Climate One

Would you vote for the candidate who says he’ll declare climate change a national emergency on Day One of his presidency? Businessman and activist Tom Steyer says his willingness to use emergency powers to deal with the climate crisis sets him apart from the crowded field of Democratic candidates. “You have to start on day one, urgently – it's an emergency, treat it like an emergency,” Steyer urges. “I would give the Congress a 100 days … to pass something like the Green New Deal, but they've had 28 years to pass something like the Green New Deal, and actually we don't have the luxury of waiting any longer.” Steyer also cites his record fighting the corporate takeover of the US government as another mark of distinction. “I am the person who spent 10 years as an outsider organizing coalitions of American citizens to take on corporate interests and to register voters engage voters and turn them out at the polls,” he notes, while also affirming that his grassroots organizing will continue independently of his campaign and the election. But as the Democratic Party moves to the left, with a more diverse candidate pool than ever, is now the right time for another wealthy white man to insist he’s the best person for the job? “I think there's a very simple challenge for everybody who wants to be the Democratic nominee,” says Steyer,” and that’s to have something to say that people want to hear ... I think that if I'm saying something that touches people and they believe that I'm a credible messenger, then they'll respond.” Guest: Tom Steyer, Activist, Businessman, 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate This program was recorded at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on August 19, 2019.

What’s new in renewable energy? In April, 23 percent of America’s electricity came from renewables, surpassing coal for the first time. Ten states, and Puerto Rico and Washington DC, have policies in place to run on 100 percent clean power in coming decades. Achieving that presents a host of challenges, from updating an aging electricity grid to financing energy innovation to figuring out how to transport and store the renewable power. Fortunately, says author Russell Gold, we have the talent to take those challenges on. “There's a lot of creativity in the space right now,” says Gold. “There's creativity on reducing demand, there's creativity in how we aggregate solar… and frankly, given what's going on with the climate, we sort of need to be trying them all -- simultaneously.” And if we succeed, we stand to gain a lot more than just cleaner air, a stable planet and lower electricity bills. We also open the door to a wealth of employment opportunities. Bloomberg’s Lynn Doan says this is the perfect time to diversify a sector that has been traditionally dominated by white males – what she calls the industry’s “dirty little secret.” “The renewable energy industry is creating more jobs than any other industry in the United States,” says Doan. “The solar technician and wind technician jobs -- those are the two fastest-growing professions in the U.S. today. So if women and minorities are missing out on this renewable energy industry opportunity, then they’re being left out of the biggest job boom that America has to offer today.” Something else to look forward to? The end of the gas-guzzler. Jigar Shah, co-host of The Energy Gang podcast, says drivers won’t miss having to stop to fill up their tank. “It’s not like an enjoyable experience; it’s a necessary evil for what they need for mobility,” he tells the audience. “And I think people are starting to realize now that with these 200-plus mile range electric vehicles, you really can go across the country.” Guests: Russell Gold, Reporter, the Wall Street Journal; Author, Superpower: One Man's Quest to Transform American Energy (Simon & Schuster, 2019) Jigar Shah, Founder, SunEdison; Co-Host, The Energy Gang podcast Lynn Doan, Team Leader, Power and Gas-Americas, Bloomberg News This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on August 5, 2019.

The California dream, with its promise of never-ending sunshine, fertile soil and rivers running with gold, has been beckoning people west for over two hundred years. But making that dream come true for an ever-increasing population has taken its toll on the landscape. Is the California dream coming to an end? When its current water system was built in the 1960s and ‘70s, California’s population was about half of the forty million who live there today. And every one of its citizens needs water to drink, bathe and cook. Add to that the demands of agriculture, livestock and the natural ecosystem, and the pool of available water gets smaller and smaller. “When the resource is finite then you have to make choices,” says author Mark Arax. “And so in the San Joaquin Valley they're gonna have to choose which land deserves that water. It's alfalfa, it's Holsteins.” In his new book, The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California, Arax pulls back the curtain on the backroom deal-making between billionaire investors and regulators that has, in some cases, stolen the water right out from under our feet. Faith Kearns, a scientist with the California Institute for Water Resources, says it’s been going on for years. Even she has trouble keeping up. “I think there is a lot of stuff that goes on really behind the scenes and that is completely inaccessible to most of us, even those of us who work on this topic professionally,” says Kearns. California now experiences regular weather whiplash, amplified by climate change, careening between record drought and extreme rainfall. Diana Marcum won a Pulitzer Prize for her series of articles on California’s central valley farmers during the drought. Years of parched weather have taught her to appreciate the green times we do get. “I think that’s one thing I took away from the drought,” Marcum recalls. “During it I kept thinking, I wish I would've paid more attention. I wish I could picture the snow. I wish I could picture the grass. So right now I'm trying to look so hard that it almost hurts” Guests: Mark Arax, Author, “The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California” (Knopf, 2019) Diana Marcum, Reporter, Los Angeles Times Faith Kearns, Scientist, California Institute for Water Resources This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on July 17th, 2019.

