How To Persuade Skeptics And Conservatives That Climate Change Is Real

It's not very often that you run into an evangelical Christian who is also a climate scientist. But Katherine Hayhoe, who runs the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University, has devoted herself to persuading skeptics – even those in her own community – that climate change is real. 

The scientific community has offered considerable evidence to demonstrate that man-made climate change is a real threat to the future of humanity, but action has continued to stall due to the opposition of conservative groups. Those who elected and continue to support Donald Trump's policies, not least. 

But throwing more data and more facts to the public has not been useful in changing their minds and hearts. This is because the issue has become polarized around both identity and ideology. 

For many in the conservative movement, what matters most is the fact that many of the proposed solutions to the climate threat go against what they conceive to be the role of government, or of regulation. And instead of focusing and assessing carefully the dry facts of science, they turn to denialism as a means to avoid buying into political stances that they generally oppose.

It's a bit harder to think of ways to bridge this divide. But Hayhoe has a few ideas she delves into in this podcast. It starts with making a case for action on climate change that emphasizes the direct costs of not doing so – not just in general, apocalyptic terms, but in the ways it will affect all those people who continue to deny the very basic facts of the matter.