Maxwell Institute Podcast #160: How Can We Be Effective Stewards of the Earth? Featuring Ben Abbott

Rosalynde Welch: Hello, and welcome to the Maxwell Institute Podcast, where we seek out faith illuminating scholarship. I'm Rosalynde Welch, Associate Director at the Institute. This season, we're exploring the questions we should be asking. Thanks for joining us.

How can we best care for the beautiful planet God has given us for our home? And why do our relationships with other humans matter so much in the work of stewardship and conservation? Today on the podcast, I talked to Ben Abbott, a professor of Plant and Wildlife Sciences at BYU. As a scientist, Ben specializes in ecosystem ecology- the complex ways that living and nonliving components interact in a given place. But he's found that his work as a teacher and a mentor has shaped his research as much, or more than his rugged fieldwork. In the April 2000 Conference, President Nelson said, “As beneficiaries of the Divine Creation, what shall we do? We should care for the earth, be wise stewards over it, and preserve it for future generations.” Ben has spent his career figuring out how to do just that, from the permafrost in delicate Arctic landscapes, to the lakes that preserve precious water in the western United States. Ben and I talked about when he first became passionate about conservation as a child, how he brings repentance into the laboratory, and the field, and why his shift to real world problems and student-driven research has been so fruitful. Ben has an optimistic and humble approach to science and to the gospel that I think you'll love. Thanks for joining us today. And I hope you enjoy this conversation with Ben Abbott.

Today, here with Ben Abbott, who is a professor of Ecosystem Ecology at Brigham Young University. Ben is someone that I have known for a long time, a very long time! In fact, Ben happens to be our cousin. Ben is an amazing scientist and an amazing communicator, as everybody is about to find out. He's also an incredible musician, especially if you get him with a guitar around a campfire. Preferably, after midnight, he can bring a soul and a spirit to the hymns of the Restoration like nobody else can. So welcome, Ben, thank you so much for being here with us today.

Ben Abbott: Thank you so much Rosalynde, it's a pleasure to be here with you.

Welch: I am so glad that you are in this with me today, and always! So Ben, we brought you here today not, not to sing campfire songs, sadly. Maybe we can do one or two as a… as an outro at the end.

Abbott: Haha!

Welch: But to talk about your journey of faith and scholarship. Here at the Maxwell Institute, we are a community of scholars, like many other research communities, research institutes. What makes us different is our belief, more than our belief, our commitment to the idea that the mind and the heart are linked. And that powerful scholarship can be a powerful strengthener of faith. Academic research will never substitute for a direct connection with God. But an informed faith, faith-seeking understanding can enrich our life in the church. New ideas, new horizons, they bring kind of freshness to our experience at church, to our relationships with each other there. And they can indeed open our hearts to God.

Abbott: Yeah.

Welch: At least that's our belief, and that's our hope here at the Maxwell Institute. So, we wanted to open our conversation with you today, Ben, by asking you for a few highlights of your faith development, and your academic development. Trace for us the journey that brought you to where you are now.

Abbott: Thank you for that beautiful overview of vision and mission at the Maxwell Institute and for the opportunity to talk about these things. In the academic scientific world, there often is a separation, where you aren't talking about the spiritual aspects of your life. And it's been one of the things. I didn't attend BYU as an undergraduate or graduate student. But since coming here, about five years ago, it has been an amazing experience to hear from other scholars and students, and staff, both from the intellectual and spiritual parts of their experience. So, it's interesting. For me, the first prayer that I ever remember giving- I assume I've given them before- but the first one that I recall, was actually associated with something that I still study today, biodiversity and ecosystems. I remember, as a five or six year old, watching a TV show about nature, a species of zebra in Africa called the Grévy's zebra that was threatened with extirpation, or extinction. And I remember just feeling this really powerful sense of compassion and loss around that. You know, here was this creation of God that I thought was beautiful and interesting, of course, but that I also felt the connection with, even though I had only seen it through the TV screen. And I remember going to the window of my bedroom upstairs- we were living in Orem, Utah at the time- and opening up the window, so that God would be sure to get the message and praying for this zebra to be…to be protected. And for the people around it, who were responsible for managing those resources, to make decisions that included considering that other creation of God. And so for me, that was before I had any desires or skills in science or research, but it started actually with a connection and that spiritual feeling of our responsibility regarding God's creation. That really was the inception of my path along natural science.

