Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Unknown date
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 1/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
David Skorton: Hello, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us for this
rst session of Second Opinion, an ongoing series where the
Smithsonian is attempting to convene conversations among
interesting people with interesting points of view and interesting
experiences, on issues that we believe are of national importance. For
our conversation today we're going to address an issue that is of
concern to all of us and each of us, the state of our planet. Given the
impact on the planet, of the rise of the human species, the dawn of
agriculture, increasing land and water use, emerging infectious
diseases, non-communicable diseases, climate change, species
extinction, and other challenges, is there a reason to be optimistic
about the future of our planet, and our place on it?
Will our species have the ideas and means, and the will, to successfully
adapt to this upcoming era of change, and to alter its course for the
better? Here to discuss this question with me is a very esteemed group
of interesting people. I'm David Skorton, I'm the secretary of the
Smithsonian. And going to my left, I will introduce the di erent people
around here. I'm going to tell you a little bit about how you can learn
more about the wonderful work that they've done. I'll tell you that in
just a moment. To my immediate left is Denise G. Fairchild, who's
president of the Emerald Cities Collaborative. It's a national nonpro t
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 2/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
…
S
Cookie policy
To her left is Steve Monfort, who is the John and Adrienne Mars
Director and chief scientist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology
Institute. And Steve is also the deputy director of the Smithsonian's
National Zoological Park. To his left is Mary Evelyn Tucker. She's co-
director of the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University, where
she teaches in the joint master's program between the School of
Forestry and Environmental Studies and the Divinity School. Next to
Mary Evelyn is Anson Hines, who goes by Tuck, and he's the director of
the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center.
Next to Tuck is Catrina Rorke, who is the senior fellow for energy policy
at the R Street Institute, a free-market think tank, advancing solutions
to complex public policy problems. And between Catrina and me is
Jedediah Purdy, who goes by Jed, professor of law at Duke University,
and the author of After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene. Now, I
welcome you to dig deeper into the individual works of these panels,
which can be found on our Second Opinion website.
Well, thank you very much everyone for being a part of this. And I also
want to point out that we have an audience of very interesting people as
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 3/75
well all around us. And you will have a chance perhaps to hear some of
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
their questions later on. So, let's start by a quote from Catrina. And this
quote that Catrina has written, "The globe is indeed warming, and we
are largely responsible."
Tuck, I'm going to throw the rst one to you. Tell us a bit about what
you see as the challenges ahead, for getting a better understanding of
the impact of this undeniable climate change? Tuck?
Tuck Hines: Thanks. It's very clear, the science is very clear, that the
planet is warming, and that this is a result of rising carbon dioxide,
which has a ngerprint of coming from burning of fossil fuels. There's
no doubt about that. The trend for that has been well established and is
projected into the future. What's important to understand is the role of
science and the uncertainty of the implications for that in our social
and economic systems, and the interactions of the many factors that
that enormous change to the planet is causing. Interactions with food
production systems, with weather, with plant growth, with rising sea
level, all of those things vary enormously across the planet, and
interact with each other.
of the climate warming, but the consequences of that, and how that will
play out.
Denise Fairchild: Well, thank you for the question. Actually, I do believe
we're seeing sort of a mind shift, an idea shift happening in America, if
not the globe. I mean, to the extent that we have had the Paris Climate
Accord, for example, that represents nations around the world, for the
rst time, recognizing that there is a problem. [Ed. Note: This
conversation took place before President Trump announced that the
United States would withdraw from the Paris Accord.] That's been 20,
25 years in the make to get to that point, that nation states are
recognizing that there's a problem, something to do about it. The fact
that we can actually see low-income communities of color ... now, often
the environmental movement is seen as a middle-class, white
movement. But to this day, all the research points to the fact that low-
income communities of color care about, and want to do something
about, climate change, even greater than middle-class, white
communities.
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 5/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
It means that these are very fundamental issues that people care about.
I think what needs to happen at this stage is sort of guring out, what
are the tools that people need to actually make a di erence? So people
are doing things, like making their homes more energy-e cient.
People are moving towards solar energy. Folks are preserving and
improving how they conserve water, and they don't turn on their
washing machines in the middle of the day, or their dishwashers. So
just gradually the knowledge is disseminating across the globe and
particularly in the United States, where people are making individual
behavioral changes. The thing that I think is a fundamental challenge,
however, is looking at the structural causes of climate change, and how
we get people to understand that we are part of the problem in terms of
mass production and mass consumption.
You talked about greenhouse gas emissions and carbon and the burning
of fossil fuels. Well, that's fueled by an economic model that supports
an extractive economy in digging up the oils and all the fossil fuels. And
the question becomes, how do we get out of the cultural mindset that
we have to have more stu ? And we have to produce more stu , and we
have to consume more stu , that just continues to drive the conditions
that cause climate change. That's the fundamental issue, that's the
behavioral changes that need to be made at the personal level.
David Skorton: It’s a tall order; it sounds right to me, and I'm sure that
we can solve this problem during our discussion.
But I also think it's important to note that the government is not the
root of cures for every public policy problem. Often we nd cures in
innovations in individual communities, and the creativity of humans is
what leads to solutions, not the ingenuity of a bureaucrat. And so one of
the things that we work on at R Street is, how do we identify a way to
make the footprint of government small enough to allow this
intellectual curiosity to lead us to solutions at the same time that we
don't ignore signi cant market failures, where there is a compelling
need for government to intercede?
I'd also just say, and one further note of piling on pessimism, before I
try to turn a little bit constructive, that it's not just a collective action
problem across individuals or across nations in the present, which is
clearly right. It's also a commons tragedy across generations. Because
each generation can in a narrow, rational sense act in its own interest,
while putting the cost of dealing with the consequences of what it's
done on those who come after. So in that sense, the people making the
decisions are always the ones who can least be counted on to do the
right thing. I think of this as pointing in two directions. On one level I
want to sort of echo and amplify and generalize what Denise said a little
bit ago, about the need for change on the level of behavior and even
consciousness. This has to invite an answer where we change our
understanding of what problems are ours, you know, and what
interests are ours?
