Transcripts For CSPAN Climate Change In The States 20240714

This event is brought to you by collaboration between date drake university. We connect reporters to scientists to promote more credible, accurate, researchbased news stories. We are wrapping up a boot camp at drake and which political journalists received briefings from experts on science issues that will be prominent in the president ial campaign. The program was promoted by the Schmidt Family foundation. Acknowledge the academic leaders of drake university. And our entire team of scientists and science communicators who have worked so hard to organize this event. That theyremind folks are welcome to ask questions and join the conversation via twitter. Please turn off any ringers on your cell phones and please do not use flash photography. That, i am very pleased to ,ntroduce tonights moderator veteran science reporter miles obrien. He is an independent journalist to covers science, technology, and aerospace. He is a science correspondent for pbs newshour. A writer for nova. An aviation analyst for cnn. Please join me in welcoming him to the stage. [applause] miles it is great to see you here. I will have my panelists get seated while i am talking. It is good to be back in des moines. 1988. St trip here was in i was following Michael Dukakis around. My first taste of deepfried butter. I can so remember it. I can still conjure up whatever that was. How many of you are familiar with the job of state climatologist . Probably about half. There are two states in the nation that did not have a climatologists. Tennessee and massachusetts. Boston is almost underwater now. We have three allstar state climatologist sooner. We will ask them about what they and what the hear, evidence they are seeing on the front lines. A lot of people make about Climate Change as this giant, monolithic problem. It is a million little problems. It is all thought about in a local, specific way. There are big things we could go after but there are a lot of Little Things we could do. These guys are in the trenches dealing with those Little Things. The people who are listened to the most are the closest. Or people who just got to not about it. I flew here. In the middle is our hometown favorite, the state climatologist of iowa. Without going too deep into the bureaucratic match and nations of what a state climatologist does come run through it. It is kind of like being the help desk for people in State Government and businesses. A little bit of an arbiter of good science. Who do yous, consider your clients to be. Climate touches everything and everyone. I get to metal in everybodys affairs. Sofect for me because i am interested in learning about so many things. You become an expert quickly and things he thought you never would. Things you did not go to school for. I work with decisionmakers. A lot of water managers, farmers, and people and the public who just want to know what is going on. Miles anything more you want to add to that . Justin being from iowa, my clientele are state stakeholders. Farmers. Theyre very intuitive. They have been on their lands forever. See whatith them, they is happening. They see changes in the climate. In the weather. It affects their crop yields. What they do on a daytoday basis. ,aving information for them letting them know that there is a 40 chance that next month will be above average temperature wise. Or precipitation wise. To give them some kind of guidance moving forward. It is reassuring being in a state like this. Miles would you add anymore to that . Ditto what he said. That is what i deal with the nebraska. You never know whos going to pick up when i get on the phone. That gives you an idea of the range of people we communicate with on this very complex topic. I want to talk about the. Looding in the wild weather it is interesting to me that the two ladies on the panel are academics inside academic institutions, with all the protections that we associate with that. This gentleman in the middle is a state employee. You are a little bit more vulnerable. [laughter] is there much pressure brought to bear. To say one thing or another . I can just do my job. Was this one of the things i was not supposed to ask about . It was the deepfried butter that confuse me. I find that people care at all levels. Whether it is farmers, ranchers, cities. Everybody is talking about it, cares about it, wants to know. Will not feel any pressure. You are a state employee. Your boss is the governor. He is into renewables. But not much into leaving Climate Change has a human component. I am the weather archivist for the state. I have years of observations going back to the 1800s. They are factbased observations. And level of the government. I dont feel impeded in my position. You have a governor who is at the forefront of suggesting drastic change. E it has only been four weeks. One of the reasons i took the job in North Carolina, we had great things going on in or gone. But i was encouraged about what was happening. Personally, this is the biggest problem of my generation. And the generation behind me. Miles with a complete lack of leadership from washington, those that put more pressure and responsibility on the states to do something . I think it does. Best solutions are local solutions. You know what is going on in your area. How to solve it. I am finishing up a project where we worked with 11 cities where they are incorporating private climate projections into their planning. They are looking at what is water going to look like, what is temperature going to look like. All of these things that they city cares about. They are looking at Climate Change and incorporating it. When i saw what was happening at the e. P. A. I was trying to be optimistic about it. I thought maybe the grassroots would be better in a sense because to the extent that theres an absence of leadership in washington it might mobilize people at the local level to do more. I thought maybe i was being poly anna. But no. Iowa farmers are resilient individuals. They dont rely on anybody but themselves. Iving discussions to various groups across the