♪ >> Welcome to Canada Files .

I'm Valerie Pringle.

My guest today is Katharine Hayhoe.

Who is a professor at Texas Tech University.

She is also Chief Scientist for the Nature Conservancy.

A UN champion of the earth and named as one of Time's 100 Most Influential People.

She's an evangelical Christian who has written the best seller, Saving Us .

A climate scientist case for hope and healing in a divided world.

It's been called one of the most important books about climate change.

>> Valerie: Hello Katharine.

>> Katharine: Hi Valerie.

>> This is your mission.

Scientific American calls you heroic.

What makes you think that you can get through to people on climate change?

>> Well, I don't I can.

I think all of us can together.

Science has showed that the most effective messenger to have conversations about why climate change matters and what we can do about it are people that we know.

Friends and family.

So I see my job as helping everyone else have those conversations with the people they love.

>> When did you have this epiphany?

That the greatest solution was getting people to talk about it.

>> Well, I'm a physical scientist.

I study the physics of the climate system.

After a decade or more of studying how serious this problem of climate change was, how urgent action was and how little was happening, I realized there has to be more.

There's something we're not doing.

We've been telling people it's real, it's bad, it's us.

We need to fix it.

Nothing is happening and why not?

So I looked at the social science.

Back then, there wasn't a lot of social science around how people were making decisions around climate change.

But I found one my colleagues who was studying people's attitudes and perspectives.

I literally, that was back in the day, called him on the phone "Ed, I need to know everything that you know about why people aren't acting on climate."

So that was the beginning of my journey into understanding the barriers that prevent us from connecting what I now think of as our head to our heart to our hands.

We know it's bad and serious but we don't understand how it matters to me where I live.

And we don't know what I can do about it.

When you look at the data about it, it shows most Canadians and Americans are worried about climate change.

But they feel helpless, hopeless and don't know what to do.

Only a fraction of us are activated.

What's the missing piece-- talking about it.

>> You then had to, because you are, as you say, an atmospheric scientist.

You study the effects of climate change on energy, food and working at the local level.

You do research for a lot of really important organizations.

But you had to go, oh well I guess I'm going to have to be the climate communicator.

>> I realized that you could be doing the best science in the world but if people don't understand why it matters, then what's the point?

What helped me in this epiphany was ironically moving to Texas.

Growing up in Canada, I had the perspective that the grass is green, the sky is blue and climate is changing due to human activities.

But moving to Texas, for my husband's job originally, I realized there were a lot of people there that didn't think that was the case.

They were curious and wanted to know I would be doing something like dedicating my life to studying this issue.

So having conversations with them helped me see what the barriers are.

It turns out it's nothing to do with intelligence or education.

It's everything to do with identity and values.

Which is not what you typically talk about in a physics classroom.

>> Talking about your identity and values-- you're an evangelical Christian and a scientist.

Some people perceive that as something that doesn't go together.

>> It's often perceived that way but if you believe that God in some shape of form, created this incredible universe that we live in then what is science other than trying to figure out how he did it.

So I grew up with this at an early age.

My dad was a science teacher.

He was actually the science coordinator for the Toronto Board of Ed.

So I grew up with the idea that faith and science are just two sides of the coin.

But I had never integrated it into my life until being in Texas, I started to get invited to speak to local groups.

A book club, the senior citizens home, a women's organization.

Then I got invited to speak at a church.

They didn't know I was a Christian because I never talked about it--why would I?

I had the idea that science and faith are two sides of the coin.

But you only see one side at a time.

But I had been talking with enough people that I knew that people were saying well, obviously you care about this because you're a scientist but why should I care about it?

Going to this Baptist church, I knew that people probably cared for the same reason I did.

That was the very first time that I very nervously started to share with people why I cared.

The reaction that people had was so radically different in terms of you could just see how they were leaning forward, nodding and recognizing themselves in this concern.

They were making that head to heart connection.

That made me realize the power of connecting over shared values.

>> I still have a hard time understanding how, as you've said, the thermostat reads the same whether you're a Republican or a Democrat.

How has it become so full of bitterness and hatred?

>> What's happening is, in the US, society is now more politically polarized and has been for the last 10 years than anytime since the Civil War.

Now there's this really interesting institute called Beyond Conflict.

They studied the situation in Northern Ireland in the 70s.

They were working with communities during apartheid in South Africa.

Now they're focusing on the US because that's the place where they see the biggest conflict.

They say in the US, people now view others as enemies if they belong to the other party.

Not even as fellow humans or citizens.

So climate change is a casualty of that polarization.

That sadly we see spreading to Canada as well.

>> But it's science!

You know there are facts.

Why is it political?

>> I can tell you that.

