Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World

Rachel Flor:  Good evening. I'm Rachel Flor, Executive Director of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. On behalf of all of my Library and Foundation colleagues, I am delighted to welcome all of you who are watching tonight's program online. Thank you for joining us this evening, for this first Kennedy Library Forum of our fall season. 

To open, I humbly start with a land acknowledge to recognize the Indigenous Tribes of the Pawtucket and Massachusetts Peoples of the Wampanoag Tribe Confederation territories, who both, past and present, and throughout many generations, have stewarded the land where the Kennedy Library is today. While a land acknowledgment is not enough, it is an important way to promote Indigenous visibility. And it serves as a reminder that we are on stolen and settled Indigenous land. I invite all of us to contemplate how to better support Indigenous communities, and to learn how to honor and take care of the land that each of us inhabits.

I would also like to acknowledge the generous support of our underwriters of the Kennedy Library Forums, lead sponsors Bank of America, The Lowell Institute, and AT&T, and our media sponsors, The Boston Globe and WBUR. This program is also supported in part by the James M. and Kathleen D. Stone Foundation. 

We look forward to a lively question and answer period this evening. You'll see full instructions on screen for submitting your questions via email or comments on our YouTube page during the program. We are so grateful to have this timely opportunity to explore constructive communication about climate change this evening. This is a particularly interesting discussion for the Kennedy Library to host, both because addressing climate change is one of the most important challenges we face today, and also because communicating a vision of a hopeful future was at the heart of every success of John F. Kennedy's Presidency. And one of the most enduring aspects of President Kennedy's lasting legacy are the words he used to help inspire each of us to solve the problems of our time, and to make the world a better place. 

I am now honored to introduce tonight's speakers. I am delighted to extend a warm virtual welcome to the Library to Katharine Hayhoe. Dr. Hayhoe is an important scientist who is an atmospheric scientist—very important—whose research focuses on understanding what climate change means for people, and the places where we live. She is the chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy, and a Horn distinguished professor and endowed professor of public policy and public law in the Department of Political Science at Texas Tech University. 

She also hosts the PBS Digital Series Global Weirding, currently in its fifth season. She has been named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People, the United Nations Champion of the Environment, and the World Evangelical Alliance's Climate Ambassador. Her new book is Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. 

I am also so pleased to welcome our moderator for this evening's discussion to the Library virtually. Reyhaneh Maktoufi is a DC-based Iranian researcher and science communicator. Dr. Maktoufi is the co-producer, host, and illustrator of PBS NOVA's Digital Series Sciencing Out, a mini series on women in history who have used different strategies to communicate their science, and a Rita Allen Foundation Civic Science Fellow in Misinformation at GBH NOVA. 

As a researcher and producer, her main fields of interest are science communication, misinformation, curiosity, public engagement with scientists, and science communication in media. She has served as a visiting researcher at the Adler Planetarium. And she is also a producer at the Story Collider podcast. 

Please join me in welcoming our special guests. Over to you, Rey. 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Hi. It's so good to be here. I'm actually, right now, at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for a conference. And this is actually the ancestral homeland of many Tribes, including the Shoshone. And I'm so grateful to be on this beautiful land and enjoy the beauty of here. And I really appreciate being able to have a conversation about how to take care of this land and its inhabitants. And Katharine, I'm going to start by telling you a little bit of a story.

When I came to the US around six years ago, and you can see the light moving a little in my face—When I came here six years ago, I started doing my work on science communication. And I remember, in the beginning, I knew a lot of science communicators, but all men. So Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, Carl Sagan. And I was like, where are my ladies at, right? This is a famous Emily Graslie question about women in science communication. 

And you were one of the first women that I found. And I fell so in love with your framework that was all about empathy and love. And I used that then in all my workshops, and all my work. And it's such an honor to be able to have a conversation with you. But also, I have been so nervous preparing for this. Like I've been reading—Just, I read your book. And I've been listening to your podcast. And I've been stalking you more often on Twitter. 

And I'm here, actually, at a Fellowship. We teach science filmmakers about empathetic communication and how to make films about the land and everything. And I was telling one of the Fellows how nervous I am, and that I have this like heist looking conversation map on how to control my conversation with you, and where it should go, and what I should ask the moment you have a comment. And he said, “Rey, pause. In prominent interviews, we learned that you prepare as much as you can. And then, when you go in a conversation, then you just listen. Then you're just there. And you try to connect with what they say, and answer just accordingly.” And I was like, “Huh, that sounds familiar. That's Katharine's book.” 

So thank you, Katharine, for writing a book that is about climate change, human relationships, how to be in conversations, and listen, and just exist. 

Katharine Hayhoe:   Well thank you so much for that generous introduction. And I have to say, I'm slightly disappointed, because I have never seen a heist style map of the conversation. So even if we don't use it, I would like to see it afterwards. 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   I definitely will show you that. [laughter] Katharine, I am very curious to—I always think of people that write books, they have the dedications that I'm like, “Oh my God. They have to, like, exclude so many people, and have like the name of, like, two people in their dedication.” And I saw that you had in your dedication to everyone who believes that the difficult issues in life are worth talking about. And would love to know, how did you get to that? Who were you thinking about?

Katharine Hayhoe:   Well, the dedication was what I wrote last. Yes. The first line in the book was the last thing to be written, because I didn't know. I mean sometimes, you know, you dedicate books to people who mean a lot to you. And there's many people in my life who do. But the reason I wrote the book is because the number one question that I have gotten, no matter who I've talked to, where I am, is—well actually, the two questions I get are, first of all, what gives you hope? And then second of all, how do I talk to, you know—insert a name—how do I talk to my mother, my brother, my old roommate, my colleague, my coworker, the person I know at church, or who lives beside me, or my elected official? 

And so I have gotten that question from so many people, not just in the US, but around the world, that I thought, that's who the book is dedicated to. Everyone who wants to have that conversation, they might have tried it before. It didn't go so well. But they want to do it again. That is exactly who this book is for. 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   The people who want to talk about it, right. That's wonderful. And you do bring it up a lot. And I appreciated that there was a lot of, like, practicing what you preach. You also talk about the importance of repetition, right. Like people need to talk about it. And many people need to talk about it. And similarly, in the book, I noticed that you keep repeating, that like, hey, remember, like, it's that point of talking about it. So after I stopped reading and everything, I realized, oh, that's how it stays with you. You really actually do have to talk about it. 

And there's this huge difference between what you talk about it. Is it information? Or is it the emotions? And the way I always think about it is, when I used to date someone, and they were not a good person to date, all of your friends will tell you like, “Hey, this is all the facts and information why this person is not a good person to date, right.” But your identity is so connected to that relationship and all of your social circles, that you can't break up. And you have this friend that is like a breakup doula, that helps you go through the breakup. And I feel like our society is going through a breakup with just CO2 and gas and oil. And you have been a breakup doula, helping us go through that. How do you do it? How do you get us to think about everything, and just—Tell me. What's your secret?

Katharine Hayhoe:   I have never heard that before, but I love it. I absolutely love it. So doulas, of course, are something that often we use when we're having a baby. I had a doula myself. And she was absolutely amazing. And she just sort of eases you through the process. She understands. She empathizes. She keeps an eye on things. She listens to you and asks what you need. And then, just makes sure that everything goes well for everyone. And so that's—I love that. Maybe I can change my book on the book, it's like, “Written by the Climate Doula.” [laughter] 

So yes, it is more about feelings than it is about facts. And that might sound strange for me to say as a scientist, because I'm all about the facts. That's what I do. And when I first started talking about climate change, that's what I talked about. I talked about the facts. And I can talk about the facts with the best of them. I could go for hours. I could go for days. 

But what I realized is that, well facts are interesting. And often, we're very interested to learn facts, especially if they're a little bit surprising, or if they address questions that we had. Facts are ultimately not what change our mind. What changes our mind about something is recognizing that it connects directly to something that we hold very dear, not up here, but rather down here. And so beginning the conversation from the heart, with what's really important to someone, whatever that is, connecting the dots to how climate change affects it, and then talking about positive constructive solutions that we can engage in, that actually allow us to be an even more genuine expression of who we already are, and what we already care about, that's how we can work together to fix this thing.

And it really is about us working together. It's not about saving the planet. The planet will be orbiting the sun long after we're gone. It's not about individuals working on their individual carbon footprint. That's not enough to save the planet—or to save ourselves, I should say, either. It's about all of us coming together to truly do everything we can for our future. Because that's what's at stake.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Yeah, yeah. And I do think sometimes, especially in science communication community, we have learned that, okay, the deficit model of communication is a thing. People are not going to change their mind with information. But it's also that information is not enough, right. It's not that it's useless, it's just that it's not enough. And when you talk about your message, you always say, when you are having a conversation, and someone might make a wrong statement, or ask a question, you want to have a short, tiny—like a mini statement in the beginning. Then you jump into the emotions. What are your thoughts on that? What is that for? Is it to say, like, “Hey, I'm addressing this”? Or is it so that you can come back to it? I'm curious to hear a little about that, too. And generally, when information does work.