Mary Evelyn Tucker: And for these other comments as well. I think this
is very critical, because the way I would see it is, we have a great value
in the last 200-plus years of Enlightenment thinking, of individualism,
liberty, equality and fraternity. But individualism and innovation is
terri c, and Catrina, I agree with that. But I think we're also at a point
of hyper-individualism, where we haven't really acknowledged what is
a community-building way of being in the world? This is one of the
great characteristics of humans, we can build communities. So I think
we need from individualism to interdependence, independence to
interdependence, from equality to equity, about [how] these issues
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 11/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
Denise Fairchild: And I would also suggest that this notion of the
commons is nothing new. I think this hyper-individualism is
something that's only been within the makings of the Western
economies, and then we can look to indigenous cultures where the
commons was how people lived. We look at our Native American
community, for example. They say you make decisions, Jed, to your
point, based on seven generations. Two in the past, the current
generation, and four generations going forward. Which gives you a
sense of the inter-generational nature of this, that we are one, and part
of an ecosystem, and we cannot just see ourselves as consuming or
producing for me and myself and mine.
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 12/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
But that we are making decisions for the globe. For the part that we
have in the entire ecosystem. So, I think there are places that there's a
sense of optimism. Places where we can look, cultures that we can look
to, that really give us the pathway towards a di erent kind of way to
live in this climate challenge that we're facing.
Mary Evelyn Tucker: Well, pragmatism has its role, for sure. But I think
that the moral call, and I know Jed would share this, and many of us
here, I think is very profound, and your point to other cultures. I study
Confucianism, the oldest ongoing culture and civilization in the world,
now in its hyper-development phase. But the idea of Confucianism is,
even the character for the individuals is "an individual in relationship"
to others. And the idea, even for public service, is you're doing this for
the common good. It's a completely di erent way of being human in
the world. And there's a revival of Confucianism for reasons of over-
consumption, over-individualism, and a spiritual vacuum. So in short,
I think there is a complex multi-faceted moral call at this moment in
human history that needs to draw on other cultures, other religions,
other peoples and races and so on, to build what I would call a
multicultural, but planetary civilization, for the future. I think we can
do that.
Jedediah Purdy: If I might just add one note to what Mary Evelyn says,
the distinction between pragmatic and moral motivations is useful, but
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 13/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
David Skorton: These are the points I was hoping you would bring out,
and I'd appreciate my other colleagues bringing out points that I'd like
you to bring out.
The last thing you just said, thinking about the planet broadly, I'd like
to talk a little bit about species beyond the human species. It's been
suggested that one of the biggest impacts of climate change, some of
the things that Tuck said we have to pay attention to, is the growing
extinction of other species around the globe. Steve, you have spent a
very distinguished career working in this area, but for those of us who
haven't thought about this, why worry about it? Why does a diverse
population of animals or plants matter to us or to the Earth in general?
But there's another e ect, and the e ect has been that all of the
funding, a lot of the attention shifted away from biodiversity and
functioning ecosystems to now a sense of "What do we do about the
climate?" I guess I feel there's a very likely chance that ultimately,
humans will gure out the climate situation. It will eventually be
solved. It's an existential problem. And if, say it's solved and we do
that, but then we turn around and say, "What happened to the
biodiversity? Where's everything gone?"
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ And the reason it matters is 14/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
David Skorton: I think some earlier point that you were making about
indigenous cultures living that philosophy every day is very important.
Steve Monfort: There was something else that was being discussed
before. When you talk about individuals trying to take action and do
things, most people that I've been talking to, we are increasingly
bludgeoning them with gloom-and-doom, and we're not giving them
any solutions. They keep saying, "What can I possibly do?" Well what
challenge, if you talk about the atmosphere, what more ephemeral
thing are you asking people to do? They can make a choice. You can do
all kinds of things personally, but at some level, I feel the right to a
functioning atmosphere, clean air, somebody said recently, "To me,
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 16/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
that's a basic human right. Clean air and clean water and food, those to
me should be basic human rights."
Bill McDonough was at the Earth Optimism Summit and he said, "CO2
is the pollutant, and it's going into the atmosphere, and how would you
think that people in Flint, Michigan, would feel if you said, 'You have
lead in your water and it's at 100, let's say, units, and we're going to
reduce it down to 40.' Would you feel good about drinking water that
only has 40 parts of lead in it instead of 100? It's the same way with the
atmosphere and carbon dioxide." Anyway, if people looked at CO2 as a
pollutant that was a ecting their health, they might think of it
di erently.
David Skorton: In the late '50s, the environment in Los Angeles was
tough. As an asthmatic kid, there were many days where they said kids
shouldn't go out to play, and so on. And
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ a lot of changes were made 17/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
I stepped in front of you Jed, who wants to say something, but I can't
resist asking Catrina where she comes on this issue, because threading
that needle of how much to bring in regulation, how much to use a
carrot and stick and so on, how much should be relegated to
individuals, municipal, state, versus federal? It's one that we don't
agree on as a country, and I'm curious, Catrina. Then I promise, Jed, I'll
stop stepping on your minds and let you come in.
Catrina Rorke: I think that we've touched on two parts. This sort of
individual call to action, "What can an individual do," and "What can
the government do?" I think this individual conversation is a really
important one to have about how you feel like you participate in your
community, however broadly you might de ne it. But everybody on
Earth taking shorter, colder showers is not going to solve climate
change.
And then you can look at government policy, and government policy is
maybe this opposite mechanism that dictates which actions are
preferable or not allowable. Those instruments can be helpful. You can
adapt them in a variety of ways, like market mechanisms to reduce acid
rain were obviously quite helpful, and came in at a relatively low cost
for all the achievements we made.
But between those two is the marketplace. And every day, trillions of
decisions are made in the marketplace. And right now, the vast
majority of them don't think about climate change as a problem. They
don't think about global problems as a problem.
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ When you buy a pack 18/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
of gum, you're not thinking about the supply chain. When you take the
bus, you're not thinking about "Was this bus manufactured according
to the values that I hold?" So we're in a marketplace where we're
making decisions without accounting for these problems, and that
marketplace itself can be constrained, not necessarily by the individual
side, but by the government side. And we're seeing that right now.
