102. Climate Change, Saving Us, and Relentless Hope w/ Dr. Katharine Hayhoe

What's up, Plant People? Have you ever felt the weight of the world's climate crisis on your shoulders, yet struggled with the notion that one person's actions might be too insignificant to make a difference? Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist, joins us to shatter that misconception with her infectious optimism and practical strategies for individual impact. Through tales from her life's journey and her book "Saving Us," Katharine tells a story about life and hope that empowers each of us to take up our own torch in this fight against climate change.

This is an episode that was a long time in the making and one that I'm so incredibly proud of. I first approached Katharine about being on the show a couple of years ago, and everything finally lined up for it to happen. I'm a huge fan of her work, and I was so honored to not only get to interview her, but to be a guest editor for her newsletter, Talking Climate! Join us for an uplifting conversation that I hope will leave you informed, inspired, and ready to make a tangible difference in the world.

You can find Katharine all over the internet, but the best place to start for all of her amazing work is on her website, www.katharinehayhoe.com!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

What is up? Plant people. It's time once more for the Planthypology podcast. The Sure. We Dive Into the Lives and Careers is some very cool plant people to figure out why they do what they do and what keeps them coming back for more. I'm Vikram Maliga, your host and your humble guide in this journey through the natural sciences and my friends. I am so excited to be with you today. Y'all. This is an interview I have waited for for a couple of years. I first approached my guest just briefly about this interview. I literally think back in 2022 and now, in February of 2024, we're finally getting it out there.

Speaker 1: 0:45

I had the absolute privilege of speaking with climate scientist, atmospheric scientist, professor, parent science communicator and all around wonderful person, dr Catherine Hayhoe. Catherine's a professor at my university here at Texas Tech. She has traveled the world. She's written books. She speaks almost daily about climate change, but not just about climate change, but about the solutions we can put forward to address it, about the hope we should have in the midst of it and how you and me, as everyday people, can address it. She's the author of a number of books, including Saving Us, which came out fairly recently and we discussed in this episode, and I just have to say I'm a fan of Dr Hayhoe's, I'm a fan of Catherine's and we've crossed paths just really briefly in the past. She recorded some video and stuff in the greenhouse. I used to run and I just I have been a fan for quite a while.

Speaker 1: 1:42

So I'll be honest, I was a little bit starstruck getting to talk with her and she is just one of the nicest, most positive, most intelligent people I've gotten to interview and that I've gotten to speak with. And if you can tell that I'm excited, it's because I'm excited and I'm so proud of this conversation we have. So we got to talk about life in West Texas and life in academia and what climate change means for us and what it means for the planet, but more than that, how we can work together as a people and as a species and as a society to face this big challenge. I was left with so much hope after this episode and just felt so good recording it and felt so good after listening to it while I was editing it. I think you will too.

Speaker 1: 2:26

It was such a good conversation that I totally forgot to put in a spot for a midroll. So you don't get one today. So I'm going to upfront say thanks to you, the listener, for being a part of this, and thanks to the Texas Tech Department of Plant and Soul Science and the Davis College for supporting this show, and thanks, dr Heyho, for being a part of it. But without any further ado, let's get into episode 102 of the Plant Anthropology podcast Climate Change Saving Us and Relentless Hope with Dr Katherine Heyho. Well, katherine, I can't tell you how excited I am to have you with me today. I have been a big fan of your work. I followed along with your communication and your climate science and everything that you do for quite a while, and it's just, it's an honor for me to get to talk to you face to face and have you on the show.

Speaker 2: 3:23

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: 3:25

And so I introduced you a little bit in the intro. But for those who don't know you, tell us a little bit about yourself. Where'd you grow up? What's your background? How did you get into what you do now?

Speaker 2: 3:36

Sure. So I am Canadian, I'm from Toronto and I mostly grew up there, though when I was nine years old, we moved down to Columbia in South America. So I spent a number of years living there as a child and a teenager. I did my undergraduate degree in astronomy and physics at University of Toronto, and that was where my interest in climate change started, because I had almost finished my undergraduate degree In fact, I was already looking at graduate schools when I needed an extra class to finish my breadth requirements and I looked around and there was this brand new class that was being offered for the first time that year on climate change.

Speaker 2: 4:12

I thought, well, that looks interesting, why not take it? So I did, and that was where I learned not only that climate change is real I already knew that growing up in Canada. We learned about it in grade 10 geography class but I learned that it's a now issue, not a future issue. I learned that it's an everything issue, not just an environmental issue. And, most importantly, I learned that it isn't a fair or a just or an equitable issue. It disproportionately affects the people who've done the least to contribute to the problem, and those are younger people today, or even people who aren't born yet, and most of all, they're people who are already living in poverty or who are already vulnerable, and that's true right here in the US as well as on the other side of the world. Yet they're most impacted by the way that climate change is making our heat waves and our wildfires and our storms stronger.

Speaker 2: 5:06

So that's what made me become a climate scientist, and from there I went on to graduate school at the University of Illinois, and that's where I met my husband. And you know how it is in academia when you're both in academia, it's really hard to find a job in the same place. So he was working at one university. I was working at another university, and this university, called Texas Tech, really wanted to recruit him. So he said Well, I will consider it, but I need to have a position for my spouse as well. And so the university said oh, we have an atmospheric science department. I'm sure she'd fit right in there, and so the reason that we ended up at Texas Tech, which is where you are as well is because they wanted my husband and I was the plus one they had to put up with to get him.

Speaker 1: 5:52

Well, I'd say that tech came out pretty well on that deal. I think that's worked out well.

Speaker 2: 5:56

Well, the irony is is that after a number of years he quit and he went on to found a nonprofit and he does all kinds of other things. Right now he has a nationwide call in radio show on Sirius XM. Every night he writes you know, I think he's writing his 14th or 15th book now. So he actually left tech and I am still there.

Speaker 1: 6:16

That's, that's that. That is kind of funny that like, after all of that moving here, doing all that, and you know, at some point he's just like All right, I'm done. Oh, okay, cool, I guess was this is sort of an aside, but like is was moving to Texas from you know count Canada through by way of Illinois. Was that a culture shock for you? Was that a weird like transition to coming here?

Speaker 2: 6:42

Oh, it was a huge culture shock. So I feel like I moved to a different country that being Canada, to the US, and then I moved to another different country, that being the US, to Texas. When I arrived, and actually still, I think I'm the only climate scientist at the university and really in a more than 200 mile radius around Lubbock and so, being the only climate scientist, it can go either way. But within a couple of months of arriving in Lubbock back then, I got my first invitation to speak to a woman's group about climate change, because they were curious. It was almost like a polar bear had moved into town. It's like, oh, let's see what polar bear has to say.