Katharine Hayhoe:   It's to acknowledge what they said, to acknowledge that we heard what they said, and we're respecting it by responding to it. So, for example, if someone says to me, “Oh, that's just a natural cycle,” I would say, “No, it's not a natural cycle. And that's a good question. Scientists have looked at it. And that's how we know that, according to natural cycles, we'd be getting cooler right now, not warmer.” But do not ever stop there. Because then they might say, “Oh, it's volcanoes” Do not ever stop there. Transition immediately into a way that climate change is affecting something they would care about, and a solution that they would agree with. 

So often, we can begin conversations with something we agree on. I actually recommend against beginning conversations with something that we immediately disagree on. It's really difficult to turn those conversations into something positive. But if we begin talking about something that we share, we might enjoy the same activity. We might both be parents. We live in the same place. We love visiting the same place. We both might be working in the business world, or in education, or in healthcare. 

Whatever it is, figure out and identify something that you share with them. And if you don't know, just have a conversation. Have a conversation and ask them questions about themselves, and listen to what they say. And nine times out of ten, we're able to identify that commonality, that we can say, “Oh, did you know?” That's always good, a surprising fact. “Did you know?” You know. “Oh, they fish.” “Well, did you know that the salmon season is really getting dicey, because the water is so warm. And the salmon aren't able to spawn properly. And it's too—And did you know then, that” – and then have a really positive solution of something that's happening in that area, that people are doing to promote clean energy, to help wildlife adapt. 

Personal solutions, I love talking about what I do myself. I like talking about what people are doing where I live in Texas. I love talking about what organizations I'm part of are doing. But that really is important. And then people might say, “Okay, so this is just for like individual conversations. What about larger conversations?” This works with larger conversations, too. 

So a few months ago, actually after I wrote the book—so I couldn't even put the story into the book, so I'm just going to tell it to you now. This is a bonus story. After I wrote the book, I participated in a project called New Climate Voices, where they asked me and the head of a Libertarian think tank, and a former two-time Republican Congressman, Bob Inglis from South Carolina, and a retired Army General, General Ron Keys, to each make a short video, like a minute long, talking about why climate impacts and climate solutions are important, from our perspective. 

I spoke from the perspective of both a scientist and a person of faith. Obviously, we had the perspective of a Libertarian, a free market, an advocate for free markets, and the military. So they aired these videos on social media in a few specific districts around the United States. They just put them on social media. They didn't track who was watching them, they just put them out there. 

And then, researchers at Yale tracked Republican opinions on climate change in those districts. And guess what? Over the weeks that those aired on social media, Republicans became more concerned about climate change, and more supportive of climate solutions. Because they were watching videos of Army Generals, and Republican politicians, telling them that this thing was important to them, because it was about energy independence. It was about supporting the military. It was about personal liberties. And my connection, it was about your faith. 

So this absolutely works at the larger scale. Isn't that phenomenal? And so, you might think, it begs the question, why haven't we been doing this? 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Yeah, yeah. That's amazing and so hopeful to hear. At this film-making conference, one of the people that was talking yesterday, so his name is Doug Smith. And he's a wolf biologist and a ranger at Yellowstone. And there is this conflict between—about like hunting wolves. And they're trying to bring back the wolves. And his whole point is that, “Listen. Like I cannot just go say, 'Hey, I'm a hippie. And don't kill all the wolves.' I can't do that. I have to go see these people. Some of them were cowboys.” And I connected him. And he just looks like Sam Elliott, I think that it really helps that it connects. 

And he tells them, “Listen. I have to—I have to accept the fact that I'm not against hunting wolves. I'm against killing the wolves outside the park. But I will tell you what are the consequences. And I think just being able to like show in the beginning that I'm not judging you. I'm already connecting with you.” And he says, like, he has a lot of conversations in bars to just figure out what they want. 

And that connects a lot to what you say. And what surprised me, you even found ways to talk to, like, fossil fuel industry people. And I was like, whoa. Katharine, how do you go to the extent to find those mutual grounds? Is there like a game in the house where you practice, and someone is like, “George Washington!” And you're like, “Connect with that.” And like, “Reese Witherspoon.” And then you practice another mutual ground, or something you have with her? How do you do that? Is it years of practice?

Katharine Hayhoe:   Well, there's definitely brainstorming involved. In fact, just yesterday over lunch, my husband was saying, “You know”--He's a big golfer. He was saying, “I have never read anything in any of my golf magazines about climate change. Why aren't you doing things for golfers?” And so I said, “Okay, well what would we do for golfers? Like what would we talk about?” And so we sat there, over our whole lunch break, and we started to brainstorm, if you were going to say things, you know, about climate change for golfers, what would you do? 

And so, we sort of—We looked at a bunch of different things. And then sort of circled onto this. In some places, that are very popular golf destinations, like Phoenix, Arizona, it is already so hot there in the summer, that you literally cannot be outside, physically. You physically cannot be outside in the middle of the day. In fact, they've even changed the opening times for some of the parks in Phoenix, so people can go after it gets dark, because it's so hot. 

And so he said, “Wouldn't it be interesting if you could somehow find out how golf attendance sort of drops when it's too hot. And then you could even do projections of how many more days we're going to have over that temperature in the future. And you could show much money golf courses are going to start losing if we don't do something about climate change. And that would really connect directly with the bottom line, wouldn't it?” 

So just sort of, when you sit and you talk about it, and I'm not a big golfer, so I had to talk with him and sort of get his ideas, like “what have you noticed? What makes it difficult to golf? What do you really enjoy? What do you hate about it?” And then, when he started to share about it, I was like, “Oh. You hate it when it's really hot. Well, there we go.” We were able to connect the dots. 

So a few years ago, I was invited to speak to the board of a large fossil fuel company, not a multinational corporation, but one of the really big ones that we have here in Texas. And my policy is, I don't think I'm the right person to have a conversation with everybody, because I don't share something with everybody. I mean, we are all humans living on this planet, yes. But for some people, that's not enough. And so I didn't know what to say when they invited me, because I felt very strongly that I couldn't go unless I could genuinely begin the conversation with something that I truly agreed with them on, not something that I was just saying, but something that I really, really meant.

So I thought about it. And I thought about it. And then one day, and I think it might have been while I was unloading the dishwasher [laughter] this occurred to me. I am genuinely and profoundly grateful for all the advances that have come with the Industrial Revolution which was powered by fossil fuels. So if we were women living 200 or 300 years ago, I mean obviously, no dishwasher, no refrigerator, no electricity, no washing machine, our lives would be an endless drudgery. They would be very short. I'm very sure I would have died at an early age from medical complications, because you know, we haven't had the advances in medicine without the Industrial Revolution. And then, of course, I appreciate being able to travel. I appreciate transportation. I appreciate so much of modern life. And we wouldn't have that without fossil fuels. 

So that's how I began with them. And it was amazing, because you could see, you know, the person who invited me was an alumni from our university. And you could see, everybody else was sort of sitting here like this. Like, “We know you, so we're going to give you a pass on this one. But don't do this to us again.” [laughter] But when I started talking, I could see people sort of like, leaning forward. 

And one man said to me, sort of disbelievingly, “You get it! We're not the bad guys. People need energy. And we provide that energy. And we provide many good jobs for people locally.” And I said, “You're right. If we pulled the plug today,” and here in Texas, we actually had that experiment last February, with the horrible ice storm--”If we pulled the plug on everything today, that would be more suffering right now than is being caused by climate change. But, that doesn't mean that we should continue the same way we've always been doing it, because we don't use Model T Fords anymore. We don't use party line telephones anymore. We don't have giant computers the size of your house anymore. We all have that exact same computer or stronger in a tiny little phone we carry in our hands. And so, in the same way, it's time to move on from the old, outdated, and now we know very dirty and polluting sources of energy that we've been using in the past, with gratitude for what they brought us, but with recognition that, just as you do with a baby, you move on from formula and cereal to solid food. And it doesn't mean that there was anything wrong with the cereal you were feeding the baby. It was good for them at stage. And that's all they had. But now we can move on to something better.” 

And so we ended up having an amazing conversation about what they were doing, what they were genuinely worried about, about what they thought the future looked like. And I'm not an expert in that. So I said to them, “What do you think you could be doing in ten years? How could you change your business operations and still provide jobs and meet your bottom line, but contribute to the clean energy economy?” 

So that was just the beginning. And, of course, I'm just one person. And that conversation had to be picked up by other people in the company, by other people in the industry, by other people who might be shareholders, by other people who might be family members of people who worked there. Each of us operates within various spheres of influence, and within every one of those spheres, no matter who we are, we can use our voices to make a change. 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Wow. There was— There's so much to unpack in this story. And I'm like, whew! I have— I have— I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions about all of that. Something that you always avoid doing is judgment. And from the stories that I've been reading—I think it's two reasons. One was that you might be wrong. Like we judge people, and we think that, oh this person is a climate change denier who is going to probably act in a way that is very climate change denier-y. And then you get to know them, and you're like, “Oh, this person is living way more sustainable than other people, in language that might be different, in heart we're doing the same thing.” And the other thing is kind of this whole idea of backfire effects, that I wonder how do you manage staying away from that judgment? And how much of that is also this idea of “Know thyself”, like knowing what are the things that make you judge other people, and try to step back and be like, “Am I doing that? Do I know enough about them? And is it going to backfire?” Right.