David Skorton: I interrupted Jed then. And then we'll come to you next.
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 19/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 20/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
David Skorton: Yeah, it's very very true. Denise, do you have
something?
I'm also seeing, Catrina, the local communities like in Florida this last
November election, where it's a very conservative environment that
says "We want distributive energy." At the end of the day, they beat
back state legislation advanced by utilities to prevent distributive
energy. And the folks in that community
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ says "No. We want state 21/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
And the last thing I'd say about that is "shareholders." I see, actually,
the market performing very well and big business really clearly trying
to improve their business services, their business products and
practices to address sort of this new sense for having sort of a clean
economy. And shareholders are looking at this from a risk analysis
basis. "What's the risk if we don't x climate change, and what pro ts
are at risk in this sense?" So I do see that government has a role, and I
do see the market is stepping into that role in a very proactive way,
incentivized by government.
Tuck Hines: I agree with that. I think that there is a lot of opportunity
for the broader standards to be arrived at by community, by
government, but individuals will behave in their own best interests,
and there's a diversity of interests out there, so the collective interface
of that is important, of those di ering opinions and values and wants
and desires and solutions.
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 22/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
Mary Evelyn Tucker: Well this is a great discussion, and I appreciate the
di ering points of view. I want to come back, Jed thinks in this
philosophical way, and I think with the world religions, a complement.
And we've talked about ethics and so on, and you've said so beautifully,
Steve, about how we value species not only in our own self-interest.
Ecosystem services has developed a huge following, and partly because
it's trying to speak to the market. You know it's very pragmatic. What's
the value of the wetlands, and so on and so forth.
I love that you say we need intrinsic value. It's part of this conversation,
and that means for species, clearly. It means for ecosystems, clearly. It
means for what is a commons, and a common good. What I would
suggest that we're in this exciting transition where we actually don't
have a fully developed sense of ethics—the world's religions, by and
large, apart from indigenous traditions as we've mentioned. My
husband is a student of indigenous religions. But we don't have an
ethics that is up to the task. So our cultures need to expand.
sacred rivers in India. The Yamuna and the Ganges River now have
rights as humans. So I think we're in this exciting moment of
expansion of an ethical and moral sensibility that's grounded in the
science that gives us that sense of the intricacy of ecosystems.
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 24/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
The books have exploded. On our website, the Forum on Religion and
Ecology, there are statements of all the world's religions on this, but in
particular, Christianity has opened the doors, I would say widely.
I think it's true that visual art, performing arts, arts of all kinds, can
connect in sort of a visceral way that sometimes just the presentation
of facts doesn't get across. And so I want to throw this out to anybody
and everybody in the panel. What are the challenges in leveraging what
I'll call "culture"? Arts and other kinds of cultural uses to help people
better understand the changes that are underway. What are the
obstacles in getting a cultural message out? Not any particular cultural
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 25/75
message, but messages in general. Any thoughts about this?
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
Denise Fairchild: Well I would just say that part of what I hope we're
building is a movement. It's an environmental movement, it's a climate
change movement. It's going to radically change how we live and what
we value. And if you look at other movements, as in civil rights
movement of the ’60s, and yes, I was around. I was one of those around
at that period that culture was very critical to building and sustaining
and growing the movement. It was freedom songs. It was the Black Arts
movement at that time, in terms of the poets, the artwork, it was what
actually energized people and gave them a sense of hope, as opposed to
being pessimistic in the face of challenges, that it is the art, the culture,
the music, that breeds life into the possibilities for change. And so I
think it's a very critical part of a climate change movement to bring our
artists and our culture into communicating values and ideas that are
hard to dissect through scientists.
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 26/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
Tuck Hines: Art is often talked about as something over there that's on
the wall or performed on stage. But I look at it more as it's our
interaction with the environment. Architecture is a form of art.
Jedediah Purdy: I think that's just exactly right. There's this arresting
passage late in Otto Leopold's classic work Sand County Almanac where
he says, "The purpose of conservation policy is to breed a
consciousness and a way of seeing that can appreciate the world in a
new fashion." That is to say, our land use policy, our agriculture policy,
our energy policy, they all have aesthetic and even moral dimensions.
They shape the landscape and they shape the terms of experience
where people will learn to relate to and value the landscape.
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 27/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
And so, to me, those are ways for me to remember and to heighten my
remembrance and how I value that in my consciousness. And so, those
are touch-points for me. So when I see art that's about nature, it
reinforces for me this intense emotional feeling that I have arrived. So I
think it's a very powerful thing.
Catrina Rorke: I think art also has the power to tell many di erent
stories at once, right? So, the Environmental Film Festival is a great
example. You know, half of the movies could be about a changing
climate, but from completely di erent perspectives!
And I think it helps us weigh how complex what we're trying to impact
might be. It helps us approach complicated problems in a way that's
relatable. And helps us, I hope, make individual choices, and collective
choices so that we can gain a better perspective on what happens
outside our own backyards. Yeah.
Mary Evelyn Tucker: I just wanted to mention ... Maybe you [Secretary
Skorton] could comment, because you ...
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ that environmental 28/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
David Skorton: Yeah, I mean Yale's been a great benchmark for the
whole academic community in this regard. But if you look backwards in
the world of higher education and learning in general, these
disciplinary separations are relatively recent. And acquisition of
knowledge and exploitation, and so on, whether for practical purposes
or just to learn, used to be much less disciplinary and much less
divided.
And it's true that there's a little reversal going on now. More and more
educators around the country are seeing integration of the STEM
disciplines and non-STEM disciplines; I feel it's important. But I want
to keep the heat on you guys.
I want to just go back a little tiny bit to the energy issue that was
brought up about distributive energy and di erent technologies. Really
on the way to asking a di erent question. Someone asked the question
at the top of this little explanation, and asked it again at the end.
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 29/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
And so, there's plenty of reason that people feel that way. One example,
in the middle of the 19th century, there was a rising concern about
whale oil becoming scarce. That was used then to light lamps to light
your home. And eventually human ingenuity led us to petroleum
products, and then now these newer forms of energy and so on.
And when you think about creating energy for the future, and adapting
to potentially large shifts, and many of the problems that we're talking
about today. Innovative new technologies is one of the rst things that
we always bring up.
