About this transcript: This is a full AI-generated transcript of EPA Climate Change Lecture series- The role of communications in driving climate action from EPA Ireland, published August 11, 2026. The transcript contains 14,493 words with timestamps and was generated using Whisper AI.
"Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the EPA climate change lecture which is the first lecture of 2022 and our first fully hybrid event. This is a new phase in the climate lecture series by presenting the lecture both in person and live streaming to an online audience. The topic tonight"
[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the EPA climate change lecture which is the first lecture of 2022 and our first fully hybrid event. This is a new phase in the climate lecture series by presenting the lecture both in person and live streaming to an online audience. The topic tonight is a hugely important one in the context of climate change. It's the role of communications in driving climate change and we've one of the world's experts on that topic to give us our paper. I'd like to welcome newcomers in the audience. We've had over 450 registered to attend this lecture tonight with most of them joining us online so a special welcome to them. My name is John Bowman. It's my pleasure to be the chairperson for this evening and the on screen beside me will see an overview of the format for the evening. We'll begin shortly with an opening address by EPA Director of the Office of Environmental Sustainability, Sharon Finnegan and our lecturer this evening then on the role of communication in driving climate action is Dr. Anthony Lee Zerwitz from Yale. He's the Founder and Director of the Yale Programme on Climate Change and expert on public climate change and environmental beliefs, attitudes, policy preferences and behavior. That's the key one. And on the psychological, cultural and political factors which drive this particular agenda. And he conducts the research at global, national and local level and indeed is the main author of the EPA's Yale study Climate Change in the Irish Mind. We'll hear what the country, 4,000 interviews in a social attitude survey, what the Irish belief is in climate change, the scale of it, the important work to be done and how it's going to be triggered. It's possible to use our online platform Slido to submit questions for our speaker and for our in-house audience. Here in Dublin, you may ask questions by raising your hand, waiting for the microphone, I hope, and submitting your, or you could also submit your questions also on Slido. The event code is Climate Lecture 2022. And online viewers should use Slido to submit questions and on the right-hand side of your screen, you can add your name to the question. And if you're a ninth generation, a turf cutter from Donegal, you can tell us that as well, if we haven't recognized it from the tone of the question already. The second order of business, I'll call on Sharon Finnegan to give the welcoming address.
[00:03:08] Speaker 2: Thank you, John, and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It's an absolute pleasure to be here with you this evening in the CHQ building in Dublin, a new venue for us for the Climate Lecture Series, and I think a really beautiful setting. And good evening to everybody joining us online. As John was saying there, we've quite a few people joining, both from Ireland and indeed abroad, so you're all very welcome, and thanks for coming. My name is Sharon Finnegan, and I'm the director of the Office of Environmental Sustainability in the EPA. Firstly, I'd really like to welcome our speaker for the evening, Dr. Anthony Lisewicz, for what promises to be, I think, a really, really interesting and engaging and thought-provoking lecture on the role of communications in driving climate action. I also want to say thank you to our chairman for the night, Dr. John Bowman, who is, of course, well accustomed to chairing our climate lecture events. I've been to many, many of them over the years, and he always does such a super job, so I'm sure tonight will be no different. The Climate Lecture Series is a part of the government's national dialogue on climate action. The EPA provides the secretariat and behavioural insight supports to that work, and the lecture series predates the dialogue, and provides an important foundation stone for the dialogue process. So we're delighted to be, as John said, holding the event as a hybrid event this evening. After two years of doing it online, it is great to have this kind of joint type of interaction, and hopefully it'll do well for us, and it'll be something that we'll be able to do again in the future. The EPA roles on climate change include the provision of national greenhouse gas inventories, projections on future emissions, national implementation of EU emissions trading scheme, coordination and support of the national climate change research, and secretariat support to the climate change advisory council, and the national dialogue on climate action. We also have a new role in the provision of behavioural insights to support good communication and engagement on climate change, and that's why we're here this evening. These roles are central to informing and advancing climate action in Ireland. The EPA also works with the EU and UN partners on climate change, including representing Ireland at meetings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This month's landmark report from the IPCC on climate mitigation outlines the nature and extent of the causes of climate change at a global level, and reinforces the urgent need for action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Its message is stark. The average annual greenhouse gas emissions were at their highest levels in human history in the period 2010 to 2019, although the rate of growth has slowed. Unless there are immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, 1.5 degrees is beyond reach. There are options available now in every sector that can at least half emissions by 2030. The time for action is now. This evening's lecture will provide insights on the role that communication can play in driving that action. Our team at the EPA has been working really closely with Tony and his team for almost two years on our climate change in the Irish mine study. The project is a baseline study of the Irish population's beliefs, attitudes, policy preferences, and behaviours regarding climate change. It's the first nationally representative survey of its kind in Ireland, and it's based on the established methodology of the climate change in the American mine survey by the Yale Programme on Climate Change Communications and the George Mason University Centre for Climate Change Communications. In the case of the Irish research, the methodology has been tailored to meet our particular socio-economic context and our demographics. The study provides, I think, really valuable insights to inform and support national communications and engagement on climate change. It will also be used by climate policy and decision makers, the research community, the media, and the non-governmental sector. The findings demonstrate that Irish people overwhelmingly recognise the threat, feel personally effective, and want to see real change. The next report in this series will be published shortly. This will focus on a segmentation of the Irish population. We are therefore delighted to welcome Dr Lisiewicz, founder and director of the Yale Programme on Climate Change Communications, and a senior research scientist at the Yale School of the Environment. He conducts research at the global, national, and local levels, including here in Ireland. He conducted the first global study of public values, attitudes, and behaviours regarding sustainable development. He is extensively published and is multi-award winning for his work. And here I'm going to give a bit more as to your credentials, Tony, and they are very impressive. He has served as a contributing author, panel member, advisor or consultant to diverse organisations, including: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the AOR6 report; The National Academy of Sciences, America's Climate Choices report; The Smithsonian Museum for Natural History; The Harvard Kennedy School; The United Nations Development Programme; The Gallup World Poll; And the World Economic Forum, amongst others. Tony, we're really looking forward to hearing your insights at tonight's lecture. Just to say that tonight's lecture will be uploaded to the EPA website and our YouTube channel as an enduring national and international education resource, together with the previous lectures from this series. Before I finish, I just want to take the opportunity to ask you to put our forthcoming climate conference in your diaries. This will be held on the 1st of June. It's also going to be a hybrid event to be held in person at Crow Park and also live streamed. And registration for that will open next week. So, thank you all for joining us this evening. And now I hand you over to our chairperson who will introduce the format for the evening. Thanks.
[00:09:07] Speaker 1: Thank you, Sharon. One further housekeeping point. Phones should be on silent and you're asked to remain seated for the duration of the lecture. The lecture will be followed by a questions and answers session. That's being recorded by the EPA and the material will be made available on the EPA Ireland YouTube channel, along with recordings of many of the previous lectures. and may be used indeed by the EPA for future communications. Sharon has already introduced aspects of Anthony's expertise and experience, so I now will introduce Dr. Anthony Lieserwitz.
