Climate Central Interview

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Every day you and I get bombarded with negative news. And just like our bodies, become what we eat, our minds become the information that we consume. If you want to stay positive, it’s so important that you also listen to stories that inspire you and uplift you. In this podcast we interview leading experts dedicated to solving the world’s most pressing problems. And if you stick around, I promise you will not only be as informed as if you watched the news, you will be uplifted, inspired, and have more positive energy in your life. Welcome to Great.com Talks With.

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Hi and welcome to day, great talks with Benjamin Strauss, who is the CEO and chief scientist of Climate Central dot org, and if you haven’t heard of them before, they are an independent organization of leading scientists and journalists who are researching and reporting facts about our changing climate. And if you haven’t already done so, you definitely want to press subscribe, because today we’re going to talk about climate change, maybe rising sea levels and what the recent political developments in the US might mean for the effects on the climate and the US rejoining the Paris agreement and all kinds of fun stuff. Benjamin Strauss, I’m really excited to speak with you today and thank you so much for having me.

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I’m really proud to be here.

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Right. And before we begin, how would you describe your organization to someone that might not be so familiar with what the Climate Central is doing?

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Yeah, so we are. Our mission is to make accurate and effective climate change information ubiquitous so that enough people care enough about the climate problem to drive action that rises to the challenge that meets the level of the threat of climate change. And we combine science, storytelling and technology to produce scalable solutions to drive a very high volume of effective and accurate messages through a lot of different channels.

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Ok, so you want to get more people engaged and want to do something for them to change their habits of being involved or somehow care more about the climate, what ways of accomplishing that? Have you found the most effective?

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Yeah. So I ‘m certainly interested in people changing their individual behavior, but we think it’s very important that institutions change and governments change. I like to think of climate change as the easiest, hard problem yet. Right. We’re not going to solve poverty. We can make progress, but we’re probably never going to solve poverty or cure all disease or have justice for absolutely everyone or end inequality. But we can solve climate change. We know exactly how to do it. And the key problem is deciding to do it. And so that’s why our strategy focuses on communications. We see communications and persuasion, education of people as to the.

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Real danger of this threat and its meaning for them and the real possibility of solution. We see that as a real common denominator approach, if you forgive the pun, it’s a rising tide that could lift all boats or it’s a strategy that kind of fertilizes the soil for all kinds of efforts at different solutions. You don’t have to be a climate expert to understand that helping to educate and energize all kinds of people and all kinds of places and organizations, all kinds of countries and governments. We need that level of everyone’s effort, right? I let people honestly for decades, but the good side is we can’t do this, so we know exactly how to do this. There’s an end point. And so that’s you

know, you don’t you don’t have to be an expert to do our job. Well, we have to be an expert. Right, to share accurate, reliable information. But is someone interested in getting involved in climate work who hasn’t done it before and might be thinking of different approaches? Organizations? You don’t have to be an expert. You don’t have to decide that it’s you know, it has to be wind or it has to be solar or it has to be nuclear or whatever. Helping know publics and leaders to grip on to this and put more energy into climate is just kind of a no brainer from our point of view. And we, you know, we use a whole lot of strategies to make sure that the way we’re really our strategy is a force multiplier.

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We’re not so much looking for the people. Who very much want to learn more about climate. I mean, we’re certainly interested in those, but we also want to make sure to reach people who have just a little interest or maybe are in the middle on the fence. So we’re not looking for people who are necessarily going to beat down our door at Climate Central Dog. We want to bring our messages to where people are and we want to deliver them through messengers that people trust. So we tend to work through others through journalists, local journalists who are highly trusted on TV online, through other organizations. We build tools that others can use. And so it’s kind of a double force multiplier strategy. We build things so that, you know, personalities on TV can talk about climate with confidence and effectiveness and their audiences trust them. So that’s an. You know, the elements of effectiveness include. Not only a trusted messenger, but delivering local information, personalized information, and one of our big strategies is delivering that at scale. So even in the communications space. There are a lot of groups who may have a national campaign, they have a particular message, they want to get to everyone and they buy an advertisement or they kind of work in the national media or the global media to try and get that particular message out, which we think is very important.