Welch: Well, you know, prayer, I think is our most elemental, kind of connection to God. It's that direct communication with God. You opened that window, right?

Abbott: Yeah.

Welch: Because you wanted that prayer to make it there. Your zebra prayer, right? Creation, right? The, the natural world that is also this connection to God. And then prayer, which is this direct communication with God, I love that I love that story. I can picture little Ben doing that.

Abbott: Yes, there was a feeling as well, of impotence where, okay, there's things happening around on the other side of the world. And there's nothing that I can do except for pray. Right. And one of the things that I think is miraculous about prayer is, as we ask for help, pathways to act individually, and communally become available. It's not that it miraculously solves that issue, but it helps us think about and engage more deeply. And that is the question by far that I get most often as a professor of Environmental Science and Sustainability, you know, what can we do? What is effective? There is a huge reservoir of goodwill, you know, of people that have felt that stirring of the spirit, that this is an important issue for those that are currently alive, as well as future generations. And, and so thinking about that- and I don't have all of the answers- but you know, what can we do to help? I think is as important, the question is, what is the problem? And what's causing it?

Welch: I agree with that. And I hope we're gonna get lots of time to talk about that later in our conversation. So I'm curious, in your own life, how did that zebra prayer moment, lead then to your pathways of action later on in life as you sought higher education? Did that moment…do you think have an influence on your decision what to study, your decision where to live? How to form a family?

Abbott: Yeah, I often mentioned to my students that I'm a real comfort when students are feeling like they're unprepared. Because when you compare your life to mine, you look really on top of things. I did not have a direction and goal picked out from the beginning. I knew I was interested in all these different things, and loved learning from people, and spending time with people. But I didn't have my eyes laser focused on becoming a researcher or professor from the beginning. I just moved forward and tried to find opportunities. I started my program at Utah State University where I did my undergraduate, because I literally slipped on a pamphlet for a scholarship in the halls of my high school, it was in the College of Natural Resources at Utah State. So, followed that opportunity. And then actually, there was a big moment, the Department Chair in Watershed and Earth System Sciences where I was doing my degree, he invited me to go do research in Alaska, as an undergraduate. And this was so… such an awesome opportunity that I wasn't expecting. And I was sure that it was because I was such a bright and intelligent scientist, right. But I found out at the end of the semester, he told me- his name is Chris Lukey- and we're still great friends. But he said, “You know, I picked you for this position, because I saw that you played mandolin, and we didn't have a mandolin in the field station band.” And, you know, when you're on the North Slope of Alaska with 100 people in an area, the size of Italy, you've got to pick your companions carefully.

Welch: So, Ben, as we've been talking about this, you went through your academic training. What was your path to end up here at BYU?

Abbott: Yeah, so I completed a PhD, my wife and I both did our PhDs at University of Alaska, Fairbanks. That kind of random opportunity to go and do fieldwork in the Arctic led to an offer to do graduate work there with the professor I met when I was passing through. So studied there for five years while my wife Rachel and I finished our degrees. She studies material culture and anthropology. It was really amazing to engage in research for the first time. You know, as an undergraduate, I was mainly a field tech, my biggest skill was being able to carry very large loads over uneven territory. And that was interesting, and I started to learn. But it wasn't until I started engaging in the research process as a graduate student that I began to understand what was science. And, there was an interesting alignment where I realized, wow, this is a similar process to how I arrived at believing in the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. As far as hearing claims about things that I didn't yet have experience in, seeking guidance and input and correction from people, digging into the scriptures, but most importantly, experimenting, trying out new things. And I, I just love that commandment. Alma, from the Book of Mormon: to really understand these things, we have to experiment. It's not enough just to think through them and write an intellectual treatise on them. As important and valuable as that can be, we have to do it. It's the same in science. And it's largely the same in our spiritual journey, though different kinds of evidence carry different weights.

