Best Public Speakers Series: Katharine Hayhoe

by Stephanie Bickel

We included Katharine Hayhoe on our "Best Public Speakers" list because of her passionate delivery, strong eye contact, great vocal variety, connection to the audience, and variety of intentional gestures.

“When a speaker’s style matches their message, they become unforgettable.” — Stephanie Bickel

Katharine Hayhoe is a Climate Scientist, a Professor and an Endowed Chair in Public Policy and Public Law in the Texas Tech University Department of Political Science. In 2021, Hayhoe joined the Nature Conservancy as Chief Scientist.

We reviewed Katharine's Ted Talk titled "The most important thing you can do to fight climate change: talk about it", where she discusses how everyone can be a part of the solution to prevent climate change by opening up a dialogue about it. Hayhoe shows how the key to having a real discussion is to connect over shared values like family, community and religion -- and to prompt people to realize that they already care about a changing climate.

What makes a message about climate change go viral when others fall flat? Katharine Hayhoe’s TED Talk has over 5 million views, and it’s not just because of what she says. It’s how she says it.

What are the main communication takeaways?

• Variety of gestures: Hayhoe’s frequent use of open palms fosters warmth and transparency, essential when tackling emotionally charged topics like climate change, along with the pincer for precision|accuracy, and the steeple grip which shows confidence.

• Locking and holding eye contact: Katharine uses strong and direct eye contact to engage her audience.

• Connection with everyone in the room: She does a great job at relating a controversial topic to all that are listening and provides a call to action.

• Shows passion in topic: It's clear that she is an expert on climate change and cares.

• Used vocal variety: She emphasized important phrases to make them memorable

How She Could Improve:

• Pace of Speech: Katharine started off with a quick pace which made her trip up on some of her words. Slowing down and taking more pauses would have helped her sound less rushed.

• Closed off gestures: She crossed her fingers in her grip which had a clenching look with tension at times.

• Lack of using the stage: She stayed planted in one spot for the entire talk and it would have been beneficial for her to use the stage more.

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