Tuesday’s matching presentations at Fort Lewis College, under the title “Climate Change Solutions: Inspiration from Leaders in Climate Science and Action,” were as much about human relations and communication as about climate.
That was by design. As the presenters explained, before we can implement large-scale solutions to help mitigate the worst of the consequences predicted – and agreed upon – by the world’s leading climate scientists, there must be a consensus that the problem is real.
Polling shows that 57 percent of Americans believe human activity is the cause of our warming planet (60 percent in Colorado). But in keeping with our present state of politics, more liberal citizens accept the science, while more conservative citizens reject it or believe that climate shifts are the result of a natural cycle that will soon move back into balance.
It was fitting that the afternoon presentation was well attended by area high school students, thanks to sponsorship by La Plata Electric Association. They were presented with plenty of dire predictions about what their world may look like in the coming decades, but also well equipped with a “survival guide” for our divided times, a kind of communication toolkit to help them move forward.
In a recorded presentation, Katherine Heyhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University, set the tone. Climate change is factual, she said, but facts are not enough to sway those who are not convinced. The debate is intensely polarizing, she added, in part because easy solutions seem elusive or damaging to our economy, and in part because people tend to reject problems that seem overwhelming or insurmountable.
Making strident appeals and pushing more science-based facts, explained Karin Kirk from Yale’s Climate Connections, only produces an equal amount of pushback.
Instead, connections need to be made and information exchanged through our shared values, and by realizing first how much we all have in common. In looking to the near future, what is most clear is how the threats posed by climate change will not discriminate in their impacts.
“We all want the same things,” Heyhoe concluded. “We really do.”
Kirk provoked consternation during the evening presentation when she revealed how many millions of dollars have been spent by energy companies and lobbyists to cast doubt on legitimate climate science and to elect candidates dismissive of the issue. She also issued the most effective challenge, urging those in attendance to build the consensus necessary to work towards solutions and mitigation.
No one involved in the presentation portrayed the task ahead as easy. The appeal to action was reminiscent of John F. Kennedy’s speech at Rice University in 1962 in which he announced NASA’s intention to land men on the moon, a speech highlighted in the movie “First Man.”
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade … not because (it is) easy, but because (it is) hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win.”
Of course, JFK was building consensus for a choice.
Tuesday’s presentation was focused on a different type of goal, something once described and derided as Al Gore’s inconvenient truth.
The debate is over. This is not a choice.
It’s an imperative.
