Speaker 1: But if we can talk about climate change, what else
Speaker 1: might we be able to talk about? And here's how
Speaker 1: we do it. Rather than beginning by dumping scary facts
Speaker 1: on people, or by arguing, or by focusing on what
Speaker 1: we disagree on, we need to begin our conversations with
Speaker 1: something that we agree on. And if we don't know
Speaker 1: what we agree with somebody on, then ask the questions
Speaker 1: and learn about what matters to them until we figure
Speaker 1: out where we could possibly find a point of connection.
Speaker 1: Then connect the dots to how climate change affects what
Speaker 1: we both care about. That was Catherine Hayho, a climate
Speaker 1: scientist who was on a mission to save the planet,
Speaker 1: and she says that we can do that by having
Speaker 1: honest conversations with each other. I'm a land Revere. This
Speaker 1: is Seneca's one Women to Hear. We are bringing you
Speaker 1: one hundred of the world's most inspiring and history making
Speaker 1: women you need to hear. Katherine Hahoe refuses to give
Speaker 1: into despair about the climate crisis. She's chief scientist for
Speaker 1: the Natured Conservancy and a professor at Texas Tech. Her
Speaker 1: message about the need for communications seems to be getting across.
Speaker 1: She gave a TED talk about climate change that has
Speaker 1: been viewed more than four million times. In September, she
Speaker 1: published her latest book. It's called Saving Us, a Climate
Speaker 1: Scientist's Case, Her hope and healing in a divided world,
Speaker 1: and it's one praise from everyone from Margaret Atwood to
Speaker 1: Scientific American Listen and learn why Katherine Hahoe is one
Speaker 1: of Seneca's one hundred Women to hear. I've speaking today
Speaker 1: with Katherine hajo and we're so delighted to have this
Speaker 1: climate scientist with us. Catherine, you've done amazing work in
Speaker 1: terms of the climate issue, the existential threat of our time.
Speaker 1: You're the chief scientists for the Nature Conservancy, and you
Speaker 1: teach at Texas Tech, so that's quite a bit. And
Speaker 1: you were recently at the Climate Summit in Glasgow, and
Speaker 1: as someone who knows the subject so well, so deeply,
Speaker 1: I wonder how you would sum up the state of
Speaker 1: the world in terms of the climate threat today. Well,
Speaker 1: from the perspective of the science, it is not too
Speaker 1: cheerful because we know, in fact, we've known since the
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds that digging up and burning coal and gas
Speaker 1: and oil produces heat trapping gases that are building up
Speaker 1: in the atmosphere, wrapping an extra blanket around the planet.
Speaker 1: We as scientists were so concerned about the potential impacts
Speaker 1: on humans on our society that scientists took the unprecedented
Speaker 1: step of formally warning a US president about the dangers
Speaker 1: of climate change in nineteen sixty five. And we have
Speaker 1: produced more than two thirds of our cumulative carbon emissions
Speaker 1: since that warning occurred. So in terms of the science,
Speaker 1: we truly are in a dire situation where every action matters,
Speaker 1: every year matters, every ton of carbon matters. But what
Speaker 1: gave me hope in Glasgow was seeing all of the
Speaker 1: people who were there. For so long, climate change has
Speaker 1: been perceived as a niche issue, one that matters to
Speaker 1: climate scientists and environmentalists but not to everybody else. But
Speaker 1: the reality is climate change is a human issue, and
Speaker 1: no matter what we love, who we love, or where
Speaker 1: we love, all of these are already being affected by
Speaker 1: climate change today. And so what gave me so much
Speaker 1: hope in Glasgow was seeing the tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: people there from every walk of life, from industry, from nonprofit,
Speaker 1: young old from academia, theologians, um, religious leaders, negotiators, policy experts,
Speaker 1: medical professionals, everyone you can imagine was there because they
Speaker 1: understood that climate change is in everything issue and in
Speaker 1: everyone issue, and you know, in order to want to
Speaker 1: fix it, we only have to be one thing, and
Speaker 1: that is quite literally just a human being living on
Speaker 1: planet Earth. Oh that's so well said. I think one
Speaker 1: of the reasons that climate is an uncomfortable discussion at times,
Speaker 1: or their engagement hasn't been what it needed to have
Speaker 1: been and clearly needs to be ramped up, is that
Speaker 1: when scientists talk, it seems remote from everybody else. And
Speaker 1: you just gave a Ted talk not too long ago
Speaker 1: that's already had four million viewers, and you said in
Speaker 1: the talk that the single best thing we can do
Speaker 1: to fight climate change is to talk about it. So
Speaker 1: explain what you mean by that, particularly since for many
Speaker 1: people it seems like not an accessible topic or a
Speaker 1: controversial topic. So it's very interesting because when we look
Speaker 1: at the data, it turns out that seventy percent of
Speaker 1: people in the United States are already worried about climate change.