Welch: I absolutely, I love that insight- that experimentation and doing is central to the way that we learn spiritually and the way that we learn rationally, scientifically. And it has to do not only with being open to new ideas, right, and being humble, to try new things. But it also, I think, just keeps life interesting. Sometimes church can involve a lot of repetition, over a lifetime. Over many decades spent in the church, we find ourselves doing the same things and having the same conversations and the same lessons. And I think this kind of experimental approach to life in the church, right? Let's experiment upon the Word, let's try something new. How can we make this fresh? How can we open ourselves to the spirit again?

Abbott: Mmhm, yeah.

Welch: And what can we learn through that iterative process of trial and error, and sometimes failure, but trying again, after that. For me that's brought freshness to those times when life at church maybe gets a little bit stale?

Abbott: Yeah. Oh, that's such an interesting observation. And it makes me think about how sometimes the, “innovative approach or new experiment” is actually retaining the traditional or old way. Right, it doesn't always mean continually reinventing and changing, though, that, that has to be there. And I love that term humility. Because, as we know, both from science and the teachings of our church, pride is poison when you're thinking about progress, spiritual or, or intellectual.

Welch: So there's this experimentation element that is common to your academic life and your… and your faith life. One thing that you mentioned in our earlier discussions was a repentance orientation towards your research. And that really caught my attention. How is your research repentance-oriented? And I assume that you bring that framework of repentance directly from your spiritual life into your scientific life? How does that work?

Abbott: Yeah, first of all, I should just say, that hasn't always been how I viewed this. When I started as a, as a graduate student participating in the scientific discourse, my work was mainly oriented toward understanding the problem. You know, tracing, specifically working on issues of climate change, and its effects on these northern ecosystems, which are experiencing amplified warming. You know, we're on track to lose basically all sea ice in the coming decade, a situation that was unimaginable 10 or 15 years ago. And so, I was working on understanding how the system was responding to an unintended consequence of human progress, right, where we have altered the climate. And that was really valuable for me, to learn the skills of the scientific method, and begin to look at how different researchers, and science communicators, and policymakers, and everyday citizens were engaging in this. But it also was profoundly discouraging, and frustrating. I mean, imagine a physician who could only diagnose people with problems. You never could come back around and say, and, and here's what we think we should do to make it better or to avoid this next time. Or if you are working as a mechanic, and you could only take the read out of the computer and get the error code for the vehicle. Right? I mean, maybe somebody would love that career, but it sounds pretty unsatisfying to me. And so as, maybe, this is maybe a sad testament to how I approach my life. But it wasn't until that frustration kind of built up for a long period of time that I started to change. And actually there was, after I finished my PhD in Alaska, I got a postdoctoral research fellowship in Europe, in France, and worked there for three years with the French National Science Foundation. And that was a really eye opening experience because they had a different approach culturally to work. Right. So, like people went home at 5pm and spent time with their family. I got scolded- probably the worst professional correction I've ever received was when I forgot to take my vacation time. We got to the end of my first year there as a postdoc…This was, this was catastrophic, you know, like being shouted at and I almost got ejected from the country because I had forgotten to take my 40 days of available leave. So I mean, that was different. But then there also was this, this collaboration between the research and the applied management world. We were working on issues of, of water quality. So, western France, in many areas in the world where there's a high degree of animal agriculture, has real issues with nutrient overload, we call it eutrophication. And so we are trying to figure out how to stop these algal blooms and contamination of groundwater that farmers were then being forced to use and drink. And so, that that began this process of me thinking, “Hey, I don't just have to diagnose, I can also try to learn and participate in the solution.” But the focus and the crystallization of this idea of repentance-based research and science really came from the students here at BYU. And the very first class that I taught after securing the job here was a watershed ecology course. And the students had been watching the news, had just seen this large development proposal to build islands in a city out in the middle of Utah Lake here in Utah Valley. And they were concerned about it, wanted to learn about it, but also were interested in engaging in the dialogue and participating as…as citizens. And they pushed me toward this, and really opened my eyes, expanded my view- I guess it'd be a better way of saying it- about what scholarship could be. And the idea of bringing our whole person, rather than just a skill set, or just a job, but how can we actually work together to build a Zion community? And it's been really life changing experience after experience over the past five years.