state. Farmers Elementary School kids, ach has an idea or view. Farmers, i talk to them often. They know they know what to do. Cover crops, working for carbon sequestration. These are the solutions that we can do at the state threavel will start to move for warned up. Miles but it has to be pretty pragmatic when youre talking to a farmer. It cant be stuff way down the road. It has to be something that will help them in the near road that might be different for a climatologist. Sure. We talk about weather a lot. Which is shortterm variations in the atmosphere. Armers are seasonably based. Rahm emanuel said never waste a good crisis. Is there an opportunity to do something meaningful at the state level, in particular in North Carolina. After four weeks, what have you done . You dont have it solved yet . Even when the federal government is moving, it is not our most nimble institution. It is the states that start, then we move as a country towards the direction of addressing the issue. With Greenhouse Gas mitigation, absolutely, showing leadership standing up. California is leading, but other states are trying as well. On the other side, preparing for the impacts of Climate Change are becoming more resilient, local and state solutions are the ones that will stick, because it is the people in the communities who need to come to the table. You mention briefly the 2019 floods. Lets talk about the floods or the fire that devastated aradise, a hurricane, whatever it is to what extent is the strong evidence that the weather hanging, impacting the questions and for that matter the reception you give can you talk to the public, is it changing . My sense is that it is somehow. Martha right. One thing you can do with weather events. You can use that as a tool to explain between weather and klay motte. How you do explain it . Martha depending on the audience, weather is your bat and climate is your batting average, weather is your mood, climate is your personality. Go ahead. You use that as your gateway to talk to folks about Climate Change. The flood is a gateway drug or climate, right . Yes, it is what grabs peoples attention. It is real, local impacts that you cant question. For the floods, for example, we talk about the events leading up to it, which was a big factor in the flood. It wasnt just the storm. It was what happened leading up to that. You talk about how springs are etting wetter, and that will tie into Climate Change. The problem i have discovered in covering this for 25 years is there is the Scientific Method and scientists, they dont talk like the rest of us, right . They are constrained by peer review, evidence, and all that stuff. What it does at times, they have historically been extremely reluctant to connect all those dots, to say this tornado or hurricane has a climate link it has been hard to get that out of scientists. Has that changed . We were affected by the flood. In 2019 also. Iowa at the second wettest year on record, 1993 being the wettest. We were three inches short of breaking that record. Third wettest fall, seventh wettest spring, and all that goes into the circumstances that lead to historic flooding. These three floods in 10 years yeah. You have a stack of evidence that is hard to counter. Ould you go along with that, kathy . Our scientists encumbered by some constraints they felt in he past . Yeah. Attribution science, seeing the fingerprints of Climate Change on events has moved a lot the past few years. Our colleagues saying the european heat wave, saying Climate Change definitely. A reporter would call up and we would say, we cant tie one of these into Climate Change. We are past that. We are seeing heat waves, big fires, and Climate Change ere. We go for the sexy lead. You do all the disclaimers, and at the bottom you say, you are screwed. By the kind of how it goes in the scientific paper. Way we are screwed. If you flip that around, that might be good. I am just saying. When you pick up the phone, what are they asking you . There are people who call and ask about their daughters wedding. Of course. I hope you charge them extra. It depends on my mood. But a lot of people, i find a lot of people just want to talk about it. They want somebody to talk to. I am on the other end of the line. They are looking to buy a house n oregon or North Carolina, or it is somebody making a decision. They want to sit down and get to know each other and me to listen what they are working on and figure that out. There is a counseling component to this . A little bit. It is a Big Mental Health issue with farmers in the midwest, given the variability that weve seep in conditions, just going from last year to this year, d1 drought to d3 drought, now moving into dryness, but in between, record wetness, so farmers, they call. Yes, i do a lot of event lanning. They want some reassurance, hell, is my crop going to come out all right . They need somebody to. T weighs on you, but you are there as a service, trying to make things better with giving them the proper information. Martha, weddings and bar mitzvahs, too . Yes. He two primary questions are what is the forecast for the upcoming season. Primarily agricultural einterested people . Yes. Are we going to be wetter, drier, warmer, colder, and timing of precipitation events. The other question increasingly is Climate Change, what will it mean for nebraska . What can we grow in nebraska. What will it mean for fish and wildlife. How will it impact me, what can i do about it . That is a long phone call, isnt it, when you get a uestion like that . It is not a simple answer. Climate impacts are intricate. There are lots of connections. You have to get to know the concerns, what are those interconnections, how does climate look for a particular area, and it is not an easy answer and it takes time building a relationship, and kind of working with somebody hand in hand. Is it hard to take a global problem, the ultimate macro problem, and make it micro, make it fit for one guy in one county in nebraska . When it comes to people caring about Climate Change, you dont show them the polar bear on the ice floe if they live in spring