(upbeat music)
- Good evening, everyone.
My name is Noel Healy, and I'm professor
in the Geography and Sustainability Department
here at Salem State University.
I'm also joined by Joey Wolongevicz,
founder of Sunrise Salem,
and geography and sustainability major at Salem State.
Towards the end of the webinar,
Joey will be fielding any questions from our live viewers,
so audience members can submit your questions
via the Q&A box below.
So without further ado,
I'd like to introduce our special guests.
Today were delighted
to welcome Boston Globe Climate Producer,
Dharna Noor to Salem State's Earth Week
climate lecture series.
Dharna is the Boston Globe's climate producer.
Prior to joining the Boston Globe's climate team,
Dharna worked as a staff writer with Earther,
which is Gizmodo's climate vertical,
where she also co-produced a season of the podcast
"Drilled," which is one of my favorite podcast,
folks, to check out.
And this...
episodes of season,
she looked at the fossil fuels influence on education,
which is something hopefully we get
to chat a little bit about today.
Before that, she led the climate team
at the Real News Network,
and her writing has also appeared in publications,
including In These Times,
Jacobin Magazine, and Truth Out.
She's also been entering in podcasts and radio programs
such as Times Radio, VOX, "Tell Me More,"
"Insurgence," and NPR's "Living on Earth."
Dharna has quickly garnered a stellar reputation
as a critical climate and energy journalist in the US,
and we're really looking forward to today's conversation.
Welcome, Dharna.
- Thank you so much,
and thank you for that very kind introduction, Noel.
It's awesome to be here.
- Yeah, so yeah, it's great to meet you Dharna.
I've been a fan of your work with a while,
and we were all really delighted to see you
starting at The Globe.
And I said, we,
a lot of the climate and energy justice folk,
climate is a challenging topic.
We'll try and set off with something a little bit light.
Maybe if you'd like to share
what was your most fun climate reporting assignment to date?
Have you ever covered something that was unusually uplifting
or entertaining, if that exists in the climate world?
- Yeah, I mean, you're right to say it's kind of
a hard question, because so much of the work we do,
as you well know, in this sort of space is so grim.
But yes, definitely, I've had the opportunity
to do lots of really uplifting reporting,
and also some really fun reporting,
including I wrote a piece
from the perspective of a jellyfish one time,
all sorts of weird stuff.
But honestly, I think that maybe the most fun
that I've ever had in my reporting
was when I reported on Mike Rowe last year.
Mike Rowe is the host of the program, "Dirty Jobs,"
but he started a new TV show last year
that was on Discovery Plus,
that basically I found was funded by,
well, I didn't even find,
he openly in the show says it was funded by the oil lobby,
by the American Petroleum Institute,
which is, if you don't know,
the biggest industry lobbying group,
the biggest fossil fuel industry lobbying group
in the United States.
And this is not his only tie to the fossil fuel industry,
his foundation, which is sort of very obviously anti-union,
anti-worker, pro-boss, pro fossil fuels,
also takes money from the oil industry.
I wrote a pretty snarky piece about this,
and he responded in an extremely condescending way,
and we got into it of back and forth.
And so that was probably the most entertaining
reporting that I've done on the beat,
but that's not to say, I mean, yes,
lots of incredible solutions happening out there,
and lots of really, really good news to report onto.
- Yeah, and I guess working on the solution stuff
is always fun,
and we'll talk a little bit later about the Green New Deal,
which is something that brings some hope and excitement,
particularly with me,
and when I'm talking with my students as well.
What do you think your most important piece of journalism
has been thus far?
So this could be something that garnered a lot of attention,
or something which you deem as important.
- This is such a hard question.
I mean, I think that as a journalist,
sometimes the struggle is knowing that
the sort of effects that your work can have
are sometimes so limited by the very things
that you're reporting on, you know?
You'll report on the failures of an administration,
or a policy or something,
and then those exact failures will mean that no action
is taken on the thing that you are reporting on.
But one of the things that I think
has been really rewarding for me,
and important for me in my own work
has been sort of looking at the most inconvenient parts
of the struggle to slow climate change,
and transition to renewables.
And I think one of the most important stories
that I've done on this beat
was about a project called the Texas Climate Jobs Program,
a project which is in Texas
that was led by Texas's AFLCIO,
a massive coalition of unions.
It was a really jobs-first kind of climate program
to speed the energy transition in, obviously,
a state that is...
where the economy is so heavily fueled by fossil fuels,
no pun intended.