Katharine Hayhoe:   Yes. Yes to both of those. And then, I would add even one more. And that is, that when we are judged by someone else, we can pick it up. We all have little social antennae that are up all the time, our little personal radars are up there all the time, we're picking up what other people are thinking and saying. And when we feel judged by other people, that doesn't usually make us want to do what we're being judged for. It usually makes us want to do exactly the opposite. 

And so when we judge other people for not behaving according to our own personal code of ethics, morals, or commandments, so to speak, they are just digging in their heels, resisting even more. And all we've done is we've just dug a deeper trench between us, instead of building a bridge. So building a bridge begins with the opposite. It begins with respecting who they are. It begins with accepting who they are. It begins with honoring who they are. If they have a passion, asking questions about it. If they live somewhere, learning more about it. If they love their child, you know, admiring what a good parent they are. 

Because if someone comes at you with the opposite of judgment, I really think is love. If someone comes at you with love, and I'm not talking about passion, I'm just talking about respecting and caring for someone as a fellow human being, you can pick that up. I mean, think of the times—and you can probably think of them in your mind, because they don't happen even that often. When somebody you didn't know that well approached you with love, it just made me so open, I just felt like I was just opening to them. They could say almost anything to me. But, because I could feel that love, I would be willing to take almost anything from them. 

And so that really is the difference to connecting with each other. And it isn't that all of us can do this with everybody on the planet. Each of us has different people that we can connect with over different shared values that we have. But each of us can do this in our own way. And here's the really amazing thing. So often, at this point, you might be thinking, well that sounds great. But doesn't she realize how urgent this problem is, and how quickly we have to fix it? 

And the answer to that is, I do. I am a climate scientist. I understand exactly how urgent this is. If I could wave a magic wand, believe me, I would be waving it like mad today to shut off all of our carbon emissions immediately. I don't have that, though. And so instead, what I did before I wrote my book, is I did a really deep dive into people's thinking and social science and history on how the world has changed before. Because the world has changed before, in very significant ways. 

So 200 years ago, our economy, both in the UK and in North America, was as firmly based on slavery as it is on fossil fuels today. The concept that it was somehow socially acceptable to own another human being, and to profit off their labor. And that has changed. Unfortunately not entirely, in every single place in the world, but at least that has changed significantly in the North American culture and the Western European culture. How did it change? It wasn't because the King of England or the Prime Minister of England or the President of the United States decided, you know, one morning, “Hey, we have to get rid of this.” And it wasn't because the biggest slave owners decided, “We have to get rid of this.” No, no, no. They were the last. 

It was because ordinary people, very ordinary people, of no particular wealth, or power, or fame, they were the ones who decided, “This is not the way the world should be. The world can be different.” And they did the most important thing they could do, which is using their voice, to start spreading this message to everyone around them. And then, there were more of them. And then, they started to involve members of Parliament over in the UK, they started to involve elected officials here in the United States. They started to build that coalition to organize, to say, “We need to change.” 

And the biggest offenders were the ones who were dragged, kicking and screaming to that change. And it is my hope and prayer that it doesn't require in the US the changes that we saw back then. I don't think it will. I really don't think it will. Because, within the biggest offenders, 90 companies are responsible for two-thirds of heat-trapping gas emissions since the dawn of the Industrial era, 90 companies. 

But within most of those companies, the ones that are still around today, even within those companies there are some good people trying to change. On their shareholder boards, there are people trying to change. Look up Engine No. 1 and Exxon, if you're curious about that, what's happening there. So that's how the world changed. And that means that every single one of us has an essential and invaluable and irreplaceable role to play in saving us.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Yeah. It’s— And also, sorry that I'm so light and bright and stuff. I'm trying to move between where the sun is moving, so you might see me just like go around the screen. Let me just, like— Thank you— That makes me hopeful, in the sense that I have had a lot of conversations with people who are like, “Yeah. I can talk about it. I can do anything.” But especially if they work in places where they have had these conversations, and then they see that their influence doesn't really matter, because then there are all these organizations that make the bigger decisions, then they're like, “Listen, I'm jaded. I have done everything. And, I know that it's up to the big, you know, the big corporations.” But basically, what you're saying is that it's a long process. Like we might not see the effect for the longest time. And it's going to take time. How do you—and I know you have heard that so much. This is such a long process. How do you stay hopeful, that it's not like this, but – that you do it? 

Katharine Hayhoe:   Well, that's the second reason why I wrote my book, too, is because wherever I've been in the last few years, and literally, I get this question, I think, every day now. The biggest question I get is, “What gives you hope?” And I figure a climate scientist is a good person to ask that, right. Because if we can find hope, and note I'm saying find hope, it doesn't find you. You have to go out and find it. But if I can look for hope, and if I can find it, I feel like anybody could. Because I look at the science every day. I look at how things are changing faster than we thought, how they're impacting us more than we thought, how they're widening the socioeconomic inequalities that exist in our world, how they're increasing the divisions and the injustice in our society. 

Climate change is, as the US military calls it, a threat multiplier. The only reason we care about climate change is because, whoever we are, whatever is our priority list, climate change directly affects almost everything on our list today. And it most affects the vulnerable, the marginalized, the poor, both right here in North America, as well as on the other side of the world.

So, where do I find hope? Well, first of all, I do find hope in the science, because the science is very clear. Even the latest IPCC report that came out this past summer is crystal clear that our choices will determine our future. In fact, I love the IPCC's conclusions. They say every year matters. Every bit of warming matters. Every ton of carbon matters. Every choice matters. Every action matters.

And I close my book with this quote from Katharine Wilkinson. She, along with Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, edited an amazing book called All We Can Save, which is a collection of 60 women's voices on climate change. If you haven't seen All We Can Save, I highly recommend it. And so she has this amazing quote that I used to close my own book, that sort of expresses where we are in history. And she said, “It is a magnificent thing to be alive in a moment that matters so much. This moment will be in the history books. We are not living in a time when nothing really happens. We are living in that so-called curse of interesting times. But that means we have a chance to make a difference.”

So then, I turned the question around. And I started to poll people, because I use polling software in all of my talks. I started to poll people and ask them what gives them hope. And it was very interesting. Because, of course, I got a lot of different answers. But about a third of the answers I got from people focused on their children, their grandchildren, the next generation, the children's climate strikes, something that children were doing, or just the fact that they existed. 

So I started to ask them, “Well, does that mean that you are hopeful because you think children will fix it for us?” Because frankly, sometimes I wish they could be in charge of the world, because I think they would fix it for us. “Is that why you're hopeful?” And everybody said, “No. That's not why I'm hopeful. That's why I'm fighting. I am fighting for them.” Because the next generation, whether it's our own children, or anybody else's children, are those amazing courageous children who stand up and do the climate strikes, like the big one last Friday. They represent—they are the physical embodiment of the future. We literally continue through them. 

So that's why we fight. And so that's part of why I helped to found an organization called Science Moms, which is for any mom—and we've had a few dads sneak in too, so no worries. You can sneak in if you're not a mom too. Moms who are worried about climate change. They want to know how to talk about it, and what they can do to help fix it. So ScienceMoms.com is part of what we did because of that.

But then, I turned to more of the social science literature. And I turned more to theology. In the book I talk about both Christian and Buddhist theology. Where the idea is that hope does not begin from positive circumstances. It does not begin from a good place. Hope is not the guarantee of a positive outcome. It is not the promise of a better future. Hope begins in a dark place. Hope often begins with struggle and suffering. Hope is the small chance, however distant, and however improbable, that there could be something better. It's like a tiny light at the end of a dark tunnel.

And we are in a dark tunnel right now. Make no mistake. But if we head towards that light, if we focus on that light, if we find examples of that light, and we share that with people around us, and we take people with us on our journey to that better future, every step we take towards that direction increases the probability that we will actually reach that better future. 

And so I love a book by Christiana Figueres. She was the Costa Rican Diplomat who shepherded the Paris Negotiations. Every country in the world, she patiently, and with absolute rock-solid determination, got everybody to somehow agree, after 25 years of arguing over it, what is dangerous climate change. I mean that woman is just incredible. And, rather than just being exhausted, rather than just being frustrated, or rather than just sort of saying, “I told you so, people,” after it was done, she turned around, and she wrote a book called The Future We Choose. And in it she envisions the most positive vision of what that better future would look like in 2030 with climate action, of the blue skies, and the clean air, the walkable, livable cities, the incredible health benefits, the affordable electricity everywhere, enough food for people to eat. 

