Anniversary of journalism education at drake. In 1919, since 1919, our program has been characterized by service to our profession and our community. We are proud to continue that tradition by cohosting the conversation tonight about Climate Change with experts who are on the front lines of this pressing public issue. This event is brought to you through a collaboration between Drake University and a philanthropic refunded free service for journalists based at the American Association for the advancement of science in washington, d. C. They connect reporters to scientists in order to promote more credible, accurate, researchbased news stories. We are just wrapping up a 2. 5 day boot camp at drake in which political journalists from around the country received briefings from experts on science issues that will be prominent in the president ial campaign. I would like to acknowledge and thank Drake Universitys academic leader in the front row, who is herself a scientist. Also, former Washington Post science reporter rick, and the entire team of scientists and science communicators who have worked so hard to organize this ntire event. Finally, i want to remind folks here in the hall and watching remotely that they are welcome to ask questions using the hashtag, unitedstatesofclimate. For those in the hall, turn off ringers on your phone and do not use flash photography. With that, i am very pleased to introduce tonights moderator. Veteran science reporter, miles obrien. Miles is an independent journalist who covers science, echnology and aerospace. He is a science correspondent for pbs newshour, a producer, director and writer for pbss nova series, and aviation analyst for cnn and a correspondent for the National Science foundations science nation series. Please join me in welcoming miles to the stage. [applause] miles thank you, kathleen. Good to be here. Thank you so much. T is great to see you all. Going to have our panelists get seated while im talking. It is good to be back in des moines. I was just reminded, my first trip to des moines was in 1988, following michael dukakis. That was my first taste of deepfried butter. [laughter] still remember it. I can conjure up whatever that was that happened after the deepfried butter. As you may recall, it didnt go so well for michael dukakis. He was at the fair and was suggesting to corn farmers that hey plant more endive. Massachusetts, they just dont get it. Interestingly, i was looking how many of you are familiar with the job of state climatologists . I would say probably about half. Here are two states in the nation that do not have a state climatologists. Tennessee and massachusetts. Boston is almost underwater now. We have three allstar estate climatologists here and we are going to ask them about what they do, what they hear, and the evidence they are seeing from the front lines. A lot of people think about Climate Change as this giant, monolithic, single problem, but it is a million little problems all fought in a local, specific way. There are big things you can go after, but there are a lot of ittle things you can do in and these guys are right in the trenches, dealing with the Little Things and addressing the concerns of their neighbors. Ultimately, the people that are listened to the most are the eople closest to the potential denialists and the skeptics, or the people who dont know what to do. Down on the end is martha. She drove three hours here. We dont know what her Carbon Footprint was for that drive. Well be doing the senate. It was worth it. I flew, so i am screwed. In between is our hometown favorite, the state climatologists for iowa. Beside me here is kathy, who is from North Carolina, but recently was in oregon, which is an interesting switch. Big move. Miles probably some similarities on the two states. Coastal. All that stuff. Just a mirror image. Without going too deep into the bureaucratic machinations of what a state climatologists does, lets run through, it is like being the help desk for people in State Government and businesses. It is a little bit of an arbiter of good science. That kind of thing. I am just curious who you consider your clients to be. Why dont you start . Climate touches everything and everyone, so i found a job where i get to meddle in everybodys affairs. It is perfect to me, because i am so interested in learning about so many things. You become an expert quickly and things you never thought you would think about or things you didnt go to school for. Miles i am a history major, so i understand how this works. I work with a lot of what i call decisionmakers. Somebody who is making a decision that climate is going to be a factor in it. A lot of water managers, farmers and people in the public who just want to know what is going on. Miles good. Anything more you want to add . Is that pretty much it from your perspective . Being from iowa, or being the state climatologist of iowa, my clientele are stakeholders, farmers, i talk to farmers every day. Farmers are very intuitive. They have been on their land forever. Talking with them, they see what s happening. They see changes in the climate, they see changes in the weather, and it affects their crop yields. It affects what they do on a daytoday basis. Having