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How to talk to moderates and conservatives about climate change · Simmer Down

• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Hi, my name's Lisa Ott.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: I'm the president of the North Shore Land Alliance.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: We're a land trust that works in Western Long Island, New York.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: And yes, Long Island is an island surrounded by water.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: In addition to that, we sit on top of a sole source aquifer, which is responsible for all of our drinking water.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: We're a coastal community, and as you know, coastal communities are going to be impacted by climate change much sooner than the rest of the country.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: And impacted we already are.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: We have salt water intruding into our aquifer, and we have nitrogen pollution that's wreaking havoc on our beaches and bays.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: We must talk about climate change, and it's as you all also know, it's probably hasn't been very easy to talk about in some communities.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: But for land trusts, particularly because saving land and better managing it is part of the solution, climate change is something that we need to talk about now and we need to talk about it loudly.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: I've watched the founders of the Sea Change Conversation who be the presenters of this session for the last five years.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: I've watched as they develop Sea Change into a powerful nonpartisan education resource on climate change for moderates and conservatives alike.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: And I've watched them for a reason.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: It was important to choose just the right people to bring the message to our community.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: And that they did.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: They've actually come to speak with us twice, and they presented climate change factually, they presented it in a science-based way, and they were not threatening to the people of our community.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: So, in effect, I am so grateful to the Sea Change ladies for what they've done for our community because we are talking about it and we are doing things to mitigate and abate it.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: I'd like to introduce you to Kathleen Biggins.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Kathleen is the founder of the Sea Change Conversation.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: She had the idea to create this nonpartisan climate change education organization, and she used her talents as a broadcaster to develop the Sea Change Premier, which has now been seen by 10,000 people.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: She's brilliant at using apolitical language to present scientific and economic information on climate change that resonates with many conservatives.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: She'll be joined by Katie Kinsolving.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Katie was one of the founders of co one of the co-founders of Sea Change Conversations.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: She has a background in the food industry and specializes on the relationships between food and climate and the food industry in general.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Sea Change Conversation has been presented to audiences across the country, not only on the North Shore of Long Island, but also in California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, places where talking about climate change is really hard.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Oregon, Texas, and Illinois.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: In addition to land trusts like mine, they've worked with the Nature Conservancy in Audubon and welcome the opportunity to share the secrets of their success with you.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Enjoy.
• 3:09
  Kathleen Biggins: Thank you, Lisa, for that wonderful introduction.
• 3:12
  Kathleen Biggins: It is both a privilege and a pleasure to be presenting to the Land Trust Alliance.
• 3:17
  Kathleen Biggins: My name is Kathleen Biggins, and I am the president and founder of Sea Change Conversations.
• 3:23
  Katy Kinsolving: And I'm Katie Kinsolving, a co-founder of SeaChan Conversations.
• 3:28
  Kathleen Biggins: Katie and I, together with two other women, Pam Mount and Carrie Dykman, began Sea Change Conversations in 2014 with the express purpose of reaching out to moderates and conservatives and bringing them into the conversation around climate change.
• 3:45
  Kathleen Biggins: We recognize that so many of our peers, our colleagues, and our loved ones did not fully understand the risk.
• 3:52
  Kathleen Biggins: Many of them thought of it as an environmental issue or a liberal issue, something that impacted far-off animals or would only impact humans in far-off time.
• 4:02
  Kathleen Biggins: In fact, social scientists said there was a spiral of silence around the issue, almost a taboo of bringing it up.
• 4:10
  Kathleen Biggins: But we recognize that if we do not come together, we will not be able to forge the solutions that will keep our civilization safe, and that we needed to bring in this important constituency so that they too could understand the risk, understand that they had skin in the game, and bring solutions to the table.
• 4:32
  Kathleen Biggins: In short, we set out to wake them up without turning them off.
• 4:37
  Kathleen Biggins: One of our most successful initiatives has been the Sea Change Conversation Primer.
• 4:43
  Kathleen Biggins: This is a PowerPoint that I wrote with climate scientists and energy experts.
• 4:48
  Kathleen Biggins: It shows a 360-degree view, translating the science without dumbing it down, but also touching on the economic, business, national security, and personal health ramifications of the issue.
• 5:02
  Kathleen Biggins: We presented it first to garden clubs in the Princeton area because we recognized that those garden clubs, which were members of the Garden Club of America Network, contained our perfect target.
• 5:14
  Kathleen Biggins: Many of those members are moderates and conservatives and shy away from discussing political issues.
• 5:19
  Kathleen Biggins: But they were also people who loved the outdoors, who were outside in their gardens and seeing changes, and we hoped they would be curious enough about why those changes were happening to open their ears and listen to our presentation.
• 5:33
  Kathleen Biggins: Our PowerPoint was met with great success, and those garden clubs recommended us to the GCA headquarters in New York.