Welch: Well, there are two things that so strike me in what you just said. One is the humility that you demonstrated in being willing to change your research program, according to the interests, the insights, and the gifts of your students. Sometimes I think the stereotype of a scientific lab is it's kind of a benevolent, or unbenevolent dictatorship, right? The pi rules and everybody else is a peon. But you were open to your students, you recognized their gifts, you saw that they had a kind of energy and perspective that could enrich what you were doing, and enrich your science. And so you, you were responsive to them, right? That kind of has an ecological feel to me, right? That your lab itself was a kind of ecosystem, and you were responding to one another and learning from one another there. BYU does that, really well, just throw in a plug for your and my employer, Ben. There is a real emphasis on investing in the students and putting the reins in the students hands to lead their own research in their own intellectual formation. So I love that.

Abbott: Yeah. If a student is interested in anything in or around the Earth system, that there is probably a set of questions that… that we would love to engage with them on, including human psychology, creation of art, educational materials, working with policymakers to have better environmental public health policies, all of those kinds of things. So we have an advantage there. It's also not unique at all, because every domain in the field of knowledge is connected to every other domain, right? All of this connects as one whole. And so in that way, I think, if we can become more open to the unexpected connections, then these kinds of opportunities can arise in any field. We have a huge institutional advantage, and this isn't just praising BYU, because we work here. But it is completely different than many of the universities I've worked with before, where there is a laser focus on preparing our students for lifelong learning and service. And there have been resources made available at the department, college and university level to support this. And it has vastly expanded my ability to mentor and involve students in this because, like you said, Jonathan, it’s going to be really hard if I have to go back to my program officer and say, “Hey, we had this list of 25 deliverables from the grant that I was given and we use half of the funding to help students get a better education.” Thankfully, BYU really fills that in, and they provide resources for students. And I think that there is no better use of funding. There's actually some interesting meta science research on this, that when you give smaller grants to early career or diverse groups of people, you get a much bigger bang for your buck than when you're dolloping out huge amounts of money and resources to kind of, established researchers or programs.

Welch: Repentance oriented research is basically another way of saying solutions and restoration-oriented research, right? Your research is oriented towards recovering what has been lost, but in a hopeful and empowering way as we look to the future. So as you pursue that research program, part of what you're looking for are these…kind of ecological solutions that are out there in the systems that you're looking at. But it strikes me that an important part of the solution that you're working to develop as well, is the hearts and souls of the students in your lab, right? Part of the solution is to build what we might call the human capital, right, the human solutions, and foster the gifts and the ingenuity of these students, that then will go out and do the same in the world. So the human work that we do, interpersonal work that we do, this is a big part of what we do at church as well, right? It's just as important as the, what we might call the objective work that we do out there in the world.

Abbott: Yeah, well, and thank you for bringing it back to that term, right? The same way that studying without acting is frustrating. Acting without studying can be dangerous. I mean, you can very easily make things worse, imagine, take our physician metaphor, again, a doctor who's not doing the diagnosis on the front end, but just saying, you know, you need a knee replacement. Looks to me, feels to me, that's what I'm good at. So as you learn about these issues, as you see how they connect to our personal and communal decisions, are you going to push that back and say, “No, this is uncomfortable? This maybe is going to require change, maybe even sacrifice, right? A change that initially feels like you're giving something up? Or are you going to be open to that? And then ask what are the implications of this knowledge? What do I need to change? What can't I change?” Right? Because many of these issues are beyond what any one of us can influence. You'd have to complete that cycle of learning and learning and doing. Praxis, it's called in some fields.