You know, we waste almost 50 percent of the food we produce. And with that, we could feed the hungry. So she envisioned this amazing world that, if you read that book, everybody would want to live in that world. And then she concluded by saying this:  “The biggest lesson we learned, imagining we were in 2030, looking back, is that we were only ever as doomed as we imagined ourself to be.” When we decide we're doomed, that's when we really are. But when we recognize that hope is not guaranteed, but it's possible, and that we're not alone, that climate action is not a giant boulder sitting at the bottom of an impossibly steep cliff, with only a few hands on it, but rather that boulder is at the top of the hill. It is rolling in the right direction. It already has millions of hands on it. And find out who those hands are, and share the stories of those hands. It just needs more hands on it to get it going faster. Don't you want to add your hand to that boulder too?

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Whew. Katharine, the only thing that I could follow after that is how this makes me think of The Lord of the Rings, right. It's like this story of extreme disappointment and horribleness, and a thing that you can't do nothing about. And I remember you referenced being absurdly hopeful. And I love that. And it did make me think of, like, The Lord of the Rings. You have like people just taking up different responsibilities. Like even the smallest person can change the course of the future, right. Frodo is on the mountain, and then you have an army fighting the evil on the other side. And you have a bunch of people with trees destroying the evil on the other side. 

And there's—It really is a system that is really living on hope, even when it feels that there is no hope. But at the same time, you have people like Gandalf, like Katharine Hayhoe, who come in, and they're like, “Let me show you what it could be, right. Let me show you how beautiful it could be. Let me remind you of those small beauties. See this cute little firework here.” And oh my God, how important it is to just keep that spirit alive. And you speak like a poet. And I have really enjoyed seeing the art in the science. 

Are there like fiction literature that inspired you? Tell me a little about that, that hope that you have, right. Some of it—I see a lot of it comes from the real world. And I wonder what if it comes from that poetry, from that art, from the stories that bring us all hope?

Katharine Hayhoe:   Stories are so important, because they engage our emotions, not just our brain. And what was really amazing is, I think I—I feel like I learned the most from reading about neuroscience when I was writing my book, because that's not a field I really knew about. And so I had no idea. You might have heard this before, but I had no idea that, when we tell a story, it literally synchronizes our brain waves. And, of course, that's probably why you do story colliders, because you know how powerful these stories are. 

So when we just sort of unload and unpack facts and data on people, we are always interested in facts and data. Our brain always likes new information, as long as it doesn't contradict something we already believe. And that's the problem with climate change. We don't wake up one morning and decide, “I don't—You know, I'm going to reject 200 years of physics.” We wake up in the morning, and we go to social media, and we look through feeds of people who share our values, who share our concerns. We listen to politicians and pundits on radio stations, and television networks, who share our values. And that's where we get our opinions. And then we go out and we look for reasons to validate the opinions we already have.

But, leaving that aside, facts are one thing. But when we tell a story that literally synchronizes our brain waves to each other, and brings each other into harmony. And so, for me, with climate change, you're right. I do find the most hope in the real world. There is a lot of apocalyptic fiction out there. And it certainly serves a purpose to awaken people who are not aware to the risks that we face. 

As a climate scientist, though, I feel like I've already been awoken to that a long time ago. So I don't really apocalyptic fiction, because I find that personally, to me, too much. Scientific literature is apocalyptic fiction these days. But what I do, is I love real life stories of people who have truly made a difference against the odds, especially people who we might not know about, people whose names we don't know. So, when we think to the past, we know names. We know Harriet Tubman. We know Martin Luther King, Jr. We know William Wilberforce. We know the Pankhursts and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who fought for women's rights. We know a few of the names. But there were thousands of people behind them, whose names we do not know, thousands of people.

And so, just sort of hearing the stories of the people who were not famous, were not rich, were not influential, yet the difference and the impact they made on this world is incredible, that's truly what gives me hope. And those are the types of stories that I try to collect and I try to share with people, because they're real world stories about real world hands that are on that giant boulder. And when we realize how many hands there are, again, that's what makes us feel like, well, I think I could probably add mine. And, you know, if it's already going downhill in the right direction, if I add my hand, it might go just a tiny bit faster. 

Whereas, if I add my hand to that boulder that's sitting at the bottom of the hill and not moving, it's not going to move. So why am I even bothering to add my hand? It's a completely different picture.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Yeah. And I think we also, a lot of us who are not in climate science, like we don't have a lot of these interactions. Sometimes we see the beginning of some of these stories. Like it's like planting that seed. And we don't see what happens at the end. But I think you had the opportunity to see a lot of them play out, too, and see how people change. I wonder if you could share with us one of those stories where you felt very hopeful or very filled with awe or joy, and really take us with you to feel that, all those climate hope feelings with you.

Katharine Hayhoe:   Sure. So as you'll know, as I talk about in the book, our individual lifestyle choices are not enough to fix this problem. In fact, as a scientist, I have literally sat down and calculated it. I have calculated that, if everybody who was alarmed or concerned in the US, which is 55 percent of us are alarmed or concerned, and actually, if you add in anybody who says they're concerned at all, we're at 70 percent, that's good news, 70 percent are concerned. 

But, even if living in this system that we live in, we did everything we could to cut our personal carbon footprint, that wouldn't even be a quarter of the problem. Not even a quarter. Because, like I said, you know, 90 companies, two-thirds of the problem. So I talk about that in the book. But then I say, “So, are individual choices irrelevant? No, because they enable us to live out our values. And who doesn't want to do that, right? It changes who we are. And it gives us amazing things that we can talk about with other people. And the biggest power of individual choices is how contagious they are, literally contagious. They've even calculated that the number one predictor of whether there's going to be solar panels on a house is whether there's another home within about a mile that has them. It's literally contagious. 

So, for a long time, I had followed this literally. And I really wanted solar panels. But, you know, we're not super wealthy. We really couldn't afford them, even with the tax rebate. And so, it was something that we talked about. We sort of thought, in the future we'll get the solar panels, you know. We have the hybrid car now. We'll get the EV later. You know, we're doing what we can. And we'll get—

So then, just before Christmas, a couple of years ago, actually, just before I did my story collider with you—and story collider is where scientists tell stories of their life. So just before that, I got a call from a credit reporting agency, saying that somebody had called my credit report. I was like, “Oh no, you know. Stolen identity!” And my husband and I share all our financial—you know, our banking and our credit cards. So I called him. I said, “We've been hacked! You know, cancel everything.” And he said, “Oh no, it's okay.” I said, “What do you mean it's okay? It's not okay.” And he's like, “No, no, it's okay. I have it covered.” I was like, “What do you mean you have it covered?” He's like, “I know what it is.” “What is it?” “It's a secret.” I was like, “A secret?” And he's like, “Yes. It's only two weeks until Christmas. It's a secret. I can't tell you.” [laughter] 

I had no clue. I literally had no idea. I was like, “What is this?” So fortunately, he can't keep a secret. So, after about three days, he finally gave in. And he told me he had got—he had done all of his research. He had found a good place to get a loan. He had figured out a company. He had bought the solar panels from a local company in Texas that, the last time oil prices had tanked, and all these oil workers had lost their jobs, this company, Mission Solar in San Antonio, took in out-of-work oil patch workers, and gave them jobs, which is part of the Just Transition. 

And so, he had arranged all of this, and arranged the people to come, to put the solar panels on our roof while we were away visiting family for Christmas. And I was so happy, I literally just started crying. I mean, that was just the most meaningful thing to me. Like, do I think my solar panels are going to fix climate change? Of course not. But it enabled me to live out what I believe, in an even more genuine way. It makes me feel happy. Every single time I see them, I smile. I have a plug-in car now. And I know that car is being charged off the solar panels, and I don't have to go to the gas station during COVID. And oh, I love that. And, guess what. I see solar panels on some of the houses going in around us too.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Yea! That's exciting.

Katharine Hayhoe:   So there absolutely are incredible points of joy. And some of that joy can come from something we do ourselves. Some of it can come from finding out what other people are doing. Like today, I just found out on Twitter that one of our favorite companies, Ripple, they have really good milk. It is actually made out of peas, but we don't talk about that part, because it tastes so good. One of our favorite dairy alternatives is investing in an offshore wind company. And that made me so happy, because it made me feel like I am part of that. I buy the Ripple. I am part of the wind farm offshore. 

One of my colleagues just emailed me, and she said, “You were talking about, like, cricket food for pets. What was that dog food you mentioned again that's made out of crickets?” Which is full of protein. But you're not feeding dogs animals that we had to grow, that belch—or raise that belch all kinds of methane, and take up all kinds of land and water. And so I sent her two recommendations for dog food made of crickets. And she's like, “Yes. Thank you.” And you know that she's going to be telling people about that, too. 

So our choices are absolutely contagious. And by using our voice, not just talking about what we're doing, but talk about what your university or another university is doing and yours should be. Talk about what your company is doing or what another one is, and yours should be. I was just in Dallas the other day, and I talked to a bunch of people there. Nobody knew that the City of Dallas has been running its operations off clean energy for several years. Nobody knew that.