Speaker 2: 7:22

So so they weren't necessarily on board with being concerned about climate change, but they weren't necessarily completely dismissive of either. They were just super curious because so many people have so many dissenting opinions and views about it. They're like, oh well, let's actually hear it directly from the polar bear's mouth, so to speak. And so that is what started my communication career, because after I spoke to that woman's group, then one person there was part of a book club and she's like, oh well, why don't you come to speak to the book club? And then somebody there worked at the senior citizens home and they're like, oh, why don't you come talk to Carillion about it? And then somebody there worked at Second Baptist Church and they're like, oh, why don't you come talk to Second Baptist Church? And so, before I knew it, there I was actually talking to people about why climate change matters and what we can do, which is a lot of what I still do today. And it all began because we moved to Lubbock, texas.

Speaker 1: 8:12

That's pretty amazing and the roots of a science communication career passion. I think it has to be some of both right, and that's something that I do a lot of too, and it's part of my career. I worked with the Extension Service for quite a while, and so public science education, science communication was part of my job, but then I feel like that's one of those things that gets in your blood and as much as on paper. Sometimes it's like, well, these are maybe not the things that you should be focusing on as an academic. It's, for me, what I find very rewarding. I think doing the public communication and closing that feedback loop means a lot to me personally and professionally.

Speaker 2: 8:54

Oh, I completely agree with you. I don't think that you can be any good at it if you don't want to be, because it's hard work, isn't it? So I mean, I follow scientific research on messaging and framing. I constantly evaluate everything I do to see what was effective, what didn't? Do people understand what I was saying? Did it reach people or not? How could I do it better? You have to get a little bit obsessive with it, and you're right, it doesn't necessarily reflect the priorities in our academic career. In fact, for me to get tenure at Tech, I really felt like I had to produce double what my colleagues did to offset the impact of my communication, so to speak, rather than have that included as part of what I was being evaluated on. And that's not the way it should be, because, especially if we're at a public university, which our university is funded by taxpayer money, then isn't part of what we're called to do as academics to share what we know and what we study with people, especially if it has direct impact on their lives? That's public scholarship.

Speaker 1: 9:52

Absolutely, and you know when I see the ship turning, so to speak. I know, at least in our college we just hired a new Dean of Associate Dean of Outreach and Engagement, who I'm actually talking to later this week on the podcast. But you know, it's a big organization and that rudder steers us very slow, I think, in any direction we go. But you know, I so much agree with you, it's an interesting sort of field where people pay for the product, right, the taxpayers pay for the product, and then a lot of times it gets paywalled and hidden and jargon and all of this stuff. And so I think what you do is so important because, especially in the field that you're in, because this information being digestible and approachable and all of that is so important.

Speaker 2: 10:39

It is. And the way I think about what I do right now, at this point in time, is it's as if, as a climate scientist, as if we're the physicians of the planet. So the planet's running a fever, and it's running a fever. It's very analogous to that of our human body. So, you know, over the course of a day, our human body temperature goes up and down by a few tenths of a degree, and that's totally normal. And over the course of human civilization, our planet's temperature has gone up and down by a few tenths of a degree Totally normal. But now we're running an almost two degree Fahrenheit fever.

Speaker 2: 11:13

And so imagine if our body or our children's body was running a two degree fever.

Speaker 2: 11:18

We'd be giving them Tylenol and calling the doctor and they'd be feeling achy and headache and not so good. That's what's happening to our planet and it's affecting us. And so I really think that at this point in time you know, at different points in time, different fields of research have different important things to communicate to people, but at this point in time, the fact that the planet that all of us depend on for literally the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, everything we have our lives depend on come from this planet, and this planet's running a fever. We need to know about that, especially if we are the ones responsible which we've really checked, and unfortunately we are. But that means that we can do something about it, and so there's that extra responsibility I feel now, not just, like you said, to do our research and publish it in journals that are often behind paywalls, but to tell people in plain English why this matters, how it's affecting us and what each one of us can do about it.

Speaker 1: 12:11

Absolutely, and education is the I don't want to say the root of a lot of problems or gaps in education. But people struggle to I'm trying to figure out the right way to say this. I think people struggle to really care about and contextualize things they don't understand and it gives us some resistance as humans. Right, if there's something we don't understand, it's scary, it's all that. And we see that I do a lot of work throughout my career.

Speaker 1: 12:38

I have done a lot of work in water conservation and urban resource conservation, and we see the same thing that people are like oh it's, you know, it's just water, I'll use the water, I turn on the faucet and it comes out. But then when you really educate folks and contextualize that problem of you know this is a limited resource, this is something that when it's gone at least gone from here, it's gone and it makes our lives so much more difficult. And so I've seen just throughout my career that people when they start to understand that like they really change their practice, they really take that to heart, even if it's something that, because of upbringing or society or politics or whatever, they don't necessarily feel very comfortable with.

Speaker 2: 13:21

I think what you're doing there is you're addressing one of the key barriers that I see to action, which is psychological distance.

Speaker 2: 13:28

So when we as humans know of or hear about a risk but we don't know what to do about it and we don't understand why it matters to us, we push it away.

Speaker 2: 13:38

We say, oh, you know, that only matters in the future, or that just matters to people who live over there, just matters to that type of person. And with water it's really easy for us to do that because in West Texas most of our water comes from underground, so it is out of sight and out of mind and it's almost like this mythical sort of source of water, like you don't really know where it comes from and you don't see it going down, you don't see it getting depleted. And so really helping people connect the dots to why it matters to them and what they can do to make a difference, I think, is overcoming that psychological distance. And another one of our former colleagues at Texas Tech, chris Chu, in communications he studied how, literally, when you talk about climate impacts on the other side of the world versus when you talk about them where you live, night and day difference in terms of how people react to it, and that just makes sense, doesn't it?

Speaker 1: 14:28

Absolutely, absolutely, especially in, you know, an agricultural community. And that's an interesting, that's always been an interesting contrast for me is that water, specifically what I do is so much a the lifeblood of any kind of agricultural community. And I think when you really get to talk to people about it, like oh no, yeah, the water is important, like we have to have the water, we have to be able to, and they'll say things like well, production is down over the past 20 years since I started and all those things. And then it's like you say kind of bridging that gap right, like that psychological disconnect, and just kind of plugging those wires back together. And at some point I think people go oh, oh goodness, like I've, I see now, like what, where that is, like I see where that issue is.

Speaker 2: 15:15

Exactly, I like that analogy. You're plugging the wires back together.

Speaker 1: 15:18

Yes, so so just just to take a quick step back. We're kind of talking about it already, but you you do a lot Like. You are, I think, probably one of the busier people I have interacted with and that I know just from your communication to your professional life, to your new role as chief scientist with the Nature Conservancy and your faculty, because everything you do on a on a personal side, sort of just as someone who's fairly new in his career and is trying to keep all my ducks in a row, like how do you keep the plate spinning? You have so many things that you do. Like how do you manage that?

