Full Transcript

Katharine Hayhoe: Having these conversations it’s completely different than the doom and gloom. We’re talking about what’s happening. We’re talking about why it matters to us. And what we’re doing is we’re actually –incredibly  — by doing so, knocking over the first domino in the long chain that ultimately leads us to that better future. 

Jay Famiglietti: At a time when headlines are painting a bleak picture of climate change, how do you convince people there is still hope? That there’s something they can do. Something we can all do to make a difference. 

I’m Jay Famiglietti, executive director of the Global Institute for Water Security at the University of Saskatchewan.

I like to say that water is the messenger that delivers the bad news about climate change to your town, to your neighborhood and to your front door,

Later on the podcast, we sit down with author Katharine Hayhoe, whose new book makes the case for climate hope during a time when climate change can feel well, pretty darn hopeless. 

You may have noticed our podcast has gotten a bit of a make-over this season. We felt a refresh was in order. So we’re now “What About Water?” Same great content, just different packaging. We’ll continue to bring you the most compelling stories percolating in the water world, but we’ll also be speaking to some of the brightest minds who are bringing real solutions to deep water issues to the surface.

You might’ve been following the news out of the United Nations. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] released its annual report this summer. And it wasn’t good. Then the first-ever water shortage was declared on the Colorado River in the western United States. And that wasn’t good. 

We are officially in a climate crisis and we’ve caused so much damage there’s really no going back. Such a dire message. It’s hard to believe there’s any hope, but giving hope to people is exactly something that my next guest is doing. Dr. Katharine Hayhoe is the chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy.

Which is known as Nature United in Canada. She is an award-winning science communicator and she is author of the new book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World, just published on September 21st. Katharine joins us from her studio in Lubbock, Texas, Katharine, Welcome to What About Water.

Katharine: Thank you for having me. 

Jay: Wow. You have been really busy with the new book and communicating the messages in that book. I heard your great interview this morning on CBC’s The Current, and then I watched your very fun and funny conversation with Jimmy Kimmel on YouTube. So we’re quite thankful that we could get you on the podcast.

And it’s really exciting to have you as the first guest of our third season.

Katharine: Well, it’s such a pleasure to speak with you Jay because just like water connects everything and delivers climate change to your door, like you said, and that is a great line that I may need to steal. If you give me permission (laughs).

Jay: You have my permission, please.

Katharine: In the same way climate change is this overarching issue that affects everything we already care about. So no matter who we are, no matter where we live, no matter what is at the top of our priority list today, I can guarantee you that climate change is affecting those things in ways that might surprise you. And that in turn makes who we already are, the perfect person to care. 

Jay: So let me follow up on that a little bit. You and a handful of our scientist colleagues are committed to translating and communicating our findings about climate change. Why do you think we need to go that extra mile? Though really in your case, it’s been more like a never-ending marathon. 

Katharine: Yeah. I feel like I’ve been across Canada a few times on foot. Hahaha. 

Jay: And Canada’s big. 

Katharine: Yes. Um, it’s because the facts alone are not enough. And that is something that has finally dawned on us after over 150 years of recognizing that digging up and burning coal back then, and now of course, more oil and gas and burning it, is producing heat trapping gasses that are wrapping an extra blanket around the planet, causing it to warm.

You know, scientists were worried enough about the risks of climate change impacts to formally warn a U.S. president of the facts in 1965. That was Lyndon B. Johnson for those of us who did not take American history in high school, which includes me. (laughs) That’s how long we’ve been beating the drum. So, you know, the first IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report came out in 1990 and now we’re on number six in 2021.

And at this point it’s like that old cartoon where the IPCC scientists are tapping the mic saying, hello, is this on? Well part of it is because we haven’t spent as much attention recognizing that we need to bridge the gap between how people think about and react to issues. The social sciences of how we as humans respond to information.

It’s been studied very thoroughly in psychology and neuroscience and social science and beyond. But we physical scientists, that’s not what we do. And so it isn’t until recently that we figured out that there is this gap and it needs to be bridged with the help from the people who do that type of work.So that this information connects directly with what people already care about.