[00:09:51] Speaker 3: So, thank you very much. It's such a pleasure and a delight to be here. It has been a wonderful relationship working with the Irish EPA, our colleagues at Behaviors and Attitudes who actually conducted the survey on our behalf. And I've never been to Ireland before, so I'm really thrilled to be here, but I'm even doubly thrilled to be here because I recently found out through a genetics test that I'm a quarter Irish. So, really, really happy to be here. So, thank you so much for the invitation. So, today I'm going to address three big questions. First, what is the role of the public in climate action? Why do we care about what the public thinks, feels, and does? Secondly, what is the role of communication in driving climate action? And third, how are publics around the world and right here in Ireland thinking and feeling about climate change? So, let's start with that first question. What is the role of the public in climate action? So, this question is much, much bigger than public opinion, which many people think of as a measure of public support for government policies. And, of course, that's very important, but that's not all I'm talking about here. This question is really about the innumerable climate-related decisions and behaviors of nearly eight billion people worldwide. So, many of you probably have seen a chart like this before, but this is the critical juncture that we sit at today. We're right here in 2022, and we have several different pathways, these are called scenarios, by which the future is going to unfold. At worst, we really don't do much as a planet, and we end up somewhere north of four to even close to five degrees centigrade, which would be beyond catastrophic. And I don't want to think about it, so let's not even think about it. At the other end of the spectrum is what we're all desperately trying to get to, and that is to hold global warming to one and a half degrees, which is going to be a very stiff challenge. But the thing I want to point out here is that this is not the delta, the difference between the high and the low scenarios here is not anything to do with uncertainties in the climate system or climate science. The major uncertainty is us. It's human beings. As one recent scientific paper on climate scenarios begins, the future climate depends on future human behavior. This is a human problem. The reason we have climate change and biodiversity extinctions and many other such global problems is us. It's our decisions. It's our choices. It's our behavior. Now, the good news is that we have all the solutions we need already on the shelf, often better and cheaper than the existing systems. But what we're often lacking, so in other words, we're not lacking a supply of solutions, but what we're lacking is the demand for those solutions, what we call public, consumer, and political will to action. So as an American, one of our great leaders, Abraham Lincoln, once famously said, "Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. But without it, nothing can succeed." So what does that mean in the context of climate change? How does public sentiment or public perceptions, decisions, and behavior affect climate change? So this is a chart from Project Drawdown, a wonderful group. They've tried to map out what it will actually take to address climate change sufficiently, and they basically look at the different sectors of human society that drive this, from the electricity and energy use to food and agriculture, industry, transport, buildings, and so on. And what the short story of that is, is that pretty much everything we do as human beings affects the global climate. Although it's important to note that there are enormous differences in the carbon footprints of different people within and across nations, which raise critical issues of equity, fairness, and justice. But at the global scale, human civilization needs to make a rapid transition. From a 19th century energy system, where we're still digging stuff up out of the ground, coal, oil, and gas, and setting it on fire to power our societies, to a 21st century energy system, where we harness the wind and the energy that is flowing around us at all times, from the sun, from the wind, from the tides, from the heat beneath our feet. So, first of all, how do we, as human beings, use waste or conserve energy at home and on the road, especially those of us in the developed world? Just consider the transportation choices billions of people make every day, using cars, trucks, trains, buses, ships, airplanes. All of these transportation choices and systems are currently driven by the burning of fossil fuels. Yet, in the next decade, hundreds of millions of consumers will need to choose to replace their petrol-burning automobiles with electric vehicles. Or choose lifestyles that don't require an automobile at all. Will people choose and use more climate-friendly transportation? Secondly is consumer behavior. Everything we buy, from products like computers, cell phones, furniture, clothing, and toothpaste, to services like health, banking, and insurance, are produced by value chains still reliant on fossil fuels. Will billions of consumers prefer the products and services that are better for the climate? What kinds of homes and buildings will we choose to buy, retrofit, and live in? Single-family homes? Apartments? Skyscrapers? How will they be designed? Will we choose to live in urban, suburban, or rural areas? All of these decisions will have enormous consequences for the climate. What kinds of food will we grow and eat? Food and agriculture is also a major source of carbon pollution. For example, will we continue to eat more beef, the production of which currently generates tremendous amounts of carbon pollution, or instead choose more plant-rich diets and meet alternatives? Our collective food choices and behaviors already are having enormous impacts on the climate, as well as our health, our landscapes, and other species. How will we power our lives? For example, the world basically needs to electrify everything: our vehicles and our buildings, including the ways we heat and cool our homes, cook our food, wash our clothes, heat water, just to name a few daily activities. This will require critical but infrequent decisions, like replacing a gas-fired furnace with a heat pump, to everyday decisions we make in the kitchen. How can we empower consumers to make these more sustainable choices? Third is our social behavior, which we often don't talk about and it doesn't show up on this chart. Communication. Do we talk about climate change with our friends and family members? Do we hear about it in the media and from our leaders? Talk is not a substitute for action, but it is a critical and necessary condition for action. If we don't talk about climate change, then for most people the issue is out of sight and out of mind, and certainly doesn't seem like an important issue, let alone an urgent one. And this also includes the role of what we call social norms, these unwritten cultural rules that guide so much of our daily lives and behavior. Let me use the example of one of my colleagues at Yale who has done studies finding that when someone in the neighborhood installs solar panels on their roof, it increases the odds that some other household in that neighborhood put solar panels on their roof. And once that second one does, it increases the odds yet again that somebody else does it. And that's not even necessarily neighbors talking to each other, it's social signaling. It's showing that people who own a house, much like you, are going solar and finding that it's the right thing to do. Those social norms are really important. And of course, even more deeply, our cultural values and our worldviews. This issue, climate change, is raising some of the deepest, most profound questions that any culture can answer, has to answer. Who are we? What is the proper relationship between us and other human beings? What is the proper relationship between us and the natural world, of which we're part? And for those that believe what is the proper role and responsibility in our relationship to the divine? All of those questions are actually on the table because of this truly global and even existential threat. And then fourth but not least is political behavior. Will the public support or oppose government policies to address climate change? Will they support a higher price on carbon or not? What policies are politically feasible? This includes voting behavior. Will citizens prefer candidates that are climate champions and vote out of office those that are blocking progress? Public participation in community planning and decision making. What kinds of communities do we want to live in? How can we participate in the design and implementation of those plans? And increasingly important, how can we protect ourselves from ever more severe? climate impacts. And personally what I think is most important is advocacy behaviors. Will we not just support climate action but demand it from our leaders? What we call public and political will. Everything from signing petitions to donating to groups working on climate change. Volunteering with advocacy organizations. Pressuring government officials and company leaders and for those willing to put their bodies on the line. To engage in non-violent civil disobedience. To draw attention to this issue. All of these human decisions. All of these choices. All of these behaviors will collectively determine the fate of the planet. That's why we care what the public thinks, what the public feels, and what the public does about climate change. Public sentiment shapes the social, cultural, and political climate of climate change. Either enabling or constraining climate action. So our second big question then is what is the role of communication in climate action? How do we inform, persuade, and enlist public sentiment? So communication along with the opposable thumb is one of the key capabilities of the human species. Communication has enabled us to build an incredibly sophisticated and powerful civilization that is now literally reshaping the planet. Communication is how we share ideas and emotions and stories, experiences, science and culture. From one person to another. From one person to millions. And from millions to one. From the first engraved clay tablets thousands of years ago. To Gutenberg's printing press. To TikTok. We now have the ability to communicate at enormous speed and scale. And today communication is central to solving the climate crisis. We only know about climate change because of the communications from conversations and letters and phone calls and data sharing and peer reviewed publications and so on. Between thousands of climate scientists around the world who have been conducting climate research for more than 150 years. The other nearly 8 billion of us only know about climate change because these scientific findings, those insights, have been communicated to the rest of us. Particularly through the media. We're now at the dawn of a new age of not just communication, but scientific communication research. Which can now be conducted at global scale. So let's now turn to our third big question, which is how are publics around the world and in Ireland thinking and feeling about climate change? So we recently conducted a study in partnership with Facebook Data for Good in 115 countries around the world. We literally got the data just two days ago. And I'm going to share with you just a few preliminary results to kind of put all of this in a larger context. These aren't truly nationally representative, though we know they're very accurate, especially in countries like Ireland