UN Climate Change Reports As Haiku

CURWOOD: The periodic assessmentsfrom the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC rely on a couple of thousand scientists from around the world. They produce a detailed appraisal of humanitys impact on the climate and what that means now and in thefuture. These reports are notoriously dense and, well, hard to read. NOAA scientist Greg Johnson was a leadauthor for part of the assessment published last fall and he's come up with a simple, elegant way tocommunicate the complex scientific findings.

JOHNSON: Seas rise as they warm. Rates quicken last century. Melting ice joins in.

CURWOOD: Oceanographer Gregory Johnson joins me now to share more of these IPCC haikus. Welcome to Living on Earth, Greg.

JOHNSON: Hi. Thanks, Steve.

CURWOOD: So how did you come up with the idea: IPCC as haiku?

JOHNSON: Well, actually, I was sick one weekend, and I was really sick enough to be unable to leave the house. And so I was trying to figure out what I would do for the weekend, and for some reason, I thought I would reread the summary for policy makers from the Working Group I report to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, thats the one on the physical science basis of climate change. And like you said, they are very dense documents. So I was reading this, and I was having trouble concentrating.

CURWOOD: Wait. Youd worked on this. You knew what was supposed to be there, and you couldnt stay focused?

JOHNSON: Well, I was a little sick. [LAUGHS] But, anyways, I thought it would help fix it in my mind, if I tried to compose a haiku for each of the subsections of the report. But I sat down and composed these haikus. It took most of the morning and a little bit past lunch, and then my wife said, What on Earth are you doing?

CURWOOD: [LAUGHS]

JOHNSON: And at that point, I sort of thought, Well, what am I doing? And I realized I could make them into an illustrated booklet to share with friends and family if I added some illustrations.

CURWOOD: So youre an oceanographer for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and youre a lead author for the Working Group chapter on oceans, but this is not any kind of official document.

JOHNSON: Thats correct. These are solely my own creation. Any views or opinions expressed in these are my own, and do not necessarily reflect those of the United States government, the International Governmental Panel on Climate Change or any other entity.

CURWOOD: So, these poems basically go in order of the bullet points for the report. Will you read the first point as haiku please? Its called History – Earth.

JOHNSON: Thats right.

Big, fast carbon surge:
Ice melts, oceans heat and rise.
Air warms by decades.

CURWOOD: So, thats essentially the recent history of the earths climate in 17 syllables, huh?

JOHNSON: Thats right.

CURWOOD: So remind us of the rules of haiku.

JOHNSON: So the rules in English are different from the rules in Japanese, but the strict rules are a syllable count of 5-7-5 in the three lines. Theyre supposed to be a reference to the season, and the Japanese have specific words for these I think. And these dont necessarily have references to seasons in them, but they do have references to change in climate, and I thought theyd give me a pass on that. And theyre also supposed to have what the Japanese call a cutting word, sort of a transition. Not all of these do have that actually, but they do all follow the 5-7-5 rule.

CURWOOD: Now, will you read two more for us that are closely related? They are called Response and Attribution.

JOHNSON: Yes, the first one is Response.

We burn more carbon
Air warms for decades but seas
For millennia

And then Attribution:

Our industry has
warmed oceans, air, lands, changed rains
melted ice, raised seas

CURWOOD: Incredible how so few words can be so powerful. What got you going with haiku?

JOHNSON: I post almost exclusively in haiku on Facebook. I find that it helps me be in the present. It tends to link my posts a little more closely to nature and whats going on around me. And it also limits the number of posts, which my friends probably like.

CURWOOD: Now, it seems that all of your poems are accompanied by a water color paintingthe last one about industry goes along with a painting of an oilrig. Theres another with a painting of windmills on a rolling hill. Will you read that please?

JOHNSON: Lets see.

Fast, strong action will
Reduce future warming but
Rising seas certain

CURWOOD: So, Greg, what kind of responses have you gotten so far from this project?

JOHNSON: Theyve really been quite positive. But I have to say, actually, it took some time, on my part, to get up the courage to put this out there. This is, of course, a distillation of, as you said, work of 209 lead authors, 50 review editors, a thousand expert reviewers, so a huge amount of work went into this. But the response actually to the haikus have been remarkably positive.

CURWOOD: What kind of response have you gotten from your IPCC co-authors?

JOHNSON: They enjoy it. I did make a number of little booklets on my own dime, and have given them to friends and colleagues and authors. And its been a positive response from them as well.

CURWOOD: Have you run out of the booklets?

JOHNSON: Pretty much. Yes.

CURWOOD: Whats your publisher say?

JOHNSON: I dont have a publisher. These were are self-published. I cant actually profit from these in any way because theyre related to my work, and thats just one of the rules of my employer.

CURWOOD: Well, we are just about out of time, Greg, but I wonder if you will read one final haiku for us. Perhaps the one that you titled Future?

JOHNSON: Alright.

Forty years from now
Children will live in a world
Shaped by our choices.

CURWOOD: Greg, you have children?

JOHNSON: I have a daughter.

CURWOOD: Whos how old?

JOHNSON: Shes 17 now.

CURWOOD: So, when shes 57…

JOHNSON: …the world will be a very different place, I think, and it will depend on what choices we make. Were living in a world now thats already shaped by our choices.

CURWOOD: Greg Johnson is a NOAA oceanographer and lead author of the Working Group I report chapter on oceans. Thanks so much for taking the time with us today.

JOHNSON: Thank you.