Welch: Ben, repentance-focused research. What I love about it is that it transforms the way we think about repentance, as well as about research, because it transforms repentance itself into something that is exciting, that is nourishing, that lifts us up, rather than feels heavy, or depressing, or, you know, makes us wallow in our failures.

Abbott: Yeah.

Welch: Real repentance when it is blessed by the Spirit, right? It turns us forward, and it creates hope in our minds, and it propels us forward, rather than pulling us down. So, both repentance and the environment, they can put us in sort of depressing dark mind spaces, but the way you framed it, it actually opens us out onto what does work and how God is guiding us and how He is working in the world and invites us to be a part of it.

Abbott: I just feel the spirit so strongly, as you say that. This is the way that the Lord wants us to understand that, and directly in line with President Nelson's guidance to repent daily. This is something we look forward to, hey, what can I learn today that I had wrong. And again, because it's not about this perfect personal performance, it's about learning and progressing.

Welch: President Nelson is the best! So Ben, this idea of restoration and getting back to a knowledge that was once had, recovering that knowledge and honoring that knowledge, it seems connected to a piece of academic research that you recently produced. On the podcast, we often ask our guests to bring to us an article or a book of rigorous scholarship that nevertheless has opened their hearts and opened their minds and, and strengthened their testimonies. Our mission statement is the phrase “to inspire and fortify the testimonies of Latter-day Saints”. So you shared with us an article that you co-authored titled “Accelerating the Renewable Energy Revolution to Get Back to the Holocene. It's all about an energy transition to renewable forms of energy that will help us to restore our global ecosystem to the, kind of function and interconnectedness that we enjoyed… that it enjoyed during what's known as the Holocene era. So I wondered if you would share with us a little bit about what you show and find in that article, but mostly about why and how that research strengthens your testimony, and how you hope it might influence the people who encounter it?

Abbott: Well, I want to give just a little bit of context of how this paper came about, because this was one of the projects that I was not initially studying, but it was student interest. I teach a capstone course, and the students selected this interesting energy revolution that's ongoing as the subject of the paper. And I was vaguely aware of it, right, because I studied climate change and air pollution, but not in detail. And there's even a little bit more of a backstory that I didn't think about at all until this conversation. But when I was a graduate student, I started collaborating with a researcher named Jasper Sky.

Welch: What a name!

