 Good afternoon everyone. My name is Carol Werner. I'm the executive director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute For those of you who have been it at our briefings before you know a little bit about EESI But for those who may not have let me just tell you that our organization was formed by bipartisan group of members of Congress back in 1984 for the purpose of providing more resources to policy makers as they tried to learn about to struggle in terms of Finding out what are the kinds of solutions? What are the kinds of questions that we should be asking with regard to environmental and energy issues? So that has been a very important part of our mission for the last 35 years To provide those kinds of resources to policy makers We do a whole series of briefings every year on science technology and policy issues That are before the Congress or that we anticipate will be coming before the Congress So we work on a variety of issues. Please feel free to follow up with me or with any of our staff At any time, but for today's topic Climate change in the American mind We are very very glad to be able to talk about this whole issue to have a very special speaker with us this afternoon Who is well-known and has been for many years now for the very fascinating and thorough and thoughtful Work that he has been doing at as a director of the Yale program on climate change communication Which is also part of Yale School of forestry and environmental studies So Dr. Anthony Liserwitz has been doing as I said this kind of pulling Communication analysis really searching in in terms of looking at these issues both internationally as well as domestically really really important issues to try and understand better what is making up the fabric of Thought with regard to the American public with regard to the public globally In terms of thinking about climate change. What's involved? What does this represent for different kinds of policy issues? How are people thinking about it and of course we know that as we have Entered into the third month of this new Congress that there is a lot of Conversation on Capitol Hill with regard to climate change There have been numerous bills that have been been introduced There are any number of hearings that have been held and that will be held over the course of the next several months There is a whole new select committee on climate change that has been set up here in the house So the thing is it is an important topic people are seeing all sorts of things happening Across the country in terms of extreme weather events. So I think that it is becoming much more top-of-mind In terms of conversations articles that people are becoming aware of across the country But what do we really know about? American public opinion How should we think about it? What does? What what are we thinking? How does that manifest itself? What do we learn from that? What are the questions we should be asking? So to help us learn more about all of that and then to answer all of your questions I am delighted to introduce dr. Anthony Liser woods Well, thank you very much Carol and thank you to you and to the E si for the invitation to come down and Have a conversation with you all today Just to extend a little bit So I direct the Yale program on climate change communication and just to give you a little more insight as to what we do We basically try to study mass societies and and understand how are they responding to climate change and other global environmental challenges So what do people understand and misunderstand about the causes the consequences and the potential solutions? How do they perceive the risks so the likelihood and severity of different types of impacts from sea level rise to human health impacts? To economic impacts and so on what kinds of policies do people support or oppose? And then what kinds of behaviors are people engaged in around climate change and energy and by behavior We look at how people use waste or conserve energy at home and on the road Secondly is consumer behavior to what extent do they will they prefer the products and services that are more climate friendly? But also interestingly to what extent are they willing to reward or punish companies for their actions? And I would just take a moment to say that Americans generally are more willing to vote with their pocket books Then they are to vote at the ballot box on the issue of climate change and that's actually an important lever of change in today's society a Third area is social behavior in particular communication Do we talk about this issue or why don't we talk about this issue because that's often the case? And then last but not least is political behavior What leads people to become engaged citizens to actually roll up their sleeves and say? I'm not going to stand on the sideline and watch the world burn I want to get involved and do what I can to try to affect larger systemic structural political change But in the end we are geeky scientists, so our ultimate question is answering why? What are the underlying psychological cultural and political reasons why some people get really engaged with these issues? Others are kind of apathetic and others are downright hostile and dismissive And then as Carol alluded to we work at a lot of different scales Here I'm going to talk about climate change in the American mind I'll show you a little bit of the work that we've been doing at state and local levels because of course That's where so much of the action is going to happen regardless of what happens in DC But we've also done a lot of work internationally as well We did the first ever studies in China the first ever study in India And then we partnered with the Gallup world poll for several years to study this in about 130 countries around the world So when we get to Q&A, I'm happy to go to whatever level people want to go But for today, I'm going to mostly just talk about here in the United States Okay, so let me just start and I'm gonna I can't help myself. I'm a professor So I'm just going to say that it would be wonderful It would be great if all Americans could have a whole semester-long course devoted to climate change Maybe taught at Yale University. Okay climate change 101 You know a full semester course to really understand Here's how the climate system works here the causes here. What are the consequences here with the potential solutions? Okay, that would be great But that's never gonna happen That's never gonna happen We're talking about a population of over 300 million people Okay, now I am not saying that in fact there aren't millions of Americans who do want those kinds of details Okay, and are asking those questions and I say it's incumbent upon us in the climate science community To go more than halfway to try to meet them and try as best we can to answer their questions Okay, but that's not most people most people are too busy with other issues They got too much else going on in their lives or trying to get their kids to school all the other things that are pressing on us Okay, they don't have the background. They don't have the training to really get into the details So the core question then becomes what do people need to know? Just imagine with me for a moment that there's limited shelf space in most people's heads for this particular issue or Frankly any of the other issues that we deal with in this body So what would you need them to know? Okay, do they need to know exactly how the carbon cycle works? Probably not Do they need to know exactly how many parts per million of CO2 is in the atmosphere at any given time? Probably not And through the course of our work and some of our colleagues around the country We think we've actually identified five key ideas Okay, five ideas that at least are a baseline at least a starting point that we would hope all people could understand Because it turns out those five key ideas are strongly associated with support for policy and willingness to take individual action Moreover we boiled those five ideas down to just ten words But a friend of mine here in Congress actually is a haiku master and she converted it to 11 words So I'm going to give you the longer version which is 11 words and here we go And I'm sorry that you have to look on the sides. It's a fabulous screen right behind you, but you can't see it Here we are Scientists agree. It's real It's us It's bad But there's hope Now that seems deceptively simple Okay, but actually these are what I would call meta ideas These are ideas that in fact you can talk about in hundreds and hundreds of different instances and examples and ways Okay, here are all the ways that we know that the scientific community has reached a consensus that climate change is happening in human Cause and that presents really serious