Keynote: Hoffman Q&A

Center for Great Plains Studies Author

04/07/2021 Added

8 Plays

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Question and answer session after Dr. Andrew Hoffman's keynote presentation for the 2021 Great Plains conference: "Climate Change & Culture in the Great Plains." See our media channel for the keynote.

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[00:00:00.000]We really appreciate you being here
[00:00:01.720]and leaving your questions in the Q&A.
[00:00:04.207]And we have a lot of questions.
[00:00:07.190]I was a little worried we wouldn't have enough questions,
[00:00:08.933]so I made up questions in advance,
[00:00:10.696]but we have so many questions
[00:00:12.345]and we'll try to get to as many as we possibly can.
[00:00:16.210]I'm gonna start off with a question,
[00:00:18.104]actually, I'm gonna combine a couple
[00:00:20.038]'cause I think they're pretty similar and interesting.
[00:00:23.530]One person writes, "Many of the older people I know
[00:00:26.720]believe the climate has always changed."
[00:00:29.640]And a related question to that is that,
[00:00:33.877]"In places such as the Great Plains
[00:00:35.405]where extreme weather is a historic constant,
[00:00:39.500]do you find people more or less resistant
[00:00:41.014]to accepting the science of climate change?"
[00:00:44.590]And again, combining these somebody says,
[00:00:48.127]"How do you respond to the belief
[00:00:49.132]that the climate has always changed?"
[00:00:53.650]They all center around the same thing.
[00:00:57.113]I can't confess to know a lot
[00:00:58.631]about the culture of the Great Plains.
[00:01:00.038]So I'm gonna have to be careful.
[00:01:01.900]I'm a New England man myself.
[00:01:04.910]But that is a question a lot of people bring up.
[00:01:08.990]The climate is always changing and this is true.
[00:01:12.090]But if you can show them the extent to which,
[00:01:16.400]the change is out of sync, it is extreme.
[00:01:19.740]There are plenty of metaphors to try and use this.
[00:01:22.790]Robert Socolow at Princeton likes to use,
[00:01:25.660]you have a set of dice,
[00:01:27.510]and you can roll them and that's your weather.
[00:01:30.350]You just get this random thing.
[00:01:31.620]But what if you start changing some of the numbers
[00:01:33.469]that now two sides have the same number?
[00:01:36.260]We change the probabilities.
[00:01:38.070]And so yes, climate has always been changing.
[00:01:41.990]It is a constant.
[00:01:44.120]Many people perhaps have some memories of the Dust Bowl,
[00:01:48.230]and know what that was like.
[00:01:50.073]But the extent of change that's happening now,
[00:01:54.010]the frequency of the storms, the elevated temperatures,
[00:01:58.190]they are of a different order.
[00:02:02.010]A great story that answers this and combines
[00:02:04.671]with the idea of broker Freins,
[00:02:07.290]I was talking to Jane Lubchenco
[00:02:08.643]and she is a scientist and she was the head of NOAA.
[00:02:13.910]And she said there was a major hurricane
[00:02:15.730]and a Congressman came to her
[00:02:19.475]and she knew he didn't believe in climate change.
[00:02:22.020]And he said,
[00:02:22.853]"Can you say that hurricane was caused by climate change?"
[00:02:24.897]And she also knew he liked baseball.
[00:02:28.980]So she said, "Look at it this way.
[00:02:32.100]You have a baseball player take steroids
[00:02:34.117]and he hits a home run.
[00:02:35.830]Can you blame that home run on steroids?"
[00:02:38.850]He says, "No, no, that would be very hard to do."
[00:02:40.973]She says, "Okay.
[00:02:42.560]Now, if that baseball player his batting average
[00:02:44.487]and home run average for the season went up,
[00:02:48.050]statistically different than the prior seasons,
[00:02:51.310]would you blame that on steroids?"
[00:02:52.930]And he said, "Yeah I probably would."
[00:02:54.967]"Think about climate change that way.
[00:02:56.460]It's weather on steroids."
[00:02:57.926]And that worked for him.