Abbott: Jasper is an evangelical atheist. I mean, just he can't help but at every moment bring up how misguided I was personally. And as we develop this professional collaboration, we became friends, and he became very open, you know, sharing his criticisms of my beliefs and the church generally. He'd had a little bit of exposure before actually had a Unitarian pastor who was a member of the church in the past. But it was basically new for him. And he was very, very aggressive, and it was actually difficult as I was a graduate student at the time, it was disorienting and hard, right? Here's somebody who is farther along in their career than me. And so there were some, some hurt feelings and times that we had to call each other out. Also, because he lives in the UK, it was all going on over email, not… this is pre Zoom pandemic days, right. And it's very difficult in written correspondence to convey, you know, though I disagree with you, I love you, and I care about you. That's one of the issues I think we have right now, with the rise of online interactions. It's difficult to remember the person that I'm trying to talk with, they have feelings, they may be going through something that's hard. So Jasper, and I had this long term dialog, ended up going separate ways, and then years later…years, years, years later, almost 10 years later, he contacted me, and mentioned that he was working with this energy system modeling work group out of Finland, led by Christian Brier, who happens to be one of the top energy researchers in the world and said, “Do you have any students that might be interested in collaborating on this?” And so it was one of the ideas, one of about a half dozen that I kind of presented as ways to start, to the students. And because Jasper and I hadn't let our spiritual differences ruin that relationship, we were able to interact in a really positive way. I did have to explain the purpose of BYU and that it wouldn't be appropriate for Jasper to do a data dump of all the reasons why the historical Christ doesn't exist as he interacted with the students. And he was quite good, and not perfect, but quite good in those interactions. And likewise, the students were very polite toward him and his, his personal beliefs. But that was a very long prelude. But that's how this idea started about two years ago, that collaboration. There really are two main points of this paper, the first one's extremely negative and alarming, but in a real way, right? And this is something that we need to be aware of, if we're concerned about our fellow brothers and sisters, the effects of our current energy system are very negative in two ways. One, they are a leading cause of disease and death. So for many years, even many decades, the transition from burning wood and dung to burning fossil fuels was a net positive on reducing air pollution. So we see this strong decrease in air pollution through most of the 20th century, thanks to moving on to better fuels. But then around the year 2000, as populations became more urban, and the per capita consumption of energy and products increased, things took a turn. And from the year 2000, until now, the number of diseases and deaths caused by fossil fuel pollution have actually increased, or air pollution generally. And it's an enormous number. It's… it's difficult to overstate how significant this is. Between one and five, and one in four deaths each year, is caused by air pollution coming from our energy system. And that all of a sudden, is a moral issue, because it's affecting other human beings, right? It's no longer just about ah, what's the cheapest or best way or most profitable way of getting energy? But there's a trade off there. And that's problem number one is the effect of our current energy system on people. 99% of all of the children of God, live in areas and are breathing dirty air, according to just not even an adequate standard, but kind of the base level of what quality of air should be. So there's a human issue. The other issue is we've learned that the Earth system is much more sensitive to climate change than we once believed. So we're seeing changes today that we thought would come about in the year 2050, 2080, 2200. Right, the destabilization of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is about a century faster than we thought it would be. So these are two alarm bells that are going off. That's one of the premises of this paper. That when people say it's going to be good enough if we limit human caused warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, that's not taking into account the people who are dying today, right? It's too late for them, and the sensitivity of the Earth system. So that's message number one, the very negative alarming one. Message number two is that we are addressing this issue much more faster and successfully than most people realize. And, you know, I talked to colleagues who mainly are focused on ecosystems just like me, before my students changed that orientation. And many of them say, we have blown past so many climate targets. We're not making any progress on this any of the discussion that you hear is just greenwashing… a really, really negative place. Some of that cynicism stems from their experience, right of seeing how information can often be set aside by individuals, corporations, governments. The repentance process just doesn't happen, we learn about the thing, and it doesn't seem expedient to address it, the incentives are wrong, so we're looking at these other metrics. And we don't focus on the vulnerable, the poor, those who are being affected. So the reality is much brighter, we are living in an energy transition that is more momentous, both in the speed and the extent than the Industrial Revolution. Last year… in 2021, about 90% of all new power production was wind and solar energy. And that's not because of, you know, some international requirement or, or huge amount of subsidies. That's because the technology has advanced so quickly, that they now represent the lowest cost, and cleanest source of electricity humankind has ever had. And this is such an encouraging tip, because you no longer are trying to push against the tide of saying, “Let's do something that is more expensive to address this other issue”, right? Now, we should be willing to do that. And I think that if we think about our lives, just on a personal level, we do that all the time, right, we could all be working on Sundays, making a little bit more money. But we say, “I'm gonna give that up because I have a different value.” But it's harder, right? That requires a lot of coordination. And now we see the country that installed by a large margin- back to factor of three or four, most renewable energy was China last year. They are leading the way. So they are the world's largest polluter and contributor to greenhouse gasses. Now, they also are leading the charge and transitioning to a cleaner economy. So this, this paper is really trying to get a message out, yes to the public and policymakers. But it was as much oriented toward fellow researchers. Because, as we talk about the importance of air pollution, and climate change, the seriousness of those issues, if we're not helping people understand a viable way of solving them, then we can sometimes do more harm than good. Now, people don't typically make the big changes they need out of fear and discouragement. It has to be out of a positive vision, what do we see? What do we want and desire in the future?

