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Subscribe, and thank you so much for listening to another season
of reversing climate change. Hello and welcome to the
reversing climate change. Cast.
I'm Ross, Kenyan I am the lead strategist at the Nori carbon
removal Marketplace. Today I have with me Jared
DeWees senior Communications advisor for the climate and
energy program, at Third Way, a center-left federal policy,
think tank in d.c.? Hey Jared!
Hey, Roz, how are you? I'm doing.
Well, thanks for being on the show.
Thank you for having me. I was very intrigued by the
report. Y'all just issued a research
report called Black Americans care about climate change
parenthetical, but it's complicated.
So we're going to dive into what the report deals with, but maybe
I'm going to channel my co-host In Absentia, Christoph, Jaws
pay. We like to start with people's
stories. So Jared, what led you to this
point right here in your career? Yeah, well thanks for asking and
again, thank you for having me on.
So I started a third way about almost three years ago and I
wanted to work in the political space.
I wanted to work toward Type of change.
And I don't have a traditional climate Energy background.
I've taken a few classes in climate and energy policy and
graduate school. And that is what kind of led me
to Third Way. But prior, to Third Way, I had a
very unorthodox route. I was a teacher at one point for
New Year, in New York City in the Bronx.
I also worked in fashion Communications, which people
always find interesting, but my undergraduate degrees in theater
and that's what led me to New York.
So I have I'm a pretty unorthodox winding road to Third
Way, but all along the way, it was my passion for
communications and giving voice to the voiceless.
When I was a kid, my very first political memory, my family was
very politically engaged. I'm from Great Falls, South
Carolina, very small town, in the Piedmont of South Carolina.
And one of my very first political memories was the first
election of Bill Clinton. In my elementary school, there
was a mock election and you know, you had people who were
on, you know, going for George Be punished and my family
traditionally Democrats. Historically Democrats.
I was fighting for Bill Clinton, who was my John F, Kennedy might
not be popular to say now, but, you know, for me, he was, and
got me involved in wanting to inspire people, to vote, and,
and getting people activated. And so, I remember wearing, I
had a clinton-gore tee shirt. I used to wear it three times a
week. My mother had to rinse it out
every single night. And I would wear it to school,
trying to get people to vote in this mock election, for Bill
Clinton. And since that moment to this
moment, no matter, whether it was getting, you know, 5th
graders to vote, for Bill Clinton, he did lose that
election. In high school, we won a
national election or whether it was teaching students in the
Bronx in New York City or whether it was trying to
encourage Trends in the fashion industry to now to communicating
to different audiences about climate and climate policy.
My own mission in life, is always been about making change
happen for progress. You must have been a demanding
pupil that's really annoying kid.
Actually I said it diplomatically your in, right?
Do you ask all of my cousins and all of my elementary school
friends? They'll just say annoying but it
all turned out well, in the end. I mean I was a bit of a Class
Clown growing up and I wearing, yeah, fifth grade we had every
student had to choose a president and somehow, my name
got drawn. First, I remember everyone
looked at me and I said, Bill Clinton and The class was just
like, I don't know. I know what's going to happen.
All I really remember from that presentation I gave was holding
up a can of peaches and talking about impeachment I don't it
wasn't my finest work in humor. I think I've improved since then
but I think it's remember it though.
I bet they remembered as ever, I'll never forget that moment
indeed. All right so that's a good
place. You got us up to the present.
Now what is this report and what led to its creation black
Americans care about climate change, but it's complicated.
Phyllis in. Yeah, so we've been working on
finding ways to, you know, give voice to demographics that are
often unheard in a climate conversation for about a year
and, you know, as are the senior vice president of our program
says, you know, we should have started this, this work a long
time ago because there's been so little work done within the
climate advocacy Community around black Americans, that
it's past due. And so I was pushing forward my
essay. BP was pushing forward.
And, you know we said that this is really important to our work
to make sure that the solutions that we were advocating for.
We're both Equitable and fair because black Americans, not
only make a huge voting Block in the Democratic party, but they
make up a huge part of the constituency and the US that
will be impacted both by climate change as well as climate
policies to address the climate crisis.
So, you know, we felt that it only was it was only natural and
authentic. For us to do this work.
And so we began this research, the qualitative portion in
February of this year and it was over a couple of couple of
weeks. And it was in Detroit.
