Thompson Q&A

Center for Great Plains Studies Author

04/07/2021 Added

2 Plays

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Question and answer session with Jes Thompson, speaker at the 2021 Great Plains conference. To see the full talk, visit our media channel.

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[00:00:00.000]My name is Margaret Jacobs.
[00:00:01.360]And I'm the Director of the Center for Great Plains Studies.
[00:00:03.700]And thank you so much Jess.
[00:00:05.800]We are really happy to have you here,
[00:00:07.670]and to hear from you.
[00:00:10.230]We have just a few questions.
[00:00:12.060]So if you have more questions as we talk,
[00:00:14.830]please just post them on the Q&A.
[00:00:17.525]And one of the questions,
[00:00:20.830]I think is really interesting,
[00:00:22.030]and I had a similar one myself.
[00:00:24.400]How might the results of your research change,
[00:00:26.616]if you conducted the same surveys,
[00:00:29.160]away from national parks?
[00:00:31.070]For example in urban suburban environments?
[00:00:34.650]And I would just add to this,
[00:00:36.660]I thought it was really interesting,
[00:00:38.060]that 86% of the people going to the national parks,
[00:00:41.060]are white.
[00:00:42.220]So is this place attachment something that will,
[00:00:46.970]work outside national parks?
[00:00:50.250]Well first I wanna...
[00:00:52.749]I'm an optimist if it hasn't come through.
[00:00:56.520]And I am hopeful that it does work.
[00:00:59.038]But that's why I say,
[00:01:01.400]this was a specific slice of Americana,
[00:01:05.530]that looked and thought like this.
[00:01:08.037]Now we were in urban Washington DC.
[00:01:12.439]We were in Biscayne Bay,
[00:01:16.040]which is in Miami.
[00:01:17.019]So we were in urban parks.
[00:01:21.420]And that was really intentional,
[00:01:23.185]'cause we were curious about the same question.
[00:01:25.450]Does it work for people who live in cities?
[00:01:28.260]Do they see these connections?
[00:01:30.590]The catches, the parks have not,
[00:01:33.440]made themselves really available to others.
[00:01:35.930]And they're working on this.
[00:01:38.770]I had the honor of serving on the,
[00:01:40.150]National Park Service Advisory Board,
[00:01:42.443]during the Obama administration.
[00:01:44.630]And it was a priority to make parks accessible.
[00:01:52.046]I think the larger question,
[00:01:54.170]is this gonna work in my neighborhood?
[00:01:55.610]Is this gonna work downtown Lincoln?
[00:01:58.050]Is this gonna work where I live?
[00:02:03.500]I can't answer that.
[00:02:07.000]Again I wanna be hopeful that it transfers.
[00:02:10.530]But something happens when people are,
[00:02:13.159]in vacation mode,
[00:02:15.420]in visitor mode.
[00:02:16.450]When they're extracted from their everyday worries.
[00:02:19.550]And their everyday concerns.
[00:02:21.560]That loosens them up.
[00:02:23.870]So I know the next question was,
[00:02:25.853]how do you initiate this among family members?
[00:02:29.090]I think you have to be extracted from the every day.
[00:02:32.940]I need to get gas in the tank, so I can get to work.
[00:02:36.138]So I can commute here, and pick up and drop off.
[00:02:39.306]And when we're visiting,
[00:02:40.900]when we're walking, when we're connecting to nature,
[00:02:44.120]ideally with family and friends,
[00:02:46.930]We're in a different mental space.
[00:02:48.480]And we're able to think bigger grander.
[00:02:54.670]Now that the great study that hasn't been known yet,
[00:02:57.750]is to follow up.
[00:02:58.960]What happened when these folks went home?
[00:03:01.480]I do know people have done research on this related,
[00:03:04.110]to plastic bag use.
[00:03:06.550]Several of the big Western National Parks,
[00:03:08.520]got rid of plastic bags.