Welch: That's really interesting to me that your audience was in part, your fellow researchers as much as the public and policymakers. And that really opens it up to me in a new way. As every listener will have gathered by now, you are a very positive and energetic person, you have an uplifting and affirmative kind of affect. And yet you work every day, with bad news, right? And hard problems. And so you, you model for your peers, the effectiveness of a positive approach, of a bold vision, a constructive orientation towards these hard problems. And it's also very clear, right? It's very free of jargon. And it's very accessible. It was readable to me as a non-scientist. I'm wondering whether any of those communication skills that you modeled and practiced in that paper- being positive, being clear- can then transfer to our church life? What's the role of communication in our church communities? How can we be better, more effective communicators there? And sometimes we have to communicate bad news at church as well, right? Sometimes there are problems that have to be addressed.

Abbott: Yeah, well, you've taken me way out of my comfort zone out there Rosalynde. We’re not at all an expert in solving these issues. I've seen many people approach these issues differently. And I think the wrong message, or the wrong conclusion would be to assume I can never bring up a concern that I have, I can never bring up a serious issue. And sometimes our righteous desire to avoid conflict prevents us from repenting and progressing as quickly as I think the Lord would want us to. And so again, I can't remember if it was Elder Uchtdorf or someone else. But I kept saying, we're we are going to disagree. We don't have to be disagreeable when we do it. And so we should be willing to take those risks, and have frank conversations. And sometimes it can be really hard. Like, I remember, when I learned- it was in 2017, that I read The Lancet Commission on Global Environmental Health. This was the best physicians in the world working with the best environmental health researchers in the world to try to estimate overall burden on the human family of environmental pollution. Air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution, I read the article, and it was a very similar feeling as you sometimes get when you're reading the scriptures, where you just lose contact with the world around you and you really feel that connection. I was 15 minutes late for class. I was reading this article, got to the end, looked up and saw the time and ran down four flights and stairs and said, “I'm so sorry, I was reading this paper” and we actually just discussed that paper in the class. You never know…I'm super self indulgent and egotistical. So I thought that the students loved it. Maybe they hated it. And they're like, not only is he like, he's not talking about the materials, right, that are on the syllabus. I don't think that was the case, you know, students were sharing, yes, their concern and alarm, they were immediately thinking, how can I talk to my parents? How can I talk to my representatives, local, state, federal? What changes can I make personally to address this problem? And I think that you very often see that in young people, or anyone who is young at heart, meaning that they're open to new information, where I learned about this, and of course, I'm going to respond to it. So that was, that was really helpful. But it sometimes keeps me up at night, you know, to think about the enormity of some of these, these issues. And I'm just blathering on because your question was about in a church environment? So how can we, with no guile, with no desire to score points, how can we bring up these important questions, and then be willing to sit with the person, sometimes even the person that's perpetrating the problem, maybe they're even doing it knowingly, right? They'd received correction before. Heavens knows I've been in that position, corrected by a family member, then I find myself the next day, engaged in the same activity. I'm so grateful when that family member doesn't respond, you know, with anger, hatred toward me, I'm also grateful when they persist in their effort to influence me for better. So I think we can take that as a model, though, again, I'm not at all an expert.

Welch: So working to build trust, during and before and after difficult conversations, being positive whenever we can, being understanding, and being persistent.

Abbott: And sometimes, we have to maintain that humility, even after learning an important message. Think about the great pioneer missionaries, or missionaries in the Book of Mormon, where it's not enough just to understand what God wants, right? But you have to go and be willing to listen and connect with those people. Just as you said, establish that trust and, and relationship. That also is why it is so crucial that each one of us becomes literate in these areas. Because you know, me as an Environmental SCience, and Sustainability professor, there are lots of words that are going to be triggering and off putting people just in my title, where they are not going to consider me as a reliable source of information. And if I were to write off people that write me off, then I have no chance to learn from them and influence them. But whatever your background is, whatever you are going into, we need to be sharing the gospel, which of course includes all of the ways that we can love God and love one another. So each of you are needed in a very real way! You can do things that I, or you, Rosalynde can't accomplish.