So, if you just start Googling what your city or your state or even your company might be doing, you might be really surprised with what's happening. You might find some—some hands on the boulder that you could talk about. And you might be able to suggest some other changes, like saying, “Oh, well these people over here are doing this. Like I heard about a church that's doing this. Why don't we do that at our church too?” Or at your child's school, there was a school that did this. “We could do this at this school, too. And it might save money, too, or improve the air quality, or you know, reduce the food waste.” 

So that's how we change the world, one at a time. And of course, we can use our voice to talk to our elected officials, not just at the federal level—99.9 percent of them aren't federal. States and cities can move a lot quicker, and they can have big impacts. I mean, look at the economy of California or Texas. They're equivalent to a medium-sized country. So change really is possible. And too often, we get fixated on the President as being the only person who can affect change. And of course, the more responsibility someone has, the more change they can affect. But it's not up to the Presidents and Prime Ministers and CEOs by themselves. In fact, history shows that they follow rather than leading. 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Wow. Yep, yeah, I can see that. And you talk about a lot of solutions in the book here, also, making the argument that these solutions can even turn us into a more just society. I think of Rebecca from Ted Lasso saying there is sometimes advantage and disadvantage, right. And I'm like—And I think of a credible solutions, and in a way, how can we design a future where these solutions are coming in, but also they're equitably distributed, in a way that, if I want to purchase something that contributes to, you know, making climate change better, I can afford it. I have the ability to do it. And you have some amazing stories, too. But is there something we can do, to make sure that these solutions are equitable?

Katharine Hayhoe:   So climate change disproportionately affects, again, the poorest and most vulnerable people right here, as well as in Africa and Southeast Asia. It affects us all, but it affects them more. So just as an example, the 3.5 billion poorest people in the world have produced seven percent of the heat trapping gasses that are causing climate change. Yet since the 1960s, climate change has already increased the economic gap between the richest and poorest countries in the world by as much as 25 percent, primarily by making the poor poorer. 

When the power goes out in Texas due to the ice storm, because the natural gas power plants were not required to winterize, everybody loses power. We lost power. Many neighborhoods lost power. But which neighborhoods suffered the most? Which could not afford a generator, or to go somewhere else, or didn't have homes that were well-insulated? Which did not get power back on for days or even weeks? The low income neighborhoods, that was who. 

And one of my students, who was a social worker, who was visiting these neighborhoods during the ice storm, and the stories she told me would just bring tears to your eyes. I was like, “How can I help? What can I do?” I mean we don't even know the suffering that is going on right under  our noses, right here. It is not something that's far away. It's literally here where we live. And climate change is making it worse. 

Here is the flip side, though. Most climate solutions disproportionately affect and help people who are marginalized, people who live below the poverty line, people who don't have access to resources. So those are the solutions that we need to invest in. Let me give you a tangible example. A lot of low income countries do not have fossil fuel resources. They just don't have them. The few that do, like Venezuela, and Brazil, and Nigeria, they're extracted by multinational corporations. The money stays in the hands of a very, very rich few. And the rest of it goes out of the country, leaving environmental devastation behind. 

But what they do have, is they have a lot of sun, and they have a lot of wind. And so, as we transition to clean energy, they are able to have access to sources of energy that do not require them to purchase fossil fuels from rich countries. Because that's not very equitable or fair to say, “Oh well, we use coal, so you have to use coal too. And oh, by the way, you don't have coal. So we will sell you coal.” And that is actually what China is doing, I'm very sorry to say. That is not equitable. That is not just. That is not fair. And that's not even healthy. Because burning fossil fuels is already responsible for nine million premature deaths around the world every year, nine million. 

So far, we've seen four and a half million premature deaths because of COVID. We just had one in our community, someone I know, just last week. And every premature death is one death too many, every single one. But COVID is at the top of the headlines every day. Where are the nine million from air pollution, from burning fossil fuels?

So clean energy disproportionately benefits low income countries. And that is fantastic news. Ninety percent of new energy installed around the world last year was clean energy, 90 percent, absolutely phenomenal. 

So yes, we absolutely can invest in climate solutions. And climate solutions like reducing food waste. Here's one that's close to home. My friend lives in Washington, DC. She is also a climate scientist like me. She is also a person of faith like me. And she knows that, although our personal actions won't fix climate change, they make a big difference, to ourselves, to people around us. And they can have small immediate benefits now, as well as long-term. Like what? Well, food waste is surprisingly a pretty big source of heat-trapping gas emissions. Not as much as burning fossil fuels, but it's up there. Because, when organic material decays, it produces heat-trapping gasses. And we waste about half the food we produce. We just waste it. 

So in Washington, DC, she signed up for one of those second harvester ugly food programs, where every week she gets a bag of fruit and vegetables that, you know, it doesn't look quite right, or it has a little bruise, or it's kind of funny shaped. And so they didn't want to sell it. But she'll eat it. And for every bag she buys, they deliver a bag of fresh fruit and vegetables to a home in a low income neighborhood.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. And I also love those weird products, because I can just like take pictures and post them for my stories, and be like, “Look at this potato.” Just good content. Yes, for climate solutions that are also making a more just society. And Katharine, I want to go on asking a million more questions. But we are around 10 minutes away to start moving to Q and A. So I want to do a part that I do with a lot of my interviews, it's called a weird interview section. And it's inspired by the story of The Little Prince, which I'm Iranian, all Iranian kids growing up read this French story about this little alien that goes from planet to planet and learns about different people, and teaches them how to love life. And one thing that he says is that, you know, grown ups, when they want to learn about each other, you say, “I have a new friend.” And they ask, “How old is he? How many brothers and sisters does he have? How much money do the parents make?” Instead of asking, “What's his favorite color? What kind of games does he like playing?”

And I think, again, this is something that you kind of advocate for, that people are not these numbers and these outcomes. They're just humans that you could connect with them. But all this like fun, light-hearted things. So I want to learn about you in a completely different way, by asking [audio breakup] questions. And it's kind of a lightning round. So don't overthink it. There's always a better answer, always. I have done it, and I'm always like, “Oh, I should have said the other thing.” Ready?

Katharine Hayhoe:   Yes. 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Ding, ding. Okay. So if you could live in any fictional universe, it's like middle earth, Narnia, Dune, anywhere, what would you choose, and why?

Katharine Hayhoe:   I would choose Discworld, Terry Pratchett, because there's no giant cosmic problems. There's just little ones that have to do with people and personalities. And I would love to live in a world where the biggest problem we have is a little problem. 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Oh, I love that. I want to read Terry Pratchett. And I will at some point soon. And when I do it, I'll want to go back to you. So, if you could have any job outside of the one that you have, or maybe even outside of the sciences, what job would you choose?

Katharine Hayhoe:   Well, I was originally planning to be an astrophysicist. In fact, my undergraduate degree is in astronomy and physics. My first five papers are Invariable Stars and Galaxy Clustering. And that was what I was planning to do until I sort of serendipitously took a class on climate change, where I learned how profoundly unfair and unjust climate change is, and how urgent it is. And that was what completely changed the trajectory of my life. I thought, how can I not do everything I can to help fix this urgent problem? And when I'm done, I'll go back to astrophysics. That is literally what I thought. [laughter] And that was so long ago, that I don't think I could go back to astrophysics now. And honestly, I'm not sure I would want to.

I think now, what I would do, if we could really solve climate change, I would open a yarn store. 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Oh yes! I'll come purchase yarns. Also, I'm a huge fan of astronomers. I'm an amateur astronomer myself, work in a planetarium, always wanted to be an astronomer. So I appreciate it. Can you identify some constellations? Do you have a favorite one?

Katharine Hayhoe:   Oh yeah. In fact, I still remember, for Observational Astronomy, they took us to the planetarium, our class. And we had to sit there. And they rotated through the whole sky, not just the Northern Hemisphere, but the Southern Hemisphere too. And we had to identify all of these stars, nebula, clusters, galaxies. It was like one of the hardest tests you can imagine. [laughter] 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Wow. So you know your night sky really well. Okay. 

Katharine Hayhoe:   I do.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   If I get lost, I want to get lost with you, so that you can be like, “Rey, north. Let's go this way.” 

Katharine Hayhoe:   I can do it. Well, and what I would say, my favorite constellation, so I'm from Canada. And I spent all of my summers outdoors up north. And so, for me, summer in Canada is the Big Dipper right overhead. It's just the brightest thing in the sky. It points right to the North Star. And that, to me, is home.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Yes. Yes, for the Big Dipper. So if you could talk to anyone living about climate change, life, movies, anything, anything, who would you choose? You could have lunch with them.