and the United States. I just want you to see these larger patterns, which we know are very much the case. So what I'm showing you here is that countries in darker red are places where awareness of climate change is very high. People have heard of this before. But the darker blue countries are is where there's less than 50% of the population that's ever heard of climate change. And what we see here is actually something that we saw first 10 years ago, which is that there are still many, many millions, we think at least a billion people around the earth, who still have never heard of climate change. Despite all the science, despite all the meetings, despite all the media coverage, there are still many, many people, especially in the developing world, who've never heard of climate change. But that doesn't mean they're not keenly aware of changes in their local climates. They absolutely are. We've done studies, for instance, in India. We found about two-thirds of Indians said that they'd never heard of climate change. But all we had to do is provide a one-sentence description of what climate change is and how it affects local weather patterns. And immediately, over 70% of the population says, "Yes, that's happening. Yes, I'm worried about it. Yes, I support my government taking action." Because for them, this is about their lives. This is their subsistence. They know when the precipitation patterns are changing, when temperatures are getting warmer, when growing seasons are changing. They're keenly aware. But the bottom line of this is that while we have very high awareness in the developed world, we still actually have basic awareness still to raise among many in the developing world who are the most vulnerable. And right now, they don't have even the idea of climate change to inform their future decisions. So one big communication job that still remains to be done is to actually even help a sizable proportion of humanity, and again, especially the most vulnerable, know what this actually is. But we have a very different issue. In fact, the inverse pattern occurs when we ask, "Well, will it harm you personally?" And what we find is that basically the people who have heard of climate change in the developing world say, "Absolutely, this is going to affect us greatly." But it's the people who are in the developed world, like my own country, who say, "Yeah, not so much." And this is what we've seen over and over again, is that for many people, climate change is still a distant problem. Perceived as distant in time, the impacts won't be felt for a generation or more. Or distant in space, this is about polar bears, or maybe a developing country. But not my country, not my community, not my friends, not my family, and not me. And as a result, it becomes psychologically distant, one of just a hundred other issues that's out there that I don't really see why this is so important, why this is so urgent. So again, very broad-brushed statement, but we have a second really important communication need, and that is to help people really come to grips with the threat. Okay, now I'm speaking very broadly here. Which brings me to Ireland. So we had this wonderful opportunity to work together to do the first nationally representative survey. This is a survey of 4,000 Irish residents across the country, chosen at random, called on the telephone multiple times to get them to talk to us, and conducted from May to July of last year. And again, really a wonderful research opportunity. And I will just admit, I may be a quarter Irish, but I'm an American. So I come to this with all the lenses of the United States and its challenges around climate change and a few other issues. So one of the first shocking things in my mind, anyway, my reaction to this, was a question like this. Do you think climate change is happening, 96% of the Irish public says yes. I'm celebrating in America because we just hit our all-time record high at 76%. Okay? So already you're going to see a pattern here over and over again. As I now can say, owe to be Irish. 60% understand that it's caused mostly by human activities and another 33% think it's some combination of natural and human activities. I'd say this is still something that needs to be better understood. In fact, all of climate change today is being caused by human activities. In fact, the world would actually be slightly cooler if it wasn't for the carbon pollution that we've been pumping into the atmosphere. So that's important, but nonetheless, you do not see in Ireland what we see in the United States, which is about 27% of Americans who think this is just a natural cycle. So we don't need to do anything about it. Overwhelming understanding that the experts agree about this. 82% say that most scientists think climate change is happening. Again, no questioning of what the scientific community has concluded and has, frankly, concluded for decades. Again, very different than what we find in the United States. How worried are you about climate change? 37% are very worried. Another 48% are somewhat worried.
[00:27:56] Speaker ?: Okay?
[00:27:57] Speaker 3: Only 5% say they're not worried at all. You starting to pick up a pattern here? How much do you think climate change will harm? A whole variety of different things. Now, this is a pattern that we see while the overall numbers are much higher in Ireland than they are in the United States. This basic pattern, though, is something we see almost everywhere. And it goes back to what I said before, that people see it as a more distant problem. Especially for future generations, for people in developing countries, for plant and animal species, plants, penguins, and polar bears. Then a big drop when it comes to people in Ireland, your family, people in your community, the Irish way of life, Irish historic sites, and then, finally, least worrisome is you personally.
[00:28:43] Speaker ?: Okay?
[00:28:44] Speaker 3: So, again, I'm all hail to Ireland, much more engaged with this than elsewhere, but nonetheless, you can still see this basic pattern that many people don't really see it as something that's going to affect them yet. Okay? And yet, when do you think climate change will start to harm people in Ireland? You basically have about half of people who say it's already happening.
[00:29:05] Speaker ?: Okay?
[00:29:06] Speaker 3: The others say maybe in 10 years, maybe in 25 years, maybe in 50 years.
[00:29:11] Speaker ?: Okay?
[00:29:12] Speaker 3: So, again, about half the countries still think this is at least a decade away. Do you think climate change should be a high, very high, high, medium, or low priority for the government of Ireland? Overwhelming support for saying that this is something that the government should be prioritizing. Okay? 42% saying very high. Another 37% saying high. How much do you support or oppose the following policies to help Ireland achieve its greenhouse gas emission target or reduction targets? And, again, very strong support for a variety of government actions, mostly in terms of helping consumers and homeowners and everyday people be part of this. Government grants to encourage residential and commercial building owners to install cleaner and more efficient heating systems. Increased government investment in public transport such as trains instead of motorways. Government grants to make electric vehicles more affordable. People want electric vehicles. They just want to be able to afford them. Banning peat, coal, and oil for home heating purposes, which I've heard is a little controversial lightning. Even higher taxes on cars that use petrol and diesel. And then we've even said, look, this is going to cost money. To help address climate change, taxes on fossil fuels will be rising in Ireland over the next 10 years. What do you support or oppose using the revenues from these taxes for each of the following purposes? Oh, the number one thing, and this is exactly what we see in the United States as well. People want to take the revenues from higher prices on fossil fuels and use it to invest in the clean energy future. That's the number one thing people pretty much everywhere want to do, okay? Interestingly, the least supportive thing is to return the money to all Irish households in equal amounts. People aren't just saying, oh, just take all the money and give it back to me. That's actually the least popular.
[00:31:13] Speaker ?: Okay?
[00:31:14] Speaker 3: And again, number one most popular thing is to invest in the clean energy future. Overall, do you think that taking action to reduce climate change will improve economic growth and provide new jobs, have no effect on economic growth or jobs, or reduce economic growth and cost jobs? This I just need to take a moment because this is a very common narrative, not just in the U.S., but all around the world. It often shows up in the international meetings where policymakers say, look, I would like to take action on climate change, or I would like to take action to protect the environment, but it's going to harm the economy, it's going to cost jobs, and I can't, no one will let me do that. Okay? It turns out that's often, well, in fact, we find everywhere in the world that's not true.
[00:31:58] Speaker ?: Okay?
[00:31:59] Speaker 3: Most people everywhere in the world say that they think investing in solving climate change is actually going to grow the economy and bring us new jobs. Because guess what? We are about to make the biggest transition in human history. Like, the cell phone? That's tiny compared to the energy transition we're making.
[00:32:21] Speaker ?: Okay?
[00:32:22] Speaker 3: There are trillions of dollars that are going to be invested in this transition, and the real question is, who's going to make that money? Overall, do you think that taking action to reduce climate change will reduce Ireland's quality of life 10%, have no effect on Ireland's quality of life 13%, or improve Ireland's quality of life 78%? Do you think each of the following should be doing more or less to address climate change? So guess what? Politicians number one on that list. But citizens are number two on that list. Okay? It's not that they think, oh, it's just government and business that needs to take care of this for us. They're saying that actually we all need to be part of this. Government, business, local government, you personally, the media, and even the Environmental Protection Agency, though they've got at least a sizable number saying that they're already doing the right amount. And this too is an often heard argument, is that why should we act? Ireland is small, right? We didn't contribute that much to the problem. It's big countries like the United States and China and Russia and so on. Why should we take the lead on this? You hear this from developing countries as well. And we've asked this question in developing countries, and we get the exact same answer. Nobody actually buys that argument.
[00:33:53] Speaker ?: Okay?
[00:33:54] Speaker 3: The most common answer here, 90%, 90%, like, it's hard to write a, I gotta just say, it's hard to write a question that you can find 90% of people to agree with. In the American context, I could ask Americans, you know, do you like apple pie? And I don't think I would get 90% of Americans to agree with it. Here they say, we have a responsibility to act on climate change, and Ireland should do what it can to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions. Only 9% say Ireland is too small to make a difference in climate change, and we should let other countries take the lead on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And by the way, we get that exact same answer in India.
[00:34:32] Speaker ?: Okay?
