Climate scientist Katharin Hayhoe during Nov. 20 climate change webinar
[The Episcopal News] – One of the most effective ways people of faith can help combat climate change is to start talking about it, in ways that connect people’s personal experiences with hope and action, atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe told a Nov. 20 webinar hosted by the Bishop’s Commission on Climate Change.
As the earth grows progressively warmer, and weather becomes increasingly “weirder, … we must act with urgency, but we must also act with a vision of what a better future could be like,” said Hayhoe, who serves as chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy and is a Paul Whitfield Horn Distinguished Professor and the Political Science Endowed Chair in Public Policy and Public Law in the political science department at Texas Tech University.
Hayhoe is “bridging the broad, deep gap between scientists and Christians,” said diocesan Canon to the Ordinary Melissa McCarthy, commission chair, when introducing her as keynoter for the webinar, which drew some 170 real-time viewers from the Diocese of Los Angeles and beyond.
Hayhoe co-authored A Climate for Change: Global Warming Facts for Faith-Based Decisions, with her husband, Andrew Farley, a pastor, addressing many long-held misconceptions about global warming, and writes and produces Global Weirding: Climate, Politics and Religion, a PBS Digital Studios short series.
Offered under the theme “Now Is the Time for Urgency and Hope,” the diocesan webinar may be viewed here. Looking ahead, the commission plans to alternate a biennial webinar with an every-other-year in-person summit such as the day-long program hosted last year in Echo Park.
Making ‘weird weather’ connections
From California to Texas to Florida, nearly everyone has a story about experiencing extreme or unusual weather, like extended droughts, bigger wildfires, stronger atmospheric rivers dumping more rain, and stronger and more frequent hurricanes, said Hayhoe. “Wherever we live, the weather is getting weirder. In fact, as of last September, nine out of 10 Americans said they had been personally affected by extreme weather, and two-thirds of them connected that to climate change.”
However, while about two-thirds of Americans are worried about climate change, only about 8% are motivated to do anything about it, she said. Oftentimes, they do not believe their efforts could have an impact.
The Book of Genesis prescribes a role for people of faith in caring for nature, noted Hayhoe, an evangelical Christian. Climate change solutions are “not about saving the planet,” Hayhoe added. “The planet will be orbiting the sun long after we’re gone. It is quite literally about saving us … us living things, all the living things referred to in Genesis, that humans are told we have a responsibility to care for, to have compassion for, to provide for.”
Hayhoe noted that climate change, the rapid heating of the earth — now by about two degrees Fahrenheit — is occurring faster than at any time experienced in human history. Comparing global warming to a rise in human body temperature, she said: “What happens if your body temperature shoots up two degrees? You’re feeling achy. You’re taking some Tylenol. You’re not feeling good. That’s exactly what’s happening to our planet right now.”
People of faith have a specific role “to deliver the needy and the afflicted and those who have no helper, to have compassion on the poor and the needy. This speaks to me, because climate change affects us all, but it doesn’t affect us equally,” she said.
“The 1% richest in the world have generated twice the carbon pollution of the poorest 50%. Yet, if we look at who is most impacted by climate change, it is the countries, and within our own country, it is even the neighborhoods where people live who’ve contributed least to the problem. And that’s not fair.”
Engaging the disengaged
Raising awareness is about personal connection, not politics, but politicians still must be held accountable, she said. “Politicians at every level, city, county, state, federal, systematically underestimate how much their constituents care about climate change. Why? Because they don’t hear from them. We have to tell them we care,” including by lobbying for bills and contacting and having conversations with local representatives, she said.
“Right now, that could have a big impact. A wildfire doesn’t ask who you voted for in the last election before it destroys your home. So, when people say, ‘I don’t want to get political.’ I just say I don’t want to get political either. But, let me share with you how real people are being affected today.
“Or, how my life is being affected, or maybe how your life is being affected. And then let’s talk about solutions that make sense for everyone. In my newsletter every week, I try to offer solutions that do make sense.”
Cities, companies, universities, churches, every aspect of society must get together and set targets for changing the current system, she said. The key is personal connection. For example, in Texas, where Hayhoe resides, increased frequency and strength of hurricanes have caused home insurance rates to skyrocket.
“Ours went up 70% last year. Even auto insurance rates are skyrocketing,” Hayhoe said. “Property prices are changing, and some insurance companies are even pulling out of California and Texas and Florida.”
Weather extremes also impact:
- Health – breathing in wildfire smoke and pollution “from burning fossil fuels that kills 8 million people a year”;
- Infrastructure – buildings and roads, “built for a planet that no longer exists”;
- Food – a Stanford University study showed that, since the 1980s, “we’ve been losing at least $5 billion worth of crops every single year, and most of those losses are happening in countries where people can’t afford to eat if the crops fail”;
- Nature – “not just on land, but also in the ocean—70% of the oxygen we breathe comes from phytoplankton and kelp, all of the water we drink, all the food we eat, all the resources we have. It all comes from the nature that surrounds us.”
“When I’m in Texas, I talk about cotton farming with Jack, who’s told me he hasn’t had a decent amount of rain since 2005,” she said. “My colleague, Jo Ellen, who lives in Arizona, talks about how she has to wake up her kids before dawn, because otherwise it’s so hot they can’t play outside in the summer. When I talk to folks in New York, they tell me how the skies turned orange because of the wildfires, and they couldn’t even breathe. Or, their home was destroyed by the super-sized hurricanes, or the streets flooded. And in California, everybody has a wildfire story, a flooding story, a smoke story. We all have these stories.”
There are other sobering realities. “Did you know that we waste enough food every year to feed twice the number of people who go hungry? And if food waste were its own country, it would be the fourth biggest emitter of heat-trapping gases in the world?”
Solutions lie in reducing food waste, ending deforestation, investing in healthy food systems, and energy-saving technology, regardless of the expense. “There’s so many ways we can do to this,” Hayhoe said. “We can help our built environment become more resilient. We can use technology to help us become more resilient. We can use nature to help our coastlines, and our cities become more resilient.”
Cleaner energy production could provide protection from disasters, improve health outcomes, create affordable energy that reduces inequalities, and help make healthy ecosystems and food systems.
“We can fix it together,” she said. “We need to make the best choices for how people eat, how people live, how people travel, how people get energy.” For instance, it can be easier, faster and cheaper to:
- take public transportation than drive.
- find vegetables and plant-based options than it is to find a $2 hamburger.
- take a train rather than a plane.
“This is how people change the system. By starting a conversation about the heart and the hands.” By joining together with other people to raise our voice together more loudly, in workplace and school conversations, and making personal actions “contagious by talking about them.
“Don’t keep them to yourself, as [American environmentalist and author] Bill McKibben says. The most important thing an individual can do right now, is not to be such an individual. I love that. So, now we know what to do. What are we waiting for?
“And that’s why I am convinced that caring about God’s creation, which includes people and other living things already being affected by climate change today, is a genuine expression of our faith,” Hayhoe said. She said this idea anchors the hope that keeps her going every day.
“It is a faithful acceptance of our God-given responsibility to take responsibility over every living thing and to love our neighbor as ourselves,” she said. “And I believe it is a true expression of God’s love. What is climate action other than loving our neighbor as ourselves? Because to me, that’s what climate action is.”