Katharine Hayhoe:   Well, I feel very fortunate that I have been able to talk to so many people that I would have put on that list already. So, as a little girl, I grew up—we didn't have a television. My parents were teachers, and they read a book back in the '70s about how television ruined children's brains. So no television for us. But we would watch movies from the library, like old movies, like these movies, every Friday night. And a lot of movies we watched were Jane Goodall in the jungle with her chimpanzees. And, you know, as a young woman, you know, with her blonde hair, drawn back in a ponytail. And so I always thought it would be so amazing to meet her, because she is the person who, from the—you know, I was like four years old. To me, a scientist was a young woman. That was a scientist to me.

And so, I actually got to meet her a number of years ago. And it was just such a privilege to talk to someone who had really been an incredible role model for me, and just showing me that a scientist is not the proverbial, you know, man in the white coat with the thick glasses. It can be somebody wearing shorts in a jungle loving animals, you know. I mean, yes she was studying them. But she loved what she did, too. And so I just feel fortunate that I have been already able to have some of those conversations.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Yeah. And yes to women in science communication, yes. And if you could join any existing bands, living or not, who would you choose?

Katharine Hayhoe:   Join a band? Hmm.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Yes. We're going to imagine you can play whatever instrument you want, like anything.

Katharine Hayhoe:   Okay. I do play the piano. I'm not sure if it's performance quality though.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Okay.

Katharine Hayhoe:   I would—Let's see. I think the Lumineers need another female singer now, because yes. So I think I would probably say the Lumineers. You know, if I thought I would fit in with U2 I would. But I just think U2 is so perfect the way they are, I don't think they need an extra person.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Okay, Lumineers, if you're hearing this, just saying.

Katharine Hayhoe:   Oh yes.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Just in case. Yeah, just in case. Yeah. 

Katharine Hayhoe:   In all seriousness, I told them that I would not sing with them, but I would do anything else they want to do on climate change. Because I think bands like that can have a tremendous influence.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Yes. Yea, awesome. Awesome. And the last question, if there would be a bio-pic of you, who would you want to play you? 

Katharine Hayhoe:   Great question. My husband thinks Minnie Driver looks like me. 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Oh my God. I don't know who that is. 

Katharine Hayhoe:   Oh. She's actually – 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   If I see her, I'll probably know. If I see her--

Katharine Hayhoe:   You probably will.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Okay. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you so much for all these amazing answers. And we have lots of questions that I'm going to go through some of them. I'm going to be slow reading them. But we'll see how that's going to go. Okay. Are you ready, Katharine?

Katharine Hayhoe:   Yes.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Okay. So what is the one best thing anyone can do to help mitigating their carbon footprint? What is the best thing kids can do or schools can do? 

Katharine Hayhoe:   Well, the number one thing you can do is using your voice. Because you can influence more people than just you. And if you do something, that's great. It's this much. But if you influence a school or a place of work or your neighborhood or your yoga studio or your gym, that's this much. So literally using your voice is the single most important thing you can do, even as a child. Because, if you start looking at what kids are doing in schools, you will be amazed. 

We both have PBS Digital Series. And mine is called Global Weirding. And our most popular episode in Global Weirding, if you go to YouTube, is “I am Just a Kid. What Can I Do?” You would be amazed at what kids are doing. They are leading us. If we—If we would just follow in their footsteps, we could fix this problem quickly. But they are also leading us in using their voices. The children's climate strikes, Greta Thunberg, all of the other young people who are raising their voices, they are showing us what a powerful impact that has. 

But, of course, part of what I talk about myself, obviously, is what I do myself, or what is happening in my city, or with a company, or with a, you know, a state. And so the first thing to do, as a family, is, you look for a carbon calculator, a carbon footprint calculator. 

And there's a really good one called The Cool Calculator from Berkeley. So if you Google Cool Calculator Berkeley, it'll pop right up. You can—You enter, you know, where you live, how many people live with you, how far you drive, all the kinds of things like that. And it shows you the biggest part of your carbon footprint as a family. And then, it gives you ideas of what you can do to reduce that. And then, you know what I'm going to say. Whatever you do, make sure you talk about it. Share the news with people you know. Say, “Hey, you wouldn't believe it. We did this, and look what happened. What if we did this together? What if we sort of had a little competition going here? Or what if we got together and talked to our school about what they could do too?”

So absolutely, take personal action. It is so fun to be able to see things happen, like look at your power bill when you replace your light bulbs with LEDs. Or look at how what you eat changes when—Here's what I did. When I found out about food waste being such a big problem, and I realized I was doing it too—Because I would go grocery shopping once every two weeks, because I wanted to be efficient. So I would do a huge grocery shop. I would put most of it in the freezer. And then, some stuff would go bad. Or I'd just forget about it. And we would be—I would be throwing stuff out each time. 

And when I found out about food waste, I said, okay, this has to stop. So I sold the freezer. And I put in drying racks, so I could hang up my clothes where the freezer used to be, so I don't have to use the dryer as much. And then, I found a grocery store that was on my way home from the university. So I wasn't going out of my way. And I always made sure to have my bags in the car, no excuse. 

And I would stop at the grocery store two times a week. And I would go in with only two or three bags, no more, just two or three. None of this like 20-bag grocery thing anymore. Two or three. Tons of fresh vegetables, and fish. And it's so much better to eat more vegetables and fish, and a lot less red meat. It's not just bad for your health, it's bad for the climate, too. And so we would eat much better. And we wouldn't throw anything out, because the fridge was half empty, and I could still see everything. 

So not only did I do that, but I'm telling you about it. And I remember, just before COVID, I was speaking in a big church in Southern Ontario where I'm from, near Toronto. And I was talking about things that we can do, and how important it is to talk about it. And I was standing by the door—and I tell the story in the book—when listening to people as they went out. And one woman said to the other, she said, “I've always been worried about climate change. But I never knew what to do. So I did nothing. But now I know how to start. I'm going to eat the Christmas leftovers. That's the first thing I'm going to do.” And do you think it was the last? I'd bet not. She just didn't know where to start, because she was stuck. And so she was telling her friend. And then, she was probably going to do more. And, in fact, in that church, somebody ended up starting a green team too, a creation care team. 

So little things can really help. But it's connecting with other people that really makes the biggest difference. 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Yeah, I appreciate reading that, because I always felt awkward being like, do I just like go in a place and say, “Let us talk about climate change,” right. It's a little bit of like weird, out of context. But now I'm like, okay. I bought this, like, set where I don't have to, like, you know, do the, like, cleaning stuff. It's just like, it's like a bottle. And you put in like all just like pills in it. And it just—So I just like telling everybody, like, “By the way, I just bought that, because I thought this is what it does,” right. 

So the things that you're already doing and exist, or like, I got this new book about climate change. And I'm doing an interview with them. Right.

Katharine Hayhoe:   Yes. Yes.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Do you have any questions? What would you want to know? So just a thing—Oops, my computer joins the heavens – So it was just like fun to be able to pick all of those things, and just continue the conversation on them. In your book, you mentioned the idea of eco anxiety. This is the first I've heard of that term. But I am familiar with the concept. Can you expand on how eco anxiety has interacted with COVID anxiety?

Katharine Hayhoe:   Oh, yes. It absolutely has. There are so many interactions between COVID and climate change. So, you know, do you think people wake up one morning and decide not to get a vaccine? No. Again, just like they don't wake up every morning and decide to reject 200 years of physics, what they do is they wake up in the morning, and they go to their social media feeds. And they look what people they trust are sharing. And that's where they decide that climate change isn't real, and they don't want a vaccine.

It's the same thing. So there are so many different connections. And one of those connections is anxiety. Why? Because we feel small and powerless. In the face of a global pandemic, in the face of so many people who we think don't care about this, and with climate change, in the face of so many people that we think aren't acting. So anxiety is increasing, and especially among younger people. There was a survey that just came out, I think two weeks ago, that showed that many, many, many young people are very concerned about climate change. And, you know, I'm a scientist. It is very concerning. And in the book, hopefully—I try not to sugar-coat it at all. I say, it is bad. And in fact, likely, it's worse than we think. It is very bad. 

But I also know that there is the possibility of a better future. And as long as there is that small chance, it is worth fighting for. And so I love what Greta Thunberg says. And she should know, because she was a young teen, paralyzed by anxiety too. That's how it started for her. And so she convinced her family to stop flying, to eat a plant-based diet, to reduce their carbon footprint as much as they could. But she did one more thing. And that one more thing was, she took a piece of white cardboard, and she wrote a few words on it, using her voice so to speak, right. Your voice doesn't have to be verbal. She used her voice, and she went, and she sat outside a building, which of course is the Swedish Parliament. And the rest, as they say, is history. 

So she said something really to the point. She said, “Everybody tries to look for hope. Don't look for hope. Act. Because once you act, hope is everywhere. You are surrounded by people who are acting. And when you're low, they can bring you up. And when they're low, you can bring them up.” That's why we are—we are intended, we are designed—we humans are community people. That's who we are. That's why we developed, you know, language, to talk to each other, to share stories with each other. That is the history of who we are as humans, is people who work together in community, who share stories with each other, who lift and encourage each other up when they need a hand. And then, they do that, in turn, to us. 