Michigan, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Greensboro
North Carolina. We initially were intending to
do qualitative and quantitative, but at the end of our
qualitative research, the global Health pandemic had really taken
its toll on the us. And we decided that the
quantitative research that we were going to go into the field
with wouldn't match the qualitative research that we'd
already conducted because priorities worshipping you know
people were concerned about more immediate concerns about health
and job safety and their own safety rather than climate in
the immediate. Now that's research that we plan
to go back in and look at in the future.
But at that moment, it just didn't really make sense to put
that qualitative research that we conducted in our quantitative
research together. Hmm.
What sort of results did you see off of this first phase?
Yeah, so we Three main takeaways.
And the first of which, you know, it's something.
We all know that black Americans care about climate change.
We've seen that in Yale's quantitative study, as well as
some other research that we've seen.
However, we found in the groups that we talked to that, while
they cared about climate change, it was a bit more complicated.
That it wasn't a top-tier issue for them that jobs racism in the
economy rated higher for them, but we probed a little further
with groups in each City. You would find that if you
talked about climate and connection to health, impacts
our climate in relationship to jobs, are climbing in
relationship to relocation all the things that we know are
going to have a huge that climate are going to is going to
have a huge impact on. We found that people were deeply
concerned about those things. So it was about how you talk to
communities about climate and how you connect it to their
daily allies. That would show that how much
more they cared about it and then they initially cited, The
second takeaway that we found was that no one is talking to
the communities that we talk to you about climate change.
They often said that, you know, researchers and politicians only
come around when they need something from them when they
need research or when they need a vote.
But that no one was providing sustained communication with
these communities about climate change and part of that is that,
you know, a lot of people think that because climate may fall,
you know, is less saline in Black communities.
Is that they aren't as interested in the issue, but
that's not true. And, you know, they are
interested. It's about how you talk to them
about it. So they said no one's talking to
us about it. The third thing that we found
was that clean energy jobs, and resources seemed Out Of Reach to
the communities. We talked to in particular, in
Detroit are college educated. Mixed-gender Group found that
are they said that they knew of clean energy job training in the
area, but they neither knew how to That with that and neither
knew anyone who did connect with it and they felt that it was for
wealthier wider communities. And so you know what, we
ultimately decided and what we found at this research suggests,
it was that you know policymakers and climate
Advocates, have a long way to go to connect climate to the daily
lives of African Americans in these communities and to make it
also more Salient to them. And to make sure that they have
access, Us. We also we understand that you
know, in healthcare African-Americans, there's a
big, there's barriers to access the same thing goes for climate
and for clean energy. Resources to what degree?
Do you think this is a story about the environmental kuznets?
Curve, which if you're listening and you're not familiar with.
It's basically that humans will trash their environment but that
leads to more wealth. And then when they are wealthy
enough, they start caring about the environment.
Again, the story is also challenging disputed from
multiple angles so don't feel like you have to swallow it
whole. A good example of the
environmental kuznets curve might be where wealthy enough to
care about something like polar bears, but you're not
necessarily linking that climate change, negative outcome to
something like my kids have to carry around a device, a
nebulizer, or they could die. So that's quite different.
I imagine, what, which one is it?
Do you think or both? Yeah, I think it's more of the
latter, than the former I do. Think it's about connecting to
tangible evidence than it is about the curve.
I think that generally, the reason why I say that, That is
because we talked to African-Americans a very,
socioeconomic backgrounds, and various educational backgrounds,
and gender and Age. And what we found was that, no
matter the gender, no matter the age, no matter, their
socioeconomic background, no matter the education, they all
said, the same thing, is that? No one is connecting this to my
daily life. So that speaks to me of the
latter, rather than the former and what sorts of climate
impacts are African Americans already experiencing or could
expect to experience. Yeah, I mean for instance we
think about the relocation, I mean African-Americans.
Systemic racism has made redlining, and for anyone who
doesn't know, don't know what redlining is.
Redlining it was a systemic practice where US Banks denied
mortgages to people. Mostly people of color, mostly
black people in urban areas, preventing them from buying a
home in certain neighborhoods. So this practice was largely in
places like, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit and other places where
there are large black Missions. And so what happened was that
African-Americans were placed in communities that were usually
near petrochemical plants or other places that would create
environmental hazards. And so that increased Health
impacts not only that is that those are the places that tend
to there that are going to have the most impact from climate
change, and they're going to either have to.
If they are low income, they're going to have to stay in those
area and stuff for from work. Health impacts as well as
environmental hazards or they'll be forced to move if they can.
I mean we saw this in New Orleans during Katrina.