[00:34:33] Speaker 3: And India truly has contributed by far less to this problem.
[00:34:38] Speaker ?: Okay?
[00:34:39] Speaker 3: Per capita, especially. And then, very interestingly, how often do you discuss climate change with your family and friends? 29% say often, 44% say occasionally. That is so much higher than in the United States. And about how often do you hear about climate change in the media, such as TV, movies, radios, newspapers, magazines, online, etc.? 51% say that they're hearing about it at least once a week. In the United States, it's about 9%.
[00:35:09] Speaker ?: Okay?
[00:35:11] Speaker 3: So, that's just remarkable. So, I'm sure the media can do better. You can always do better. But this is pretty remarkable in the way that all of society is already discussing this issue. Nearing the end here is, of course, messenger is often as important, if not more important, than the message itself. Do you trust what you're hearing? And what you see is very similar to what we see in the United States. Scientists at the very top of that list. People trust scientists. They also turn out to trust the Irish EPA, which, again, is consistent. Experts, educators, your own family and friends, which, again, is a very important source of learning about the world. Environmental NGOs, television weather reporters, which is probably an untapped resource here in Ireland. Community leaders, the mainstream news media, journalists start dropping off a bit. Political leaders, really only about 6% say they strongly trust them. But there's a fair amount of somewhat trust, and so on, and so on. How likely would you to take each of these actions if a person you like and respected asked you to? Again, large majority say that they would donate money to an organization working on climate change, and really, let's just take the red here, the 21%. That's really high, okay? In the United States, it would be about 10%. Volunteer your time to an organization working on climate change. 16% say they would do this. Meet with an elected official or their staff about climate change. 16% say they would directly engage with political leaders. Write letters, email, or phone government officials about climate change.
[00:36:50] Speaker ?: 15%.
[00:36:51] Speaker 3: Personally engage in nonviolent civil disobedience, like sit-ins, blockades, or trespassing against corporate or government activities that make climate change worse. 15% say that they would do that, okay? That's remarkable. And it would be really remarkable if 10% of people actually did it. So to quickly sum up here, public support for and participation in climate action is going to be critical to achieving Ireland's national climate goals and, frankly, global climate goals. An O to be Irish, okay? From an American perspective, I'm jealous at how far advanced your conversation is on this issue. People in Ireland overwhelmingly understand the scientific consensus that human-caused climate change is happening, they're worried, they support government action, and they want to be more engaged in climate solutions. They're already hearing and talking about climate change, okay? This is not something that the government is going to try to get people to do. You're already doing it. So you're primed for the national conversation on climate change. So to conclude, mitigating, preparing for, and adapting to climate change will require not just smart policy or economics or technological innovation, but different decisions and behaviors by 8 to 9 billion human beings. It's an incumbent, it is incumbent upon all of us to engage and empower our friends, our families, our fellow citizens, and our leaders to build public and political will for climate action. Thank you.
[00:38:39] Speaker 1: Thank you, Tony. Will you join us here for questions? And we have questions online, and we have questions in the room, I know. And I'd ask those of you who want to put a question, if you raise your hand, I can call you in. But we've had some that have come in already. First of all, before we begin, just on the issue of the survey, that's a 4,000 sample. That's a very, very big sample, which would be four times higher than a normal, say, opinion vote. How do we, as a smaller country, I know you've compared this to America there, but how exceptional are the Irish figures?
[00:39:20] Speaker 3: Very exceptional. Depending on the measure, there are certain measures where we would find a couple other countries maybe even higher. Brazil, actually very, very high on many of these measures, and some of your peer European countries as well.
[00:39:35] Speaker 1: Brazil will be a surprise because they're among the big sinners as well. Is there a lot of hypocrisy around this as well?
[00:39:44] Speaker 3: Of course there's a lot of hypocrisy around this, of course. That said, there's tremendous variation around the world. We've already got an enormous majority of the public that understands the issue, accept the basic science, accept this is a serious problem, and are ready to do something about it. That is far, farther down the field than in many other countries where they're still debating whether this is even real.
[00:40:10] Speaker 1: Yeah. So it's really, it's knowledge first of all, it's a bit, I'm often reminded of the tobacco issue, where people for a long time knew that, knew tobacco was dangerous, their attitude was they didn't want to smoke, they reluctantly smoked, they were embarrassed to be still smoking, and then behavior did change. But behavior is the, it's the sort of continuum, isn't it?
[00:40:29] Speaker 3: It is. Smoking is actually a really great example of social norms.
[00:40:34] Speaker ?: Okay?
[00:40:34] Speaker 3: So, you know, when I grew up, smoking was everywhere. It was in bars, it was in restaurants. I just flew across the Atlantic, I would have been stuck in a sealed silver tube with half the plane puffing away, I wouldn't have been able to get away from it. If I pulled out a cigarette right now and lit it, most of you would recoil in horror.
[00:40:52] Speaker ?: Okay?
[00:40:52] Speaker 3: And that's not just because of laws and regulations and all that, that's because it's no longer the social norm. It's not the polite or proper thing to do in company. Okay? That's the power of these social norms. That's the power of these social signals that we send to one another about what is appropriate.
[00:41:10] Speaker 1: And you think that that is the sort of social change that we're in the middle of?
[00:41:15] Speaker 3: I think we're absolutely seeing that, and different parts of the sustainability transition are at different stages. Okay? So we're at a much earlier stage, for example, for people adopting heat pumps.
[00:41:27] Speaker ?: Okay?
[00:41:27] Speaker 3: That's still, I think, relatively rare happening, but needs to happen much more quickly compared to, say, electric vehicles. Which is much farther along and really starting to take off. Which is different than, say, more plant-rich diets, which are, have also grown tremendously in recent years. So I'm just saying that all of these different behaviors, and we're talking about hundreds, thousands of changes that are going to be happening. They're all on different tracks.
[00:41:53] Speaker ?: Yeah.
[00:41:54] Speaker 1: And the scale of climate ambition, one of the questions that's come in, is big. But how do we balance the urgency of what needs to be done within the short timeframes that we have?
[00:42:05] Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, there's an old, there's an old Jewish saying. That the best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago. The second best time is now. And that's the simple, glib answer, is we just have to get started. Or accelerate, because the fact is, we have gotten started. We've made tremendous progress. The, I showed the graph showing that if, and this is a big if, but if all the pledges that have been made up to this point are implemented. That holds the world, or reduces climate change to 2.4 degrees. That's still terrible, don't get me wrong. But that is so different than where we thought we were going to be 10 years ago. We're looking at 5, 6 degrees as quite likely. That's a remarkable accomplishment. Now, we're not done by a long shot. But I'm just saying that we have, in fact, made enormous progress, especially in the past 10 years. Especially when you look at some of the key things, like the key transition, is to clean energy. Clean energy used to be expensive, and unreliable, and not available. And now, it is the cheapest form of electricity on the planet. Okay, just taking the United States, for example, 75% of all new electricity that was created last year, was clean and renewable energy. Okay, this is sweeping across the world. It's now cheaper to close down an existing running coal-fired power plant, and replace it with solar panels, and take the loss, because you're going to make it up because the electricity you're producing is so much cheaper. That's changing the game, forever. Fossil fuels, as we've all seen. Look what's happened to the price of gas, because some idiot in Russia decides to invade another country.
[00:43:57] Speaker ?: Okay?
[00:43:58] Speaker 3: And there have been a lot of shocks like that. We're all vulnerable to the whims of these petrostates. Clean renewable energy gets cheaper every year. It's inexhaustible. You can produce it in your own country. It's only getting cheaper and cheaper. Okay? So the point is that it's a radically different environment today.
[00:44:17] Speaker 1: And it's not a finite resource.
[00:44:18] Speaker 3: And it's an infinite resource. It's why we call it renewable.
[00:44:22] Speaker 1: Yeah. We have a question here. If we get a microphone here. Do wait for the microphone. I noticed you mentioned weather forecasters there as important. We said that on this climate series before. They are the conveyors of a lot of information daily. Yes. And we trust them when we want to know what they're going to say. So just to make sure that they're informed and are across this debate you reckon is important.