• 5:42
  Kathleen Biggins: Once GCA headquarters heard the presentation, they asked us to open their national conference that year and have invited us back for the last three successive years.
• 5:53
  Kathleen Biggins: And in doing so, delegates from around the country have heard our presentation and valued its nonpartisan and scientific approach and invited us to bring that presentation to their communities, to their garden clubs, also to other associations, and sometimes even to the public.
• 6:11
  Kathleen Biggins: And since then, we have now traveled on planes, trains, and automobiles to 30 states and presented to over 10,000 people.
• 6:20
  Kathleen Biggins: And perhaps the greatest testament is that when we are in a marketplace, we were almost inevitably asked to come back and present to other groups.
• 6:30
  Kathleen Biggins: At this point, we have been invited to present to the Young Presidents Organization, World Affairs Council, businesses, business and investment clubs, rotary clubs, chambers of commerce, arboretums, land trusts, country clubs, churches and schools, and even in private homes.
• 6:47
  Kathleen Biggins: And we are training others across the country to give this presentation so that we can expand our reach and impact.
• 6:55
  Kathleen Biggins: And this was all done on volunteer power, and a volunteer group that spans the political spectrum from liberals to conservatives, because we want to ensure that our approach is nonpartisan.
• 7:08
  Kathleen Biggins: So let's take a look at what we've learned over the last five years.
• 7:13
  Kathleen Biggins: But before we start, I'd like to recommend that you look to the Land Trust Alliance website.
• 7:19
  Kathleen Biggins: There's lots of very good information on how to broach this topic with your constituency and a lot of very interesting research.
• 7:27
  Kathleen Biggins: So please take a look.
• 7:29
  Kathleen Biggins: For us, we've learned some rather surprising things.
• 7:33
  Kathleen Biggins: The first thing I will say is that we have learned that tone and manner is more important than content.
• 7:40
  Kathleen Biggins: It sounds heretical.
• 7:42
  Kathleen Biggins: But social scientists say that climate change is such a politicized issue that it's one that we hear about or judge first with our hearts and then use our heads to validate what our hearts have said.
• 7:57
  Kathleen Biggins: And so no matter how good our facts or figures may be, we will not persuade somebody if we haven't created an opening.
• 8:05
  Kathleen Biggins: And that opening is creative when you seem to be a credible and likable messenger, a trusted messenger, if you will.
• 8:13
  Kathleen Biggins: One of the things that we found very helpful is to put ourselves in our audience's place.
• 8:19
  Kathleen Biggins: Perhaps there is a topic that you feel very strongly about, perhaps protecting the police or immigration or abortion, and consider what it would feel like if you knew you were going to a presentation to hear someone else who had a different point of view.
• 8:32
  Kathleen Biggins: You would walk in in a guarded fashion.
• 8:34
  Kathleen Biggins: Your arms may be closed, your heart may be closed, and your ears may be shut.
• 8:38
  Kathleen Biggins: What you need to do first is create that corridor of trust so that they will be willing to listen.
• 8:44
  Kathleen Biggins: And we have found that if you approach something with the right tone and manner, you can actually say some pretty challenging things, as long as it's not seemed as a harangue or a lecture.
• 8:57
  Kathleen Biggins: Let's take a look at our introduction, and you can see we don't shy away from confronting some pretty important beliefs.
• 9:06
  Kathleen Biggins: Whenever we walk into a room to talk about climate change, we recognize that we do not walk in alone.
• 9:16
  Kathleen Biggins: We walk in with three 800-pound gorillas with us.
• 9:20
  Kathleen Biggins: And the first 800-pound gorilla is a fact that we all know that the climate has always been changing due to natural causes.
• 9:26
  Kathleen Biggins: We've had ice ages, we've had crocodiles in the Arctic, but this time scientists say it's different.
• 9:32
  Kathleen Biggins: That man is triggering this change after a period of remarkable stability.
• 9:37
  Kathleen Biggins: And we are doing it at a time when there are 7 billion of us on the planet, close to 10 billion projected by mid-century, and we can't just pick up our lean twos and follow the food and water resources as they react to a changing climate.
• 9:52
  Kathleen Biggins: The second 800-pound gorilla in the room with us is the fact that fossil fuels have been incredible friends to us.
• 9:59
  Kathleen Biggins: Before we discovered them, our lives were short and brutal.
• 10:03
  Kathleen Biggins: They have given us a vibrant economy and a very high quality of life.
• 10:08
  Kathleen Biggins: But, scientists say, if we continue to use them the way we have in the past, they will begin to do the opposite, actually decrease our GDP and lower the quality of life, especially for our kids and our grandkids.
• 10:23
  Kathleen Biggins: And the third 800-pound gorilla in the room with us is that this is a tough, tough topic to talk about.
• 10:30
  Kathleen Biggins: Perhaps it is banned from your Thanksgiving table?
• 10:34
  Kathleen Biggins: It was from mine for many years.
