You can’t shame anyone into taking climate action. It doesn’t work. That’s the advice of the amazing Dr Katharine Hayhoe – climate scientist and evangelical Christian. Her advice is simple – find common ground to talk about climate change, so that we talk to the things that matter most to our hearts.
Let’s look more closely at Dr Hayhoe’s strategy. First her position: The planet is warming, humans are responsible and that to fix this thing, we have to wean ourselves off fossil fuels as soon as possible.
But a lot of us don’t want to disrupt our comfortable lives or be told what to do by Government. Saying, “Yes, it’s a real problem, but I don’t want to fix it,” makes us the bad guy, and nobody wants to be the bad guy. So instead, we use arguments like, “It’s just a natural cycle.” “It’s the sun.” Or Hayhoe’s favorite, “Those climate scientists are just in it for the money.”
The most recent survey of Americans on whether Climate Change is caused by humans, returned a 79% Yes response. Why doesn’t this level of awareness turn into action?
Hayhoe says that when asked “Do you ever talk about climate change?” two-thirds of people in the entire United States say, “Never.” And even worse, when asked, “Do you hear the media talk about this?” Over three-quarters of people say no.
For Hayhoe, the science is proven. But social science has taught us that if people have built their identity on rejecting a certain set of facts, then arguing over those facts is a personal attack. It causes them to dig in deeper, and it digs a trench, rather than building a bridge.
This rings very true to me, and was the motivation to write Court of the Grandchildren.
So instead of starting up with all the data and facts in our head, start discussions from the heart. Start by talking about why it matters to us; begin with genuinely shared values. Are we both parents? Do we have shared hopes for our kids? Do we live in the same community? A shared faith? Do we enjoy the same outdoor activities: walking, biking, fishing? Do we care about the economy or national security?
After thousands of conversations, nearly every single person Hayhoe has spoken to already has the values they need to care about a changing climate. They just haven’t connected the dots. That’s what we can do through our conversation with them.
We absolutely do need to recognize what’s at stake – of what could eventuate if we don’t act. But we need a vision of a better future as well — a future with abundant energy, with a stable economy, with resources available to all, where our lives are not worse but better than they are today. There are solutions. And that’s why the second important thing that we have to talk about is solutions. Like what? Hayhoe says there’s no silver bullet, “but there’s plenty of silver buckshot.”
Things like being energy smart at home, diet choices, video conference rather than travel, renewables – wind and especially for developing economies, solar. China is still burning coal, but they are decarbonizing transport, closing coal plants near Beijing. India might be the first country to industrialize without fossil fuels.
Hayhoe concludes “The bottom line is this: climate change is affecting you and me right here, right now, in the places where we live. But by working together, we can fix it. Sure, it’s a daunting problem. Nobody knows that more than us climate scientists. But we can’t give in to despair. We have to go out and actively look for the hope that we need, that will inspire us to act. And that hope begins with a conversation today.”
I for one, am taking up her challenge. How about you?
Watch Katharine Hayhoe’s Global Weirding video series. Here’s the one I recommend starting with.
Main Photo Credit: Randal Ford