And I think that that was a really important story,
not only because it sort of got some attention and got
some workers in other places sort of excited, seemingly,
about the possibility of a jobs-first
climate sort of plan, but also for me,
I think that that was a really important story
because it really showed me so much
about how much there is to be missed
when we think of climate plans as only
about shutting down a coal plant,
shutting down an oil rig,
and not about building the jobs of the future
in a way that's really sustainable,
and actually can foster a better world
than the one that we have now in so many ways.
I know that we'll talk a little bit
about the Green New Deal later, but this is,
speaking for me, not from the Boston Globe, obviously.
My opinions are just mine,
but I think this is a really important shift
that sort of happened in the climate movement.
Generally, this focus on moving away
from an austerity framework,
and towards talking about what fighting climate change
can do for people to improve people's lives,
and that was a really clear example of that.
- Yeah, and labor just plays such an number important role-
- [Dharna] Absolutely.
- Within the climate movement,
and this has been really emphasized
by the rise of the Green New Deal.
Yeah, so you mentioned some of the kind of
the gaps of some of the kind of
missing stories around climate.
What do you think are perhaps the biggest successes
and the biggest gaps
in climate news reporting at the moment?
- Great question.
I mean, I have been on this beat
for a relatively short time,
and I think even in the five or so years
that I've been focusing on climate,
around 10 that I've been in the media space,
there's been just an explosion of climate reporting.
And that, in itself, I think is a success.
I mean, the fact that we have climate stories
on the front pages of big papers with some regularity,
the fact that there is more coverage of things like
major UN climate reports is a huge success.
That said, I think that the media has a really,
really long way to go to actually treat
the issue at the scale that it deserves, so to speak.
And I think that part of what we can really do better
as journalists is to sort of examine
the more unsafe reactors who might be profiting off
of the solutions that we need,
some of the more inconvenient aspects
of what the climate fight might mean.
For instance, I've been really heartened lately
to see a little bit more focus
on the environmental justice impacts
of mining for rare earth minerals,
minerals that we need in order to transition
to more renewable energy,
especially things like solar and battery power,
and things like this.
And so I think that more reporting that can sort
of examine those environmental justice impacts
of even transitioning to clean energy
will be really, really important in the future.
- Yeah, that's a great point.
This is where the concept of a just transition comes in.
Yeah, you raise an important point there,
and it gets me thinking about media business models,
and the need to generate ad revenues.
So breaking news often tends to muscle out
important climate news stories,
even when the IPCC and stuff comes around.
And how can climate reporting compete
with this so-called tyranny of the media
and all these competing news cycles?
Is it possible, or have you any thoughts
on how we can keep
the climate crisis upfront and center?
- Yeah, I mean, I have to say that my thinking on this
has sort of changed in the past few years.
I began my career in very scrappy,
sort of openly socialist kind of independent media,
nonprofit media,
and now I'm a producer at the Boston Globe, obviously,
a storied and major newspaper in this region.
And I've really found that people's appetite
for climate stories, even in places where
they might seem to be unlikely is just so high.
I mean, we've had top charting stories
in a mainstream global newspaper so frequently,
and I think a lot of the reason that
there's been this misconception that climate stories
have to be boring or aren't of interest to people
the way that pop culture stories and things are
is because we've seen climate change for so long
as something that's in a silo.
But, there's no reason that a climate story
should ever have to be boring.
This is something that's reshaping the very
fundamental fabric of human society.
It's something that's reshaping every facet
of human life as we speak,
and I think that when you can make those connections
and really remind everyone that this is a story about them,
not just somebody else,
not just someone who's maybe across the ocean from you,
but a story about you right now.
Yes, you, reader,
that can really make a huge difference.
But yeah, I mean,
I'm not gonna say that it's never disheartening to see
just story after story that ignores really lobbyist
climate impacts charting in major papers,
or on CNN, or whatever.
But I do think that we need to bear some responsibility
as journalists for making it that way,
and part of the way that you get people
to read your stories is you make them good,
interesting, and feel relevant.
And so I think that there's a lot
that we can do on that front.
- And I think the Green New Deal
is something that has captivated reader's interests
for various reasons over the last probably year or more.
And just in case some audience members aren't familiar,
so the Green New Deal
is a 10-year economic mobilization plan
that plans to rapidly transition the US
to zero carbon economy, while at the same time
significantly reducing inequality
in redressing legacies of systematic oppression.
So the Green New Deal has generated
a lot of excitement amongst climate
and energy justice communities,
and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts
more just on how the emergence of this new policy framework,
this new policy paradigm has changed.
The climate debates are changed,
maybe how readers viewed this issue, or general public.
- Again, speaking for me,
and not speaking for The Boston Globe,
it's been really interesting to see the way
that conversations nationally have completely shifted,
I think just in, again, the past four-ish years
since the Green New Deal sort of reshaped the conversation,
came on the stage in a major way.