When it comes to solving climate change, where do we start? The organization Project Drawdown has published a list of top solutions for climate change – impactful actions already in existence that not only reduce carbon emissions, but also improve lives, create jobs and generate community resilience. “If you’re thinking about how to solve climate change here's where you start,” says Jonathan Foley, Project Drawdown’s executive director. “Electricity is about a quarter of the problem. Food, agriculture and forest are also a quarter of the problem...then you’ve got buildings, industry and transportation. Those are the five things we’ve got to change.” One item that might surprise many is dealing with global overpopulation. And that starts with improving education and reproductive freedom for the world’s girls and women. “If women have the opportunity to be able to have a voice and be agents in their community and their country globally, we have the opportunity to have the kind of innovation that we need to be able to combat this,” says Lois Quam of Pathfinder International. “That human right to decide whether and when and how many and with whom we want to have a child, the ability to exercise that right is…one of the top strategies to combat climate change.” It’s quite a to-do list – and it’s only the beginning. How to sort through the many daunting tasks ahead of us? Don’t be discouraged, says Foley. It almost doesn’t matter where we start, as long as we’re doing something. Corporations, policy makers, communities and individuals all have a part to play in achieving climate drawdown. This point was driven home to the audience and panelists alike by an additional guest, 13-year old Kea Morshed. His YouTube channel, Movies with Mic1, demonstrates the many ways we can all challenge ourselves to take action on climate change. “At the end of the day, it's gonna be behavior change by all of us that’s necessary,” Foley tells Climate One. “It’s gonna be policy change, business operations change and changes in capital, money. “So don’t pick one lever, pull them all, you know - everybody bloody one you can find!” Guests: Kate Brandt, Sustainability Officer, Google Jonathan Foley, Executive Director, Project Drawdown Lois Quam, U.S. Chief Executive Officer, Pathfinder International This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on July 11, 2019.

The climate conversation in Washington has changed enough that Democrats and Republicans are talking climate deals. A lot of that change can be attributed to the Green New Deal, a Democratic resolution introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey. “What we're doing with the Green New Deal is we’re putting together an army that won't just be a resolution, it's a revolution,” boasts Markey, who has served over 40 years in Congress and co-authored the last big legislative push for national climate policy a decade ago. Markey says that he and AOC “share a passion to create a movement which is going to change the relationship between the American people and the fossil fuel industry.” That relationship is also targeted in the Green Real Deal, a market-based alternative to the Green New Deal put forward by Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida. “Fossil fuels are not our future. They just aren’t,” proclaims Gaetz, very much out of step with GOP orthodoxy in general and the current administration’s policies in particular. Less surprising than a Republican proposing to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies is that a GOP call for climate action is coming from Florida. Gaetz, whose district in the Florida panhandle was battered by Hurricane Michael in 2018 is an ardent supporter of President Trump – except when it comes to climate science. “You can either believe the climate deniers, or you can believe your lying eyes,” he says, “and I'm from the pro-science wing of the Republican Party.” But are there really any prospects for a legislative deal passing while a pro-fossil fuel climate denier occupies the White House? “It's more likely to see ideas like this passing as ballot initiatives in states as test kitchens that can then kind of branch out to other states than something really holistically passing through Congress before 2020,” says Miranda Green, an energy and environment reporter covering Congress for The Hill. Still, Green is impressed with Gaetz’s fossil fuel iconoclasm and even with Trump’s apparent need to address climate – if never actually by name – in a recent White House speech. “It shows that the issue of climate change has really put itself at the center of politics right now,” she says, “at the center of the political debate.” Guests: Senator Ed Markey, D-MA Representative Matt Gaetz, R-FL Miranda Green, Energy and Environment Reporter, The Hill