And so the question is, now, I don’t mean this to sound negative, or
cynical, but can we invent our way out of this dilemma? There's two
points of view. One point of view is population will get to a certain size,
Tuck and I talked about this before, and will reach some sort of limit to
our ability to adapt.
And the other point of view is that technology will, and ingenuity, let's
put a more general term, will allow us to make some changes. Where do
the panelists fall on that issue? Can we invent our way out of this set of
problems? Anybody? Everybody?
Catrina Rorke: Yeah, so, the global 2000 report in the Carter
administration talked about this super bleak future. About resource
scarcity, and abundant poverty, and a polluted environment. And you'd
think that heading into the year 2000 meant a total global collapse, and
that's not what happened! So this Malthusian perspective, that people
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 30/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
And I think the data that we collect suggests that humans are not a
burden, that we're not going to reach a carrying capacity. That our
capacity for innovation actually allows humans to be ever more
productive. Which is why population continues to increase, and not
collapse. It's because every generation we can add more.
And so, when we think about the policy problems that we're looking at
today, we can look at them as technology problems.
Catrina Rorke: And we have con dence. And we can see right now that
we're innovating our way around them.
Even if we don't want to solve climate change, the things that we're
innovating right now are helping us nd our way around that problem.
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 31/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
And so, this idea, that humans can't solve a problem that we're
presented with? I think we have no data for that. Humans are
marvelous at treating problems, especially aggressive problems like
this, quite well. That's why agricultural productivity is up. It's ... I don't
know, that's why we're going to solve the climate challenge.
David Skorton: You know, I have to just jump in on this one. When you
talk about infectious diseases, which is such a very interesting sort of
cyclical problem, I remember when I was a med student, a long time
ago in the ’70s, that we were talking a lot about non-communicable
diseases. Heart disease, and cancer.
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 32/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
Much of my life I lived thinking exactly what you said is right. But then
I think eventually those cycles may unwind in a way that we can't come
to. But it's a ... but I hope you're right.
Denise Fairchild: I don't think ... I think technology is a tool, but I don't
think it's going to get us out of our climate challenge.
Denise Fairchild: Great, great tools, toys. They're not tools, they're
great toys.
You know, because, when you look at energy, for example. We use
technology to invent, you know, steam engines. But we've used
renewable wind and solar energy, we had those in the beginning. And
we used and created fossil fuel technologies that got us into the place
where we are today.
And we are now going back, and to your point, to the sort of renewable
technologies that we had in the beginning. The only reason why fossil
fuel technologies advanced, for cars and other things, is because there
was a greater market opportunity to accumulate wealth and to make
money o of this.
Skorton], you’re from California, the drought conditions and the loss of
our water aquifers just totally destroying agricultural opportunities.
I've met farmers who're coming east looking for land to grow food
because it's an issue. However, we do have aquaponics and
hydroponics. We're nding some tools to help solve, to mediate, to
mitigate some of the problems, but I don't think it's going to solve the
climate change.
Denise Fairchild: Unless we change our economy and change the ethics
behind it.
Mary Evelyn Tucker: Steve you had your hand up, I'll go after you.
Steve Monfort: Yeah, I mean, I'm actually more optimistic about, I'm
not a climate change expert, but it does seem to me, we know what that
problem is, where there are alternatives that people can be using. And
frankly if there was more consensus or action around policy, we
probably would be on our way to making the change that's needed.
And people are not going to protect—it sounds cliché—but what they
don't love and don't understand. So young people who don't have
perspective of what nature is, or don't have that opportunity. And in
the West, we ought to have that opportunity, we're wealthy enough to
do that.
—Steve Monfort
and if everybody's standing on all those square meters, then you’ve got
a problem that technology isn't going to solve.
We can see that those limitations are starting to impact us, and there
are new solutions coming along to some of those, absolutely.
Renewable energies could very easily meet some of the challenges that
we're seeing. And we see, I think, at Steve's Earth Optimism Summit
that we participated in, there was a guy that said, you know, "Back in
the Stone Age, we didn't run out of rocks before we left the Stone Age
behind." We moved on, you know, to a new technology. And I thought
that was pretty amusing.
But on the other hand, if you project the current rate of population
growth on the planet. And every civilization, actually, that is in this,
has actually started to level o , because of advanced technology. So the
concept that Malthusian limitations and technology and economic, the
concept that economic models require, always growth, to be successful,
are not necessarily at odds with each other, if you look at a larger view
in life.
Jedediah Purdy: I would just add that when we ask whether we can
expect to solve problems, prospectively, we run the incidental risk of
forgetting that we're already an ongoing catastrophe, for the planet, in
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 37/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
We don't need whale oil anymore, but many of the whales are still
substantially gone and depleted. Just to come back to your original
example, and that's almost the least of it. So we don't just have
preventative work to do, we have reparative work to do, as well.
Denise Fairchild: Yeah, I would agree with Jed, in sort of following the
ideas of Naomi Klein, where she talks about, this says everything about
the economy and how we de ne wealth and prosperity as being central
to this. And understanding, I think, also, Steve's point, about the
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 38/75
intrinsic value of nature, but more even advance that further, to
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
Steve Monfort: Yeah, think it's a matter of providing people with win-
win choices, there, that we need to, there need to be, it has to be an
opportunity for someone to make a good choice as a consumer, let's
say. For a product, whether it be a car, or something else they need to
live or the food that they buy. We can't expect people to not need those
things or want those things. But somehow the market has to be
incentivized in some way so that those choices are available. And then
people need to be able to make a choice that bene ts their livelihoods,
their families, and so forth. But that also has a minimal impact on
others in terms of things like climate change.
And then people need to exercise their power in making those decisions
through their pocket books, but also they need to also at the ballot box.
People need to become more, better citizens, with respect to expressing
what they want, and making that known to their ... those that we
employ to govern us.
Mary Evelyn Tucker: Well, I love the point that Jed made about well-
being. And I think that's certainly key to what we're all talking about.
And I would just make two suggestions, if I might, picking up on what
my colleagues have just said. That, if we understand, that human
economy is a sub-system of nature's economy, that clearly there will
be limits that are built into that, that's how an ecosystem works. But
it's complex!
