07 July 2015  Written by Janice Pierce
Dr. Katharine Hayhoe says public misinformed, scientists agree on warming

What makes 200 people a day send hate mail to climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe?
Named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2014, Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist studying what is arguably the most pressing issue facing the planet: climate change.
She is an expert reviewer for the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In addition, she identifies as an evangelical Christian and is married to a pastor.
Speaking to a crowd of 1,600 people in Portland on June 24, as part of the 2015 World Affairs Council International Speaker Series “Climate Change: Fact & Faith,” climate scientist and educator Katharine Hayhoe, joked her way through what could be the most important issue of our time.
Easy enough for a kindergartener to understand, hope is intertwined in her message: Do something about climate change — don’t debate it.
Then why the hate mail?
Hayhoe points to a chart about the polarization of politics that has taken place in the United States over the past two decades, and the fact that trusted information channels have not provided accurate information about the problem and the solutions.
She takes the media to task for putting sound bites above making sense of a global issue the size of climate change.
“Every time I got a call from CNN during 2013, it was an invitation to debate the science. I gave it to them,” she said. “I said it is morally wrong to perpetuate the myth that we are 50/50 on climate science.“
She wonders why the public would begin to do anything if the trusted resource, the news media, doesn't provide information about the problem and the possibilities. Hayhoe cites that in 2013, 70 percent of the information in mainstream media outlet CNN was true about climate change but 30 percent was misleading.
Citing the similarities in the public relations campaigns launched by tobacco companies to “obscure the science” directly linking cancer and cigarettes, she argued that tactic worked against people for years.
Fifty-five percent of the people in the United States think the science is not settled, Hayhoe says, while the reality is that 97 percent of scientists think that humans are the primary cause of climate change today.
Hayhoe cites 200-year-old science to corroborate the findings that carbon emissions are warming Earth — like a blanket in the sky — and causing it to heat up past livable conditions.
The oil companies know the science, she says, and while some people vilify oil companies, Hayhoe says she is not among them. In fact, she says Exxon Corp. funded one-half of her master's degree because she was studying methane.
Hayhoe added that the funders of climate denial are business entities who do not want restrictions on the way they make money.
While pointing a finger at China’s industrialization, Hayhoe also points out that 30 percent of the world’s carbon emissions are linked directly to the United States and current unsustainable lifestyles based on carbon fuels.
To those who say there has been extreme global warming in the past Hayhoe says: "We weren’t around then. After the polar bear, we are the most vulnerable species on the planet.”
Her ideas for change include switching to noncarbon-based energy sources, like wind and solar, and directly taxing carbon use.
“This would change the world,” she says. “The problem is not human activity, it’s human choices.”
In advocating for urgent action, Hayhoe pointed out that the people of the Netherlands sued their government — and won — a court decision because they believed their government was not doing enough about climate change.
Asked whether climate change is reversible, Hayhoe said, "We need to suck the carbon out of the air. There are myriad solutions, but we only have years for solutions — maybe a decade.”