WEBVTT - COP Out: What the Heck Happened at COP30? 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:10.080 Hello, and welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westerveldt. I 0:00:10.280 --> 0:00:14.480 just got back from the cop in Brazil last week. 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:17.720 We ran quite a few stories on it. If you 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:21.040 are interested to know some more details about what happened, 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:25.000 those are all at drilled dot Media. Today we're bringing 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:29.560 you an episode of the cop Out Podcast from Dana Fisher. 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:33.000 She's a sociologist that we've had on the show before. 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:37.520 She's particularly an expert on activism. She's written a ton 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:42.520 of books on this subject, most recently Saving Ourselves from 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:46.360 Climate Shocks to Climate Action. Dana has been doing this 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.200 series all around the cop and how and why it's 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:52.920 broken and what can be done about it. It's very 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:53.480 very good. 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:54.080 Check it out. 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:57.040 We'll put a link in the show notes. In this episode, 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:01.080 she had myself and doctor Catherine Hayho on to talk 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:04.959 about climate communication and what happened at COP and what 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:07.000 we can take from it all. I had a great 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:09.800 time talking to them both, and I hope you enjoy 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:11.280 the conversation here it. 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:20.600 Is Welcome to the cop Out Podcast. I'm Dana Fisher, 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:23.240 the director of the Center for Environment, Community and Equity 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:27.400 at American University. This is an opportunity to have apocalyptically 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:31.679 optimistic climate conversations. And there's lots to talk about today, 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.600 and I am so happy and privileged to be joined 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:40.640 by these amazing women who do such amazing work. And 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:43.480 I just thought we would start. I mean, so just 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:48.360 as a wrap up here, COP is winding down. Literally 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:52.720 the blue zone set on fire yesterday, perhaps assigned from 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:57.440 you now, from like from from this, from the gods perhaps. 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:03.160 And then today the draft text for the final text 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:06.160 coming out of COP was released, which made no mention 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.919 to fossil fuel phase out, ignored completely the eighty some 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:13.240 countries that were actually pushing for a fossil fuel phase out. 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:16.600 So we have lots to talk about. To begin, what 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:18.640 I thought maybe would be good to do is for 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:21.079 you each to take a moment to introduce yourselves. You're 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:23.880 both climate communicators in really different ways, and you have 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:26.760 really different backgrounds. So maybe talk a little bit about 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:30.080 how you came to do the kind of climate communication 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:32.119 you do, just as a start, and of course we'll 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.880 get into COP, we'll get into climate change and the 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:38.120 mess we're in, but you know, just a little background first, Catherine, 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:39.000 you want to start. 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:42.160 Sure, Yes, I love that you talking to Amy and 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:45.239 I both because we both came from totally different directions. 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:48.560 So I am a climate scientist, and I actually started 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:53.200 my career in astrophysics, which is a fascinating feel to 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:55.400 be in if there's no other dumpster fires going on 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:58.760 in the world. And so for me, my first inflection 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:01.919 point was when I took a class on climate change 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:05.720 as a breadth requirement, and that was where I learned 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:08.760 that climate change is. I already knew it was real, 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:10.960 but I didn't realize it was so urgent. I didn't 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.040 realize it was affecting our lives so personally, and I 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:17.240 didn't realize it was so unfair in that it is 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:20.119 disproportionately affecting the people who've done the least to cause 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:22.720 the problem in the first place. Whether it's the fact 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:25.720 that the richest one percent in the world today produced 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:28.560 double the carbon emissions of the poorest fifty percent, or 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:30.880 whether it's the fact that a child born today will 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:33.560 experience so many disasters over their lifetime as a result 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.360 of the choices that our generation and previous generations made 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:38.680 that they weren't part of in the first place. So 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:41.560 for me, my first inflection point was just realizing I 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:44.720 need to do something about this, and I have a 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:47.440 scientific skill set, so I will become a climate scientist. 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:49.840 It turns out the same physics and astronomy I was 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:52.240 learning is just what you need to do climate modeling, 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:56.120 because you know it's your's atmosphere, non linear fluid dynamics, 0:03:56.240 --> 0:04:00.560 radiative transfer. So that was my first inflection point. And 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:04.760 then a number of years later after becoming a climate scientist, 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:08.360 after getting married to a fellow academic who you know, 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:10.600 when you're an academic, the dream is that you have 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:13.520 positions in the same place, and so he was at 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:15.120 one place, I was at a different place, and then 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:18.400 he got offered a position in Texas and he sort 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:19.960 of said, okay, well if you give if you know, 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:21.720 if you give my spouse a position, we'll both come. 