Climate communicator and RI convention speaker Katharine Hayhoe wants us to speak to the heart

Katharine Hayhoe crunches the data. She analyzes the models. Then she explains it all, in terms the rest of us can understand — the enormity of our climate crisis, how it magnifies virtually every other serious challenge, and how all hope is not lost. Not by a long shot.

Hope remains as long as there are people who care enough to have a conversation, which, it turns out, is most people. In a 2023 survey, 63 percent of Americans reported they were somewhat or very worried about climate change. In Canada, that figure was 71 percent. In some of the countries with the largest numbers of Rotary members, places like Brazil and India, it was over 80 percent.

You often talk about an experience you had at a Rotary club meeting. Can you recount that story for us?

I still remember the first time I was invited to speak to a Rotary club in West Texas. I walked into the lunch, and right there was a giant banner of The Four-Way Test. And I looked at it and thought, this is the perfect test for climate change.

Is it the truth? It absolutely is. We know the climate is changing, and we know humans are responsible. We know the impacts are serious, and the time to act is now. We’ve spent over 150 years as scientists checking that.

Is it fair to all concerned? That one really hit me in the heart because that’s why I became a climate scientist. When I learned that climate change affects us all, but it doesn’t affect us equally — how the people who have done the least to cause the problem are the most impacted — the first thing I thought was, it’s not fair. The second thing I thought was, I need to do everything I can to help address this problem.

Will it build goodwill and better friendships to take action? The answer is clearly yes. When communities come together to make sure that they’re prepared to cope with flood or drought, storms, hurricanes, or wildfires, it builds goodwill and better friendships. Will climate action be beneficial to all concerned? Absolutely.

So instead of sitting down and having the chicken lunch, I parked myself on a chair in the corner and reorganized my whole presentation around The Four-Way Test. I’ll never forget, one of our neighbors, who’s a banker, stood up at the end and he said, “Well, you know, I never really thought this whole global warming thing was real, but it passed The Four-Way Test.”