Giving Compass' Take:

• Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe offers three suggestions on how to engage with climate skeptics about the science of climate change.

• How can we emphasize the importance of education on climate issues, rather than the politics of the problem? 

• Read more about the need to invest in climate change education. 

When climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe first started teaching at Texas Tech in 2005, in the very conservative town of Lubbock, the first question a student asked after a class on the carbon cycle was: “You’re a Democrat, aren’t you?” Hayhoe answered that she was a Canadian. But it was an early introduction to a reality that still exists today. Whether you believe in human-caused climate change has more to do with where you fall on the political spectrum than how much education you have.

As of a survey earlier this year, almost all liberal Democrats (95%) think climate change is happening; only 40% of conservative Republicans do.

Hayhoe, who still lives and works in Lubbock, laid out her approach to how to talk to climate skeptics at TEDWomen.

  • Start from the heart. The first step is “to start from the heart, start by talking about why it matters to us–to begin with genuinely shared values,” Hayhoe said.
  • Find common values. “If you don’t know what the values are that someone has, have a conversation, get to know them, figure it out, what makes them tick, and then once we have, all we have to do is connect the dots between the values they already have and why they would care about a changing climate,” she said.
  • Don't focus on fear. Despite the terror of living in a time when wildfires and hurricanes and droughts are already becoming more extreme “Fear is not going to motivate us for the long-term sustained change,” she said.

Read the full article about nudging climate skeptics by Adele Peters at Fast Company