And I think that one way as we sort of talked about earlier
that this has happened is that people are starting
to learn that climate policies
don't have to be about not having something.
It doesn't have to be about having to pay more for gas.
It doesn't have to mean
paying higher the heat bills
or paying in some way for the transition to green energy.
It doesn't mean that you have to stop eating
the things that you love the most.
I mean, in some ways, of course,
we'll all have to make some kinds of sacrifices.
The world will need to go through these fundamental shifts,
but there are also so many ways that our lives
can be so much better if we address the climate a crisis.
I mean, the Green New Deal, I think,
has really put on people's radar that,
like, yeah, it would actually be better
to not have to drive to work every day.
It would actually be better to have free public transit.
It would be better if we had jobs that we knew
were not going to go away as the energy transition happens.
And I don't think that that means
that any of these transitions will be easy.
Obviously in this political climate,
there's no way that they will be easy,
but I think that it's really,
really important to have some perspective
and to have political ambition,
to remember what exactly it is that we're fighting for.
And remember that people are at the heart of that, right?
It's not that the climate crisis is something
that we have to address as we address other things,
or that we have to address the climate crisis
to save the planet at our own expense.
We are such an integral part of what we are trying to save.
- That's really interesting, and myself and Fergus Green
actually have a new paper coming out,
which documents how inequality
actually fuels climate emission.
So there's a moral reason to address systematic racism,
and inequalities, but there's also a climate reason,
which is also really interesting.
- I would love to hear more about that.
- [Noel] Yeah, yeah.
It's coming out at the end of the month,
will certainly share it with you then.
So in Boston at the moment,
it's pretty exciting
'cause we have a green new dealer as mayor,
so Boston Mayor, Michelle Wu.
She was elected November, 2021,
on the back of a highly detailed Green New Deal platform.
And her Green New Deal proposal
is arguably one of the strongest at the city level
of Green New Deals across the US.
What is it like reporting in a city
that has this type of new energy
around a city level Green New Deal,
and maybe if you like to share some thoughts
on reporting on different elements
of our Green New Deal proposal?
- Yeah, it's been really interesting
to come into The Globe's new climate bureau
as Mayor Wu came into office.
I mean, obviously we don't endorse candidates
or anything like that,
but I will say that it does seem that the conversation
has really shifted,
even since she came into office pretty recently.
It's also been really interesting
to see the sort of barriers that she's facing
in the agenda that she's trying to set,
the ways that just having a new mayor doesn't, for instance,
all of a sudden change
how the Department of Public Utilities works,
or how much of a role utility companies have
in shaping the energy transition and things like this.
So definitely, I mean,
I think that having a city in the United States
where there's such a high level of ambition,
and especially such a high level of focus on inequality,
racial inequality, class inequality,
and in a city, obviously that's not only sort of seen
as a climate leader,
but also is in many ways on the forefront
of so many different kinds of climate changes,
whether that's sea level rise,
or heat islands and things like this has been pretty cool.
Again, though,
I do think that it will be important to sort of hold anyone
to account as they aim to implement
these kind of bold agendas.
- And yeah, and that kinda brings us on
to the kinda broader issue around the need for
seismic changes to tactic climate crisis,
and climate journalism can play a really important role
in drawing attention to these transformative actions,
to systematic change,
the structural powerships that are needed
to phase on fossil fuels,
and limiting climate chaos necessitates radical actions.
But maybe historically, The New York Times
and Washington Post and even The Globe
were not where these voices
were traditionally given a platform,
and it's generally more independent media,
whether it's democracy now,
Jacobin Magazine, Truth Out, et cetera,
which truly pushes back against the status quo,
and discusses solutions which perhaps don't align
with continued economic growth or continued militarism,
or moves beyond its preoccupation
with market-based solutions.
Do you think that editors in major newsrooms
will ever give frequent air time
to these so-called radical stories and voices,
or is there anything changing in this regard?
- So often I think that editors at papers,
I think that media in general takes cues from
sort of elite, so to speak, voices,
and I think that those voices are, in some ways, changing.
I mean obviously the role of a corporation is to make money,
and that is not going to change, but there are...
I mean, the fact that, for instance,
the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres
said recently that it's actually what is radical,
and essentially destructive is for companies
to continue to grow the fossil fuel economy,
whereas climate activists are painted as radicals.
I think that that shows a pretty major shift,
and one that has been reflected in newsrooms.
I mean, my own personal views, I think...
I have much more of an interest
in public sector solutions,
and much more of an interest in sort of uplifting justice.
But I do think that, I mean,
I would love to see papers of record.
I would love to see major sort of mainstream media
take on these debates more often.
I don't think of course that all of a sudden
The New York Times is going to turn
into Jacobin Magazine, or something like this.