How will we feed a planet that’s hotter, drier, and more crowded than ever? Much of it starts with innovators who are trying to re-invent the global food system to be more productive and nutritious. Vanderbilt University Journalism professor Amanda Little chronicles some of these efforts in her new book, The Fate of Food: What We'll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World. “We see disruption in the auto industry, we see disruption in tobacco – disruption is coming in the meat industry,” says Little, noting how conventional meat companies have been investing in technologies to produce cell-based meat without animals. Other technological innovations, such as robots that can deploy herbicide with sniper-like precision, can help push agriculture toward more sustainable practices. But she also notes the difficulties that food startups face in getting their products to scale – which often means selling to large, industrial producers. “We need the sort of good guys and bad guys to collaborate,” she says. “It doesn't mean that that is disrupting the, you know, the rise of local food webs and farmers markets and CSAs and locally sourced foods. It means maybe this is a way of bringing more intelligent practices to industrial ag.” Twilight Greenaway, a contributing editor with Civil Eats, amplifies these concerns about tech disruption in the food space. “Will there be some [technology] that really can feed into a more democratic food system that allows for different types of ownership less concentrated ownership,” she asks, noting that some startups start out with the goal of selling to a large company. She likens the current conversation to earlier discussions about the organic farming movement leading to little more than an organic Twinkie. “There’s a lot to say about changing practices on the land and what organic means in terms of pesticides and other environmental benefits,” she cautions, “but on the other hand, you’ll still end up with the Twinkie.” Guests: Twilight Greenaway, Contributing Editor, Civil Eats Amanda Little, Professor of Journalism, Vanderbilt University

When Ridley Scott envisioned the dystopian Los Angeles of 2019 in “Blade Runner,” he probably didn’t think about how much energy would be needed to run those flying cars and sky-high animated billboards. Or what all those carbon emissions would be doing to the climate. We’re now living in the world of 2019. Flying cars are still in the future. But with over half of the global population living in urban centers, and another 2.5 billion expected to join them by 2050, maybe it’s time to take a step backward when it comes to getting around the city. “We know that if you invite more cars, you get more cars,” says architect and urban planner Jan Gehl. “If you invite and make streets you get more traffic. And if you can make more bicycle lanes and do it properly, you get more bicycles. “And if you invite people to walk more and use public spaces more, you get more life in the city. It's the same mechanism -- you get what you invite for.” The cities of today have to prepare for a future that includes more heat, more flooding and more people. This means confronting the infrastructure they run on, and making some upgrades. That could have a bigger impact than most people realize. “Approaching climate change, particularly when it comes to our cities, is this opportunity to do pretty major investments in a sort of significant retooling of cities,” says urbanist Liz Ogbu. “Not just in the U.S., but around the world.” But large urban projects have historically ended up displacing communities of color by building freeways through their communities or by pricing them out of their own homes and businesses. Some well-known examples of this are Detroit, Miami and Los Angeles. Ogbu warns that it’s important to keep from repeating the mistakes of the past. “I think it's time that we talk about how do we be intentional about those investments and who benefits,” Ogbu continue. “Because I think the idea that we don't consider it doesn't mean that people don't get harmed.” Can we create a Tomorrowland that is sustainable, livable and inclusive? Guests: Liz Ogbu, Founder and Principal, Studio O Laura Crescimano, Co-Founder/Principal, SITELAB Urban Studio Jan Gehl, Architect and Founding Partner, Gehl Architects, author, “Cities for People” (Island Press, 2010) Related Links: SPUR: Ideas + Action for a Better City SITELAB Urban Studio Studio O Liz Ogbu TED Talk: What if gentrification was about healing communities instead of displacing them? (Youtube) Cities for People (Jan Gehl) Jan Gehl TED Talk: In Search of the Human Scale (Youtube) This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on June 3, 2019.