Speaker 2: 16:01

Well, that is the question I ask myself all the time so.

Speaker 2: 16:06

I don't have a complete answer, but I do have a partial answer, and it's getting better, hopefully, every year. Organization is key, so I organize my schedule so far in advance and I make sure that every moment is used efficiently. Also, prioritization is important too, because you know, we're only human, there's only so many hours in the day and it's really, really important to have time to spend with your family, doing the things you love and the places you love, with the people you love. And for me, I even think of that as part of climate action, because why have? Why we're fighting for a better future, which is, make no mistake, what we're doing when it comes to to climate action is because of the people and places and things we love.

Speaker 2: 16:49

So prioritization and organization is really important, and what I do is I try to sort of stop and take stock every year of what really worked, what isn't working so much, what's something that somebody else could do just as well as I could, if not better. Let them do it. What's something that I'm really passionate about, that I love, that energizes me rather than draining me. Maybe that's something I wanted to lean into a little bit more this year, so that sort of constant stopping, evaluating and then reworking. I think is really really important for all of us, because time is the most valuable and least renewable resource we have. So making the most of our time for everything and not just work, but again the things, the people, the places we love, making sure that we're using our time to do what we really want to do with it, I think is so important.

Speaker 1: 17:47

Yeah, and that's a great thought. I like how you say that too. Like time is our least renewable resource. There's, there's we. Really there's no substitute for that, right Like we don't. We don't ever get that back. And I do think a lot about how, as I commit to things, as I do things, I'm literally selling them my time. You know, I'm trading my time for whatever action I'm taking in. That, especially as my son gets older, has been a thing that's in my head a lot and I'm trying to get better at it. It's hard. I'm very much a oh yeah, I can do that, I can take on another thing, I need another thing on my plate, and then after a while I'm like, oh okay, I need to, I need to take a minute, like you say, and just kind of reevaluate.

Speaker 2: 18:29

Yeah, I feel the same way too, and and sometimes reevaluate so that you just have time to go to the park and play with your son. It's not about you know. Productivity that was not is necessarily measured by somebody else's ruler. You have to create your own ruler as to what matters to you, and one of the things I remind myself of is you know, when you die, they don't put your academic CV on your tombstone. What goes on your tombstone is the relationships you had with people you love and, when it all comes down to it, that's what matters in life and that's that's why we do. What we do is because we want the world to be a better place for the people we love.

Speaker 1: 19:07

That's awesome. Yeah, that's. That's really a good way to think about that, that too. So, as we talk about what we do, what we do, you have sort of again a lot of roles and that's, you know, public education, and are you in the classroom anymore? Do you teach courses anymore?

Speaker 1: 19:24

You do so You're in the classroom, you're out of the classroom, you're. You have lots of different audiences that you talk to and something I've noticed is that those are very, in some ways very different audiences for a lot of different reasons. What is your approach and just philosophy to teaching just both inside and outside the classroom? How do you approach those different challenges?

Speaker 2: 19:45

Well, I think that that's, and you do this too. I think that education is really a good word to encapsulate almost everything we do. It's just different types of education. You know, whether you're on TikTok or in the classroom, it might look very different, but you're sharing information with people in ways that, hopefully, is relatable and actionable. So, as with everything, I'm constantly evaluating my courses too, and so, for example, during the first year of the pandemic, I created a brand new class, which I call global weirding.

Speaker 2: 20:19

That's focused on critical thinking, and in every module of the class, which is for senior undergraduates, I introduce a psychological mechanism that we often use as a shortcut to inform our opinions about things. So, for example, psychological distance that we talked about is one of them. Another one is motivated reasoning, where we make up our mind on an issue based on what people we trust say, but then we use our brain to go out and look for reasons why we're right not to determine whether we are. We've already determined. If we are, we just, you know, go out and say oh well, the internet says so. Therefore I must be right. So I designed this whole class on critical thinking and then use climate change as an example. But really you can almost go through the class and search and replace with any hot button topic, because I teach our students how to evaluate websites, how to evaluate experts, whether they're truly an expert in what they say that they are. How do you determine whether somebody's using motivated reasoning or really looking at all the facts? And so, in every aspect of what I do, I want to help people move to the next level, and so, with climate change, often what I'm doing is it's not so much filling their head with information and facts, it's helping them make the connection between their head and their heart. Helping them see what matters to them, which could be different than what matters to me, and that's totally fine, but helping them make that head to heart connection and then helping them connect their heart to their hands, what they can do about it to make a difference.

Speaker 2: 21:46

Because there's this intimate connection for us as humans between action and hope. And today so many people feel anxious, stressed, worried, depressed, frustrated, and it's because they feel helpless, like there's nothing they can do to make the world a better place. But the reality is, is our world has changed before? If you look at how women got the vote, how civil rights were enacted. How apartheid ended, it was never because the people in charge wanted it to change. They wanted to keep it the way it was. It was because individual people of no particular power or wealth or fame, just ordinary people. They used their voices to call for a different future. And so we live in a world that changed because of individuals in the past. And so just helping people see that they have the power of their voice, they have that same power that the Martin Luther Kings of the world had, that's just it's so helps us to realize that we can truly make a difference where we live, where we work, where we study, and that really is the basis of our hope.

Speaker 1: 22:51

That's such a good way to think about it too, because what I have found and this is something that I actively sort of try to check myself on is that whether I'm in the classroom or whether I'm on social media which, again, I probably spend an unhealthy amount of time on social media there's just so much.

Speaker 1: 23:12

There's so much going on, so many hard things in our world right now, from wars and conflicts and all these things to climate change and everything between that. Like you say, there's so much of a lack of sort of outward hope, and I like how you talk about that being the sort of impetus for change over and over and over again that if people don't hope, they have no reason to get up and do the thing that they need to do. So that's a good way to think about it, and I think that's good in the classroom too, that we have to give our students the hope that they can succeed, the hope that they can learn the material, the hope and the understanding. I think that they deserve to be in the space that they're in, that they've earned their spot and all of that.

Speaker 2: 23:59

And I have a lot of students who do come into my class feeling sort of powerless and depressed and discouraged and the fact that they leave my class feeling empowered on a huge global issue like climate change, well, if they can do something on that, they can do something on anything. And that's just so encouraging, I feel like, is to see students really sort of catch fire. And I would say my favorite comment comes when I teach a lot of online classes these days. I started doing it during the pandemic and I kept on going because it enables more students to take the class when it's online who might not be able to access it if it's at a specific time on a specific day. And my favorite comment from students is well, I only signed up for this class because it was the only one that fit my schedule.