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:23.400 And we both thought, oh, there's no chance of that. 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:27.560 Well they did. So that's how I ended up in Texas. 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:30.719 And then within just a couple of months of ending 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:32.760 up in Texas, and I was already doing research that 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:35.760 was intentionally very policy relevant because I wanted to inform 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:39.159 good policy decisions on climate. Within a few months of 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.120 arriving in Texas, it turns out I was the first 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:44.960 climate scientist at the university. I was the only climate 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:49.039 scientist within literally a five hundred mile radius. I plotted 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:52.720 it out, and so I started to get invitations to 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:56.680 speak to community groups who were, you know, confused about 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:59.200 climate change, weren't sure what to think, had heard a 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:01.520 lot on both saws, and they're like, oh, well, here's 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:05.360 a climate scientist, let's ask her. And so that experience 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:07.919 really taught me. And I still do almost one hundred 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:10.560 talks a year these days, most of them virtual. Those 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:15.960 experiences taught me that having conversations about not just that 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:17.920 what I think is the head, which is the facts, 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:20.640 the data, the ice sheets, the polar bears, but making 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:25.520 the heart connection my family, my home, the places I love, 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:28.920 the people and the things I love, is so important, 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:32.120 and that in itself isn't even enough. We also need 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:36.680 to make the heart to hand connection because today, in 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:41.040 twenty twenty five, most people are worried about climate change, 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:43.960 but most people feel there's nothing they can do about it, 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:47.920 so they do nothing, and they're actually starting to dissociate 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:50.480 from the issue as a defense mechanism as the situation 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:53.520 gets worse. So how do we connect the head to 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:56.120 the heart to the hands. Well, the first and easiest 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:59.679 way to do it is through communicating, not like lining 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.920 up all the IPCC reports and just whacking people upside 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:05.960 the head with them, but rather starting the conversation with 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:10.039 what people care about themselves. And I've started conversations based on, 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:11.839 you know, the fact that we're both parents, or we 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:13.880 both live in the same place, or we both enjoy 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:16.840 chocolate and that's being affected by climate change, or I've 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:18.760 even had conversations if we started over the fact that 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:22.560 we both knit, and then connecting that to hands what 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:24.680 we can do. So that is what led me to 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:27.400 my communication journey, because I started to realize that the 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:31.359 biggest barrier between where we are today and that better 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:34.240 future that we all need is in addressing the climate 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:37.680 crisis is understanding what we can do about it and 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:41.120 getting people to actually be active about doing it. And 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:43.960 that's not going to be answered by more scientific journal articles. 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:46.800 That's going to be answered by having conversations. 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:50.160 Thank you, that's really great. Sorry my computer was being 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:52.680 annoying for a second. Amy, Why don't you give us 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:53.520 your journey? 0:06:54.279 --> 0:07:01.760 My gosh, Well, I so any people do. I started 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:04.279 I like The first thing I ever did remotely related 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:08.279 to climate was just because I needed to pay the 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:10.760 rent and it was due in two weeks. And I 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:13.880 had a friend who was an engineer at an engineering 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:17.320 firm and he was like, well, we have this really 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:22.239 boring copywriting job that needs to be done next week 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:25.600 where we need someone to write case studies about some 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:28.360 of our projects. And I was like, okay, fine, I'm 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:30.920 in thank you, and I did. And one of them 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:34.440 was a project they had done for Shell where they'd 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:39.360 been asked to re engineer offshore oil platforms to deal 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:43.120 with sea level rise. And this was like a project 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:45.520 that they had done in the nineties, and I was like, 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:49.600 that's interesting because I feel like Shell wasn't even really 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:52.560 acknowledging climate change in the nineties, and so I like 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:54.960 looked into it. And I was freelancing at the time, 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:56.840 so I was like, this is an interesting story. I'm 0:07:56.840 --> 0:08:00.200 going to pitch it to an environmental magazine, and I did, 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:03.520 and then they hired me to do some other stuff, 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:06.400 and I sort of just like became obsessed with this 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:11.760 power structure, so totally not the science side of things. 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:15.720 I was like, that's unfair, These big, powerful companies had 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:20.040 this information and they were preparing their own industry to 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:24.320 deal with this issue, and at the same time they 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:27.640 were telling everybody else not to worry about it, and 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:30.160 like how did that happen? And then I just sort 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:34.319 of went from there into like, I very obsessively researched 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:36.679 climate denial, and then there again was like this is 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:39.319 a dumb strategy. Why did it work so well? So 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:43.800 I got obsessed with pr and the whole Like, I 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:45.960 don't know the way that the fossil fuel industry, way 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:51.360 before climate change really set in place some fundamental ideas 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:55.600 about how the environment works and what is nature, and 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:58.520 how the economy works and all of those kinds of things. 