Vermont Conversation: Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe on how to talk to climate deniers
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Katharine Hayhoe is a climate scientist, evangelical Christian, and Texan. These three parts of their identity don’t always go well together. That’s why she’s determined to find effective ways to communicate with people who disagree with her.
Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist studying climate change. She is a Distinguished Professor at Texas Tech University and a Senior Scientist at The Nature Conservancy. Her latest book is Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World.
She writes regularly for the Washington Post and other publications. Her TED talk, The Most Important Thing You Can Do About Climate Change: Talk About It, has been viewed more than 4 million times. Originally from Canada, she is visiting Vermont this month to deliver the keynote address for the 50th…th Anniversary of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.
Hayhoe insists that only about 8% of people completely deny the reality of climate change. She calls them “dismissive” — and wastes no time in changing her mind.
“A key trait of someone who is dismissive is that they literally don’t want to and can’t listen,” she said. “I don’t think it’s possible to have a positive, constructive conversation with someone who isn’t listening without miracles.
“With everyone else, there’s a secret to having a positive conversation. And that secret is to start with something you agree with, not something you don’t agree with.”
Hayhoe suggests shifting the conversation to asking what people are worried about.
“Here we often find a surprising amount of approval or at least empathy. … What would a solution look like that actually addresses this without the need for misinformation or denial?” she asked.
What worries a climate scientist most today?
“That’s how climate change charges the weather dice against us,” she replied. “As the world gets warmer, it’s like wherever we live we have a pair of dice and always have the chance to roll doubles naturally.”
Now she said, “We roll double sixes all the time.”
“The headlines around the world this summer were just off the charts,” Hayhoe said. “Record-breaking heatwaves and droughts in Europe and Britain, followed by record-breaking heavy rains and floods, record-breaking drought in China, record-breaking floods in Pakistan affecting over 30 million, the wildfires and record-breaking heatwaves we’re seeing across the western United States. The US has had five 1000-year flood events in five weeks and we’re still getting more of them.”
“Why are they important?” Hayhoe asked. Because extreme climate events “affect us, they affect our homes, our infrastructure, our transportation, our crops, our water supply, the city of Jackson, Mississippi, which has no water to support its people. Things we used to take for granted—that you turn on the faucet and water comes out—you can no longer take these things for granted. And the cost in terms of human suffering, the cost in terms of economic impact, the long term cost in terms of supply chain disruptions and having to rebuild all of our infrastructure and the strain on our insurance companies and the very personal strain that two people have to rebuild their homes that they lost to wildfire, flood or even have to sell their land that they can no longer grow their crops due to drought. This is very worrying because it is causing suffering today. And we know that unless we address this issue at scale, it will only get worse.”
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