[00:44:46] Speaker 3: Absolutely. In fact, in our very first study we conducted 15 years ago in the United States, we asked Americans, where do you get your news and information? And it wasn't the major national newspapers. It wasn't the national television broadcast. It was local television. And the main reason people tuned into local television was the local weather report. Climate and weather are intimately related. Not all weather events are climate, but increasingly many of them are. And that makes this small set of men and women who are experts. They are trusted. People trust their lives with the weather caster. The weather caster is the one that tells you not just do you need to bring an umbrella today, but do you need to evacuate your home? They're celebrities in their local communities. People love their weather caster. They choose to watch this weather caster and not that one. They're an incredibly powerful set of communicators to help us connect the dots. Because for too many people, climate change is still this global abstraction, and they don't yet understand how it's already affecting our lives today, including the weather.
[00:45:53] Speaker 1: Yes, give us your name and...
[00:45:55] Speaker 4: Brian O'Gallochore, UCC, University College Cork. Thanks very much for your presentation, Tony. Three short questions. Spain seemed like an outlier in the EU in terms of awareness on climate change. Yes, I wonder if you have any thoughts on that. Your last question was very revealing, but it was revealing about stated preference. What would you do if you were asked? I don't know if you've done work elsewhere to see how that translates into actual action. And the third question relates to behaviour. Some of the earlier comments you made. Sometimes when we think of behaviour, we think of people having the same capacity, the same choices. But of course there are systemic inequalities that mean that some citizens, some communities' capacity for change are different to others. Just wonder if you could comment on that.
[00:46:46] Speaker ?: Thank you.
[00:46:47] Speaker 3: Great, thank you. Great question. I don't claim to have a great insight into Spain, but I will tell you that we are seeing something fascinating where it's countries in Central and South America and including Spain that are more concerned about climate change than anywhere else. And we're not sure why, except that we think there's something cultural going on. It's not that they're experiencing more severe weather or anything like that because Asia is experiencing that, Africa is experiencing that and so on. So I would just say I don't fully know the answer to that yet. Yes, we have, there's a reason why we asked the question that way, is if a person you like and respect asked you to. Because what we have found in the, at least in the US context, is we've looked at the, actually this relates to your second question, which is the attitude behaviour gap. Why don't people do things? And in particular we wanted to know why don't people take more political actions? People say that they would be willing to do it, but many people don't. So we wanted to then ask, well what are the barriers? What are the things preventing you from doing it? The single number one reason that people cite as keeping them from participating and demanding greater action is that nobody's ever asked me to. Nobody's ever asked me to. It's that stupid people. I mean, and why, I mean, who is, who among us is so motivated, I mean a few of us are, but a few of us are, so motivated about an issue that you're going to go do something you've never done before, you don't know where to go, you don't know where to even look, but you're going to go out and create your own environmental group? I mean, nobody does that.
[00:48:36] Speaker 1: No, but people are invited to vote in democracies and there are green parties everywhere. The green party went down from 5% to 3% in the last opinion poll here.
[00:48:44] Speaker 3: That's politics, so that's a different thing. I'm talking about people being willing to participate in environmental.
[00:48:50] Speaker 1: But they're being asked to participate by voting for a particular political leaning.
[00:48:55] Speaker 3: It's a form of participation.
[00:48:56] Speaker ?: That's true.
[00:48:56] Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:48:58] Speaker 1: So does it surprise you that they're not kind of prospering? They are, of course.
[00:49:05] Speaker 3: To some extent. This is way above my pay grade because that's about the politics of Ireland.
[00:49:09] Speaker 1: No, no, I'm giving you the Irish example there. Yeah, I accept that. Yeah. Okay. We have another question here from, if you tell us, we might know who you are, George. So if you tell us who you are, we'd...
[00:49:23] Speaker 5: Hello, I'm George Lee and I work with RTE News. I'm just, I'm very struck by some of the findings there, particularly as you sum up. You said Ireland's figures and Ireland's report from the survey was very exceptional. So people are doing clearly aware of the issue and talking about it. And the thing which strikes me is that we have been the biggest laggards in terms of climate action in the whole of Europe. For a long period of time, we have failed to achieve any of our targets. And political parties here have run away from addressing the issue, quite frankly, and taking people on who object to some of the measures, never mind some of the debate we're having at the moment about burning turf. And I'm just wondering about the difference, and as you say there about who people believe, and I watched the survey results there, people will believe their family and friends more than many other people who might be better informed. I'm really surprised at that one. I'm not too sure I'd believe very many of my family or friends on the issue, but that's a different issue. But politicians were way down in the media. I'm just wondering about this relationship between, we're very good in Ireland about talking about things. We're not very good, I think, about implementing actions. We'll talk forever, and we'll know about all of these things. And it's like politicians seem to be afraid to take on objectors, quite frankly. And I'm wondering, is that the same in any other country? Are there many other countries who have these very exceptional figures where people recognise all of the issues and are willing to even pay, as your results suggested, I think 10% of people, for an organisation to represent these issues. But politicians, because possibly of our political structure with multi-seat constituencies and popularity and so on, are afraid to come out with what appears to be what most people are prepared to put up with in terms of change. And they recognise we need to change. How can we be very exceptional in all of this? And be such laggards in relation to action?
[00:51:24] Speaker 3: Definitely above my pay grade. But I can draw on the American experience, and maybe this is a useful comparison. First of all, we know that, and in fact, a colleague has done the study and found that elected officials, and I'm talking federal officials, people in Congress, and their staff, dramatically underestimate the level of public support for climate action of their own constituents. The politicians don't know that they've already got the permission, okay, of their constituents to take action. They actually think that it's half or more of the country is against them, okay? And this is a whole different kind of research that we'll be doing a new report on soon here. But we've identified six different Americas, six different audiences within the United States that each respond to this issue differently. And it's not as simple as believers and deniers. But we have one group, one of the six, that we call the dismissive. Okay? They are the ones who think this is all a hoax, it's scientists making up data, it's a UN plot to take away American sovereignty. It's a get-rich scheme by Al Gore and his friends and other such conspiracy-type narratives. They're 9%. They're only 9%, but they're a really loud 9%. They're a really vocal 9%, and they've tended to dominate public discourse to such an extent that the other 91% of Americans engage in what we call climate silence. They're afraid to talk about climate change because they think that other person is probably a climate denier. But they're not. Most of the country overwhelmingly is happy to have a constructive conversation about climate change. Okay? So one is just to say that in your case, that dismissive group is almost non-existent, but you probably hear from them. Okay? And as a result, they're having far more influence than they probably deserve numerically. Okay? So one is many politicians themselves don't know. The second, and this is why I put a particular emphasis on advocacy behavior. I don't think it's enough to have social permission. You've got incredible social permission to take, to be leading on this. But what politicians often don't get enough is public demand. People who are organized for power to put pressure on political officials to say, "You are going to make a political calculation that you are going to be a champion and win our support and our votes, or you're going to cross us and we're going to work our hearts out to defeat you." I think that's one of the critical missing pieces, especially in democracies, is an act of citizenship. And it doesn't require 90%, 80%, 70%, it really only requires maybe 5% of a population that is passionate, that is organized to exert the citizen's voice. Okay? So again, I don't claim to understand Irish politics, you're the expert on that. But from an American perspective, that's one of the really critical missing pieces, is that we don't yet have a powerful social movement, or what in political science terms called an issue public, that is demanding action.
[00:54:35] Speaker 1: And is some of that 9% in America, are they into misinformation or disinformation, which is knowingly to throw sand in the eyes of the others? Yes.
