disciplines working in isolation: “As a result, we lack ample examples of what it takes to engage in these discussions beyond combative confrontations.”

Debating with Driver regarding the optimal method for decarbonization expanded his entrepreneurial perspective on how policy can facilitate the introduction of renewable energy, he noted.

“I realized I was guilty of the very isolation I accused academics of,” he admitted, pointing to the “heavily subsidized” SolarCity, acquired by Tesla in 2016, as merely one instance of a clean energy initiative receiving governmental support.

“We both carried numerous authentic questions that we could not satisfactorily answer within our own circles,” Driver reflected. “I found inspiration from many academics, activists, and writers I engaged with. However, concurrently, I was aware of limitations, particularly from a disciplinary standpoint. None had ever established an energy enterprise.”