valley, nebraska, so you talk about crops, changes in precipitation, and things that are local. It is here. It is affecting all of us. The sooner we act, the less risky. To the extent that people are affected now, you know, you have their attention. The concern is, ok, now it is getting late in the game. We have to move things along ere. Do you feel that people are listening in a different way than they were when it was the polar bear on the ice . Sure. The amount of evidence we have in the extreme nature of events recently in the u. S. And across the globe, we are starting to put together a container of vidence that is irrefutable, but again, when youre talking to a state climatologist, people are worried the land, their county, first and foremost, in general, and then you get into other interest groups. Again, and mentoring schoolkids ask the greatest questions. Even in their short lives, and they have seen how our brain gauge works, but we have seen five inches of rainfall in three hours, like we had last year, so we are seeing showing people graphical ways of showing extreme events is another way of getting that information to them. Kathie, an important point, there is a real generational component to this, isnt there . Absolutely. Am not that old, but i was in Elementary School at the time, ive a hoot, dont pollute, and we were taught about recycling and being stewards of the earth. That isnt enough. We are seeing this youth uprising that i think is encouraging and they absolutely have a right to be completely dashed off about the earth. They are effective human communicators. I heard a lot of people say, they are smart. They will figure this out. We owe them more that, dont wait . Passing the buck never works. It didnt work for my generation. It will not work for passing it to him. We are all in this together. I hope to have a few more decades on this planet. Have to wake up every day and feel optimistic about going to work and being a good steward of he planet, for the people in North Carolina, and also for my friends and family. Lets walk through your states in a thumbnail sketch. What are the topline Climate Change impacts going on right now . I will start with you, martha. Yeah, it all starts with water. I would say in nebraska, we get twice the amount of precipitation in the east than the west. A lot of it has to do with water and the timing of precipitation and how effective that recipitation is. That is something that is changing in on peoples minds. Another thing is the warming and looking forward into the future, the rate of warming. If we dont do anything to mitigate future Climate Change, that future rate of warming is something i am particularly concerned about. How about you . What is at the top of peoples minds . Precipitation. The variability and npredictability. The intensity. We are seeing more rainfall when we are starting fieldwork, then we shift into summertime, starting to dwindle our rainfalls right when crops are maturing, when they need it the most, right now, then we move into harvest time. We are getting more rainfall during harvest, september, october, and this really impedes fieldwork, and fieldwork is owa. And then you get into the intensity of these events. They are increasing. We have seen a shift from gentle rainfall to two or threeinch rainfall events in three hours. Hat water cant soak in. It runs off you get flash flooding. Do the farmers connect the dots to Climate Change, or are they like my taxi driver this afternoon who thinks it is magnetic forces causing climate hange . Our farmers realize something is going on, so we have started installing these agricultural solutions. We can be agricultural leaders in mitigating these. There are not a lot of denialists on the farms . No, they see what is happening and we go from there. Best left unsaid. Kathie, did you want to go through North Carolinas top issues . We had a big hurricane last year. I saw something about that. Ere is a question for you. From rain panda, i dont think that is a real person. This is a twitter question, i was born and raised in iowa. My question is regarding the ice melt happening decades before predictions estimated. When will this hit the coastal United States . Will ocean water backflow into our major or minor river outlets, and will it damage freshwater ecosystems . This is an issue of concern in North Carolina. We saw this with Hurricane Florence where you have these storms pushing ocean water up these large river systems, then water coming down the rivers. We had a really wet year last ear. You get this compound flooding. This is the intersection of risk and vulnerability. You have these communities in some areas that get devastated. When you think about groundwater in some of these coastal ecosystems, saltwater intrusion is a big concern. Yes, the ice will play into the Sea Level Rise problem, and it certainly has local impacts for people in North Carolina. I dont know if it will make it all the way to iowa. We are probably safe here, i think. What about this idea that science has been so conservative that it may be happening faster than the peerreviewed body of knowledge would suggest. What do you say about that . You are scientists, so you probably dont want to get too outside your lane, but there is a term, it is concerning that we dont have the ability to come up with good data on this articular issue. People should think of science as constantly evolving and changing. We help improving. There are examples where we underestimated the trend. Arctic sea ice is a great example. That has been retreating faster than we thought. That tells us something, we do not get the physics right. E can learn from that. We can improve on that. I think it is something we think about. Some people say what if you are wrong about Climate Change . What if it is not happening . I say, what if we are wrong in the other direction and what if it is worse than we think . Ith models you will run an ensemble and get a spread, so you get a high and low scenario and you take the average and that is your best guess. All we are doing is giving people this cone to work with, and