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Show Notes

In her speech at Monday’s UN Climate Action Summit, Greta Thunberg told a roomful of global leaders, “The world is waking up.” Yet the science, as she noted, has been clear for decades. Why has this awakening taken so long, and what can we do now to help it along? On Episode 9 of Not Cool, Ariel is joined by Andy Revkin, acclaimed environmental journalist and founding director of the new Initiative on Communication and Sustainability at Columbia University's Earth Institute. Andy discusses the information gaps that have left us vulnerable, the difficult conversations we need to be having, and the strategies we should be using to effectively communicate climate science. He also talks about inertia, resilience, and creating a culture that cares about the future.

Topics discussed include:

• Inertia in the climate system
• The expanding bullseye of vulnerability
• Managed retreat
• Information gaps
• Climate science literacy levels
• Renewable energy in conservative states
• Infrastructural inertia
• Climate science communication strategies
• Increasing resilience
• Balancing inconvenient realities with productive messaging
• Extreme events

References discussed include:

• Digital Green
• Dot Earth blog
• The Cultural Cognition Project
• Woodward County, Oklahoma: Why do so many here doubt climate change?
• IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 ℃
• The Burning Season: The Murder of Chico Mendes and the Fight for the Amazon Rain Forest

Behind the headlines, behind the red/blue, there's plenty of things to look at that are going in the right direction. And no scientist and no longtime climate journalist like me would say it's enough; But it's real.

~ Andy Revkin