• 10:37
  Kathleen Biggins: But it hasn't always been thus.
• 10:40
  Kathleen Biggins: George W.
• 10:41
  Kathleen Biggins: Bush proposed a cap and trade approach to solve climate change in his first year of office.
• 10:46
  Kathleen Biggins: There were multiple bipartisan bills introduced to Congress every single year.
• 10:50
  Kathleen Biggins: And in 2008, it was on the presidential platforms of both parties.
• 11:07
  Kathleen Biggins: Different ways of addressing it, but agreeing that it needed to be addressed.
• 11:12
  Kathleen Biggins: So what happened?
• 11:14
  Kathleen Biggins: Well, scientists who are active during that period tell us that when Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for his movie on climate change, an inconvenient truth, it was a watershed moment.
• 11:27
  Kathleen Biggins: Something that had begrudging acceptance across the aisle suddenly became labeled as a liberal issue.
• 11:34
  Kathleen Biggins: And we had a new litmus test for what made a good liberal or a good conservative.
• 11:41
  Kathleen Biggins: And the news media didn't help.
• 11:43
  Kathleen Biggins: Many on the far left began to say that we needed to be anti-cow, anti-car, and anti-capitalists in order to address climate change.
• 11:54
  Kathleen Biggins: And on the right, they really began to cover it more as a culture war issue instead of a scientific issue.
• 12:00
  Kathleen Biggins: Research shows that Fox News in 2006 had about 50% of their coverage saying that climate change was real and posed problems.
• 12:10
  Kathleen Biggins: By 2009, 90% said it was a hoax.
• 12:15
  Kathleen Biggins: So we had a real hardening across party lines.
• 12:19
  Kathleen Biggins: But if you fast forward to today, the vast majority of Americans understand climate change is happening.
• 12:26
  Kathleen Biggins: A strong majority understand that it is being influenced by man.
• 12:30
  Kathleen Biggins: But what Americans across the spectrum report is that they do not understand how climate change will impact them personally, nor why there is urgency to address it.
• 12:42
  Kathleen Biggins: And that is what this presentation is meant to address.
• 12:46
  Kathleen Biggins: Now we are not scientists, but we worked very closely with scientists and energy policy experts to develop this presentation.
• 12:53
  Kathleen Biggins: And it has been vetted by climate experts at Duke, at Rutgers, at Princeton, at Tufts, and at Yale.
• 13:01
  Kathleen Biggins: Now, one of the groups that we follow very, very closely is the Yale Program for Climate Change Communication.
• 13:08
  Kathleen Biggins: And about four years ago, they came out with a presentation that said that Americans across the spectrum have five major questions on climate change.
• 13:16
  Kathleen Biggins: And we decided to use those five questions to structure this presentation.
• 13:22
  Kathleen Biggins: So what are these questions that most Americans have?
• 13:25
  Kathleen Biggins: Well, the first one is how do we know it's real?
• 13:29
  Kathleen Biggins: The second, how do we know it's us?
• 13:32
  Kathleen Biggins: The third, what do the scientists think?
• 13:35
  Kathleen Biggins: The fourth, is it dangerous?
• 13:39
  Kathleen Biggins: And the fifth, is there hope?
• 13:42
  Kathleen Biggins: So let's jump into that first question.
• 13:45
  Kathleen Biggins: How do we know that climate change is really happening?
• 13:48
  Kathleen Biggins: So as you can see in that introduction, we did not shy away from some very important points.
• 13:55
  Kathleen Biggins: The fact that the climate has always been changing and meeting people at that point and moving them through it.
• 14:01
  Kathleen Biggins: The fact that fossil fuels have really built an incredible economy for us and played an important part in our quality of life, agreeing to that and moving through it.
• 14:09
  Kathleen Biggins: And of course, the last one, delving into why this is so partisan today, and the fact that it wasn't always such.
• 14:17
  Kathleen Biggins: And this is a very important part of our introduction.
• 14:20
  Kathleen Biggins: I can't tell you how many times afterwards I hear that a light bulb has gone off when people understand how it became so politicized.
• 14:28
  Kathleen Biggins: And that again allows people to move away from the politicization and actually embrace some of the presentation we're going to share with them as we go.
• 14:37
  Kathleen Biggins: The other thing that we do here is introduce our five questions, and that's going to be very important as we talk about our content.
• 14:46
  Kathleen Biggins: So let's drill down a little bit more on our tone and manner.
• 14:51
  Kathleen Biggins: First, we want to establish a personal connection wherever possible.
• 14:56
  Kathleen Biggins: We always try to get into a market a day or two before we have to present so that we can get to know our sponsors and they can get to know us.
• 15:03
  Kathleen Biggins: We try to look and sound like them, dress in a way that fits into their group.
• 15:09
  Kathleen Biggins: We also try to go to them in their settings.
• 15:12
  Kathleen Biggins: And oftentimes that is a semi-social settings because we are going to their group meetings.