So you know that's a microcosm of what the climate crisis will
do to Black communities is that typically what is meant by
environmental racism, which we need to do a full and proper
show about it but maybe this is a good place to introduce the
concept to our listeners. Absolutely, you know, we found
in our research, the term environmental justice didn't
read. Any with the participants that
we talked to. But when we talked about racism
and climate that sparked more interest from the participants.
And so I do think personally, when you talk about
environmental racism, it raises more flags for African-Americans
and saying environmental justice.
And we talked a little bit about this today during a briefing.
We held around this research is that you know, maybe people
think with environmental justice you're thinking it's tied to the
courts or like you're taking You know, polluters to court.
Where's environmental racism? I know of racism is I deal with
racism every day? And so I can understand that if
I live somewhere, my are is dirtier.
I'm going to have greater impacts than another Community
because of the color of my skin that's easier and more tangible
to understand than the term environmental justice.
So environmental racism is definitely directly linked to
redlining and other systemic failures and it could even be
redlining has Is intentionality behind it but I could also see
it. Just operating through race is
correlated with wealth and poverty, to some extent.
People of color are more poor on average than white people in the
United States. And I imagined land values, and
rents are much cheaper around dirtier, more dangerous
environments. So it might not entirely be
intentional, but those outcomes still might have a racial
component to them. Is that an appropriate way to
see it? I think that's an appropriate
way to see. I mean, we look at some of the
practices and some of the policy consequences of say the New Deal
from the 1930s. Some of those were intentional
and some of those were not but they still, you know, prove to
be racist unintentional and in central policies that had
terrible effects for African Americans in this country.
So whether it was intentional or non-intentional black people
still suffer. Got it.
Yeah. Actually I just heard the other
day that Social Security was not accessible to Americans until I
think Truman is that yeah? Right.
Yeah so you had during the New Deal there, where the Dixiecrats
who did not want domestics are field workers to receive Social
Security benefits and those people tend to be black.
Do they actually single those two like labor occupational
classes out in the law? Yeah, yeah.
Wow. No idea.
Wow. Yeah.
There is There's a really good book that I'm, it's called and
actually have it on my desk. Now, it's all when informative
action was white and it talks about the new deal because a new
deal, primarily benefited white blue collar workers.
I mean, the the middle class that grew out of World War Two.
There were a lot of black people.
Yes. Indeed, Who Rose to the middle
class at that period. There were disproportionately
more white people who grew out of, you know, the white middle
class grew disproportionately more than any other race in this
country because as of the new deal and because of World War
Two, That's fascinating. The New Deal has.
So much mythology around it too which isn't to say there aren't
great parts of it that we're better off for having.
But there's also all these stories in here that are absurd
racist. They're also things like
farmer's being paid to burn crops and all sorts of
contradictory policies that house one scratching one's head.
But how do you deal with that Legacy?
Because the rhetoric is cribbed for the green, new deal, right?
So we're we're using this imaginary and trying to harken
back to this moment where It felt like the government had
social democracy in its sights, and this is something that was
going to happen in the United States and this is in the midst
of the Great Depression. So what lessons do you think
might be learned from the New Deal in creating one?
That is one not racist and to Works quite well for dealing
with climate change and all of the issues that relate to it.
Yeah, I think, you know, we're seeing some of that, especially
with Vice President Biden. He's, you know, he just released
a climate initiative, the second part of his climate plan, and
Core part of that plan was environmental justice ensuring
that there are no intentional or unintentional policy
consequences for people who will suffer the most from climate
change. Part of that plan is about just
transitions, you know, ensuring that workers who may do be
displaced in a clean energy transition.
Have, you know, a job to go to or are in least we will study
how we can make that transition more Equitable for people who
are going to be displaced. And so you know, we're seeing
that more More especially in light of you know Rising racial
protest after the murders of, you know, Ahmad arbitrary,
George Floyd and Brianna Taylor. I think that the time is we've
learned from the mistakes of the past.
I mean, I think the New Deal had, you know, great aspirations
and it intended to lift all people, but it did not.
And so now we're in a, we understand that, and we also
understand that, you know, Rising tide, doesn't lift.
It doesn't look tall boots. So if we want to lift boats we
have to do that in a more concerted and directed effort to
communities. Who tend to get left behind what
Provisions do you think are really crucial for doing that?
Just transitions seems like a good place to start.
Making sure people are not abandoned after a lifetime of
accumulating skills which have been rendered obsolete, by law
and just environmental stewardship.
What else might be connected to raise house?
One be an anti-racist in this Said he I realize all these
questions are gigantic Jared. You can tell me if I'm if I'm
asking you to bite off more than one should be expected to chew.