risks for humanity as well as non humanity species Okay, here are all the ways that we know that it's actually happening Here are all the dozens of ways that we know that this time it's us Yes, of course the climate has changed naturally over millions of years of course But this time it's different. It's not the sun. It's not orbital dynamics. It's not volcanoes This time is the result of human particularly industrial activities It's bad here are the thousands of examples of how it's already bad now and Gonna get much much worse if we continue on the current path of pollution and Then perhaps most importantly this last one, which is that there's hope and this actually resonates with a deep huge literature in the social sciences and psychology in particular about that It's not enough to understand the threat the risk the seriousness of the issue itself and this is for any issue But you have to couple that with an understanding of what's called efficacy That's the psychological term which basically means that you know that there are things that can be done That you or we have the ability to do those things and most importantly that if we do them it will make a difference Okay, it's not enough to just communicate big problem big problem big problem. Be scared be worried Let's do or you know, let's be worried about it Let's be fearful Okay, and I will be pretty critical right now of the climate community and frankly the environmental community and we could keep Going that we too often stop there and Don't couple it with a sense of here's what we can in fact do and more importantly. Here's what people are actually doing right now Because the fact is that there are amazing stories all around us all across the country and all around the world of people Who are already taking action? Okay, so it's important to have both so deceptively simple But I think really Important things that every time you're talking about That climate change is real or that it's us or that it's bad. You're trying to reinforce these basic fundamental ideas in people's heads Okay, so how are we doing right now in the United States? So as Carol mentioned we've been Studying American public opinion on this for many many years and I'm going to show you data from an ongoing Project that we call climate change in the American mind. These are nationally represented surveys We conduct twice a year every spring every fall and have been doing that for over a decade So I'm going to show you the trends that we've seen over the past decade And we'll talk a bit about that. So again with this in mind how we doing here in the United States Well on the far left you see where we started this project back in the November of 2008 And then all the way forward to the far right you see the most recent study We published back in December. So just a few months ago. We're actually in the field right now So we'll have an update to this in just a few weeks And what you can see is that basically we had a high watermark back in 2008 This is right about the time that we were talking about the last major shot at National climate legislation the waxman Markey bill and basically public engagement with this issue had been Growing and growing and growing throughout the 2000s until it kind of hit this high watermark And then you can see there was a substantial drop a 14 percentage point drop in acceptance that the problem is even real And by the way pews data shows the same trend gallops data shows the same trend our other academic Friends and colleagues all show the same thing So a big drop Boutoming out in 2010 and if we want people want to ask questions about that particular moment in history I'm happy to do that, but I'm going to save it for the Q&A Then pretty you know stayed pretty low for quite a while until just the past few years when it we've seen a real uptick And we're now at an all-time high 73% of Americans who accept that climate change is real Yay 73% Except it's only 73% if we were in Japan it would be over 95% Okay, so the US is actually a laggard in terms of public engagement or at least even acceptance that the problem is real Let alone a human cause or a serious problem, but with human cause in mind. How we doing there? Well, not quite as well again same basic trend big drop from 2008 to 2010 All-time high again 62% of Americans understand that it's human-caused and those that believe it's natural is at an all-time low now So that's good, but it's still only 62% and that's important because you know If it's not if human activities are not helping to drive this issue Then why would we do things like regulate carbon dioxide or put a price on carbon or do all the things that of course people in Congress and in the state legislators around the country are trying to do to address the core Cause of this which is carbon pollution and other greenhouse gases So maybe we should be spending money on resilience and adaptation to extreme weather Okay, but I don't understand why we would need to do these other kinds of policies and Then another really important measure and this stands in for a whole bunch of other risk perception items Which I'll show you a few in a few minutes Is worry now this we actually saw a really big jump in the past year So from March of last year to December of last year An eight-point jump in those Americans who are very worried about climate change. That's pretty remarkable We rarely see moves like that in this kind of public opinion data So that's actually pretty remarkable and we think actually a lot of that has to do with the extreme weather that happened last year Also very importantly a couple major scientific reports that came out both the intergovernmental panel on climate change You know international body of scientists that review all the latest research Released a major report on what it would take to hold global temperatures below one and a half degrees Celsius and basically said It's doable, but it's gonna be really hard Okay, and that was a heck of a wake-up call Likewise the national climate assessment was released or actually released on a Friday after Thanksgiving Which as most people know that's usually the day that you want to take out the trash And if you don't want the media to pay attention to a story, that's the perfect time to do it especially after Thanksgiving, but You know that kind of backfired in the sense that a lot of the media saw that and was like Hey, what are they doing? They must be trying to hide this. So actually Ironically generated a lot more media coverage. It's it's very funny how these things work So anyway those stories got a lot of attention and again This is of course the federal government and federal scientists reviewing the literature about what we know about These impacts here in the United States and saying it's already having a significant impact in the United States That together with media coverage You put those pieces together and if you'll excuse the expression, it's a perfect storm Okay, so we think that's a good part of what's going on there but Still even with that only 29% of Americans are very worried about this issue So why aren't we more worried about it? Okay, well what we've seen dating all the way back to the beginning of these this study and before is One thing in particular that many Americans continue to think of climate change as a distant problem Distant in time that the impacts won't be felt for a generation or more and Distant in space. This is about polar bears or maybe some developing countries, but not the United States Not my state Not my community Not my friends Not my family Not me and as a result, it's psychologically distant It's one of those issues of a thousand other issues that's out there And maybe I kind of wish somebody would do something about it, but I don't see why it's important. I don't see why it's a priority Okay Another important thing that we learned early in this work is that of course Americans don't have a single viewpoint about climate change Or frankly any important issue in American life And so then people tend to very simplistically say oh well then okay There's climate change believers and climate change deniers and that actually does real violence to the truth, too Okay, what we found in our research is what we call global warming six Americas six different parts of the public that are each quite different from each other and each have a very different starting point in Engaging this issue. So let me introduce you to your fellow Americans categorize this way This data is from 2018 I'll show you the trends in a moment because we've been tracking this now for Over a decade The first group is 29% of Americans what we call the alarmed. These are people who are absolutely convinced it's happening It's human-caused. It's urgent. They strongly