Speaker 1: Those numbers are greater in other countries like my home
Speaker 1: country of candidates, about the same in the UK, greater
Speaker 1: in the EU. So most people are already worried, and
Speaker 1: in fact, here in the US, when you ask people
Speaker 1: who are mothers if they're worried, eight three percent of
Speaker 1: moms are worried about climate change. Young people, the biggest
Speaker 1: problem we have. The biggest gap we have is not
Speaker 1: between the people who say it's real and the people
Speaker 1: who say it isn't, even though the people who say
Speaker 1: it isn't are certainly very loud. The biggest gap we
Speaker 1: have is between people who say it's real and people
Speaker 1: who are activated. Because it turns out only a fraction
Speaker 1: of us are actually actively engaged in doing something about this.
Speaker 1: How do we close that gap? The catalyst to action
Speaker 1: is when we use our voice to connect with others,
Speaker 1: to say what could we do as a family, What
Speaker 1: could we do as a school, What could we do
Speaker 1: as a business or a place of work. What can
Speaker 1: we do as a neighborhood or a city or a state.
Speaker 1: The catalyst to every single one of those actions is
Speaker 1: when we talk about why it matters and what we
Speaker 1: might be able to do together to help to fix it. So,
Speaker 1: how do we talk persuasively uh to those even though
Speaker 1: their numbers and it may not be enormous, who still
Speaker 1: are very skeptical, or to those who worry about jobs
Speaker 1: in terms of fossil fuels and the kinds of worrisome
Speaker 1: emissions that are a big part of the problem. How
Speaker 1: do we talk to well those as well as everybody
Speaker 1: else in a way that is very compelling. I think
Speaker 1: there's really a simple formula to having positive, constructive conversations,
Speaker 1: even about something as contentious as climate change. You know,
Speaker 1: here in the US over the last decade or more,
Speaker 1: climate change has been at the top of the list
Speaker 1: of the most politically polarized issues in the country. But
Speaker 1: if we can talk about climate change, what else might
Speaker 1: we be able to talk about? And here's how we
Speaker 1: do it. Rather than beginning by dumping scary facts on people,
Speaker 1: or by arguing, or by focusing on what we disagree on,
Speaker 1: we need to begin our conversations with something that we
Speaker 1: agree on. And if we don't know what we agree
Speaker 1: with somebody on, then ask them questions and learn about
Speaker 1: what matters to them, who, what, where they love, what
Speaker 1: their concerns are, what concerns inform their positions, Until we
Speaker 1: figure out where we could possibly find a point of connection.
Speaker 1: Then connect the dots to how climate change affects what
Speaker 1: we both care about and how climate solutions are consistent
Speaker 1: with the values that we have. But how we begin
Speaker 1: that conversation is important. And I want to say one
Speaker 1: cautionary thing, which is often people immediately say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's great. I'm going to run off and I'm going
Speaker 1: to have a conversation with the most dismissive person I know,
Speaker 1: my relative, my neighbor, my colleague, who's always saying it
Speaker 1: isn't real, it's just a hoax. Finally I have them,
Speaker 1: you know, the solution to show them how they're wrong. Well,
Speaker 1: here's the bad news. The bad news is is that
Speaker 1: for people who are truly dismissive, who have built their
Speaker 1: identity on rejecting the reality of this problem, not because
Speaker 1: they truly have a problem with basic physics. If they did,
Speaker 1: they'd also reject the reality of stoves, bridges, and airplanes.