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But our strategy is more focused on how we can get the same kind of information out, but in a thousand different ways. It’s each of which is tailored to the local place where it’s going. So when we do our research on how climate change is changing the weather, we get a result for every media market in the United States and we deliver that to the TV personalities in that media market at the right time so that they can put it on TV. Or when we do our level research, we produce maps that can be localized anyplace in the world. So in India, you know, a user, a journalist can go on our maps to Mumbai and take a snapshot and put that on TV or in the news and say, look, here are the stakes of this global sea level science or of choosing a high emissions, high pollution pathway versus a low pollution pathway. Here’s what that means specifically for Mumbai. And so, you know, using visuals and making up local and using technology to find very efficient ways to do that at scale. That’s kind of the secret sauce. That is what makes climate central and our view quite unique among all the groups working on climate change communications, let alone climate change more broadly.

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I really enjoy your way of thinking that you want to empower people to communicate better by giving them these tools, and I see how scalable your solutions are. And you, with so much knowledge about communication, which I hear from the way you speak, I guess our listeners are interested in understanding what they can do to convince people around them to be more mindful of the climate, or rather, what should I not do? Maybe I guess people are

they really want people to change around them, but they don’t want to become this doomsday. You know, the world is going under because that shuts people off as well. How can our listeners, you know, reach people around them?

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Well, the first thing I want to say is that that’s a very important question, because I often get asked, what can I do about climate change most broadly? And of course, it’s valuable if people change their light bulbs to LSD and they use mass transit or they get an electric car, they do all kinds of personal things. Those are all good. But personally, I think this is a problem that calls even more for force multiplier strategies, so I encourage people to think about the different communities they’re part of and what role can they play? You know, helping to change their whole family, not just them or the school where they attend or the company that they work for or the local or national government that they are part of or live underneath. So to me, you know, communication is essential and I think in terms of how to be effective. It starts with knowing your audience and I agree that a big gloom and doom story is generally. Not going to be the ticket, some listeners may be interested in a kind of sober explanation of different different facts. We find what tends to be most useful is to explain the local impacts of climate change, that what does this mean for the places where we are or that we care about? What are the changes that are already happening that you can see with your eyes? And so when you focus there, there are a couple of important advantages. One is it’s not this overwhelming global doom story.

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It’s about a specific change or projection right in the place where you are. It’s much more manageable. And so the mind doesn’t shut down. But it’s also and it also tends to be smaller because the biggest effects are usually going to be someplace else or farther in the future. Or if you add things up globally so people don’t shut down as much, it’s more of a practical kind of roll up your sleeves problem. And we also like to. You know, keeping up in the present, right, it feels less speculative if you can talk about trends that have already happened or how the current weather impacts are changing, that’s useful. And then it’s very useful to talk about solutions as well and the local

dimensions of solutions. What what that would mean, what that could look for. Because the fact is solar and wind energy is now basically equal to or even cheaper than most forms of fossil fuel energy there is. We can do this. We really can do that. So it’s going to cost a lot less than we think and it’s going to create a lot of opportunity for people. So there’s a very positive, bright side of innovation and change and. You know, I think of Europe, they’re going to be so many what we call co benefits. In Europe, I think of these wonderful old cities and one of the things that I used to always think was a natural part of these cities was basically the. Kind of a dark city like coating over all of the old statues, but that came from decades and centuries of coal smoke and car exhaust and diesel, like once we switch to electric cars and clean energy.

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Those facades need to be cleaned one more time, and that’s it, they’ll stay clean, like when it stays, when it snows in the winter, the snow will stay white, like it won’t turn like gray and brown because of all the diesel exhaust. And in all of the coal plant exhaust and all those sorts of things, the streets will become much quieter and more pleasant. So there’s all kinds of things you can talk about. And, you know, if you’re talking to a real contrarian. I find that the best approach, if they’re really dug in, is not to get into a fact against fact argument, but to ask them to find a way to have them do a self-examination. So, you know, I say, well, it looks like you like to think for yourself, like, yes, of course. And not follow the mob or what you think everyone is. That’s right. I’m an independent thinker. Good. That’s a good thing. But surely there are cases where you would agree with the majority, right. Or where you would agree with the majority of experts like you. Do you agree that smoking causes lung cancer? How come you agree with that expert conclusion and not the expert conclusion on climate change? Like what leads you to accept some scientific consensus and not others and people are totally unprepared for that. So that’s that’s a protec.