that is the best we can do at the moment. We hope to improve. Here is another question. Science tells us there are climate cycles that happen naturally. How is science going to differentiate between what weather events are manmade and could have been avoided and what is not . So this goes to the attribution science i was talking about. Ou can take climate models and run them without Greenhouse Gases and see if it will reproduce these events. That is something we are seeing howing up in the literature. Were able to do that and play devils advocate and look at these events and say, Climate Change made these more ikely. We are also able, these are Natural Cycles we know, the way the earth goes around the sun, the tilt of the earth we know these are a naturally recurring cycles, so we can remove those from our solutions and we get a good idea of what these projections show us. I get the sense that you three are mostly involved in alking to people who recognize there is a problem, and you are trying to sort through what to do about it. Do you spend a lot of time going through, like the taxi cab driver, the magnetic fields, or do you not waste your time at this point because there is work o be done . I am thinking about those involving Climate Change, and im thinking about the dismissives. They are not going to change their mind. But there are people in the middle and i am paid to think bout Climate Change, this is something that i think about day in and day out, but they are not. They are worried about getting jimmy to the doctor and paying their bills. And, can i meet them in the middle . An i answer questions that are respectful and just asking for more information, so i will spend time with those folks. How about you guys . Hardcore denialists, you just move on, but there are people in the middle here who recognize the problem, not entirely certain, wondering if they can do anything about it anyways, is that the group that needs to be addressed the most . Sure, and you show them the impacts we are seeing. We had a flood in 2019, we are seeing a set of facts evolve that show us we are moving in one direction, and if you can show them personally or how it will impact them moving forward, or their kids moving forward, then you start to make a connection, but again, these are relationships you build over time. I would say the same thing. I regularly get asked the question, you dont believe in Climate Change, do you . I say it is not a belief ystem. It is looking at data and facts. I get them to talk. I say, where do you live and have you noticed any changes in your area . Are your farming practices any different than 10 years ago . What about the drought of 2012, how did that impact your operations . I get them to start talking. Engage where they are, what do they care about . You start from there and connect the dots. Here is a question. We have three state climatologists who know something about agriculture. Rose hoban, i apologize if i mispronounce it, can any of you talk about the effects of Climate Change on insects, both agriculture and Public Health . Certainly ticks and mosquitoes. We have shark week, but we should have mosquito week, that is the animal that kills most of us. What about insects . Are there a few things you can share with us. We are seeing more Invasive Species move further north. Because of the warming nature of mid and high latitude. We see the japanese beetles, tink bugs. Our projections are showing, yes, more Invasive Species are moving into agricultural parts of the United States and across the United States. Kathie . From the Public Health angle, especially in the southeast, this is a concern, especially with insectborne diseases showing up in major southeast cities. I just moved to North Carolina, and it has been mosquito week for me. This is a good followup to that. Britney from twitter says, what are some healthrelated concerns related to Climate Change, particularly in the midwest . I would say risk to heat waves, heat events, and not necessarily high temperatures, but high minimum temperatures, nighttime lows are not getting down. We are not able to cool off, whether humans or animals. So, heat events would be one thing. Floods, Water Quality impacts that come with that. Insects, mosquitoes, those kinds of things as well. It gets kind of a grim pretty quickly. We are ready to take some questions from the audience. Do we have any out there . Lets bring up the lights and see who is interested in joining into the conversation. I think i see a couple of hands up. Lets go out to the audience. Does anybody remember phil donahue. That is a carbon dating thing. Phil donahue back in the 1970s, the old man is going to crawl over here with his walker like phil donahue. Today would be dr. Phil. Say your name. I have to do it this way. What is your name and your question . David sheridan. This is an Elementary School students question. You look a little old for hat. Global temperatures, what is the protocol for determining the global temperature . Who decides the protocol, collects the data, and evaluates it . Who wants it . So i can start and they can help me fill in. Both noaa and nasa have global temperature data sets. It is done through station observations, satellites brought ogether. We cant have station observations in the middle of the ocean. They both adhere to pretty similar protocols. The numbers will be off by a decimal or something, but they are usually pretty close. We know that this july was the warmest month ever on record. Both outlets are saying that. There are Quality Control processes we use for temperature and precipitation data. If the low temperature is higher than the high temperature, we know something is wrong, so we flag it and correct it. There are procedures in place to produce a robust temperature data set. I have a suggestion for lowering temperatures, we just switch to celsius, right away, right there. I have a question, this gentleman. Go ahead, same your name and question. Kevin. I heard a lot about what the three of you said. These are the issues we are faced with. I did not hear a lot about how we begin to mitigate