No person under 43 years old has experienced a single year on Earth with “normal” temperatures.
New York Times climate reporter Kendra Pierre-Louis said 1976 was the last year Earth experienced normal weather patterns. Since then, extreme temperatures, hurricanes, drought, floods and fire have become the norm.
Wednesday evening, Pierre-Louis spoke to a full crowd in the Administration Building Auditorium. The reporter transitioned from Popular Science, an online magazine, to the New York Times in December 2017.
“Oftentimes, the (information) I’m going to be communicating is already fairly dense, so my job is to avoid adding additional hurdles,” Pierre-Louis said. “There is actually a scientific distinction between global warming and climate change, but for most people that distinction doesn’t matter, so it doesn’t matter to me.”
Kendra Pierre-Louis mingles at the 2019 Oppenheimer Ethics Symposium Thursday. Eimile Darney | Argonaut
After explaining the basics of climate change, Pierre-Louis shared some of her previous work. Some of her favorites included “A Secret Superpower, Right in Your Backyard,” published soon after Black Panther arrived in theaters last March, and “What Cameras on Polar Bears Show Us: It’s Tough Out There,” which featured a video from a polar bear’s perspective.
“Another thing we try to do is connect with people,” Pierre-Louis said. “People love polar bears. This was a story where researchers had placed cameras on a bunch of polar bears and live footage of the polar bears.”
In her talk, Pierre-Louis said over half her audience — the American public — is at least concerned about climate change, and that less than 10 percent are climate change denialists. That’s why she focuses on the impacts climate change has on the environment and vice versa, not attempting to convince the minority that climate change is real. She made it clear that she is a journalist, not an activist.
At the end of her talk, Pierre-Louis shared some tips with her audience on how she makes her stories more eye-catching to readers. She emphasized the importance of honestly reporting scientific uncertainty and chasing down the stories that seem too odd to be true.
“It’s okay to be a little bit weird,” Pierre-Louis said.
Pierre-Louis said she does not feel particularly optimistic or pessimistic about the future of the planet. She is interested in finding and reporting on advances, discoveries and discussions about the future of sustainability and society.
“I feel like as a person who reports on climate change — especially now that I’m at the Times — people sort of expect me to be this beacon of something they’re looking for,” Pierre-Louis said. “But I’m not Jesus Christ and I’m not a beacon for anything and I don’t know we need hope to do the right thing, I don’t feel like we do.”
Lex Miller can be reached at [email protected]