We don't have a hundred years to fix climate change. We don't have a hundred years to wait until we've built all these bridges and rapport and scientific understanding and so on and so forth. We have to fix climate change with the people we have right now, and to a large extent with the perspectives we have right now as well.
Katharine HayhoeThe word "evangelist" means someone who spreads good news. Studying the impacts of climate change as I do, it's hard to come up with good news. In many ways I feel more like a Cassandra or a Jeremiah than a good-news evangelist.
Katharine HayhoeI feel that one of the most important things I can do is connect climate change to the values, the faith, and the issues we already care about. And if, in the process, I have to sidestep around some very explosive mines, I will do that.
Katharine HayhoeThere is also a great deal of behind-the-scenes pressure from political funders too. And by funders I don't just mean the fossil fuel industry. Many of those exerting pressure on our society to ignore climate change, oppose climate change legislation, and shut down efforts to develop a clean energy economy are doing so out of ideology, not just economics. In the simplest terms, many large industries don't want the government telling them what to do with their businesses and they don't want any restrictions on what they can and cannot do, which includes polluting our shared environment.
Katharine HayhoeThere has been a concerted effort to frame caring about climate change and the environment as an alternate religion - one that worships the creation rather than the creator, so to speak.
Katharine Hayhoe