Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the
Charles David Lecture -- Charles David
Keeling Lecture. I'm Jeff Trapp, professor
and Head of the Department of
Atmospheric Sciences here at the
University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. And for those of you
who are new to Zoom, we ask that you
please keep your sound muted and video
off. So before I introduce our speaker
for today, I'd like to give you a little
background about the Keeling Lecture.
This event is named for Charles David
Keeling, a 1948 University of Illinois
graduate from the Department of
Chemistry. He determined how to make
extremely precise measurements of
atmospheric carbon dioxide. These
measurements clearly indicated that the
atmospheric concentrations were -- and
still are -- increasing, leading to the
recognition that human activities could
have a significant impact on the Earth's
climate system. After receiving his Ph.D.
in chemistry from Northwestern in 1954,
Keeling spent most of his career at the
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
until his death in 2005. As the first to
confirm the accumulation of atmospheric
CO2, he produced a dataset now known
widely as the Keeling Curve, and his
measurements are renowned as the single
most important environmental data set
taken in the 20th century. Each year,
collaboration between academic units on
campus results in a lecture on climate
to honor Keeling's legacy, typically
during Earth Week, which is today.
This week's -- this year's -- lecture is
co-sponsored by the Department of
Atmospheric sciences and the Institute
for Sustainability, Energy and
Environment. And our lecturer is Dr.
Katherine Hayhoe. Dr. Hayhoe is an
accomplished atmospheric scientist who
studies climate change and why it
matters to us here and now. She is also a
remarkable communicator who has received
the National Center for Science
Education's Friend of the Planet Award,
the American Geophysical Union's
Climate Communication Prize, the Sierra
Club's Distinguished Service Award, and
has been named to a number of less,
including Time Magazine's 100 Most
Influential People,
Foreign Policy's 100 Leading Thinkers,
Fortune Magazine's World Greatest
Leaders, and the United Nations' Champion
of the Earth in Science and Innovation.
Katherine has served as lead author on
the second, third and fourth National
Climate Assessments. She also hosts and
produces the PBS digital series Global
Weirding and serves on advisory
committees for a broad range of
organizations including the Smithsonian
Natural History Museum, the Earth Science
Women's Network, and the American
Association for the Advancement of
Science. Today Katherine is the Political
Science Endowed Professor in Public
Policy and Public Law and co-directs
the Climate Center at Texas Tech
University. She has a B.Sc in physics from
University of Toronto and an M.S. and Ph.D.
in atmospheric sciences from the
University of Illinois. We're excited to
welcome her back virtually to deliver
the 2020 Keeling Lecture, "Climate Science
in Fact-Free World." Please join me in
welcoming Katherine Hayhoe.
Thank you so much, Jeff. It is a pleasure
to be with you here today.
I am just going to go ahead and mute
everybody all right. And I'm delighted to
see we have well over 200 participants. I
think this is probably more than the
number of people who would have squeezed
into that room at the University of
Illinois. So I'm going to be talking
specifically about science, about climate
and a little bit, of course, about the
pandemic as well in which we find
ourselves today because those topics are
all related. Let me go ahead and share my
screen with you here. Just a second. And
what I'm going to do is I'm going to be doing
something that I like to anyways, whether
I'm in person or virtual, and that is get
you to be part of this. So if you're
watching on your computer, this is going
to be easy.
And you can do it on your phone or your
computer. I want you to go to p-o-l-l-e-v dot
com. That's poll-e-v dot com. It'll ask you
to enter something. You want to enter
"Texas Tech." All one word, no capitals. That
is the name of my university and it is
the name that goes with my account.
I couldn't change it to U of I just for
this talk, I'm sorry, much as I would love to.
And if it asks your name, don't worry
about that, anonymous is fine.
so p-o-l-l-e-v dot com. You enter Texas Tech
and then it's going to ask you the first
question and a lot of you have already
gotten to this. Typically, I'm going to say
undergrads get out ahead on this because
you're so fast with your fingers but it
looks like the -- well it looks like the
graduate students are catching up to you.
Oh the faculty are starting to pull
ahead. This almost feels like a primary
oh doesn't it? Faculty, it takes us a
little bit longer to get on board but oh
it looks like the faculty are holding
steady in the lead. And we have a healthy
representation from our community
members as well.
Oh faculty, it really took you a while to
get get with it, but you are definitely
in the lead now. Alright so we're at
about 40% faculty, about 25% graduate
students and it looks like undergrads
and community members are now in a tie.
Alright now time for question number
two, this one is a little more difficult.
You're going to have to touch or click on a
map. Ready? Oops just a second here, oh my
map isn't working. I had a map that was
actually gonna ask you where you were
physically located because so many of us
today are not necessarily in the same
place. That activity unfortunately is not
found. Let's just make sure. Come on. I had it here.
It was a map of the U.S. where what you can
do is you can actually touch in the
place where you are or if you're on the
computer you click and then you can see
where everybody is watching from whether
we're all in Illinois or around the
world. It's not liking that though so
we're going to have to move on without that map. Okay, oh
just a second, oh no, oh here it is it. You
know, it's a Monday, sometimes it just
takes a little while to get its act
together but here we have the map. So go
ahead and either if you're on your phone
you can touch, if you're on a computer I
think you're going to have to click, and
tell me where you are tuning in from
today. Are you actually in Illinois or
are you somewhere else? And if you're not
in the United States, that's okay
you can actually click off the map in
the direction that you're in.
Is this working? Let's see.
I'm not seeing any dots appear yet. I'll
go there myself and see if it's -- if
we're getting the map up. If not, I think
we're just going to have to assume that
people are mostly in in the in the U.S.
somewhere and in Illinois in general. Oh let's just
see if I can get it myself.
Here we go.
Okay it looks like it's still stuck on
the last one. I'm sorry about that.
Alright so moving on. And thank you for
everybody who was commenting on that, I
appreciate that.
Oh good, oh that's perfect, you guys are
commenting the chat. So this is actually
great. We've got people a ton from Canada.
That's awesome. The Yukon. That's
fantastic.