[00:54:48] Speaker 3: So both. There are both. So look, there are actors that are particularly driven by, say, profit motives, or ideological motives, that quite, they know that they're putting out disinformation. But most of those people are just getting what, to them is just, I mean, they're not actively trying to make things up. They just buy this stuff, and so on. So let's just go back real quick to your example of cigarettes. This is a strategy that has been used very successfully in the United States, where, as I mentioned, very few people understand that there's a scientific consensus about the facts. Like, this is happening, and it's human caused. Like, there's no scientific disagreement about that. Disagreement maybe about what's going to happen to the Indian monsoon in the year 2085? Sure. Uncertainty. Is it real? Is it human caused? No legitimate scientific debate about that. And yet, only 1 in 5 Americans knows that it's more than 9 out of 10 climate scientists. And that's not an accident. That has been the primary strategy of the opponents of climate action, and it's a strategy they borrowed root and branch out of the tobacco industry. The tobacco industry has as their primary strategy doubt is our product. We don't have to convince Americans that smoking is good for you. We just have to convince them that the science isn't settled yet. We're not sure if it's good or bad for you. And in that state of uncertainty, people would continue to smoke. And they did, for decades. They raked billions of extra dollars into their pockets that way. That exact same strategy, including some of the exact same scientists that were disputing the human health consequences of smoking, were brought right into the climate debate where they disputed whether it's real or it's human caused or a serious problem. And some of them even argued that global warming is going to be good for us. So it's just to say, that kind of disinformation can be really powerful, especially when it's got a lot of money and sophistication behind it.
[00:56:45] Speaker 1: And what about the precautionary principle that although we haven't got all the science, the catastrophe would be on such a scale that we better change public policy? Is that popularly understood?
[00:56:56] Speaker 3: So this is where culture makes a big difference. Precautionary principle is a very central organizing principle of policy making here in Europe. It is not in the United States. So like a totally different field. New chemical, okay? In the United States, we assume a new chemical is innocent until proven guilty. Oh, it'll be fine, even though we've not done the studies. We haven't looked at how it interacts with other things. We don't know. But we just assume that it's going to be good. Europe generally doesn't take that. They tend to be more suspicious.
[00:57:28] Speaker 1: Right. Okay. We have a question. Whoever has the mic, I'll favor. And we have another mic here. So first of all, yes, give us your name first, yeah. Thank you.
[00:57:36] Speaker 6: How are the name is the name? I'm a lawyer and a filmmaker. I declare an interest to us. I'm an active member of Dublin Friends of the Earth, which isn't a political party. But I recently joined the Green Party because I'm in a Dublin-based South constituency and had a by-election. And I wanted to support the Green Party candidate. So I joined. Hold the mic steady. Oh, sorry. Just to further to George Lee's very interesting question. First of all, thank you very much, Dr. Liza Rich, for your presentation and all these answers, which are very informative. But the question of the survey that George Lee raised the question of how we scored so highly on that survey and that we've been such laggards. There have been other surveys, until recently anyway, which declared, yes, people would be all in favor of the legislators taking measures to combat climate change if it didn't cost them any money. But if it costs them any money, especially now with the cost of living rising astronomically for different reasons, domestic and external, with the Ukraine and gas prices. And this has been a difficulty in the past. We have pledged our government to say it's going to bring in the carbon tax in May, as far as I recall. I don't think they've resiled from that promise yet. Even though we've seen President Macron had terrible difficulties in France, the President of France, with the yellow jackets, because of the way he introduced the diesel tax, which has to come in, but was mishandled, you'd have to say, politically. We could very well get a reaction that sets us back if the government goes ahead with the carbon tax, and I'm not against it. We've already seen the way they were sabotaged by a minority of ill-wishing misinformation people. But on the turf question, you know, where I think it's clear the ministers, and not just of any because of the Green Party, but he was liberally misrepresented in a scare tactic, which seemed to have worked on that. And is there any way we could follow what's happened in America or some other place to learn a lesson of how we can bring in these necessary things to honor our targets that we've set without attracting the opportunistic opposition politicians, if you like, trying to sabotage willfully?
[00:59:42] Speaker 3: Thank you. Okay, thank you. So, again, I don't claim to be able to predict Irish politics. I can't predict American politics. I mean, my crystal ball is cloudy. That said, we live in this incredibly complicated, complex time, right? The situation is changing around us almost hourly now. Two months ago, none of us were thinking that Putin was going to invade Ukraine and totally reshape the world. I mean, he's unleashed not just brutality and butchery in Ukraine, which people are quite rightfully focused on and horrified by, but look what's now happened to energy prices. Look what he just did to Poland and Bulgaria. He's using energy as a weapon. So, here's your reminder. We should have gotten off of fossil fuels a long time ago. And he can push us around because we're dependent on this stuff. And that creates a counter reaction. It actually creates the opportunity for some leaders to say, this is it. Why should we be giving billions of euros to support the Russian war machine every week? Like the world has just provided, I don't even know what the right number is here, but it's hundreds of billions of dollars to Ukraine while we're also providing hundreds of billions of dollars to Russia. Like what do we need to, I mean, we're all complicit.
[01:01:28] Speaker 1: That's a wake-up call. It is a wake-up call. And it's happening, isn't it? It's happening.
[01:01:32] Speaker 3: But there will be opportunists who will say, therefore, we need to invest more in fossil fuels. Okay? And here's where the scientist in me says, there are some elements of truth to that. We have people who need energy, who don't have the ability to go electric immediately. We do need to provide some of that. But we need to make a big distinction between short-term softening of the blow that we all are experiencing right now and where we need to go long-term. And we cannot lose sight of that longer-term, and we're talking 10 years here longer-term, while we're trying to deal with the punches that Putin is basically throwing the entire planet. Okay? And by the way, we haven't even gotten to another major ripple effect, which is food prices. We are teetering. In fact, we're well into a truly catastrophic food crisis globally that is going to cause major problems. Remember the last food crisis we had? It led to the Arab Spring. Okay? This is, like I said, a highly complex and ever-fast-changing situation, and we've got to be nimble. Okay? We make the best plans we can. We have to adapt and change those plans as we go, recognizing that we need to move this whole system, but we also need to take care of people as we do it. Leave no one behind. Another question here.
[01:02:59] Speaker ?: Yes.
[01:03:00] Speaker 1: Thank you, Dr. Levovich. My name is Aidan French.
[01:03:02] Speaker 7: I'm a landscape architect and a past president of the Irish Landscape Institute, which is the professional body. So I've just finished over 30 years in local government, both in Ireland and in England. I've had the pleasure of retiring early four weeks ago. So I've been involved mainly in climate mitigation. So an observation and a question. So the first observation -- well, actually, there's two. So you mentioned the states a lot. And I suppose on a positive note, I've been in the states a lot in cities. And unlike in Ireland, you've directly elected mayors. And my impression, having spoken at conferences and been at conferences in Seattle and Portland, Chicago, is there's a lot going on at city level in the states, which is very positive across the whole green agenda. So the states isn't all bad. The second observation, going back to the survey, 89% of people said they want local government to do more, which doesn't surprise me. In relation to that, I think there's a bit of a disconnect because we have a peculiar form of local government in Ireland. We don't have directly elected mayors, unlike a lot of countries in Europe and in Asia and the States. So there's a problem there. But there's a lot of goodwill. And people aren't being asked. I know that. We've done, I've just retired from a local authority and deliried that down. We did focus groups on a 10-year tree strategy. And we discovered there's a lot of ignorance around the climate benefits of urban trees and urban forestry. So there are the observations. The question is, so there's got to be a second report, which according to the website, the EPA website is due early this year, where you differentiate into the different cohorts that were surveyed. Can you say something about that? Firstly, has the report been published? If not, can you say anything about the differential responses, particularly in terms of generations? Because we've had a very active climate movement here, particularly among the younger generation. But if you could say something about that, it would be good. Thank you.