We scientists have known since the 1800s that digging up and burning coal back then and oil & gas today produces heat-trapping gases that are building up in the atmosphere, wrapping an extra blanket around our planet.

We've know that since the 1850s.

So when did all this denial emerge?

It did not emerge until the 1990s.

That was more than 100 years after the science had pretty much been resolved.

Why it emerged in the 1990s was because that's when climate change was moving from a future distant issue that you could worry about in the future.

That you didn't have to do anything about it now.

To something that was happening today.

If it's happening today, it means we have to do something about it.

Almost 80% of the extra blanket we're wrapping around our planet comes from digging up, processing,burning fossil fuels, and other industrial practices.

The industry that was primarily responsible for it knew all about it because they had scientists studying this for decades.

They said we know we could transition off fossil fuels.

But that would hurt certainly the quarterly & annual returns.

Or we could take a leaf from the tobacco industry's book because that industry has very well-trained spin doctors.

Who've been spinning their message for a number of years.

Some of them are out of work, at the moment.

We could hire them to spin it for us.

That's what they did!

The denial was deliberately manufactured in the 1990s.

>> By the oil and gas industry.

>> And through their connections with politics in the US.

It has become an incredibly politically-polarized issue.

The no.

1 reason that you say climate is or isn't changing is simply where you fall on the political spectrum.

>> What good is it going to do the Republicans or anybody, political party that's denying the reality of climate change.

The importance of pricing carbon and weaning off oil and gas.

>> You can say I don't believe in gravity but if you step off the cliff, you're still going down.

That's the problem and why it's so important to begin these conversations with something we have in common.

>> Your dad is a science teacher, also a pastor.

For a time, he took your family on a mission to Columbia.

So you lived there for awhile.

What impact did that experience have on you?

>> Growing up in Columbia, we moved there when I was 9 in the 1980s.

It had a profound impact on me in many ways.

It gives you a different perspective on how much we have in common and the few things that really divide us.

It gave me a new perspective even as a child, on what it looks like when the rains and floods come.

And the disasters occur.

You literally don't have insurance, resources to feed your family nor a safe place to live if the rains have washed away your home.

When I came back to Toronto, going to university at University of Toronto, I was studying physics and astronomy.

I was planning to be an astronomer.

But I needed an extra class to finish my degree.

I looked around and there was this brand-new class in the geography dept.

Offered by a guy called Danny Harvey who is still there.

It was on climate change.

I thought that looks interesting, why not take it?

At the time I had the perspective that many of us until recently still had.

That climate change is a future issue.

It will affect people, plants and animals in the future.

David Suzuki is working on it.

We can support his efforts and he will fix it.

That was the perspective I had.

I took his class and I was completely astonished to learn that climate change already at that time was no longer a future issue.

It was already happening today affecting real people and places today.

What really impacted me was when I learned climate change affects us all but not all equally.

People who are already marginalized, living on the edges of society, whether it's people who don't have a home, who are living on the streets of Halifax.

Or a subsistence farmer in Malawi when the crops fail, has to choose between selling a daughter into marriage at age 10 or 12 versus the entire family not being able to eat.

Those who are already living on the edge are the most affected.

That's not fair!

Combining my faith with seeing what that looked like, as a child firsthand, with the fact that I could actually do something about this.

I had the skill set to do this.

Serendipitously, it turns out physics is exactly the background you need for climate modelling.

I didn't know that.

That's what led me to become a climate scientist.

>> Let's look at your example in terms of your carbon footprint.

You say you've measured yours and you're around 5.

Which is less than the Canadian- US average which is about 8.

Because Canadians and Americans are pretty terrible.

>> I think mine, when I first measured it, was the equivalent of 5 earths you would need to support my life.

Isn't that terrible!

It's just appalling.

When we think of the injustice of a few of us, relatively speaking, hogging-- not just carbon emissions, but the land, resources, everything that we need for our collective 8 billion lives.

There's a huge gap.

Oxfam has showed that the richest 1% in the world produce more than double the carbon emissions of the poorest 50%.

It isn't the case of the actual number of people.

It is the allocation of resources.

And inequality is growing, not shrinking.

About 15 years ago, I first stepped on the carbon scale.

Because I figured I'm a climate scientist, I need to be looking at this.

I was really surprised, 15 - 20 years ago, not recent.

I was surprised that the biggest part of my personal footprint was flying.

It was not flying to yoga retreats in Bali-- never been to one of those.

It was flying to scientific conferences.

To talk to people about climate change.

Back then, well before Zoom and the pandemic, I thought to myself, I have to do something about this.

I decided I'd transition 80% of the talks I gave, to online talks.

This is back in the Skype days.

A lot of people said we've never done that before, how would it work?

We worked through it.

I used interactive polling software.