But I think that one thing I would like to see more of,
and I think one thing that we are seeing more of, frankly,
is room for kind of debate in the pages
of these papers and these kinds of magazines.
I think sometimes
it's important to remember
that one can strengthen their argument by just engaging
with the sort of mainstream argument
that they're fighting against.
It's one thing to ignore or that argument altogether,
it's another one to sort of take it on head on
and get in the ring and sort of say,
"This is why you are wrong,
and this is why my sort of line of reasoning
is better for you, or makes more sense,
or aligns with the science better," or whatever.
So, I hope to see more debate,
and I do think that there has been a little bit more
of that recent years.
- Yeah, yeah, that's really interesting,
and as I said,
the climate and energy community were delighted
when you joined The Boston Globe.
Some of The Boston Globe's coverage
seems to focus a lot on business and technical innovations,
and this is fairly consistent with other major news outlets,
but the recent IPCC report, Medicare,
we always need to think
about shifting global consumption patterns,
and the issue of global consumption patterns
doesn't sometimes get
enough attention.
Do you see this part of something
that The Globe could address,
or where does The Globe sit on this issue?
- Yeah, it's a really good question.
And I mean, I think that there's sort of
two different points here, right?
One is the question of green growth versus de-growth,
and the other is this sort of emphasis
on market-based corporate solutions.
Obviously, these two things are intimately related.
I mean, I think that media in general,
including sort of major media,
is learning a lot and is changing very rapidly.
I mean, I came on to The Globe's climate team
just six months ago, the climate desk just launched
five months ago or so, and so obviously
I think that we all know that there's a lot
that can be improved,
and a lot that we can just frankly do more of.
In terms of whether or not I think that
the sort of corporate media, mainstream media,
whatever you wanna call it will take a stance
that goes against growth,
I mean, I think that what I would be looking for,
again, is sort of at least lifting up other opinions,
dissenting opinions.
And I feel sort of similarly about the focus
on technological solutions, market-based solutions,
and things like this.
I mean, I think that it would be...
Do I think that there's going to all of a sudden
be a shift away from techno-optimism?
No, I don't,
but do I think that there could be more room
in the pages of these papers
for discussions of more sort of
publicly owned renewable energy,
or solutions that prioritize people over profit?
Yeah, I definitely do, and I think that
there's a change that the science shows needs to happen.
I mean, I think that even like,
if you look at the most recent IPCC report
versus the one before that,
the emphasis on market-based solutions
has dramatically dropped.
I mean, there's still some,
but I think that the emphasis has dramatically dropped,
and I think that as the science shows
that market-based solutions often don't really seem
to pan out in terms of
evidence showing that they're working.
Yeah, journalists I think will kind of see too.
Obviously part of the issue
is the funding models of newspapers.
I think that it's really important to make sure that
what journalists are able to write
are not compromised by the funders of newspapers,
and I think that's also a place
where there's a lot of sort of innovation happening.
I'm really excited to see
the rise of so much independent media too.
- That's really interesting.
And that kind of brings us on
to another aligned kind of tricky issue
to write about is the issue of responsibility
for the climate crisis.
BP British Petroleum invented the phrase carbon footprint
along with this carbon calculator in 2004
as a means to shift blame away from fossil fuel companies,
but the IPCC also highlights the need for degrowth.
How do you best navigate this challenge around writing
about the issue of responsibility,
on the one hand, the need for individual actions,
while at the same time clarifying
the importance of collective actions,
or like political organizing for mass transit, for example?
- I think one thing that I've sort of learned
can garner responses from people other than just
sort of shutting down
is keeping in mind that so many people do want
to make individual changes,
and that those changes are simply not easy to make.
I mean, this dichotomy I think
of like individual versus collective action
is in some ways sort of false,
because what are the things that shape individual action?
They are government action,
they're collective action, right?
And so the things that can sort of set the stage
for people to make better actions,
I think are often what we need to focus on.
It's one thing to sort of say,
oh, people aren't choosing to drive electric cars.
Okay, well, why?
Often they're way more expensive.
Also, federal rebates and state rebates
here in Massachusetts don't apply to used cars.
Also, there's not enough chargers.
Also, people don't really know always how
to navigate the system of buying an electric car,
how to navigate rebate programs,
even where to buy or charge their electric vehicles.
So I think that those are all really important reasons
that kind of shape the individual choices
that people are making.
Similarly, do people want to take public transit?
I don't know, they would certainly
wanna take public transit a lot more if it were better,
if it were better funded, if it were cheaper,
if it were easier to take, if it were more convenient.
And I think that setting the stage for people
to make really good choices can be really important.
Obviously I think that policy needs
to shape a world that is better for people.