And so as people concerned about climate change, don't wait for hope to find you. Go out and act. Find an organization in your area, or online, that shares your values. There are organizations for winter athletes. Protect Our Winters. There are organizations for moms, like Science Moms, or the Moms Clean Air Force. There are organizations for people of faith. There's a great organization called A Rocha that is doing a book study on my book right now, in the Christian community. There are political lobbying organizations, like Citizens Climate Lobby. They have chapters all around the whole US, and Canada, and beyond. 

Whoever you are, there are groups that share your values. And you can find them in your community, or online. Join them. Find out about what they're doing. Ask how you can help. Share their information and their messaging. They'll give you really awesome stories to tell, like you said, that you can tell to your friends. You don't have to just walk up and be like, “Let's talk about climate change.” And everybody sort of runs. No. You're like, “Hey, did you know? You wouldn't believe what I learned. I just found this out. I thought this was so interesting, I'd bet you'd like to know it too.” Or, “I heard something really bad. I'll tell you about this, but I'll also tell you about something good.” 

So go out and find somebody, something that you share. If you don't know if it exists, you could start it. I was giving a talk, a few years ago, at a church in Edinburgh, an evening talk. And a man who works for a renewable energy company wanted to come and hear me. And he had to bring his son, who I think was like eight or nine years old. Didn't have a babysitter. And his son was like, “Oh dad. Do I have to go?” And his dad was like, “Well, bring a book. You can just sit there and read.” 

So he brought his son. And his son ended up sitting there, absolutely mesmerized, listening to our whole conversation. It was me and it was a professional mediator. And it was a human ecologist, people who study—someone who studies how humans interact with their environment. And we were having a discussion about climate change, and solutions, and what that looked like. This nine year old sat there and listened to the whole thing. And he said to his dad, “Dad, I have to do something.” And his dad said, “Well you know, I already work for a renewable energy company. So I'm doing a lot.” And he's like, “No, I need to do something. I am going to start a club at my school. Because you would not believe how often they don't turn off the lights. They put recycling in the garbage. They do—You know, they don't eat all their food. They're doing all these terrible things. I'm going to start a club.” 

So this nine year old starts a club at his school. And every day, he came home, his dad said—he told me about this many months later—just full of joy. “Ms. Harris put something in the wrong can. And I told her she had to take it out.” [laughter] “And you wouldn't believe they left the lights on in the gym, and we caught them. And we told them.” And the joy of knowing that he's making a difference, because he is—And he's doing it with his friends. They're all doing it together. And they're influencing everybody else in their school, including their teachers. If that doesn't show us that anybody can make a change, I don't know what does.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   I do wish they were in charge.

Katharine Hayhoe:   Yes.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   I do wish they were in charge. There are some things that, for me, are completely technical questions. Can we run clean coal?

Katharine Hayhoe:   Well, the idea with clean coal, so to speak, is that rather than letting all the pollution go into the atmosphere, you trap it. And you have to trap not just the air pollution that is responsible for all of those millions of deaths that I talked about, but you also have to trap the CO2. And then you have to do something with the CO2. So there is one active coal sequestration—or no, there's one active natural gas sequestration, not even coal sequestration, natural gas plant in the US, and it's in Texas. But what do they do with the CO2 once they trap it? They use it to enhance oil and gas recovery. So it actually ends up leading to even more CO2 emissions. 

And if you talked about putting that kind of CO2 capture technology on all the coal-fired power plants in the United States to keep them running, that would be orders of magnitude more expensive than just replacing them with wind and solar. Because wind and solar is very cheap, even with batteries. Because I know, believe it or not, I do know that the sun does not shine at night. Sometimes people are like, “Don't you know that?” Yes, I do know that. And that's what storage is for. And storage has made great leaps and bounds. 

In fact, in 2019, that was the first time when solar energy plus storage was officially cheaper than natural gas for new bids that were going into LA County for new power production in LA. So clean coal is possible. And in some limited circumstances, for that specific location, it might be the best option. But it is not a big option for the whole world, simply because of the sheer expense of it.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   I see. I see. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And back to the social science side of it, people are self-selecting away from people on the other side, and choosing not to engage in useful dialogue. So many people are walking away from each other. So how do you get past the brick wall?

Katharine Hayhoe:   Well, that is actually what my book is all about. And I've got so many stories in the book, which I would encourage you to read, about people who have recognized that in themselves, and they've tried to decide, well, what could I do about it? So there's two different avenues here. Avenue number one is the one that my colleague Gabe took. Gabe is a scientist. And he felt very much that he was starting to live in that bubble. And he wanted to have conversations with people who are not in the bubble. So he sort of took an inventory of his life. What did he do? What did he love? You know, how did he spend his time? And he realized that he spent quite a bit of his time playing ice hockey. And most of the people he played ice hockey with were not necessarily onboard with the whole idea that climate change mattered, or that we could fix it. 

So he decided to look into how climate change was making the outdoor ice season shorter in his area, how many less days they had for pond hockey, how much more often they just had water all over the ice. And, of course, all of the guys would complain about that. So he learned a little bit about what they cared about, and started to bring that up in conversations. Like, “Oh my goodness. The ice is horrible today. Did you know that this is happening a lot more? You know, ten years ago, we only had this many days. And now we've got this many days. Isn't this awful?” 

And so that, just immediately, they're agreeing, right. They're agreeing. And then he can lead right into what you can do about it. 

So that's one approach, is thinking where in your life you might have a point of contact. But I tell in my book, too, about how I've had several conversations with people who say, “Well, I've been trying to reach out to churches in my area. And I just can't get my foot in the door. What do I do?” And I say, “Well the best thing to do is to start with the type of church that you're most familiar with. So, you know, are you—are you Baptist? Are you Jewish? Whatever?” And every single time, the person has said to me, “I'm atheist.” And then I say, “Well then stop. That is not the community you should be reaching out to.” 

And I tell the story in the book how, with one person, I literally went through like 20 things with him to try to find out what he did, besides being a scientist. And finally, we landed on diving. And I was like, “Well, diving! People who are divers need to know about climate change. Why don't you find some diving instruction schools and offer to give free instruction on how climate change is affecting the oceans, how they're going to see the coral changing, how they're going to see species changing, what citizen science programs they could even get involved with, tracking what they see in the ocean as they dive? Divers need to know, and you are the perfect person to tell them, not me.” 

Now that sort of brings me to the second option, which is, even people who are alarmed or concerned about climate change are often not activated at all. The majority are not activated. The number who are active is tiny compared to the number who are alarmed or concerned. Only 14 percent of us in the whole US, according to a survey, just last week, talk about climate change, 14 percent. And if we don't talk about it, why would we care? And if we don't care, why would we ever do anything? 

So we might assume that everybody around us is doing everything they can. But I can guarantee you, that that is not true unless you belong to an organization that, where everybody is doing something, and those are the only people you know. And that's very rare. So you might be very surprised if you start to have conversations with people that you might not know what they were doing, or what they think. And they might not be doing anything, because a lot of people are just frozen. And they might be really desperate for information on what they could do. That's why we founded Science Moms. But they don't know until you talk about it. 

So you don't necessarily have to go to people who you really feel you have very little in contact with. You could start with people like your mom's group, or your fellow parents from your kids' school, or the people at work. Or go and talk, you know, talk to people who make decisions at the place where you work, and say, “You know, I never thought about it. Where do we get our energy from? Have we opted into any of the clean energy options in our state? Oh, we haven't thought about that? Oh. Well, you know, can I help you do a bit of research, and we could look into that?” 

Like you would be shocked how little we actually talk about this, and how much we can do where we are. 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   There's so much, so many opportunities. Yeah, I like seeing that climate change is in everything, like literally everything. That you could pick up any object and be like, climate change. Climate change paper. Climate change tissues. Just probably everything, right?

Katharine Hayhoe:   Yes. Yes. That's right. 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Okay. So a great example of humankind making a good change for our environment was stopping CFC emission, when the ozone layer was being destroyed. How can we use that as an example for climate change?

Katharine Hayhoe:   I love that example. And in fact, I have a Global Weirding episode specifically about the ozone hole and what we could learn from it. Because scientists identified the problem. It was human-made chemicals that were getting all the way up to the stratosphere, where they were interacting with and destroying our protective ozone layer, that protects us from the sun's ultraviolet radiation. 

So scientists identified the problem. And then, within—very quickly, within a decade, government and industry was mobilized. And you had to bring industry in, because the big, you know, chemical companies, like Dow and DuPont, they were the ones who were manufacturing these. So they brought in the EPA. They brought in scientists. They brought in the big corporations to say, “We have to stop making this. But you still need other chemicals. So we'll test your chemicals for you. And we'll help you develop new ones.” So that was solved very quickly. Why? Because industry and government were willing to work together and listen to scientists. 

