Rachel Strausman:

Thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Hopkins. Climate change is here and if it hasn't affected us already, it's going to be affecting us soon and thus we need to take action. However, it can be difficult to do so when a lot of what's happening seems to be so unprecedented, which is why we're so grateful to have you here today, Dr. Hopkins, to talk with us about what is happening in the world today with climate change, what action we can take to help prevent it, and then, of course, at the end of the day, how we can actually look at the Inland Empire as a model for how we can react to climate change and how we can best handle what is going to come in the future. So with that, thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Hopkins. 

Francesca Hopkins:

Thanks for the invitation. 

Rachel Strausman:

Of course. So starting off, very broad terms. In terms of climate change, what is the state of the world today and in terms of progress, where are we at? 

Francesca Hopkins:

Okay. Well, we've already seen significant warming. It's thought that this summer we've reached the 1.5 Celsius mark for warming. So we've already warmed quite a bit compared to our pre-industrial recent past. Of course, the Earth has experienced big climate shifts through very long geological time, but really what we're experiencing now is unprecedented and the rate of change is very rapid. And we know with so much confidence that it's due to human activities, primarily fossil fuel burning. So in a way, we know why we have this problem. And so in many ways, we know what we can do to fix it. The hard part comes in actually making those changes. And as you kind of alluded to earlier, climate change is a global problem, which makes it this really hard collective action issue. It requires everyone to participate in reducing emissions. Now, that's not quite perfectly true because we do know that countries that have industrialized, have been industrialized longer, have contributed much more to the problem compared to countries that are just industrializing now or haven't yet. So there is places that will have more impact than others, but we're all in the whole globe going to suffer the ill effects. So I've told you about kind of the state of things where we are with warming. And I've kind of alluded to the global political issue that is really important to deal with climate change. And so I think it's really overwhelming and hard to think about how we solve this problem, because a lot of times, especially like I'm a physical scientist, but, you know, of course, I've been exposed to the diplomacy issues related to climate change. And I feel there's always a lot of excuse making about like, oh, China's emissions are growing much faster compared to ours. But I think the countries that are industrialized, we need to recognize, have already contributed most of the carbon dioxide that's in the atmosphere, which is the primary greenhouse gas, the primary problem we have. And I really think that's the wrong framing. I just think we need to think about climate change really as an opportunity to also make our society better while at the same time reducing carbon emissions. And I really believe that we still have a chance to make a difference in the amount of total warming we have by taking rapid action and those activities, those actions, while they do have a cost, they'll save us much more in the future than we'll spend now. And moreover, I think, again, these are opportunities for us to improve our situation currently. We can actually improve our world by dealing with climate change. And I think in the Inland Empire, it's so easy to see that link, because in California, our number one source of CO2 emissions is from transportation. Here we are in an area that has a lot of freeways. It's important for the logistics industry. There are trucks that come through carrying goods to and from warehouses. And we know that that causes a tremendous problem for our local air quality. If we were able to change that by electrifying those trucks, they would no longer emit CO2, which is causing climate change, if we're able to go to renewable sources of energy, such as solar and wind. And they would also not be emitting those pollutants that give us our smoggy days, which are also coming out of the tailpipes, the exhaust systems of these trucking systems. So I think you know if we're able to electrify our transit, it's going to make our lives so much better here. Forget about climate change. It's just going to make our lives better. And I have to add, too, more equitable, because we also know that there's huge disparities in exposure to air pollution that fall along economic and racial lines in our region and in the whole country that you know I think we can really improve those disparities by being really deliberate and addressing climate change in a way that has that equity in mind. 

Rachel Strausman:

It's a good point that you bring up that by solving climate change, especially in our region, we could solve these things that I think people often forget to attribute to climate change, such as air quality. It's kind of something that, oh, well, we have a lot of transportation going through with the logistics industry. So it's just a given that we have poor air quality. But like you're saying, if we go ahead and try to solve climate change and start reducing its impact, we can also benefit Inland Empire and other regions like ours. So with that being said, what are current policies doing or what should they be doing in terms of preventing these catastrophic or irreversible outcomes that we're so concerned about? 