[01:04:57] Speaker 3: Yeah, great question. And I can't say anything about it because it's not written yet. So, coming. So, just a teaser. Stay tuned. But I do want to come back just briefly to your point, which I think is one of those places where there's tremendous potential to form consensus. And that's the realm that we call natural solutions. The fact is, is that forests and agriculture are two of the most important solutions of many. We also need to green our energy system and et cetera, et cetera. But they are going to be some of the pivotal heroes in this history that we are writing together right now. Forests, people understand, are critically important as a way of absorbing carbon dioxide and cleaning the air and maintaining habitats and providing food and fiber and fuel and just so many benefits to a native forest, a biodiverse forest, not a tree plantation. People everywhere love trees. Okay? That one's easy. I mean, agriculture, which often gets, for some reason, stuck in this adversarial position. And it just doesn't have to be. I mean, the fact is, is that agriculture can be one of the great solutions to this issue. When we change farming practices that actually are designed not to extract nutrients from the soil, but to rebuild the soil, to store carbon in the soil, that actually makes the soil more fertile. Okay? When we care for the land, truly care for the land. And I'm speaking as someone who grew up on a farm, comes from a long family of farmers. I think farmers actually should be, can be, and should be, some of the leaders on this. Because they have the unique ability to actually not just reduce carbon pollution, but to actually start pulling it back out of the atmosphere, which we're going to need. Agroforestry? I'm sorry? Agroforestry? Agroforestry is just one of many wonderful examples of that. Yeah.
[01:07:13] Speaker 1: But can you drill down in your Irish figures? Because they showed that agriculture was seen as one of the big culprits. One of the main groups who created, get the figures right?
[01:07:27] Speaker 3: I mean, let's also be honest, that agriculture is one of the culprits. I mean, and I'm talking agriculture writ large from either deforestation, so harming those exact intact forests that we need to continue to absorb carbon, but also as we increasingly eat more meat. Yeah. I mean, the fact is that cows are an enormous form of methane pollution, which is far more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Yeah.
[01:07:53] Speaker 1: That's known. But when you look, would you be able, in your survey of the Irish mind on all of this, look at what the farmers were saying in response? Because do you think they're on board on this, or do you think there's going to be a hell of a battle when it comes?
[01:08:06] Speaker 3: So I don't know the answer to that yet, in terms of farmers specifically. But we did look, and in fact we report in the Irish mind report, on urban versus suburban versus rural. And on that question, on the role and responsibility of agriculture, you do see a eight or nine percentage point lower score for rural residents, but it's still a majority. Okay? It's not like, and this is really one of my critical points, and it will be even more hopefully clear when we come up with our next report, is let's stop using the word "the public." It's a misnomer. There is no one public. There are multiple publics. And they come at this issue from different perspectives. And if you want to be an effective communicator or effective engager, you need to meet people where they are. Not where you are, but where they are.
[01:09:03] Speaker ?: Okay?
[01:09:04] Speaker 3: And I think that's actually one of the few advantages climate change actually has. I often call this the policy problem from hell. You almost couldn't design a worse fit for our underlying psychology or institutions of decision-making. But what climate change does have going for it is that it's so all-encompassing. We're talking about the life support systems of the planet. Everybody, every living creature on this earth has a direct and real stake in this outcome of this. And what's been so inspirational is that in the past ten years you see all these new voices coming into this conversation. It used to be only scientists and environmentalists and some liberal politicians talking about climate change. That's not true anymore. Now we have military people talking about it. Small business, big business, doctors, nurses, religious figures of every level. Okay? Youth, grandparents, parents. Okay? Because in fact this issue is about all of us. And that's my ultimate point is that there are many roads to Damascus. Don't force everybody to walk the same path you did. I happen to walk the path through science. I was steeped in the science and I would love to have a conversation about the thermohaline circulation system in the North Atlantic. And we could have a long conversation about that. Nobody wants to have that conversation with me. They're not ready for that conversation. They're not interested in that conversation. But maybe they are interested in the conversation of how climate change is affecting chocolate. Or sports. Or real estate. Or my asthma of my kid. Okay? Those are all perfectly legitimate doors to walk through to get engaged with climate change.
[01:10:50] Speaker 1: Okay. Some more questions just here. Can we have a microphone? There's an online question as well. An online question. Yeah. Okay.
[01:10:57] Speaker ?: Sorry.
[01:10:58] Speaker 1: The recognized gap between what people say they intend to do and what they actually do. How do we go from intention to action?
[01:11:06] Speaker 3: So that is definitely a challenge. And we have to recognize that there are many different -- people have different motivations. People are in different circumstances. And they face different barriers. There is no one simple answer to this. But I will say that some general principles that definitely apply. And this is going all the way back to just how we make change as human beings. Okay? Is that you need to -- there's a nice analogy of the rider, the elephant, and the path. The rider refers to your analytical brain. Okay? Rationality. It's critically important to deciding here's where your destination is. Here's where we want to go. But you've all experienced this probably with New Year's resolutions where you come up with this rational thing of I'm going to lose 10 pounds next year. Or I'm going to work out more. Or I'm going to do something different. And then you find that you're in war. You're in a struggle with the elephant, which is your emotions. Okay? And your habits. And your body. That really doesn't want to give up potato chips. Okay? And we usually lose. The rider can control the elephant for a short time, but eventually gets too tired and the elephant will take over. So you need to appeal not just to people's heads. You also need to appeal to their hearts. Okay? It's not the head that motivates action. It's the heart that motivates action. And then the last part is that you can be incredibly motivated. But if the path is filled with obstacles and barriers, then it's really difficult to keep pushing through them. Or over them. Most people don't know how. So how can you smooth the path? How can you make it easy? How can you make it fun? How can you make it popular? Because we're elephants are a herd animal. Gets back to social norms. We like to see what are other people doing. And if everybody else is doing it, we're probably going to do it too. That's just the way social norms work. So bottom line, don't just appeal to people's head. Which is what we do in our community. Because we're a bunch of scientists. That's what we do for a living. It's appeal to each other's heads. But that's only part of the human being. Okay.
[01:13:21] Speaker 1: Politician. Two politicians here.
[01:13:23] Speaker 3: Okay.
[01:13:24] Speaker 8: Do you want to take the current one first rather than the former one? Well, I go first since I'm standing. Alex White is my name. And I was previously a minister for communications, energy and natural resources. Just a quick reflection first and then a question. Sure. The reflection is that there's absolutely no doubt that there's been a step change in the quality of the public discourse on this question in six years, seven years, perhaps even a shorter period. Certainly since I was involved in politics and in government. I mean, I remember I heard what George said earlier about going out to RTE, appearing on programmes to defend renewable energy programmes and so on. And being faced with a package, you know, just a short sort of three, four minute package or whatever. That rural Ireland was on fire, objecting to renewable energy. That was never going to happen. That this was, and it was wholly unrepresentative. I mean, one knew that sitting in the studio, it's very hard to say that because, of course, then you get into all kinds of trouble. But I mean, people are genuinely entitled, of course, to make objections, but it was, it was painted in a particular way that didn't really represent the reality. And some of those people actually followed me around in my Dublin constituency, you know, attacking the policy that we had in renewable energy. Now, I did lose my seat, but it wasn't for that reason, I don't think, that I don't think the people in Dublin South were hugely impressed by a campaign against renewable energy. The other thing that I remember as a minister was when you did debate climate and energy policy, most of the comments, unfortunately, tended to be about the localist objections, tended to be about how it was going to affect this or that region of the country or this or that county and so on. And it hadn't reached the heightened level that I genuinely think it has in the last six, seven years. And I think that's a hugely important thing. The question I have, which is also, I'm afraid, also partly reflection, but there is a question in here. I'm delighted that you said, because you started the talk, which is superb, by the way, and thank you. But by talking about the public and you rightly said, of course, the public is not an undifferentiated thing. I mean, all of the 90% up there are very, very encouraging, but they obscure a lot of, you know, groups within the 90% who are people of goodwill. Absolutely. And who will answer positively to the questions. But when it's visited, you know, when the change is visited upon them, whether it's, I'm going on a flight tomorrow, I'm probably paying a fraction of what I should be paying. You know, we saw the turf thing during the week, the agriculture sector and so on. So I wonder, have you thought about being political institutions, see the Congress in the US, the terrible, you know, kind of gridlock there is in the political system there. We have a version of that here, too, because I would say to, you know, again, reflecting what George said and others, the most dynamic, the most powerful thing you can do in politics in Ireland, the easiest thing perhaps, is to stop something happening. We saw it all the time. I mean, I won't even mention water, but all sorts of things. You can stop things here. The real challenge is to make something happen. And all politicians who have served in their heart of hearts, they'll accept, they will recognise that. See it this week. So I wonder, is there a way or have you thought much in the States or elsewhere about new forms of mediating these conflicts and these disputes that will inevitably happen? Because the political systems, the established political systems, parliamentary systems and so on, they don't seem to be able to mediate these questions. And even the existing political parties, including perhaps my own, which is the Labour Party, you know, traditionally were set up for different reasons and so on. So anyway, that's my question.