Why isn't that happening today? Well, unfortunately, it's because the richest corporations in the world are the ones who are making fossil fuels. And their entire bottom line is based off fossil fuels. And they have decided that they would rather invest money in harassing and attacking climate scientists, including me, in muddying the waters, in buying politicians, to maintain our dependence on fossil fuels as long as we can. And, if you want to know more about that, there is a really, really good book and a documentary called Merchants of Doubt. Watch it. You will be stunned by the deliberate and enormous magnitude of the efforts taken to muddy the waters. 

Where do you think climate denial came from? Back in the 1990s, you would ask a Republican and a Democrat what they thought about climate change, they would say the same thing, the same thing. Where did denial come from? It was manufactured by those who have the most to gain from keeping us using fossil fuels as long as possible. So honestly, industry made a choice. They made a choice that we are not going to listen to our own scientists, because they knew. They had scientists inside their organizations, in the 1970s, publishing this stuff. They said, “We are not going to listen to them. We're not going to work with the government. We are going to do our own thing.” And that's why we ended up in such a different place. But that's why it is so important that every one of us use what we have, which is our voice. Because again, that is the way the world has changed in the past.

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Yeah. As a social scientist, it's horrifying for me then. I was watching something, and an ad came up about gas and oil. And I was like, oh my God. It sounds like they took like a million social science classes, because their marketing and the framing is so on point, with people's identities, and values, and ideologies. And I was like, this is horrifying. So yes, lots of – 

Katharine Hayhoe:   Yes. Well, that's exactly—Remember that Yale study I was talking about, where we had the videos from the Army General and the Republican Congressman. So that works. And they have the money and the smarts to have been doing it for 30 years. We have not done it. Because first of all, we climate scientists don't have the money. And second of all, we don't have the social science smarts either. We are not PR experts. We have no idea that there's such thing as messaging and framing. We do now. And I talk about that quite a bit in the book. 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Yes. Yes.

Katharine Hayhoe:   But there is a science to communication. And they know that. And they have been using it for decades. And it is possible to change people's minds. But we have to begin, like you just said, with the identities people already have, with the values they already have. We have to begin with the subtext of, “You are a good person. You are a moral and an ethical person. You care about things deeply. And because of who you already are, I know that you already care about climate change. And if you don't think you do, it's simply because you have not connected the dots between how climate change is affecting everything that you already care about, and you're such a good example for, today. 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Yeah. Building on that identity to make even a better person with the same identity, rather than change that away. Which is something that you also talk about in your book. So you touch on this topic in your book. Can you expand on how choice paralysis impacts the everyday person's ability to address climate change? 

Katharine Hayhoe:   It sounds like a lot of people have already read the book. This is fantastic. Yes. We often get paralyzed—and I talk about this in the book—because it's like, okay. So I tried to do this. But then I found out that it actually does that. And then I found out that it actually does this. And then, before you know it, it's like, I'm screwed anyways. I already have a child. I already live far away from my family, so I have to fly to see them. I already live someplace where there's no public transportation. I'm just like, might as well eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow we die—because I can't live a perfect life anyways.

And so, of course, the analogy to that is, you don't have to be a saint to be a person of faith. The abolitionists wore cotton. They didn't run around naked in the streets while they were arguing against slavery. And, of course, where'd the cotton come from? So the goal, my goal, all of our goals, our goal is not personal purity. And it is not even changing people's lifestyles. My goal is to inspire people to change the world. That is my goal. 

And along the way, our lifestyles were changed. Along the way, our perspectives might change. Along the way, our health is going to improve. The quality of our air and water is going to improve. Our society will become more equitable and more just. Our energy will be more affordable. Our world will be more secure. All of these amazing things will happen. But this is not about personal lifestyle choices. This is about changing the world. 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Wonderful. And I think this might be one of the last questions And I know we heard some amazing stories. But what is your favorite hopeful story about climate change?

Katharine Hayhoe:  Oh, there are so many hopeful stories. And you know what? I hear so many new good ones every day. I almost feel like I have to write a full—another full book full of it. So I am going to—let's see. I think probably, my personal favorite story, because it's so funny as well as so hopeful, is John's Dad. Yes. So my colleague John Cook is from Australia. And he has a dad, like many of us do. And every time he would go home to dinner, his dad would be like, “Well, John, I hear there's more polar bears now than there ever were. How can you say they're endangered due to melting sea ice?” 

And so John, being a good scientist, would go out and find all the information about polar bear populations, and bring it home to his dad. And then his dad would be like, “Well, John, I heard one volcanic eruption is more than all humans anyways.” And so John became so concerned about this, that he went back to university, he got a PhD in cognitive psychology. He became a global expert in debunking misinformation. He has an incredible YouTube channel called “Cranky Uncle,” “Cranky Uncle.” He does COVID debunking. He does vaccine debunking. He does climate science debunking. He created the Skeptical Science website that organizes 198 science-y sounding zombie myths about climate change, and full answers to all of it. 

And as I talk about in the book, did that change his father's mind? No. Exactly. It did not. Why? Because it wasn't about facts. It was about his dad's identity. His dad was a fiscal conservative. And in Australia, climate change is just as polarized as here in the US. And his tribe, his people, they didn't agree with climate change. 

But then, there was a rebate on solar panels in the rural area where his dad lived. So John helped his dad crunch the numbers and found out that they would save—his dad would save a ton of money. And that is his identity, right? Being shrewd, being thrifty, being fiscally conservative. So his dad got these solar panels. If the government was fool enough to give him the rebate, he would take it. And he started to save so much money that every month, he'd be sending John his power bill saying, “Look how much money I saved this month!” 

And then, about a year or two later, they were having dinner. And in the course of conversation, his dad said, “Oh, global warming. I've always thought that was real.” And John said he almost fell off his chair. He said he felt like he was living in some type of surreal experiment. His dad had not only changed his mind, he had forgotten that he ever denied it in the first place. Why? Because the solar panels had enabled his father to be a good guy. They had enabled his father to be part of the solution. His father felt stuck and trapped, judged, condemned, guilty. Even himself, even if nobody was saying it to him, he felt it deep inside.

In the book I talk about how I was talking to a farmer here about his crops. And out of nowhere, he said, “I have to drive a truck. I'm a farmer.” And I was like, “Who said anything about a truck?” But it was his own guilt speaking. So the panels enabled John's dad to be part of the solution. And that was what changed his mind. I just love that story so much, because it shows that we don't—Often, we go with the facts, and then the impacts, and then the solutions. What if we start with the solutions? Sometimes, everything else just falls into place behind it. 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Yeah. And I love the story, also, because I think it's like a science communication researchers and everything, there are people that I talk to. And I can't change their mind. And I feel this major guilt that, oh boy. Like I should be able to. And then you're like, no. There are some people that you just, you just can't. And you talk about them, “Please do read the book. There is like a lot of information about that.” But Katharine, there is never enough time to ask all the questions, and talk to you, and everything.

I would not be a good Iranian if I don't finish with a poetic reference. Rumi, our famous Iranian poet which the world loves, before becoming a poet, he was actually a scholar, kind of an academic. And he would just like go, give all these talks. It would be like, know all these books by heart. He would have all the facts and data and everything. And everyone, we're like, “Oh, this guy is really smart.” 

And then he gets like a mentor, who tells him, “Dude, like you need fire in your words. Like these words, they go away. Like these are flowers you plant in the soil, and then they die. You should plant flowers inside people's hearts. And then they're just going to live forever.” So with his mentorship, Rumi becomes a poet that we know and love. And one of my favorite lines is, [speaking in Farsi] This sound, this voice that is coming out of my throat, this is not wind. This is fire. And whoever doesn't have that fire, may they perish. And this fire, every time he refers to this, is a fire of love.

And I think what you are saying, what a lot of people, my favorite science communicators are saying, is that these words, these numbers, they don't mean anything if it's not with love. And if it's not with love, we are just destined to perish. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for everything that you have been doing. Thank you so much to the audience who have been here with their wonderful questions. And it's always wonderful to have a community. And with that, I'm just going to – yay. 

Katharine Hayhoe:   Thank you so much. Your questions have been amazing. That is such a good way to end. All of us have that voice. And let that voice not be the wind, let it be the fire, expressing our passion, expressing our motivation. And, most of all, expressing our love. Every single one of us has someone, something, somewhere, that we love. And whatever that is, whoever that is, that is what we are fighting for, for our better world. We all have that. And that's why we're all the perfect person to care. 

So thank you so much. Please check out my book. Sounds like many people already have done that. And if you have more, follow me on social media. I'm on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. And I just joined TikTok with my cat last week, two days ago. [laughter] 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   --Dr. Evil for the win. 

Katharine Hayhoe:  Yes. And so I'm always answering questions for people. So if you have a burning question, you can find me somewhere. And chances are, I will be able to answer it. And if I don't, just ask again. And I would love to see you. And please, use your voice if you can to even spread the word about the book. Because there are so many good stories in there that you can start with. And you'd be like, “Wow. You wouldn't believe what I read. I heard this. Did you know that? So interesting.” 

So hopefully, this will help all of us use our voice. And together, I truly believe that we can save, not the world, but us. 

Reyhaneh Maktoufi:   Thank you.

END