this. So what are one or two things you would say, here is how we can to mitigate that Climate Change locally, and second, im going to be the devils advocate and say, who gives a damn, because weather is not local. What we do here, weather is the ig globe, right . Even though we may make some change here, how would that affect anything that happens in russia, asia, or south america. Can you speak to that . Good question. Local and the big picture. Good question. Dont all go at once. What we can do about it, and this goes back to what states can do about it. We can take a leadership role in reducing our Greenhouse Gas emissions as a country and as a state. When you look at the countries most affected by Climate Change, they are the ones not contributing as much to the problem. E certainly are. When we start pitching into this huge problem that we created, i think we absolutely have a moral obligation to do that. Yes, all of us not driving today will not change anything in russia, but small change leads to big change, and we need big, systemic change. What can you do about it . Ote. Im not talking about the candidates who will flood you in two days when the fair starts, but local elections matter, city council, mayor. We overlook some of these. These people can affect real change in the community. Somebody told me the other day that the big thing we should be focused on, which is not a sexy subject, is building codes. It is a huge issue, how we build our buildings. Absolutely. Another question here. Rick smith. My question is about the reluctance to talk about Climate Change on the part of weatherman. Iowa has had tremendous coverage about floods in the infrastructure damage. You mentioned the june 30 flood last year, 6000 homes had damage. Never did i hear weathermen covering all of this talk about Climate Change. Why is that . This is a pet peeve of mine. Martha, go ahead. This is changing, by the way, a little bit. Go ahead. A few decades ago, oncamera meteorologists were not so accepting of the science in general and not willing to talk about it and denying the science of Climate Change, but i see hat is shifting, and it is not necessarily the weather person on camera, but the television station. What did they think is valuable to talk about . In nebraska, i see that changing. I get a lot of media is one of the top three groups that we engage with, agricultural and education are the other, but i see that as not a huge issue in nebraska, but it would be good if we could get more stories out there about Climate Change. The local tv person is kind of the trusted source, and a lot of i think for most people do contact with anybody might be considered a scientist would be their local weather person. For years they have this opportunity to make those connections and did not. There is a long story related to the Weather Channel that i can go on and on about, but when you get your meteorological degree, they did not teach climate simultaneously, so there was a fundamental misunderstanding, they were applying. I think that is changing. Penn state is teaching climate long with meteorology, and i think also going back to that generational component. I think that younger weather people are more likely to make those connections. It is important, because that is who people listen to, more so than people like me. Another hand . Lets stay in this zone for a minute and i will work my way down. All right. O ahead. I have been dealing with Climate Change since i was in fifth grade. Why is this becoming an issue now . It has always been an issue. T is a matter of generational, and again, when i started college in 2001, we were talking about mitigation and attribution. We had climate also with our meteorology. That was not as widespread as it is now. We are starting to again develop a lot more evidence, and again it is pointing in one direction. It has always been in the background when you talk to limatologists, atmospheric scientists, it is in the foreground. For a long time it was something that was distant and in the future, in the arctic circle, involved a polar bear and might happen in 20 or 30 years. Now it is all around us now, so people are paying attention. That would be the Silver Lining that people are paying attention. The dark side is hopefully it is not too late. More questions from the audience. Im going to move in this direction here. All right. Here we go. Thanks for answering my witter question. Wait a minute, you are disqualified. [laughter] you cant ask two i think you will like this one. [laughter] so, the common consumer, the common voter who wants to understand these issues, i think that climate gets very politicized. That is what it is about, finding credible sources. How do you advise the average citizen who wants to learn more about this to decipher all of this that you read online and see in the media to get to the facts . The internet is a scary place. What do you tell them to do, aside from call you up all day . I have a staff. They answer the phone too. Definitely start with your state climatologist, local university folks, and there are reports online, the ipcc. They are Getting Better and taking their summaries and making them readable. Study this sometimes. It is a lot to take in. There is a lot of Bad Information on the internet about a lot of things. I would say find your person, your state climatologist or local tv person. There are a few good aggregators of content. There is an editorial process, the environment to help news comes online, where they sift through all the stuff out there. You can get a daily or weekly email from them that has gone through a little bit more vetting than the random stuff you see. Other questions from the audience . I am going deep. How am i going to get there . I dont want to step on anybodys toes. It is better than fenway park and i dont have a beer in my hand. O ahead. Sharon johnson. I know kathleen mentioned the east coast. They are very familiar with the hurricanes. So i expect the cities along the east coast have prepared safety measures, preventative measures, and i was wondering what they are. Could you talk