Speaker 1: But they rejected because they don't think there's any solutions
Speaker 1: that are compatible or consistent with their values. So for
Speaker 1: the seven percent of people in the United States who
Speaker 1: are the very loud dismissives who bring this issue up
Speaker 1: all the time to pooh pooh it, it is not
Speaker 1: possible to have a constructive conversation with them because they
Speaker 1: can't listen. But here's the good news of us are
Speaker 1: not dismissive, and in fact, people often say, well, why
Speaker 1: bother talking to the rest of the people If you
Speaker 1: know we already think the same way. You might think
Speaker 1: you think the same way, but how do you know
Speaker 1: if you don't talk about it. And even if you
Speaker 1: do think the same way, the chances are they're not
Speaker 1: activated because most people aren't. The vast majority of people
Speaker 1: who are worried about climate change are doing nothing about
Speaker 1: it because they don't know what to do. And that's
Speaker 1: where our conversations come in. Bond over shared values, connect
Speaker 1: the dots to how climate change affect us here and
Speaker 1: now in ways that are relevant to us, and then
Speaker 1: talk about what we could do together to help make
Speaker 1: a difference. Every action counts. That's certainly very well said.
Speaker 1: You mentioned values, and I know that you have brought
Speaker 1: the dimension of faith into your communications with others on
Speaker 1: this issue. How does religion tie into your message and
Speaker 1: climate change? Well, it ties right into step number one,
Speaker 1: which is beginning a conversation by bonding over shared values.
Speaker 1: So in my book Saving Us, I encourage people to
Speaker 1: do a personal inventory, who are you, who do you love,
Speaker 1: what do you love, where do you love? And think
Speaker 1: of those as ways that you can start to connect
Speaker 1: with other people. So my personal inventory is first of all,
Speaker 1: I am a scientist, so I can definitely connect with
Speaker 1: people who really like science, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: are very curious about science. But I am also a mother,
Speaker 1: so I can talk to other parents about our kids
Speaker 1: in their future and the air they're breathing and their
Speaker 1: health and how climate change affects that. I love skiing,
Speaker 1: and you need snow in order to ski, so that
Speaker 1: might sound trivial, but that is important and close to
Speaker 1: my heart. Um. I am Canadian, so I can talk
Speaker 1: to other Canadians about what's happening in our country. I
Speaker 1: live in Texas, which is the most vulnerable state in
Speaker 1: the US too increasingly severe climate and weather disasters as
Speaker 1: climate change loads the weather dice against us, so I
Speaker 1: can definitely talk about that with other people here in Texas.
Speaker 1: And I am a Christian, so I can talk with
Speaker 1: other people who share my faith about how if we
Speaker 1: truly take our faith seriously. And this is true not
Speaker 1: just for Christianity but for every major world religion. That
Speaker 1: has concepts of stewardship or caring for nature or creation
Speaker 1: or other living things, and just as importantly, caring for
Speaker 1: the poorest and most vulnerable and most marginalized among us,
Speaker 1: our sisters and our brothers less fortunate than us. If
Speaker 1: we truly take our faith seriously, we would be out
Speaker 1: at the front of the line demanding climate action. So
Speaker 1: that's my inventory, and I would encourage everybody sort of
Speaker 1: do your inventory. Are you a gardener, do you love
Speaker 1: beer or wine? Do you like beaches or traveling? Um?
Speaker 1: Do you enjoy hiking or birding or kayaking? Um? Do
Speaker 1: you you know? Are you concerned about national security or
Speaker 1: about a stable economy? Or are you a farmer or
Speaker 1: a rancher? There's every all that. My goodness, there's a
Speaker 1: million points of connection in our human life to how
Speaker 1: climate change affects us and to how climate solutions can
Speaker 1: truly benefit us. You know, you talked about the fact
Speaker 1: that lots of people are very, very worried in that
Speaker 1: the great majority about climate change. But the gap comes
Speaker 1: with what we're going to do about it as individuals.
Speaker 1: And I wonder what are some of those things that
Speaker 1: are listeners? For example, could be doing to address climate change,
Speaker 1: but don't feel they have the competency, or don't feel
Speaker 1: they're part of an organization where that can be easily done.
Speaker 1: Give us some simple ideas about what kinds of things
Speaker 1: individuals can do or families can do. I would love
Speaker 1: to do that. Uh So this is actually what I
Speaker 1: started asking myself because as a climate scientist, I study
Speaker 1: this issue, but I also want to make a difference.
Speaker 1: So I thought, well, what could I do? So the
Speaker 1: first thing I did is probably the most obvious thing
Speaker 1: for many people. I decided, I'm going to use a
Speaker 1: carbon calculator, and there's a really good one called the
Speaker 1: cool Carbon Calculator from Berkeley to figure out what our
Speaker 1: family's personal carbon footprint is, and I'm going to do
Speaker 1: everything I can to reduce it. In fact, every year
Speaker 1: I still take on two new habits that reduce my
Speaker 1: use of energy or fossil fuels or transition to clean energy.