[00:03:10.120]And then they did follow up surveys with visitors,
[00:03:13.960]and found that they actually...
[00:03:15.530]That was their watershed moment.
[00:03:18.130]When they went home,
[00:03:18.963]they were like,
[00:03:19.980]Oh, I can do this.
[00:03:21.270]I can live without a plastic bag from the grocery store.
[00:03:25.260]So these are thoughtful questions,
[00:03:28.670]that I definitely wrestle with.
[00:03:30.190]And I also see it as a flaw,
[00:03:32.020]in the focus on public lands exclusively.
[00:03:37.200]Oh I wasn't bringing it up as a flaw.
[00:03:39.620]I was just thinking about,
[00:03:41.480]can we scale this up to other places.
[00:03:43.830]And to other communities.
[00:03:47.152]Another question we have from one of our viewers,
[00:03:52.780]I think this must be from a park ranger.
[00:03:54.980]He or she or they say,
[00:03:57.610]as park rangers how can we build rapport with visitors,
[00:04:01.530]and talk about climate change?
[00:04:03.560]I love this question.
[00:04:04.853]This is almost like this was planted.
[00:04:06.524](Margaret laughing)
[00:04:07.919]'Cause I do have an answer for this one.
[00:04:10.160]I think what people want in that experience,
[00:04:13.733]is they wanna know what questions you're asking.
[00:04:17.000]So what we found was really powerful for visitors.
[00:04:19.470]Maybe visitors who didn't even really have,
[00:04:21.690]climate change on their radar.
[00:04:23.370]'Cause again, they're on vacation.
[00:04:24.750]They don't need the Debbie Downer talk,
[00:04:27.290]about the sky falling.
[00:04:29.780]And the storms and the droughts and the fires.
[00:04:32.890]But what they're curious about,
[00:04:35.400]is what questions your natural resource team,
[00:04:38.400]your science team is asking?
[00:04:40.030]So as rangers, as stewards of these lands,
[00:04:43.750]what changes have you seen?
[00:04:45.720]And how are you formulating larger question?
[00:04:52.190]And just sharing the questions,
[00:04:55.650]was enough to provoke and engage visitors,
[00:04:58.662]on a couple of the site visits we did.
[00:05:01.514]Also people...
[00:05:05.389]And again this came from,
[00:05:10.050]a very veteran interpreter.
[00:05:12.840]And he said we've been scared to interpret climate change.
[00:05:16.940]Because again, we see it like the civil war.
[00:05:20.900]We worry that there's a Neo Confederate in the audience,
[00:05:23.870]who's gonna pull a gun,
[00:05:25.510]and it's all...
[00:05:27.180]So we were trying to stay really conservative.
[00:05:32.530]In how we talk about some of these things.
[00:05:34.710]And I think that's been a disservice.
[00:05:38.587]Because people in our country have been,
[00:05:42.190]kind of seeking some healing.
[00:05:44.063]These issues that have divided us for so long.
[00:05:47.470]And so we look to rangers,
[00:05:51.290]who are also seen as a trusted credible source.
[00:05:54.272]More great research there,
[00:05:56.900]park rangers are as credible as your family doctor.
[00:05:59.980]So don't abuse that crisp trustworthiness,
[00:06:02.867]and use it and start with,
[00:06:06.360]hey, we can notice these changes.
[00:06:08.160]And these are some of the things people are working on here.
[00:06:11.440]What changes have you noticed in your community?
[00:06:13.780]That could be a way to initially build that rapport.
[00:06:17.610]So thank you Jess.
[00:06:19.420]We have a very lengthy question,
[00:06:20.690]and I can't read the whole thing.
[00:06:22.120]But I will start with the very end of it.
[00:06:26.955]This person points out that McCain,
[00:06:29.640]later backtracked on his stance on climate pressure.
[00:06:33.920]And so he asks,
[00:06:36.350]do communication strategy choices look different,
[00:06:39.540]based on winning over conservatives to build consensus.