Florida. Illinois, New Zealand, Urbana,
Lagrange, Ohio, Massachusetts, not working
in Ireland, yes,
Vancouver. This is awesome, even Norway. So
we've got people from around the world,
even just next door to me here in Texas,
in New Mexico and Australia. Okay it's
official, we are covering the whole globe
with this, Jeff. This is pretty awesome,
you might consider a virtual talk in the
future because this is pretty cool.
Wherever we live though we sort of feel
like Calvin does today. I don't know if
you're familiar with Calvin and Hobbes, but as
Calvin said, we live in interesting times.
We don't trust the government, we don't
trust the legal system, we don't trust
the media, we don't trust each other.
"Interesting" is a mild way of
putting it, he says. "Yes it's like a
six-year-old's dream come true." The idea
that there's a war on science, that
people deny the basic facts is not a new
one. There are plenty of books written on
this topic and if you pick up these
books, some of them don't even mention
climate change. They talk about a
multitude of areas where we are
rejecting information we've known for a
long time. And in this last book, one of
my favorite quotes here is: "People who
can't find North Korea on a map will
tell you with authority exactly what our
policy there should be." This is the age
that we live in. But it isn't as new as
we think. Back in 1980, Isaac Asimov -- who's
a famous science-fiction writer -- said
"there is a cult of ignorance in the United
States, and there always has been. The
strain of anti-intellectualism has been
a constant thread winding its way
through our political and cultural life
nurtured by the false notion that
democracy means 'my ignorance is just as
good as your knowledge." Back in 1964, Richard
Hofstadter -- the winner of the Pulitzer Prize -- wrote a book called "Anti-intellectualism
in American Life." And before that, Adlai
Stevenson said "unreason and anti-
intellectualism abominate thought"
because "thinking implies disagreement;
disagreement implies nonconformity;
nonconformity implies heresy. And heresy
implies disloyalty -- so obviously thinking
must be stopped."
You might think this was written in 2020,
but no, it was written in 1945 -- or sorry
54. So does that mean that what's
happening today is no big deal just
because we've had this going through our
society for decades? No. If anything it's
a bigger deal today than it has been
before. If you just look at the news,
here's a running list of all the hoaxes
that have been spreading about the
coronavirus pandemic. And there was an
interesting essay just recently, "Fake
news in the time of coronavirus: how
big is the threat?" The author said the
main issue -- and this is speaking
specifically to the pandemic, I think it
applies equally to climate change as
well -- the main issue isn't that people
accept everything they're told, it's that
they fail to absorb recommendations.
Helpful warnings go unheeded, and advice
is ignored. People believe the
information is mistaken or even
manipulative, some mistrust politicians. And it's a pattern that we see -- going all
the way back to, for example, when people
didn't evacuate New Orleans when the
hurricane was coming. This relates
directly to where people get a lot of
their information on science these days.
They get it from what people in the
social science literature sociologists
call "elite cues." What does that actually
mean? It means thought leaders, typically
politicians and pundits, who share
people's ideology and values. And it
turns out if you look at the
social science literature that they play
an outsize role in determining people's
opinions and perspectives on climate
change, as well as on other aspects of
science that are perceived to be
controversial. Here's a study that was
published a couple of years ago. And what
they found is that elite cues -- in other
words what the politicians and the
pundits say -- as well as advocacy efforts,
and how cold or hot it is outside, and
economic factors are the factors that
influence public concern.
They found that sharing information on
climate change with the public had no
effect. They also found that information-based science advocacy had only a minor
effect. Political mobilization and
efforts by advocacy groups turns out to
be critical to informing our levels of
concern. And a more recent paper that was
just done last year, "Party Cues: Elite
Opinion Leadership," found that cues from
party elites -- a Republican or Democrat --
are associated with what people think
about climate change. And so their
results suggest that we should see
people's opinions on climate change, not through lack of education or lack of knowledge
or lack of intelligence or lack of
science, but rather through the lens of
what the people who they agree with, the
elites, are saying. And when we look at
what politicians are saying, we see that
they're saying some things that just
aren't true. For everyone who thinks it's
warming, I can find somebody who says it
isn't. In my own state of Texas: "Alarmist
theories on climate science originate
with scientists who operate outside the
principles of the scientific method." And
if you're in Illinois, don't think you're
getting away with it:
"Over the thousands of years that have
been recorded, we've had colder and
warmer times. It so happens that we're
coming out
of a warmer time and now we're actually
going to be getting a little bit cooler.
Well if we were being controlled by
natural factors, that is actually true.
But since we're not being controlled by
natural factors -- we're being controlled by
human factors, this statement is 100% false.
So we think: if they just knew the facts, surely they change their minds, right? Because we have the
facts; the scientific literature has the
facts. If you go to Google Scholar and
you type in "climate change," you get 2.6
million scientific studies. The IPCC has
the facts. They're working on their sixth
Assessment Report right now. The National
Climate Assessment has the facts. I
helped to co-author the second, third and
the fourth. The fourth was so big
that it was released in two volumes. Volume
number one was 500 pages; volume number two was 1600 pages. And yes, we've
actually really checked a couple of
years ago together with some colleagues.
We took 38 studies that have been
published in the last 10 years that said
either that climate wasn't changing or
humans weren't responsible, and we
re-analyzed every single one of those from
scratch. When I say "we," it was really our
lead author the Rasmus Benestad, who did most of the work. And he even put his analysis
online so anybody can go through the
code and check it. And we found an error
-- at least one error -- a false assumption, a
missing factor, sometimes a calculation
error. We found an error in each paper that
if you corrected it, brought that study
into line with the thousands of others
that agree climate is changing, humans
are responsible. These facts have been
communicated by many experts. This is
just one example of a letter that was
signed by eleven thousand scientists
last year, clearly and unequivocally
warning of a climate emergency. These
facts have been communicated over
centuries. These are pictures of some of
the early scientists doing research on
climate. We have to put a little
asterisks there on Eunice Foote because
we're not
100% sure that that is her. We're
still looking through the Smithsonian
archives -- we've got pictures of her
husband, her two daughters. We're looking
for a photo that we can say for sure is
her, but this is one of the possible
candidates. She, in the 1850s, put a bunch
of gasses in jars and actually measured
the fact that CO2 traps more energy than
other gases, and she speculated in 1856
that if the planet were warmer that -- or
sorry -- that if CO2 levels were higher,
that the planet would bewarmer. John Tyndall -- beside her -- actually tied that to coal
mining of the day. Arrhenius, who is a
very distant cousin of Greta Thunberg --
something like third cousin five times
removed or something like that -- he
calculated how much the world would warm
if we doubled or tripled levels of CO2
in the atmosphere. And Guy Callendar was
the first person to actually collect all
the thermometer data around the world
and showed that the planet was indeed
warming. Well not only have we communicated
this over long periods of time though, we
communicated it in many ways. I keep a list, for
example, in social media and we are now
actually, as of today, we are now up to over
3,000 scientists who do climate on this
list that anybody can subscribe to. So we
certainly have the facts, and now it's
your turn. And I want you to give me a
word or multiple words, but here's the
thing: you have to use a dot or a dash to
join multiple words. So if you're going to
say "ice sheet melting," you need to say "ice dot sheet
dot melting" or ice dash sheet dash melting." You
can't put words separately. So go ahead
and tell me, what do you think is the
most convincing fact on climate change?