• 15:19
  Kathleen Biggins: So if we're going to a garden club, this is their monthly meeting, they're there for their meeting and to hear whatever speaker it is.
• 15:25
  Kathleen Biggins: And what?
• 15:26
  Kathleen Biggins: It's a climate change speaker.
• 15:27
  Kathleen Biggins: And they sit and they listen and they see that their peers are listening, and they see that their peers may be nodding and asking really good questions.
• 15:35
  Kathleen Biggins: And suddenly they are part of that group as well.
• 15:37
  Kathleen Biggins: And it helps them move away from feeling like they shouldn't believe or endorse this topic.
• 15:44
  Kathleen Biggins: Another thing we found is obviously be nonpartisan and non-confrontational.
• 15:49
  Kathleen Biggins: And so, in throughout our presentation, we do not take sides.
• 15:53
  Kathleen Biggins: We make sure that we talk about either issues on the left and the right, and that we are very even-handed.
• 15:59
  Kathleen Biggins: We treat them respectfully and allow them to make their own conclusions.
• 16:03
  Kathleen Biggins: And this is really important.
• 16:04
  Kathleen Biggins: We presented this presentation to the former head of the American Bar Association, and he said our presentation is almost like someone who is laying it out for a jury, putting out compelling facts and bringing them along in understanding, but letting them make up their own minds.
• 16:23
  Kathleen Biggins: And I think that's a really critical part of successfully starting this conversation and bringing people along.
• 16:29
  Kathleen Biggins: And another thing that we have learned that helps quite a lot is to use rhetorical questions or actual questions that the audience will then call out and answer to include them.
• 16:40
  Kathleen Biggins: So it's much more of a dialogue or conversation, if you will, than a lecture.
• 16:46
  Kathleen Biggins: So let's look at another clip from the middle of our presentation.
• 16:50
  Kathleen Biggins: This is after we have talked about how we know it's real, how we know it's us, how strong the scientific consensus, and about to lead into the dangers.
• 17:00
  Kathleen Biggins: Let's take a listen.
• 17:01
  Kathleen Biggins: Now I'd like to take a minute and ask you to think about how you normally evaluate risk in your life.
• 17:08
  Kathleen Biggins: If you're like most of us, we divide it into three pieces.
• 17:11
  Kathleen Biggins: The first piece is how likely is it to happen?
• 17:15
  Kathleen Biggins: Well, we just saw the Arctic Ocean melting away with our own eyes, and we just saw that NASA says 97% or more of climate scientists are saying it's happening.
• 17:23
  Kathleen Biggins: So I think we can check that box.
• 17:26
  Kathleen Biggins: The second part of the risk assessment normally is so what are the consequences if it comes to pass?
• 17:32
  Kathleen Biggins: Can I live with them?
• 17:34
  Kathleen Biggins: Or are they things that I really want to avoid?
• 17:37
  Kathleen Biggins: And the third part of that risk assessment normally is how difficult or expensive is it to avoid that risk?
• 17:44
  Kathleen Biggins: Would you guys agree?
• 17:46
  Kathleen Biggins: So let's jump into that second part of the risk assessment.
• 17:50
  Kathleen Biggins: What could the consequences be?
• 17:53
  Kathleen Biggins: And are we comfortable living with them if they indeed come to pass?
• 17:58
  Kathleen Biggins: And to do that, we need to move to our next question: is it dangerous?
• 18:03
  Kathleen Biggins: Now I'd like to take a moment to orient you to this slide because I believe this is the most important slide in the presentation because it shows the big picture.
• 18:15
  Kathleen Biggins: So on the x-axis we have time from today back 20,000 years.
• 18:21
  Kathleen Biggins: On the y-axis, we have temperature in Fahrenheit, so it's quick for us to read.
• 18:26
  Kathleen Biggins: The yellow line is average global temperature, and the white are more or less milestones to give us reference points.
• 18:34
  Kathleen Biggins: So as you can see, 20,000 years ago, we were in the middle of an ice age.
• 18:39
  Kathleen Biggins: There was a mile of ice above Manhattan.
• 18:41
  Kathleen Biggins: The southernmost glacier ended just north of my hometown of Princeton.
• 18:45
  Kathleen Biggins: Much of the earth was uninhabitable.
• 18:48
  Kathleen Biggins: But over about 10,000 years, nature moderated.
• 18:52
  Kathleen Biggins: And the temperature rose to what has been the average global temperature, more or less for the last 10,000 years.
• 19:00
  Kathleen Biggins: And once we arrived there, we had the emergence of agriculture.
• 19:06
  Kathleen Biggins: This little bump is when Mesopotamia flourished.
• 19:09
  Kathleen Biggins: This little hill, perhaps a full degree, is when the Vikings were able to grow vegetables in Greenland during the medieval warming period.