[00:02:59.700]So, what you need to show is that yes, it's always changing
[00:03:03.250]but it's changing at a different rate,
[00:03:04.936]at a different velocity, different amplitude.
[00:03:10.087]So here's a really interesting question
[00:03:14.560]about, what do you think has been the effect of movements
[00:03:17.856]like Standing Rock, and Bolden, Nebraska
[00:03:22.950]against the DAPL and Keystone XL pipeline protest
[00:03:28.140]on perceptions about fossil fuels and climate change?
[00:03:31.890]I think it's very important.
[00:03:36.270]Many people can't put together the system.
[00:03:38.860]They need to understand the system,
[00:03:39.984]all the the pieces that come together.
[00:03:42.780]If any of you have seen the video,
[00:03:45.247]"The Story of Stuff,"
[00:03:46.650]it's a very clever way of trying to show people,
[00:03:49.630]how did this pen get here?
[00:03:51.230]How are all the pieces connected?
[00:03:52.206]How is the system connected?
[00:03:53.720]And so a lot of people don't understand
[00:03:56.020]the extensive pipeline network,
[00:03:58.830]how oil moves, how it gets to refineries.
[00:04:02.860]And so that called that out
[00:04:04.980]and it called out the interconnections
[00:04:07.500]that this pipeline is part of the system
[00:04:11.960]that is perpetuating and the more we invest in the system,
[00:04:14.188]the harder it's gonna be to shift.
[00:04:16.690]And so I think it's raising the right questions.
[00:04:19.930]One thing I study is, how do institutions change?
[00:04:23.135]How do cultures change?
[00:04:24.488]And they can change gradually, incrementally,
[00:04:29.100]but they can also change suddenly
[00:04:30.467]when you have an event, a major event.
[00:04:32.370]The key about an event though,
[00:04:33.463]it's not an absolute happening.
[00:04:35.460]It needs to be framed in a certain way by certain people.
[00:04:40.300]And so the building of this pipeline,
[00:04:43.000]these protests are framing that pipeline
[00:04:44.973]into something more than just a tube of steel
[00:04:48.100]through which oil flows,
[00:04:50.520]they're framing it as part of an infrastructure
[00:04:53.540]on fossil fuels that we're continuing to invest in,
[00:04:56.775]continue to commit to,
[00:04:58.780]and that is a piece of the broadening debate.
[00:05:01.687]Now I can give you other examples
[00:05:02.653]where that debate wasn't engaged.
[00:05:04.173]That one in particular that really frustrates me
[00:05:06.676]is the Gulf oil spill.
[00:05:09.080]The environmental movement was largely missing
[00:05:10.674]from that debate.
[00:05:11.770]That debate was not framed as an environmental issue.
[00:05:14.810]That was framed as a jobs and economic issue.
[00:05:17.440]And therefore we are back in business
[00:05:21.580]and no one really raised the question,
[00:05:23.330]why are we going miles under the ocean
[00:05:25.810]and actually doing something that is so risky
[00:05:27.766]that we can't undo it?
[00:05:30.570]I don't know about you but I watched an amazement
[00:05:32.690]that we couldn't cap that well.
[00:05:35.580]That should have been framed as an environmental issue.
[00:05:37.572]It should have been framed
[00:05:38.680]as the extent to which we are becoming dependent
[00:05:41.671]on more extreme sources of oil.
[00:05:45.670]The easy oil has gone.
[00:05:47.290]That's why we're moving tar sands or oil sands,
[00:05:50.620]whichever word you prefer to use.
[00:05:52.590]And that, I can get into all of that.
[00:05:54.020]That has a big difference too.
[00:05:56.114]Tar sands if you don't like it,
[00:05:57.344]oil sands if you do.
[00:05:59.120]And so, calling out the system,
[00:06:02.740]calling out the system effects,
[00:06:05.798]I think they're very important.
[00:06:07.620]And I would also just add really quickly.
[00:06:09.407]It also brought in the equity issues
[00:06:12.300]that these are tribal lands.
[00:06:14.260]They didn't have a say in that.
[00:06:16.130]They're bearing the burden for it.