about that a little bit . And, when do you expect the big impact to hit the florida coast, and specifically maralago . [laughter] which by the way, sits on limestone, which is a sieve, so there is nothing to do for maralago. Maralago. Go ahead. There is a Florida State climatologist. And i urge you to reach out for him specifically for maralago. Cities on the east coast, two that i am thinking of in particular, sandy and florence. Just a few days ago North Carolina found out it is getting all sorts of money to put resilience measures in place post florence. Taking money and putting action on the ground. We are good at talking about planning for Climate Change. We write all sorts of reports. Implementing it has always been a challenge. You need somebody with regulatory authority, social capital, actual capital. I have none of that. I am just a piece of this puzzle, but the more these things happen, the more obvious it is we need these plans in place. To what extent can you develop a bully pulpit from your position based on compiling the evidence and throwing the evidence in their face . Is that enough to do it . If people arent reporting to you, it is hard to get them to do things. You cannot order them around. Science is not enough. If it were, we would have fixed this problem by now. Recognizing that as a scientist is important. A lot of what we do is travel around the states and work with the communities to come up with solutions, because they are the people who can implement them. They are the people who will be making the decisions. I think understanding our role in this is important, but not he only piece. Another question here. Charles hirschman. The discussion about relatively small matters, providing information, education, and how adjustments might be made, but some of the solutions are not easy. Should people be living near the coastline in flood prone areas . In the middle of the forest where it is impossible to protect them . There are deepseated economic interests that will have to change before this problem is addressed. I am wondering how we will get to that point. I will throw one more thing in there, there is a component of Environmental Justice as well. Rich people can build the walls, but what about the people who can afford it . Go ahead, martha. I think what we can provide is a local trusted source so we can make it relevant and local and tangible to people and provide the sciencebased evidence they need to base their decisions off of. We can foster the relationship and start or continue dialogue or bring people to the table. Implementation plans are great, but getting people to have a vested interest is difficult. Hat is personally where i love to work with social cientists. A lot of what we are talking about is behavior change. Am a climatologist. I am not a social scientist. That is what i say to young people, if you are interested in this topic, get into social science and work with people to institute this behavior change, because that is the way this will be solved. That is a good point. When i was at iowa state, they started bringing in sociologists and psychologists so they could translate what we do to stakeholders and people who could do something about it. I am from st. Charles, missouri. 1993 flood, 500 year flood three miles from my house. Look at that floodplain now, restaurants, infrastructure there. We like to build berms to mitigate flood impacts, but we are still building on floodplains. That is something climatologist cannot answer. Kathy, the idea of buying people out is not an easy one. I did a story in the netherlands, they went through the floodplain and bought them out and put them on high ground and set them back up, different culture, different system, but they all did it. I dont see that happening here. This is a tough conversation because it takes the person out of the place, a lot of people have generations of families who have lived in a certain town in this house. It is not as easy as saying, hey, joe, you cant live in new orleans anymore. I think when we remove the human component from it, so then we will not solve anything. This is a huge problem. It is not easy. Nothing worth doing is easy. To the point earlier, it is a bunch of small problems that we can start to knock off and get the bigger problem, but we have a huge task in front of us and we need everybody on board. If it is having that tough conversation about buyouts, but remembering there is that human component to that. More questions here . Watch your toes. Go ahead. I am carolyn. Many cities across the United States are working on or have adopted Climate Action plans. Des moines is working on one, a slow process, but working on one. Are you involved in recommending, encouraging our state politicians to create state Climate Action plans, because we have to go beyond the city ones to the state level, and i just wondered that your influence of their with mitigation and adaptation with Climate Action plans at the state level. Good question. This has to be multiagency, publicprivate partnership. One agency cant do it. Iowa did have a plan in 2011 from the legislature, mandated in the legislature, then it expired. There was a starting point in iowa, and we have noticed smaller cities, des moines, iowa city, iowa flood center, our universities. They have the pieces there. Getting those pieces together is why we need a larger collaboration. Alright, another question over here. I teach at drake. I can see indeed the Younger Generation is getting slowly but surely not that fast. My question is how bad do you think things have to get before those who actually make decisions wake up, and then the question is that beyond the Tipping Point that point we can still do it . So the train hasnt left the station. We in the Climate Community bicker about timelines, but every day that goes by is a chance for us to take action. Things will get bad. Hings are bad. India is unlivable at certain times of the year. What will it take for people making decisions to wake up . New people in their place. [laughter] [applause] but what about if we got the fossil fuel industry out of the political realm of little bit . Yeah, and i think about when people point fingers. You flew here. I flew here. I didnt drive. Holding certain groups accountable is going to be more effective than me and martha saying she drove and i flew, so she is better than me. Justin walked. He wins. [laughter] did you see how Greta Thunberg is going to be arriving . The 16yearold swedish climate activist is coming across in a sailing yacht. It will be a twoweek miserable ide. It is a racing yacht with no galley and no refrigeration. She will sail over, zero impact. God bless her. She is a 16yearold who changed the world, so give her credit for that. Speaking of young people, what is your name young man. How old are you . 