I think the way that one is anti racism, that is a huge question
is to really think about the systems that have been designed
to hold people back. And then to think about how one
might not participate in those systems.
And then to question other people who might be
participating in those systems or perpetuating the Those
systems to me, it seems like an easy question, maybe, because I
am black, and I because of that, I have suffered under those
systemic failures, but I think that that is how it answer.
It is, you know, think about your place in that system, how
can you address those failures and how can you challenge other
people to do the same and that whether that's in challenging
your friends in their conversation and the terms that
they use or whether that's in the policy?
We design, you know, making sure that we're not leaving people
behind and we're not intentionally or unintentionally
causing people to suffer and that's hard and Italy that the
latter that is harder than the former.
But it is something that we have grown as a society more
compassionate to doing and we have to constantly challenge
ourselves to do that. Well, sure, fair enough.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and I'm going to spiel for a
second and it's, this might be, this might not make Make sense,
but we're going to give it a try anyways, okay.
When I think about the creation of the welfare state, I think
about Otto von Bismarck being pretty conservative guy in
Germany late 19th century, trying to make sure that the
Socialist don't rise up and cause a revolution and overthrew
the monarchy and and such. And so how do you give people
enough comfort and safety such that they don't feel angry
enough to tip over the oxcart as it were and this is a very
conservative framing. Stand that but isn't it
concerning to people that it does feel like we're in danger
from both? Like my friends who are left of
center are increasingly radical and then the people I know who
support Trump and then Trump himself seems to be acting
increasingly authoritarian ways that I find frightening.
They seem to feed off of each other, which is extra bad.
Wouldn't it? Just be in the interest of
everyone who likes Law and Order and safety and comfort to try?
To deal with these foundational issues in America such that we
could believe in it and trust it and not be at each other's
throats at that seems like a very unifying kind of thing for
me. I wish that was more common.
Hmm. That's interesting.
I think that give me a second of that one.
Yeah. Sorry.
Was that it was that hot garbage?
I don't know. I think what I'm looking for is
the question. Specifically, like, are you
asking about, trust in government?
Are you asking about how How to Stamp Out Revolution.
I guess that's when I'm trying to understand quash the
revolution. No, I think the question I have
in mind here particular as my failure for not ask no, no, he's
probably do you know, Mike Duncan the podcast, read History
of Rome and revolutions. You're never heard of it.
It's great. And he sort of takes this this
sort of Bismarck and approach, I think is politics are left of
center but he's always talking about like, oh, okay, Rome was
on the danger of collapse or it had left, left-leaning
politicians. Populist who are going to cause
a revolution and so, these grain reforms happened or whatever.
As a way of postponing. This revolution, seems like if
you're conservative at least somewhat, you would want to be
thinking about reforms that preserve American order without
leading to some of the things that my deeply increasingly
radical left-wing friends support.
But I don't see a lot of that, I don't know.
Yeah, I don't think there's an any incentive to do that.
I mean, our politics are incredibly the most polarized
they've been in In X, right? So there's no incentive to do
that. Our media is polarized, if you
are conservative, you tend to watch Fox News and it's a cycle
of reinforcing what you already believe and your politician
speak to you in that way, you speak back to your politicians
that way. And so there's no incentive for
politicians or Advocates on the right to bend to that because
they'll get primary They won't get reelected.
They won't get the favor of this President.
So what is the incentive is the incentive for consensus.
When you also have the left who may or may not be interested in
that consensus and both sides, the most well-intentioned of
them believe that what they're advocating for are the best
things for people. So there's really no Ascent
incentive when when We're squared off in two different
cans. So yeah, I think that's that's
the issue from the right. Specifically.
I think the left we tend to bend a little bit more.
We tend to want to compromise. We want to get to consensus, but
we don't really get the same. We don't get the reciprocity
from the right on that. Yeah, I don't, I don't see a lot
of it either. It's, it's disappointing.
And I had actually had a podcast, or I did recently that
encouraged me to think more that these Cycles come back around.
And, There are periods of Discord.
And then there's Concord, and it's okay.
This happens, I don't always get to the sense that we're going to
make it through the other side of this.
How are you concerned or, or am I being a bit Chicken Little
here? Yeah, so I'm an optimist, I'm an
eternal optimist and I, you know, I look at the history of
this country and I look at, I look at how far African
Americans had actually come. And while, you know, there are
times We take two steps forward and we take 10 steps back.
We do get to that point where we are better than we were and as
human beings. We are, you know, we there's
progress, there is evolution, I'm a gay man.