[00:06:17.700]Their groundwater could be contaminated
[00:06:19.840]if there's an oil.
[00:06:20.680]These are all things that people
[00:06:22.136]in this country, in the world need to know.
[00:06:25.590]You think it's easy getting that gasoline in your gas tank?
[00:06:28.290]This is what it took to get it there.
[00:06:32.040]Thanks Andy.
[00:06:34.120]Another question.
[00:06:35.897]"Why are the areas shown in blue
[00:06:38.510]on the U.S. map, expected to improve financially
[00:06:41.097]because of climate change?"
[00:06:43.390]Oh, if you have more moderate temperatures,
[00:06:48.470]tourism, agriculture.
[00:06:51.680]People here in Michigan joke
[00:06:53.770]that our coastline is gonna increase in value
[00:06:55.571]because people are not gonna wanna be on the coastlines
[00:06:57.745]of the South anymore.
[00:07:01.800]What will happen to the bread basket of America?
[00:07:04.720]Will it slowly start to move North?
[00:07:06.820]Will Canada benefit from this?
[00:07:07.856]Will Russia benefit from this?
[00:07:09.320]Many think so.
[00:07:11.950]And so the boost to the economy really come
[00:07:14.910]from all those sectors that are impacted by climate change
[00:07:18.230]moving further North.
[00:07:19.410]There's some very interesting studies right now.
[00:07:21.110]For example, Napa and Sonoma Valley
[00:07:23.970]is starting to do some scenario planning
[00:07:26.500]of what climate change could do to their industry.
[00:07:30.040]And the problem with Napa and Sonoma
[00:07:31.927]is they branded an area.
[00:07:34.490]They can't move.
[00:07:36.750]A lot of wineries are buying land, Chilean wineries
[00:07:39.480]particularly buying lands in regions
[00:07:41.362]they think can become more hospitable over time,
[00:07:45.220]because if they wait,
[00:07:46.160]they're gonna increase in cost.
[00:07:47.300]So that's why those areas are blue.
[00:07:51.760]Thank you.
[00:07:53.150]I think we have a really diverse audience.
[00:07:54.533]I'm seeing questions from insurance agents,
[00:07:57.490]and scientists, and mortgage lenders.
[00:08:01.338]So one from a scientist, "Because the messenger
[00:08:04.997]is so important to climate change communications,
[00:08:08.176]how can scientists build a rapport to reestablish
[00:08:11.702]or gain the trust of people to discuss the problem?"
[00:08:15.523]Oh boy, where do I start?
[00:08:18.850]I think that many science...
[00:08:22.290]Academics scientists, we're not trained to do this.
[00:08:26.820]We need to be trained to do this.
[00:08:29.600]The language we use.
[00:08:30.780]What does uncertainty mean?
[00:08:31.934]It means different things in the scientific community.
[00:08:34.489]You say uncertainty is deviation while me out there,
[00:08:37.240]it means you just don't know.
[00:08:39.650]Becoming more accessible.
[00:08:40.940]I'm on a committee with the National Academies
[00:08:42.358]of Sciences called the Science of Science Communication.
[00:08:46.110]And we just had, two years ago,
[00:08:47.640]we had a conference in Irvine.
[00:08:48.750]The simple theme was storytelling.
[00:08:51.030]People respond to storytelling.
[00:08:52.280]Stories stick.
[00:08:53.760]People remember them.
[00:08:55.350]I'll bet from my talk,
[00:08:56.950]the stories are what are gonna stick
[00:08:58.400]more than the substance of it.
[00:09:00.590]Teaching scientists how to be storytellers.
[00:09:03.590]Alan Alda, an actor,
[00:09:05.640]founded the Alda Center on Climate Communication
[00:09:07.390]at Stony Brook.
[00:09:09.070]Boston University hired acting coaches
[00:09:10.432]to teach scientists how to communicate
[00:09:13.100]about how to be accessible.
[00:09:14.071]Think about the great communicators that you know,
[00:09:16.540]Neil deGrasse Tyson, Katharine Hayhoe,
[00:09:19.604]Jacques Cousteau, David Attenborough.