Do you live somewhere that might actually benefit from climate change? Rising temperatures and seas will produce losers and winners. Some parts of the world will see more moderate weather and economic gains, while others are already seeing sagging property prices and economic losses. “Many people think oh it’s just the temperature, but actually temperature affects everything,” says Solomon Hsiang of UC Berkeley. Hsiang co-authored a 2017 paper in the journal Science that outlines the impacts of a warmer world on human health and migration, violent crime, food production and wealth distribution. The study shows that hot days are associated with increased violence as well as with reduced incomes. Hsiang and his colleagues have followed actual U.S. counties over time and found that if the diurnal average is above 85 Fahrenheit, people earn roughly $20 less per year. So who does come out ahead? “We do spend a lot of resources trying to cope with the cold,” Hsiang notes. “There are many parts of the world where if you get a little bit warmer…you actually can take those resources that you were spending on shoveling your driveway or paying someone to plow it, and you can invest those in something much more productive.” But would any of these benefits inevitably offset by the social costs? “Risk in a changing climate is not just about the climate – that human side of the picture is unbelievably important,” says Katherine Mach, formerly with Stanford University and now at university of Miami. “The huge inequities among countries of the world and the way that impacts that are happening in terms of impacts for food security or water insecurity…will mean different things when you're in a low income country” without state support to keep the economy moving. Guests: Solomon Hsiang, Chancellor's Associate Professor of Public Policy, UC Berkeley Katherine Mach, Senior Research Scientist, Stanford University

At what point does Planet Earth become inhospitable to life – let alone a flourishing human civilization? In his new book The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, David Wallace-Wells explores how climate change will impact not just the planet, but human lives – including how a five degree increase in temperatures would make parts of the planet unsurvivable. “The more I learned about the science the deeper I got into it… the more scared I was,” he admits, “and from where I sat as a journalist the importance of telling that story so that other people have the same reaction have the same response. Paradoxically, though he has only been writing about it for a few years, Wallace-Wells has found climate change to invigorate him as a storyteller. “It's an epic saga,” he says. “It's the kind of thing that we only used to see in mythology and theology. We really do have the fate of the world and the species in our hands.” Another climate communicator, Katherine Hayhow from Texas Tech University, recognizes the need for storytellers like Wallace-Wells to translate the work of scientists like her. “We’re not missing the apocalyptic vision of the future, I think we've got that in spades,” she says. “What David’s book does is it takes what we've been saying in scientific assessments for years and even decades, and it rephrases in a way that’s hopefully more accessible for people to understand how bad this could be.” That said, Hayhoe also recognizes a need for other writers and creative artists to tell climate stories that move us beyond doom-and-gloom. “We scientists are terrible at positive visions of the future, all we’re good at is diagnosing the problem in greater and greater detail,” she laments. “We need others to help us see what that future looks like. Because when you look at something that’s better than what we have today, you can’t hold people back from moving in that direction.” Guests: David Wallace-Wells, Deputy Editor, New York Magazine; Author, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming Katharine Hayhoe, Professor and Director, Climate Science Center, Texas Tech University This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on May 6, 2019

Produce, consume, discard; we all know the routine. Raw materials are extracted, produced into goods, and used – sometimes only once – before turning into waste. And maybe we think that recycling that Starbucks cup or Smartwater bottle is the best we can do for the planet. But that’s only one part of the story. Now, innovative companies are “going circular” by transforming how their products are designed, used, and remade. Can a circular economy salvage the climate and save the planet?

As the 2020 presidential election approaches, Greg Dalton will be sitting down with some of the candidates to talk about their plans for a clean energy supply, a greener economy, and their specific strategies for addressing the climate crisis as President of the United States. Keep your eyes out for those episodes on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Washington Governor Jay Inslee is a notable departure from other Democratic presidential hopefuls who regularly mention, but rarely prioritize climate change. Yet in a recent poll of public policy priorities, Americans ranked climate change next to last. Could a climate-focused candidate nudge the Democratic platform toward bolder action – let alone become the Climate President? “I've now passed some of the most meaningful climate legislation in American history,” says Governor Inslee. “I’m very confident that I have a unique ability to lead this nation [and] I favor and I appreciate anybody following my leadership.” Inslee pulls no punches in touting his environmental accomplishments as governor as a model for national climate action. “The kind of thing that we’ve done in Washington State that I believe is a template for success in Washington [DC],” he says, “so we ought to believe that we can have 100% clean electricity that ought to be something that we can tell Americans that they can have because I have told Washingtonians they can achieve that goal.” The governor is also unequivocal about why he is running for President as the climate candidate. “I just decided that I wanted on my deathbed to be able to look at my grandchildren and tell them I did every single thing I could to prevent climate change from destroying their future and that includes running for president of the United States.” Guest: Jay Inslee, Governor of Washington This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on May 2, 2019.

