LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) — Pew Research Center data shows Americans are almost equally split over the economic impact of climate policies with eight-in-ten saying climate news makes them feel frustrated about the level of political disagreement on the issue.
That’s where the nonprofit, nonpartisan group Climate Up Close comes in.
Their approach is to make climate scientists available to everyday Americans, armed with the latest data to facilitate open and accurate discussions.
That’s exactly what they did Saturday morning at Lincoln’s Unitarian Universalist Church on A Street with several dozen attendees.
“Our mission really is to come out and to meet people face-to-face and tell them about the consensus on climate change and to have a discussion — to start this discussion — about how climate change is impacting us,” said Andrew Williams, a post-doctoral fellow at Princeton and a speaker with Climate Up Close. “What we know about it? What’s settled? What’s not settled and where do we go from here?”
Williams is passionate about the work Climate Up Close does, and that regardless of state or political affiliation, actionable weather and climate science remains paramount.
Take the idea, Williams said, that global temperatures will keep rising no matter what we do.
“The counterintuitive answer is that we have control over our climate future, so if we stop emitting CO2, the temperatures will stop rising,” Williams said. “It gives us a lot of agency. The future is in our hands, and I think it’s important people know that.”
Their time in Nebraska also gave them the opportunity to learn about agriculture and climate science.
“The trends towards intensified agriculture in the state and more irrigation — more crop land instead of plains — has actually caused climate change to be less bad in terms of the heat waves here than you would expect,” Williams added.
That divisiveness in climate conversation is what brought Jim Cook out for Saturday’s event.
“I think I learned that there were more things kind of on the border or in the unsettled area than I realized,” Cook told 10/11 after the presentation. “I had heard a lot of comments and believed a lot of comments, frankly, about things being a little more settled. Now that they made it very clear, they’re not necessarily not important, we just don’t know yet. We just don’t have the information to.”
The hope is to facilitate a wider conversation once people leave.
“We also encourage our audience afterwards to go out and push their own comfort zones and have these conversations with their neighbors, around the kitchen table and with their colleagues,” Williams said.
There are four other opportunities to attend the Climate Up Close tour in Nebraska this weekend:
- Branched Oak Observatory: Saturday, June 28 at 8 p.m.
Followed by stargazing until 11 p.m.
14300 NW 98th Street, Raymond, NE 68428
Free with registration required: https://tinyurl.com/ClimateUpCloseAtBOO
- First Unitarian Church of Omaha: Sunday, June 29 at 9 a.m.
3114 Harney St, Omaha, NE 68131
Free and open to the public
- Site-1 Brewing: Sunday, June 29 at 1 p.m.
2566 Farnam St, Omaha, NE 68131
Free and open to the public
- Countryside Community Church: Sunday, June 29 at 4 p.m.
13130 Faith Plz., Omaha, NE 68144
Free and open to the public
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