And if you're going to use two words or
three, make sure you join them with a dot
or a dash. Go ahead.
Oh sorry about that, it's a different
type of question, yet -- alright. Oh I love
that Keeling Curve is right there!
Keeling Curve, ice sheet melting. And you
can vote for which one you think is best.
Wildfires, ocean heat content, coral reefs
rising sea levels, ocean acidification
ice core samples. Yes the Keeling curve
should be number one, this is the Keeling
Lecture, right? What experts say -- yes
pollution, institute observations -- we have
the facts. And again, I love the fact that
the Keeling Curve is number one. The
Keeling Curve, for those of you who don't
know, was the record of atmospheric CO2
that began on Mauna Loa in Hawaii -- which
is a very clean environment, so it wasn't
polluted by any urban sources -- and it
shows how over time, each year, CO2 goes
up and down and up and down due to
the biosphere; but then year by year
by year by year, it tracks up and up
and up. Alright so we think, if everybody
just understood the Keeling Curve, right?
If everybody just understood global
temperature, surely they would change
their minds, right? Unfortunately, the
answer is not really.
Why? Well, you may think this is off-topic,
but stick here with me for just a few
minutes and you'll see. Back in 1994, this
is what the political landscape in the
United States looked like. We had
Republicans and Democrats, and the median
Democrat was closer to the median
Republican than they were to the tails
of their own party. Then let's fast-forward in
time: 2011; 2017. And then if you remember,
that was an election year, so if you only
look to people who voted in 2017, this is
what it looked like. What has happened? We
have moved so far to the edges -- both
parties not just one -- that today the
median Democrat and median Republican
are closer to the tail of their own
party than they are to each other.
What does this have to do with climate
change? Pretty much everything. In 19 -- in
2019 -- a poll by the Pew Research Center
found that of all the issues on which
Democrats and Republicans were most
divided in the United States out of 30
issues, they found that climate and
environment was number three after gun
policy and racial attitudes. But when
they redid this in 2020,
this is what they found. They found that
the most politically polarized issues,
the issues where the red dot and the
blue dot were the farthest apart,
were climate change and environmental
protection. It turns out that the number
one predictor of whether we agree with
the simple facts that climate is
changing and humans are responsible is
where we fall on the political spectrum.
And this is not only in the United
States. It is in the United States where
climate change is more politically
polarizing than traditionally hot-button
issues like the death penalty and
abortion but it's also happening in
Canada. We had an election in October and
you could map the writings who voted
conservative -- the Conservatives actually
had a climate plan but it would increase
emissions -- you could map the writings
that voted conservative on top of the
writings where people said, "climate is
not changing and humans are not
responsible." There was almost a
one-to-one correlation. It's happening in
the UK where conservative members of
Parliament are five times as likely to
vote against climate action. It's
happening in Brazil. It's happened in
Australia. It is happening around the
world. Now you might say, "alright
Katherine, but is it really responsible
for all of the stuff that you get? I
follow you on Twitter and I see stuff
like this all the time." If you follow me
on Twitter, you do see stuff like this
all the time -- probably two or three times
a day. But before I block these people,
you know what I do? I go to their
profiles. And you know what I see when I
go to their profiles? I will show you.
Politics.
I see people in the United States who
love the President, people in Canada who
hate the Prime Minister, people in
Australia who love the current Prime
Minister, and people in the UK who want to
separate from EU. That is the number one
thing that people have in common who go
out of their way to attack climate
scientists on social media. People don't
really have a problem with the basic
science. And the social science shows us
a study back in 2012 -- eight years ago -- by
Dan Kahan (I like to show you pictures
you know who these people are).
He is a professor at Yale University and
he said, "public apathy over climate
change is often attributed to a deficit in
comprehension." People don't know enough
science, and if they don't know enough
science, what should we do? We should give
them more science. We conducted a study
to test this and we found no support. In
fact, members of the public with the
highest degree of science literacy were
not most concerned, they were what? Most
polarized. People don't really have a
problem either with lack of intelligence.
I see this all the time --
those people are stupid. Actually no. And
Dan went on to study this. He developed
something -- he and his colleagues
developed something called "ordinary
science intelligence." It's just one
measure of how people process
information and data. And he asked, "is
there solid evidence of recent global
warming due mostly to human activity?" Now
if you ask me that question,
I would actually say no because it isn't
mostly human activity, it is all human
activity. We should actually be cooling
according to natural factors. But I don't
think that's why anybody said no to this
question. I think most people said no
because they thought it wasn't humans. So
he found a weak correlation from the
first to the 99th percentile between
whether people had answered yes to this
question and how they ranked on ordinary
science intelligence. But then he took
this data set and he divided in half
based on one thing. What do you think it
was?
Yes, political affiliate. So what he
showed here is that the smarter we are,
the better we are at cherry-picking the
information that will support what we
already believe to be true. If it
connects directly to our identity -- to who
we perceive ourselves to be. The smarter
we are, the better we are at it. And you
know what? We all do this, we just might
not do it with climate change. But when
something really matters to us -- when it's
actually part of our identity -- the
smarter we are, the better we are at going
and finding information that would
support why we are right. It isn't a
matter of intelligence. And so what they
concluded -- and I will translate this into
English -- what they concluded is being
smarter does not make us more accepting
of science, it just makes us better able
to pick out the pieces we need to
validate what we already believe.