Jay:  I know that you’re, you know, very big and I think this is really important, very big on just people talking about it. Just, just talk about it, just have those, have those conversations. And since you were just on Jimmy Kimmel’s show he’s a comedian. Do you think that humor helps in delivering these difficult messages? 

Katharine: Oh, for sure. Because most of the reason why we shirk these conversations on climate change is either because we’re afraid we’re going to get into an argument.

And most of us don’t really enjoy that, especially, you know, if we’re Canadian. Or we think it’s just going to end up being doom and gloom and who wants to talk about more bad news? So that’s why we just give it a total pass. We’re worried about it, but we don’t want to talk about it. And that’s why we have to change the way we talk about it.

And humour absolutely helps because sometimes things are so bad, you just have to laugh at them. And once you’ve laughed, they don’t seem quite as bad as they did before.

Jay: I try. I’m just not very good at it. A lot of my jokes, just, just land flat. So, and that will probably happen. That will probably happen today. So let’s, let’s keep an eye out for that. 

Katharine: Ha.

Jay: Okay. So climate change is now the most politically polarizing issue in the United States. And we even see that in parts of Canada, especially where we live in the central part in Saskatchewan (7:00) and in the Prairies

Katharine: Oh yeah!

Jay: It’s very conservative. In the U.S. though, it’s right up there with abortion and gun rights and healthcare. But surprisingly, as you’ve told us in your book, the number of people alarmed by its impact has actually tripled in recent years. What do you think that tells us? 

Katharine: It tells us that the impacts are here and now, and we can no longer deny the evidence of what our own eyes are telling us. I mean, just look at this past summer, the crazy heat wave out west that we know was at least 150 more times more likely because of climate change.

The wildfires that choked the air with smoke as far east as Ontario. Hurricane after hurricane pummeling, the Gulf coast, ratcheting up from a tropical storm to a category three or four, seemingly almost overnight. I mean, the litany of disasters just goes on and on to the point where to not recognize that something is going on, you literally have to be living in a cave.

Jay: So let’s bring this to water. The UN and you and I all say that water is the way in which we’ll feel the effects and already are feeling the effects of climate change. I want to ask you a couple of things about that. First in the book, you talk about making the link between water and climate — and climate and carbon. Can you explain that to us?

Katharine: I was giving a presentation. I tell this story in the book to the water managers association and I, there were two state politicians before me, each of whom explicitly rejects the science of climate change. Not implicitly, but explicitly and frequently. So there was politician number one, politician number two, and then up comes the climate scientist.

So I decided I was going to conduct an experiment. I was going to give an entire presentation showing observed trends, future projects from climate models. You know the different pathways the world could follow and how we could prepare and adapt and build resilience without ever mentioning the words, climate and change in sequence. So that’s what I did.

Jay: Nicely done! Nicely done. How did it work out?

Katharine: Well, first of all, nobody threw any rotten tomatoes that is always a concern. It didn’t happen. People applauded and it looked like they were pleased. But what really stunned me was this woman who ran up to me afterwards and she was so enthusiastic. She grabbed my hand and she pumped it and she said, that was great. I agree with everything you said. And then she continued, ‘Those people who talk about global warming. I don’t agree with them at all. But this, this makes sense.’

And my mind just boggled, because of course that’s exactly what I was talking about, but because I didn’t use the trigger words, she was able to follow what I said. She was able to connect it with her lived experience. She had lived through these trends and it totally makes sense. And that’s, I think I truly believe what all of us can do. 

Jay: Wow. So that’s a real, that’s a real eye-opener, you know, uh, avoiding the triggers, I think is, it’s part of your advice.

Is it possible  that the issues we’re confronting with water today from scarcity to flooding and the more severe storm sea level rise, do you think these things are really helping people appreciate climate change?

