Hope & Climate Change: A Conversation with Katharine Hayhoe

The science on climate change is clear - urgent action is required to deal with the increasing risks of a warming planet. So, what can we do? On April 27, Professor Sarah Burch spoke with climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, who The New York Times called “one of the nation's most effective communicators on climate change.” They answered audience questions related to climate change communications, strategies for individual and collective action, transition inequities, the role of children and youth, and so much more. They’ll also weighed in on what we’re all wondering - is there hope? Watch the full recording!
Conversation highlights:
0:10 - Opening remarks
6:45 - Start of Sarah and Katharine's discussion
12:12 - Hope and climate change
16:26 - Individual and collective climate action
29:17 - Climate change communications
39:20 - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) new report findings
43:36 - Empowering youth on climate action
50:39 - Dealing with burnout
59:27 - What's missing from the climate conversation - the vision we're working towards
1:04:22 - Tackling the differences in climate challenges between the global north and south
1:13:53 - Recommendations for climate activism
1:20:30 - Connections between issues, like climate change, housing and affordability
1:27:25 - Final remarks
Links shared:
• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the report Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. IC3 shares the importance and implications of the report: uwaterloo.ca/climate-centre/n...
• Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit shows us how activism has changed the world before and provides new grounds for political engagement in the present. Her work also talks about the difference between hope and optimism: rebeccasolnit.net/book/hope-in...
• The Don’t Look Up - Count Us In climate platform is a helpful resource for inspiring individual climate action: dontlookup.count-us-in.com/
• Katharine encourages us to think less about our footprint and more about our “climate shadow,” a concept developed by Emma Pattee: www.mic.com/impact/forget-you...
• FLICC is an acronym for the approaches people use to spread false information. It means: Fake experts, Logical fallacies, Impossible expectations, Cherry picking, and Conspiracy theories and is explained by Cranky Uncle: crankyuncle.com/a-history-of-...
• Talking to kids about climate change is important. Here are four resources to help adults have that conversation with the young people in their lives: 1) What we can do by The Star: projects.thestar.com/climate-... 2) Science Moms: sciencemoms.com/ 3) How to Talk to Your Kids about Climate Change by Harriet Shugarman: newsociety.com/books/h/how-to... 4) Global Weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: • I'm only a kid, I can'...
• What we most need is a vision of a better future! The Future We Choose by Christiana Figueres and tom Rivett-Carnac is an excellent read on the subject: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/bo...
• The Influential Mind by Tali Sharot can help us understand how the brain reacts when we face fear and anxiety, and underscores why it’s important to focus on the better future we're working towards to help us sustain climate action: us.macmillan.com/books/978125...
• Iron + Earth is a great resource to learn more about just transition in Canada’s oil and gas community: www.ironandearth.org/
• Saving Us: A climate scientist’s case for hope and healing in a divided world has many hopeful examples of win-win-win solutions in low-income countries: www.simonandschuster.ca/books...
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The event was organized by the University of Waterloo’s Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change, Sustainability Office, and Organizational & Human Development with the intention of driving action and reigniting hope on the climate crisis.

[@Davidseljak1]

This is an amazing webinar on finding hope in the face of climate change. Watch it!

[@dougwedel9484]

Riding a bicycle is so often not discussed when talking about climate change solutions. I pointed this out with the social group Fridays For Future (Greta Thunberg's group) and they said, riding a bicycle is good but we don't talk about specific solutions so we won't officially endorse bicycling. But Greta herself goes on at length about going vegan, which is a lifestyle choice, like riding a bicycle is. And parents overseeing children's lifestyles may encourage them to eat meat and to not ride a bicycle to school but may and riding a bicycle has tremendous benefits, the way going vegan is. Lately Greta Thunberg and FFF has not been as active. It seems Tesla is ramping up production of electric cars. I'm seeing America and many leading countries may switch to electric cars and bypass the chance to making bicycles a big part of how a city manages climate change. But riding a bicycle does so much more. It makes cities feel more friendly. It encourages cities to plant more trees, so the streets are not so hot in summer. It reduces traffic fatalities. And the daily mild exercise actually makes a big difference to how much we spend on health. The Kitchener Waterloo area has a lot more they can do for making bicycling a more viable option for residents. That needs to be part of the discussion on climate change.

[@lukebryan1848]

Can you source that "It reduces traffic fatalities."?? In the US I would bet that the daily exercise and reduced risk of heart disease and other diseases would certainly cancel out risk of a short road ride but I would be interested to see stats.

[@dougwedel9484]

@@lukebryan1848 I googled cycling daily increases health and got a ton of info on that.

[@dougwedel9484]

@@lukebryan1848 I'm betting bike lanes may not decrease the overall number of injuries or deaths because what happens is many more people start bicycling who were not doing it before. So the number of cyclists harmed could go down a lot per cyclist or per kilometres cycled because it's much safer to ride in your own lane than share a lane with drivers. You eliminate rear end collisions, almost every road rage incident between cyclists and drivers, because they are not getting frustrated trying to pass each other. I often hear of parents not giving their kids permission to bike to school because it's too dangerous. The younger a child is, the more likely the child will be refused to bike to school.

[@dougwedel9484]

I also googled Netherlands cyclist fatalities statistics and that was helpful.

[@dougwedel9484]

The best choice is the easiest choice. The best choice is the cheapest choice. Everything points to riding a bicycle.

[@huggybear3098]

0-68 in your climate change!

[@rd264]

KH is one of the most humanistic and optimistic scientists around but i think she is not realistic. Her hope and optimism is not rational but rather spiritual - she is obviously lifted up by her faith - yet she denies this here and says she derives her hope from rationality, but Im not at all convinced. I think she is acting on her spiritual conviction, not facts. Her theory of how people cooperate is also a little simple. Niebuhr: observed that small groups eg familys and Towns, can be democratic and moral, but larger groups tend not to be, less concerned with how their actions impact others and history bears this out.

[@marksmith1709]

GOT THROUGH 20% OF THIS NON PLAN OF ACTION BEFORE EXITING

[@marksmith1709]

Let's stop being influencers. LET'S BECOME IMPLEMENTORS. GIGGLING ABOUT INFLUENCING. WHO THE HECK IS STEALING SOCIETAL MONEY TO SUPPORT THE EMPTY TALKING.