When I was in high school, you know, I, when I came out in high
school, I didn't ever conceive of the fact that I would ever
get married and have children. And, you know, now I live in a
country where I can and it's possible in every state of the
union. I mean, when I first moved to
d.c. my ex-boyfriend, I said to him.
I will never live in Virginia because Virginia doesn't allow
gay marriage. We can live in Maryland, we can
live in d.c. within a year or two gay marriage was legal
everywhere or marriage, equality was real.
So, you know, progress is is possible.
We just have to keep fighting for it.
And the more apathy that, you know, develops I think that that
is the seed of Destruction, for Progress.
Yeah, it's a surprising how fast that happened.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was happening actually.
Yeah. I remember it just being a
long-running campaign issue, all through my adolescence and early
adulthood and then it was just like, oh, by the way, this, you
know, major cultural change happen.
Yeah. Of course overnight.
It was also the third rail of politics at one point.
You just didn't touch I mean, don't ask don't tell all, you
know, defensive Marriage Act, you know, so many things that
happen along the way that were just like, this is never going
to happen. And then it just happened in the
state by state, by Court decision by Court decision until
it became real. And then public opinion moved.
That's what really shifted it. And so, I think, you know, we're
seeing we're hopefully seeing that.
Now when it comes to police brutality and and systemic
racism, I saw a poll that said that, you know, more people
concerned about how President Trump was handling.
The racial protest, then they were about how he was handling
coronavirus. So the deaths, the murders of
four black people in this country have shifted.
How many white people are looking at race and this
country, I mean, I was listening to a podcast the daily yesterday
about, you know, Congressman John Lewis and how you know when
he went on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, he, you know, War a, you
know, Hand colored coat just in case he was hit by the police.
In the blood was flattered on end and that shifted, you know,
people seeing in the south on a news, every night children being
set upon by dogs by the police that shifted public opinion.
And so I think that you know, we're seeing that moment now we
won't know that for 20 or 30 years, you know, history like
his hindsight is 20/20, so we won't know that for, you know,
years from now. But it does feel like a shift,
you know, we're seeing topics like Systemic racism, become
kitchen, table conversation, we're seeing topics like
environmental, justice and environmental racism, come up on
podcast and on the Nightly News in a way that we did not see let
alone five years ago, five months ago.
So there is a shift that is happening is just about
sustaining. This moment to make sure that we
have actual real practical change.
You made me feel a little bit better, so I can breathe a
little bit. Well, good, good that, that was
my intention. Yeah yeah.
Reassure the podcast host. That's that's the yeah.
Yeah. I it's a shame because I like
I've traveled a lot. I've been in lots of places.
I like being an American, I'm proud to be an American, it's my
home but I wish I could just I feel the need to.
I just saw this on another podcast recently.
I feel the need to give caveats, even saying that and I would
love it if we could deal with some of the foundational issues
in American history that led to To the way things are now so
that we could just feel good about it.
And also, I understand that I benefit in relative terms by
being white and a heterosexual and cisgender and all these
things. But I also feel like I would be
objectively better off. If people were not in such
strict inequality on various those fronts.
I think about how many people that are just sort of Lost in
the black hole of poverty, that will never have their minds
creating businesses or art. For other things that we are all
made less healthy, less safe, less wealthy as a result of, not
having those people able to advance our society.
It just feels like dead weight loss to me, I guess I understand
that in relative terms that as a white person I benefit but I do
feel just worse off. I don't, I don't actually know
to what degree I am benefiting in that way.
I think I would be better off if we didn't have this system set
up the way that it is. Does that make sense?
Or no, that definitely makes sense.
I think, you know what's interesting?
To me is that as a black man? I, you know, white friends of
mine are wrestling with these same questions.
Now, James Baldwin said to be a negro in this country is to be
almost in a constant state of rage.
And I would all would almost say that I would take the almost out
and say it is a you know to be a constant state of rage.
And remember why friend of mine asked me recently?
So you know, how do you get up every morning to have hope?
I said, well what other choice do I have?
And I think that that is true of most black people and I think
that that is true most poor people like I get up every day
and make a decision that today is going to be better than the
day before and then I'm going to do whatever I can to make my
life better and the lives of everyone who looks like me
better, at least that's how I wake up every morning.
I know most of the black people that I know have that same, you
know, Mantra as far as what racism does to this country.
I think about the words of Alexander Hamilton who said that
slavery, Was nothing but wasted potential and that's the same
thing that racism does racism is wasted potential.