Francesca Hopkins:

Yeah, well, so I mentioned earlier, we still have a chance to make a difference in terms of how much global warming we're ultimately going to have. There's been a big concerted effort globally to try to reach for this target of staying under two degrees Celsius of warming. Whether we're able to do that or not is an open question that I think you know we'll have to wait and see what happens, unfortunately. But we still are able to make these changes we need to, again, if we do it soon. And I want to tell you about one real win of policy that makes me feel optimistic that we can actually make a difference for climate change. And it's our energy system in California. So the past several decades, the state has made real efforts to try to clean up our electricity system. And they've done this by moving away from coal fired power plants. We already don't have coal fired power plants in our state. But we still are relying on coal fired power plants in four corners and in Utah that create electricity that is then brought into our state. Because of our state's really aggressive and forward-looking policies to clean up our electrical grid, we now have a lot of renewables in the grid, especially solar. And it's amazing when you look at the progress we've made. Year by year, if you look at the amount of solar coming into the grid, it's made a huge difference. Year by year, we see improvements. So I feel really hopeful because the state made this real effort to try to clean up our electric system and it’s made a real impact. In fact, on days in springtime, this past spring that happened early in the day when there's a lot of sun energy, particularly on the weekends, but pretty much any weekday before the afternoon when air conditioners might be turned on, we actually had more solar energy in the grid than we could use, which is really amazing. And that tells us, yeah, we're doing it. We are creating the energy we need. Now we need to think about other solutions, how to store that energy, which I know a lot of people are working on that, which is great. But I really like this example because it shows how policies can be made and you know with enough time can really have a big impact. Now, we know that our state has really thought a lot about the transportation sector. It made a lot of news when I think the state's no longer going to allow internal combustion engine vehicles to be sold after 2035. They'll all have to be electric. And I know there is a lot of consternation about this among the public, but um this is really what we need to do because right now, the largest source of greenhouse gasses in California is from transportation. So that's the next sector we need to tackle in order to solve the problem. And so again, we know the solutions. We know what we need to do. The challenging part is to have the political will to actually carry out these solutions, which sometimes are difficult or people might have resistance to them and to ensure that they're done in both the most efficient way, thinking about leakage that could happen economically and also for equity. Transportation you know, if we think about who has EVs, it tends to be the more high income areas. So I'm really encouraged when I hear about programs that try to bring EV ownership to people who otherwise don't have the means to purchase a brand new EV. 

Rachel Strausman:

I love that you brought up solar and how we've actually had some successes because I think that a lot of the dialogue on climate change often focuses on: everything is going to change. We need to do something. We're not doing enough. And it's important to still show people that this is attainable. We do need to put work into it, but we're taking steps. And if they feel like we're taking steps, it's going to be easier to take the next one, which is so important. So kind of going off of something that you had said in terms of rising temperatures and extreme heat, which is already here for the inland empire, but is becoming a newer thing for other places around the world. What does our future look like? 

Francesca Hopkins:

Well, we know we're already in a fairly hot region of the state and we know it's just going to get hotter. If we look at the climate change projections going out to 2100, I have to say, first of all, the largest uncertainty in those projections, how warm will be in 2100 is actually how much emissions we end up emitting. So we still have basically the biggest lever of our climate is still within our grasp. That being said, we can expect to have somewhere between 6 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit of warming by 2100 in our region. What that looks like is going to be more extremely hot days. So if you look at the history just in Riverside, we tend to have about two about two months of the year, if you look at the historical period, like the 60s through the 90s, of days where every single day exceeds 95 degrees. So those are those hot summer days. So generally, that's been about two months. Of course, it's already increased in the recent times. And if we look to our future, we may have something like four months of extremely hot days. So essentially, we can think about that summer season when you really don't want to go outside during the day expanding in its length of the year. So we're losing those nice, pleasant days, unfortunately. Those hot days, the extreme heat is going to be hotter. This is especially important in areas that are dry, like inland Southern California, like the more desert areas, because we don't have any water on the surface to kind of buffer that effect of when it gets hot, it's just going to stay really hot. Whereas in cooler places, either you have a nice fog layer or you have evaporation that helps cool things when the temperatures get high. So we're going to see more extremes in those very hot days. Everyone always wants to know how precipitation is going to be affected. And that's really hard. It's really hard to model precipitation well. But what we know is that a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor. And that has some consequences for the climate that we already know. So droughts are going to become more severe because that warmer atmosphere will be better able to evaporate water from soils and other water bodies, which means that the soils will be drier. So in order to grow crops, you'll have to apply more water, all else being equal. Now, I have confidence that we'll be able to improve our practices. So that won't be as big of an issue. But all else being equal, especially in those natural unmanaged ecosystems, the soils are going to become much drier. And we also know here in California that that leads to more wildfires. So that's a really unfortunate thing that we're going to have to live with, regardless of whether we're able to limit climate change or not. The reverse side of the coin is that warmer atmosphere, being able to hold more water vapor, means that we're going to have more intense rainfall events. So if you think of those days that have really high rainfall, when a storm track comes through, there's going to be more moisture in the atmosphere to precipitate out. So that increases the risk of things like flash flooding, even in places like the desert. And we've seen that actually this summer. 

