This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio. So, our next guest is a climate atmospheric scientist. She's been studying climate change, analyzing the data, the models. You may have even seen her Ted talk. She is the chief scientist for the nonprofit and global environmental group it's the Nature Conservancy, and she notes that our future it's in our hands when
where we can choose between mitigation, adaptation and suffering. She's Katherine Hayho. She's got a new book at it's entitled Saving Us a Climate Scientist Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. And she joins ed La Lowe and me on the phone in Texas. Katherine, great to have you here with Ed and myself. Um, tell us about your new book, Well, thank you for having me.
My new book is about how the most important thing that any of us can do about the huge she of climate change is to use their voices to talk about it, because we're not only fourteen percent of people ever talk about it. And if you don't talk about it in your company, your business, your organization, why would anybody understand how it's already affecting us today, including our bottom line, and how every single one of us can help to be part of the practical solutions that are
already being implemented today. As well. As part of your book, you surveyed, you interviewed, you polled all people from all walks of life. What did you find out? I found that most people are already very worried about climate change, even where I live here in Texas, the home of the oil and gas industry. But people don't know what they can do, and so because of that, we're not even talking about it. So that's why it's so important to break that silence and to talk first of all
about how it's already affecting our bottom line. We're seeing a fee change. A lot of businesses are recognizing the climate up action aligns with their goals, that the consumer wants to see what they're doing, and that the risks are already affecting us. Hey, you know there's already many businesses that are taking action too. Sorry, go ahead, no,
you're noticing that, Katherine. It's interesting and coming off of the pandemic, we are reminded so much about taking a vaccine, isn't just about protecting ourselves, but about protecting our community. We've had to think, you know, beyond ourselves in a big way climate change. That is the case too. I understand that you stress not focusing on the facts, but on shared values in common ground. How do you expect we get there when there's so much in fighting, certainly
politically in this country, politically in other countries. How do we find that common ground, which is you know, crucial to really our existence as human beings in the future. M hmm. That's exactly the question. Because climate change is and has been for the last ten years, the most politicized issue in the US. So if we can come together on this, what else might we be able to fix? How do we do that? Start from the heart, start
from what really matters? So what matters to your business, what matters to you personally, what matters to your consumer base? What values do they have that are being affected by
climate change today? Because it's already here and now, and that climate solutions would genuinely and immediately and practically addressed, often we can agree on climate solutions without even mention the words climate change in sequence, Catherine, Let's give a specific example on this, So we can help the audience understand. In California, I am the most visible debate that we
have is the wildfires. You know, they seem to be hitting earlier every year with more severity, and there are many that say this is the most visible evidence of climate change we have in the state. How would you approach that issue? How should people discuss the wild fires here in California. You're absolutely right, that's what we're seeing in California. In other places we see hurricanes becoming more intense,
flood risk increasing, and of course deadly heat wave. I would approach it as a mom by talking about how some of my friends who who live in California Nevada, they couldn't even let their kids outside to way for it's not just days, but weeks at a time because the smoke was so bad. My cousin's house burned, dance and that that really happened, and we all know people
have been affected. So I would start with something that we share, and then I would say, hey, did you know that one of the most important things we can do is talk about it because here in California we are the number one producer of solar energy and all the new homes that are being built to require tup solar panels, which makes us energy and dependent as well as not contributing to all this carbon pollution that's causing
the planet to heat up, making our wildfires worse. So tie the issue directly to our personal concerns and directly to solutions that are happening great in front of our eyes, not on the other side of the world. You know, it's interesting though, I we d as I do. We talk with a lot of companies, h and institutions as well as investors. A lot of companies and institutions, Catherine are putting out targets for being climate neutral and so on.
A lot talk about sustainability, and yet the climate number show is we can You need to go in the wrong direction. As Ed mentions the fires out there on the West Coast, early hurricanes here on the East Coast, the flooding that we're seeing in so many different places also around the world. I mean, is it too late you tracked the data. I gotta go back to the
data for a moment. Is it too late? I do track the data, and the way I look at it as if it is too late to avoid all of the impacts, because some of them are right here today, the ones you refer to, we're seeing them here and now. It's sort of as if we've already been smoking for years and even decades, and we have some impaired breathing, we have some spots on our lungs, but we don't have them phazema, we don't have lung cancer, and we're not debt. So when is the time to make it change?
Right now? Because I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, as a scientist who studies the future and who studies the impact our choices make today, that our future is still in our hands. And what is it today is not the planet itself was its stake is our civilization as we know it. We still have the chance to save ourselves. And so that's why I called my book Saving Us. But Catherine very quickly remind us why is this less confrontational approach better than the
facts and the data. Well, facts are important, I mean, obviously they explained the way the world works. But we scientists have been sharing facts for decades, and today much of the debate in the public sphere centers over is it warming or not? How much is humans, how much is not. And we know the answers to these things. We've known that it is real, we've known that it's human cause, we've known the risks are serious, scientists warned
the US President in nineteen sixty five. So rather than getting stuck on the facts, we need to understand the real problem. Nobody thinks it matters to them personally, and nobody knows what to do about it. Catherine, just got about seconds thirty seconds left? Here? Are you banking on a younger generation? Who? I know my eighteen year old keeps reminding us the bad stuff we've done for the environment and promises change. Is it the younger generation that
really moves the needle on this? And just quickly y um, they would, But we don't have time to wait for them. We have to join them too. And again, it's not about the environment, it is literally about us existence. Listen, we gotta leave it there. And certainly another thing to think about. And what's been a gem pack newsday and thoughtful day. Catherine hajo her new book Saving Us, a climate scientist case for hope and healing in a divided world, joining us on the phone from Texas,