Speaker 1: Habits that make a difference in my personal life and
Speaker 1: my family's life, like reducing food waste, getting rid of
Speaker 1: the extra freezer, changing the type of food we eat
Speaker 1: to eat less meat, especially red meat, um, hanging up
Speaker 1: the clothes to dry, getting a plug in car solar
Speaker 1: panels have significantly reducing my travel. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: As a scientist, I calculated that even if all of
Speaker 1: us who are worried about climate change did everything we
Speaker 1: could in our current economy, which is heavily skewed in
Speaker 1: favor of using fossil fuels, if we did everything we
Speaker 1: could to cut our personal missions, that wouldn't even be
Speaker 1: of the pie. So I figured there's got to be
Speaker 1: something more we can do, and I realized it isn't
Speaker 1: only about our footprint, it's also about our shadow. Our
Speaker 1: shadow is the way we interact with others. And when
Speaker 1: you look at how the world has changed in the past,
Speaker 1: how civil rights were enacted, how women got the vote,
Speaker 1: how did our society change, it wasn't because the president
Speaker 1: woke up one morning and decided, I really need to
Speaker 1: give those women the vote. But rather, it was because many, many,
Speaker 1: many other people, people who originally were you know, of
Speaker 1: no particular fame or renown. They decided, no, the world
Speaker 1: really does need to be different, and they used their
Speaker 1: voice to advocate for change at every level. When we
Speaker 1: look at how change is happening with corporations like Microsoft,
Speaker 1: it's because employees who worked there used their voice to say,
Speaker 1: you know what we could do better. When you look
Speaker 1: at cities like the city of Houston that have a
Speaker 1: climate action plan and they're meeting their Paris targets, they
Speaker 1: decided to change because there's many people in that city
Speaker 1: who were using their voices to say, we need climate action.
Speaker 1: When we look anywhere around the world wherever we see
Speaker 1: amazing things happening, and we start to look around the world,
Speaker 1: there are amazing things happening everywhere, even right here in
Speaker 1: Texas where I live, the common denominator the catalyst to
Speaker 1: that action is when people use their voice to say,
Speaker 1: here's why it matters to us here and now. Not
Speaker 1: not tons of science about antarctic or polar bears, but
Speaker 1: look look at Texas. We just had three five year
Speaker 1: flood events in three years. We need to do something
Speaker 1: about that. And then talked about what we can do, like,
Speaker 1: for example, we already get almost a quarter of our
Speaker 1: electricity and Texas from clean energy. How could we make
Speaker 1: sure that we're getting some of that for our school
Speaker 1: or a place of work or our city. So there's
Speaker 1: so many things we can do, but it all begins
Speaker 1: with having that conversation. So again, that's why I did
Speaker 1: my TED talk and that's why I wrote my book
Speaker 1: Saving Us, because the number one question I get from
Speaker 1: people these days almost every day is what gives you hope?
Speaker 1: And the answer to that is when we act, hope
Speaker 1: is all around us. And the second question I get
Speaker 1: is how do you have a conversation like this with somebody?
Speaker 1: And that's what I wrote the book about. And my
Speaker 1: favorite thing is to hear from people who said, Okay,
Speaker 1: I gave it a try, and it actually surprised me.
Speaker 1: It went a better than I thought. I've talked to
Speaker 1: my mom about this already ten times and it went awfully.
Speaker 1: But we finally had a breakthrough. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: say that, you know, we're getting solar panels tomorrow, but
Speaker 1: we were able to find the connect and I was
Speaker 1: able to listen to her concerns and she was a
Speaker 1: little bit more open to what I had to say.
Speaker 1: So it truly does make a difference when we have
Speaker 1: these conversations, again, not dumping the science on people, but
Speaker 1: really focusing on having that conversation as a catalyst to
Speaker 1: talking about what we can do together. Senecas one hundred
Speaker 1: women to hear we'll be back after the short break.
Speaker 1: You're providing a sense of movement, bringing lots of people
Speaker 1: together to demand this kind of attention to the problem,
Speaker 1: I think is something that is growing but has been
Speaker 1: lacking on this issue, unlike some other issue, as you mentioned.
