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BY EMILY GREEN
STAFF WRITER
T
atharine Hayhoe never goes where
she’s not invited, and when she
A X accepts an invitation, she usually :
finds herself surrounded by people who
vehemently disagree with her.
Hayhoe, 43, is one of thenation’s
foremost atmospheric scientists. She was
lead author of the second and third U.S,
National Climate Assessments, she directs
the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech
University, and she has written more than
120 peer-reviewed publications and works
with city managers, engineers and ecologists
across the country to prepare for climate-
change impacts.
She’s also an evangelical Christian on a
mission to convince faith-based climate-
change deniers that climate change is real,
that it’s caused by human activity and that
taking action aligns with their core values!
and beliefs.
Her strategy is simple: build a bond over
a shared value; connect things that affect
that commonality to climate change, then —
and only then — explain the science. She
concludes with common-sense solutions,
many already set in motion, because hope,
not fear, inspires people, she says.
She uses the same tactics when
speaking with farmers, ranchers, fossil fuel
industry employees and other groups less
likely to be on board with the climate
movement.
On June-24, Hayhoe will be in Portland at
the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall to give a
talk, “Climate Change: Fact and Faith.” She
says it’s a rare exception to her rule against
taking speaking engagements with .
audiences who don’t need convincing.
Hayhoe recently spoke with Street Roots
from her home in Lubbock, Texas, about our
changing climate, how tfie media
perpetuates myths about climate change,
and what approaches work best when trying
to convince climate-change deniers to accept
News
the facts and take action. .
Emily G reen: What are some o f the
takeaways from the 2014 US. National
Climate Assessment of the United States you
think might surprise even the most avid of
climate activists?
Street Roots • June 19-25, 2015
things we have learned over the past 10
years is the impacts of climate change are
far more wide-ranging than we imagined. In
the beginning, scientists Often focused on
the direct impacts of warmihg: sea level
rise, heat wave risks, increasing rainfall
intensity. And these are important.
— KaUiarin e
T^nnking,
„ ... i liu n d i redo of mrik ww o oi" p eo p le ■ewwWHge———
observed trends and future projections, it
homeless this century due to sea level rise
was clear climate change matters to each of
alone. In 2003, a heat wave over in Europe
us in the places we live today. If we live in
was responsible for 70,000 premature
the Southwest, we know water shortages
deaths; climate change had doubled the risk
are our issue. If we are in the Northeast, we
of that event occurring. Just this year, Texas
know too much water is the issue. If we live
was devastated by record rainfall and
iji cities, heat is our issue. The National
flooding, consistent with what we expect
Climate Assessment clearly showed the
more of in a warming world.
reason why we care about climate change
What we’re recognizing now, though, is
varies from place to place, but those
that secondary impacts hiay be just as, if not
reasons are all very real, and they are all
more, important. The direct impacts of
here today.
climate change may be dwarfed by the
indirect impacts of climate change on, say, ...
E.G.: How have predictions for future
political instability or the ocean’s food chain.
climate impacts changed in recent years, and
do you think we’re getting better at predicting
E.G.: Some have said you’ve made it your
what will happen in the future?
mission to spread the gospel of climate science
among Christians. How did you-come to take
K.H.: First of all, there Was a paper
on such a mission?
published by (scientists and academics)
Érysse, Oreskes (O’Reilly) and
K.H.: “Gospel” means good news. I feel
Oppenheimer two years ago (hat looked at
more like an Old Testament prophet than I
climate projections from 1990 to 2010,
do a New Testament evangelist, warning
asking: “Is it true that climate scientists are
people to turn from their ways before
alarmists'?” If it was true, we would expect
disaster happens.
to see, over the last 20 years, the rate and
Part of the problem with climate change
magnitude of change in the real world is /
is that it’s been deliberately framed as
much less than what scientists predicted.
alternate religion. Many people - maybe few
They found that far from being alarmist;
in Portland, but many where I live here in
climate projections had been consistently on
Texas — interpret, “Do you believe in climate
the low side - s o much so that it coiild not
change?” as “Would you like to worship at
be accounted for by scientific uncertainty.
the altar of Al Gore?” So I think it’s really
And so in this paper, they coined this
important to differentiate between what we
syndrome, ESLD - Erring On the Side of
believe versus w hatwe know.
'
Least Drama. Subconsciously, we"
Based on physics and the available
(scientists) are so conservative, and we so
evidence, not based on a crystal ball, the
hate being accused of being alarmist, that
most logical and solid conclusion is that
we are downgrading the risks in our own
climate is changing due to human activities
projections.
Until 2008 or 2009,1 don’t think anybody
Second, one of the most important new
really knew where I went to church on
Sunday. The reason I decided to tell people
I was a Christian was because when I looked
around in the United States, evangelical
Protestants, the group that I’m in, were the
least likely to agree that climate is changing
due to human activities.
My community, my church, my neighbors
■-aiThe-p epp ua wnu mmuo inumrui mraum
theology as I do — they were the ones being
deliberately misinformed about climate
change.
E.G.: In Showtime’s “Years of Living
Dangerously,”a documentary series on the
impact of climate change, you and your
husband reached out to Kurtis, a cotton farmer
and Christian who wasn’t on board with
climate change. After your husband told him
97 percent of scientists agree it’s happening, he
changed his mind. Can you explain why, with
so much information available at our j
fingertips, so many Americans don’t have all
the facts?
RIH,: Ed Maibach and his team at George
Mason University traveled around the I
country asking people what they thought
about climate change and whether it was
human caused. They wanted to know, if you
only have 10 seconds to talk to someone,
what’s the most impactful thing that you can
say. They found the simple message th a t,
scientists agree changed the most minds,
and that’s exactly what you saw with Kurtis.
Americans believe scientists are divided
about 50-50 on whether humans are*
changing climate change. In actual fact,
survey after survey has shown scientists are
at least 97 percent in agreem ent and the
scientific literature is over 99 percent. I I
Why do we think it’s 50-50?
The Union of Concerned Scientists went
through every segment on several major
news networks and counted how many times
accurate information versus demonstrably
false information on climate change was
presented. What they found for 2013 was,
See HAYHOE, page 5