And the other part of that is, is again our colleagues have been saying,
what is conservation? What is preservation? How do we go back to
some of the great thinkers about this in our own history? And from
other traditions and cultures.
But I love this point, that, I would say, it's conservation, preservation,
management. But it's also restoration. It's restoration of these
ecosystems. And along with restoration of the human spirit. What is it
going to mean to rede ne our place within these planetary systems?
We're the rst generation to know we're part of a very complex earth
system, 4.6 billion years old! What does that mean for well-being? It's
an exciting thing to...
Tuck Hines: I'm very pragmatic, and I see the rate at which the climate
is changing, and the consumption of fossil fuel as an enormous
challenge. It's coming at us so fast that there's not a lot of change, not a
lot of time to change everybody's ideas about their cultures and their
global values, in my opinion.
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 40/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
Catrina Rorke: So, I'm gonna maybe throw a bone in the mix and say
that maybe our biggest challenge is perspective. So we haven't yet done
a lot of talking about the challenges between the developed and the
developing world in addressing climate change. But we do know that
climate change is not the only problem we're facing.
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 41/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
David Skorton: So I'm going to put my vote in for the biggest challenge.
It's somewhat related to Catrina's comment and in part to Jed's
comment. I think the biggest challenge is the attitude that we don't
need to learn anymore. That we know everything we need to know, and
we're just going to argue it through from our various points of view.
Now I'd like to give a chance to our audience members to ask any
questions. You don't have to ask questions, you can ask questions, you
don't need to, but you could. And you can see that this is a fairly
friendly group. They've failed to go after each other, so.
Questions, please?
It's like everything is here for us with like, we got the tools to do it, we
just have to look at it from a di erent perspective. Ants for example,
they work together on a level we overlook and not really understand.
There's certain things that they do. And it's like little stu that
escalates like the eyes we have, the cosmos stu like that, o ers a form
of communication. And so I feel as though we have like Earth is just one
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 42/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
small part of what God has created as far as like us, 'cause you know,
it's all atoms, and mass, so, we all coming from like one direct source,
and it's like, we got dimensions.
And right now we at a low dimension and the higher dimension will be
sent from di erent perspectives. Certain higher levels, certain
individuals, function like animals, we got the technology to watch
these creatures, and stu , and see how they like get, use the technology
to get more insight on what they are doing, instead of worrying about
the other stu that's not going to help bene t earth and its evolution.
'Cause I feel as though celestial messages come down to other people
when we give them our sole mission to do stu and sort of, I don't want
to get too deep on you but that's all I have to say.
David Skorton: Appreciate that, Ahyende’, and I think for those who
couldn't hear that, Ahyende raises a point about the greater context in
which we're living our lives and in which we're receiving challenges
and messages. And appreciate your perspective on that. Anybody have
any comments on that at all?
Denise Fairchild: Well I think I was also hearing a solution. You were
de ning a problem, but I think you were also telling us what the
solution is to be resilient. Right?
Ahyende' Gray: Can I add on one thing, excuse me. Because I forgot, I
didn't mention what I was supposed to say in the rst part. But it's like,
so we have religions and stu . So we all come, so it's just like the
animals, they come from di erent environments so they have di erent
perspectives on how they see things and I feel as though religion is just
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 43/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
a way of how we see things, and the experiences we're given. So music
ties into that…
David Skorton: Thank you, thank you, Ahyende', for the thought. Other
thoughts or questions, from the audience?
Mary Evelyn Tucker: I think maybe what I'm also hearing, but I want to
hear more. It's my view, religions have their problems and their
promise. But, if what I'm hearing from you, one of the ways we're
trying to interpret religions, is these are systems that have embedded
peoples in ecosystems for millennia. Rituals are done in relation to
speci c places, directions, water, the elements, et cetera. So we call
them, actually religious ecologies. See, where humans have done this
over centuries, Native Americans, indigenous peoples. But, all religions
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 44/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
have had that sense. And their rituals are winter solstice, Christmas,
Easter, connected to celestial movements and thought. So I think the
question is to raise up ... OK, how have cultures actually tried to relate
to ecosystems, and how can we do a better job, you see, that's the
challenge.
So that's the mentality I grew up with. And speci cally in this ecology
of southern Maryland, what is now Washington D.C., having at least 30
generations of oral history back here. The question I wanted to ask as
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 45/75
someone who has been to Standing Rock, as someone who has been
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
And in this round table, in this Smithsonian Castle, in this elite space
with a 360-camera and people wearing collared shirts, I see people
referencing and talking about indigenous knowledge as part of the
solution. And I haven't been alive for very long, but my understanding
and given what I've been taught by my mother, my grandparents, and
the plight that they went through for our knowledge to be respected
and invoked and presented as a possible solution, is something that's
very new. It's something that's very radical. So I just wanted to ask
before our break here, for the people who have been talking about
indigenous ways of understanding the world, indigenous technologies
which I think history proves are superior to sustainable living than
what we would consider our modern Western technologies. Where did
you hear about that? When did you start to take indigenous seriously as
a person in your position? As a decision maker, as a person of
in uence? When did you start to take indigenous knowledge seriously
and when you bring it up, what's the image in your mind? Because the
image in my mind is my land and what I experienced at Standing Rock.
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 46/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
Confronting the state directly. But I want to know for you what's the
image in your head when you talk about indigenous ways of living?
David Skorton: I'll take a crack at that rst and then open it up to the
crew. I appreciate the question, appreciate you being a part of this
today. You're bringing up indigenous knowledge and very important
issues in a social and political context. Which is more than reasonable.
But the direct question that you asked is where did we rst begin to say
appreciate or invoke, and for me it was during my years at the
University of Iowa, and also at Cornell University, where I had the great
pleasure of learning from the Native American community there.
Cornell is on the Haudenosaunee lands. And I got to know a bit about it,
and that's all I know is a bit. I freely admit that. Through people I met
who are members of the nations in those areas. From religious things
that I read and tried to understand. And then through just discussions
like this, about speci c problems that then shed some light on a
di erent way of looking at problems. A di erent way of thinking. So
that's where it came to me. Any others wish to?