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:02.400 I have just kind of been down that same rabbit 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:03.640 hole ever since. 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:05.840 And at a certain point, when the. 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:09.679 X on New story came out, and you know, reporters 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:12.599 at Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times and 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:16.120 Columbia Journalism School published on all of these documents that 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:20.200 came from inside XON, where the scientists had been trying 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:24.560 to warn executives about what their product could do and 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:27.880 you know, how things might change in the decades to come. 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:32.800 I felt like I wanted to hear from. 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:36.840 Those scientists themselves, so and I thought that like I wanted, 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:38.680 I don't know, I was just like, man, like more, 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:42.360 more people who don't already care about climate need to 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:46.240 hear this story. So I went out to talk to 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:49.640 those guys and spent a lot of time like hanging 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:55.119 out with long retired scientists and having them read documents 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:57.840 to me and tell me about, you know, their science 0:09:57.920 --> 0:09:59.120 and all of that kind of stuff. 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.320 And that got me obsessed with podcasting. 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:04.600 So now I have a podcast that I still do 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:09.320 reporting and I'm still just obsessed with this like hijacking 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:17.360 of the information ecosystem and policymaking mechanisms by this one 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:20.840 very powerful industry and a lot of their friends. 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:25.120 So yeah, they're famous and fancy friends exactly. I mean, 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:27.400 it's funny. So I never really thought about I mean, 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:29.120 so I came to climate just because when I was 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:31.760 doing my PhD, I needed a case study that I 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:35.040 could study internationally and also at the national level. And 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:38.200 it was when the Kyoto Protocol was being written in finalize. 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:41.080 It's so interesting and it was like a perfect case 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:43.720 for the political questions I was asking. So I actually 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:46.680 came at it from the politics, and I was. I 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:49.080 had this grant in Japan and my advisor who was 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:54.239 who did the Asia Integrated Model for the IPCC, Maria Tunayuki, 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.640 he was like, you should do climate and I'm like, hm, oh, 0:10:57.679 --> 0:10:59.280 this is good idea. This is a good idea. And 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:01.760 so it was just funny because it all started just 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:04.200 because it was a good case study for the kinds 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:06.480 of stuff I was studying. And then well, and then 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:09.360 down the rabbit, how we go, and here we are, Yeah, 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:12.480 twenty five years later or whatever, right, more than that now? 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:16.680 Yeah, So I guess. 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:18.480 It is funny that you all come from this from 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:21.800 very different places, but here we are. And so the 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:23.200 question I have for you next. 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:26.280 And it all happened in the nineties, which is when 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:29.000 climate change was not a politicized issue. 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:29.520 At that time. 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:34.479 The disinformation engine was just starting to ramp up the impacts. 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:37.240 The signal was just starting to emerge from the noise 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:40.000 at that point. But if you look for the signal, 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:42.439 it was there. And so each of us, for different reasons, 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.640 came into contact with the signal in the nineties and 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:49.320 that was powerful enough to basically change the entire trajectory 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:50.479 of our careers. 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:53.920 Yeah, that's fascinating, very true. 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:56.280 I mean I did go to meetings with the Cooler 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.480 Heads coalition who were part of the case for my 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:02.040 dissertaine and ended up getting kicked out of their meetings 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:06.120 because they were definitely birthing some misinformation back then. But 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:09.280 it was very early days, right, yeah, exactly. 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:15.000 But I interned at Exon for my master's degree. I 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:17.720 actually worked on with their full. 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:19.840 Did they pay? Was it a paid internship at least? 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:20.880 I certainly hope so. 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:25.320 Yes, it was paid, and we published peer reviewed papers 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:28.920 at my research that were you know, with some they 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:31.480 have some really good scientists. Obviously their scientists have known 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:33.439 about this and been telling the company about this for decades. 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.079 And what we were studying was related to Kyoto. We 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:39.320 were studying how when you're talking about reducing emissions of 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:42.000 greenhouse gases, you have to reduce all of the gases, 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:44.800 not just CO two, and methane is one of the 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:49.360 ones that is really powerful, really potent, is responsible for 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:52.400 somewhere between about sixteen eighteen percent of long term warming 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:54.920 and a much greater proportion of short term warming. And 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:58.520 methane is real call that natural gas. Even I know, 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:02.439 I know FOSCIL gas is what we now call it. 