Women in Climate (WiC) network
Posted by Ruth Chapman
11 October 2021This month we held a joint meeting with the Inspiring Science seminar series at the University of Exerer, and we were fortunate to be joined by Dr Kate Marvel- a high profile physicist and climate science who is also well-known for climate communication. Kateās career has spanned researching policy relevant science issues at Stanford, wind power and the Carnegie Institute, fingerprinting the human influence in precipitation change at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and climate forcings and feedbacks at Columbia University. Most recently, Kate teaches Dynamics of Climate Variability and Change at Columbia University whilst also working at NASA GISS. Kateās communication efforts started with a blog, but have included high profile writing in Scientific America and the book/project āAll We Can Saveā as well as high profile interviews with Time magazine, the New York Times and Rolling Stone magazine. Kate gave a TED Talk on clouds and climate change in 2017 which has had over 1.3 million views.
To start the meeting, Kate gave us a brief overview of her climate communication work, and the difficulties of telling a story that might not seem very interesting to some, and even just depressing. Kate noted that we are at a point where the global political landscape is shifting. We shouldnāt be trying to counter the question- āI donāt believe in climate changeā. This isnāt the biggest threat, as this only accounts for a very small amount of hard to reach people. Instead, many people are apathetic or donāt know what to do about it. We need to talk to the people who donāt understand climate change, who donāt see how it will impact them, who donāt care and donāt know what to do. This is a much larger proportion of society which is open to listening.
After hearing from Kate, we had the opportunity to quiz her on different aspects of climate communication and her career. The questions were provided by members of the Women in Climate network and attendees on the day. The discussion mainly focused on improving the communication and outreach we can do as climate researchers. One of the best bits of advice given was to talk about the climate crisis as a problem with a solution. This tends to help people engage with the problem without causing despair and helps them to take action. Remember that the majority of people care about the climate, but do not know enough, or do not know where to start helping. Overall, having more people speaking about the crisis is one of the best things that we can do. This helps to decrease the burden, reach the disengaged and initiate societal change.
Also discussed was āAll We Can Saveā, a topic of a previous Women in Climate book club earlier this year. This exciting project bought together a huge number of women climate scientists and activists to contribute essays and poems, including Kate Marvel. We were also excited to hear about Kateās new book, āHuman Natureā, the story of climate science in 9 emotions, which will hopefully be published next year. Kate also suggested other resources to keep on learning, and a variety of fiction, non-fiction and web pages are listed at the end of this post.
We would like to thank Kate for speaking, everyone who attended the event for their excellent questions, and the Maths department for their help in making this event possible as part of their Inspiring Science series.
Book Recommendations
Kate Marvel book coming soon (‘Human Nature’)
Katherine Hayhoe āSaving usā
Fiction:
Octavia Butler (Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents)
Mary Shelly
Richard Powers
Web resources:
Real climate, link
Sceptical science, link
Climate feedback, link