You know, we waste people who could be great and solve some of
the greatest challenges in this country because they can't
either get a job. They can't get the education to
get that job and they can't live in a community or a zip code
that ensures their success. And so, I think that, you know,
we're in a moment where white people are wrestling with this
in a way that they never cry. We have or white people who are
wrestling with it now and you know aren't from people who ever
wrestle with it and I think that you know black people like me
now or we've all been always been confrontational about this
and we've always been challenging the status quo on
this but I think we're much more forceful now because we see an
opening and we see an opportunity to really make real
sustained change and to me that provides even more a sense of
optimism and hope than I've ever had before.
I've always been proud to be an American.
I mean, w.e.b. Du Bois talked about this
double-consciousness and that, that our patriotism is updated
because of the history of slavery because of the history
of systemic racism. It's not as easy as I fly an
American flag and I feel great and you know I feel the
Star-Spangled Banner in my heart, you know, I can't forget
that even under that flag and even under that Anthem slaves
were held in this country. And so I am proud because I know
that progress is real and Progress can happen.
But I also understand the history of this country.
Yeah, that was beautiful. I, I'm glad you're talking me
down. What?
I guess it. Given that you see an opening
here. What sorts of expectations do
you have for this historical moment in America?
Yeah, I think I see opportunities to, you know, like
we talked about earlier correcting, some of the systemic
failures of the past and policies, you know, making sure
that, you know people have access to clean energy, clean
energy, you know, resources jobs that they have the information,
they need to challenge the system and that, you know,
elected leaders are held to task and our response to the people
that they represent in a way that they never have.
For and that people are as in, they're engaged enough to say,
okay, you're not responding to the problems of the whole in a
way that is moving us forward. So we're going to vote you out.
It's time for you to go. Either you listen to these
concerns? Are you have to go?
And I think we're, you know, we're seeing that movement.
And we're, and I think that this is a very complicated moment
where, you know, with cancel culture and all of these other
things, and I think we're wrestling with those.
Social Challenges. Now that we're going to get to a
place where people are far more engaged than they ever have
been. And that we're going to have
policies that are in response to what people actually need so
that they can succeed and fulfill the actual ideals that
this country was founded upon, I hope you don't mind that I went
this Direction with the shows. It has been a great spine.
I mean, I think it's all connected.
I think that you can't pursue happiness.
If If you don't live in a place where the air is clean, and that
the are impacts your health and that you don't have to move, or
you don't have a job. All of these things are going to
be impacted by climate. So I think they're connected and
I think that that's part of the problem is that we don't talk
about it in this way, with black communities.
And that's why it can be hard to understand, and that's why it
can be hard to activate communities around this topic.
And one of the angles that you conclude the report on is that
this is to some degree, a problem of communication and
reaching out to these communities.
How do you recommend doing so, or who might be a good
communicator? What what needs to happen in
order to mobilize communities of color?
I think we do want to do more research to find out what is the
best messages and message and who are the best Messengers for
these things. But I like, you know, going back
to what we said. You know, we have to make it
more tangible. And as far as you know
Messengers we need to You know make sure policy makers are not
just talking about police brutality and Criminal Justice
Reform and all of the typical African-American issues with
African Americans and they're talking about issues like
climate change and how that's going to impact our exacerbate,
all of those other issues that tend to be top tier issues for
the African-American Community. Oh, I imagine y'all are working
on this. But are there other groups that
are trying to develop content or messaging around?
Yeah, I mean, you know like I mentioned earlier Yale School of
climate change communication released a report on this about
a year ago, the environmental defense fund also releases study
about African-American and clean energy resources.
The center for American progress is also interested in this, the
union of concerned scientists is also deeply involved in this
work. They released a report, a year
ago, around this time, actually, the killer heat index that
showed that, you know, African-American.
Ins and I'll get the exact data for you to hit.
You know, it show that African Americans are exposed to extreme
temperatures two to three days more per year in certain
counties in the US. So certain Counties have more
exposure to heat than others and mostly black people live in
those counties and by mid-century the expectation.
Is that some of those same counties would experience?
20 more extreme heat days per year.
So, you know, a lot of people are starting to do more, This
research, connecting it with climate, you know, Acting the
climate, advocacy community and the environmental justice
movement in a way that is tangible for these communities
and trying to activate them. And also make sure policymakers
understand the concerns of these communities.
To what degree have you thought about the necessity or lack
thereof of Reaching Across the aisle?