Speaker 2: 24:40

But this was the best class. I didn't even realize how much I needed to understand critical thinking and to understand how I can make decisions and how I can truly affect change and how, on critical, on huge global issues like climate change I can make a difference and that just makes me so happy. I don't know why. I would you know if I would ever want to give up on teaching just because, if you feel like you, you even just change one person's mind. Isn't that worth it?

Speaker 1: 25:04

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I feel that so much. I teach introductory horticulture, which is a non-majors core science, and it's 95% non-majors. And those comments are on my. I got one and it made me laugh, but it also made me feel good and the comment read something this past semester. Like the subject matter is objectively boring, I was like, oh okay, but he made the class fun and by the end of the semester I cared about plants and I was like I've done my job, that's my job, I have done my job.

Speaker 2: 25:34

You totally have. That is so crazy.

Speaker 1: 25:39

That first sentence, I was like, oh, this is not going to be good, but okay.

Speaker 2: 25:45

I don't know if there's really anything that's boring and I say this as somebody who dropped out of economics first year as well but, truly, if knowledge is about understanding the world around us and we live in this world and so doesn't understanding the world around us isn't that interesting. I think it has the potential to be interesting, but it needs to be brought to life by somebody who already understands how fascinating it is.

Speaker 1: 26:11

Yeah, the passion from the, the passionate delivery, I think, goes a long way in making people care about stuff, and that's actually a great segue, I think, into some of our next conversation.

Speaker 1: 26:24

We've talked a little bit about doing science communication in Texas, which is at sometimes I don't want to say adversarial, but it can be right, especially in some of the fields that we work in. But then you take that a step farther and you put all this on the internet and open yourself up to everyone on social media right, and you're very active on social media, from whatever Twitter is today to TikTok and Instagram and everything else, and you present yourself, I think, very well as a compassionate communicator and educator, and I think that means a lot, especially from someone who sees the data that you do and knows the implications of the data that you do and deals with so many trolls online all the time. How do you do that? How do you approach that and you've talked about it a little bit in the classroom, but how do you? I don't know how to ask the question, right, but essentially, how do you still be nice and positive at the end of the day when you deal with so much negativity?

Speaker 2: 27:26

Well, unfortunately, that is the negative side of the coin when it comes to social media. On the positive side, we can have conversations with and engage with people all around the world today in ways that we could not do 10 or 15 years ago. So the world has really changed and it has opened up so much, and I love, for example, the fact that my son can get on YouTube and watch videos by the top experts in the fields that he's interested in of science directly, like not going through anyone. You can just find the information directly. We live in an unprecedented world of direct connections and I've been able, through social media, to connect with many colleagues and collaborators around the world who I never would have met otherwise. In fact, I'm actually working with a number right now that I wouldn't have met if it wasn't for the internet and social media. But on the negative side I don't know if you remember a long time ago, when Twitter first started, there was this account called. My dad says oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:24

And do you remember that account? I do, I do. And so it was this guy, this 30-something guy, and his dad was this retired nuclear engineer living in Southern California who just came out with these crazy one-liners, and so this guy would just put him on Twitter and they were hilarious. So early on I saw a longer interview with, or longer chat here with, his dad, and this is what his dad said Social media is responsible for the decay of civil society as we know it.

Speaker 2: 28:53

Essentially, he said, because before social media, if somebody wanted to tell me I'm an idiot, they had to come up to my face and say it and I could punch them.

Speaker 2: 29:01

But now they're sitting in their basement typing saying you're an idiot and there's no consequences.

Speaker 2: 29:09

That's very insightful, and so what social media does, unfortunately, is it removes the consequences from very negative social behavior. And I've experienced this myself personally, where I've actually met somebody in person and it was clear that they didn't agree with what I said, but the discussion was plight in person, and then they would go home and write me the most evil email you've ever seen, calling me horrible names and saying terrible things that they never would have said, looking me direct in the eyes, because screens remove the filter of our humanity from each other. They remove that recognition that we're talking to a fellow human being and it just helps us to view people as other and non-human and enemies. And so that's the negative thing with social media and, as you know, I get that every day. I get trolls every single day on social media, and so I think, first of all, number one, blocking is really important, recognizing that on social media, they're not there to have their mind changed. They are simply there to reinforce how they already feel, and if I argue with them, it actually reinforces their identity.

Speaker 2: 30:23

So, blocking is the most frustrating thing that you can do to a troll on social media.

Speaker 2: 30:27

It drives them absolutely up the wall because, above all, they need to be engaged with. But the second important thing and this is something that I'm not great at, but I remind myself every day and I'm hopefully getting better and better is that who they say you are, or whatever it is they say about you, is not who you are. So my identity and your identity doesn't rest on what people say about us online or what they accuse us of or what they call us up, call us and so just being able to detach like that. Like you know, I took Twitter off my phone some number of years ago, which was super helpful because otherwise, you know, I'd be cooking dinner, I'd see a really evil response and I'd get really snippy with my family because in the back of my mind, I was thinking I would say blah, blah, blah. And so sometimes I even, you know, write responses and delete them, and it's actually very cathartic to write full responses of exactly what you would say, and then just delete it, delete it.

Speaker 2: 31:24

You know that frozen song, let it go, let it go. I think that's a really, really sort of helpful mantra that you have to have if you're going to be effective on social media. Because it's like you know, it's like you're running a race and there's these people throwing these ropes to try to catch and tangle in your legs, and if you let those ropes stick, then you are going to go down, you're not going to achieve your actual goal, and so it's really important to just be able to keep on running, to shrug off all those attempts to get you to stop, because in the end, it really is worth it, and the number of people we can reach with factual, accurate information and help them actually make that head to heart to hands connection is exponentially larger if we engage the internet than if we don't.

Speaker 1: 32:08

That's, yeah, really, really good thoughts, and I have often thought that if I actually said to people what I want to, sometimes when I see troll comments, I would definitely lose my job. So it's good I think that you know typing things, deleting them. I think I'm going to have to try it, start trying that trait. And you know I post silly plant content. I don't get a ton, but every now and then, if I ever say, the most controversial things I've posted were about watermelons and the weather and had just how it hadn't rained in a while, because I'm like it's Texas, it's dry and it's the summer it was. I don't know I can never remember which pattern was which, but the past couple years have been very dry summers.

Speaker 2: 32:42

Is that Elminio, Elminio okay.

Speaker 1: 32:46

And I said something about it. I had to filter out the phrase government weather machine. That was fun. And then I mentioned there was this whole thing this past summer or late summer, early fall, where watermelons were exploding on people's counters, right, I don't know if you saw this going around, but they were fermenting in the fields. It was too hot, and it was too hot in transport and it was too hot in post processing and storage and all the things that go into, like getting produce from the field to your house. So they'd sit on the counter for three days and then it would cool down and they'd ferment and then they'd blow up, which is a little funny but it's not good. And so I made a post saying you know, these are the kinds of things we'll see more with climate change, and that's kind of all I said. And out of the woodwork, you know, like the fact that watermelons are that controversial, I was like, okay, folks, like we need to take a deep breath. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:39

Well, it's because you said the words, magic words, climate change and.