support action It's a high-private voting priority but They don't know what they can do They don't know what they can do as individuals to address this issue They don't know what we can do collectively to address this issue and again from a communication standpoint I think our community the climate community has done a better job of communicating the problem than they have the solutions Secondly is a group we call the concerned. These are people who say yeah, it's happening. It's human-caused. It's serious But again, they tend to think of it as distant in time and space So they do support action, but they don't see it as particularly urgent or as a particularly high national priority Third group that 17% is a group we call the cautious and you can think of these people as still on the fence But not really sure. Is it real? Is it not? Is it human? Is it natural? Is it serious or is it kind of overblown? They're paying attention, but just really haven't made up their mind They're a bit confused Then comes a small but I think very important group that we call the disengaged That's five percent of the country these are people who say you know, I think I once heard that word global warming But I don't know anything about it. I don't know what the causes are I don't know the consequences are I don't know what the solutions are okay They believe it or not. There's about five percent who really just don't know much and I'll just take a moment to go global This actually is far larger at the global scale what we found in the data is a little old now But it's I think hasn't changed that much what we found is with the Gallup world polls that about four out of ten human beings or adults on earth have never heard of climate change and that rises to two-thirds or even three-quarters in particular countries like Bangladesh Okay, poster child of climate change vulnerability and yet about two-thirds of Bangladesh use have never heard of it Likewise in India about two-thirds have never heard of it Which is not to say that they're not keenly aware that the weather patterns of temperature and precipitation are changing They know that They are very clear about that and in fact what we found in the study in India is that when we just gave them a one-sentence Description of how climate change is affecting weather patterns immediately over seventy percent of Indians say yeah, that's happening And yeah, I'm really worried about it. And yes, I'm supportive of my government taking action. Okay, because our lives Literally depend on it. We're often talking about people who are still subsistence agriculture as an example Okay, so they're keenly aware of the changes They just lack the notion or the idea the concept of climate change to either make sense of the effects and the impacts that they're already witnessing or They lack the concept of climate change to help inform the decisions that they're making right now Okay, how do these countries? What crops do we grow? Where do we build our new cities to what thresholds should we be building our bridges or roads our buildings? Where should we putting our hospitals and our schools? Okay, these are really big decisions and if you're not making those decisions today with climate change in mind You're more vulnerable. You will be more vulnerable moving forward Sorry, that was a bit of an aside But that's five percent of the United States then comes a group nine percent that we call the doubtful These are people say, you know, I don't think it's real But if it is it's natural just a natural cycle nothing humans anything to do is so I don't think about it That much and I certainly don't perceive it as much of a risk then At the end here is nine percent the dismissive and these are people who are firmly convinced. It's not happening It's not human. It's not a serious problem and most of whom literally are telling us that they're conspiracy theorists They say it's a hoax. It's scientists making up data It's a UN plot to take away American sovereignty It's a get rich scheme by Al Gore and his friends and many many other such conspiracy oriented narratives Okay. Now importantly They're nine percent They're only nine percent But they're a really loud nine percent They're really vocal nine percent and I have to say they're pretty well represented in this body Right here in Washington, DC So they've actually tended to make themselves seem like they're half or more of the country when they're not They're less than ten percent, but they're really loud. They're good communicators Okay, they're very happy to tell you what they think Okay. All right. So what's been happening in the trends? So here you can see what's been going on over the past five years and basically big changes So the alarm are have increased by 15 percentage points the concerned are up two points The cautious are down six the disengaged are still about the same at with a slight increase of two percent The doubtful are down six and the dismissive are down five Okay, this is another way of kind of getting at the larger political climate of climate change in the United States And one other thing I'll point you to is that if you look in 2013 The alarmed were exactly the same proportion as the dismissive at 14 percent Okay, and these two groups are really important. Okay, overall public opinion has a very, you know limited influence on policymaking Okay It's important to have public with you and supported you like you don't want to go against something that the public is absolutely against because you Might well get whacked for that, but you know general support It's it's silent permission to act, but it's not a motivation to act But issue publics that subset of the of the population that is highly engaged with a particular issue And is literally going to get up in your face and in your grill at home in Washington On the airwaves in op-eds and so on those are the people who tend to have the greatest influence from the public side Obviously, there are many influences on decision-making in this town But at least from the public standpoint those issue publics are really important Back in 2013 the alarm in the dismissives were the same at 14 percent today The alarmed are 29 percent and the dismissives were nine the alarmed outnumbered the dismissive more than three to one Okay, that's a pretty big shift and Since we're here in DC yet gotta I mean all the six America stuff is great It's very helpful for thinking about climate change in particular, but let's face it. It's also a partisan issue so let's look at how What's been happening in the trends of is climate change a high very high priority for the president in Congress and you Can very quickly see the trends the blue line is Democrats And we've seen a really big shift a really strong upward surge among Democrats in saying that climate change should be a very high priority There's also an upward surge among independence, but clearly not as strong and then among Republicans. It's been pretty flat So yes, we are polarized on this and I'll come back to that in just a second Now I know this is a very complicated slide and I do expect you all to memorize it because there will be a quiz at the end But really I want to make just a couple key points that will be very simple So you've all seen these questions. I think there's actually one of the most important questions Survey researchers can ask is how big of a priority is this issue because there's a lot of competing issues on the agenda Right, we all know that so which are the ones that are at the top tier Which are the ones that are gonna get the most attention from a member of Congress the president the agencies and so on So what we've all seen for many many years is climate change tends to score pretty low in the list of national priorities now here This is a question. We asked a year ago where we explicitly asked how important will these 28 different issues be in determining your vote for Congress in this last fall's congressional elections Okay, and climate change was at number 15 So that's basically a lot better than it has been in the past, but that's not a hot top priority issue Let's be clear. Okay, it's 15 But then it gets much more interesting when you break it down by liberal Democrats moderate conservative Democrats liberal moderate Republicans and conservative Republicans among conservative Republicans there on the on the right is Global warming is 28th out of 28 dead last Okay, and it's not a whole lot higher among liberal moderate Republicans and Among moderate conservative Democrats. It's in the middle of the pack But then it gets interesting when you look among liberal Democrats because climate change was number four and Protecting the environment was number three Okay, that is a top tier issue and I think that's why you started to