A thermometer is not liberal or conservative’

Katharine Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist and director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. She has contributed to more than 125 scientific papers and won numerous prizes for her science communication work. In 2018 she was a contributor to the US National Climate Assessment and was awarded the Stephen H Schneider award for outstanding climate science communication.

Katharine Hayhoe: ‘Fear is a short-term spur to action, but to
 make changes over the long term, we must have hope.’

In 2018, we have seen forest fires in the Arctic circle; record high temperatures in parts of Australia, Africa and the US; floods in India; and devastating droughts in South Africa and Argentina. Is this a turning point? 

This year has hit home how climate change loads the dice against us by taking naturally occurring weather events and amplifying them. We now have attribution studies that show how much more likely or stronger extreme weather events have become as a result of human emissions. For example, wildfires in the western US now burn nearly twice the area they would without climate change, and almost 40% more rain fell during Hurricane Harvey than would have otherwise. So we are really feeling the impacts and know how much humanity is responsible.

Read the story from The Guardian by Jonathan Watts - “Katharine Hayhoe: "A thermometer is not liberal or conservative’.”

Dr Hayhoe explains why climate finance matters to real people

Dr Katharine Hayhoe explains why climate
finance matters to real people.

We humans are used to the climate of the places where we live, regardless of how extreme they may be.

I witnessed this first-hand during my time in Churchill with Polar Bears International, just a few weeks before COP21. While we were there to track the bears, I found that locals were waiting just as impatiently for the water to freeze and snow to fall, so they could head out to their cabins and trap lines. For all who live in the Arctic, life begins in the winter. But this winter—as in so many winters, lately – the sea ice was late to come, and both bears and people remained trapped on land well into December.

Read The Union of Concerned Scientists story by Dr Katharine Hayhoe of the

Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University - “Why Climate Finance Matters to Real People.”