• 19:16
  Kathleen Biggins: This divot, perhaps a degree and a half, was the little ice age that caused such deprivation and food shortages and upheaval.
• 19:25
  Kathleen Biggins: And then we see the temperature going up, up and away, landing somewhere between 3.6 and 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century, depending on what we choose to do.
• 19:42
  Kathleen Biggins: So let's think about that.
• 19:45
  Kathleen Biggins: 8,000 years for nature to moderate, to literally march trees from Mexico to Montana to create the ecosystems and the biodiversity that we depend on.
• 19:57
  Kathleen Biggins: 10,000 years of remarkable stability.
• 20:02
  Kathleen Biggins: And then man, through our activities, are triggering potentially that same delta and temperature in a hundred years.
• 20:12
  Kathleen Biggins: That's scary, right?
• 20:15
  Kathleen Biggins: And that is what brought all the countries of the world together to say we can't go there.
• 20:21
  Kathleen Biggins: We need to keep the temperature at the 3.6 level, which correlates to the two degrees Celsius we read about in the press, or even better, at the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal.
• 20:31
  Kathleen Biggins: Because we think at those levels we can mitigate, we can adapt, and we can be okay.
• 20:37
  Kathleen Biggins: But above that, we aren't so sure.
• 20:40
  Kathleen Biggins: So let's take a look at what these natural systems are that are being changed by climate change.
• 20:48
  Kathleen Biggins: But as we do so, I'd like you to evaluate these changes through three specific lenses.
• 20:55
  Kathleen Biggins: And the first one is how will these changes affect the economy and jobs in your area?
• 21:00
  Kathleen Biggins: The second is how will they impact health and personal security?
• 21:05
  Kathleen Biggins: And the last is how will they impact your exposure to geopolitical instability, which we experience as civil chaos, refugee flows, and terrorism.
• 21:17
  Kathleen Biggins: Anyone in the audience want to take a guess as why I'm asking you to look through these three lenses?
• 21:23
  Kathleen Biggins: Anybody?
• 21:25
  Kathleen Biggins: Because these are the three things that Americans say are most important to them when they vote.
• 21:33
  Kathleen Biggins: And we believe that climate change will negatively and profoundly impact all three.
• 21:40
  Kathleen Biggins: Let's see if you agree.
• 21:41
  Kathleen Biggins: Let's take a quick look at temperature.
• 21:44
  Kathleen Biggins: This graphic from NASA shows how global average temperature has changed from pre-industrial times to today.
• 21:50
  Kathleen Biggins: When it is blue, it is colder than average, white average, yellow warmer, red hotter.
• 21:58
  Kathleen Biggins: So, as you can see at the end, the red really comes crescendoing in.
• 22:09
  Kathleen Biggins: And that's because we aren't just breaking records, we're really shattering them.
• 22:14
  Kathleen Biggins: As you can see from this graphic, the five hottest years on record globally have been the last five.
• 22:21
  Kathleen Biggins: And we just experienced the hottest June ever recorded.
• 22:26
  Kathleen Biggins: But that's looking backwards.
• 22:29
  Kathleen Biggins: What's happening on the ground today?
• 22:31
  Kathleen Biggins: Well, for one thing, our friends down in Australia had to add the color purple to their national heat map because they are routinely forecasting temperatures above 125 degrees Fahrenheit.
• 22:42
  Kathleen Biggins: But what does it mean for us in the future?
• 22:46
  Kathleen Biggins: Well, Climate Central, which is a nonpartisan scientific group, took a look at what summers in New York could be like if we continue on our current path.
• 22:56
  Kathleen Biggins: And they averaged 26 different models to do so, not just taking the worst-case scenario.
• 23:02
  Kathleen Biggins: And what we see is that if we continue to emit carbon the way we have, our summers in New York will be 9.5 degrees hotter and feel like summers in Lehigh Acres, Florida by the end of the century.
• 23:17
  Kathleen Biggins: Another thing that Climate Central looks at is danger days.
• 23:22
  Kathleen Biggins: And danger days are days when the heat and humidity hit 105 degrees Fahrenheit.
• 23:28
  Kathleen Biggins: And that's a critical point because it's there that we can no longer sweat to cool off our bodies and it becomes dangerous to be outside.
• 23:37
  Kathleen Biggins: We've all experienced that recently when we heard of the excessive heat warnings just this past summer.
• 23:43
  Kathleen Biggins: It's an important time because municipalities have to set up cooling centers, and it means that we cannot be outside for recreation or for work.
• 23:51
  Kathleen Biggins: They are lost days.
• 23:53
  Kathleen Biggins: Well, in the New York region, we don't experience that very often today.
• 23:57
  Kathleen Biggins: But looking forward, it is projected that we could have up to 17 days in about a decade and a full month by mid-century if we continue on our current path.
• 24:08
  Kathleen Biggins: So I know that I said that tone and manner was the most important thing, but content still is critically important.
• 24:17
  Kathleen Biggins: It still matters.