[00:06:42.640]Versus effective mobilization of those,
[00:06:45.010]on the center and left to defeat them politically?
[00:06:49.850]Oh so good.
[00:06:53.070]And I feel this kind of came up in the previous session too.
[00:07:01.820]Honestly I think politics has stymied,
[00:07:04.740]the conversation for so long.
[00:07:08.380]For me that was a moment where I was wow.
[00:07:11.800]And I do it.
[00:07:12.633]And I talk about the role of political affiliation.
[00:07:17.820]But we can't wait for everyone.
[00:07:21.560]We cannot wait to get total consensus to start,
[00:07:25.890]mobilizing, to start taking action.
[00:07:28.430]A hundred, a thousand different political decisions,
[00:07:33.130]got us into this mess.
[00:07:34.490]Got us to this point in time.
[00:07:36.290]And it's going to take a hundred, a thousand,
[00:07:39.460]at all different levels and all different offices,
[00:07:41.950]across all parties,
[00:07:43.680]across all scales to get us out.
[00:07:46.380]And so I think for me,
[00:07:50.220]I look for communication strategies that kind of,
[00:07:54.270]supersede that.
[00:07:55.300]I look for ways to engage people outside of politics.
[00:08:01.980]I have in-laws from rural red Alabama.
[00:08:06.459]And it has been a 15 year process,
[00:08:12.350]of overcoming some very deep cultural,
[00:08:16.780]and political philosophies.
[00:08:19.840]And I think that work,
[00:08:23.530]we don't have time for that(chuckles) kind of work,
[00:08:25.510]when it comes to climate change.
[00:08:26.920]That we need to find other ways,
[00:08:29.440]to engage in the conversation.
[00:08:31.160]And often it can come back to livelihoods.
[00:08:33.740]And things people...
[00:08:35.370]Generational justice, things we care about.
[00:08:42.260]Thanks Jess.
[00:08:43.093]With view to political action.
[00:08:45.380]Well I think a related question we have coming in is,
[00:08:50.210]from somebody who says,
[00:08:51.060]this approach seems to tend to focus,
[00:08:52.900]on personal accountability regarding climate issues.
[00:08:56.280]Do you think a similar framework could be applied,
[00:08:58.500]to larger scale corporate conversations?
[00:09:00.940]And if so, how?
[00:09:02.410]Yeah absolutely.
[00:09:03.540]Again I love this one.
[00:09:05.300]I teach a course in Corporate Social Responsibility.
[00:09:07.895]And this is essentially the focus,
[00:09:11.532]that corporations have.
[00:09:14.190]They have the resources.
[00:09:16.684]They have the leadership
[00:09:18.980]They have the tools to make a big impact,
[00:09:22.490]and start talking about getting to zero.
[00:09:25.960]And what that means.
[00:09:26.793]And what that looks like in their practices.
[00:09:28.522]At least for my students.
[00:09:31.010]And for other groups that I talked to you.
[00:09:32.700]That's really tangible.
[00:09:34.590]They can see how corporate policy and action,
[00:09:38.047]can change the system.
[00:09:40.089]Sometimes more readily than political action.
[00:09:44.000]But we need it all.
[00:09:46.370]So we need the individual choices.
[00:09:49.410]We need people to know their decisions today matter.
[00:09:53.700]That ripples through.
[00:09:54.810]It'll ripple through the organizations that they work in.
[00:09:57.720]Through their community.
[00:09:59.826]That we also, we need that corporate leadership.
[00:10:04.050]And we're seeing more and more of it.
[00:10:07.200]It is going to be a different decade ahead.
[00:10:14.179]Thanks again Jess.
[00:10:16.290]I don't quite understand this question,
[00:10:18.610]but hopefully you will.
[00:10:19.770]Do you have suggestions,
[00:10:20.830]for talking to community members,
[00:10:22.360]about correlational data.
[00:10:25.290]Seems like in order for many community members to listen,