Speaker 2: 33:41

I hate to say this, but there are people whose entire Rasundantra, their entire reason to exist is to sit on social media to wait for keywords like climate change to pop up and then should just absolutely dump on whoever said it. That's just how they justify their existence and it's really sad, but it again reinforces the need to block. What you said reminds me of something funny. So, you know, almost every time I've had massive amounts of trolling it's related to climate change, but there was one time it had nothing to do with climate change Something. Living in Lubbock, and hopefully you can bear me out.

Speaker 2: 34:19

One of the peculiarities in my mind, especially as a Canadian living in Lubbock, is the fact that we have all of these drive in tea places and I'm talking like iced tea for those, you know, people not from West Texas. It's iced tea. There's a lot of different flavors and all different types of sweeteners, and some of them you can walk into. But it's not really like a cafe. It's just you walk in, you order, you walk out and they're just all over town, and a couple of years ago they were just springing up on every other corner. It was like Tim Horton's donut shop in Canada, except tea places.

Speaker 2: 34:55

So I posted something online. Just you know, totally off the cuff, like you know, what is it with all of these drive in tea places? It's crazy. And Twitter went crazy. People were like what are you talking about? You have no idea what you're talking about. Those don't exist. I'm like, okay, here is a Google map screenshot of all the drive in tea places in Lubbock, texas. And they're like that doesn't exist. How dare you? And I was like, first of all, a why do you care?

Speaker 2: 35:22

And second of all, I wasn't even saying anything negative, I was just like, why, Like, why? And third of all, you're arguing with Google Maps, like really.

Speaker 1: 35:31

Oh my gosh, people pick the weirdest stuff to be mad about. Like that is such a weird thing to be mad about, like it affects them in no way. Right, whether or not there are drive in tea places in Lubbock, america and no, but you're right, like we go there a lot actually there's one on the way home and my son likes them, so we go there a lot but there's probably like five or six different distinct like chains or companies that do this and they each have like four or five stores. No, there's a lot of them for sure. That's just so cool to show.

Speaker 2: 36:04

And so what did I take away from that? I think I take away that there's a lot of sort of displaced anger out there, and a lot of that anger often comes again getting back to our talk about it, from a sense of sort of helplessness, like you're really angry or frustrated about something, but you don't feel like there's anything you can do. So before you know it, you find yourself attacking Google Maps over tea places instead of actually addressing the real issue in front of you, because, unfortunately, the world is just moving in a direction where there's more and more of these issues that make people feel hopeless and helpless, and so that's why I feel like what I do is so important, because it's helping people, actually empowering them to be able to do something about something that they're actually really honestly worried about. I mean, with climate anxiety, levels of worry and concern are growing.

Speaker 2: 36:54

Even here in Texas. The latest survey from this past fall was that nearly 50% of people of registered Republican voters in Texas are either very worried or somewhat worried about climate change. So we get worried about these issues. We don't know what to do and often our rage sort of and our concern just gets displaced onto something else, whereas when we can address the root issue and actually feel like we ourselves can make a difference, I feel like that helps all of us.

Speaker 1: 37:22

For sure, for sure and interesting to statistic that also that that larger percentage of voters in Texas are concerned about climate change, because I think 10 years ago that would not have been the case.

Speaker 1: 37:36

I think, over time and again, and we could have and we will, I think, have a quick conversation about some of the ins and outs of that here in just a minute.

Speaker 1: 37:46

But, like the fact that it is, in one way or the other, getting in people's minds and it's on people's minds, the anxiety side is bad, but I think the awareness side could lead to a lot of good, as long as, again, people like you are out there to give context to that issue, to give the maybe the correct context and good information about that issue, because, goodness knows, there is a lot out there that is not good information. Which kind of leads me to another question. I've heard it said by other science communicators, by other scientists online that you should just ignore misinformation, like just move on and not address it, and I don't think I agree with that. I think that, as folks that have the knowledge to back up our claims, we should be pushing back against both miss and a disinformation. What are your thoughts on that? How do you approach dealing with folks that are spreading things that are not factual?

Speaker 2: 38:46

I'm with you. Much of what I do is directly combating misinformation. So, for example, I did a YouTube series called Global Weirding with our local PBS station, ktgz, and it was all about answering frequently asked questions I get. But here's the nuance why are you doing it and who's the audience? So my audience, or who I'm directly responding to when I hear misinformation disinformation is 99 times out of 100. It's not the person who's actually sharing it or creating it, because if it's disinformation, they already know it's wrong. And often, if they're spreading misinformation, it's because they're engaging in motivated reasoning. They've already made up their mind about what they think about the issue, based on their social group or network or their political or ideological identity, and they're just sharing this misinformation to bolster their personal identity. And so when someone let's just take an example Someone says, oh, climate's changing, but it's just the sun, and I say no, actually the sun's energy has been going down the last 50 years, not up.

Speaker 2: 39:57

That's how we know it's not the sun. In fact, we should be getting gradually cooler if we're being controlled by the sun only right now. They don't hear me saying things about watts per meter squared in the sun's energy. What they hear me saying is you're wrong, you're bad, you're stupid. That's what they hear me saying in their internal monologue, and so they're not going to listen to what I have to say, because to them, the point isn't whether it is or isn't the sun. To them, the point is they're part of this demographic that says climate change isn't real.

Speaker 2: 40:28

So I do not respond for that person, but what I do is I respond for all the other people who hear that person. So all the people who are like hmm, how do we know? It's not the sun, and that's a much larger group of people. And so to them I explain and like oh okay, that makes sense, because it's not part of their identity. So that's the key difference is who are we addressing the misinformation, disinformation, for? Because if we're going directly to the source, it's never going to change anything. We're going to wear ourselves out. It's like bashing your forehead against a brick wall. In fact, in many cases it's actually reinforcing their identity rather than breaking it down. But if you're doing it for everybody else, in the sense that you might have heard, but here's the truth, then everybody else is like oh, I always were to wonder. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 41:17

That's really a good thought and that's good context for me too, because I tend to mostly just disengage online. I just maybe I don't have the bandwidth, I don't know, but I like that and I think that's a good reason to do it. I think that the fact that, again because of social media, we're educating large groups of people, not just one person at a time, the secondary effects of that are important. I like that a lot, okay.

Speaker 2: 41:44

So let me give you a practical example of how you could do it. So say that you get this crazy weather modification. Comment on one of your.

Speaker 1: 41:53

TikTok videos.