see climate change appearing in certain congressional races last fall in other words the base of one of our two major political parties has Reached a consensus that this is one of their top priority issues and in fact, I've seen some more recent Pulling data that suggests it's actually now number two Especially because with the as the memories of Parkland have faded that has dropped in public priorities Okay So I don't think it's an accident. I don't think it's a coincidence that every Candidate currently running for the Democratic nomination for president Has already come out and said I am for climate change action Okay, and even within there we've got a spectrum of people who are saying That they are for climate change all the way out to Jay Inslee who's literally running his entire campaign on climate change I think this is going to continue to play out over the next couple years and it's playing out of course Has been playing out this week here in Congress Okay, so yes, we are polarized on this issue. I know this is groundbreaking. Nobody knew that we were really Divided on climate change in this country But I don't want to leave you with the impression that it that were totally hopelessly divided because when it comes to some of the Solutions we've actually already reached a social consensus and that's particularly true on clean energy So here I'm just pulling a few out We see overwhelming and have all along very strong support for funding more research into renewable energy Sources such as solar and wind power. Okay, almost nine out of ten Americans Support that including a large majority of conservative Republicans. Okay, I got to tell you as a survey researcher It's hard to write a question that you get nine out of ten Americans to agree on I dare say if I asked you like apple pie I wouldn't get that kind of number Okay Americans are really supportive of this and I think this is one of the things that you're already seeing showing up here in policy proposals I think just yesterday or the day before Lamar Alexander over in the Senate is promoting a Manhattan style project to Put a lot of research money into clean energy and battery storage. Okay Guess what? That's one of the things that within the Republican Party There's already a consensus that that's an important and worthwhile thing to do and Likewise providing tax credits for people who purchase energy efficient vehicles and solar panels Americans want to be part of this Transition to clean energy they want some help in doing it, but they want to be part of it Regulating co2 as a as as a pollutant again Strong support for that across the country even among conservative Republicans And I'll come back to more policies here in a second But I also just want to give you a sense of the of the trend on that funding renewable energy research Not only is it high But you can see that the real movement over the past few years has been among conservative Republicans who've increased their support for This by 30 percentage points Wow 30 percentage points over the past five years from 50% support to now 80 another Switching gears here another very very common Message or discourse that we always hear right around this time And it's come up in the climate space over and over it's come up in other environmental issues over and over Is the question that's actually one of the oldest pulling questions on the environment? I mean really goes way way way back and you all know this question as in Which do you prefer? protecting the in the environment even if it harms the economy and cost jobs or Growing the economy even it has environmental Devastation or damage, okay? I've always hated this question Okay, it's a zero-sum either or false choice Okay, so we actually have rewritten the question and we've tried it with climate change We tried it with the environment and I'm going to show you here around the clean energy transition That it's not an argument that most Americans actually agree with that when asked You know how much let me actually read it myself Do you think government policies intended to transition away from fossil fuels towards clean energy? Will improve economic growth and provide new jobs? Reduce economic growth and cost jobs or have no effect And what we see is that overwhelmingly Americans say it will either grow the economy Or have no effect 58% say it will actually improve growth and jobs 23% say not much at all only 18% of Americans really buy into this argument that it will destroy our economy, okay, I always am amused at the hyperventilated You know catastrophic Discourse I hear about millions of jobs destroy our economy It's exactly the same language that friends the auto company said when it was when they were told you're gonna have to put seatbelts in cars Oh, you can't do that. It will destroy our industry. It's gonna cost us millions of jobs last time I checked We're still buying cars So anyway, and that turns out to be true even among conservative Republicans 59% say it will either improve the economy or have no effect Just because this issue has been very current lately Here I'm gonna show you the data about support for the Green New Deal now. We did this back Back in the day before Markey before AOC put their proposal together as we were just starting to get Hearing about this thing and well first of all we found is that of course 80% of Americans said I'd never heard of it Okay, but then we asked with a you know a description of at least some of the aspirational goals of this What do you think and overwhelmingly Americans say? Yeah, I want those right for generate 100% of the nation's electricity from cleaner and Oval sources within 10 years upgrade the energy grid buildings and transportation infrastructure increase energy efficiency invest in research and Development provide training for jobs. I mean of course people love that okay, and I've seen more recent work that actually starts to attach price tags to it and even starts to break it out and like which of the Specific policy to support and it is going down in particular one of things we warned back in December when we first released this is that this Was all before anybody had Started to launch attacks on this basic idea Okay, and these numbers were gonna change and they are changing but interestingly they're not changing that much at least Not so far. Well, we'll keep an eye on it But anyway, I know there's been a lot of Discussion around the Green New Deal especially yesterday So just wanted to make sure I touched on it But at least one of the themes in the Green New Deal is this idea of trying to make the shift to clean Renewable energy as quickly as possible now this one isn't in 10 years. This is in by 2050 So we're giving people a little bit longer But what we see again is that overwhelmingly people support this basic idea Okay, and I I know this is hard for people to believe but there's no inherent love of coal oil and gas in America Okay, people want the lights to go on Okay, they want to be able to go from point a to point B And for those that actually have studied it and know anything about it They'd like to go from point a to point B a lot faster and a lot more fun because an electric motor is so much More powerful than an internal combustion engine if you haven't driven an electric car buck a lot Okay, thank God for those seat belts Okay more over we've even asked, you know, how might it affect your your own Your own likelihood to vote for a candidate Whether they support that transition or not and again overwhelmingly people say yes I'm I want to support candidates that that want to lead this Okay, so the other thing I want to really end with is a Tool that came out of a lot of discussions that came out from a lot of these presentations that I give around the country because people would say Hey, you know this national data is really helpful the six America's framework really helps them better understand my audiences And so on but I'm trying to run a campaign in Kansas Can you tell me about Kansas and the answer was always no because no one's ever Provided me support to go do a study in Kansas And of course you could just multiply that by at the state level at the congressional district level, etc It's at the city level. So in response, we were able to help To advance and pioneer some of the this really amazing new statistical Tools that have emerged in the past few years that have allowed us to basically build models that estimate public opinion for all 50 states all 435 congressional districts all Thousand largest cities and three thousand plus counties across the country and moreover, of course We don't just trust a model. We then actually did independent surveys in four states and two cities to then compare How well that models estimates compared against actual