[00:09:23.330]How do they do it?
[00:09:24.163]They're accessible, they're authentic.
[00:09:26.680]And so scientists can do this.
[00:09:28.460]We're human beings.
[00:09:30.340]We just have to relax
[00:09:32.492]and I think some training,
[00:09:34.580]and if you really get me going,
[00:09:37.840]start to change some of the reward systems in academia.
[00:09:40.247]We're rewarded for academic publications
[00:09:43.290]which means talking to a narrow set of academics.
[00:09:46.250]We're not rewarded for talking to the general public.
[00:09:48.650]In fact, there was a slight bias
[00:09:50.142]within academia that if you do this,
[00:09:51.835]it's called the Carl Sagan effect.
[00:09:54.059]You're a hack.
[00:09:55.110]You're a popularizer.
[00:09:56.850]And this is really unfortunate
[00:09:58.894]'cause it serves to distance us
[00:10:01.470]from the communities that really need
[00:10:03.740]our knowledge and our research.
[00:10:06.570]And if anyone's gonna deal
[00:10:09.210]with the truth decay problem that I mentioned in my remarks,
[00:10:12.560]academia has to step into the fray.
[00:10:14.470]I mean, knowledge is our stock and trade.
[00:10:16.790]If we're not doing it, who will?
[00:10:18.920]It's gonna be interest to have a political agenda
[00:10:21.230]and we're gonna be left on the sidelines.
[00:10:23.450]So I have a lot to say about that topic.
[00:10:26.630]I think that a lot of our wounds are self-inflicted
[00:10:29.630]and we can fix them.
[00:10:33.230]Thank you, Andy.
[00:10:35.107]I'm gonna combine a couple of questions here.
[00:10:38.780]What role do you think
[00:10:39.619]the National Flood Insurance Program
[00:10:41.501]will play in the next 10 years
[00:10:42.925]since it's already well in the red?
[00:10:45.460]And what role do you think mortgage lenders will play
[00:10:47.559]in the next 10 years?
[00:10:49.860]Well first of all, flood insurance
[00:10:50.699]is already starting to shift.
[00:10:53.570]The idea of just giving people money
[00:10:55.595]to rebuild in floodplains, in coastal regions,
[00:11:00.128]that's just a losing proposition.
[00:11:02.130]And so now, the good money is saying,
[00:11:05.456]you can rebuild but not where you are,
[00:11:09.110]or you can rebuild
[00:11:10.153]but you're gonna have to build
[00:11:11.380]to a much higher standard.
[00:11:13.410]With sand in the storm,
[00:11:14.588]it used to be a hundred year storm,
[00:11:16.316]and is now a 10 year storm
[00:11:19.940]continuing to fight the Mississippi river
[00:11:21.980]rather than allowing it to do what it's gonna do.
[00:11:24.266]The amount of money we spend on levies and seawalls.
[00:11:28.900]So I think the National Flood Insurance Program,
[00:11:31.458]right from the get-go, if you think about what it is,
[00:11:35.970]I mean the federal government stepping in
[00:11:38.060]to insure properties that the private sector
[00:11:40.350]decided is too risky.
[00:11:42.970]You can't make money in it.
[00:11:44.310]That's called a losing proposition.
[00:11:45.438]It's no surprise it's in the red.
[00:11:47.930]And so now it's time to start to rethink it.
[00:11:49.778]It's gonna be politically provocative.
[00:11:51.990]I mean, there are certain places
[00:11:53.329]you're not gonna be able to just let go.
[00:11:55.140]I mean, New Orleans,
[00:11:56.069]are you really gonna just sort of say,
[00:11:58.650]you can have your money, but you can't rebuild there.
[00:12:00.542]We're gonna vacate the city.
[00:12:01.960]I don't see that happening
[00:12:02.793]but certainly in some communities, that's gonna happen.
[00:12:06.438]It's starting to happen.
[00:12:08.010]And certainly with mortgage brokers.
[00:12:09.550]I mean, are you gonna be able to get a mortgage
[00:12:11.878]for a coastal property?