Speaker 2: 41:54

So here's what I would do I would delete the comment, but then I would make a new video saying you know, some people say blah, blah, blah, but here's the truth. That's the way I would handle it.

Speaker 1: 42:07

That's a good thought, and so you're still addressing the issue but not responding directly to someone's comment, because then you look combative and then you look adversarial and all that's really good. I like that a lot. So as part of this, in addition to social media, you know there's other ways to communicate. I think we forget that sometimes today that there's other ways to interface with the world around this and to get information out there. And to that effect, you've published a lot, you've written books. I just I would love to hear you talk about some of your books. I'm a new author this past year and I my experience is very like, still very shiny to me. You know like it's exciting and I've it's been fun. So what is your experience of you know, publishing publishing academically, but more publishing on the public side and writing books and stuff. What's that been like for you?

Speaker 2: 43:04

Well, I do all of the above. So two years ago, for example, I wrote two books in the same year. One was Saving Us, which is a book that's written very much for a general audience, for people mostly who are worried about climate change but don't know what to do. And then the second book I wrote was for Cambridge University Press, and it was about how to create high resolution climate projections to assess climate change impacts on everything from infrastructure to water resources Wow, and so those experiences were quite different, but they were motivated by the same thing, which is the only reason that I write and I do a fair amount of writing everything from journal articles to blog essays is because there's something that I feel like I know that I want other people to know.

Speaker 2: 43:48

So there's a thought. If it's a, you know, if it's a blog or an essay, there's a thought, sort of burning a hole in my brain, that I've actually seen or heard enough people whether in person conversations or online or both enough people have that misconception or, you know, are struggling with that issue that I feel like actually putting my thoughts into writing would reach more people. Or, you know, giving a presentation and sharing the video online or something like that. So the reason why I wrote both of those books saving us and then the high resolution climate projections book is because for the previous four or five years the number one question I got, and from almost everyone I talked to and I give about 100 virtual presentations and in person presentations a year the number one question I was getting from people is what gives you hope and how do I have a conversation with people I know and love about this? So that's what I wrote saving us to answer because I got that from enough thousands of people that I knew if that many people have that question, that it's certainly worth writing about.

Speaker 2: 44:48

And then, on the other hand, professionally, I work with people who are very much in planning sectors. So I work with people who work for cities or state or federal agencies or increasingly even in the private sector, who are trying to prepare for climate risks and they don't know how to use climate projections to prepare for those risks. So that book I co-wrote with a number of my colleagues I didn't write it by myself specifically for people who want this information but don't know how to use it. So writing, I feel like, is very much about I listen very carefully to what people need, and if there's something that I can help with, that's when I put my fingers to the keyboard, I was going to say pen to paper, but sadly I don't write that way anymore.

Speaker 2: 45:26

That's when I put my fingers to the keyboard, or I actually often use dictation to create my first rough drafts To get that out there, not, you know? The craziest thing about books is people as like, oh, you just wrote it to make money. And I'm like, um no, I don't think you make any money off writing books unless you're writing Harry Potter.

Speaker 1: 45:45

Yeah, no really.

Speaker 2: 45:46

Because you have something burning in you that you know people need to hear, and so nowadays, when I see people on social media saying things I'm like you know my book actually addresses that. Why don't you look for it in your local library? You don't have to even buy it, Just read the dang book.

Speaker 1: 46:04

Yeah, that's a funny point too. They're like, oh, you just did this for the paycheck. I'm like, okay, sure, that's why I work at a university, you know, write children's books right.

Speaker 2: 46:14

Yeah, it works out to something like five cents an hour, I think, if you're generous.

Speaker 1: 46:19

Yeah, it is not much, it is not much, but but you're right that there is sometimes, and that longer format, I think, allows us to explore a lot more thoughts and things sometimes too, which is useful as well.

Speaker 2: 46:33

Yes, exactly.

Speaker 1: 46:35

Well, that's cool and I hope that people will look that up and I would encourage people. I like your plug for the public library system too. That's a big deal. People need to spend more time in libraries.

Speaker 2: 46:45

Oh, and libraries are great now because they even do virtual loans. So if you have, like, a Kindle or an e-reader, you can actually get ebooks from libraries now too. So you don't have to have the paper copy, you don't even have to go to the library anymore.

Speaker 1: 46:59

That's awesome. That's awesome. So, shifting gears just a little. I mean not really. We've been talking about it, but you know, this show often ends up being about life experience and how we get to where we are and things like that. But I also do. I would be remiss, I think, if I let you go without talking about the issue at hand, without having an actual discussion on the issue at hand and our current climate crisis and the messaging surrounding it and the way we approach it. I don't know that there's a fast way to do this. I don't know that there is a way to nutshell this whole issue, but you know, in the time we have left, what are in your experience and by the data you see and by your knowledge, what are we facing? What are the realities of climate change for us as a society and as humans?

Speaker 2: 47:57

Well, let's start with the basics. Which is, what is it and why is it happening? We know as far as we can go back in the history of our planet. The climate has changed for natural reasons natural cycles, volcanic eruptions, changes in energy from the sun but we know that today, according to natural factors, our Earth's average temperature should be very, very gradually slowly cooling, and instead it's warming faster and faster. Why? There's only one reason, and that is the fact that at the beginning of the industrial revolution, we figured out how to dig up massive amounts of coal back then and a lot more oil and gas since then and burn it, which produces heat, trapping gases that are building up in the air and that are building up in the atmosphere, wrapping a blanket of carbon pollution around the planet. And, just as you would, if you woke up at night and somebody snuck in and put an extra blanket on you, especially in Lubbock Texas you'd wake up sweating saying, hey, I didn't need this, I'm too warm. That's what's happened to our planet. That's why it's running a fever Today. We know that almost 80% of that blanket comes from burning coal, gas and oil, and we also know that 20% of it comes from deforestation, cutting down trees, unsustainable large scale animal agriculture all human activities under our control. So that's what's happening.

Speaker 2: 49:18

Number two why does it matter? It matters because, like we talked about before, the average temperature of our planet has been as stable as that of the human body over the course of human civilization, and today is changing faster than any time that humans have ever experienced. And why that matters is because we have 8 billion people living on a planet with all of our infrastructure and homes and water systems and food systems that were all built for a planet that no longer exists. It's not about saving the planet, it's quite literally about saving us. We're the ones at risk. So you know, a thousand years ago, if you were living in the area of, you know, houston, texas, and of sea level abruptly rose three or four feet, you know, over a number of decades, what would you do? You'd pick up your tent and you'd move. Well, you can't pick up the city of Houston, texas, and move it anymore. That's why this matters to us is because we've built this inflexibility into our systems and now things are changing. It's like the rugs being pulled out from under our feet.