the information for them, climate data, whether data, letting them know that there is a 40 chance that next month will be above average temperaturewise or precipitationwise just to give them guidance moving forward. It is somewhat reassuring, being in a very variable state weatherwise. Miles would you add anymore . What justin said, four hundred miles to the west, thats what i deal with. You never know who is going to call when you pick up the phone. One day, i showed a group of second graders to one of our weather stations then that afternoon gave in interview to Fuji Television about the flood of 2019 in nebraska. That gives you an idea of the range of people we communicate with on this complex topic of Climate Change. Miles i want to talk about that flood in a moment and wild weather and how that is impacting what you are hearing and who you are hearing from. It is interesting to me that the two ladies on the panel are academics inside academic institutions with all of the rotections that we associate with that for them to say whatever they want to say. Despite whatever the governor may think. This gentleman in the middle is a state employee. You are a little more vulnerable, i guess. First of all, when it comes to denialism, the governor of nebraska, problems, right . Is there much pressure brought to bear on you to say one thing or another or can you just do your job . So far, i can just do my job, maybe until tonight. [laughter] miles i just ruined that. Was this something i was not supposed to ask about . It is the deep fried butter. It confused me. People care at all levels, whether it is farmers and ranchers, cities across nebraska, Natural Resource districts that manage groundwater in nebraska. Everybody is talking about it and cares about it and wants to know what is going to happen. What are the solutions . I find that in my role, i do not feel any sort of pressure from above to speak a certain way. Miles good, so let it rip. Justin, you are a state employee. Our governor is very much into renewables, but not so much into believing that Climate Change has a human component. Does that affect in any way how you do your business . No. I am the weather archivist for the state. I have 147 years of observations, factbased bservations. Miles not alternative facts. Real facts. These are real facts and trends. To our stakeholders and legislators. Any level of the government and i dont feel impeded in my position. Miles glad to hear that. C has the benefit of a governor who was on the forefront of suggesting drastic action to fight Climate Change. What that is that been like for you . It has been four weeks. The honey moon has been awesome, huh . One of the reasons i took my job, we have great things going on in oregon, i was so encouraged by what was happening in the state. The state obviously is taking Climate Change seriously. We have the outer banks, coastal flooding. Huge hurricanes. It is undeniable. Being able to be a part of that was exciting for me. Miles was not a big part of the allure for you . Professionally, asking tough questions and trying to come up with solutions. Miles as long as we are on the dangerous political shoals here, lets keep going. Shall we . With the complete lack of leadership in washington that we have right now, going in the opposite direction, does that put more pressure, more responsibility on the states, on the localities to do something and is there evidence that that is happening . O ahead. Yeah, i think it does. Some of the best solutions are the local solutions. You know what is going on in your area and know how the solve it. Im just finishing a project across the fourstate region including three in nebraska, where they are incorporating climate projections into their planning documents. Hazard mitigation plans, emergency operating plans. They are looking at what is our water going to look like, what are temperatures going to look like . Do we need cooling shelters, snow removal equipment . All the things the city cares about their looking at Climate Change. Miles is that optional . Is that their decision or something they are forced to do . These are cities that chose to join this project to work handinhand to develop tools to enhance their decisionmaking. Miles when i saw what was happening at the epa, when the Trump Administration came in, i was trying to be optimistic. I thought maybe the grassroots will be better, because, to the extent that there is an absence of leadership in washington, it might mobilize people on the local level to do more. I thought maybe i was being poll yanna. What you say . Corn roots here. Miles that was pretty corny. I know. I will farmers are resilient. They dont rely on anybody but themselves. Being told what to do is not something that goes over. Iving discussions to various groups across the state, farmers, Elementary School kids, each has a different, unique idea or view on what is going on. Farmers, i talked to them often. They know. They know what to do, the solution that the department of agriculture puts out. Cover crops. Working for carbon sequestration. These are the solutions we can do on the state level that will start to impact moving forward and up. Miles it has to be pretty pragmatic when you are talking to a farmer, right . It can be stuff way down the road. It has to be something that will help them in the relativar term. That might be a bit of a problem for a climatologist who is thinking in much longer terms. Sure. We talk about weather a lot. Shortterm vary glation the tmosphere. Variations in the atmosphere. Farmers are very seasonly based, because that is their livelihood. During the growing season, they want to get planted and harvest. Looking forward seasonally gives them an idea of what they can expect yield wise. Moving out further onto a seasonal and yearly and multiyear gives them an idea of olutions solutions that would benefit them moving forward. What about you . 