Lastly, people don't really have a
problem with religious objections to
climate change. Now at this point you may
say, "Katherine, what are you talking about?
Surely you've heard people in your own
state -- I live in Texas now -- saying 'climate
change is not a science, it's a
religion.'" And Lindsey Graham tells us why:
it's because Al Gore did it. He's the one
who turned it into religion. And if you
look on the internet, you can find images
like this allegory leading the Church of
Climatology and someone has even
photoshopped my head on to the choir. Oh
yes ,I am very aware of this. I hear this
every day but here's the thing:
does this truly reflect actual theology
that is consistent with the religions or
the faith traditions that people say
that they espouse? Well if they're
Catholic, it turns out not because the
 the Pope wrote a giant encyclical 5
years ago all about climate change. And
he says it is caused by us, we are
responsible and it is affecting the
poorest people on the planet.
What if we're Evangelical? Well it turns
out the National Association of
Evangelicals beat the Pope to it by four
years. Yes, they wrote a booklet in 2011
connecting the dots very clearly and
unmistakably between a changing climate,
human agency and the impact on the
poorest and most vulnerable people in
the world. And in fact, when you say, "okay
well, you know surely, the Pope could set these
people straight." You look at the polling
data and Hispanic Catholics, it turns out,
are the most concerned people group in
the United States about the impacts of a
changing climate. So then we say, "okay well,
clearly then this works." But if you look
down the very bottom, who is the least
concerned? You've got the white
evangelicals and the white Catholics in
a neck-in-neck tie. What did the
encyclical do? Well this is my colleague
Asheley Landrum, she's right here at Texas
Tech with me, and her study actually
looked at the effect of the encyclical
in public opinion. And she found that
when we encounter new information, what
we do is we filter it through our
pre-existing glasses
so to speak of our prior beliefs, our
irrelevant social identities and
messenger credibility. So you might say,
"well messenger credibility? Clearly who's
more credible than the Pope to a
Catholic, right?" It turns out that elite
cues -- remember those? Politicians and
pundits. Turns out those are more
credible to many Catholics in the United
States than the Pope.
She found, translation: that if
Protestants or Catholics already agreed
with the Pope before the encyclical came
out that their opinion of the Pope went
up; but if they didn't agree with the
Pope and the encyclical came out, their
opinion of the Pope went down. And this
is really no surprise. John Evans, another
sociologist from UC Santa Barbara, he
said -- or UC San Diego, sorry -- he said,
"compared to not-actively religious,
conservative Protestants are likely to
reject the conclusiveness of climate
science." But it's not where you go to
church that causes this. Our opinions are
rooted in our age and our political
affiliations. And in fact, kind of the
icing on the cake here, the final nail in
the coffin if you will,
Galen Carey from the National
Association of Evangelicals said this,
and I think he really hits the nail
on the head. He said, why do people "oppose
action to slow climate change not on a
religious basis but politically, because
they believe the government wants to
take away their freedom." So here's what
we really do have a problem with: we
really have a problem with our identity
politics, our psychological distance and our
solution aversion. What are those three
things? Let me unpack it just a little
bit. We've already talked about identity
politics -- the idea that somehow
the fact that a thermometer can give us
a different number depending on how we
vote -- because of the identity glasses, the
political glasses, that we wear. Now you
might say, "Katherine, surely that's an
exaggeration. It doesn't really give you
a different number." You
know what? It turns out people think it
does. This is some work by Larry Hamilton,
a sociologist in New Hampshire. In New
Hampshire, they have seen some very warm
winters and he did this study two ways:
he asked people about the last 20
years and then he just asked them about
the previous January. And he did this in
February, so he just asked him about the
last month. And he found that people's
answers to "Was the past 20 years warmer?"
-- which obviously they were -- they were
pretty even depending on how old people
were; they were pretty even depending on
whether people were male or female; they
were pretty even even depending on how
much education people had, high-schooler
or less all the way to postgraduate -- three
percentage points different. And then he
divided the responses out by what?
By now you can probably guess: political
affiliation. Conservative Republicans --
only less than 40% said it
actually gotten warmer as measured by
the own thermometers in their own
backyards,
whereas 70% of Democrats would
say that it did.
That's identity politics for you.
Now, what's psychological distance? It's
another one of those social science
terms. It means that we think something
is far away: we think it's far away in
time or we think it's far away in space
or we think it's far away in terms of
what matters to us -- it doesn't matter to
me, it matters to that type of person, but
not to me. And the Yale program on
climate communication has a series of
maps that makes this crystal clear. Here
we go. Every county here has a color: if
it's orange, it means that more than 50%
of people said yes to the question about
like is global warming happening; and the
darker orange, the more people said yes;
and if it's blue, that means it's below
50%; and the darker blue, the more people
said no. So most people think that global
warming is happening and if you zoom in
on Illinois -- which I did here -- there's
Champaign County. It's slightly above the
average, five percentage points above
the national average, 72% of
people in Champaign County. You've got a ways to catch up because Chicago's a lot
more, but it's still above average. So we
think it's happening and we also think
it will harm plants and animals. In fact,
more people think it will harm plants
and animals apparently then think it's
happening. That's polling for you. Will it
harm future generations? You might think
this is the same map, but it's not. It's a
different question.
Most people say yes. Do you think it will
harm people who live in other countries
far away -- developing countries? There's a
little bit of blue here, but most of it
is still orange. And then will it harm
people in the United States? There's
quite a bit more blue here and if you
zoom in though on Champaign it's still
looking pretty good, we're still at 62%,
which is five percent above the
national average.