10. What would happen if we did not change our current problem in time . Dot, dot, dot. [laughter] hopefully that wont appen. That is a great question, ifficult to answer, but coming from a 10yearold, that is hard to deny and negate, so thank you for your question. I dont have a great answer for you. All i will say is the sooner we act, the better. Every day that goes by, we are losing our chance. This is one of those parental moments when youre trying to figure out how much honesty to give the kid, right . We are counting on you, jack. You will fix this for us, right . Please. Question here. Go ahead. Tyler granger. How do you advocate for Wildlife Protection in an era of urban sprawl . Have you talk to stakeholders on why we should protect wildlife . Yeah, good question. A lot of nebraska is privately owned, so we dont have a ton of public lands, but im increasingly working with fish and wildlife professionals, looking at plans for managing wildlife in the changing climate. How will species shift and so forth . That is something they are increasingly looking at. I am in the school of Natural Resources at the university of nebraska, we have a lot of folks who are tackling this issue. I work here in iowa with the department of Natural Resources and provide them observational records, trends, and then they use that data for their needs, and there actually was a legislative action just last session about game hunting. Another question here . You talk about voting, and this is an important part of this, but you also mention small changes. What are those small changes . Is voting the only thing we can do . It is effective, but what can we all do tomorrow, or next week, or is it not even worth it and we just wait for the election . No, that is a great question. You could work with the woman putting together the Climate Action plan for des moines. Get involved with your community, whatever effort is going on. In terms of climate, and i think mobilizing others to do the ame. Justin. Agricultural state, agricultural solutions. We have renewable fuels. 40 of our Power Generation is from wind turbines. Looking at the agricultural scope. Since we are getting into a regime in which we are getting more intense rainfall events. These cover crops act to lock in flow and carbon, and they prevent runoff into our streams. Since the last Agricultural Census in 2012 to 2017, we have had an increasing cover crops across iowa. That will make an impact, especially with runoff. Those are solutions we can talk about. Serving as an informed citizen and an agent of change. I have heard famous climatologists say the best thing we can do is talk about it, have dialogue in the meaningful communication, not ust battling each other, but talking about it in a real and local sense of partnering with your local climatologist, and action plans that are going on. There are all kinds of ways that we can keep this conversation moving forward in a good direction. Question here . Along these lines, i was thinking you are such wonderful resources. It would be nice if there were ways to get you, your voices heard more publicly, like on the news. Has any of that been going on . I give about two or three presentations a week on average to various groups, so yes, lots of questions in the media also. Would you say your Media Inquiries are on the rise . Yes. That is good news they are. Yes, sir. Matt russell. We are talking with farmers, connecting with president ial candidates and other elected leaders. In the last 10 days, two weeks, i have engaged with half a dozen media folks. The first question is, how can we talk to people about the extreme weather happening, and is that changing peoples minds . And that is such a last year question, because that assumes we have to convince people that it is happening, and they say, oh, how can we talk to farmers if extreme weather is changing their minds . Nobody is creating the space for farmers to talk about it, so how do we not just convince people, but recognize that people have moved faster because of the youth, have moved faster than the media thinks, the politicians think, how do we create the space . This has been such a pregnant conversation tonight. Nobody wants to talk. I understand why we cant, but we have to get past that. [applause] good. You want to amplify that at all . I think that get to my point that science is a piece of this. People will say why on things happening faster . Why arent you doing enough . We need to recognize that and bring these people into the conversation. Can we create platforms for the people who need to be there the most . This is something i grapple with, the people most affected by Climate Change are rarely at the table for these conversations, so making sure i recognize that and can bring it up, but i am not a community organizer, and there are people more skillful than i am, so working with him would be more effective. Question . My question is technical. It seems to me that there has been an increase in intensity, straightline wind events in iowa. Do you agree with that, and do you think that will be more and more aggressive . Actually we have had studies that show Severe Weather is decreasing across iowa. In fact with the amount of co2 in the atmosphere, we are getting more vegetation that is slowing down wind speeds. I have not seen anything in the data that would suggest more straightline wind events. Maybe they are just