Intro

This [2022-11-29 Tue] presentation is available for rewatching on BYU-TV¹

1. Presenter Bio

   Katharine Hayhoe November 29, Forum

   Katharine Anne Scott Hayhoe is a Canadian climate scientist and chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy. The daughter of Christian missionaries to Colombia, Hayhoe teaches at Texas Tech University, where she holds the Endowed Chair in Public Policy and Public Law in the university’s public administration program.

   She has researched widely on climate change and has earned degrees from the University of Toronto and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

2. Notes

   In her BYU Forum Katharine Hayhoe gave a powerful, engaging message. She calls the climate crisis “global weirding"² not just global warming; after all, what’s the big deal with a few degrees different? But when people are a few degrees different they are sick. Our planet is sick. Katharine pointed out that Global Weirding makes everything worse: justice, poverty, pick your favorite social issue – climate makes it worse. To put it mildly and in my own words, it raises the stress level of the whole planet – and if it doesn’t raise the stress of a particular person, it raises the stress of someone who has to deal with them double.

   Per person, the US citizens make the most carbon emissions. We can reduce our own emissions and share how we do that, and that is very valuable – but changing our cars, our electricity, our recycling and product choices doesn’t make the difference. Crunching the numbers, any individual choices make only a quarter of the problem. We need the system to change.

   1. How do we change the system?

      Most people believed that it climate change effects the poor, and the global, and even future generation – but did not believe that the climate issues wold effect them – and more importantly, none of them talked about it. We must talk about it! Why does climate change matter to us now, and what can we do to change it? Goal of the conversation is to bring people in.

      She ended with the same message she began with: Why is she a climate scientist? Because she’s a Christian. This concluding statement echoes another recent devotional statement: if you love the painter, care for his paintings.

Footnotes

¹ The forum can be viewed at https://www.byutv.org/7ad53049-ffd3-4b2b-a1d6-c5e911c86be0/byu-forum-address-katharine-hayhoe-(11-29-22)

² This is also the name of her YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@globalweirding