Katharine: Oh yes. Because the biggest problem that we currently have with climate change is not the number of people who reject the science and believe me, I know they’re loud and they’re definitely on social media.

I probably encountered about 30 of them today, but they are not the biggest problem. The seven percenters of dismissive, loud as they may be as, as big as their signal may be magnified by social media. They’re not what’s holding us back. 

What’s holding us back is the fact that most people in the United States and Canada agree that climate is changing. They agree it will affect plants and animals, people in the future and people who live in developing countries, but we don’t think it will affect me. 

That is the biggest problem. because you could say I one hundred percent agree with the science. I agree with everything the IPCC says. But if I don’t think it matters to me, I’m never going to do anything to fix it.

That is the biggest gap we have. And unfortunately Jay, that gap has started to close as climate impacts manifest themselves increasingly, with increasing severity here now. But as you also know, as a fellow scientist, we have to close that gap. Sooner, rather than later, we have to close it before it closes itself.

If it closes itself, when disasters just overwhelm us, it’s too late. 

Jay: So, you know, it reminds me of something I just heard on the radio and it was about the drought. So the drought was terrible here in the Prairie’s up in Saskatchewan. And again the fields,  um, the productivity went to zero.

And it was a radio host and the host was asking, I can’t remember which politician it was, but the same question, like you’ve seen the drought, don’t you think climate change is a problem? And this person, you know, admitted that the drought was a problem and the lack of agricultural productivity was a problem.

Katharine: Right.

Jay: But they couldn’t actually say that climate change was a problem. So, you know, I have a hard time listening to that. I know this is the space that you work in. So I want to drill into this notion of the different categories that you talk about in the book that people fall into, based on how concerned they are about climate change. So, as you said, we’ve got people who are alarmed about climate change, and then people at the opposite end, the dismissives who deny that it’s even happening. And we all know a few of them.

Katharine: Um-hum.

Jay:  But then there’s everyone in between. Um, and you argue that it is that in between group that’s the, that’s where the opportunity is. Could you expand on that a little bit?

Katharine: Yes. So often when it comes to climate change, we feel like there’s two groups, them and us. And we feel like that no matter who we are and what we believe about it. And we often tend to slap labels on it. We tend to call those people believers or often sheeple. I hear that too. And then the other group tends to be deniers. But what that does is it obscures where we really fall in this issue and the fact that there’s a lot more nuance on it. 

So the Yale program on climate communication has this great sort of framework of six different categories that people can fall into.

Category number one is ‘alarmed’ and category number two is ‘concerned’. And alarmed and concerned are well over 50% of the United States. Crazy! Well over 50% and definitely over 50% in Canada. Then the next biggest group is ‘cautious’. And when you add cautious in, you’re  over 75%. Over 75% are alarm concerned or cautious. Cautious people tend to lead with their doubts.

So cautious people might say, well, I heard. Or um, you know, I read an article or somebody said. And when we automatically slap a ‘denier’ label on them, that just pushes them further away rather than engaging in a respectful conversation. So typically, you know, as long as somebody isn’t calling me a whore on social media, which sadly happens pretty frequently, but as long as you’re not doing that, my response generally is: ‘that’s a great point’.

Good question. And you know what? We have an answer to the question; here it is. Now we may have asked and answered that question 200 years ago. But it was still a good question 200 years ago. So by acknowledging the question and saying, Hey, that’s a great question. Here’s an answer. We’re respecting what they’re saying.

And they might be like, oh, so that she thought that was okay, well maybe I can ask another question. And so cautious people really can be engaged. So then we have the three smaller groups. We have ‘disengaged’ people who have literally, like we said, you know, been living in a cave because that’s the only place you could possibly be and not see what’s happening.

Then we have about 12% who are highly doubtful. They are the ones who are really hardcore ideologues, their political identity is their party. They are to the right of the conservative party or they’re PPC increasingly in Canada. And in the U S they’re absolutely Republican, and they’re not moderate Republicans. They are Trumper Republicans.