Tried to make sure we did a good job.

The highest compliment I receive is when someone says, "I wasn't even going to show up because it was just online.

But it was if she was in the room, it wasn't bad."

>> So you've reduced air travel.

>> Yes.

>> Even as you speak to us, you're here for a family visit, so it's been bundled.

>> I only travel when I bundle.

I always bring together multiple events before I get on a plane.

Then about 10 years ago, I sat down and calculated.

Here are the changes I've made-- every year I adopt 2 new habits.

I look at what we eat, where we get our electricity from, what cars we drive, how we can take public transportation.

>> Electric, hybrid cars.

>> Yes, I had a little plug-in hybrid because we didn't have charging stations where I lived in west Texas.

Since it got taken out by a very large deer.

The deer was fine, the car was not.

Deer are large in Texas.

Now I've been car-less for a year which has been interesting, and actually great.

But I sat down and calculated what would happen, if everyone who had the resources I had, did this.

Make no mistake, it requires knowledge.

You have to do the research.

It's often harder to do the right thing than the wrong thing.

Sometimes it's more expensive to do it.

>> That's a huge deterrent.

>> Yes!

I calculated even if everybody who had the means to do so did it, that wouldn't take care of 1/4 of the problem.

Then I knew there was something more we had to do.

1/4 of the problem is not enough.

I spoke to one of my colleagues, Stephan Romsdorf in Germany.

Stephan is an ocean scientist.

He is so dedicated to this that when he did his PhD in New Zealand in the 80s, I was in high school.

I wasn't even thinking about climate change.

He did not fly home to Germany one single time.

Not even to attend his sister's wedding because he wouldn't step on a plane.

Then he calculated even if he did everything he could, he couldn't cut his carbon personal footprint more than 50%.

He lives in Germany, doesn't own a car, bikes and takes trains.

That was when I realized there has to be something more we can do.

I started to look at how has society changed before.

We haven't had the vote for that long, relatively speaking.

How did women get the vote?

It was by using their voices for years and decades.

They were not necessarily women of influence or power.

They certainly didn't have a vote at that time.

By using their voices year after year, we eventually changed society.

How was civil rights enacted in the US?

How did apartheid end in South Africa?

How was gay marriage legalized?

It never happened because the prime minister or president woke up one morning and said, "We should really give women the vote...enact civil rights and allow gay marriage."

>> No, it happened because people used their voices.

>> Pushed.

>> That's what we need today.

>> We need to use our voices and act collectively but we have to do something.

When people say to you, "What should I do?"

What do you say?

>> My answer is this.

Do something, anything, then talk about it.

Because that is how we make change contagious.

Where you work, live and study.

Don't talk about the polar bears and ice sheets.

Talk about what's happening where I live, what we could do together to make a difference, and ask why isn't our school doing that?

Why isn't our Girl Guide troop, neighbourhood or city doing this?

That's #1.

#2 is to look at where our money is.

One of the most impactful things we can do as individuals, is look at where we bank, where our retirement pension funds are invested in, where our credit cards are.

And write to those institutions and say I don't want my money going into an industry that's causing this problem.

#3 is to spark ideas where we work or study.

#4 is to reach out to politicians.

Not only by voting but we can do this so powerfully in Canada-- I love that but by actually having conversations with them.

I was at my parents' house this summer.

There was a knock on the door-- it was our local MP.

We had a conversation about what more needs to be done about climate change and he was wonderful!

Then lastly, make changes in our personal life.

Look at--in Canada, we're very fortunate that a lot of our hydro is renewable.

Look at where we get our electricity, how we travel.

>> What we eat, then talk about it.

>> Food waste.

I didn't realize.

You say if food waste were a country, it would be the 3rd worst emitter.

>> 4th worst.

Yes.

Isn't that insane?

In Canada, we waste almost half the food we produce.

And people are going hungry.

In efficiency and energy, we waste over 60% of the energy we produce-- it is just unreal.

When people realize there are things you can do.

Just before the pandemic, I was speaking at a large church here in southern Ontario.

I was talking about values-- Christian faith-based perspective on climate change.

I was also talking about how we can do anything, then talk about it.

I gave examples-- food waste is one of them.

I was standing at the door as people were leaving, eaves-dropping.

I heard one woman say to the person she was with, "I've always been worried about climate change.

But I never knew what to do.

Now I know what to do.

Food waste is such a huge problem, we'll begin by eating the Christmas leftovers."

>> Well, it's starting somewhere.

Do you see lots more hopeful solutions that technology is going to improve things?

Getting rid of oil and gas-driven cars.

What's the good news?

People acting together, not as individuals.

>> It's all of the above.

Often we think of countries as the biggest news-- acting nationally.