Denise Fairchild: I've always been culturally rooted, and when I speak
of indigenous cultures I look to even my African ancestry and know
about from the fact that they, from mother Africa, look at trees as
living beings where the elders reside, and how the water and rocks are
seen as fully animated. But just a lot of that reading was important. But
this movement, this climate change movement in a global context,
there's a lot of conversation with respect to our peers in the global
south, that are bringing the indigenous cultures and values to the table.
And it's a contest, it's a challenge, but it is actually ... There's a huge
international conversation taking place and there is a local community,
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 47/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
David Skorton: Thanks. I'm gonna call our break, because they keep
putting a break sign over there. And before I go on break, I just want to
remind those out there who may want to know what the URL is to
follow us along, because I think what the world needs is more people
paying attention to Second Opinion.
Mary Evelyn Tucker: Could I answer his question? Would you mind?
Mary Evelyn Tucker: So in the early ’70s, Thomas Barry, our teacher,
was teaching classes at Fordham and Columbia on Native Americans.
And my husband for his PhD did his thesis on shamanism with the
Haudenosaunee and other groups. And then in 1997 we had a large
conference at Harvard on indigenous traditions and ecology, bringing
people from every continent for this issue. And my husband teaches
this at Yale as well. And we're friends with Oren Lyons and a number of
other people. So the image that comes to mind, I wanted to just
rea rm the Standing Rock moment I think underscores this coming
together of a profoundly spiritual grounding. Rituals, re, and
ceremony, that made that possible. And the younger peoples who
started it I think had a resonance around the world that was
astonishing. So I just wanted to say that's what comes to mind for me,
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 48/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
right now, is Standing Rock and the other issues across the country that
have been birthed out of it. And I really thank you for your question.
~INTERMISSION~
David Skorton: Well, Catrina, in one of your writings, which I've had a
very good time learning about, you've written, "There is no morally
correct level of atmospheric carbon dioxide."
need it from people in urban communities, and so on. But I think that is
happening, and that's what's very exciting.
Let me just give you one example on an international level that I think
is rather fascinating. In China, there's a movement called
ecocivilization. Ecological civilization. It's part of the constitution that
this is a right of people for healthy water and air and food, as you
mentioned earlier. They are drawing on their traditions of
Confucianism and Buddhism and Taoism to say, well, how did these
traditions integrate humans into nature? What are their views that can
be brought forward?
So that's a rather stunning, I think, example. To say how will this have
traction over time with the tremendous problems China is facing is a
very, very big question, but I put it before us because I think it's a very
fascinating movement forward.
I would also say that the pope's encyclical on the environment, Laudato
si’, which really brings together what I think is coming together, and
that is ecology and justice. That the ecological community has often
been concerned with preserving or conserving ecosystems. Humans are
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 50/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
over here. The religions have often been concerned about justice for
humans, but not seeing it related to the environment. So, the huge
movement of Laudato si’, “care for our common home,” is to say,
people and planets are integrated and that clearly we have to have
environmental justice at the core of this. Those who are su ering from
climate change in coastal communities and elsewhere are the most
vulnerable, people who haven't created the problem but are su ering
from it.
And I'll conclude that the climate march in 2014 with 400 people in
New York began with indigenous peoples in the front. It was
magni cent and powerful, but 10,000 religious leaders and laity joined
that march, and it was a watershed for this religious
environmentalism, if you will.
David Skorton: Thanks, Mary Evelyn. Other thoughts about this, Jed?
I think second, because we can't avoid making choices about what sort
of world we're going to preserve and any world will foster certain forms
of value in relationship to it and preclude others or make them more
di cult, it's essential that plural moral voices and traditions
participate in a genuine and empowered way in the question of what
sort of world we're going to make. So, there's a question, if you will, of
political justice, and a question of distributive justice.
And then the third thing, I think, is that questions have often been
thought of as matters of domestic policy, welfare and social provisions,
say, have environmental dimensions on many levels. Let me give one
example. If we want to think of the question how we could understand
ourselves as living well without demanding more, always demanding
more, if we could decouple our sense of wealth from the fact of growth
at some point, which I think has to be part of the said innovations that
we're talking about. Well, at present the need for more is enforced
politically. If a democratic government or even just a minimally
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 52/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
So, an economy that makes people more secure, that makes people
safer, gives them more room to take risks, not just in the
entrepreneurial sense, but in other senses, may be a precondition to or
at least the help to transformative environmental politics.
Denise Fairchild: Well, I'm in agreement, basically, with the idea that
environmental climate justice, economic justice and social justice is
intricately related.
It's the notion of an ethic where extraction at all costs is OK, that it is
rooted in how we measure well-being. It's rooted in the gross domestic
product, GDP, as opposed to looking at di erent ways of measuring
well-being, as in the country of Bhutan, where the happiness index,
people are beginning to understand that it's not just about how much
we produce and how much money I make. It's the environment I
breathe, the time I have to spend with my kids, the other dimensions
that matter to people, and they really do matter. No one really wants to
work 60-hour weeks. Nobody really wants to work 40-hour weeks. But
that is how our economy is driven.
with catastrophic climate change, but that's what the models bear
because economic growth can solve so many problems.
Steve Monfort: Well, that particular idea, I think, doesn't really match
with my own worldview, because economic justice, or economic
increase in everybody's standard of living, doesn't necessarily translate
to a quality of life holistically, and we were just talking about what it
means to live more completely and more holistically in the world, or
my connection with nature, or how ecosystems function and
biodiversity is sustained.
You can be wealthy and you can have more money and more justice in
that sense, but I'm very worried that that is not a solution if you're not
also solving how do these systems function? We can't just grow without
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 55/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
taking account for the natural function of systems that need to be left
alone, need to be intact.
David Skorton: Let me push this a little bit further. It depends, I think,
in a way, on where you are in the spectrum of economic development.
