Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, Climate Scientist and Climate Communicator Extraordinaire, Becomes EcoAthletes 1st Hall of Famer
Photo credit: Martin Voelker/Citizens’ Climate Lobby
Dr. Katharine Hayhoe is one of the most powerful climate communicators in the world. Time Magazine, which in 2014 named her to its list of the “100 Most Influential People in the World”, would agree. So would President Obama, who was joined by Dr. Hayhoe in an hour-long interview about climate change on the White House lawn in 2016.
Interestingly, she does not emphasize the physical science as much as the social science in her much-watched TEDTalk or her Global Weirding video series on PBS. This is ironic because Dr. Hayhoe is a professor of atmospheric science — aka climate scientist — at Texas Tech University¹. Instead, Dr. Hayhoe maintains that the most effective way to move hearts and minds on the issue is to accentuate the threat climate change poses to our shared values and to all we hold dear.
“We often think that we have to be an environmentalist to care about climate change – but the truth is, no matter who we are, we already have all the reasons we need to care about climate change,” Dr. Hayhoe notes. “We just haven’t connected the dots. The good thing, as far as EcoAthletes is concerned, is that sports is a very powerful ‘dot connector’ indeed.”
Dr. Katharine Hayhoe (Photo credit: Artie Limmer/Texas Tech University
More Dr. Hayhoe: “If we’re an athlete, we care about our sport. Today, extreme heat is affecting baseball and running; warmer winters are thawing outdoor ice rinks and shortening the winter sport season; and stronger and more frequent heavy downpours are flooding our roads and contaminating our water bodies. What we care about is already being affected by a changing climate, whether we know it or not, and that’s why we should care about climate change.”
EcoAthletes is also connecting so dots by naming Dr. Hayhoe, as the first member of its new Hall of Fame.
“EcoAthletes is honored to have Dr. Hayhoe’s support for our mission to inspire and coach athletes to speak out confidently on climate change,” said Lew Blaustein, the organization’s founder. “Her belief that people respond to messages from trusted sources — in our case, athletes — more so than science, is a hallmark of our virtual ‘climate education for athletes’ courses. As we launch our EcoAthletes Hall of Fame, we can’t think of a better person as our first inductee.”
Dr. Hayhoe can be found on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. And check out Global Weirding, her series of short videos on climate change.