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:07.360 Massive amounts of it are released during the extraction of coal, 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:12.080 oil and leaking from gas. So that is a very 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:15.920 important research area. But it rapidly became obvious, and even 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:17.840 then what we were saying back in the nineties was 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.520 true with Kyoto, and it's much more true today. There's 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:22.520 no one thing that if we just did this one thing, 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:25.080 it would fix it. It was very obvious even then that 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:28.760 reducing methane was something that we could do super fast 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:31.120 to really get a handle on this issue while we 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:33.480 were working on the longer term CO two reductions. And 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:35.080 if we had done that back in the nineteen nineties, 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:36.920 we had been a much better spot than the are today. 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:40.079 For sure. Yeah, I mean that Actually, what I was 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:41.679 going to ask you both is a foll up question, 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:46.720 is just how you ended up communicating about this stuff 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:50.720 specifically within the policy world, or like communicating two politicians 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:56.839 communicating about politicians that kind of policy nexus. Amy you 0:13:56.880 --> 0:14:01.800 want to go to it, well, I mean, if it's 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:03.160 a stumper, we don't have to go there. 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:04.240 It's no, no, it's okay. 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:06.560 The thing I mean, the main I would say, like 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:11.120 that the main input that that we have had on 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:16.320 policy is documents. It's like like giving documents to senate 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:20.600 investigators or to chiefs of staff who are looking at, 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:26.360 you know, particular issues, or like someone will contact me 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:28.760 and be like, do you know, do you know if 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:33.000 there's any evidence of you know, this PR firm doing 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:35.920 anything and this thing blah blah blah, and I'll send them. 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:38.360 Uh oh, I'm hearing an echo. 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:41.080 Now you sound fine from here? 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:47.440 Okay, great, So yeah, that's the that's the main thing 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:50.160 for me. And then I know there are some I 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:53.240 have like met some policy makers who say that they 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:56.920 have either like listened to the podcast or read stuff 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:58.680 and shared it with other people and things like that. 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:03.760 But I think in terms of like a actually communicating 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:07.040 things that are useful to policy makers, it's it's more 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:10.560 that like we go find documents. 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:15.520 Or people will communicate about policy making to the public, 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:18.720 which they also has that boomerang effect in terms of 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:23.000 then changing potentially public opinion or political pressure. 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:25.840 Right, Yes, that's true, that's truly important. 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:28.760 I was going to say too, that we do so 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:32.160 often like for whatever reason, I don't know how this 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:37.320 still happens, but not infrequently. I will be interviewing someone 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:41.760 who you know is like an operative of some kind, 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:46.800 and they will just like very explicitly say what they're 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:50.360 trying to do in terms of like hijacking policy too. 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:54.720 I'm like, wow, great, thank you for being by job easy. 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:58.440 There's a lot of doing deep research there. 0:15:58.520 --> 0:15:58.680 Huh. 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:03.400 It's it's like okay, yeah, Gilver Platter fill it up. 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:05.880 Yeah. 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:08.280 In fact, actually, I mean even at this COP I 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:12.040 was at the cop and there were several of these 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:15.120 like side events that different industry groups were having where 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:17.320 they were just I guess they just thought they were 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:21.800 talking amongst themselves, and we're saying some a lot of 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:23.880 the quiet parts were getting said out loud. 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:27.600 Why not travel all the way to Brazil to have 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:32.920 a private meeting? Yeah, exactly, why not with the journalist? 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:36.320 Yeah, I was like, this is open to the press. 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:38.840 You guys like, I don't know. 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:41.640 It's well, it's a measure I think of. They're confidence. 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:43.920 When people are very confident they're going to win, they 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:46.520 don't care, and that's really what we're seeing. 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:47.280 Yeah. 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:51.640 Well I love this question, yes, because that's actually the 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:53.560 very first thing that I wanted to do when I 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:56.440 decided to go switch from astrophysics to climate science is 0:16:56.840 --> 0:17:02.160 I wanted to make sure I was doing policy relevant 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:06.520 research because I'm a huge believer in informed decision making. 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:09.720 I know that our human brains typically do not make 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:12.480 rational decisions, but I do hope that and I know 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:15.840 there is sign of an evidence that when we make 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:20.439 collective decisions with many more people and interests at the table, 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:23.440 we have a tendency to make better decisions. And those decisions, 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:28.639 if they're informed by science and by information, can improve. 