But then here's the question: do you
think it will affect
you? Look at this. It is blue over almost
the entire country, except areas where
there's a lot of Hispanic Catholics and
also a lot of Native American -- those are
a lot of the yellow counties there. Let's
zoom in on Chicago -- let's zoom in on
Illinois. Champaign County, we've got 45%,
so less than half the people in
Champaign think it will affect them
personally. This is what I'm talking
about with psychological distance. We
think it only matters to the polar bears;
we think it only matters to people who
live far away from us, like on low-lying
islands in the South Pacific; we don't
think it matters to us. And the third
problem we have is this: solution
aversion. There was a senator from
Oklahoma who famously brought a snowball
into the house of the Senate a number of
years ago and said, "look, it snowed in
Washington D.C., so where's all that global
warming?" But the same year in an
interview with Rachel Maddow, he said
this -- he said, "Do you realize that I
was actually on your side of this issue
when I first chaired the Senate
Environment Committee? I was on your side
until when, until it snowed in Washington
D.C.? No, I was on your side until
I found out how much it would cost to
fix it." And I swear I did not make this
up, this is a real real headline. Here is
the senator from Florida saying, "I do not
want to destroy the economy for climate
change." And what does the sub-header
right under him say? It says "million
homes at risk due to climate change in
Florida." We are afraid that somehow
fixing climate change means that we have
to return to the Stone Age.
So if you're like me, you're probably
thinking at this point, "how the heck are
we supposed to talk about this," right?
Because I haven't gotten to the darkest
blue map yet, and here it is. Ready? This
is the one we already saw -- do we think it
will affect us personally? -- there's one
darker blue map but here's where we're
turning the corner. So far we spend a lot
of time talking about the problems but
in the last 10 minutes now, before I take
your questions, in the last 10 minutes
we're going to start talking about the
solution. And the solution is in these
maps. This one says we don't think it
matters to us personally and there's one
more map that is darker blue. What do you
think that one is? The darker blue map
says this: "Do you ever talk about it?" Do
you ever talk about it?
No, people don't talk about it. Now, you
can see Champaign County there, it's a
little bit lighter blue than in the
surrounding area, probably thanks to the
University, thanks to talks like this,
right? But most people, even in areas
where people would 100%
agree with the science, most people would
say, "no, we don't really talk about it." Now
just to be clear, I am not advocating for
this type of conversation where Susie
you the scientist shows up with her
massive pile of scientific data, stacks
it all up and uses it to hit Calvin over
the head. That is not what I'm talking
about. Those types of conversations just
dig a trench rather than building a
bridge and they generally end with one
or sometimes both of our heads exploding.
Or they can just end by being so
depressed that you never want to talk
about this again.
I'm not talking about that type of
conversation. Now, in our Global Weirding
series on YouTube, I lay this out in more
detail. "If I just explain the facts,
surely they'll get it, right?" And what I
make very clear is that there's a
certain group of people where this isn't
going to work on. I have a Twitter thread
where I go into this detail and I said,
"Contrary to what many people think, I don't
spend my time talking to who? To the last
category of the six Americas of global
warming." This is a really helpful tool
from the Yale Program on Climate
Communication. It shows that we're not
just 'yes' and 'no' on climate change; we
actually follow along a spectrum and the
majority of us are alarmed, concerned or
cautious about climate change. But read
at the very end, we have the tip of the
tail of the dog that wags public
discourse. People who are dismissive,
people who are the loudest voices online,
many of the loudest voices in Washington
D.C., the loudest voices on top news radio
and in the comment sections online,
people who are not going to change their
minds. My personal definition of a
dismissive is somebody who, if an
angel from God with brand new tablets of
stone saying 'global warming is real' in
foot-high letters of flame appeared to
them, it wouldn't change their minds. So
why would we think 10,000 scientific
studies would? They won't. Here's the good news
though: 90% of us are not dismissive, and
that means that we can have constructive,
positive, meaningful conversations about
climate change with the vast majority of
us. And since I don't like keeping
secrets, here it is. Ready? Before we go
there though, I want to ask you, and now
you're going to have to give me one word or
you are going to have to use a dot or a
dash to join multiple words, like brother
or in-law, use a dash there. Who would you
like to have a climate conversation with
that went well?
I imagine there's probably a long list.
Oh, father-in-law is the first one up there. My church, yes. My mom. Politicians.
The president. My nephew. My neighbor. My
friends. My parents. Students.
Mother-in-law. Stepfather. Mitch McConnell,
yes. Conservative uncle. Grandma. Neighbor.
Republican friend. Extended family. An oil
company, yeah. Senators. Athletics, I like
that.
The premier, mm-hmm. We all have someone
that we would like to have a positive
constructive conversation with and I
think we're kind of halfway split here
between our family members and
politicians. So here is a recipe. I don't know if you
like to cook. There's a lot of people
talking about all the cooking that
they're doing with the pandemic. I'm
certainly doing a lot of that myself.
Here is a recipe, and this recipe is not
going to work with dismissives, but it will
work with almost everyone else -- not
instantaneously, it's not a miracle, but
slowly and patiently over time it could
make a difference. And here we go. Step
number one, don't begin with something
that you disagree with people on. You
have to begin the conversation with
something you agree on. Why? Because that
addresses the identity politics problem
which drives us apart. We have to begin
together, rather than beginning apart.
Step number two, connect the dots between
what we care about and how a change in
climate affects that.
That addresses the issue of
psychological distance. It turns out
social science has shown that if we talk
about solutions --
or we talk about impacts that are closer to
home, as opposed to impacts that are far
away, that actually reduces the
identity politics as well. People are
more willing to engage if we feel like
the impacts are close to home. And then
what's step number three? Step number three
is talk about positive, actionable,
beneficial, practical solutions to
address the solution aversion where
people think there's no way to fix this
problem without shutting down the
economy and killing off the babies. I'm
not joking, I've literally had people say
that to me. So by connecting and
inspiring is the trifecta -- the three
steps -- that combat our real problems of
identity politics, psychological distance
and solution aversion. Let me give you a
couple of examples just so you know what
I'm talking about here. What kind of
things can we bond over? I've bonded over
knitting, yes,
cooking, the place where we live, a shared
faith, military experience.
I haven't bonded over that personally because I don't have any, but maybe
you do. Our family, an activity that we
enjoy, or members of a club. I've bonded
with people over the Four-Way Test from
the Rotary Club, over their love of local
food, or birds, or hiking, over the city or
the place where we live, or love of family.