Speaker 1: And I think to that end, people think and there
Speaker 1: has to be big systemic changes in many ways, but
Speaker 1: they can affect bringing those changes. Is that not right? Oh?
Speaker 1: I completely agree. So people often argue do we need
Speaker 1: individual action or do we need system wide change? And
Speaker 1: my answer to that is yes, because what is the
Speaker 1: system made up of other than people? And how do
Speaker 1: systems change other than when people engage in those systems?
Speaker 1: And how do we engage again by using our voice
Speaker 1: and of course sometimes using our voices literally talking, but
Speaker 1: sometimes it's writing, Sometimes it's posting on social media. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's just doing something where someone else can see us
Speaker 1: doing it. There is a myriad of ways to use
Speaker 1: our voice to engage in the system to catalyze change.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about women in particular. You know so many
Speaker 1: times women seem sidelined or originalized in the climate change
Speaker 1: solutions camp. Uh, and yet they are so important to
Speaker 1: the solution UM, and I know, particularly in places that
Speaker 1: are the hardest hit in the developing world, UH, that
Speaker 1: women need to be engaged in the green economy. They
Speaker 1: can even be empowered economically with access to the green economy,
Speaker 1: so clean cook stones for example, or as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: the installation of solar panels or conservation programs electrical mini
Speaker 1: grids that they can manage. Why has it been so
Speaker 1: elusive to recognize the role that women have to play
Speaker 1: in in in climate change solutions. Well, you're completely right,
Speaker 1: and I'm so glad you brought this up because this
Speaker 1: is something that is obviously very near and dear to
Speaker 1: my own heart as a woman as well. Women are
Speaker 1: disproportionately affected by climate impacts, especially in low income countries.
Speaker 1: As disaster strikes, as droughts get longer and strong longer,
Speaker 1: UM risk of child marriage increases, UM women are are
Speaker 1: left picking up the pieces as they can no longer
Speaker 1: feed their family. When UM climate change tips the balance
Speaker 1: in an already failing state over into refugee crises or
Speaker 1: exacerbates pre existing crises that are already there, the first
Speaker 1: things to go are the public education system, in the
Speaker 1: public health system, and all of a sudden something is
Speaker 1: as natural as having a baby, can become a life
Speaker 1: threatening event if you lack just basic health services that
Speaker 1: we take for granted every day. So just as woman
Speaker 1: are disproportionately affected, though so too there are all kinds
Speaker 1: of amazing solutions that empower women, lift up woman, benefit women,
Speaker 1: and oh they help with climate change too. So education
Speaker 1: of women and girls, especially in low income countries, empowering
Speaker 1: women to make their own decisions as shareholder farmers um.
Speaker 1: In my book, I tell the story of Solar Sister,
Speaker 1: which works with women in help Saharan Africa, helping them
Speaker 1: to sell solar technology that can be used in places
Speaker 1: where they don't have access to a power grid, which
Speaker 1: enables children to do their lessons at night. UH. It
Speaker 1: allows women to uh, to feed their families and to
Speaker 1: gain an income. There's so many solutions that address gender
Speaker 1: equity and address climate change. To really with climate solutions,
Speaker 1: we need to be doing all those ones that have
Speaker 1: win win wins. Oh, and they also help with climate
Speaker 1: change as well. With with these solutions, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: why aren't we doing them? There's so many good reasons
Speaker 1: today to invest in low income communities right here in
Speaker 1: the us to invest in low income countries, to invest
Speaker 1: in people who work hard and who feed their family
Speaker 1: and who want to go to school. And by investing
Speaker 1: in their lives today, we can invest in climate change
Speaker 1: tomorrow by helping them become more resilient and by helping
Speaker 1: them grow towards a clean energy future. Well said, you know,
Speaker 1: you're so enthusiastic when you speak about this, so energized.
Speaker 1: So come to selling and I wonder, what is your
Speaker 1: personal story? How did you get into this? What was
Speaker 1: your child like childhood like? Uh, did you think about
Speaker 1: becoming a climate scientist when you were young? No? I didn't,
Speaker 1: but I definitely thought about science. Um, and my child
Speaker 1: had absolutely influenced why and where I am today. So
Speaker 1: my dad was a science teacher and my grandmother, his mother,
Speaker 1: had a degree in science education. And she in fact
Speaker 1: named my father after the first female astrophysicist in Canada,
Speaker 1: Dr Vibert Douglas. So the apple did not fall far
Speaker 1: from the tree on that one. And in fact, growing
Speaker 1: up I I just grew up thinking that science was
Speaker 1: the coolest thing anybody could possibly study. Who doesn't want
Speaker 1: to know why the grass is green or why the
Speaker 1: sky is blue? Or why polar bears have black skin.