Do I think that that means all of a sudden
everyone is going to start making
super climate-friendly choices?
No, but I'm more interested, I guess,
in what the majority of people are doing.
And frankly, I would love to live in a world
where it's just more convenient, cheaper,
a better idea for non-climate reasons
for people to behave in ways
that are more environmentally friendly, quote unquote.
I want climate deniers to also want
to take public transit because it's just a better idea.
I want this sort of stage to be set for people
to make better choices because it's simply easier
and cheaper to do so.
- That's an excellent point.
It reminds you when I lived in Munich
on my sabbatical for six months,
I only got in a car once,
just 'cause the public transportation system
is just so efficient.
So, you did some work with the "Drilled" podcast,
one of my favorite podcasts, and like the tobacco industry,
the fossil fuel industry have engaged
in what some writers have coined
the invisible colonization of academia
via corporate capture of academic research.
And this can often shift the focus
of solutions away from actions,
which challenge the business model of fossil fuel companies.
So I would love to hear more about your work
with the "Drilled" podcast,
your view on podcasts as effective mediums,
and more about your thoughts on fossil fuel industries
influence within education at any level?
- Yeah, to take your second question first,
the role that podcasts can have,
I worked on the one season of the "Drilled" podcast,
but you asked earlier about how climate coverage
can sort of compete
with the big sort of celebrity stories of the day,
the big pop culture stories of the day,
and I think that drilled is a pretty great example
of how they can.
I mean, it's so clear now that Amy Westervelt
has made the "Drilled" podcast
that climate change is a true crime story,
but it took the podcast, I think,
to really put it in that kind of light,
to really shed perspective on that aspect of the story.
And so I think that, yeah, more narrative podcasts,
more narrative stories, more storytelling in general
on the climate beat can be really, really useful.
We wanted to focus on role that the fossil fuel industry has
in shaping education,
and specifically sort of humanities and social sciences.
I think a lot more has been sort of written previously
about science education and climate education specifically
because we thought that it was a really sort of untold role
that the fossil fuel industry was having
on shaping public discourse and public opinion.
We were kind of working on this podcast at a time
when the divestment movement was really center stage
for so much university and college organizing.
And we were finding that even as so many schools
were divesting, they were continuing to take funding
from the fossil fuel industry
to fund things like economics departments
or humanities departments and things like this.
And Boston is no stranger, right?
To these kind of elite universities
that continue to do this.
I mean the work of scholars like Ben Franta,
Geoffrey Supran has shown that Harvard, MIT,
these kinds of major and highly respected universities
are as guilty of this as anybody.
And colleges and universities are such an important part
of the climate story,
because where is it that climate research is coming from?
Who shapes so much of the research that's going
into reports like the IPCC report?
I mean, it's major schools that are often taking funding
from the oil and gas companies
that we know cannot continue to exist
if we're gonna take the climate crisis seriously.
So, an interesting sort of time to be working
on this right now, and I'd love to hear,
I guess, from anybody at Salem State
who's working on this issue as well.
- Yeah, the one...
We've done lots of good things at Salem State,
but one that we're most proud of is
Salem State divestment from fossil fuels.
- [Dharna] Absolutely.
- A few years ago now, five or six years ago, I think,
and that was something that we viewed as very important
in the ecosystem of actions that we're doing around climate.
I'd be interested to know if you have any insights
on how the fossil fuel industry directly tries
to influence climate narrative within media circles.
I guess they're tangentially doing this,
and in all spheres,
but if you've got any insights to how they
are trying to influence media,
either via direct press releases,
or op-eds, or things like this.
- Yeah, I mean,
sometimes it really is completely direct.
Again, as work done by scholars like Geoffrey Supran
and Naomi Ruscus has shown,
the number of just straight up editorials
from the oil and gas lobby
or oil and gas companies themselves
in the pages of major newspapers is just absurd.
You have to look no further than the front page ads
and editorials that are taken out from time to time
to really see what that influence means.
But I think that this rears its head in other ways,
right, too.
I mean, I think that the sort of rise of sponsored content
can make a lot of different kind of opportunities
for these sorts of unsavory alliances.
I think that there's been some really important work
done recently on the ways that the fossil fuel industry
is shaping its advertisements
and media narratives for podcasts,
because podcast ads are simply less regulated
than ads in other sort of mediums.
And so I think that, I mean, yes, yes,
there is a huge influence there.
One way that I think that we can ensure
that we're still able to do good work in media
is to enforce that fire line, that firewall rather
between advertisers and journalists,
but the other way obviously
is to foster more independent media,
and I think that that's something that a lot of folks
are working on right now.
- [Noel] Yeah.
Yeah, I mean the fossil fuel industry
have their tentacles everywhere.