In the West and in the cultures that most of us come from, we tend to
think about economic development as starting from a pretty good place
and trying to get to a better place. And yet, I think echoed in some of
Catrina's comments is a concern about societies that are way below
that level of functioning and su ciency, and whether movement of
those societies into more predictable food supplies and so on is a good,
no matter how you get there. You didn't say it that way, but I think the
ultimate argument would be that the end justi es the means if one is at
a barely subsistence level.
can ignore all of the side e ects of economic development and that has
to be managed in some way that is sensible and that will sustain justice
in other ways. I'm not an expert in social environmental justice, but I
would say it probably has many dimensions to how we de ne it. You
were already talking about it. So economic justice is only one part of
that, so that's all I was really trying to get at.
Denise Fairchild: And I would say the issue of equity, even in Western
society, is an issue we have to attend to. That poor communities are
very vulnerable to climate change. And I was just talking to Tuck earlier
that if you're wealthy in America, you can move to higher ground when
there's sea level rise. Not a problem. I can buy another house. I can get
in my car. I can drive away. Katrina can hit. No problem. But if you're
poor and you're vulnerable ...
To me, the reality is we’re going to have, trillions of dollars are going to
be spent on development in one way or the other, so the idea is well,
how are we going to deploy those funds to develop in a smart way that
gets people what they need without also destroying the environment?
That's the win-win that's out there for me. And it's all relative, like you
said. In the Masai culture it's about how many cattle you have, let's say.
If we just endlessly increase cattle herds, we're going to have no
grazing pasture and we're going to have this commons tragedy going,
so we have to create other avenues for these folks to have economic
development.
been able to make a di erence that caused a ripple e ect that caused
more di erences and something very positive happened. So what can
each of us do individually to make a di erence? I want to begin to talk
about solutions, not necessarily this panel, but just each of us in
general. What can we be doing? What can we suggest to our friends and
colleagues and neighbors in the United States and around the world, to
make a di erence about this set of problems. We all acknowledge
there's problems. We all acknowledge that there's complexities in what
caused the problems and what might sustain them. What can each of us
begin to do?
Steve Monfort: Can I use one example? It's not my own personal action,
but we just held this Earth Optimism Summit and so we invited these
250-plus people from around the world to come and tell us what works
in conservation and why and how can you take those successes to scale.
And one of the guys who was there, his steps stood out for me.
His name is Afro Shaw, he's from Mumbai, he's a lawyer, and he lives
in an apartment building. He would look out the window and he saw
that Verosa Beach, which is out where he could see, was just covered
with plastic pollution, just horri c. And he gave his talk here, and he's
been evangelizing what he does. But he and an 84-year-old neighbor
looked at this and said, "We have to do something. The government's
not doing anything, what can we do?"
And they went out and they decided they were going to start a social
media campaign and they were going to start picking up plastic. And he
was telling the story, so now they're 75 weeks into it, it's the largest
beach cleanup that's ever been done with thousands of tons of plastic
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 60/75
have been picked up. And this was about just two individuals taking
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
action. And so he said to everyone, "I don't believe you have to wait for
the government. You don't have to wait for anybody to tell you what to
do." He says, "The problem was with me. The solution was with me."
And he took action to do something.
So I think it's a wicked kind of a problem for how can a person have an
impact? It's basically trying to catalyze a community in wherever you
live and to take action. Someone told me once that ... I was doing an
environmental education program in Miami with middle-school kids,
and a guy who I was there with, he says, "Well this is great." He says,
"So what do you do back home in your own kid's school?" And I
realized I was a thousand miles away, working with middle-school
kids, and I'd never been to my own kid's grade school.
So I came home and I went and I saw the principal, and I went and
talked to him, and I started doing environmental education there. So
one of the things that I think you can do,
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ wherever you are, wherever 61/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
you live, is to take ownership of the community in which you live in.
And we're so distributed, and we live ... No one's from here. This is a
famous place, where no one is really from Washington. A lot of people
aren't. You are. But take ownership of the place that you live in. And
learn about it, and know about it, and try to become engaged in it. I
think that's the only way I can think of, is to be involved in your
community on a personal level.
Tuck Hines: I think that's a great comment. You know, the Smithsonian
Environmental Research Center focuses on our home in Chesapeake
Bay. And we view the largest estuary in the country, the Chesapeake
Bay, as really a system that includes the watershed. 64,000 square
miles, six states and the District of Columbia. You know we're all sitting
here on our main study site.
So, to Steve's comment, you have to interact and take responsibility for
yourself. Yes, you are one person. But that's what you can control, for
sure. And you can make that happen by connecting to others through
culture and choices. And making the economy drive forward, and
improve ... Apply those technologies in an e ective way, rather than
staying in the rut of how it was done before.
And also, as our own agencies live large on less, and the di erent ways
of doing that, but the notion of power. We have power with respect to
money and how we use money, and I think it's not just the individual
agency around withholding resources, but it's collective power as well.
And to the extent that we actually join organizations
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ and in uence the 63/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
Mary Evelyn Tucker: And invest. Jed, you were trying to get in.
Jedediah Purdy: I just would like to agree and amplify how essential I
think this point is, about collective work that aims at mobilizing power.
If we're on the theme of optimism and what the individual can do,
much as I think it's important to honor and cultivate all the kinds of
virtues and local commitments that people are talking about, and I
really do, I think we all do, I think optimism can be a double-edged
thing.
An analogy. I will never forget this public opinion nding, now more
than 15 years ago, that if you add up the share of Americans who think
they're in the top 1 percent of national income, and the share who think
they aren't yet but soon will be, you get more than 50 percent. So,
that's optimistic.
And in some ways you might try things that you wouldn't try
otherwise, if you didn't believe that, but it's a cruel and unrealistic
optimism, and it sets people up for a disappointment that may account
for some of the kinds of simplistic political solutions that they are
drawn to.
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 64/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
Steve Monfort: Just to add on to that. I think once you've made this
personal decision to change your behavior or change the way you live,
it makes you more likely to then join with others that share those
values, and it makes you more motivated to want to vote with your
money and vote in the ballot box with people who support your
viewpoints, and makes you more active in wanting to see that end at a
point that you believe it may occur.
And so I think maybe it's optimism that you can have an impact, but I
think also that personal responsibility motivates you to be an engaged
citizen, and to learn more, and to stay informed, and so forth. And I
think that's another thing that we can all be doing. If everyone was
more informed about the facts, they would at least make a better
decisions, or at least more informed decisions.
that sees data on climate change and says, "Oh no, God's just tugging
us a little closer," or something. So how do we break through that?