Guests: Jennifer Palmer, Founder, Women for Wildlife James Sano, Vice President for Travel, Tourism and Conservation, World Wildlife Fund Norbu Tenzing, Vice President, American Himalayan Foundation We’ve all heard that hopping on a plane is one of the worst things we can do for the climate. So how do we justify the environmental costs of world travel? Seeing the effects of global warming for yourself could be one argument for getting on that flight. For James Sano of the World Wildlife Fund, things got real on a trip to Antarctica. “I was expecting lots of crevasses and big chunks of ice,” Sano recalls. “But then I suddenly found myself with my skis on a beach. And in the ensuing hundred or so years, the glacier had receded significantly so that there was no ice fall.” Jennifer Palmer of Women for Wildlife has traveled the world spreading awareness about global warming. She believes that helping to connect those who are being hit hardest by it makes the carbon cost worthwhile. “There is a piece of me that sits on a plane and says I’m contributing to this,” Palmer admits. “[But] when you think about it in the grand context of the people that I'm helping have the experiences, and they’re becoming ambassadors for these places. They're coming back and they’re telling stories and they’re creating videos and they’re having dialogues. And they’re creating change.” One memorable experience for Palmer was sharing the film “Chasing Ice” with a community of Bajau people in Indonesia. “We actually screened the film in the middle of the ocean on their settlement on stilts,” she remembers. “We tied up bed sheets…and they were literally hanging out on boats.” “To see the looks on their faces as they learned about what is a glacier and how that’s connected to the issues that they’re going on and seeing…to make that connection and to be able to have a dialogue with that community was very special and heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time.” Jim Sano had some travel advice for those who want to lighten their carbon travel footprint. Take fewer, long trips if you can, he suggests. Avoid flying first class. And consider your routing: “Many people don't know that a great majority of your carbon footprint is associated with takeoffs and landings,” he reminded the audience. “So while your airfare may be less if you do a one stop, if you take a direct flight, your footprint would be far less.” Norbu Tenzing, whose father was one of the first people to reach the top of Mt. Everest in the company of Sir Edmund Hillary, welcomes travelers, trekkers and tourists to his beloved Himalayas,“.unequivocally, the highest and most beautiful mountains in the world.” But, he adds, it’s vital to travel responsibly. “You go to places like Nepal, Tibet or the Himalayas where we have massive problem with global warming,” he says, “it's important to go over there and see firsthand what the issues are, and to come back and try and do something about it.” Whether we’re scaling Mount Everest or diving with sea turtles in the Galapagos Islands, it’s important to tread lightly – and respectfully – on every corner of our planet. And ideally, use the experience to make the world a better place This program was recorded live at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on March 19, 2018.

Although many climate conversations talk about impacts on future generations, all too often those younger generations are not at the table or in the room. So how are young people taking charge of their climate future? For Isha Clarke, a high school student and activist from Oakland, California, by speaking truth to the senior U.S. Senator from her state. “I think that truth is respectful and that you can speak truth in a way that is compassionate and authentic,” says Clarke, who recently gained fame for a viral video in which she confronts Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein over the Green New Deal. “I think the conversation now isn’t really about Senator Feinstein anymore,” Clarke says as she reflects on that experience and the ensuing coverage, “it's really about politicians in general and power holders in general, who aren’t and haven't been taking the necessary steps to reverse this climate crisis. Feeling a similar frustration at her elders’ failure to act more urgently, 14-year old Sarah Goody organized a climate strike in San Francisco. “Why study for a future that’s not gonna exist?” says Sarah in response to passers-by who question why she’s sitting on a sidewalk rather than in a classroom, “I need to be here now and fighting now for my future.” Sitting alone outside iconic buildings can be a lonely endeavor, so other slightly-less young activists have found their climate calling by getting involved in more organized movements. “I see [it] as a civic duty to be involve to be socially engaged in whatever way I can,” says Morrisa Zuckerman, Bay Area chapter coordinator for the Sunrise Movement, the grassroots organization behind the Green New Deal. She and her colleagues have been pressing lawmakers and candidates to make climate action a top priority – and it’s working. “This Democratic presidential primary is talking about climate change in a way that I don't think any of us necessarily expected,” enthuses Ben Wessel, Youth Vote Director at NextGen America, the environmental advocacy organization founded by billionaire activist Tom Steyer. Wessel has been impressed by the diversity of motivations that have recently been drawing young people to climate politics. “This is one intersectional movement that has to address our racial injustices our climate injustices and our economic injustices,” Wessel says, “I actually think the Democratic primary electorate is recognizing that more than ever before.” Elections have consequences; but without more fundamental changes, shifting political winds can erase hard-fought carbon reductions. That’s why for Julia Olson, Executive Director of Our Children's Trust, the most effective climate solution lies in judicial rather than legislative action. Olson is chief legal counsel for plaintiffs in Juliana versus United States, the lawsuit brought by 21 young people accusing the federal government of violating their fundamental rights under the Fifth Amendment to life, liberty and property by knowingly promoting and subsidizing an energy system that damages climate. “What we hope to do through our case in lifting up the voice of youth in the Judiciary,” Olson explains, “is to secure the binding constitutional mandate that forces the people in the presidency and in the legislature to actually adopt laws and policies that comply with its constitutional obligation.” Guests: Isha Clarke, Student Activist Sarah Goody, Student Activist Julia Olson, Executive Director at Our Children's Trust; Chief Legal Counsel for plaintiffs in Juliana v. U.S. Ben Wessel, Director, NextGen Rising Morissa Zuckerman, Bay Area Chapter Coordinator, Sunrise Movement

