Talking climate change to an audience of hunters and anglers could be a really tough sell, but Bill Geer manages to get through to them.Since his retirement from the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership four years ago, the 69-year-old has taken on an ambitious, self-funded project. He’s been traveling the Northwest giving climate change presentations to the important and powerful constituency of hunters and anglers. So far, Geer has driven thousands of miles, and spoken to 43 clubs. And generally, those talks have gone over well.Pretty impressive, given the demographics of hunters in the U.S. About 42 percent of U.S. hunters and anglers identify as Republicans. And conservative Republicans are more than 5 times less likely than liberal democrats to believe that climate change is caused by humans. Still, despite the heated politics surrounding climate change in places like Montana, the hunters Geer encounters have largely been open to hearing him out. And everyone seems to agree on why: Geer is trustworthy, because he’s one of them.
“You got to be one of the tribe,” says Kit Fischer, the president of a Montana-based club called Hellgate Hunters and Anglers. “A climate organization could not walk into Hellgate Hunters and Anglers and say, ‘Hey, I want to sit down and tell you guys about climate change.’ They won’t be able to even probably get 10 minutes at a meeting,” he says. Geer, on the other hand, recently gave his entire presentation to Fischer’s club over beers at a hotel in Missoula. And there wasn’t a heckler in sight.This segment originally aired July 17, 2017, on VICE News Tonight on HBO.CORRECTION July 25, 2017 12:16 p.m.: A previous version of this story misstated Bill Geer’s last job. He worked for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation in 1989, but retired from the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership four years ago.
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