So this brings on to a new subject
when thinking about impacts of climate change
in the global south,
so climate change disproportionately impacts or effects
the most vulnerable populations in the world,
particularly those in the global south,
yet their stories are rarely heard,
or they're given less emphasis.
What can the media do to better
to amplify these voices and stories,
and is there an appetite for climate justice stories
which extend beyond the borders of the US?
- There has to be an appetite for it.
I mean, there are definitely some evidence
that shows rather depressingly
that people are more interested in the issues
that affect their own life lives,
and are really disinterested in climate issues
that face other parts of the world.
But I mean, when it comes down to it, like...
In not too long,
every zone is going to be a frontline zone, right?
In not too long, all of us are gonna be on the front lines,
perhaps with the exception for a while
of the extremely rich, of those who own the most capital.
But that's not most of people who we're writing for, right?
Most people are not the sort of corporate overlords
of the world.
So, I mean, is there an appetite?
There has to be, I mean, I think that part of the reason
that we have to write these stories
is to foster that appetite,
and not in a way that sort of puts the global south
in a vacuum, but also showing the connections
between climate impacts on the global south and here.
In some ways I think that the reason that people should care
about what's happening in the global south
is not merely out of altruism,
but because the hurricanes and the floods
that face places like Latin America and Bangladesh
and Africa today are the ones that will face us tomorrow
here in the global north.
And obviously this is not to say that there are not places
that are on the front line here in the global north as well.
I mean, there are tons of environmental justice communities
in the United States that are also
not honestly getting the kind of coverage that they deserve,
but we need to, I think, remember that just
because we're not on the front lines of something today
doesn't mean that we're safe.
- [Noel] Yeah, that's really important.
I have a selfie question.
How do you write so fast?
(Noel chuckling)
'Cause I remember when you interviewed me for
the paper on how you pay for the Green New Deal,
we had email exchange,
and in an hour you had the story up and I was like,
how did you do this?
You know, academics?
Well, certainly me, I'm a slow writer,
but we'll have some people tuning in who are interested
in climate journalism or writing in general.
Have you got any tips on how you or other journalists
write fast?
- It's such a good question.
I mean, I have to say that
there's always more to be said, right?
Part of the way that you write fast
is that you just remember
that there's gonna be another story tomorrow,
and so not trying to fit everything into every story
that you write can be really important,
and also sometimes is honestly really heartbreaking.
I mean, there's so many times,
like every week I write a story and I'll think,
"Oh, this isn't even getting
to this other really important part of this topic
that I'm writing about,"
and I'll just have to be okay with that,
and try to address it in the story
that I write the next week.
I think that one really important way to sort of learn
to write faster is to have a beat and to really foster it,
having sources, having regular conversations
with people like you, or with organizers,
or folks who are directly affected
by things like hurricanes and floods and heat waves,
knowing who to talk to before you even
know what the story is,
like knowing when a heat wave happens,
that you can call this scientist,
this organizer, and this place,
and this policy maker can be a really important way
to get things done quickly.
But honestly, this is something that I feel
that I'm still working on every day.
I think that we're always told that we need to write more,
better, faster,
and sometimes I don't think
that we can do all of those things.
Sometimes I really think that it's actually important
for journalists, especially journalists on a beat
as important as the climate beat to take a beat, slow down,
think more about the implications of what's being written.
So that's not to say that getting the news
out there quickly is not important,
but also speed is not always the most important thing.
- And do you view longform journalism as been
an important part of the climate reporting as well?
- Yes, absolutely.
And not only, I mean, long form journalism,
op-eds, analysis.
I think that all of these sorts of from short little blogs
to like books the size of the Bible,
I think there's a place for all of these things.
I mean, and the reason is because climate change
is deeply embedded into every story
is something that people need to be hearing about
all the time in order to really wake up
to the severity of these issues
in any way that we can reach people we should,
and that means long things and short things,
it means lots of facts and data,
and it also means lots of stories
and narratives and characters.
It means reading an op-ed by Bill McKibben,
or an article by Sabrina Shankbender,
David Abel in the Boston Globe,
and it also means reading the editorials
and the pages of Yes Magazine or Jacobi Magazine.
I think that there needs to be a sort
of really healthy ecosystem in order
for us to get anywhere in climate media.
- Okay, that's great.
So, I think I can switch it over to Joey now
who's gonna field some questions from our live audience,
so Joey, if you've got any questions there for Dharna.
- Yeah, absolutely.
So, for the audience,
feel free to keep typing in the little chats
in the little module there,
and I will try to answer them as we go.
All right, so first question,
we touched on this a little bit earlier,
but well, why don't we just reiterate it a little bit?
