Part Two with NOAA: Resilience, toolkits, and Conversations
Over the last couple of months we were blessed to have a conversation with NOAA’s David Herring, addressing the challenge of sea level rise and congregational resilience at the Climate Cafe Multifaith. This is Part Two of that conversation. In Part One, our focus was the facts. We talked sea level rise, what causes it, what is happening and what we can expect. Read and view that first conversation here: Part One with NOAA: Sea Level Rise & Coastal Congregations. David Herring is the Chief of the Communication, Education, and Engagement Division within NOAA's Climate Program Office.
For this second part of the series, we focus on how to communicate the urgency we face. Talking about climate change, even with the evidence swirling and rising around us, can be surprisingly challenging. To better understand how to communicate, in this Part Two, we explore what tools are available for these conversations, especially in efforts to minimize the damage of that next big storm. With so much at risk to our neighbors, our homes, and our places of worship, it’s important to know that while we can’t sugar-coat the challenge, real mitigating solutions do exist. There are tools, case studies and strategic conversations you can bring to your community that can offer a roadmap to resilience.
In this video, David Herring of NOAA and Climate.gov walks us through a recap of the facts of sea level rise, plus strategies for resilience-building conversations.
“The good news is, it feels like we're starting to gain momentum. The bad news in my observation is that the pace and scale of our response today still is not yet adequate to the pace and scale at which risks are increasing.”
—David Herring, NOAA & Climate.gov
Conversations are the beginning of the resilience-building process. Before we as people can work to address a challenge, first there must be opportunities to better understand the challenge that we actually face. Conversations are also important for solution-making. An agency like NOAA has thousands of top scientists at work in every part of the United States. Their knowledge, though, is only one part of the solution. The local knowledge and lived experiences of local people are an essential component to bringing and implementing the right solution for each place.
This is the work David Herring engages in every day. He invites all of us—those at the Climate Cafe but also everyone across the country, and especially in coastal communities and congregations—to engage, also. Says Herring, “I've been very privileged to stand on the shoulders of giants working here in the science community, but I've often been really interested in finding ways to bridge the domains of science and the domains of faith.” These bridges bring people together for lasting, local, and life-giving solutions.
“Over the last four decades, we have seen a quadrupling of the combined cost damages [of climate change] … It's not just what's happening in the natural world, this is showing up in our economy.”
—David Herring, NOAA & Climate.gov
In the US, there were 18 billion dollar disasters in 2022. Photo of Hulett, Wyoming, June 2022 by Mike Coniglio (NOAA NSSL) CC BY 2.0
Most organizations recognize the importance of communication. For agencies like NOAA, communication is a key component of what they do, to take ‘the knowledge and information’ they gather and bring that knowledge to local communities in order to predict what will happen and prepare for it. This can be as straightforward as studying orcas or restoring pocket estuaries. But it can also be immediate and urgent.
Increasingly, the climate crisis has intersected all. The growing destruction of climate change threatens livelihoods through impacted fisheries, flooding of homes and businesses, and worsening storms, all impacting communities where people live, work, worship, and raise their kids. The data and research is plentiful. Now we must get the word out. We must, as the saying goes, ride like the wind to raise the alarm, gather the faithful, and get to work. Engaging conversations in community is an essential part of that effort.
Conversations help build knowledge and capacity, and lead to great ideas and planning. This allows communities to act on what is needed, such as restoring a living shoreline, or restoring wetland ecosystems, or moving important buildings, monuments and community structures to higher ground. The whole ecosystem, in fact, including species such as monk seals must move higher up the coast. Yet these conversations can be surprisingly difficult. Herring asks, “why is it so hard to communicate? It seems like a foregone conclusion that this would be an easy thing to do. We're armed to the teeth with scientific evidence.”
Yet, all that science does not lead to action until we move to build relationships and widen the circle. This can start in our own circles as we share what we have learned. Humans in general lean on trusted friends for information. Herring observes that in order to bridge across “defensive barriers…you just don't walk up to someone and tell them what to know, to do, or how to think.” Instead, spend time “building on shared values” as this is the approach that “goes a long way towards building trust.”
“If you don't like what I'm saying right now, chances are you're already in your brain conjuring reasons why you're going to reject it. You're rejecting it emotionally before you rationally can think of the reasons why.”
—David Herring, NOAA & Climate.gov
In committing to conversations, then, learning about values is an important next step. Herring draws from a study from Yale Communications. The ‘Six Americas’ study showed that there is a wide range of attitudes around climate change and those attitudes determine what different people will bring to a conversation. These Six Americas include those termed as Alarmed, Concerned, Cautious, Disengaged, Doubtful, or Dismissive. Understanding these values-led attitudes, says Herring, will help enormously with your efforts at good communication.
Those engaged in climate work in life and in faith settings know the realities of navigating between the Alarmed and Concerned group, who are, says Herring, “showing up because they are looking for onramps, and want to know what they can do,” and the Dismissives, who are “very highly motivated, but in the opposite direction. These are people who are motivated to prevent policy action. They are a very, very vocal minority.” It is important to remember, says Herring, that “disagreements with Dismissives are a clash of values rather than a clash of scientific ideas.”