“This is turning out exactly the way scientists predicted, with one exception: it’s happening faster than they thought,” says political analyst David Gergen, who served in four presidential administrations. “The question is what can we do rapidly that would alleviate this and be fair to all.” Gergen is in favor of urgent acting on climate, but is skeptical of the all-encompassing vision of the Green New Deal. “The last thing we need is another fight that leads to a big environmental bill that the minority won't vote for,” he says referencing the Affordable Care Act, “and it's only voted for by the majority, and then the minority spends the next five years trying to undo it.” At a minimum, Gergen believes Republicans would be in favor of getting the U.S. back into the Paris Accord and setting a reasonable price on carbon. So what keeps Republican lawmakers from signing on to meaningful climate legislation? “You have to think that the Republican Party takes a contrary view in part because of the money [from the fossil fuel industry],” he laments. As someone who grew up in tobacco country and lost his father to cancer, Gergen can’t help but see the parallels between that industry and oil companies. “The science… may not be 100% correct and maybe it's only 95% correct,” he says, “but whatever the number is we should have an insurance policy to protect our kids and our grandkids. I mean it’s just, that’s just obvious common sense.” That common sense, as more and more voters experience more frequent extreme weather, is serving to move the climate debate forward in Washington. “There’s a lot of signs that voters, you know, they may not completely agree with the Green New Deal,” says Marianne Lavelle, a reporter with InsideClimate News, “but they’re not very happy with having politicians who are just not paying attention to climate and just not doing anything.” Lavelle credits the proponents of the Green New Deal for the new momentum, though they are not necessarily following a radical new playbook. “The principle that really motivates the backers of the Green New Deal is considering climate change as an economic policy, not just an environmental policy,” she explains, adding that the U.S. had already signed on to an environmental and economic framework for addressing climate change at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. As an climate journalist, Lavelle is especially pleased to see Republicans no longer – or at least not as full-throatedly – denying climate change, even proposing solutions, however modest. “This is the thing that we have tried to get across in our coverage,” she says. “For so many years the discussion was stuck on is climate change happening or not and that is not going to be a productive discussion. But a debate on which approach would be better... is a discussion that could become productive.” Ultimately it is Republican voters who are pushing their legislators to act, since many of them, especially in western states, find their views on energy and conservation at odds with the current administration’s environmental policies. “The vast majority of Western voters say we need to make sure that we protect [public lands] for all Americans,” notes Lori Weigel, a GOP pollster. “It shouldn't be something where economic value or resource extraction is taking priority over the uses that we’re most familiar with. “When we talk about clean energy, when we talk about solar and wind and being more energy-efficient, honestly, we see very little partisan distinction on those things.” Guests: David Gergen, Professor of Public Service and Founding Director, Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School Marianne Lavelle, Reporter, InsideClimate News Lori Weigel, Partner, Public Opinion Strategies

Former presidential advisor David Gergen on the Green New Deal, InsideClimate News reporter Marianne Lavelle on the latest climate action proposals, and Republican political strategist Lori Weigel on how conservation and conservatism can go hand-in-hand.