Rachel Strausman:

And would you say that this increase in water in the atmosphere that's causing increased precipitation, because that seems like such a contradictory thing as we're having droughts as well, would you say that that's probably why a lot of the public gets confused and gets frustrated with everything that people are saying about climate change? Because if you don't think about and learn the science behind it, it seems like contradictory information. 

Francesca Hopkins:

Yeah, I think that's really important. I mean, I think, unfortunately, the climate is so complicated and we don't fully understand it. One thing that I think is of interest in our region is like, are we going to have more summer storms? Like we just had Hurricane Hillary, is that going to occur with more frequency? But we have such a small sample size, we so rarely get those tropical storms that we don't really have a good way to predict them well. So it's really hard to do a good job forecasting in the future. And it's a problem when we communicate with the public, because even though we have, as scientists, you know we're so interested in these questions, these uncertainties and understanding these mechanisms of the climate, that that's what comes across is that uncertainty. Whereas when we're thinking about these physical effects of warmer temperatures, we know those so well, we've known them for decades. And moreover, we know that humans are causing this through emitting more CO2. And we have so many lines of evidence to support this. So I think one challenge is that we as scientists aren't trained to communicate with the public. And you know we're used to speaking to our own peers, our own communities, and then where that uncertainty is really important. And even the definition of uncertainty is different for a scientist than the public. Uncertainty, we're talking about the error bars of our measurements. Like what is the possible range of things that can happen? Whereas the public thinks uncertainty like, oh, they don't know anything. Absolutely not. Like we know so much. There's so much more to learn. And I'm excited as a climate scientist for us to keep learning those things. But at the same time, all the impetus we need to act, we already have. And we've had for quite a while. So I think we all need to focus on what we know, and really use those lessons to think about what is the future we want. Because right now, we have a chance to redesign our future. We can actually, we can create the world we want. And we definitely need to think about how the climate is impacting that. But we can do that without knowing how tropical storm tracks might change slightly you know in the next decades, I would argue. 

Rachel Strausman:

It's very interesting that you bring up the communication of science to the public, because that's a common theme lots of our guests discuss, that we have policymakers, and then we have experts or scientists that help try to communicate with the policymakers to make the best policy. And then we have the political world that ends up communicating with the public. And so a lot can get lost in translation. And as a result, there's misinformation, or there might even be the information there. Like you're saying, there is the data to prove it. It's just the public can't understand it, or it's too difficult. 

Francesca Hopkins:

I would actually argue against that framing and say that those of us that are trying to deliver that message aren't delivering it in a way that's palatable to the public. Education is so important. The public should hopefully become more informed. But I think the burden to me is really on the message. Those that are trying to send that message to make it in a way that the public can understand that it's not too complicated or too jargony or too niche. And really, that relates to the public. So I just wanted to mention that that framing I think is really important. 

Rachel Strausman:

That's very interesting yeah. So moving forward, how can places such as the Inland Empire that were already experiencing extreme heat, how could we help the rest of the world adapt to climate change? 

