I had a problem: My living room was frigid. Our new house in Lexington was just what we wanted, except when the cold winter air seeped up from the garage and made it impossible to gather comfortably around our couch. So we bought a natural gas fireplace. The gas was cheap. We were toasty warm. Problem solved.

I considered myself well-educated about climate change. I knew about the melting glaciers, the displaced plants and animals, the higher incidence of dangerous storms. But somehow that information disappeared from my mind when I started up the fireplace and warmed my cold toes.

Then my work started pulling me in new directions. John Sterman came to our ethics seminar and told the students they should be angry at us, the older generations, because we knew what was coming and did nothing to stop it. I sat with our friends at the Civil Society Institute and listened to stories of communities devastated by fracking. At our annual Youth Climate Summit, I heard young people speak about their passion to protect the beaches and forests and farms that they love.

All the statistics and all the dire predictions did nothing to make me question my choices. I changed because I had a new identity. My new role here at MIT pushed me to state clearly and in the presence of others that climate change mattered to me. And once I said it, I realized I had to live it, too. I couldn’t just care at work.

So far the changes are small. We got an energy audit, and tackled the real problem with our living room by putting in insulation and replacing the old drafty windows. But each small step we take makes me think about what we can do next.  I am growing into a new identity as someone who will act, and not just talk, about climate change.

As Brendan Nyhan reports in the New York Times, social scientists have shown clearly that the reason people deny climate change is not because they lack information. It is because that information does fit into their story. Our attitudes are shaped by the identities we hold and the often unspoken narratives that bind our communities together. The story I tell about who I am has changed, and my behavior is shifting to match that story.

I wonder what we can do to help change the story for everyone.