survey results? The short answer of this and it's published so happy to if anybody wants to look at the details is that they match at about 97 98% I mean wow okay As a social scientist I go wow that's like natural science Okay, and in fact, we're not even sure which is more accurate the model or the surveys because any survey of course has a margin of error around it Usually of say plus or minus 3% So anyway, what do we see when we start to break that out? So let me Drop out of this and these are all publicly available here on our website. Just look at Yale climate opinion maps We've been doing this for several years. We just updated them with the 2018 data This is all open and available for anybody who wants to come take a look. So here's an example And this is what we could always provide before 61% of Americans are worried about global warming in 2018 Okay, that's useful kind of But in the end people want to know what's going on much more locally. So let's go straight to the county level Because what you suddenly can see is that there's far more variation going on in this country than we were otherwise aware of I mean, I'll say as a scientist it was like a biologist being given a microscope for the first time You kind of knew there were things swimming around in the water, but you couldn't see him until you had this new tool So let me just take one of my favorite examples Not only is there a lot of variation around the country, but look at Texas Okay, Texas kind of has this reputation of being like deep red very conservative You know has been led by a couple of climate denying governors over the years including Rick Perry Doesn't seem like a place that you can have a very constructive conversation about climate change turns out. That's not true Okay, those counties along the border are As or more worried about climate change as counties in California Why Latinos Okay, in fact, we've done a whole set of other studies looking at this because the common wisdom is that only upper-middle class white Well-educated latte sipping liberals care about climate change. It's not true Okay Latinos are the demographic that actually care more about climate change than just about anybody else in America They're more convinced it's real that it's human-caused. They're more worried about it. They're more supportive of policy action So you can begin to see that these kinds of analysis suddenly reveal patterns that we just weren't aware of before so just Because I know people tend to here tend to be more interested in this level. Let's switch to congressional districts So, okay, so I made the point earlier about how climate change seems distant. Well, here's how Americans in every congressional district in the country think about Will global warming harm future generations? There isn't a congressional district in the country where there's not a majority of Americans or constituents who think that okay? The darker the red or the orange the more people say, yes, the more blue the more They they don't believe it. They perceive low risk Okay, every single congressional district Okay, will global warming harm people in the US? Well Not so much what global warming harm me personally. All right How about back to the solutions? clean energy Everybody supports us. I mean this is really high. Okay, including the oil patches Including West Virginia. Okay. How about regulating CO2 as a pollutant? Not as strong but still clearly majority support everywhere How about sitting strict CO2 limits on coal-fired power plants, which is basically the essence of the clean power plant? We didn't call it Obama's plan But it's basically the clean power plan majority support everywhere How about requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a carbon tax? Yeah, we use the word tax. All right. Well, there's lots of others here. I'll just point to one other Should schools be teaching about this yes Everybody says yes but How often do we talk about it? Not so often and how often do we hear about it in the media? even less often Okay, and this is where I'll end because this is one of the first things that anybody can do is Talk about it In our work. We've identified this is what we call the spiral of silence Okay, that there is a perception that Let's say I want to talk about climate change, but I'm friends with Carol or you know, we're related right and My perception is that she doesn't want to talk about climate change or maybe she doesn't even believe it So I'm not going to bring it up because I don't want it to be uncomfortable, right? But in fact, she's interested in talking about climate change with me But she has the same misperception about me too. Okay, so she doesn't bring it up And so I don't bring it up and she doesn't bring it up And so neither of us talk about it and we all spiral downward into a spiral of silence and not talking about it If you're not talking about a problem, how important can it be? And we've seen a couple really I think good examples of that shift on totally a different issues recently Okay, black lives matter and the me too movement now leave aside your views about either of those Does anybody think that issues about African-Americans and their treatment by by police forces or sexual harassment and discrimination against women are new problems that we only just discovered three years ago Well, these are long-standing problems long-standing problems, but we weren't talking about it Okay, that's why it's so important to begin by talking about it Okay, so with that, thank you very much and let's talk about it So I would just say first of all Tony. Thank you. That was absolutely fascinating I think we should all sign up for one of your classes What fun that would be and this was really really interesting There were several questions that I had that you actually kind of touched on a whole variety of them But let's open it up for your questions This is a great chance to think about this as a seminar where you've got the professor here and you can just go at it So when you ask your question, could you just wait for the microphone? So that we can make sure that those folks who are listening online are able to hear the question Okay, let's start up here and then we'll work our way around and here comes the microphone Do you just tell me who you are? Oh, my name is Julie Salker. I'm not affiliated with any okay I'm high. Hi. Thank you so much for your talk. It was so interesting. Do you have any explanations for why? The support for solutions is so much stronger than the belief in the problem Thank you. That's a great question Okay a Lot of this comes down to values Okay, so I didn't touch on it, but I'm gonna take a little bit of time to really get at because it's it's important So this is deeper than being a Democrat or a Republican It's deeper than being conservative or liberal that what we have found in our work over the years is that what really seems to be Driving a lot of this is a conflict over two different world views essentially two different value systems The one is what the first that we call is what we call egalitarianism Okay, people with strong egalitarian values as in they say there's too much discrimination in society that government should be trying to eradicate Poverty that inequities of wealth between and across nations is a major source of conflict None of those have anything directly to do with climate change But people with that worldview are much more worried about climate change because in no small part They see it as a deeply unfair and unjust issue Okay, the people who benefited from the burning of fossil fuels are not the people who are Getting hit first and worse and are gonna pay the ultimate price Okay So that's on the alarm side, but on the dismissive side what we see is a different worldview, which is what we call individualism So for these people the one value that trumps Sorry, no pun intended that trumps all other values is individual liberty individual freedom Individual autonomy and that's usually cast as anti-government. Okay, the government's the enemy. It's too big It's too intrusive too much taxes too much regular. I mean, you know this discourse, right? We it's all around People with that worldview are deeply suspicious and even hostile to the issue of climate change Because it's at least to them so far. They have interpreted it as in it as a direct threat to those underlying values Which were there long before climate change came along Okay, this is actually one of the deepest Philosophical but not but deeply practical questions in American life going back to before the founding Which is the question? What is the proper role of government in a society of free individuals? We have been wrestling with that question for well over 200 years Okay, and we still struggle with that