Francesca Hopkins:

Well, I think that's a really interesting thing to say is to help the rest of the world. Because I would say first, again, climate change is such a hard issue because it's a global one. But I also think we need to think really locally, because that's, that’s what affects us on our day-to-day lives. And I would argue that we first need to think about what do we do here to improve life and adapt better to climate change. And there's so many things we can do. And ideally, the lessons we learn here in California can go to other places, because we are a state that has been more active in both mitigation of climate change and I think adaptation as well. So what can we do here in the Inland Empire? What are the things we should be thinking about? I think one thing that's really important is to think about you know, we like being outside. And what makes it comfortable to be outside? It's a lot more comfortable to be in a place with a lot of trees, where you have shade to protect you from the sun's rays compared to walking along a sidewalk in pure sun. And so one thing I think that's important to think about, you know, people think about planting trees, and maybe sometimes that gets a bad rap as being kind of a greeny thing to do. But I do think trees are really important. When we think about urban areas that have a lot of pavement, trees not only provide shade, but they provide evaporative cooling by evaporating water through their leaves that helps cool a place off. I know there's been efforts to plant more trees on the east side from tree people in recent years. And I think those are great, and especially increasing the number of trees in low-income areas that have less tree canopy cover. But I think we need to be really smart about this. So, you know, sometimes people ask like, should we be wasting water on that? Well, yes, we should because if you have a tree, it might mean less air conditioning and it'll just make the environment more comfortable for people. So when we think about uses of water, to me, that's a really valuable one. Way better than a lawn, because trees actually are more efficient with their water compared to a traditional lawn. So I think that is something we should continue to do. But I also think we need to be really smart about it. So we know our climate is going to continue to warm, and we know certain tree species do better under different climate conditions. So we should be planting the trees now for the climate we're going to have in 30 years, ones that will thrive in those warmer conditions and won't die or suffer. So I think we just need to be really smart and really incorporate thoughts about climate change really into all the aspects of planning our physical environment. 

Rachel Strausman:

Yeah, I know that water usage in lawns and front lawns has been a much discussed issue. So it's interesting that you bring up, instead of what I feel like is the common narrative about keeping everything to desert friendly, high temperature friendly lawns, to still planting trees so that you can get the cooling effects and trees absorb carbon dioxide as well. So that's a very good point that you bring up. 

Francesca Hopkins:

I think one other thing I'll just mention is we don't talk about this enough, but there's research that shows trees make people more happy. I think there's a research study where they had people in a hospital either look out a window that just led to a brick wall versus a tree, and they saw measurable differences in their happiness, their satisfaction. And I don't remember if it was in their health outcomes, but trees make us happy. So I think it's important that we also you know bring that into our thinking. 
Rachel Strausman: And this ties back to what you were saying earlier about this holistic view of climate change, that helping mitigate climate change and we're helping adapt to climate change, but we're also helping improve society, like you said. So making people happier by planting trees or helping benefit the air quality by reducing emissions. So I love that you're bringing this up. Moving on to the next question, with the severity of the effects of climate change and the severe implications of inaction, is it more important to focus our efforts on mitigation or adaptation? 

Francesca Hopkins:

Well, unfortunately, we have to do both because the climate's already warmed and it's going to continue to warm regardless of whether we, if we were to stop emitting tomorrow, the climate is still going to continue to warm. And it's just unfortunate that CO2, which is the culprit for climate change, it just stays in the atmosphere for a really long time. So once it's up there, it doesn't come down for thousands of years. So we're going to have to live with that, the consequences of fossil fuel use into the foreseeable future. So we have to adapt and we can try to do it smartly. So I think adaptation absolutely has to be something we think about and discuss, but I still am also hopeful that we can mitigate and reduce our emissions. Because again, even though we're still experiencing warming, no matter what we do, we're going to still keep warming up for some period of time, we can really still control the amount of warming we ultimately have. So I think it's really important that we actually tackle it from both angles. And I think there's many opportunities to be able to do both. And those should all be looked at. 

Rachel Strausman:

In terms of mitigation, just to get into a little bit more specifics, I know we previously mentioned solar panels, but what are some other policy solutions or other mechanisms that we can use to mitigate here in California or even globally? 