Speaker 2: 50:22

So these changes are not just about the environment, they're not just about nature. They're literally affecting the amount of water we have, our ability to produce food, the integrity of our infrastructure and our supply chains. They're affecting the economy. They're even affecting national security. So that's why this matters, and that's why, to care about climate change, you just have to be a human living on planet Earth. You don't have to be a scientist, environmentalist or horticulturist. But then the next question is how does it affect me, the places I love, the people I love, the things I love, and what can I do to make a difference as an individual? And so that's where a lot of my work has focused in recent years, because I understand we can have the best science in the world, we can have the best data, the best models, the best satellites, but if we don't know what we can do to make a difference, we're going to do nothing. In fact, we'd be happier if we didn't know what was happening, right.

Speaker 1: 51:15

Yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 51:17

So if you don't know what that movie, don't look up where there's that asteroid going to hit the Earth. You're going to be happier if you don't know what's happening, if you can't do anything about it.

Speaker 1: 51:23

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 51:24

But the good news is, unlike that movie, we can do something about it, and so that's what a lot of I do focuses on, and it starts with the fact that each one of us has a voice, and when we use our voice to catalyze change wherever we live or work or study, that's how the world begins to change, and so I have this weekly newsletter that shares good news so that we know what's happening, what other people are doing that we could join in with too. Not so good news, because we have to understand how it's affecting us and things we care about. So I talk about how climate change affects football and how it affects beer and how it affects the quality of the air that our kids are breathing in and our kids' health things that we all care about. And then I always have something we can do to make a difference, and once a month I have somebody guested at the newsletter and yours is coming up, which is very exciting.

Speaker 1: 52:15

I'm very excited, I'm looking forward to it. It's been fun. I've been working on it a little bit and trying to get it ready to go and I'm excited about you know, as we record this, I'm a little ways out still, but I think about it a lot because I'm excited about it, it's fun and it's a great newsletter, by the way, and I like that. It is very positive, but also that it doesn't pull punches. I think that is an important part of all of this communication is that we present good, true, accurate data, but maybe not in the way of like we're all going to die right away and everything's terrible. Right, there's room for positivity and there's room for hope in all of this Exactly, and so one thing that I wanted to bring up, because it actually just sort of just happened as we record this or it's sort of in the news right now, there's a bunch of stuff going around saying that we've hit our one and a half degree Celsius benchmark.

Speaker 1: 53:11

Like everything's terrible. This was the hottest year in the which it was hot. I mean, it was the hottest. Those things are true, but they're not the whole story, they're not accurate, and I saw you posted maybe on threads or somewhere about that, maybe yesterday or day before. Can you talk about that just a little bit, because I think that is something that people are seeing right now.

Speaker 2: 53:30

Yes. So as climate change gets worse which it is doing and as we hit more and more new records, like 2023 was the warmest year on record. Many of the days were the warmest days ever recorded. Not only that, but record area burned by wildfires in my home country of Canada, record sea surface temperatures off the coast of Florida, hot tub level temperatures, record levels of flooding and drought and heat. All around the world, more and more people are worried. In fact, the vast majority of people, even the US, are worried about climate change, but we don't know what to do. Only 8% of people in the US are activated, but over two-thirds are worried. And so what happens is, when we're worried, we sort of enter this sort of doom spiral where the more bad news we see, the more sort of justified we feel at saying, oh well, it's all over, the goose is cooked, there's nothing we can do. So this past year, the annual average temperature according to one the European measurements reached 1.48 degrees Celsius above the long-term average. According to the US, it was slightly lower than that. They used different weather stations slightly differently, but they're both record-breaking years.

Speaker 2: 54:44

And now in the Paris Agreement, which every country in the world signed nine years ago we agreed to limit warming below 2 degrees Celsius and one and a half degrees if at all possible. But these are human thresholds. What the science says is just every bit of warming matters, which sort of makes sense. Right? It's like there's no magic number of cigarettes you could smoke before you experience lung damage. Every pack of cigarettes matters. The more you smoke, the worse. It is Same with global temperature the more carbon pollution you produce, the warmer it gets, the worse it is. But those goals in the Paris Agreement are climate goals, and what that means is they refer to the long-term average temperature, not what happens on any day, week, month or year. But there's a lot of people who didn't realize that, and so they think the fact that we got to 1.48 last year means that we're basically at the one and a half degree target and it's all over. And the answer to that is no, it's not. We will pass the long-term 1.5 degree average probably sometime in the next 10 years, because we're still producing massive amounts of carbon pollution. According to the International Energy Agency, we're only likely to start peaking and declining our emissions in the next couple of years, and we don't just need to decline, we actually need to reach net zero, where what we're producing is equal to the amount that we're taking up through investing in nature and smart agriculture. We're nowhere near that today. So it is most likely we are going to pass that threshold, but we haven't passed it yet.

Speaker 2: 56:11

But when we're scared, when we're worried, when we're frustrated, when we're sad and we don't see a way out, we don't see anything we can do about it. We tend to just enter the self-reinforcing doom cycle which, sadly, is actually going to doom us. If we stay there, if we decide it's all over and there's nothing we can do, we will do nothing and we will be doomed. So that's why, these days, I feel like I'm fighting almost just as hard against demerism as I am against denialism, because they both take us to the same place, which is doing nothing. And I know and this is a fact based on the science that every action matters, every choice matters, every bit of warming we avoid matters If we do everything we can and we don't end up at 1.5, but we end up at 1.7 instead.

Speaker 2: 56:57

That's a lot better than two. Even if we do everything we can, we end up at 2.1 or 2.2. Well, 10 years ago we were headed for a four to five degree Celsius world by the end of the century, and so we've already brought it down by a lot, and that means that someone's fields aren't going to flood, someone's home isn't going to be destroyed, someone's child isn't going to die from breathing in the air pollution from fossil fuels. We have already made a difference in the world, and every extra little bit we do will make a difference, and so that's why I'm fighting is not for one specific threshold, but just for as much as possible, as soon as possible, because I know that there is going to be a tangible benefit to everything we do.

Speaker 1: 57:39

Wow, wow. That's really powerful, and I think that message you just gave at the end there of look how far we've already come, what we've already done, is something people need to hear. It's something that people need to understand that you know, there's a picture that goes around sometimes of I don't know if it's Los Angeles, possibly in the smog from the 70s, I guess before the Clean Air Act was passed, and then the skyline today, and if you don't take those two in concert, people look at the skyline today and be like, well, look, how clear the air is. We don't need to do anything about it. But that's not the whole story. The whole story is that it wasn't that way and that we fixed it. And just like the, I know when I was younger, the ozone layer was a big area of discussion and how aerosols and things were eating holes in the ozone layer. And now it's like, oh no, we don't talk about it anymore because we addressed it. It's not because it was a scam or anything, it's because we did what was necessary.