[00:12:15.036]Maybe.
[00:12:17.340]You better have some significant insurance.
[00:12:20.920]And so that's already happened.
[00:12:22.910]You wanna rebuild in California
[00:12:24.550]after the California wildfires?
[00:12:27.010]Chances are, if you can find insurance,
[00:12:30.550]it's much more expensive.
[00:12:31.850]The coverage is much less.
[00:12:33.790]And a bank is gonna look at that and say,
[00:12:36.080]then we're gonna need some other kind of protection.
[00:12:37.544]And you know what?
[00:12:38.377]Some insurance companies are providing.
[00:12:40.301]If they provide insurance,
[00:12:42.380]you have to buy into their private firefighter company
[00:12:45.480]because they wanna make sure they protect the asset
[00:12:47.330]before they have to pay to replace it.
[00:12:49.460]And now you wanna start talking about equity considerations.
[00:12:52.300]You have a house, a fire starts,
[00:12:54.859]and you want a private firefighter company
[00:12:57.480]going down the street to handle the millionaires
[00:13:00.160]or billionaires house down the road
[00:13:01.332]and you're left to fend for yourself,
[00:13:04.770]that really starts to get into some thorny issues too.
[00:13:07.230]So, even, I mean all these issues,
[00:13:09.753]I mean, after hurricane Sandy,
[00:13:13.350]a lot of good conversation,
[00:13:16.220]okay, when's the next one coming?
[00:13:18.670]How'd we protect for it?
[00:13:19.866]We can't protect everybody.
[00:13:21.830]Who do we protect?
[00:13:23.360]And an image I always remember from Hurricane Sandy
[00:13:26.660]was an area limit of Manhattan.
[00:13:28.870]Entire city was black, except one spot.
[00:13:31.550]It was lit up, and that was Morgan Stanley's headquarters.
[00:13:34.360]They had a lot of generators going.
[00:13:37.210]And that speaks to the equity considerations
[00:13:39.803]of responding to the climate challenge
[00:13:42.040]that we're gonna have to work out.
[00:13:45.530]Well thanks again Andy.
[00:13:46.640]And I think we only have time for a couple more questions
[00:13:49.270]and I apologize that we're not gonna be able
[00:13:50.898]to get to everything,
[00:13:52.292]but where possible I'm trying to consolidate.
[00:13:57.009]Here's, maybe this is a simple one.
[00:14:01.007]"Where can one learn about the new phalanx
[00:14:03.068]of investment vehicles such as sustainability bonds?
[00:14:08.085]Everybody's got them now.
[00:14:10.560]I can open up my Schwab account
[00:14:12.794]and start to look under...
[00:14:15.910]If you're talking about ESG investing mutual funds,
[00:14:18.433]they're not hard to find.
[00:14:21.030]The bond market is starting to grow.
[00:14:22.890]Every major provider now is having them.
[00:14:25.350]I mean, 10 years ago, it was a struggle.
[00:14:28.966]Some of the more fringe players start to offer them
[00:14:32.200]now, every mainstream player.
[00:14:33.545]But buyer beware. Look closely.
[00:14:37.870]Wall Street Journal had a really interesting article
[00:14:40.030]last year, where they compared ESG funds
[00:14:44.320]and they all defined sustainability differently.
[00:14:47.900]And they took two funds.
[00:14:48.733]They put them side by side
[00:14:50.760]and one had Tesla at the top,
[00:14:52.180]and one had Tesla at the bottom.
[00:14:54.700]What was the difference?
[00:14:55.533]The one on the top, they were looking at carbon emissions.
[00:14:57.850]The other one, the one put on the bottom,
[00:14:58.772]they were looking at heavy metals and batteries.
[00:15:01.390]And so think carefully. Buyer beware.
[00:15:04.486]What is the fund doing?
[00:15:06.850]And how do you wanna invest your money?
[00:15:08.560]There are definitely index funds
[00:15:11.140]that will peg off of things like
[00:15:12.970]the Dow Jones Sustainability Index.
[00:15:14.780]I'm a big fan of index funds.
[00:15:16.288]I prefer those.