We saw a lot of that at the recent climate conference Then of course, in Canada, we have a price on carbon.

The government recently announced a cap on emissions from our oil and gas sector.

Which is not only the biggest but the fastest growing sector in terms of our greenhouse gas emissions.

We're looking at a further mandate on EVs here in Canada.

But in Texas, we're seeing over 1/3 of the electricity is now coming from wind and solar.

It's the #1 wind and solar producer in the country.

It overtook California this year.

There are five different types of batteries currently being tested in Texas.

From gravity batteries where they raise up those big concrete blocks when wind is cheap.

At night, it's almost negative in terms of the price.

When it's more expensive, they slowly drop them and generate electricity.

Or they're pumping compressed air into underground caverns.

They're doing all kinds of crazy things to store energy.

There's also amazing people working in the sports, music or arts industries.

My latest newsletter featured artists who are making a difference.

There's children, including Robert from here in Toronto, who have podcasts online sharing why we care about climate change.

I love telling stories that we can identify that aren't famous, influential people.

They're just ordinary people like us.

Like the guy who said why don't we start a climate committee for my homeowners' association?

What a concept.

I love the idea.

It turns out that nature could help with up 1/3 of the solutions we need.

Like greening low-income neighbourhoods.

Nature is so low tech, it's incredible.

We've had the technology of photosynthesis around for billions of years.

But we aren't using it the way we could.

Low-income neighbourhoods, here in Canada and US, can be up to 6-7 degrees Celsius hotter during a heat wave.

Than a wealthier neighbourhood with tree cover and green space.

They're much more likely to flood, much more exposed to air pollution.

When you green those low-income neighbourhoods, first, you help to cool them down during heat waves.

Even in Canada, our cities are getting quite hot in summer.

You're also providing flood protection because green areas take up water.

The trees filter the air pollution.

Spending time outside in nature is so good for our physical and mental health.

Count the wins: physical & mental health, flood, air pollution and heat protection.

Growing all those things takes up carbon from the atmosphere.

The solutions that nature has for us are mind-boggling.

From restoring coastal wetlands to protect from coastal storms to the incredible rainforests we have along our BC coasts called the emerald edge .

Working with First Nations people to become guardians of those forests to protect them.

To keep the carbon there instead of in the atmosphere where we don't want it.

You can tell I can talk about solutions all day.

>> It does still energize you to be part of this movement, fight and existential battle.

>> What I'm fighting for is not to end the climate crisis.

I'm fighting for a better future.

Don't we all want that?

>> So many kids, you hear these days suffer from serious climate anxiety--it's a real worry.

They look at our generation and go, how did you mess things up so badly?

What future is there for us?

>> Around the world, 85% of young people are worried about climate change.

When they're asked about how they feel, the #1 answer is "sad".

Worried, anxious, paralyzed.

The people I speak with, of all ages, 90-95% say they're depressed, anxious, angry, frustrated.

What we have to realize is first of all, if you feel that way, you're not alone.

The majority of people feel that way.

That's part of why we're not talking about it.

Because who wants to talk about something that makes you angry, frustrated and depressed?

But you don't know what to do about it.

The second thing I want people to know is if you feel that way, that is a rational response to what's happening.

It is not a mental health condition, a type of syndrome.

You are not too sensitive.

You understand what's at stake--our future.

I think we should all be worried about that.

And anxious and frustrated by the slow pace of the action.

But the 3rd thing that we need to know that each of us has the ability to make a difference.

Each of our voices truly can affect change.

>> So what do you think of Greta Thunberg?

>> She understands what's at stake?

And as she said, "I may be small but I can make a difference."

I love that!

We may be small but every single one of us can make a difference.

If you look back in history at the people who've made a difference, we know some of their names.

We know the Martin Luther King Jrs, Susan B. Anthonys, William Wilberforces.

But do we remember the thousands and even millions of people who shared their vision.

Who advocated beside them, marched behind them.

We don't but we live in their shadow today.

Our lives are different because they used their voices.

>> The final question we ask on this show is what does being Canadian mean to you?

>> Being Canadian means we understand we are part of this planet.

There are no walls around our country that go up to the top of the atmosphere.

We have the privilege to live in this incredible country.

That stretches from sea to sea.

That welcomes people from all around the world.

Welcomed my own ancestors coming from Ukraine, England, Ireland.

Welcomes people today but cannot continue to be a safe harbour in the future if we don't tackle the climate crisis.

Again, it's not about tackling the climate crisis for the sake of fixing that problem.

It's about fighting for a better future for all of us.

This is the hurdle we have to get over to get there.

>> You're amazing.

Good for you!

>> A pleasure to talk to you.

>> Likewise.

>> Thank you.

>> We'll be back next week with another episode of Canada Files.

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