[01:16:53] Speaker 3: Wonderful question. And this is the ultimate challenge. So first of all, yes, of course, there are different publics within the public. Some are going to be more affected by this policy or that policy. And so you're going to get pushed back at different times in different ways because we're talking about change. And people generally just don't like to change unless the current conditions are so awful that they're forced to change, okay? That they're finally willing to do something quite different. That said, one of the things that, again, I find just so astounding about this study is how little of that is already present. Like in America, if I want to know your opinion about climate change, it's not quite this simple, but it tells me an awful lot. I just need to ask, are you a Democrat or a Republican? If I just ask that question, I have a very good chance of knowing what your views are about climate change. We didn't find that here at all. Even rural to urban, like it wasn't really there. And in fact, I mean, I'm sure we're going to find like marginal differences here and there. But basically, I'm stunned at the level of consensus that there is. So, of course, there will be those that critique and push back.
[01:18:05] Speaker 1: I want to call in Dennis Nocton as well. And in doing so, I want to make another point, which is I mentioned the Greens earlier. The Greens, of course, don't own this agenda and they don't want it. They want their clothes to be stolen. And they have been stolen. So, that's part of what Alex was saying there. So, I just want to correct that point that you can vote Green, but you can vote for other parties. You can vote for Green candidates. But Dennis Nocton, who's not unowned on this agenda as well for many years. And a current politician.
[01:18:31] Speaker 9: Yes, I'm the current politician here that is getting the roasting, so to speak. But I want to pick up on the last two questions that have been raised. And this issue of psychological distance. Yeah. And you've shown it there in your survey as well. You know, that people don't feel that it's affecting them personally, but that it's going to affect maybe someone in the developing world or the next generation. And the reality is, if we're going to drive that motivational change, if we're going to drive people to adapt, then they need to believe it in the here and now. Like, we've a crazy situation here this week in relation to the issue of turf cutting. And, you know, probably the single biggest scandal in the country this week is the fact that the Minister for Health has had to send in a crack squad into one of our hospitals in Limerick, which has seen record overcrowding in terms of hospital trolleys. And one of the solutions in relation to that is to improve air quality. Because in that hospital tonight, 10% of the beds in that hospital are taken up with people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. We could actually solve the trolley crisis in that hospital if we could improve air quality in that particular city. And the data will show there is a huge problem with air quality in that particular city. So my question is, how do we link those points up? How do we take the climate change of the future and bring it to the reality today? Personally, I think air quality is one of the ways in doing that, because it's in the here and now. One in five children in Ireland have asthma. One in 14 adults in Ireland have COPD. And that's the way to bring it into the here and now. So how do we do that with climate change? Because I think that's what will motivate the public. Yes, the public are aware of the issue of climate change, and it is a priority for them. But when you go to the door and you bang on the door, there are five other issues that are way ahead for them. So how do we bring the climate change up from the point of view of making that climate change issue locally, no more than in Limerick tonight, climate change is having an impact in terms of the overcrowding in Limerick University Hospital. Thank you.
[01:20:58] Speaker 3: Wonderful question. Thank you. I can see why you're a politician. So a couple of responses to this, and it's a similarity between climate change and asthma, is that you need to make the invisible visible. Because right now, people may go out and they may say, oh, gosh, the air smells different today, or it may even look a little different today. But they don't immediately associate that. They don't automatically connect that mentally. I'm talking about associations to the fact that the hospital beds are now filled with people who are suffering asthma and COPD. Okay? That's the associations that come to mind when you hear these terms. So this is actually one of my favorite techniques in the United States is to say, what's the first thought or image that comes to mind when you hear the words global warming? Okay? And in the United States, consistently what most people think of is melting ice. Sea ice retreating on the Arctic Ocean, ice shells breaking off of Antarctica, melting glaciers around the world. Which is good in that it reinforces the sense that this is happening. Because everybody knows on an embodied level, you go outside on a warm summer day with a glass of ice, what happens? It melts. Right? I didn't have to explain any physics to you or anything like that. You just know, if ice is melting around the world, then it's probably happening. The problem is, is that no one in America lives next to, lives on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. I mean, a few of us do. You know, next to an ice shelf breaking off of Antarctica. And most of us don't live near a melting glacier. Okay? So it, again, reinforces that it's distant. And the images that we always see, this is where the media, you don't get off the hook here, at least in the U.S., the media has consistently, a journalist will do a wonderful article about climate change and how it's affecting human health. And the editor says, this is great. Photo editor, get me an image for this. And what do they put on it? A picture of a polar bear or an ice flow. Ice flow.
[01:22:55] Speaker ?: Okay?
[01:22:56] Speaker 3: We have had that association. And that's what I'm talking about here. Global warming. Ice. Global warming. Ice. Climate change. Ice. Over and over again. So that's what we naturally think of. That's what you're trying to change the connotative meaning of. That when people now think of, say, burning peat, they now make the link to air pollution, which makes the link to their, maybe their cousin. Or their nephew, or their niece, who's got terrible asthma as a result. Because people are not making that connection now. Okay? So I think that's really, that's the communication challenge, is how do you help people connect the dots? Especially for an issue like climate change that, again, is, for most people, this abstraction compared to that. Last thing I want to say, though, because it's the way we try to implement this, these kinds of insights. We have a national radio program that we do a brand new climate change story every day, a minute and a half long, that plays on over 680 public radio stations across the country. And what we do is we use the most powerful communication technique human beings have ever developed. And despite all of our technology, and TikTok, and all these other things that we can now do, nothing is yet better than what we were doing when we were huddled around fires in caves. And that's tell stories. It's the way that we can vicariously convey information, experience, feelings, knowledge, wisdom, without having to do it ourselves. Okay? It's, it's what we did way back when, when a kid would be brought by their parent and say, "Don't eat that red berry," because if you do that, someone in our village once did that, and they died. A terrible death. You don't need to eat the berry. You don't need to do it yourself. That's the power of storytelling and communication, is to convey experience from one person to another. And so what we do is we try to find those bright spots. Back to the earlier question. The people who are actually showing that this is real, the story of the person who is suffering from asthma, tell their story. Let people hear that story. So they suddenly go, "Oh, I never, I just didn't realize it before." But even more importantly, lift up the voices of the people who are actually solving this. Who are the farmers that are actually showing the world how to use agriculture to create a better planet? Okay? How do you tell the story of the person who now has a job installing wind turbines and it's changing their life? Okay? How do you give people those real world stories so they can see this is not some pie in the sky abstraction? This is happening right here, right now. Okay.
[01:25:42] Speaker 1: Tony, thank you so much for your contribution. Oh, we're done? Yeah, that's it. Okay. We're quite over time, and thank you very much. Thank you. Really good. Terrific. I'd also like to thank, we didn't get through to enough of them, but we had a very good audience here in the room as well. Thank those who joined us, the many hundreds who joined us online. A special thanks to them. And the lecture itself and our question session is available on the EPA Ireland YouTube channel. And also, I should add that there is further research, isn't there, to come out from your group. And I suggest the next time you survey the Irish public, you include the under 18s. It's their agenda. Yeah. Yeah, as well. So, thank you so much for being such a good audience and thanks to the EPA for inviting such a distinguished lecturer to us tonight. And thank you for joining us, and good night. Thank you. That was terrific.
[01:26:38] Speaker ?: Very good. That was terrific. Terrific. Terrific. Terrific. Terrific.
[01:26:44] Speaker 1: Terrific. Terrific.
[01:26:46] Speaker 3: Terrific. Nice work.
[01:26:48] Speaker ?: Yeah, yeah. Terrific. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.