[00:15:18.180]So you can go that route,
[00:15:20.160]or you can go with a more managed fund,
[00:15:22.080]that thinks they can pick the winners going forward.
[00:15:26.270]Your call.
[00:15:27.103]They're really not that hard to find.
[00:15:31.480]So, I think we're gonna have to end
[00:15:33.074]with this last question.
[00:15:34.949]And again, I apologize to everybody who has more questions
[00:15:38.830]but hopefully you can communicate
[00:15:41.900]with Dr. Hoffman in another way.
[00:15:45.490]One question.
[00:15:46.347]"What actions would you like to see
[00:15:47.725]religious leaders and institution take?"
[00:15:53.100]To my mind,
[00:15:55.350]I mean, you can motivate someone with a dollar
[00:15:58.303]and that's powerful in our culture.
[00:16:01.760]But if people hear it
[00:16:02.730]from the mosque, the temple, the synagogue, the church,
[00:16:09.000]it connects to people's reason for being.
[00:16:11.820]It connects to their inner purpose.
[00:16:14.040]And if you can do that, stand back,
[00:16:17.390]that is far more powerful than a dollar.
[00:16:20.330]I mean, if you think about the great things
[00:16:22.200]that happen in our society,
[00:16:25.110]they weren't necessarily driven by the profit motive.
[00:16:27.460]They were driven by belief, by faith.
[00:16:29.420]Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln,
[00:16:31.720]Nelson Mandela, and dear Mahatma Gandhi.
[00:16:35.050]I can go down the list.
[00:16:36.870]The power that religious belief has to motivate action.
[00:16:42.670]You know I have people calling me,
[00:16:46.342]students calling me and say,
[00:16:47.567]"Why should I reduce my carbon emissions?
[00:16:49.320]It's not gonna touch,
[00:16:50.710]it's not gonna have an effect on the global concentration
[00:16:52.961]of CO2."
[00:16:53.800]And I say if that's your motivation, don't do it.
[00:16:56.550]But if your motivation is about living a life of integrity,
[00:16:59.740]authenticity, being true to who you are, true to your values
[00:17:02.938]which is to my mind, what religion is all about,
[00:17:06.500]do it for those reasons
[00:17:08.370]and it will stick.
[00:17:09.890]And you'll continue to explore ways
[00:17:12.170]to realize those values
[00:17:14.090]that maybe you haven't even thought about yet.
[00:17:16.530]And so I think that the role of religion,
[00:17:18.940]connecting it to religion...
[00:17:22.419]The Pope's encyclical letter.
[00:17:23.940]I thought it was a really, really powerful document.
[00:17:28.180]The Catholic church has an interesting
[00:17:30.900]point in the catechism now
[00:17:32.720]that says environmental pollution
[00:17:34.162]is theft for future generations.
[00:17:37.010]Think about that for a second.
[00:17:38.470]What does that do to our thinking?
[00:17:41.200]I know that there's gonna be talk tomorrow
[00:17:42.898]on indigenous perspectives on this summary.
[00:17:45.590]I'm anxious to hear that talk
[00:17:48.680]connecting it to our life philosophy, our reason for being.
[00:17:51.527]And it doesn't even have to be religious.
[00:17:53.588]If you can connect it to the writing of
[00:17:56.710]Rousseau, or Locke, secular humanists,
[00:17:59.750]again, connecting it to your purpose, to your meaning,
[00:18:04.050]that is far more powerful than a dollar.
[00:18:07.430]Others may follow for a dollar
[00:18:08.327]but the leaders will be doing it for conviction.
[00:18:11.220]And I really wanna see more of that.
[00:18:16.710]Well, we can't thank you enough Andy.
[00:18:18.630]You've just been a great kickoff to our conference
[00:18:22.300]and we are really grateful you were able to be with us.
[00:18:25.830]I am so disappointed I can't come to Lincoln.
[00:18:28.060]I mean that sincerely-- I know. (laughing)
[00:18:29.273]I really wanted to come to Lincoln.
[00:18:31.323](guitar music)

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Keynote: Hoffman Q&A

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