And then we connect the dots -- how does it
matter to us? How is it affecting the
food that we eat? How is it affecting our
health? How is it affecting our local
economy? How is it affecting the security
of our homes? We know that climate change
is increasing the risk of flooding
across the Midwest. It's increasing the
risk of hot summers. We know that the
National Climate Assessment goes into
detail -- it has a chapter specifically on
the Midwest, where it talks about all the
different ways that climate change is
affecting us in the places where we live. It has a chapter for each different part
of the United States too. Over in
Indiana they have at Purdue, they have
this great assessment for the whole
state where they've divided it up by
things that matter to people: health,
agriculture, tourism, energy -- connecting
the dots between things that matter to
us. So let me ask you, and this is another
one where you have to use a dot or a dash. 
What matters to you? Yes, I have a cat too.
What matters to you when it comes to
climate change? What things are affected
by climate change that matter to you?
Your food, our water, your security, your
family, your safety, your kids, the
incredible beauty and biodiversity of
this world that's affected by -- that's
affecting our coral reefs, our food
production, the suffering of the poorest,
food shortages, human rights, wildfire
severity,
our daughters, our kids, skiing -- I like
that one -- crops, nature, my future,
absolutely. So look at this list. This
list is as diverse as the people on this
webinar. And you know what? You don't have
to have one thing. You might be
passionate about fixing climate change
because you care about migratory birds.
Somebody else might be passionate about
about fixing it because you care about
poor people who live in Bangladesh.
Somebody else might be passionate about
it because their kids. Somebody else
because they love skiing. Whoever we are,
we already have the values that we need
to care. We don't have to change them, we
just have to connect the dots. So can you
do that when you talk to someone? Figure
out something you have in common with
them and connect the dots. But lastly, how
can we inspire people to work together
to solve this problem in positive ways
that are compatible with our values? Here
I find it super helpful to talk about
what is already happening -- things that we
already do ourselves, whether it's the
solar panels on my roof, eating more of
a plant-based diet, a plug-in car, sure,
even replacing those lightbulbs. I like
talking about what's happening where I
live. The fact that Texas has more wind
energy than any other state -- it has the
first carbon-neutral Airport in North
America: Dallas Fort Worth Airport. It has
the biggest army base in the U.S. -- that's
no surprise to anyone I'm sure. But you
may be surprised to know it's been
powered exclusively by wind and solar
energy for two years now. But it isn't
just Texas. You can talk about Illinois.
Did you know that Illinois has more
clean energy jobs than any other
Midwestern state? Did you know that an Illinois
farmer can put solar panels on 15% of
his snowy, cold, cloudy land, and he can
actually earn the equivalent of his
average crop yield off selling the
electricity? Did you know that the city
of Urbana has a Climate Action Plan?
I looked for Champaign and I didn't find
one. The university has a Climate Action
Plan.
Champaign County has a Sustainability
Network. Churches and faith-based
organizations: we have a great organization
in Illinois called Faith In Place. It's
all about sustainability and clean
energy. And the Chicago Climate Action
Plan, which Don Levels and I both
contributed to, has been in place since
2008 for the City of Chicago. There's so
much happening in every place where we
live. I like talking about what's
happening in industry --the fact that some
of the biggest corporations in the world
are transitioning to clean energy. And
Microsoft has even promised to start
sucking carbon back out of the atmosphere.
In faith communities across the country,
we're seeing changes where they're
offering their roof, for example, as a
solar garden to their community. We're
seeing changes in unexpected places like
the Kentucky Coal Museum or United
Airlines using biofuel already in their
flights out of the LA Airport.
I love images and pictures from around
the world, whether it's a high schooler
winning the Intel Science Fair for
growing algae biofuel -- originally
under her bed, I think her mom kicked her
out into the garage when it got too big -- 
or solar energy revolutionizing some of
the poorest places in the world where
they don't have access to any other type
of energy. The fact that now we're six
years in to where more clean energy is
being installed around the world than
fossil fuel-based electricity. That's
been happening for six years already. And
Project Drawdown is a fantastic resource
that goes through a hundred different
solutions to climate change, from biochar,
to clean cookstoves, to educating women
and girls, to reducing our food waste,
which we can all do. These are amazing
things to talk about. If you feel like
you have nothing to talk about,
I've just given you like ten good points
here and you can look up project
drawdown for more. So this is my last
question to you and then you get to ask
me questions. Tell me what your favorite
solution is? Use a dot or a dash. What are
you super excited about? There's so many
solutions -- there's no one silver solution that's
going to fix everything. I know some people
often feel like there is, but there isn't.
But there are all kinds of silver
buckshot solutions.
Some of those consist of clean energym
some of those consist of policies.
Somebody got one right up there.
Some of those consist of new technology. Some
consist of changing the way we live:
Green Business, walkable
communities, plant-based diets, circular
economies. There's no one solution that
will fix it all, but the good news is you
need all of these solutions. And I love
that science is one of the solutions there.
yes. This is a whole set of solutions. So just as the reason why we care was so
diverse, in the same way, the solutions
are so diverse as well. And these are
great things to talk about. So now for
the few skeptics who might still be
wondering, "Does talking make a difference?"
It does. This brand-new study that was
just released last June or July found
that talking about it with friends and
family helps people learn about it, so we
know more. If we know more, we're more
concerned about it. And if we're more
concerned about it, it turns out we talk
about it more. It's a true positive
feedback loop. Talking about it kicks off
the positive feedback loop. What if we're
a kid, does that make a difference? Well
there's a study that says it does. They
educated middle school children in North
Carolina, which is a very conservative
part of the country, about climate change
and they found that the parents' levels
of concern went up when their children
were educated. And here's the awesome
part. Ready? Effects were strongest among
conservative parents who displayed the
lowest levels of concern before the kids
learned about climate change and -- this is
near and dear to my heart --
daughters were especially effective at
influencing their parents.
Isn't that awesome? Now you might say finally,
"That's fine Katherine. But who's the best
messenger? Why don't I just turn on Bill
Nye? Because Bill Nye will talk about
climate change with one person, he will
talk about it with three people, he will
talk about with five people, he will talk
about it with anybody. But it turns out
celebrities, according to social science,
they are effective messengers but
they're number 10 on the list of the top
10. What about politicians? They're ninth.
Faith leaders: seventh. Health care
workers: third. Scientists are second. Four
out of five Americans trust scientists,
but scientists can be polarizing because
Democrats and Independents tend to trust
scientists more than Republicans. Who's
number one? You. You are number one.