I know there are conservative proposals for addressing climate
change. We featured some of them on the
show but I imagine some of these proposals Might stick in their
craw, one could say, so what is the political strategy for
getting policy passed? That will at least pass a
divided Congress? You know, it would be great to
say that I could name a republican in the house or the
Senate who, you know, I think would be willing to work across
the aisle on some of these issues.
But I can't really, I know that they have released, you know,
Frameworks for climate. That either aren't backed by the
science. Are not exactly serious.
And so for me, I think the best and fastest way to reach net
zero emissions by 2050 at the latest is to elect more
Democrats. Every single Democrat in this
country who is running or has been elected.
Has a climate plan all the way to Joe Biden, and if I look at
that preponderance of evidence and I look At the other side of
the aisle. It's kind of hard to see where
we can build that consensus. Now will it always be like that?
No, it hasn't always been. I mean George h.w.
Bush was serious about climbing, he was serious about the
environment but since that time we haven't had, it hasn't been
insensitive for Republicans to care about this issue.
In the we have seen, as far as certain Technologies, there's
consensus between the two parties.
You know, Republicans do tend to support ants nuclear and
existing nuclear and that's something the center left.
And now more more than before the far left have grown
consensus on carbon capture seems to be a technology that
Republicans or warming to as well as the far left.
So I think there are areas around Technologies but as far
as Holistic Solutions to The Climate crisis, that's a little
harder to find a consensus on. Yeah, I'm vacillated on this a
little bit. I used to be think that we
should focus quite heavily just on climate change and was a bit
suspicious that the left was using this as an opportunity to
pass a lot of social programs that they have previously
wanted, but could not pass. But this was a useful
opportunity to pass under the Aegis of climate action.
But after doing doing shows like this and reading quite a lot,
I'm starting to think that merely addressing the parts per
million in the atmosphere, may not be sufficient to deal with
all of the Justice concerns. And this might be the chance to
do so, so I'm not sure. There's I hope that
conservatives and republicans in Congress in particular, are able
to find ways to contribute and be a part of climate Solutions.
And there are groups to like, American conservation Coalition,
has their American climate contract, and I'm sure there are
others to that. I'm forgetting here or here in
d.c., you have Path isn't organization, predominately
conservative organization that advocates for some of the same
solutions that we advocate for niskanen Center is one that is
to the right of us. There are other, you know,
groups out there who are, you know, pushing the Republican
party. But again, as long as they're
reinforced by their electorate, that they don't need to care
about this and we're starting to see a shift and, you know, among
Republican voters that they are caring more about climate
change. And they're caring more about
issues like Systemic racism as well.
So it would be I am hopeful that that push in the electorate will
also change the policy makers but they're, you know, we have
to get rid of Mitch McConnell. You know, there's a whole host
of Republican politicians, that would probably need to go
because they don't actually care about the electorate before, we
can actually see that change happen.
Yeah, maybe so at least anecdotally, I've seen, you
know, since I became politically aware, you know, what do you but
even is Maybe close to two decades ago.
There was a lot more climate denial that I would see in more
mainstream areas where most of the people that would occupy
that intellectual Niche. Now, tend to be lukewarmness or
the saying climate change is happening.
It's not as fast or not, as severe as we think, or will be
able to adapt to it more easily Than People typically think the
or the alarm is think. So that that change do has
happened pretty seriously? So I wonder what the next step
is. It seems like some of the
leaders who are front-running that are groups like ACC where
Saying like climate change is real, it's happening.
We're causing it. And also here's a chance for
conservatives to have market-based solutions that are
not creating a social democracy, in the United States, any more
than we have now, and we should do this.
So I imagine that's probably going to be the next step and
that surely is coming. It ability to deny climate
change as a looming threat, even the Pentagon and the dod very,
very concerned. The military is very concerned
with what is going to happen with climate change.
It's not really something that's actively debated, except for
people who have Ideological interest in denying it, so I
imagine we'll see more of that movement and maybe you'll be as
fast as it was for gay marriage. Maybe it will just wake up one
day and be like, Oh, Republicans now, believe climate change is a
real threat. They just don't want it to be
the green New Deal that addresses it.
Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I think part of that is due to the
media as well. You know, a lot of shows had
decided that they would not have climate denial list on their
shows or they would not start because my graduate school
thesis was about the polarization of Of climate
change in American politics from 1988 to 2019, long time, long
title. But in my thesis, I talked about
how that shift happened. You know, we had a George h.w.