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:31.760 And so when I went to look for an advisor, 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:34.840 because I was finishing up my undergrad degree and going 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:37.600 on to graduate school, I specifically looked for an advisor 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:41.280 who did policy bolevant research. And I found this wonderful 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:43.200 man who's like my academic father. I still talk to 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:45.159 him on a regular basis. His name is Don Webbles. 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:48.880 He's at the University of Illinois, and he had done 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:54.240 his initial research on developing metrics to measure the ozone 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:58.560 depleting substances so that you could compare how much worse 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:02.120 or better different ones were. And he worked with the 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:05.640 FAA and with DuPont and with the EPA to actually 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:10.159 put the pair the Montreal Protocol limiting ozone depleting substanses 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:13.720 into effect. And he actually tested all these new chemicals 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:16.119 that the organizations were coming up with to replace the 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:19.119 chemicals we used to use in our spray hands and 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:21.760 even our Nike air shoes of all things, and our 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:25.160 air conditioners and our fridges to figure out better ones. 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:27.640 And he had just turned his attention to looking at 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:32.879 comparing different greenhouse gases too, And so I immediately figured, 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:34.560 I want to work with this person who's doing policy 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:37.440 relevant research. Some work I did for my master's degree 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:40.480 which was literally looking at how much more affordable it 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:43.040 would be for the US to meet its Kyoto targets 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:46.120 if it included all the greenhouse gases, not just carbon 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:49.320 And that work was actually presented to Congress in part 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:51.399 of the debates over whether the US should be a 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.760 signatory to the Kyuto Protocol. So at that point I 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:55.000 was like. 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:57.359 Almost that as part of the bird Hegel resolution when 0:18:57.359 --> 0:18:59.200 they were debating that is that when it was, Catherine, 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:00.280 I'm just curious. 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:03.399 Goodness, I actually don't know. That's a good question. I 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:05.080 know I remember when the date when it was, but 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:07.159 I don't remember what part of the resolution it was. 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:09.320 But yeah, but it was definitely. 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:09.520 Part of it. 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:11.960 And so at that point I was like, oh, my gosh, 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:13.720 this is awesome. You know, this is exactly what I 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:18.240 want to do. Well, then, as you know, all efforts 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:22.160 to pass mitigation legislation in the US just sort. 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:23.680 Of went like this. 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:27.640 And at the same time, I ended up getting pulled 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:30.280 into after my master's and before my PHG, ended up 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:33.159 getting pulled into a regional climate assessment. And that was 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:36.159 where I learned that people who were making decisions on 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:39.920 how to protect nature and people from climate change were 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:44.360 working with future information that was years and even decades 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:46.880 out of date. It was the equivalent to me trying 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:48.760 to drive down the street without my glasses, and my 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:51.520 glasses are very thick, like I would just see sort 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:53.720 of a hazy outline, and if I saw a light, 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:55.240 I don't think i'd even know if it was a 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:58.120 stoplight or not. So that was sort of the way 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:01.880 that people were twenty thirty years ago working with climate information, 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:04.159 and so that's what made me decide to sort of 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:09.400 refocus my trajectory to look at climate impacts, and especially 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:13.560 back then, climate impacts were being qualified as the middle 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:16.280 of the road scenario. This is what's going to happen 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:21.080 no matter what. Well, that is a completely disempowering perspective, 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:22.920 because if it's going to happen no matter what, then 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:26.600 you know, who cares. We'll just adapt. But what I 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:29.480 knew is I knew that our choices made a difference, 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:31.399 and now today we know that our choices make the 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:34.120 biggest difference in the future. And so I thought, well, 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:39.199 what if not only we generated high resolution information. So 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:41.159 if you're working, for example, in the Midwest US, you 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:43.120 don't have like one grid cell covering the whole US, 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:48.520 you actually have information for Chicago versus Milwalk, versus Minneapolis, 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:51.600 versus the other sides of the lake in Michigan because 0:20:51.600 --> 0:20:53.679 the climate is very different in all those places. What 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:56.600 if you not only had very granular information, but you 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:59.480 also had information on what's going to happen depending on 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:01.639 the choices we make. So what's going to happen for 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:05.320 a lower versus a higher scenario? So I said this 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:08.199 to the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Ecological Society 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:11.000 of America that we're sponsoring this Great Lakes Assessment that 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:13.520 I was working on, and they said, well, it's too 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:16.400 late to do it now, But what if we do 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.479 another one for California, which is one of the world's 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:23.959 biggest economies, and we look at higher versus lower emissions there, 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:26.639 would you like to be in charge of getting that 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:30.119