question Okay, now if you have a worldview where the government is inherently too big to Channel Grover-Norquist. I want to shrink government to the size I can drown it in a bathtub Okay, if that's your worldview then into that milieu comes this issue climate change Which is like the ultimate collective action problem of the mother of all collective action problems Because there's no way that you and I and every other American by doing those good things that will make you healthier And wealthier and you know more comfortable and so on of you know changing your diet a little bit Buying a more fuel-efficient car buying energy-efficient appliances insulating your attic. Please insulate your attic I know it's not sexy, but do it You know etc etc Okay, if we all do that I've got colleagues who've calculated this and say that if all Americans did that we could collectively reduce US national emissions by about 10% and that would be an amazing contribution Okay, there is no silver bullet. Okay, we need a portfolio of approaches here. So I'm not dismissing this But it's only 10% Right the other 90% has to come from larger systemic change and the main mechanism We have for achieving social aims Remains government government is gonna have to be involved at some level along with private sector a Long with the public sector along with the nonprofit sector right this is an all-hands-on-deck moment But there's got to be some role for government and we can have a big argument about what that should be But there's gonna have to be and more over Even if we get it all figured out here in the United States, we still don't solve the problem because it's a global problem Right. We have to do this in partnership in coordination With 190 plus other countries in the world And what's the main institution we have for coordinating international action the United Nations? Well as soon as you say that word there are some people in the dismissive conspiracy camp who have visions of black helicopters in their head Right. They say oh my god climate change is just an excuse to try to take away American sovereignty Okay, so that's what I'm saying is that this ultimately becomes a conflict over values Which was a long way of setting up my real answer to your question Which is why do some of these same people support clean energy? So the best way to answer that is with a story In the state of Georgia several years ago, there's a single utility that Dominates the electricity market. Okay, it's a monopoly Georgia power and I highly recommend monopolies if you can get one Get it. Okay great business model And they had basically set up the system so that homeowners who had solar panels on their roof Were not allowed to sell that electricity into the grid. Why would you want the competition? Okay, so in Georgia in response the Sierra Club partnered with the Atlanta tea party Maybe I should say that again the Sierra Club partnered with the tea party to fight Those regulations and beat them twice and now homeowners can in fact sell their electricity into the grid Now why on earth would they do this? Okay, Sierra Club is a bunch of greeny tree huggers care about climate change and panda bears, right? We know why they did it why? Would the tea party do it many of whom don't believe in climate change because it's about individual liberty It's about self-reliance Who is the some company or the government tell me what I can and cannot do with my castle? Why shouldn't I be able to participate in the free market with the energy I'm producing on my roof? Okay, that is the art of politics How do you find policies that? completely opposite Bedfellows or just different bedfellows can come to support for different reasons and that's okay Okay Now those two groups have actually gone on to find other things that they agree on They don't agree about lots of stuff, but they have found other stuff And so I mean the nice thing is that they're now affectionately being called and wait for it the green tea party So really I Devote the time because it's a great question It really gets at the deeper struggle of what this is all about because what you what you end up with is what's called Solution aversion that people hear solutions that seems to violate their core ideological principles and therefore they reject the problem Right, I don't want more. I don't want big government and climate change sure sounds like big government to me So then I'm it can't be true. It's just an excuse by Al Gore and his friends You know to push their their liberal agenda down my throat Okay, it's really easy to do that. The last point. I'll make is that messenger matters Messenger is often more important than the message because as human beings. We're just lousy at Distinguishing among people so let's take Al Gore as a wonderful example. I think Al Gore has done an amazing job Activating the Democratic base. I think he's done a really good job Internationally, but for every person every Democrat he's managed to engage There's at least one if not more conservatives that just go the opposite direction because they don't like him They really really don't like him. We see this in our surveys okay, and Unfortunately as human beings, we're just lousy at saying I loathe and detest Al Gore that liberal Politician, but when he's talking about climate science, he's actually got a point Okay, we're just bad at that Okay, and so that's why I think one of the most exciting things happening today is all the new voices that are coming into this issue Including Republicans including conservatives, but not limited to them military officials doctors nurses Businesses large and small mayors governors Farmers ranchers faith leaders. I mean This issue is now engaging people from every walk of life And I think that is probably our best hope because it starts to break us out of this stupid political dreadlock The climate system does not care Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican It's not like the floods that are destroying as much of the Great Plains right now are only harming the farms of you know Liberal farmers and not conservative ones. The climate system doesn't care Our policy making though does care so That's the top one. Sorry. That was a long answer. Okay, so we'll work our way around. We'll start up here and and I would just say just to add one more little kind of data point is that and We had a sustainable energy coalition that Commission polls every year through the 90s and one of the things that we always found was that there was enormous support for renewables and energy efficiency Policies and a lot of that we found was really tied because what people people also really care about clean air and Clean and fire and clean water because it directly affects their health Okay, go ahead. Hi there. Thanks for this talk. My name is Megan Mae from senator Baldwin's office I'm interested in learning a little bit about what your assumptions for the model are and then where you published and How we can get access so I think the quickest way to that has come up afterwards and let's have let's geek out and I'll give you the paper. Yeah terrific. Okay Let's go over here and then we'll work our way back Hi, I'm Fred Hoover with the nazi a state association of National Association of State Energy officials back to your first slide the percentage for The concern that Americans have for global warming that which is 71 percent in 2008 and then dropped Yes, and you sort of alluded to so I guess my question is did it drop because Congress actually took action on climate change and there was a reaction to that or is it some other reason? That's part of it. So Thanks for the question. So there were a lot of things happening in that time period, right? You might remember this little thing called the Great Recession The housing bubble popped unemployment surged over 10 percent. We also had a couple cold weather events You might remember we coined the term snowmageddon back then we're running out of these these phrases But we actually did a whole in-depth analysis that we published a couple years ago where we tested all of those potential explanations And it turns out none of those had any effect the unemployment the economy no real effect change in housing prices no association The cold weather didn't explain anything there's change in media coverage didn't really explain much The thing that really seemed to do it was I'm gonna use a political science term here I'll explain what I mean. It's a fancy term called political elite cues Okay, which goes back to what we were just talking about with messenger effects That what happens in that critical time period is the rise of the Tea Party and Just to remind you ten years ago the nominee of the Republican Party for president of the United States Was senator John