• 24:18
  Kathleen Biggins: And we have found that that five-question format works extraordinarily well.
• 24:25
  Kathleen Biggins: We learned about it from the Yale program on climate change communication.
• 24:30
  Kathleen Biggins: And the reason we think it works so well is that it meets people psychically wherever they are.
• 24:35
  Kathleen Biggins: Perhaps they are a full-out denier, and we give them some very concrete information that kind of shares with them why it can't be so, that it is indeed happening.
• 24:46
  Kathleen Biggins: Well, then perhaps it's happening, but it's not man-made.
• 24:49
  Kathleen Biggins: Again, we address that.
• 24:50
  Kathleen Biggins: Well, if it was really serious, the scientists would all be shouting the alarm.
• 24:55
  Kathleen Biggins: We tell them that they are and address how they can understand that in a way that is persuasive and again not lecturing.
• 25:01
  Kathleen Biggins: And then we ask them to consider this the way they would, other risks in their lives, and move to the danger sections for those who are saying, well, maybe it is, but how alarmed should I be?
• 25:14
  Kathleen Biggins: And then we move lastly to those who are really terrified about the issue and give them hope that there are actions we can take today to mitigate the issues of the future.
• 25:26
  Kathleen Biggins: We also only present science from very credible sources.
• 25:30
  Kathleen Biggins: We use a lot of sources material from NASA and NOAA because those are two entities that many people look to to keep themselves safe in other situations.
• 25:43
  Kathleen Biggins: We also, as you could see in that clip, really hit hard on the fact that climate change isn't an environmental issue, but indeed impacts things that all humans care about, and especially moderates and conservatives, things like our economy and our jobs, things like security and personal safety, and of course, geopolitical stability.
• 26:06
  Kathleen Biggins: We provide evidence that they can see with their own eyes.
• 26:12
  Kathleen Biggins: I can't tell you how impactful that NASA graphic is when people see the Earth's temperature going up and moving from blue and into that deep red.
• 26:24
  Kathleen Biggins: There is another slide that we use, which is a graphic from NOAA that shows how the Arctic Ocean mature ice is melting away.
• 26:34
  Kathleen Biggins: That too is a very impactful slide.
• 26:37
  Speaker: Let's take a quick look.
• 27:12
  Kathleen Biggins: Most times our audience either guests or begins to talk amongst themselves when they see this.
• 27:16
  Kathleen Biggins: And afterwards we hear that these two visuals are very impactful.
• 27:21
  Kathleen Biggins: Another thing that we do is we tailor it to each individual market.
• 27:26
  Kathleen Biggins: As you saw there, we had tailored it to a New York market.
• 27:30
  Kathleen Biggins: All of our danger day slides, how hot it will be in the future, is tailored to the market.
• 27:35
  Kathleen Biggins: As we go into the dangers, we look to the dangers that are most prevalent in that region.
• 27:40
  Kathleen Biggins: And later in the health section, we look to what diseases are spread by mosquitoes and are spread for more days in each market.
• 27:48
  Kathleen Biggins: So again, tailoring it so they feel more that they have skin in the game.
• 27:53
  Kathleen Biggins: And we also always show solutions.
• 27:57
  Kathleen Biggins: We do not end on despair.
• 28:00
  Kathleen Biggins: We tell them that there are many solutions, both natural and technological, that we can embrace to make our future safer.
• 28:09
  Kathleen Biggins: And lastly, we highlight that the cost of inaction is much greater than the cost of action and hit that economic story very, very hard in our last section, which is Is There Hope?
• 28:22
  Kathleen Biggins: I'd also like to talk a moment about using appropriate language.
• 28:27
  Kathleen Biggins: One of the really important things that we have found is that we have to use language that lay people understand, and that we have to avoid using scientific jargon.
• 28:39
  Kathleen Biggins: It puts a barrier between us and the audience.
• 28:43
  Kathleen Biggins: We also like to use personal stories, humor, and emotion, but judiciously.
• 28:49
  Kathleen Biggins: And one of the things I read, which surprised me, is that actually conservatives resonate more towards these types of messages even than liberals do, which is why Senator Ina Hoff's act of tossing a frozen snowball in the middle of the Senate was so powerful and resonated so well with so many conservatives, and shut out the idea that climate change really could be happening.
• 29:16
  Kathleen Biggins: We also use words that conservatives like, words like prudence, stewardship, self-reliance, and responsibility.
• 29:25
  Kathleen Biggins: We talk about the fact that we are on this earth for a short while and we have a moral obligation to leave the earth at least as good as we received it, and also about the fact that we are responsible for ourselves.
• 29:36
  Kathleen Biggins: We do not want to leave to our children and grandchildren a mess that we have created.
• 29:41
  Kathleen Biggins: We highlight that other conservatives, including Kevin McCarthy or James Baker, care about this issue and are asking the Republicans to take action.