So doubtful people. It’s really hard for them to change their mind because they feel like they would be giving up a lot of their identity. The last group are the ‘dismissives’, the ones who claim that climate change is a hoax. They bring it up any chance they have, they can’t leave it alone, like a sore tooth, and they’re always posting online.

And honestly, I think it would take a miracle to convince them, and I’m not in the miracle business. So I don’t try. 

Jay: That’s that’s really interesting. So what I want to ask you about is, you know, you talk a lot about sort of finding common ground with people and maybe you have knitting in common. So like you’re talking to some knitters, like how does that conversation go?

Katharine: Ha! (snorts) Well, do not knock it Jay because I literally had somebody email me today and they’re like, I heard you talk about knitting. I knit too! So, I was first asked that question by, um, a young woman who had attended one of my talks on communication. She said, I really want to talk about climate change with my grandma, but I just can’t figure out how to bring it up.

So I said, well, and this is key. I started with the question. I didn’t tell her how to do it. Cause I didn’t know how to do it. I said, what do you and your grandma enjoy doing together? And she said, we knit together. That’s what we do together. So of course since I’m a knitter, the light bulb immediately went off and I’m like, ah, ha!

I said, have you seen these awesome knitting patterns called the warming stripes, where you have one row for every year. And this concept was developed by Ed Hawkins, who’s a fellow scientist from the UK, who’s just great with visualizations. So there’s one Stripe for every year. And if it was colder than average it’s blue and darker blue means a lot colder.

If it was warmer than average, it’s red and darker red means a lot red and then average means white. So what if you got one of these patterns for the place where your grandma grew up. And you knitted a scarf or a blanket together. And you asked her about all the years, like, oh grandma, we’re knitting this year right now. It’s really dark blue. Do you remember? Oh, yes. I was only about eight years old, but I remember — so talk through the stories of your grandma’s history as you knit your way up until the present day. And then you can be like, wow, grandma, look at the last 10 years. Have you ever seen years that warm, as long as you have lived? And the grandma will be like no, no, I have not.

And she’s the authority there right? So you’ve already established her as the authority, you’re respecting her experience and wisdom, and that she can actually speak herself to how what’s happening is not normal. And she hasn’t seen this before. And then that opens the door right there to say, how is it affecting the place where we live? How is it affecting people that we care about and that home that you grew up in and the place that we love and what can we do about it?

Jay: Katharine, you’re an evangelical Christian, you don’t often associate evangelicals being at the forefront of the climate change movement, but, but here you are. How do your own values as a Christian inform your perspectives on climate change? 

Katharine: Well, the reason I’m a climate scientist is because I’m a Christian. I was studying astronomy and physics at the University of Toronto, and that’s what I was planning. And I already picked out a few grad schools to apply to. I was studying galaxy clustering around quasars. And in fact, my first five papers are already in that field. 

Jay: Wow.

Katharine: So I was planning to continue studying, when I needed an extra course to finish my undergraduate degree. And I looked around and there was a new class over in the geography department on climate science.

So I thought, well, that looks interesting. Why not take it? But in that class I learned, first of all, that climate change is incredibly urgent. It’s right here right now. And I also learned that it affects everything. Most of all, poverty and water scarcity and hunger and lack of access to basic healthcare and education.

Climate change is profoundly a justice issue. It disproportionally affects the poorest people, the 3.5 billion people on the planet who have contributed to 10% of heat trapping gas emissions. Those are the ones who are most impacted, and I’m sure you see that yourself through water. 

Jay: Absolutely. Yes. Yep.

Katharine: So when I found that out, I thought to myself, well, here I am. I’m somebody who believes that we’re supposed to love others and care for others, especially the poorest, most vulnerable, most marginalized people in the world that I believe is a foundational tenant of the Christian faith. It literally says, Jesus literally says in the Bible, you’re supposed to be recognized by your love for others.