People who share our values, who speak a
common language, the more we know and we
trust somebody, the more effective they
are. Does talking make a difference? Yes.
And who is the best person to do it? You.
So using our voices to advocate for
change is the most effective thing that
every single one of us can do today. And
through doing so, through talking not
only about why it matters but how we can
fix it, that is what gives us hope. So how
do we talk science in a fact-free world?
My answer to that question -- my title -- is
we start by bonding through our shared values,
we connect the dots to why it matters to
us, but we need to find ways that we can
work together to act. Because in the
words of one of my favorite scientists
Jane Goodall, "It is only when our clever
brain and our human heart work together
in harmony that we can achieve our full
potential." If you want more, it's in my
TED Talk. This was not my TED Talk. But
I'm ready to take your questions
now. And how you can do them is you can
type a full question here -- no dots or
dashes needed -- full question. And here's
the cool thing: you can upvote the
questions that you want me to answer. So
I know a lot of people have been typing
into the chat.
I will do my best to look at that later.
But right now we're going to be taking
questions like this. So if you typed a
question into the chat, go ahead and type
it in now at poll-e-v please. And what
you can also do is you can upvote the
questions that you want answered most. So if
you see a question in the chat that you
really like, even if it's not your
question, go ahead and type it in here,
that's totally fine, everything's
anonymous, nobody will know that you
poached the question. And go ahead and
give it an upvote. I see people are
getting the hang of it. This is awesome.
I like doing this because rather
than going through in order, I see we had
over a hundred comments, this way I can
focus on the questions that have the
most up votes at the top. now I know that
this one is near the bottom, "How will my
cat be affected?" But I have a kitty -- his
name is Dr. Evil -- and he certainly
matters to me. With cats we know
unfortunately the cats are one of the
major sources of songbird kills in the
United States. So in an interest of
maintaining biodiversity, what I would
say with cats is keep your cat indoor if
possible, and if not, make sure that they
have a nice big bird collar on when they
go outside. There's these big
multicolored bird collars that they've
shown to reduce bird kills significantly.
So it isn't so much cats being affected
by global warming as it is  global warming
and biodiversity being affected by cats.
Alright so let's go to the top. Are
there good example scripts for talking
with our conservative friends? Well I
teach a class and I actually go through
scripts with my class. First of all, you
start by talking about something that
you agree on, and if you don't know what
you agree on, then just talk to them. You
know, have a conversation and then when
you find something you can connect the
dots on, connect the dots and then bring
up, be prepared to bring up a positive
constructive solution that you know that
they will get on board with: something
that a conservative organization
supports, or a faith-based organization
supports, or a military organization
supports. In my TED talk I go through a
couple of different examples and there
is also -- why I love having my computer
here is I'm going to go out of here for
just a second. I also have a really good
resource
called -- it's called Talking Climate. And
it's by an organization called -- just a
second here -- an organization called
Climate Outreach in the UK. They have a
fantastic resource here that I strongly
recommend you check out. It's called the
Talking Climate Handbook. And for some
reason their page isn't opening. Let's
see if this one will open. And they go
through -- here it is. This handbook by
Climate Outreach really goes through and
talks about, how do you have these
conversations? And I'm going to go ahead and
put this link in the chat here, that
makes it a lot easier to see, just a
second here. Here is the link to the
Climate Outreach Manual. Alright back
to our questions here. That was a really
good question. And again, if you're typing
questions into the chat, please go ahead
and add them to the slide as well, so
that people can up vote them. This
presentation will be made available. It
is being recorded and it will be posted
afterwards. And that was the second
question there. And what do you believe the
role of citizen science will be in the
coming years?
I love citizen science because we need
millions of eyes around the world
keeping up with what's happening.
When are the trees in our backyard
flowering? How are the insect and bird
populations we see changing? How are our
skies changing as the pandemic slows
down our carbon and our air pollution
emissions? Citizen science is really
important to report back to scientists
to help us keep our thumb on the pulse of
the planet. But citizen science is also
really important, why? Because it
decreases psychological distance. It
actually helps us be part of the process
of tracking and monitoring and observing
the changes that are happening to our
planet. So citizen science is really
important in both directions to inform
the science and then also to bring us in
and engage us on this issue. Are climate
change discussions relevant at the time
of the pandemic? That's a really good
question. We made two special Global
Weirding episodes specifically on climate
change in a pandemic. If you go to
Global Weirding online -- just a second,
here let me show you the Global Weirding.
Global Weirding series dot com
is our series on YouTube. And you can see
here that our first two episodes are
specifically on the pandemic. It's
not a time to beat people over the head
for sure because we are all just doing
our best to survive right now. But at the
same time, I think that the pandemic has
showed us a few key things. First of all, it
all comes down to -- no matter who we
are, no matter where we live, no matter
what language we speak, no matter where
we fall on the political spectrum -- when
it all comes down to it, what matters to
us all is the same thing: our health and
our safety, that of our family, our loved
ones, our friends, our community. That is
why we all care about the pandemic. And
here's the thing: that is exactly why we
all care about climate change. The
challenge though is that the pandemic
unrolls over days to weeks; climate change
unrolls over years to decades. In
terms of where we were back in the first
days of March with the pandemic -- maybe
the first week or the first ten days of
March -- that's where we stand in climate
change today. But my very real fear is
that we will be too far down the road
with climate change before the impacts
hits every single one of us in the
eyeballs in an unmistakable way -- the way
the pandemic did -- before we take action.
And that's why having those
conversations to bond and connect and inspire
with solutions that we can implement
today is so important. Because the reason
we care about climate change is the same
reason why we care about the pandemic
today. Thanks for asking that question.
Now there's a _______.
Well this relates directly to the
pandemic as well. What we have already
seen -- what we already know -- is that
pollution of air, water and soil is
responsible for one out of every six
deaths around the world on an annual
basis. Air pollution kills nearly 9 million
people per year. In poor countries, it's
primarily air pollution from indoor
cooking over brush or dung because they
don't have access to either a solar
cooker or natural gas. In developed
countries and in urban centers, it's
primarily due to fossil fuels. In the
United States 200,000 people die each
year from air pollution. And who are
those people? They are predominantly
people who live in lower-income
neighborhoods. They live in places where
they are exposed to air pollution and
they can't afford to live in better
places.They don't have adequate health
care that would take care of them when
they already start to suffer from asthma
or respiratory disease or heart issues.