getting reported more. Otherwise, i have not seen hard evidence, which does not mean it is not out there. I think tornadoes are one of the hardest things to connect the dots on, right . Tornadoes are difficult to study. I saw the movie, remember cow, cow . Go ahead. [laughter] i read an article about modernday agriculture and how the corn crops are getting closer together, bigger them and putting more water in the atmosphere and almost creating conditions like a rain forest nd everything. What i want to know is modern agriculture a positive or negative, and what can be done to improve our climate footprint and everything we need to change our trajectory on Climate Change. Youre talking about livestock and the consumption of meat as well . That figures into it too, but right now i want to know about the crops because of the effects of putting large amounts of ater in the air. Taking the meat addiction aside, where does alculture come in with climate . Iowa is built for row crops. Transpiration of corn produces more lowlevel humidity. We have seen in the trends more humidity across the midwest. With this humidity in the atmosphere, that is how we get a lot of our rainfall during the summer months, so it is tied in with the way the crop transpires and the effects on the atmosphere. So yes, there is a partnership between agriculture and the way precipitation is falling across the state. Those are more microscale impacts, but yes, again, i spoke about cover crops putting in watersheds and wetlands across the state which are able to take unoff and make water available to farmers in drier parts of the season. So, i mean, sure, there is probably something in agriculture, methane from livestock. We are also sequestering that at larger dairy farms across the state. They are using that methane to ower those operations. We are using agriculture as a solution, Smaller Solutions, but the Smaller Solutions do add up, so i think we can be an agricultural leader in terms of Climate Change. Agriculture pushes technology quite a bit. Sure. So i am like you guys, i think about climate a lot. Most every story i do has some link to it. We talk about it in the office, the burden of dark knowledge that comes along with that. It is a burden, but i am curious. You guys are as enmeshed in this as anybody here come obviously, and this will be the final point. Are you at all optimistic . Yeah, you have to be. There is not a choice. It is my job to not talk about doom and gloom. All the questions i get whenever i talk about Climate Change is solutions. We have had several here. People want to know what can i do tomorrow . How can i be involved in this . People are eager to help, which makes me optimistic. I teach an undergraduate course on Climate Change and i had 50 students this past semester, and there is an Climate Action bill that did not pass, but i had a freshman, First Generation College student go and testify in front of the committee it is things like that that make me hopeful. We are not going as quickly as we need to and what would be good. But i stay hopeful. Justin . When you are given a problem, the natural human side of you wants you to find a solution. I wake up every morning, especially in the summertime. I look at radar for the driest parts of the state to see if any rain fell overnight. That is how invested i am in our tate and our farmers, so it is hard not to sometimes be sorrowful and crestfallen about where we are, but again, we have solutions. We have groups across the state, across the United States that want to do something. And i do think we have solutions. Yeah, i am optimistic. I am a few other things. I am angry. We have known about this problem and have not solved it. [applause] i grapple with these places i have called home. I grew up in new york. I lived in oregon for a decade. These are special places to me. I hope North Carolina will also become special, but i want people to experience the magic of oregon, being in the mountains without a huge wildfire breaking out. But also, we have to do this. This is hurting people in a real way and its not going to hurt rich people. It is hurting people in lowlying countries that dont have the power to deal with what is happening to them, and that eighs on me. Certainly it is difficult at times, and i have had to learn how to unplug sometimes just to save my energy and a little bit of my sanity. So people watching who has not been watching the apollo 50 stuff . 50 years since the apollo 11 moon landing. T is a reminder of what this country can do when it sets its mind to something. Think about the mobilization during world war ii, ford plants knocking out cars were spitting out bombers just as quickly. We could do this, and frankly i dont think there is a single thing that needs to be invented. The technology is on the shelf. It is a matter of political will and economic incentives, and those obviously go hand in hand. I am so impressed with this audience. Thank you so much for your great questions. I had no idea how such smart people came up with deepfried butter. [laughter] was that like a bad day you had . Thank you for your great questions. Thank you to our panelists. They did a great job. [applause] allstars. State climatologists. Thank you for your time. We enjoyed it. [applause] cspans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up this morning, well talk with radio talk show hosts from around the country on campaign 2020, battleground states and what President Trump faces in the race to the white house. Join the discussion with your calls, tweets and facebook today, 2020 democratic president ial candidate senator Elizabeth Warren attends a house party in hampton falls, New Hampshire. At 2 30. Live coverage you can listen with the free cspan radio app. Watch cspans campaign 2020 coverage of the democratic president ial candidates at the New Hampshire Democratic Party convention. Our live coverage is saturday at 9 00 eastern on cspan, online at cspan. Org or listen with the free cspan radio app. Now, democratic president ial candidate Bernie Sanders of vermont holds a townhall meeting in raymond, New Hampshire