How loving is it to put your fingers in your ears and cover your eyes and pretend that you don’t see the suffering that our lifestyle is causing? So that’s when I decided to become a climate scientist. And I can’t end the story there because I actually tell this in the book, um, a number of years later, a colleague of ours asked, could, you know, could I meet him for lunch when we were at a conference together?

And I said, sure. So we had just barely met up when he just burst out. He said ‘Well, I’m not a Christian, but I care too.’ And I said, well, of course, I mean, you know this, you’ve dedicated your life to this. This is what you do. 

And he said, well, I’m a humanist. And I care because climate change isn’t fair. It affects the poorest and most marginalized people on the planet.

I was like, yes, of course! To care about that, all you have to be is a human being, living on this planet, who cares about other people. And I care because I’m a Christian, he cared because he’s a humanist. Somebody else might care because they’re a Buddhist or because they’re, you know, a Muslim or because they’re nothing.

But all you have to be as a human who cares. That is it. That’s why we all care. 

Jay: That is a profound message. As part of your work you travel around the country speaking to all sorts of people. And as I mentioned, a lot of these folks might have pretty different perspectives on climate change.  I have been really, really intrigued by an initiative that you and some colleagues launched called Science Moms. Can you tell us what Science Moms is and what prompted you to focus on mothers to make a difference with climate change awareness?

 

Katharine: One of the reasons I care is because I’m a mom and you know, if you’re, if you’re a parent, if you’re a grandparent, if you’re an auntie or uncle or godparent, or if you have any children in your life, you would do anything for them. You just, you know that.

And so that’s a big part of what motivates me now, too. I wasn’t a mom when I became a climate scientist, but I am now. And that — that’s huge. So for a long time, you know, that was what motivated me. And I started to connect with other colleagues who were also mothers who felt the same. And at the same time, there was this great organization called Potential Energy, which includes a lot of people who come from big ad agencies, um, in Canada, as well as in the U.S. I’m happy to say.

And they were doing some polling of people because they were really worried that people weren’t acting on climate. And they’re like, okay, who is most concerned, but not activated. What group of people is most concerned, but they’re just sort of frozen or paralyzed? And they found out it’s moms. 86% of moms in the U.S.,  Republican or Democrat, it doesn’t matter, are very worried about climate change. But they’re not doing anything because they don’t feel like they understand it and they don’t know what to do about it.

So we sort of came together and had this meeting of minds. And we’re like, ‘We feel the same way! You have the data and resources and smarts to, you know, help us tell people things. We actually, you know, we understand the science and we’re moms and we’re in it too. So we created Science Moms. And I have to tell you, Jay, I mean, the response to that has been like nothing I’ve ever seen.

When I give an interview specifically about being a science mom, the camera switches off, and then the person interviewing me, if she’s a woman, she’s like, ‘can I join?’ and I’m like, yeah! Of course you can join. And every single person I’ve talked to wants to join. In fact, I have to be honest, there are, I know that there’s some dads and uncles and grandpas and godparents too, who’ve joined.

Jay: Absolutely. Yeah! I want to be a science dad for sure. You’ve been pretty adamant about climate change not needing to be on our personal priorities list. Can you, and of course, that’s really provocative. 

Katharine: People who don’t have it high on their list. It isn’t because they aren’t worried about it. It’s because they have other things that they see as more important priorities.

And if we wait until climate change is at number two or three or even one on everybody’s list to fix it, it’s going to be way too late. But what I’ve realized, and this is, this is provocative. So stay with me here. And you know, I am a scientist and I study this. I don’t think climate change should be on anybody’s list at all. Not even mine. Because if the only thing that were happening was that we were burning fossil fuels and they were producing heat, trapping gasses, and they were wrapping an extra blanket around the planet and they were causing the average temperature of the planet to warm, but nothing else was happening, nothing. It would be a scientific curiosity. We care about it because that warming is affecting everything we already care about. 

What’s at the top of your list? Your health. Climate change affects the air. We breathe the quality of the water we drink and the nutritional quality of the food we eat. 