And environmental racism is already
built into our system. And then along
comes a pandemic. And did you know what?
The corona virus pandemic -- the COVID-19
specifically -- disproportionately affects
people whose lungs are already weakened by
exposure to air pollution. And so in the
United States, we know that African
American populations have a much higher
impact rate from the pandemic than other
populations. We don't know for sure, but a
number of medical experts suspects that
it's directly related to the endemic
environmental racism of air pollution
and lack of quality health care. Not only
that, but when you look around the entire
world --I have these maps, I wish I could
show you but I don't have them with me
right now -- when you look around the whole world
and you look at who has produced all of
the carbon that's causing this problem, and
then you look at what countries are most
vulnerable to the impacts of climate
change, those two maps are a mirror image
of each other.
Climate change is profoundly unjust. It
is disproportionately affecting the
poorest people who have done the least
to contribute to the problem. So I'm so
glad you asked that question. And that
personally is the reason why I care
because many of them do not have the
voice to talk about it.
So because of that, I think those of us
who do have the voice to do so have even
greater responsibility to use our voice.
Alright, how do I find the right people
to have climate conversations with
when we're increasingly spending more
time with like-minded people? That is a
great question. I would say first of all,
we have seen -- you remember those maps I
showed? -- even people who totally agree
that this is a real problem, they don't think
it matters to them. So you might be
surprised that people you know would be
like, "Oh yes, of course climate change is
important." But then when you
start talking about solutions, they'll be
like, "Oh well, you know, I don't do that," or
"I don't think that's a big deal," or "I
don't think it matters." So you might be
surprised who you could have a good
conversation with. You might just be
taking for granted that they share
everything that you do. But I would say
in general, if you're looking for people
to have conversations with, look to
organizations, groups that you're part of.
It might be your family. It might be your
cycling club. It might be other parents
at your kid's school. It might be your
church. It might be a community
organization. I had one man come up to me
recently when I spoke at a university in
California. He came up to me afterwards,
he said: "I've been trying to reach out to
local churches because I know it's so
important to reach churches. But I can't get
my foot in the door." He said, "What should
I do?"
So I said, "Well the best thing to do is
start with a church that's the most
similar to to your own faith tradition.
So you know, do you go to church? So where
do you go?" He said, "Oh no, I don't go to
church -- I'm an atheist." So I said, "I don't
think you should be reaching out to
churches." I said, "What do you do? What do
you enjoy doing? Who are you?" He said, "Well
I'm a scientist." I said, "Yes I know, but
what else do you enjoy doing?" And so it
took us a little while but eventually I
said, you know I said, "Do you enjoy hiking?
Are you a birder? A member of the Rotary Club?"
No, no, no. But eventually he said, "Well I am a
diver." I said, "Oh, a diver!" He said, "Yes, actually
I have some records for some deep dives."
I said, "Well there you go. What about
reaching out to Patti certification
programs in your area" -- because he lives
along the coast -- "and offering your
services to talk to people who are doing
the education on how climate change is
affecting the oceans and what they can
do to help?" So think about who you are.
Think about what you enjoy
doing. And think about who that connects
you to. And again, it is worth having this
conversation with just about anybody, as
long as they're not a dismissive. Because
even if they're as learned as you are, we
all need to engage with each other and
hear hopeful information because we feel
like we're the only person who cares
sometimes, and hearing that somebody else
cares and there's somebody else that's
doing something -- that gives us hope to
help going -- to help keep going. So don't
discount those conversations as well.
Lots of other great questions. I think I
gave you kind of one of my surprising
conversations about climate change there,
with that scientist. What organizations
can I get involved with to create
political will? You can get involved
with an organization that shares your
values. (Jeff, if you want to ___ my meeting people,
that would be great.) Get involved with an
organization that shares your values. And
there are organizations for everybody:
for parents, for skiers, for birders, for
young evangelicals, for people who live
in Illinois. There are organizations for
everyone, even for us scientists, like the
Union of Concerned Scientists. Get
involved with an organization that
shares your identity, that shares
your values, that shares your interest.
And they will help you amplify your
voice. Alright, how do we combat negative
rhetoric? That's really hard because just
throwing money at it is not the answer.
But I think that really engaging with
our communities, engaging with
organizations that represent who we are,
and advocating for change at every level,
including with our elected officials by
bonding, connecting the dots, and giving
them a positive solution that is
endorsed by somebody that they might
actually agree with. Surprisingly, that is
the way that we as individuals can truly
make a difference. I want to close with one story
and it is this. Let me stop sharing my
screen with you. I want to close with one
story. We often think, "Well, the most
important thing I can do is change my
lightbulbs, I stopped driving a car -- get
an electric vehicle or solar panels,
become a vegan. And those are all
essential ways to reduce our personal
carbon footprint. But three years ago, there was a young
girl -- a high schooler -- who became very
concerned about climate change. So she
convinced her family to stop ___. She
convinced her family to eat a
plant-based diet. She convinced her
family to reduce their carbon footprint.
But if that is all she had done, none of
us would know the story. The reason we
know the story is because she did one
more thing: she took a piece of white
cardboard and she painted some words on
it that said: "school strike for climate."
And she went and sat outside a building,
and used her voice. And because she used
her voice, everyone in the world knows
her name now. And her name is Greta.
She knows that talking about climate change is the
single most effective thing that
everybody can do. And she also knows, as
the title of her book goes, that no one
is too small to make a difference. Thank
you so much for having me. Thank you for
your awesome questions. This is
absolutely going to be recorded and
available. And I will post your answers
to the questions -- which were fantastic -- on
Twitter if you're interested in having
the graphics. Thank you.
Thanks very much, Katherine. Yeah and just
to reiterate, as we've shown in the chat,
we'll get the recording of this talk on
the iSEE website as soon as we can.
Well thanks so much for your inspiring
words today, Katherine. Hopefully you've
sufficiently motivated all of us to
begin having conversations with others
on climate change. Be well everyone and
have a great evening.