• 29:52
  Kathleen Biggins: And we recognize that there are conservative solutions.
• 29:56
  Kathleen Biggins: In our presentation, we touch on nuclear, carbon capture, and of course, tree planting, which is carbon capture through natural resources.
• 30:06
  Kathleen Biggins: And of course, we always end on an optimistic note and let our audience know it's not too late, and if they come together, we can take action that will change the course of the future.
• 30:19
  Kathleen Biggins: Now, I know that I have given you a lot to think about, but I would like to reassure you that this approach really does work.
• 30:29
  Kathleen Biggins: I don't want to blow our own horn, but I would like to share with you this testimonial from a Florida resident.
• 30:37
  Kathleen Biggins: And this Florida resident has a summer house up on Long Island that was creamed by Hurricane Sandy.
• 30:44
  Kathleen Biggins: In fact, the whole house was filled with sand.
• 30:46
  Kathleen Biggins: And yet, even after that occurrence, he did not believe that climate change was really an issue until he saw our presentation.
• 30:53
  Kathleen Biggins: And here's the testimonial that he shared with us.
• 30:56
  Kathleen Biggins: As a lifelong conservative, I've always been a bit skeptical of the global warming doomsayers.
• 31:02
  Kathleen Biggins: However, I must say after listening to Kathleen Biggins' presentation of the science and effect of climate change, I was blown away by the potential implication of global warming in the not too distant future.
• 31:13
  Kathleen Biggins: Regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum, I would highly recommend that you listen to this presentation as it is well worth your time.
• 31:22
  Kathleen Biggins: Thank you for listening to our presentation so far, and I'd like now to change up the topic and focus a little bit more on how land trusts have an important role in fostering this conversation.
• 31:35
  Kathleen Biggins: I will hand it over to my colleague, Katie Kinsalving.
• 31:39
  Katy Kinsolving: Thank you, Kathleen.
• 31:40
  Katy Kinsolving: Scientists agree natural climate solutions can provide over a third of the strategies we need to mitigate climate change impacts by 2030.
• 31:52
  Katy Kinsolving: Land trusts are in a unique position to promote, enhance, and implement many of these nature-based solutions.
• 32:02
  Katy Kinsolving: Solutions that also happen to clean the air and water, increase the vitality of our soil, and preserve biodiversity.
• 32:10
  Katy Kinsolving: The way we use land is both a cause of climate change and a solution.
• 32:17
  Katy Kinsolving: Land use has contributed to climate change through massive deforestation, particularly in our tropical forests, and most forests were cut down to make room for grazing and cropland.
• 32:29
  Katy Kinsolving: In fact, we use approximately half of the world's habitable land in order to grow food.
• 32:36
  Katy Kinsolving: We've also drained off wetlands to make room for farmland.
• 32:42
  Katy Kinsolving: All told, our agriculture is responsible for 24% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
• 32:49
  Katy Kinsolving: Urban and suburban sprawl and transportation infrastructure are also facets of land use that are contributing to climate change.
• 32:58
  Katy Kinsolving: On the flip side, land preservation is one of the most potent tools in our toolbox to address climate change.
• 33:07
  Katy Kinsolving: We cannot rely on land preservation alone, but it has distinct advantages.
• 33:13
  Katy Kinsolving: Land is here now and available now.
• 33:17
  Katy Kinsolving: It's cost effective.
• 33:18
  Katy Kinsolving: Much of what we need to do is to let the land be.
• 33:22
  Katy Kinsolving: It doesn't require technology and massive infrastructure to work.
• 33:27
  Katy Kinsolving: Preserving the land can help in three ways.
• 33:31
  Katy Kinsolving: It can help by storing carbon, by reducing emissions, and by developing resiliency.
• 33:38
  Katy Kinsolving: You are on the front line of this work of land stewardship.
• 33:42
  Katy Kinsolving: Scientists, economists, regional planners, and other nonprofits are developing increasingly effective tools to help you.
• 33:50
  Katy Kinsolving: Scientists can now measure carbon sequestration and storage capacity of nature-based systems.
• 33:57
  Katy Kinsolving: There are models that can predict emissions from land use changes.
• 34:02
  Katy Kinsolving: We have new criteria available to inform land acquisition decisions so that those decisions can be based on a broad cross-section of data from climate resiliency to carbon storage to protecting biodiversity.
• 34:18
  Katy Kinsolving: And we have new tools to help communities look at and manage risk and build resiliency in local areas in the face of climate change, because each community is going to be experiencing climate change differently.
• 34:34
  Katy Kinsolving: So I want to give you a couple of examples of land trusts and local governments that are already using some of these tools.
• 34:41
  Katy Kinsolving: And I'm going to start with carbon storage.
• 34:43
  Katy Kinsolving: The Texas Coastal Exchange is my poster child today for carbon storage, but to be honest, many other organizations are jumping on the carbon storage and carbon credit bandwagon, and more about carbon credits in a minute.