Speaker 1: So I was almost finished my undergraduate degree in a
Speaker 1: stronomy and physics yet again when I needed an extra
Speaker 1: class to complete my breath requirements, and I looked around
Speaker 1: and there was a new class on climate change over
Speaker 1: the geography department. I thought, well, that looks interesting. Why
Speaker 1: not take it. So up until then, I had always
Speaker 1: thought of climate change as one of a group of
Speaker 1: environmental issues deforestation, bio diversity, loss, air pollution, climate change
Speaker 1: that we're real and we're concerning, but that environmentalists cared about,
Speaker 1: and environmentalists worked on, and the rest of us wished
Speaker 1: them well, sort of the way I thought about it.
Speaker 1: But when I took that class, I was completely shocked,
Speaker 1: first of all to find out that climate change was
Speaker 1: much more urgent than I had imagined. Second of all,
Speaker 1: to find out that climate science was the exact same
Speaker 1: physics that I've been learning in my physics and astronomy classes.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I thought it was, but I
Speaker 1: didn't think it was that. But then what really changed
Speaker 1: my life was when I found out that climate change
Speaker 1: is profoundly unfair. It disproportionately affects the poorest and the
Speaker 1: most marginalized people, whether they are living in a low
Speaker 1: income neighborhood rate here in Chicago or Houston, or whether
Speaker 1: they're living in sub Saharan Africa and some of the
Speaker 1: poorest areas in the world, without running water or electricity,
Speaker 1: or access to any of the resources we take for
Speaker 1: grant today. I grew up both in Canada as well
Speaker 1: as in Colombia. We moved down there when I was
Speaker 1: nine years old, and so I grew up knowing what
Speaker 1: that type of poverty looks like. I know what it
Speaker 1: looks like to live in a place that doesn't have
Speaker 1: running water or electricity, and when the storms come, your
Speaker 1: home is just washed down the side of the mountain
Speaker 1: and you're lucky to survive. I know what it looks
Speaker 1: like when drought destroys your crops and there's no recourse,
Speaker 1: there's no resources to provide food for your family. And
Speaker 1: so when I realized that climate change was affecting those
Speaker 1: who are already suffering from everything. At the top of
Speaker 1: the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals list, which says very simply,
Speaker 1: you know, zero poverty or no poverty, zero hunger, access
Speaker 1: to clean water, access to basic healthcare, to education, to
Speaker 1: gender equity, to good jobs, to affordable energy. Climate change
Speaker 1: puts every single one of those very basic goals at risk.
Speaker 1: And so I thought to myself, this is such an
Speaker 1: urgent issue and such an unfair issue. How can I
Speaker 1: not do everything I can to help fix this problem?
Speaker 1: And surely will fix it soon, and then I can
Speaker 1: go back to studying galaxies. That was a very long
Speaker 1: time ago. And you're going to be at this for
Speaker 1: a long time, needless to say. And we're fortunate that
Speaker 1: you are. The clock is running down as always, and
Speaker 1: we keep running out of time. But let me ask
Speaker 1: you in conclusion. You had mentioned the fact that people
Speaker 1: ask you what gives you hope? I know you've talked
Speaker 1: about rational hope. Can you explain both the term and
Speaker 1: then how you answer what gives you hope? I can,
Speaker 1: And let me start by saying, often to people who
Speaker 1: have been so overloaded with fear, very rational fear, about
Speaker 1: how climate change is continuing to affect us and everything
Speaker 1: that it puts at risk. Too many people these days,
Speaker 1: hope is a bad word, and when they say hope,
Speaker 1: when I say hope, they think I mean false hope.
Speaker 1: The idea that if we just, you know, indulge in
Speaker 1: some wishful thinking. It's not so bad. Someone will come
Speaker 1: along and fix it. We don't have to worry about it.
Speaker 1: That That's what I'm talking about. But that isn't real. Hope,
Speaker 1: I believe, begins not in positive circumstances, but in a
Speaker 1: dark place. Hope is the chance, however slim, of a
Speaker 1: better future. And how do we get to that better future?