McCain who for years had been one of the primary champions of climate legislation here in Congress and Moreover climate change was in the national Republican Party platform That it's real that it's human cause it's serious and we're gonna solve it with our conservative principles Just two years later with the rise of the Tea Party John McCain goes silent Lindsey Graham goes silent Lamar Alexander goes silent and many other Republicans in Congress who already knew that this was a serious problem But they went quiet because suddenly they were afraid of being primary Okay, and we see the entire Republican Party take this strong lurch away from in 2008 saying yes This is our national party stance that this is a serious problem To all the way out to the last twig on the end of the longest branch and where it became a common talking point to say climate change is a hoax And what we've been seeing is them slowly inching their way back up that branch Okay, they're not back to where they were not yet But they have been beginning to inch their way back So the the key point here is that when political leaders speak They're partisans the followers. Okay tend to listen because most Americans aren't I Break it to any of my climate science friends in the audience. They're not reading your peer reviewed papers Okay, they're not reading the IPCC reports. We've even asked only 14% of Americans say they've ever heard of the IPCC And I think many of them are lying Okay We're not talking to climate scientists over the backyard fence Okay, most of us are only learning about this through the media and in particular what we're hearing political leaders saying about it Now that's shifting back to this point again of that the conversation is Greatly expanded now to a whole bunch of new voices that aren't just political leaders But nonetheless people do tend to follow the the leaders that they hear talking about it And when they say that it's a hoax, they tend to fall in line Hello I'm Nick Caiman from Washington State Senator Maria Cantwell's office. Oh, it was an amazing talk. Thank you. First of all, I Really liked your Analogy with the Black Lives Matter me too that made a lot of sense. I feel like they really found Their wind on social media before they got into the media. Yeah, how much do you think we can Rely on the media and rely on that tactic to push this issue forward. Oh God It's a very good question Look, we live in an ever more complicated and fragmented Media landscape than ever before. I mean I will confess to being an old fogey in this room I I remember when there were just three major networks when most of America watched one guy named Walter Cronkite Who literally would say at the end of each day's broadcast and that's the way it is Can you imagine somebody having the gall to say and that's the way it is after a half hour program? We that's that was such a different world Okay, I Think but on the other hand what it means is that while it's increasingly hard to have a Consensus conversation the way that we did back then because there was so few sources of information and we were basically all having the same conversation That's true On the other hand we're a far more interactive and complicated media and communication landscape than ever before and I'll just point To AOC is just a the most recent case in point. Okay Here is somebody who has managed to figure out how to use social media to go from you know literally You know unknown quantity to a member of Congress and now one of the most Listen to members of Congress because of the power of social media. That was something nobody saw coming Okay, and you know Trump himself is a is a creature of a different Media background of course from reality TV My point here is that I think the messages the things that take off the Virality can come from lots of different places now and the mainstream media still plays an absolutely critical role in that as well What turns out mainstream media stories are one of the most shared things on social media Okay, so it's not just the really great blogger who says the really killer nasty burn on somebody right that goes viral It's also mainstream reporting so So anyway, I don't think it's possible or easy anyway to predict where where conversations are really going to kick off Okay Again, thank you for your time. My name is Francis goes get it. I'm from office representative Mike Levin And I guess my first question is in regards to you spoke on Latinos being Essentially caring a lot about climate change. Yeah being very crucial to I was hoping if you could speak to the specific factors that contribute to that trend Just love to learn more. Yeah, so would I so let me just Kind of underscore this particular finding of it because with the Gallup world poll data that we did so again 130 countries around the world one of things that just totally stunned us is that when we asked people around the world How much of a personal threat? Do you think climate change is? Every single country in Central and South America just leaps off the map Much more concerned about climate change than anywhere else more than North America more than Europe more than Africa more than Asia More than Australia. I mean certainly more than Antarctica, but that doesn't count Though actually the people in Antarctica pretty concerned about climate change not to mention the penguins so So what we're finding is not limited to the United States It seems to be something bigger and to be honest when I look at that those set of results My interpretation is that it's something cultural that there's something about Latino culture okay and Brazilian culture too for that matter That is just Somehow engaged with this and so one of the things that we're actually working on right now is trying to really disentangle us And so far what it seems to be is actually its society It's just like it's embedded in the society It's in the social relationships and the family relationships and the extended relationships back to home countries It's part of just the underlying culture and expectations of and social norms that that Latinos grow up in can't Look at me. I'm not a Latino right I'm an outsider trying to understand But everyone all my friends in that community say yeah, that's pretty much how life is okay That's just the way we we expect things to be okay, so What we're finding is that it's no one thing. It's actually the whole constellation of of that community Hey with by the way, and let's just also say that there are Diversions and differences within the Latino community right Cuban Americans are not the same as Mexican Americans Which are not the same as others so we have to recognize the diversity there as well Okay, we'll take a couple more questions One in the back and then we'll go over Like four more questions. Okay Hi, my name is Megan. I'm from Senator Bennett's office You talked about the Black Lives Matter movement and the Me Too movement Do you think that there is going to be a movement like that for climate change? And what do you think is going to spur that especially in the United States since many people as you said like Don't believe it's going to directly affect them. Oh, it's such a great question So first of all, I will just say my crystal ball is cloudy Okay, back to this other question. I mean it can come from lots of different places I think it's even possible. We're seeing it starting to emerge right now And not just sunshine, which is clearly managed to push You know their particular idea the Green New Deal and you know it if nothing else Everybody's talking about it. I mean that's pretty amazing Everybody's talking about it Even Tom Tons and Luke Skywalker are talking about it. Okay But the other one I would absolutely keep my eye on right now is Is the student strike movement? Okay, there were over I think something like two million kids around the world that went on strike just a couple of weekends ago Okay, I think that's pretty damn powerful I mean, we'll see we'll see what happens that we've seen movements like that come and fight away But I think they're also learning from prior movements as well But I think those are really more reflections of a deeper sense of Engagement and desire for action that we're beginning to see in that larger concept That was talking about the issue public of the alarm People are increasingly like we need to get going here Okay, and so I think they're going to respond to candidates who are leading on this I think they're going to respond to business leaders that are doing is in fact I just saw I think today that The big giant tech companies the Googles in the Facebook of so I just created a new association of companies who are purchasing 100% clean energy. Okay I think there are market forces that are going to come into this