[00:10:28.420]they are looking for research showing causation,
[00:10:30.760]which often isn't possible at the time.
[00:10:33.470]Yeah, Megan this is a...
[00:10:36.640]Margaret via Megan.
[00:10:38.360]This is a great question.
[00:10:39.462](chuckles)
[00:10:40.484]Correlational changes is all we've got,
[00:10:44.050]right?
[00:10:44.883]Like we can't point at any one event and say,
[00:10:46.860]that's climate change.
[00:10:48.010]Because now the system is so dynamic.
[00:10:49.920]So I actually I'm just going to,
[00:10:52.870]recycle something that our state climatologists told me.
[00:10:56.810]And he said,
[00:10:57.750]right now we're talking about dynamic climate variability.
[00:11:01.210]And that we've got multiple levers.
[00:11:03.870]We've got rainfall and temperature.
[00:11:06.439]And where we live we have lake levels.
[00:11:10.218]And as these things fluctuate,
[00:11:12.051](puffing sound)
[00:11:12.884]the system gets really uncertain.
[00:11:14.400]So we can't say one thing causes the other,
[00:11:16.940]cause they're all happening at the same time.
[00:11:18.850]So that's been my kind of go-to,
[00:11:22.440]because I see this a lot.
[00:11:23.690]People say well, it's warm out,
[00:11:26.450]or it stormed, or is this climate change?
[00:11:28.760]And this today's weather.
[00:11:31.920]The big picture.
[00:11:33.140]When we start to look at these patterns.
[00:11:34.750]And these trends.
[00:11:35.640]And we start to look at,
[00:11:36.920]all of the things moving at the same time.
[00:11:41.070]And getting away from this cause,
[00:11:43.450]climate change is causing this to,
[00:11:45.790]we're in a climate crisis,
[00:11:47.350]where multiple things are coming off the rails.
[00:11:51.270]I mean don't say that.
[00:11:52.620]But talk about how it's too dynamic,
[00:11:56.560]to point to any one thing.
[00:11:58.840]'Cause we've unleashed so many levers of the system.
[00:12:05.350]Our final question unless other people post something.
[00:12:07.773]Did you try to figure out why some folks,
[00:12:10.340]just don't seem to give a damn.
[00:12:11.860]( Margaret laughing)
[00:12:13.030]I have wrestled with this so much.
[00:12:15.260]Do I preach to the choir?
[00:12:17.040]Do I try to reach those skeptics?
[00:12:22.530]Some point in my career,
[00:12:24.170]I remember saying I just don't care,
[00:12:25.350]about the people who don't care.
[00:12:26.860]That's them.
[00:12:27.790]That's their thing.
[00:12:29.980]But then like I said,
[00:12:31.060]I have this family dynamic,
[00:12:32.910]and I realized some of the people I love dearly,
[00:12:35.890]didn't care.
[00:12:37.183]And so for me that challenge is always personal.
[00:12:45.019]Larger research wise.
[00:12:48.570]Some people I would say in my review,
[00:12:52.360]of communication research.
[00:12:55.350]That they say don't waste your time,
[00:12:58.682]on those who they're just...
[00:13:02.030]They're stuck.
[00:13:03.090]Look at that grief cycle.
[00:13:04.522]They're just stuck in the denial stage.
[00:13:08.000]Or they're stuck in the anger stage.
[00:13:09.940]And if we put all of our effort,
[00:13:11.930]in trying to move the lowest common denominator.
[00:13:14.710]Then we're missing out on the time needed,
[00:13:17.009]to move those forward.
[00:13:18.780]And we heard that at the parks too.
[00:13:20.920]People would during our visits,
[00:13:23.930]our interviews, surveys they would say,
[00:13:26.180]yeah we're waiting.
[00:13:28.450]We get it.
[00:13:29.430]Climate change is real
[00:13:30.500]Can we get to the next conversation?
[00:13:33.040]Can we start talking about action?
[00:13:34.580]Can we start talking about what,
[00:13:36.100]they're doing here to adapt or mitigate?
[00:13:38.471](soft music playing)

Thompson Q&A

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