Bush and, you know, we had more consensus, but then you had
certain groups, certain things, you know, think tanks on the
right who believe that climate change would, you know, inhibit
their donors. Who were largely fossil fuel
Barons, so to speak and they would force For FCC laws to, you
know, new stations to say, okay, we if you have someone who's
talking about climate change and who's not a denial list, we need
to have a denial and so on, you'd have to give them equal
time. And now you see, you know, show
saying actually no we're not going to have people on who deny
the science because this science is accepted, you know, more than
97% of scientists. Say the climate change is real
and it's happening now and I think that's part of it as well.
So we're getting more. Or of the science to people and
in a row as form and people are expecting it.
I think the Tropic ministration is a throwback like it's a step
backwards by him having climbed annihilus as part of his
commission's and, and the over 100, you know, environmental
rollbacks, or propose rollbacks. That he's announced.
I think that, you know, is a step back, but, you know, we
have an opportunity, we have an opportunity on November 3rd to
say we're going Reject this climate denialism, this anti
intellectualism and we can choose progress, you know, we'll
see on November 3rd, hopefully. We'll know by November 4th,
well, you know, we don't know. But, you know, hopefully we'll
know like, on January 20 20th, you know, 2021, we can turn the
page. I don't know that.
The I think even if you are a republican voter, I think you
should recognize that. I don't know that the country
would do well for Another four years of this, like I think
inevitably the Trump Arizona come to an end, whether it's for
years from now or in November, or I guess in January.
But do you think we'll ask that why?
I feel like there's so many my friends who are left of center.
They're like, they're veering like super radical now and I
don't think the change you're going to get is going to be
someone, you know, Biden is of course, you know, working with
the Sanders campaign and trying to adopt some of those policy
positions of Sanders and trying to make sure that the the left
wing of the democratic party in the more Central Our are aligned
there. Would you rather have that or
would you rather have whatever comes after?
The country is exhausted from trump, it doubt is going to be
really like more of the same kind of B in less threatening to
the porter. Yeah, I find that argument very
challenging you know I hear people who say you know it's the
lesser of two evils and I think that argument is false because I
mean we want to talk about evil like Joe, Biden is a decent
human being and he wants to do the right.
Thing, I don't believe that about Donald Trump.
And if you believe that like I do at least, if you believe
that, you know, Joe Biden is not a dastardly man, like, you know,
Donald Trump. Then you, you've already made
your decision and you have to understand that we can't
continue another. We can't continue to let this
man. Be at the Helm of the Public
Health crisis that we're now in during largely because of his
lack of leadership and lack of vision.
And even beyond that, like, Next disaster.
Looming right around the corner whether it's another Public
Health endemic but for sure the climate crisis is right around
the corner and we're already you know seeing impacts of that we
don't have to wait until 2035 or 2050 or whatever day.
You know whatever year. You know we want to put out
there we're seeing it now. We're seeing hotter days.
You know, we're seeing intense flooding, we're seeing people
having to leave the place that they have always lived because
they can't live there anymore and that's only going to come
More intense and worse over the years and having people like
Donald Trump who also doesn't challenge, you know, Putin and
humble senado, who are far worse, and who's to say that?
Donald Trump won't become worse than the next four years or as
bad, or worse than they are. So we have a choice, we have a
choice to look forward. We have a choice to look back.
And I'd also don't I find it hard to, you know, acknowledge
that, you know, people who say that not voting is an option.
Well, to me not voting is also a vote for Donald Trump.
All right, Jared, You Gotta Give me one little nugget of
positivity here and you got anything.
Anything in your quiver? You can throw out real quick.
I think that I have hope I have hoping the American people.
I have hope in the American Experience because every time
that we have looked backward, we've then turn the page to look
forward. Okay.
I guess that's where we're going to have to have to.
Call it and hopefully be okay with it and try to keep this
this hope alive here. Hopefully if I didn't inspire
you in that moment, there's a there is a person out there
who's like, you know what, I had a little bit more hope I'm gonna
go vote. Yeah, maybe so I'm always
curious as to what degree people people.
Enjoy political episodes like this or that unexpectedly became
electoral but that's okay. All right, where can people
learn more? About your work and more about
third ways work, Jared. Absolutely.
You know, please go to Third Way dot org.
And, you know, follow us on Third Way energy on Twitter
links to any, I imagine have a personal Twitter to I do, it's
at Jarrod do. He's my name is at ja our EDD.
Ew e, SE links to all of those things are in the show notes, as
well as the original piece that we're talking about Black
Americans care about climate change, but it's complicated.
Thanks. Being here Jarrod, thank you.
Ross was a pleasure was mine too and if you enjoyed the show
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