Steve Monfort: But the question about getting more information and
being more entrenched in your view, I think part of that is, where are
we getting information from? And today it's very di cult for people to
know, to receive information that isn't super biased in one way or the
other. Even the way people get knowledge o the Internet, or watching
the news media, there's inherent bias in the way things are being
presented. People aren't being given the knowledge for them to make a
decision, the actual facts.
When you say people are presented with climate data, I don't think very
many people look at climate data. I think
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ they look at someone else's 66/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
spin on whatever the data was. That's a huge problem. Because where
are people getting their information, how are they supposed to make a
decision if all they're getting is what reinforces their own view?
David Skorton: I think we're depending too much on the usual ways of
disseminating information. This is going to sound like a hopelessly
retro suggestion, but what we're doing here today, and obviously this is
a carefully selected group, it's like an old-fashioned salon. We're
sitting around, we don't really know each other that well but we're
talking about things that we nd of mutual interest. Are we lacking that
in our communities, even in our households? Individual, looking at our
phones, trying to get information from some other source?
Steve Monfort: That's why you took away our phones, I think. So we'll
actually talk to one other.
And so, we're stuck with language, even though I nd it very curious
that the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, was created under
a Republican administration and up to ten years ago there was a
bipartisan agreement that climate was an issue and environmental
issues are important. What has happened to the communication
vehicles that have all of a sudden shifted that, I'm not sure, but be what
it may be, how do we talk to people where they are, to address the
things that they see happening in their everyday lives?
Mary Evelyn Tucker: I agree with that, of course, very much. And
everyone's talking about framing and telling stories and so on. That's
very much in the air, and I think it's terri c. I mean, the EPA came into
being because of the Stockholm Conference on Environmental
Development, and everywhere around the world started EPAs. So that
was an international pressure as well.
And I just wanted to put back into the conversation a couple things.
That we asked the question about individual action, which again comes
from our valuing of individuals in our own culture. But I wanted to
suggest that our individual action is always community based, and it's
also resulting in further communities.
And I wanted also to suggest that I think some of the wisest traditions
in the world have this very long-term sensibility of detachment from
the fruits of our actions. We will never know what our particular life
work is, the wu wei of Taoism. The Bhagavad Gita talks about karma
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 68/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
phala. We will never know. This is what Gandhi based his work on for
non-violence and Thoreau and King.
Mary Evelyn Tucker: Exactly. And it was tremendous. And we had two
days on religion and ecology, which was wonderful. And I love that
meeting. In that meeting the president endorsed the papal encyclical,
along with the past president and future president, which was
unprecedented for a society like that. So I think we're making progress
in this sense that there's a moral forte.
But I came out of that meeting, went back to the Holiday Inn, and an
African-American older man was on the street of Baltimore, that had
just exploded with its own internal issues, and he was putting water in
those trees. And I said to him, "There's nothing in that water, is
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 69/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
there?" And he said, "No man. This is just water." And he said, "These
are my friends. And I do this every day." And he said, "During the
winter this one tree was dying," he said. But somebody told him it's OK,
it's gonna make it through the winter. And he said, "Look at that tree.
It's growing." And he said, "I call this tree 'Hope.'" Which was so
striking, hope in that tree.
And to me, this is the sense that even in urban settings, where we can
have tree planting and so on, we can have that sense of the possibility
of resilience and hope.
David Skorton: It's beautiful. Now, I'm going to ask the panelists one
nal question. Integrating all of this thinking, you’ve been thinking
about this for years and decades in some cases, in the end, do you have
reason to be optimistic about our future in this regard? Something
more than a simple yes or no would be appreciated.
Steve Monfort: Yeah, I will start with that. I make the analogy about my
job. People say, "What's the best part of your job?" And I say, "The best
part of my job is the people, and the worst part of my job is the people."
And I think that when it comes right down to it it's really about the
nature of humankind, and whether or not we're the worst of what we
are, or we can become the best of what we are capable of being.
Denise Fairchild: I'm very optimistic. I have a book coming out, October
17, called Energy Democracy, presenting case studies, 12 communities
around the United States, that are actually working on this question of
environment, climate, economy, and social justice, proving at the local
level that there are models being created, there are successes taking
place, and there's a growing movement of movements that are merging
together around this notion, this intersection of climate, economy and
social justice.
So we're presenting case examples that can, we hope, grow from these
sort of cottage demonstrations into sort of larger movements. So I'm
very optimistic.
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 71/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
David Skorton: You know if we had our phones we could preorder that
book. Mary Evelyn?
Tuck Hines: I'm also very optimistic, for a number of reasons. As Mary
Evelyn just mentioned, the next generation of scientists that's coming
along is much smarter, much better integrated, and better trained than
we ever were. And they're able to encompass the holistic and complex
problems that we're taking on to arrive at solutions. Moreover, I've
actually seen in my lifetime things get better. I've seen small instances,
but also big complicated systems get better. Monterey Bay is doing
better. Chesapeake Bay is even starting to do better. The sound system
in North Carolina are coming along better.
So these are systems that have faced really big problems, and were way
further, in much more trouble than they were. I believe that the
technology can solve some of the really urgent problems of climate
change, and will have to be brought to bear urgently now. But we've
even seen in the last ve years how that can actually come to fruition at
a global scale. So I think that there's a lot to be optimistic about, but it's
going to be a pretty heavy lift for the next
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 50 years. 72/75
6/5/2019 Are You Optimistic About the Earth's Future? | Climate Change | Smithsonian Second Opinion
So there's--
And so, that we're already solving these problems today, sure energy
might be a small example, but you can see this footprint of innovation
allowing us to leapfrog a lot of the obstacles that we faced in the
developed world to just skip over a lot of the problems we've generated
for ourselves. And so I'm optimistic, because I think we're going to
keep inventing really cool things.
So I don't know whether I'm optimistic, but I'm sure that it's not the
only way to have reason to act.
https://www.smithsoniansecondopinion.org/climate-change/are-you-optimistic-about-earths-future-180964375/ 75/75