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 a nimble institution. Good point. When you think about large statesissues, it is the that start flipping and then we move 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. The adaptation side of the house, 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 it the weather changing, impacting the questions and for that atter the reception you give get when you talk to the public . Is it changing . My sense is that it is somehow. First of all, you can use it as a tool to explain the difference between whether and climate. How do you explain it . What do you say . I say, depending on the audience, i say weather is your atbat and climate is your batting average. Whether 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 for climate, right . Yes, it is what grabs peoples attention. We were talking earlier. I met a climate denier but never a weather denier. It is real, local impacts 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 have gotten wetter overall and how that is going to continue and that is your tie into Climate Change. The problem i have discovered covering this for 25 years is there is the Scientific Method and scientists, they dont talk ike 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 those dots, to say this tornado or hurricane has a climate link it has been hard to get out of scientists. Has that changed . You want to take that, justin . We were affected by the flood in 2019 also. Iowa at the second wettest year on record in the 1993 in the wettest. We were three inches short of breaking that record. Third wettest spring, seventh wettest spring, third wettest winter. All of that goes into the large scale circumstances that lead to historic flooding. In iowa, these three floods in 10 years yeah. [laughter] you have a stack of evidence that is hard to counter. Would you go along with that, kathy . Has it gotten to that point our scientists encumbered by some constraints they felt in the past to make these links . Attribution science, seeing the fingerprints of Climate Change on events has moved a lot the past few years. Just last week, our colleagues saying the european heat wave, saying Climate Change definitely. 10 years ago, a reporter would call up and we would say, we cant tied one of into Climate Change. We are past that. We are seeing heat waves, big fires, and Climate Change here. It is in our face. Just the opposite of journal itch. Jourmism. We go for the sexy lead. You do all the disclaimers, and at the bottom you say, by the way we are screwed. If you flip that around, that might be good. I am just saying. [laughter] when you pick up the phone, what are they asking you . There are people who call and ask about their daughters wedding. [laughter] of course. I hope you charge them extra. [laughter] 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 worried, concerned, looking to buy a house in 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 what we have seen, the conditions from last year to this year, d1 drought to d3 drought, now moving into dryness, but in between, record wetness, so farmers, they call. I do a lot of event planning. They want some reassurance that, hell, is my crop going to come out right. They need somebody to. It weighs on you, but you are there as a service. Youre there trying to make things better with giving them the proper information. Martha, weddings and bar mitzvahs, too . Yes. The two primary questions are what is the forecast for the season. Seasonal feel, climate outlook. Primarily agricultural einterested people . Yes. There are baseball season were talking about. 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. What will it mean for the cities . People want to know how will it impact me . What can i do about it . That is a long phone call. You get a question 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 microthat can fit for one guy in one county in nebraska . When it comes to people caring about Climate Change, and you dont show them on the polar bear on the ice flow if they live in spring valley, nebraska, so you talk about crops, changes in precipitation, and things that are local. Because Climate Change is here. It is affecting all of us. The sooner we act with the less risky. You talk about localized things, localized solutions. 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 here. Do you feel that people are listening in a different way than they were when it was the r bear on the ice cube 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 ut together a contai