Two-thirds of Americans are worried about climate change, but many don’t realize how they can play a significant role in climate action — at least, not yet.
Deadly wildfires regularly scorch California. Last winter, much of the Rockies received record-low snow, signaling water woes for millions. Then a spring heat wave hit the West, decimating what little snowpack remained. Many people understand that scientists attribute the intensity of such events to the climate crisis, but it’s not always clear how that knowledge can translate into action. Atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe has a suggestion for where to start: Talk about it.
Hayhoe, a professor at Texas Tech University, is known for both her research and her outreach, including her Talking Climate newsletter. She has a knack for connecting with people and meeting them where they are while also keeping the big picture in mind. High Country News recently caught up with her to discuss why it’s important to talk about climate, and how to do so.
Through her writing and public events, Hayhoe emphatically makes the case for hope amid a world of climate despair, doom and denialism. Perhaps the 2030s will bring a new mass movement, calling for bold climate action and transforming society for the better. If so, Hayhoe shows how that future may have humble beginnings, arising from numerous chats with neighbors and classmates, at bus stops and barber shops, in everyday life.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
High Country News: You’ve argued that we can solve climate change by talking with others about it.
Katharine Hayhoe: I’ve argued that the first step is to have a conversation. What people don’t understand is that talking catalyzes action. If we want to catalyze action in any sector, whether it’s in electricity, transportation, food, resilience or anything, talking is the first step.
HCN: How does talking catalyze action?
KH: First, if you look at the data, the majority of people are worried about climate change. In the U.S., that’s about two-thirds; in other countries, it’s more. Yet less than half of them hear someone talk about climate change even once in a while. If we don’t talk about something, why would we care? If we don’t care, why would we do anything?
We need three things: “head, heart and hands.” The head is understanding that this thing is real and it’s happening, and that’s where a lot of people already are right now. But sometimes when you ask people who are worried about it, “Do you think it will affect you?” a lot of people say, “No.” But it’s already affecting you; you just haven’t connected the dots. So, we need to connect the head to the heart.
Then we need to connect the heart to the hands. What do real solutions look like that are already being implemented and can be scaled and can make our life better? That’s what I’m talking about talking about.
HCN: I’m calling you from my home in California, where we’ve got increasingly intense wildfires, heat waves, sea-level rise, droughts and occasionally floods. How do you see lived experiences like these driving — or not — calls for systemic change to address the climate crisis?
KH: I live in Texas, which is similar to California: We have every type of disaster you can imagine.
For years, I’ve been asking people: Do you feel like the weather is getting weirder? I haven’t had a single person tell me they didn’t think so. Most people have tons of stories to tell me. Then I just help them connect the dots. I say, “That’s exactly what’s happening here, and it’s happening all over the U.S. and all around the world. This is the number-one way that climate change is affecting us.” Then we’ve closed the head-to-heart gap, just like that — and they did it themselves.
“What people don’t understand is talking catalyzes action.”
HCN: What do you think about systemic change at this time when it seems like even modest climate-related policies are being dismantled by the Trump administration?
KH: There’s no question that the current administration is doing its best to alter the slope down which the giant boulder of climate action is rolling. That’s the way I think about it. That giant boulder is already rolling down the hill, and it already has millions of hands on it — and federal policy can change the slope, making it easier or harder for that boulder to roll downhill.
When you look around at individuals, and cities and companies and states in the U.S., action is still happening, even though it’s the federal government that dominates headlines. That boulder is rolling down the hill. You cannot stop clean energy.
HCN: Lately, we’ve seen a “climate hushing” phenomenon: a reluctance to discuss the subject, seemingly because of today’s political atmosphere. How have you seen that play out?
KH: I think that it is primarily occurring in response to the U.S. federal government. I have noticed a decrease in the number of people and organizations who want to talk about climate change, especially organizations concerned about the potential for reprisals from the federal government.
HCN: What do you think is the best way to combat climate hushing?
KH: If you really understand (the benefits of climate action) and you understand what’s at risk if we don’t act, then we can talk about these actions in ways that do appeal to people.
Years ago, I was starting to realize that climate change is a hot-button phrase. I was asked to speak to our water managers in Texas, who are very focused on data, long-term trends and droughts. The two people speaking before me at the conference were a state representative and a state senator who explicitly rejected the reality of climate change — so I thought to myself, why don’t I try something different?
I’ll talk about all the same things: I’ll talk about climate variability, historical data, future projections and climate resilience. But I’ll never say the words “climate change.” So I did that, and everybody liked it, and there were lots of positive comments and feedback. The funniest moment was when one woman ran up to me afterwards and grabbed my hand and shook it up and down. She said, “That was fantastic. Everything you say makes sense.” And then she said, “Those people who talk about global warming, I don’t agree with them at all. But I agree with everything you said!” That showed me that it’s more what we talk about than how we talk about it.
“It’s more what we talk about than how we talk about it.”
HCN: A lot of people are feeling despair about climate change. But as Rebecca Solnit and others have said, it’s not too late to make the future less bad. Do you have thoughts on how to encourage people to channel that despair into motivation and climate action?
KH: People who feel despair are 100% there in the head; they get it. Many of them have also made the head-to-heart connection. They understand that it’s about their future, and the people and places they love. But they have not made the heart-to-hand connection. They think there’s nothing that can be done.
What’s partly at fault here is our very Western focus on individual action, like eating plant-based, what we drive, how we travel, how we live. As Bill McKibben says, the most important thing an individual can do right now when it comes to climate action is not be such an individual.
Work together with others. That’s how social change has happened in the past. It didn’t happen because of people taking action in their personal life; it happened because of people using their voices to advocate for change. We know some of their names, like Martin Luther King Jr. There were thousands of other people who marched with him and advocated with him. Those people are us, and that is how we can change the world.
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This article appeared in the August 2026 print edition of the magazine with the headline “Why climate conversations matter.”
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