2021-10-01 Katharine Hayhoe on Hope and Healing

Host: Greg Dalton

Guests:

Katharine Hayhoe, climate scientist and chief scientist, The Nature Conservancy; author, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres referred to the most recent IPCC report as a “code red for humanity.” But do we fully acknowledge the severity of the situation?

Renowned climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe says our collective threat meter is “unbalanced,” and that humans’ ability to create psychological distance from risk is one of the biggest barriers to understanding why climate change matters to us. 

“We see [climate change risk] as being distant in space; happening over there but not here. Distant in time; happening in the future but not to us. Distant in relevance; happening to people who care about that but not people like me who care about this.  And also being abstract, like global average temperature instead of my house being burned down by a wildfire,” Hayhoe says.

In her new book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World, Hayhoe argues that when it comes to changing hearts and minds, facts are only one part of the equation.

“The biggest problem we have is not the people who willfully decide to reject 200 years of basic science. The bigger problem is the number of people who say, ‘it's real’ but they don’t think it matters to them.”

She’s spent years working to help people understand precisely why climate change matters to them, particularly those who doubt it. Much of that work starts with conversation. Her book relates many stories of the power of conversations that she says begin from the heart, rather than the head. She suggests finding common ground with people before starting to discuss climate.  

“If we begin a conversation with something we agree on, rather than something we disagree on, if we begin a conversation by esteeming the other person rather than implicitly judging them like so many conversations begin today, that conversation starts off with so much potential and can end in an incredibly surprising place,” Hayhoe says.

As an evangelical Christian, Hayhoe says she often connects with people through her faith. But she doesn’t put up with those who use religion to deny climate science. 

“If people truly took the Bible seriously, they would be out at the front of the line demanding climate action instead of using it as some type of palatable window dressing for their denial which has nothing to do with theology and everything to do with political ideology,” Hayhoe says. 

At the end of the day, Hayhoe says finding hope around climate disruption begins from a dark place: acknowledging just how bad it is, and the fact that a negative outcome is more likely than a positive one.  

“But hope is that faint, small, bright light at the end of the dark tunnel that we head for with all our might and all our strength. And when we get dragged down, when we get discouraged, when we get anxious and depressed...we take a breath, we fix our eyes on that hope...and then we pick ourselves up, and we keep on going because what is at stake is too valuable to lose,” Hayhoe says. “It's not our planet itself: it will orbit the sun long after we’re gone. What’s at stake is literally us.” 

Related Links:

Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World

Katharine Hayhoe TED Talk

These Trees Are Not What They Seem, Bloomberg article

Host: Greg Dalton

Guests:

Katharine Hayhoe, climate scientist and chief scientist, The Nature Conservancy; author, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres referred to the most recent IPCC report as a “code red for humanity.” But do we fully acknowledge the severity of the situation?

Renowned climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe says our collective threat meter is “unbalanced,” and that humans’ ability to create psychological distance from risk is one of the biggest barriers to understanding why climate change matters to us. 

“We see [climate change risk] as being distant in space; happening over there but not here. Distant in time; happening in the future but not to us. Distant in relevance; happening to people who care about that but not people like me who care about this.  And also being abstract, like global average temperature instead of my house being burned down by a wildfire,” Hayhoe says.

In her new book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World, Hayhoe argues that when it comes to changing hearts and minds, facts are only one part of the equation.

“The biggest problem we have is not the people who willfully decide to reject 200 years of basic science. The bigger problem is the number of people who say, ‘it's real’ but they don’t think it matters to them.”

She’s spent years working to help people understand precisely why climate change matters to them, particularly those who doubt it. Much of that work starts with conversation. Her book relates many stories of the power of conversations that she says begin from the heart, rather than the head. She suggests finding common ground with people before starting to discuss climate.  

“If we begin a conversation with something we agree on, rather than something we disagree on, if we begin a conversation by esteeming the other person rather than implicitly judging them like so many conversations begin today, that conversation starts off with so much potential and can end in an incredibly surprising place,” Hayhoe says.

As an evangelical Christian, Hayhoe says she often connects with people through her faith. But she doesn’t put up with those who use religion to deny climate science. 

“If people truly took the Bible seriously, they would be out at the front of the line demanding climate action instead of using it as some type of palatable window dressing for their denial which has nothing to do with theology and everything to do with political ideology,” Hayhoe says. 

At the end of the day, Hayhoe says finding hope around climate disruption begins from a dark place: acknowledging just how bad it is, and the fact that a negative outcome is more likely than a positive one.  

“But hope is that faint, small, bright light at the end of the dark tunnel that we head for with all our might and all our strength. And when we get dragged down, when we get discouraged, when we get anxious and depressed...we take a breath, we fix our eyes on that hope...and then we pick ourselves up, and we keep on going because what is at stake is too valuable to lose,” Hayhoe says. “It's not our planet itself: it will orbit the sun long after we’re gone. What’s at stake is literally us.” 

Related Links:

Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World

Katharine Hayhoe TED Talk

These Trees Are Not What They Seem, Bloomberg article