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There were at least seven pieces of gold in that answer. I really think with me how you live by example, by painting a picture of what we can do this and hope in what you say, you’re very specific and using metaphors like the statue. It’s stuck to my visual senses. And yeah, understanding how to reach your audience as exemplified in your last example was beautiful to listen to. Let’s switch topics a little bit because I am so curious to understand how will it change like that before the U.S. election? And this was two weeks ago. So I’m very excited about it. And I was nervous before because it seemed like such a fork in the road, like one way where this was my feeling body speaking. It feels like we are going to a place where we’re just going to destroy our planet. And another way was, OK, now we are nurturing our planet. And this is just my personal opinion, of course. But what is really the difference here? And when the US John’s back in the Paris agreement, what does it mean for our climate?

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Well, I think the results look like they should be quite important for our climate because, you know, President elect Biden. As part of an administration that did a lot of work on climate, the Obama administration, that was a leader in, you know, it seems to me right in the discussions that led to the Paris agreement, there were many other leaders, too. But it was important that the United States was there as a strong voice. And so that’s going to return, right, someone who is right right there. I couldn’t blame other nations for that. Continuing to be worried about exactly where the United States is, right, if we flip flop from one place to another and back know what, what’s the future going to be? But I think we have to work with where we are right now and. Even though the control of Congress in the United States is not clear yet. We’re going to have a president who understands how to get things done on climate, even when Congress is intransigent because. You know, there was no climate legislation under Obama. But that administration figured out how to do a huge amount using the executive branch of the US government that figured out how to do a huge amount on climate, and Biden was there for the whole ride. So she’s going to have a real jump start if. There is resistance from Congress, even if there is resistance from Congress, but an interesting thing in America is that. There is some partisan division on climate, especially when you look at our elected leaders in Congress, but when you look at the public and surveys, there’s a pretty big difference between Democrats and Republicans.

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But still, like a slight majority of Republicans, favor action on climate and a strong majority, a good majority that is very much in favor of clean energy amongst Republicans. So also, if you look at surveys by age for younger Republicans, there’s very strong support on climate and clean energy. So it’s a bit of a generational thing. I think the party is going to have to change. One of the tragedies in America and in the world is that this is a partisan issue. I kind of feel like. I’d be delighted for the parties to have for the political parties to have big fights about what we should do to address climate change, but we shouldn’t be having fights about whether it’s really a problem. I kind of think of fire chiefs looking in a building with smoke pouring out of the windows. They shouldn’t be arguing about whether there’s a fire. And that’s what’s happening now. It’s OK for them to argue about what strategy they should take for putting out the fire. But I would also add that that argument should be very efficient and fast so that they can begin implementing this strategy. And that’s where I hope we can get to this country. I do see there is evidence that. Republican legislators. You know, in quiet back rooms like they like to tuck in pro climate provisions when they think they can do it very quietly. And, you know, I should also circle back to Climate Central. One of the things we do, we are not political, not partisan, not even advocacy. Our strategy is to really put out very credible, rigorous, science backed information that can be put on the news in any newspaper, on any TV station.

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And I’m proud to say, for example, that our climate contact, our climate information and graphics goes out on all kinds of local TV stations owned by Fox News and owned by other media networks, which tend to have very conservative and Republican sympathies. So we’re. On TV, across the ideological spectrum in the United States, and I should add that we’ve done peer reviewed research showing the effectiveness of the way we communicate, the communications that we drive, and that shows that it appeals to audiences across the political spectrum and basically reduces the difference in their viewpoints on climate change. So that’s a big part of what we try and do is make sure that this is an issue that people can engage with across the ideological spectrum, whether that’s in the United States or internationally. Frankly, when we make it local and specific and tangible and visual, that really cuts through ideology, we all live. And in the same city, right after back in Mumbai and like we have to figure out this problem because the water is getting higher and when we wrestle with that very local problem. We see that this is real, that it’s going to require that it’s going to be expensive and risky, that we can make it much more manageable by cutting our emissions, and we have to take action on both fronts, really reducing the emissions and also planning for higher seas and more climate impacts. So that’s all tightly connected to the kinds of strategies that we deploy.

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We are coming up towards the end of this interview, but I’m really curious to ask this, ask a question about the rising sea levels, mostly for selfish reasons, because I’m unaware and I would like to know, like what the science says, how much is the water going to go up and how is that going to look at? And if you can give a little bit of a more brief answer, because we’re running out of time.