What about your kids? Climate change is going to make their future less safe, less secure, and much less healthier. What if you care about the home that you live in? Well, depending on where you live, it could be under threat from wildfires, from floods. If you are somebody who loves outdoor activities, like. You know, skiing that requires snow, you like beer and wine or coffee or chocolate, whatever you like, I can connect climate change to probably at least four out of those five things. And what that does is it shows us that who we already are, is the perfect person to care. Cause we already have every reason at the top of our list. 

So we’re not forcing climate change up. We’re actually respecting what’s already at the top of our list and we’re being an even more genuine expression of concern for those things we care about.

Jay: Katharine, thanks so much for taking the time out of your very busy schedule to be on What About Water? Dr. Katharine Hayhoe is author of the new book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. You can find it at your local independent bookstore, online, and at most retail bookstores. Thanks Katherine. 

Katharine: Oh such a pleasure.

Jay: Well, as Katherine says, sometimes it really boils down to helping people see just how climate change is affecting their lives in very real ways. But once they’ve made that connection, then what?

A program run by the University of British Columbia called Cool Hood Champs is helping ordinary citizens develop the knowledge and the confidence to take action on climate change starting right where they live.

Last Word

Cheryl Ng: My name is Cheryl Ng, communications and engagement coordinator at UBC forestry’s collaborative for advanced landscape planning. 

We realized that a lot of climate action takes place at the policy level. And a lot of times, citizens themselves don’t really know how to connect their individual or their household level actions back to the policy level. 

Chris Cheng: So my name is Chris.  I am a mom and a teacher. I have two daughters. 

(shuffling in the background) You look good.

Sam Mew: It’s too hard when you’re staring at me like that. I gotta get my stuff.

I’m Sam. I’m Chris’ daughter. 

Sorry. My mom came in to talk. I can’t. I…  see, we talk highly to each other. We’re also close enough to snap a little! Hahahaha.

Sam Mew: It was a hundred percent her that got me involved with Cool Hood Champs. I was quite hesitant because I think I was just overwhelmed with all of the climate change news hearing that there was no hope. But then when she brought me, I was so excited because it was just so applicable 

Chris Cheng: And it was just sort of looking at the resources that we have as a household and what we could do hands on. Mapping out our areas, going for walks, talking to other people. So it was very action-focused, I’m not a political person by nature. I’m probably not going to go to a lot of demonstrations or get into political arguments with people. So I was really glad to be able to just put some shovels into the ground and start digging things up. 

Sam Mew: Any action, just as simple as my mom wanting to use her reusable bag to me, it really inspired me because I could see her standing her ground and saying in her own special, quiet way. I don’t want to be a part of the problem.

Chris Cheng: I have to act because worrying about it, being concerned about it,  sad about it, being overwhelmed by it, it’s not helping anything and maybe my actions won’t have any results. But at least I’ve tried my best and I think it’s something we all want to do for our children.

Jay Famiglietti: Thank you to the Cool Hood Champs. Cheryl Ng, Chris Cheng and Sam Mew in Vancouver. If you’re a parent like Chris and you are concerned about climate change, you are not alone. The Potential Energy Coalition found that 83% of American moms are concerned about climate change, regardless of their political stripe. Find out more at science moms dot com.

Well that’s it for this episode of “What about Water?” We record and produce this podcast on Treaty Six Territory. We live and work on this, the homeland of First Nations and Métis people, and we respect that relationship. 

“What About Water” is produced by The Walrus Lab and the Global Institute for Water Security at the University of Saskatchewan. Check out whataboutwater.org as we continue to post water-related stories, content and resources. 

Our crew here at “What About Water” is Mark Ferguson, Erin Stephens, Laura McFarlan, Fred Reiben, Jesse Witow, Shawn Ahmed, and Andrea Rowe. Thanks to Wayne Giesbrecht, our studio technician, and to Farha Akhtar and Jen Quesnel at Cascade Communications who put it all together. 

 I’m Jay Famiglietti. Thanks for listening to What About Water. Available on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you download your favourite podcasts.