• 34:59
  Katy Kinsolving: The Texas Coastal Exchange pays private landowners along the Texas coast to maintain and protect carbon-rich wetland.
• 35:09
  Katy Kinsolving: In other words, to do nothing to it.
• 35:11
  Katy Kinsolving: The amount of each landowner's grant is based on the size of their property, the type of ecosystem that the property contains, and how much carbon dioxide it can store.
• 35:23
  Katy Kinsolving: At the same time, the Texas Coastal Exchange is giving grants to local nonprofits that are replanting coastal wetlands in the Galveston Bay.
• 35:36
  Katy Kinsolving: So they're doing two jobs really: keeping carbon stored in the wetlands and then redeveloping new wetlands to increase resilience.
• 35:45
  Katy Kinsolving: Texas Coastal Exchange is funded by donors looking for carbon credits.
• 35:51
  Katy Kinsolving: This is a formula that is being increasingly used across the country within a variety of ecosystems, from the coastal wetlands like those in Texas, to the Great Plains, to northern forests, to farms large and small, around the country.
• 36:06
  Katy Kinsolving: If your land trust is not on the carbon credit bandwagon, that is something you may want to investigate.
• 36:14
  Katy Kinsolving: Smart stewardship of the land can also help reduce emissions.
• 36:20
  Katy Kinsolving: I often speak about reducing emissions through the lens of agricultural practices.
• 36:27
  Katy Kinsolving: And to be sure, researchers are studying how we can reduce agricultural emissions through methods such as cover cropping and no-till and reduced fertilizer use.
• 36:36
  Katy Kinsolving: But I'd like you to step out of that agricultural silo with me for a moment and think across silos.
• 36:44
  Katy Kinsolving: What about using degraded farmland and other types of property to plant a different type of sun-loving crop?
• 36:52
  Katy Kinsolving: To plant solar fields and wind farms.
• 36:55
  Katy Kinsolving: Yes, this may be controversial in your area.
• 36:58
  Katy Kinsolving: But again, there are those who've gone before who have created a process.
• 37:03
  Katy Kinsolving: New York State Scenic Hudson has created a guide to siting renewable energy sites.
• 37:09
  Katy Kinsolving: The Land Trust Alliance itself has several excellent posts on its website about how land conservation organizations can broker impressive green infrastructure deals for solar fields that mean reduced emissions for an entire region.
• 37:24
  Katy Kinsolving: In West Texas, ranchers and farmers have turned their degraded grazing lands into wind farms.
• 37:31
  Katy Kinsolving: Often these deals include planting native vegetation around the solar fields in order to prevent erosion and revitalize the soil and build resiliency.
• 37:41
  Katy Kinsolving: Resiliency.
• 37:44
  Katy Kinsolving: Let's talk about how land stewardship and preservation can support climate resiliency.
• 37:51
  Katy Kinsolving: Preserving land now is critical to ensuring that we preserve the ecosystems that support human and other life forms.
• 38:01
  Katy Kinsolving: For some municipalities, resiliency means protecting residents from the next storm.
• 38:06
  Katy Kinsolving: In Morris County, New Jersey, they are prioritizing land acquisition in HSAs, hydrologically sensitive areas, essentially creating a fund to help buy back houses that are vulnerable to flooding.
• 38:21
  Katy Kinsolving: Resiliency planning can take many forms.
• 38:24
  Katy Kinsolving: In Princeton, New Jersey, one of the local land trusts is working with other nonprofits to assess parcels available for preservation, appraising each available parcel based on a set of criteria that addresses global and local issues, including carbon sequestration potential, tree cover, and most critically for Princeton, stormwater runoff mitigation.
• 38:49
  Katy Kinsolving: The Open Space Institute has created a manual of sorts for identifying and preserving those properties that are going to be the most climate resilient.
• 38:59
  Katy Kinsolving: And I believe the Land Trust Alliance has helped to disseminate this guide.
• 39:04
  Katy Kinsolving: The Open Space Institute Guide identifies characteristics of a resilient network and contains a step-by-step guide to using mapping tools.
• 39:14
  Katy Kinsolving: It also has case studies that show how organizations are banding together to locate and fund climate-resilient acquisitions in larger networks.
• 39:26
  Katy Kinsolving: A critical component of the Open Space Institute Guide is the importance of communications with landowners, with land trust boards, and with the general public.
• 39:39
  Katy Kinsolving: Social scientists say that the most important thing we can do is to talk about climate change.
• 40:00
  Katy Kinsolving: Clearly, land trusts play an important role in calling people to action.
• 40:06
  Katy Kinsolving: We hope you'll start the call in your community.
• 40:09
  Katy Kinsolving: And if you need help, call on us.
• 40:13
  Katy Kinsolving: We look forward to answering your questions in the QA.
• 40:19
  Katy Kinsolving: Thank you.