My Climate Story: Terry Root

Climate One

News, News Commentary, Science, Earth Sciences, Social Sciences

4.7 • 583 Ratings

🗓️ 20 September 2019

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Scientist Terry Root’s research has helped reveal how climate change puts bird and animal species at risk for extinction. For Root, the climate connection is also personal: she was married to the late Steve Schneider, a Stanford professor and pioneer in communicating the impacts of climate change, who died suddenly in 2010. “It's been a fabulous career, but it has been very painful at times, very painful,” says Root, who was the lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 when it was co-awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with Vice President Al Gore. This piece is published in partnership with Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. Guest: Terry Root, Senior Fellow Emerita, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University Related Links: 10 years after he monkey-wrenched a Utah oil and gas lease auction, Tim DeChristopher is ‘feeling demoralized' by ‘the state of the world’ but sees hope in humanity (The Salt Lake Tribune) Stephen Schneider, a leading climate expert, dead at 65 (Stanford News) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is Climate One, changing the conversation about energy, the economy, and the environment.
0:08.0	I'm Greg Dalton.
0:10.0	Behind the facts and figures that shape the climate narrative are scientists and others
0:16.0	who pay a severe personal price for bringing that information to light.
0:20.0	I just cried and say how sorry I was that I had caused her son Tim to have to be in prison.
0:26.6	Terry Root is a former senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University.
0:32.6	Her research has helped reveal how climate disruption increases the risk of extinction for birds and animals.
0:38.3	She was married to the late Steve Schneider, a Stanford professor and pioneer,
0:43.3	and communicating many dimensions of climate change. He died suddenly in 2010 on the way home from a conference.
0:49.3	She also prompted activist Tim to Christopher to stand up against fossil fuels, a move that landed
0:55.2	him in jail.
0:56.8	This short pod is part of a series we are doing for covering climate now, a global collaboration
1:02.2	of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of causes and solutions.
1:07.9	We begin Terry Root's story on July 10, 2010,, the last time she saw her husband, Steve, before he flew to Europe.
1:17.0	He was so, so excited because he was starting into a whole new realm of climate change. He was going to be working on the sociology of climate change. And scientists
1:31.3	so often think all we have to do is get the numbers out there and people will believe us.
1:36.3	And the sociologists keep telling us that's not true. And he had decided that that was indeed
1:41.3	not true and he had to do something about it. So he went to this
1:46.0	meeting to give not one, not two, but three keynote addresses. And he never came home to me.
1:55.0	And where were you when you learned that he, I think he died on a plane back from Europe to
1:59.6	San Francisco? He was. He had, after this big meeting, he died on a plane back from Europe to San Francisco?
2:07.8	He was. He had, after this big meeting, he went to a workshop to really work with people trying to figure out what to do about the sociology of climate change. And then he flew from
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Climate One, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Climate One and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.