I think there's consumer pressure forces are going to come into this I think there's religious forces in fact We did a whole study on the impact of Pope Francis when he came to the United States and he had an effect We call it the Francis effect This is coming from lots of different places. So I don't think it's gonna be one thing that is the match that just Does it but I am saying that the wood is pretty dry and There's pretty even probably a fair amount of I Don't want to use the analogy of petroleum product on the wood, but anyway, you get the point Okay, okay, we'll take two last questions here in here. Hi, my name is Yatza Finzen. I'm with Congress but Cartwright In Pennsylvania and I'm curious it sounds like from what you are saying here that in terms of communications from the policymaker side that we need to focus on Solutions that are not so from the top or how do you what are your recommend back recommendations for Talking about it as a policymaker that you can reach More audiences and we don't turn them away. They don't get to worry, but they also see solutions So I'm not saying that the solutions are only like getting individuals to do stuff And in fact, I would I personally would warn against that I mean it's where Americans head tends to go first because we are such an individualistic Society is that people tend to say oh well I recycle Okay, okay great you recycle I love it and I hope you take your shopping bags You know we're useful shopping bags at the grocery store. That's not gonna solve this problem Okay, if I can get the public to do anything It's the issue public is to be came is to get active politically that to me is like that That's more important than all the other stuff as important as that other stuff actually is So in terms of communicating to your constituents one, I would just encourage them to speak up Okay, I think really coming back to that that key point I would encourage them to do the things in their own life that they can to try to make their own contribution And I would really encourage them to start putting more pressure on other political leaders including maybe even your own boss Now in terms of the policies that we ultimately are putting forward at the federal level at the state level at the local level All of those need efforts. I mean I think actually citizens can have enormous Influence on especially those local conversations right the local PUC your public Utility Commission They rarely hear from from the members of the public so the public actually has way more power I think to affect change at those local levels, but let's not underestimate their effect on our national politics as well Now in terms of what policies I mean we can I mean we have a long conversation of you know How much do they like carbon taxes and how much they like cap and dividend and you know, you know Cap and trade type mechanisms versus carbon taxes and efficiency standards and all those things I think are ultimately going to be important People don't really distinguish that much in the general public I think they're mostly looking for people who are saying this is a serious problem and we're I'm gonna be a champion Okay, I'm gonna lead on this the details is what we hire political leaders to do Over here hi Sullivan gasman I work with Congresswoman Norton Safe to say Washington DC would be a very affected area by climate change But I was actually wondering regarding some of the charts about opinion and concern You showed us that a lot of those countries in the Midwest very inland countries is where Concern is the lowest and I was just wondering if that was simply due to these are red states And as the as you said that tea party controls a lot of the opinion there or if there's Sentiments that they're feeling removed from the problem and if so how would we overcome that? Yeah Really most of it is politics. These are very conservative parts of the country And so it's not just the oil patch. It's of course, it's Nebraska, right? There's not a lot of oil in Nebraska and yet people are generally pretty conservative there And again if what you're hearing from your political leaders is that climate change is not real or it's not human cause Or it's a hoax then people tend to listen to and fall in line with that that said we've done work already in In basically trying to engage people in these states and finding that actually it's not that hard If you connect climate change to things that they actually care about I know this is like rocket science here Okay, but we have found for instance. We do a national radio program called climate connections I'd encourage you to come visit plays every day 90 seconds minute and a half story brand new and every day Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday that plays on over four hundred and seventy stations across the country plus a hundred and thirty six Spanish speaking stations And one of the stories that we did was about a Nebraska Senator state senator who is deeply concerned about the potential impacts of climate change on corn Okay, so we looked at that we broadcast this is on social media as well as not just the radio program and found it did really well nationally like I was like Agriculture really it's corn people. I mean and yet it people got really interested in this So he said well, how would it work in Nebraska? So we tried it in Nebraska phenomenally well Okay, ten out of ten So then we were like well is that because the story is about Nebraska or because it's about corn so we then tested it in Iowa, Illinois Colorado and Oklahoma some of which have corn some of which do not and sure enough it did just as well in Iowa as it did in Nebraska and I can tell you as a person from the Big Ten, Iowa, Nebraska do not get along in lots of reasons, okay I'm from Iowa. Oh great My my father was from Iowa. So and my mother was from Nebraska about that So anyway I'm living proof that two can work together So it was corn Okay, it was connecting climate change to something that they care deeply about for obvious reasons Okay That's the larger lesson is why we call it climate connections You need to connect the dots for people between this thing that they've kind of heard about climate change But it's never been connected to anything else that they care about to the extent that people think about climate change I didn't even do this But we asked this question in a very free association kind of way We know what people are thinking of when they hear that word. They're mostly thinking things like melting ice Okay, which isn't particularly mobilizing Right. When was the last time you felt dread watching ice melt? Okay, that's not real motivating. Okay, what people do not do right now is connect climate change with human health And yet when we look at the actual impacts of climate change, that's one of the things we're most worried about okay asthma allergies infectious diseases and then all the negative physical and mental effects of extreme weather events, okay, which are devastating Okay, but people have never connected those dots before Okay, let alone climate change and corn Okay, so that's what I would encourage all of you to do and if you're working for a member to ask them to be Trying to find those voices not themselves necessarily But voices within their district that can help tell those stories But here's how climate change is affecting me and even more importantly Here's what I'm doing as an example as a role model within your district of what I'm doing to take action to solve it because those stories are everywhere No Okay, and on the note of talking about solutions. I just wanted to mention I hope that you all picked up this little brochure outside because ESI is launching a whole new effort around a program that was in That was just reauthorized in the farm in the farm bill that provides zero interest loans to rural electric Cooperatives, so this is all about helping rural America make energy efficiency Community solar community storage Initiatives available to rural America across the country So it's one more piece of how we can address issues around climate bring solutions to people who really need them So please take a look at this and I also just wanted to mention that we're doing another thing That's related to solutions folks is this briefing. We've got next Monday with Bloomberg new energy finance and the business council for sustainable energy That's really looking at what we are seeing in terms of investments in clean energy Across the country and as Tony was saying, you know, there is an awful lot going on And it's really incumbent upon us to make sure that we know about it and you're so important point that we talk about it So I just want to say what a terrific job. Thank you so much. This was like wonderful. Thanks so much