Speaker 1: Not by burying our head in the sand, like the
Speaker 1: metaphorical Ostrich and hoping everything will be all right, but
Speaker 1: rather by striving with all of our might to do
Speaker 1: everything we can to get there, knowing that our success
Speaker 1: is not guaranteed, but it is possible, and knowing that
Speaker 1: is our actions that affect whether we do or not hut.
Speaker 1: So that's what hope is. Hope is the idea that
Speaker 1: if we really try, can we get a better world?
Speaker 1: And I truly believe that we can. I know some
Speaker 1: of the impacts of climate change are already here today.
Speaker 1: I study that as a scientist. I know that some
Speaker 1: of them are also inevitable because of all of the
Speaker 1: heat trapping gases that are built up in the atmosphere today.
Speaker 1: But I also know this and This is again what
Speaker 1: I study. I know that our future is still in
Speaker 1: our hands. Our choices today will determine the future of
Speaker 1: civilization as we know it. So what gives me hope
Speaker 1: is when I look around and I recognize that climate
Speaker 1: action is not a giant boulder sitting at the bottom
Speaker 1: of an impossibly steep cliff with only a few hands
Speaker 1: on it, and if I add my hand, it will
Speaker 1: not budge an inch. That's often the way we think
Speaker 1: about climate action, and that gives us no hope at all.
Speaker 1: If I do anything, won't make a difference. We think, no,
Speaker 1: so why bother. But when we look around and we
Speaker 1: see all of the cities, all of the companies, all
Speaker 1: of the schools and seminaries and universities, the tribal nations,
Speaker 1: the nonprofit organizations, the cities and provinces and countries and states,
Speaker 1: when we look around and we see all the hands
Speaker 1: that are on that giant boulder, we see that that
Speaker 1: boulder is already at the top of the hill. It
Speaker 1: is already rolling down the hill in the right direction.
Speaker 1: It already has millions of hands on it, And when
Speaker 1: we add our hand to it, it goes a little
Speaker 1: bit faster. And when we use our voice to encourage
Speaker 1: others where we work, where we play, where we live,
Speaker 1: where we worship, where we study, when we use our
Speaker 1: voice to encourage others to join their hands to the boulder,
Speaker 1: it goes even faster. And that's what gives us hope
Speaker 1: is looking around at all of the other people who
Speaker 1: are pushing beside us, making a difference in the world,
Speaker 1: showing us that yes, action is possible, and in that
Speaker 1: action we find hope. Well, Catherine, hey ho, this has
Speaker 1: been a marvelous conversation, certainly illuminating, certainly filled with good ideas,
Speaker 1: recommendations for each of us. And I hope that as
Speaker 1: a result of listening to you, that our listeners will
Speaker 1: do their part to accelerate climate action, which we desperately
Speaker 1: need to have happened. Thank you so much, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for having me. It's so inspiring to hear
Speaker 1: a scientist say that there is something we can do
Speaker 1: about climate change. Here are three things I took from
Speaker 1: that conversation. First, as Catherine Hayjo says, solving the climate
Speaker 1: crisis is all about communication, finding common ground with others,
Speaker 1: and then getting them to engage. Second, we need to
Speaker 1: remember that climate change is any women's issue. In the
Speaker 1: developing world, especially women are disproportionately affected by increasingly severe
Speaker 1: droughts and floods and other disasters. But when you educate
Speaker 1: to empower women, they can feed their families and help
Speaker 1: the environment. Finally, to save the planet, we need systemic
Speaker 1: change and how does that happen? Catherine reminds us that
Speaker 1: major movements like women's suffrage came about because millions of
Speaker 1: individuals and organizations use their voices. They told anyone who
Speaker 1: would listen that the issue was important to them. You
Speaker 1: can learn more about Katherine Hajo's advice in her book
Speaker 1: Saving Us, a Climate scientists Case for Hope and Healing
Speaker 1: in a Divided World, and tune in next week to
Speaker 1: hear about our next featured woman and discover why she's
Speaker 1: one of Seneca's on Women to Hear. Seneca's one hundred
Speaker 1: Women to Hear is a collaboration between the Seneca Women
Speaker 1: Podcast Network and I Heart Radio, with support from founding
Speaker 1: partner Pung. Have a Great Day,