Speaker 2: 58:44

Exactly, and not only that too, but sometimes with climate change, it's still a bit the opposite. People feel like, well, nothing's happening, and that couldn't be further from the truth. It's sort of like you're trying to climb Mount Everest with 8 billion people.

Speaker 1: 58:59

And we've never done that before.

Speaker 2: 59:00

But you got to stop. You got to be like okay, we got to first base camp, let's turn around, let's see how far we've come. Wow, we've already avoided almost two degrees of warming in just 10 years. That's phenomenal, is it cool? You know, we're at base camp, we've already done that. But we got to recognize that we've actually achieved something. And so that's why my newsletter always has that good news section, because we have to realize how much has already been done and the fact that this giant boulder of climate action is not sitting at the bottom of an impossibly steep cliff with only a few hands on it. You know, mine, al Gore, greta Thunbergs People normally picture it like that, but that giant boulder is already at the top of the hill.

Speaker 2: 59:38

It's already rolling down the hill in the right direction. It has got millions of hands on it, even right where we live in Texas. In fact, one of my newsletters a couple months ago focused just on what's happening in Texas. There was so much good news that I actually had a good news section and then a more good news section.

Speaker 2: 59:52

That's how much there was just in Texas, and if I add my hand it will go a little bit faster. That again is the definition of hope realizing that each of us can make a difference.

Speaker 1: 1:00:03

It's very cool. It's very cool. So I just I wanted to ask you a very specific question. So and please bear with me here so when you Google search Dr Catherine Hay home, one of the pictures that comes up first is you standing on a stage waving with President Obama and Leonardo DiCaprio and I know that is probably a silly thing to talk about, but like that is such a cool thing. I just I don't even really have a question. I just wanted to say that I think that's cool, that something that is controversial, something that is important, is making it to big stages like that, and that you're in so many ways, spearheading this conversation. Like I guess I'm just I just want to say that I appreciate what you do, and seeing you on those stages and seeing you in these conversations, like I think that's such a cool deal and I'm I'm grateful that you and people like you are out there doing this work.

Speaker 2: 1:01:06

Thank you so much. That was really a tremendous opportunity. But I think it's important to emphasize that a thermometer is not blue or red. It is not Democrat or Republican. If I could be having those conversations with every Republican candidate, with every Republican elected official, as well as every Democrat and every independent as well, we need to be having these conversations with everyone because we need all the solutions Now. The thermometer doesn't give you a different answer depending on how you vote. A hurricane doesn't stop and say, excuse me, are you registered Democrat or Republican or Independent before it rips the roof off your house. But we need solutions across the political spectrum. We need conservative solutions, we need bipartisan solutions, we need the liberal solutions. We need the full set of solutions.

Speaker 2: 1:01:55

And right now in the United States, because climate change is so polarized, we're not hearing from people across the whole spectrum on what sensible solutions look like. Instead, we're hearing a whole bunch of solutions from the left-hand side of the spectrum and then the right-hand side of the spectrum. We're not hearing solutions. We're just hearing them try to tear down the solutions from the other side. It's not about building up and tearing down. It's about both trying to build as quickly as they can, and I love the fact that there are some advocates on the right-hand side of the spectrum, like Bob Inglis, two times Republican congressman from South Carolina, who's all about free market solutions to climate change. And then there's sort of middle-of-the-road bipartisan solutions like carbon pricing, and Citizens Climate Lobby is a great organization that explains and espouses carbon pricing, which is a market-based solution to climate change. And then, of course, here in Texas we have more wind and solar energy than any other state in the country, but this past year alone, china installed more solar capacity than all other countries in the world put together.

Speaker 1: 1:03:01

Oh, wow.

Speaker 2: 1:03:01

Doesn't the US want to catch up with China? That would seem to me to be sort of a conservative value that people could espouse. So I really want to see these conversations happening everywhere, because when it comes to a better future, it's a better future for all of us together, and I think we all care about that.

Speaker 1: 1:03:18

That's awesome, very cool. Well, I know you have a lot of other things to do today, so, just to wrap up, I ask all of my guests this If you had a piece of advice for our listeners, for the folks who are listening, this can be about climate change and being more conscious. It could be a cookie recipe. Whatever you want to leave listeners with, what would that be? What would you like to send them home with?

Speaker 2: 1:03:44

Well, I could share a lot, but what I will say is that the number one question I hear from people is what can I do?

Speaker 2: 1:03:51

Because, like I said, most people are worried but they don't know what to do.

Speaker 2: 1:03:54

And so, in the words of Bill McKibbin Bill is a very well known writer on the environment and we actually archive his writings at the Seoul Institute, at Texas Tech Campus, even though Bill's from Vermont Bill says the most important thing an individual can do right now is not be such an individual, and what he means by that is, rather than focusing on my life and what I do, focus on what we can do together. Use our voice to connect with other people around us. Join groups, get together with people, say what can we do together to make a difference, because I know that, when it comes to these big, thorny, naughty global problems like climate change, we can't fix them ourselves, but we absolutely can fix them together, and so that is my biggest piece of advice is the best thing you can do is not be such an individual. Get together with others and figure out together how you can make a difference in the world. Add your hands to that giant boulder and it will go faster.

Speaker 1: 1:04:52

I love it. That's awesome. Well, catherine, thank you so much for your time. It means a lot. I have thoroughly enjoyed talking with you. You're just one of the, I think, most positive people I've gotten to speak with, and that says a lot. There's a lot of places I know, but where can people find you? Where should we direct folks who want to learn more about you?

Speaker 2: 1:05:13

Well, I have a lot available online, most of it collected in my website, which is just my name, catherinehayhoecom. You can follow me on pretty much any social media channel that exists literally, and I also have my weekly newsletter Talking Climate, my book Saving Us and my TED Talk on how to have a conversation about climate change that ends well.

Speaker 1: 1:05:36

That last part's important. Yeah, very important. Yes, well, thank you so much. You're doing what you do. I appreciate it. I know a lot of folks out there appreciate it and this was wonderful.

Speaker 2: 1:05:48

Thank you, you too.

Speaker 1: 1:05:50

Y'all. In the midst of everything that's going on and all the challenges we face, hope endures and hope is relentless, and I hope that you left that interview feeling as positive and empowered and hopeful about the future as I did. Thank you so much to Catherine for coming on and being a part of Planthropology, thank you for listening to it and thank you for making the show part of your lives. It means the world and I could not do it without you. Thanks once more to the Texas Tech Department of Plant and Soul Science and the Davis College here at Texas Tech University. Thanks to the Pods Fix Network for letting me be a part of it. You know I love you folks. I really do, and I do this because of that. Keep being kind to one another. If you have not to date been kind to one another, maybe give that a shot. It's pretty great. Care about the planet, care about one another. Keep being really cool plant people, and I will talk to you next time.