Welch: Share final takeaways in terms of all hands on deck, you know, what, what can real people do?

Abbott: Yeah, sure. You know, the number one source in the US of air pollution and climate and greenhouse gasses comes from transportation, the way that we're getting around. And it's really just seeing we have the ability of reducing those local pollutants in a big way, right? When you ride a bike, the only pollutants you're making, or you're releasing are your BO, which is much less dangerous, and maybe not any less agreeable, but much less dangerous. So ride a bike, walk, take public transportation, that's a very concrete way that you can be a better steward. That's the number one source of air pollutants. The second one is really interesting. Air pollution and greenhouse gasses are coming from our homes. The way that we heat our homes. Most of us in the intermountain west use natural gas stoves or furnaces. And now there's an amazing technology called the heat pump. This is like the unsung hero in our battle to create a cleaner environment. Heat pumps run on electricity, they're extremely efficient, they can reduce your heating and cooling costs. It's like an air conditioner and a furnace in one, they can replace your furnace now. Thankfully, both the city and then starting next year, the federal government actually has support for this transition, because it's so good for consumers and reduces pollution. What I find interesting about those two choices is: one of them is something you've got to make…a choice you've got to make every day like how am I going to get around? Right? The other one is an infrequent choice you make most of us aren't going furnace shopping every day. We should be aware whenever you're making a big choice. What kind of vehicle am I going to buy? What kind of house or apartment am I going to live in? Those are key windows of opportunity to improve our lives and bring them more in line with Lord's laws of sustainability. And then the third thing that… I guess I'm gonna give you four, no four is not a great number. Third one that you can do is change your diet. About a third of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution is coming from our food system. And if we live in line with the Word of Wisdom, you know, which…which is very clear and tells us to eat foods in their season, to eat, primarily, have a plant based diet, that can reduce our air pollution and greenhouse gas footprint from agriculture by 85%. It's really exciting. That means that we could be feeding nine people with the resources we're currently using for one. So think this is, this is grant by Hanson on steroids, right? It's not just decreasing by half, but we've decreased by 85%. We also know thanks to medical science, that this has all kinds of positive health personal outcomes. And that's a beautiful principle of… of the gospel, these, these win-win-wins, right? You make the right choice, not just for the rewards, but as you do make the right choice. It brings so many benefits, peace of spirit and opportunities. So those are the first three. The final one is get involved in civic life. And if you know, national politics are not your thing, that's great, because they're almost nobody's thing. And yet, that's where we spend so much of our focus. People know who the president is, and who these congress people are. I asked my students, I don't mean to tell on my students here, but I ask them almost every semester, “Who is your state representative?” This is the representative or senator that…that's that represents you at the state level. Zero students so far have known who that was, you have a much greater influence on decisions being made at the state level, right? You can call those people up, you can send them a text, message and email. They actually respond, right. The way that national politics can be so discouraging, local politics can actually be extremely fulfilling. As you develop relationships, as you realize, “Wow, I’m in a different political party than that person. And yet, they are a good person. They're working for good things. And together, we can create a better solution.” So this has been a theme, right? Where we've been encouraged and even commanded by our modern prophets to be civically engaged. So, we should be doing the individual things that we can, then we should become informed, and engaged in a respectful Christ-like way. Be that example, transform that environment, from the really toxic place it can be to a place of relationship and respect.

Welch: Ben, thank you so much. I know listeners will appreciate those. I appreciate those. I'm inspired by them. I'm going to take away this idea of a repentance-oriented approach to our work, whatever it is. And I can see that applying broadly, whatever our daily work is, whatever our vocation, bring repentance into that, and I think there's one last takeaway that everybody should keep in mind, open your windows when you pray! It helps. Thanks for being with us today, Ben, you've been wonderful.

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