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Yeah, so. There are two different time frames related to think about. We. Sea levels will go up between the year 2000 and 2050. It’s a pretty narrow range, probably on the order of 30 centimeters plus or minus 15 centimeters. Doesn’t really matter what we do. By the end of the century, we have much more diverging paths and it’s much harder to know, you know, 60 centimeters to two meters. It depends on how much we pollute, but it’s also really hard to tell in the long run, we know we’re going to see a lot of sea level rise. If I dumped a truckload of ice outside your house, like you would know immediately whether it would melt and how much would melt. It’s all going to melt because summer will come. It’s all going to melt. Much harder to say, like how much is it melting per minute, per day? Exactly when will it finish melting? So. We’re already committed to basically two meters of sea level rise in the future. I can’t. If we stop polluting tomorrow and. I don’t you know, it could take hundreds of years for that to arrive, but when we go into the next international discussions, you know, one of the things we’ll be doing is showing pictures and visuals and maps, even like Google Street View type images, but with floodwaters that are scientifically based.

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That show, here’s door A, here’s door B, right, if we cut emissions. Here is the sea level rise that we are basically locking in, we are signing up for this legacy and all of our children remember us versus Dawber. Is a much higher sea level or a much lower sea level that we sign up for because it takes time for the ice to melt and to catch up for how much warming we’ve already done. And the choice that we have is really the difference between being able to hold on to most of the great coastal cities in the world versus not being able to hold on to any of them in the long run. And what will our descendants think about us, depending on which of those choices that we make as a big choice in the legacy?

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Yeah, that is, uh. That is worth reflecting on.

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Right, so. There’s a lot for me to reflect on. There were so many. Excellent metaphors you used in the way to explain climate change. And I just want them to soak into me so I can tell them to the next person. But let’s say not that someone is listening to this and they feel inspired. I want to learn more about climate change. Maybe they want to follow your organization or maybe even do something to help. What can someone do to help out and stay informed?

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Well, with respect to us, please come over to Climate Central dot org and sign up for our newsletter. We are you know, we mostly work through the media and if you want to become a partner, a financial partner in our work, we are always looking for more allies. We’ve got very exciting programs coming up, you know, more research on those rising sea levels and developing really cool visuals of what’s behind Door A. Versus Dawber at scale. Very powerful, proven approaches. We’ve been doubling the work, basically doubling the impact of our work with local TV meteorologists who are some of the most trusted voices in the media in the United States. Doubling the amount of our content that they’re putting on TV every year for three years running, it’s now kind of thousands of TV spots per year and there’s a lot of room for growth in that program. And our most exciting project right now is leveraging both of those programs. And the sea level work, by the way, is completely international, not just us, but leveraging both of those. We’re building a sophisticated software system that essentially is tracking weather, coastal water levels, a huge range of climate impacts and solutions like renewable power generation. We’re tracking all of those data in real time.

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And that enables us to identify the exact moment in different places when something notable happens with respect to climate change so that we can then automatically assemble a miniature media package and send it to journalists in that geography and also to make it available for NGOs, researchers, government officials. They can get alerts or social media or data through an API, which basically says, hey, you know, the weather you’re experiencing today or yesterday or even in the forecast tomorrow like that has a link to climate change. And here’s the story. Here’s some of the science. Here’s the facts. Here’s some visuals and language that you can use. And helping people to deliver that kind of information at exactly the right moment, in exactly the right place through all of these different messenger pathways, it’s immensely scalable. We’re building it right now for the US. But something that we have some of the research pathway is going to make it truly global and just see that as a real force multiplier strategy. So, you know, we very much invite your listeners to come check us out at Climate Central Drug. And frankly, if not us, there are tons of other organizations, inspiring groups working on climate change. I’ve had a chance to describe a bit of our unique connection developing as communications at scale efficiently and then delivering them through effective messengers.

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But there are lots of other ways, and frankly, kind of as I said at the start, this is a really big problem, but it’s also a solvable one. But as big as it is, it’s going to need all of us. Each person has their own contribution to make based on their own life, their own circumstances. And the important thing is that each of us, you know, reach down until it even the point that it’s a little bit hard maybe, and they’re a little bit uncomfortable, a little bit outside the comfort zone and take action, do something and try and change your communities as well as yourself, your family, your school, your company, your government. That’s how we’re going to get there through that kind of commitment.

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Hmm. Beautiful. I feel inspired to get started. Ben Strauss, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with Great Icon today. I highly appreciate your time. I mean, I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. And for you listening. If you felt like this was inspiring and uplifting and maybe you learned something, I would we would really appreciate if you would press the subscribe button in your podcast app or YouTube, that will greatly increase our chances to be shown in different topped lists and recommended some more people can hear this kind of conversations and make positive changes in their lives. So thank you so much for listening and we’ll see you in the next episode.

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