The Globe often seems to take a pro-business, pro-growth,
almost booster-ish agenda.
Do you find a conflict with trying to report seriously
on climate issues in ways
that might conflict with The Globe's agenda?
- I mean, I have to say,
like I haven't been at the Globe for very long,
but the mandate that we have at, "Into the Red,"
the climate section that I was sort of there
for the launch of
is pretty squarely in line, I think,
with what the climate crisis demands.
I mean, it's a section of the paper
that's so heavily focused on accountability,
more work to be done on justice of course,
but there's been a focus on justice,
a focus on sort of uplifting all kinds of solutions,
not to say that I think that we need
to like put all of our focus onto technological solutions,
but I do think quite frankly that we do need
to spend some time looking at burgeoning technologies
along with sort of everything else.
So the answer for me is no.
Does that mean I think that The Globe
doesn't have more work to do
in order to sort of take on this problem
with the scale that it deserves?
Absolutely, but I think that everyone, frankly,
has more work to do.
Yes, I think of course,
especially the sort of major newspapers bear
even more responsibility.
Bigger institutions always bear a greater responsibility,
but I would love to talk more if you wanna contact me
about specific instances.
Yeah, always happy to chat further.
- [Joey] Awesome.
All right, next question we have here.
This is a bit of a bit of an EJ
distributed justice kind of question.
Do you think the future expansion of offshore wind energy
may create a disparity between Green New Deal plans
for coastal regions versus inland regions?
- I mean, the basic answer to this
is that I think that without careful attention to justice,
anything can create injustice,
and so I do think that it's possible.
I don't think that there's any reason that off-shore
wind should not be beneficial to inland regions though.
I mean, I think that you asked earlier, Noel,
about things that are undercovered,
I think that we simply need more coverage
in media about the need for transmission.
Having the big flashy energy project is one thing,
distributing that energy to all kinds of people
in all kinds of regions is another thing.
So, no, I certainly don't think that it has to,
but also we need distributed energy,
and we need energy from all kinds of sources
if we're gonna get off of fossil fuels.
And that means that yes, some people are gonna have a grid
that's powered by offshore wind.
Sometimes people are gonna have a grid
that's powered by solar,
or some people are gonna be running their homes off of
maybe hydropower or geothermal,
there's lots of different kinds of energy
that we're gonna need.
But the main question is how we are getting it
to people from the power plants, from the wind farms,
from the solar panels, et cetera.
And so, yes, I think,
yes, of course it could, but there's no reason it has to.
- [Joey] Awesome.
All right, I have some questions here that I wrote.
So for journalism students who will watch this, and myself,
what was your journey breaking into climate journalism,
and what advice do you have
for aspiring climate journalists?
- My journey into climate journalism I think
was sort of unorthodox,
but I think that that's actually the case
for a lot of climate journalists.
So I started working in media shortly after college,
mostly just because I wanted to work at an organization
that aligned with my values.
I didn't really care about being a journalist,
I cared about not having an evil boss who I hated, honestly.
So I found myself working at The Real News Network
in a sort of general producer role,
and there I was covering and doing research on
and doing interviews on everything
from like economic justice in Cuba,
to like gender justice here in the United States,
abortion and food stamps and every kind of sort of
justice-oriented issue, I wanted to cover,
and started realizing really quickly that everything
that I cared about so deeply
was deeply affected by climate change and vice versa.
This was around the time, for instance,
that there was a US led invasion of Syria,
and I found myself so frustrated that there
was so little coverage of the ways that the climate crisis
was exacerbating these issues.
I would do stories on the sort
of military industrial complex, and find myself, again,
frustrated that so few people were writing
about the ways that the military fuels climate change,
the way that the Pentagon fuels climate change,
and that other countries militaries do too,
and I think that is sort of how I found myself
onto the climate beat.
It wasn't really that I found myself to be such a
granola crunchy hippie, or something like this,
although not that that's so far from it,
but it was really just that I found that climate change
was such a deep existential threat,
and one that was gonna exacerbate
so many issues that I already cared about.
And so, I mean, I guess my advice would just be like,
if you wanna be a journalist, and you care about society,
frankly, the climate beat is a beat for you.
I mean, if you wanna do accountability stories,
come to the climate beat.
If you wanna do culture stories, come to the climate beat.
There are so many movies and TV shows
and books and everything
that are about climate change today.
The climate beat is a beat
for every different kind of story,
and so, yeah, it can be daunting,
but hit me up if I can ever help.
- I will.
(Joey chuckling)
All right, here we have another question in chat.
Massachusetts economy is so dependent
on the military industry.
Can The Globe report on the relationship
of this to climate issues?