Francesca Hopkins:

Yeah, well, there's so many things we can do. So that's where it actually gets complicated. I mean, I think one thing that's really important is that we just remember, ultimately, this is a fossil fuel problem. So anything we do that can reduce our use of fossil fuels, whether it's conservation, switching to renewable sources of energy, all those things are going to be beneficial. So I think that's number one. There are other things that we can think about that kind of address other issues. So there are other greenhouse gasses besides CO2, namely methane and nitrous oxide that are also warming. And so if we're able to take care of our fossil fuel problem, we still need to worry about methane and nitrous oxide in the longer term. And the major source of those in California, both of those gasses, is from agriculture. We need to change our practices for agriculture to reduce those emissions. So there's many things we still need to learn about to figure out how to do that most effectively, that take into account the economic realities that agriculture is facing, including water scarcity, to make sure we actually reduce those emissions as well. So I didn't really give you a really specific answer, but I think, again you know, it's important to kind of think about what are the biggest sources of greenhouse gasses. And again, we know California here, its transportation is the biggest one. And I don't actually think that just moving to EVs is going to solve all our problems. We need to think about every way that we can reduce transportation energy costs. So that includes, if you plant more trees, you'll have more walkable streets and that will increase walking as a mode of transportation. And um we know that walking, like bus riding, often is accompanied by walking to get to destinations. So we need to just think about how we can make our transportation systems in general, less energy, consumptive. So I would say that's really one of the most important ones. And I think cities have a really unique power and role in reducing transportation emissions, because they're often in control of what gets built, how it gets built. And really, we need to think about changing the form of our cities in California, so they're not so spread out. And um that's going to solve other problems, hopefully, including housing affordability issues that we have, and building houses in wildfire prone areas. So I think there's so many reasons. And I think that's what's really important is to have all our reasons for why we choose things for our built environment, why we make our choices the way we do. Climate change is one of the things we need to consider at the table, but there's so many other things we need to consider as well. 

Rachel Strausman:

I love how you bring up how local change can really make a difference, because climate change seems like this huge thing that is only attainable through global action, but it really, it starts locally. So if you could think of one thing that even going beyond local to the individual level, that someone could do to help reduce their personal impacts of climate change, what would you recommend? 

Francesca Hopkins:

Well, I think it's really different for all of us, because we all have different means. I've been fortunate enough to have the means to get an electric vehicle. So I think that's one important thing that people can do if they're able to, but not everyone has the funds to do that. And there's so many other ways we contribute to climate change. So I think one thing that COVID kind of gave us is that maybe we don't need to travel as much as we used to, because right now aviation is also really important source of greenhouse gasses. So maybe we don't need to take as many flights as we used to. Certainly this is important for people that tend to travel a lot, like most professors. There might be other ways that you can communicate with your colleagues, apart from attending many, many overseas conferences. But again, it's really going to be dependent on who, who you are. You know one that I think is important for us to think about is actually what we do with our food waste, because right now our state has some policies related to methane emissions. A large source of methane emissions is from landfills. And landfills are only producing the methane emissions from organic waste. So that's food waste, yard waste, things like that. And the state is trying to encourage local jurisdictions to route organic waste into a composting system or a biodigester, I believe is what our plans are here in the city of Riverside. So those organics don't go into the landfill where they can create methane. They can be routed somewhere where they can compost in a way that doesn't create methane, or creates much, much less methane. We're working on policy solutions at the state and local levels for that. But for an individual, you could also compost at home. And that actually saves the emissions even more, because now that waste that you created from your food doesn't have to be transported to a central facility. And it can help enrich the soils in your garden. I say this, of course, as a person who doesn't compost. But I do think that's an important thing that people can do. And I know people I know who compost get a lot of joy out of it. So I think we always need to think about what are these solutions that are going to give us a win-win. Not just reduce emissions, but increase our joy and help us feel good. I think those are the best ones. 

Rachel Strausman:

And that's a great place to end. And I love how you said it, find solutions that are a win-win. We can tackle things such as climate change while also helping benefit our mental health, or helping grow our gardens, and so many other things. And if we look at it that way, all this money that we're going to need to invest in the beginning, although we will be saving money in the long run if we just look at climate change, it's going to be so much more well spent. So with that, thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Hopkins. It was a pleasure to speak with you. 

Francesca Hopkins:

Thank you.