Typically, however, in Herring’s experience, it is those seeking action and onramps that are most eager for conversations. NOAA offers resources for workshops, conversations and local forums for information and problem-solving across the country. Holding a conversation or event locally in your community center or congregation is a great way to get started.
“If you want to have your own events, your own local conversations, we have extension networks. I collaborate with professionals in many other federal agencies and all across NOAA so we would be happy to support your event. I can help you identify projects that are onramp projects that you could feature in your events. And I'd be happy to help you leverage and use the community conversations model.”
—David Herring, NOAA & Climate.gov
Weather Festival in Norman, Oklahoma. Photo by James Murnan / NOAA NSSL 2022 CC BY 2.0 cropped
A key thing to remember in planning conversations is to get to know the folks you will be speaking with, as well as their needs and concerns. In building that shared concern and aligning values, the conversation can shift into assessments of impacts and solutions. This conversation, then, varies for every community. NOAA folks know this, and in planning a community conversation, pre-planning includes a focus on “what the community wants to talk about,” be it drought or sea level rise, and then building around that.
Herring explains that for larger community conversations, such as with a congregation or in a community center, they implement “a three part agenda.” NOAA brings data and research outcomes to “summarize the evidence.” There would also be “subject matter experts” on the local concern, and then time together to unroll shared local wisdom by exploring unifying questions, such as “why does this matter?… Why does it matter in the natural world? Why does it matter in our built environments? Why does this matter for the economy?”
Alongside NOAA’s expertise, there are other resources as well. On the Climate.gov website, there are a number of articles and charts where folks can begin the journey to better understand climate change impacts where they live. There is also a brand new Toolkit. The toolkit offers steps to understand what risks your community in particular might be vulnerable to, and links to case studies to see what others have done. It also includes a page for grants and funding.
Resilience planning is the key idea here. Understanding that climate change is here, it is vital to build resilience in communities to minimize the harm. This page begins that resilience journey, and includes a short video showing what is meant by resilience in this context. Perhaps the most powerful tool of all is the CMRA - Climate Mapping for Resilience and Adaptation. The CMRA is an interactive mapping tool of the US. On the map you can find information about immediate hazards—such as forest fires or storms—as well as information about the risks our communities face over the next decade and more.
“We have a framework that we lead communities through in terms of having an equitable, inclusive dialogue about the risks that they face… Are they willing to accept that risk? Are they willing to tolerate it? And if the answer is no, then okay, what can we do about it?”
—David Herring, NOAA & Climate.gov
Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Eric D. Woodall) CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
In addition to the science, social science, and an invitation to host events and conversations in home-town contexts, Herring also shared words of hope. He noted that those who are showing up to learn more are increasingly feeling called to this work. He sees engagement growing over all, including among people of faith. “Something that really does give me hope today is that we have faith leaders like yourselves, community leaders, who are facilitating conversations, virtually like here on Zoom, and in person.” With the challenges of our cultural conflicts in mind, Herring nonetheless sees people taking the necessary steps to bridge the divide.
It is indeed hopeful, says Herring, that faith leaders and community leaders “are encouraging people to step out of divisive frames and into what we can recognize as our shared identities, cooperative efforts and opportunities to learn, as well as to reduce risks to the things we all care about.”
Learn more about NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. From this mission and vision homepage, you can explore the many efforts, agencies, and partnerships NOAA encompasses.
NOAA, with its extensive work across the US and beyond, received money from the Inflation Reduction Grant to further its mission. Learn more about how this funding will help support climate ready coasts.
NOAA also produces many pdf one sheets with just-the-basics to better understand possibilities and next steps for resilience, such as this one, Top Ten Things to Know about Natural Infrastructure.
For a deeper dive, explore what is meant when speaking of addressing the climate crisis equitably, with this booklet from NOAA’s Climate Resilience Toolkit, Centering Equity in Climate Resilience Planning and Action, and a guide and suggestions as to how it can be used.
Explore the other links also within the article.
David Herring is an award-winning science communicator with 30 years of experience working within the Earth system science communities at NOAA and NASA. David is Chief of the Communication, Education, and Engagement Division within NOAA's Climate Program Office, based in Silver Spring, MD, where he also serves as Program Manager for the NOAA Climate.gov and U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit websites. Before joining NOAA in 2008, David worked for 16 years at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, where he served as Outreach Coordinator for the Terra satellite mission and led development of NASA's Earth Observatory website. David is a co-chair of the US Global Change Research Program's Federal Adaptation & Resilience Group, and he is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received his Masters Degree in Science & Technical Communication from East Carolina University in 1992.
Find more articles and video at the intersection of faith, climate change and climate justice on the Faiths4Future blog.
Rev. Richenda Fairhurst is here for the friendship and conversations about climate, community, and connection. She organizes the Climate Cafe Multifaith as a co-leader of Faiths4Future. Find her in real life in Southern Oregon, working as Steward of Climate with the nonprofit Circle Faith Future. She is also on substack!