- Yeah, one of the first actually pieces
that I got to do at The Boston Globe
was the story about how the military fuels climate change,
and how there's been so many exemptions made
for the military in climate policies dating back decades,
but continuing today in the Biden administration.
And yes, I mean,
I think that the fact that Massachusetts economy
is so deeply entwined with this,
I mean the home to companies like Raytheon
can pose some pretty serious problems.
And not only like the military industrial complex,
I mean, we're seeing, I think,
similar sort of questions crop up
with the burgeoning cryptocurrency industry, and others.
But I think that the reason that the military kind
of plays such an important and understudied role in this,
is because so frequently we're taught to think
of climate change as a national security issue,
not a safety issue.
So often climate policy has been a reason
to just give more money to the Pentagon
and to the Pentagon's contractors.
And I hope, yes, that we can shed light on that.
Again, if you wanna talk, feel free to hit me up.
- I had a guy one time in a class try to convince me that
Raytheon was a really sustainable company
because they made the most fuel efficient
jet engine in the world.
And I was like, "Well, I think that misses the point,"
but yeah, definitely good to keep exposing things like this,
especially in a state like Massachusetts,
that rely so heavily on these industries.
All right, here's another question.
As journalism moves more and more into newsletters,
substack, podcasts, and other nontraditional mediums,
do you think these mediums are as effective
or maybe even more effective than standard verticals
for getting out climate messages?
- There are two different ways to answer this.
I think that any kind of medium that can get people
to watch and can be a vehicle for truth is a good one,
and so I think that there are people in new media
who are doing work that is as important
in the climate space as the folks who covered these issues
in the sort of newspapers of traditional media
and things like this.
That said, the thing that does worry me
is that because these are burgeoning industries,
media is right now, largely an industry,
I get nervous about the ways that this can open room
for less regulation.
A good example of this that I mentioned earlier
is that there are fewer rules and regulations
for the kinds of advertising that can be done on podcasts,
and I think that that can open the way for lots of kind
of dangerous fossil fuel messaging
that might not meet the standards of older media platforms.
And so, I mean,
I think that with any sort of new innovation,
there are questions that have to be asked out how
to ensure that they are properly regulated,
and are honest and accountable.
But yes, I mean,
I listen to podcasts all the time,
and I read tons of newsletters,
and there's people doing great work in all of these spaces.
- Yeah, and it's really interesting
that you brought up regulation,
'cause I think about that every time I see those obnoxious
Exxon Mobile algae biofuel ads
that seem to go everywhere from like TikTok to podcasts.
All right, here is another question.
How can we learn more about the power of the lobbyists
and the legislature
and in the executive offices in Massachusetts,
as well as in DC?
So what kind of sources of information would you recommend
for citizens to use to educate themselves?
- I mean, to learn more about the lobbyists, I think,
honestly you just...
I wanna say that you should read the reporting
on this issue, but in order to do that,
there also needs to be more of it.
So part of how I think you should learn more
is to reach out to journalists
who you wanna hear covering these things,
and just say like,
"Hey, here's what you should be covering."
I mean, in order to stay sort of up to date though
on what you need to know in terms of your
sort of state and federal...
the influence of some of your state and federal lobbyists,
there's some really important resources.
Open Secrets is one, Influence Map is another.
There's sort of watchdogs that are keeping tabs
on the influence that these kinds of bodies can have,
so those are two places to start looking
and there's plenty of others.
- [Joey] Awesome.
All right, how about
who are your favorite climate journalists?
I can assume Amy Westervelt because of "Drilled,"
but who else?
- I mean, I...
This is such a hard question,
'cause there's so many different people
who are doing such good work
in the realm of both journalism
and sort of other kinds of climate writing.
In terms of sort of larger media platforms,
I think one person who's really worth reading
and getting familiar with is Alex Kaufman
at The Huffington Post.
I've heard a lot of interest in sort of bringing
a sort of more real stick perspectives
to bigger media outlets,
and I think that he's really done that job there,
and that's a pretty important place to look.
I also read tons of smaller
and sort of independent media outlets,
and love the work of folks like Kate Aronoff
at The New Republic
who wrote a really incredible book last year
that I'd recommend everyone reads.
There's sort of regional publications,
publications like Southerly and Scalawag
that focus on the south.
In terms of sort of other essays and other forms of media,
Mary Heglar, who hosts another podcast with Amy Westervelt,
has done really important work.
And then I hate to just plug like this,
but I would be really,
it would be wrong of me to not just say also that like,
there's bigger papers who are doing really incredible work
in this space too.
Whether that's some of the sort of climate solutions
reporting that's done in places like The Post,
or the new vertical that we've just launched
at the Boston Globe,
where folks like Sabrina Shankman are, I think,
doing a lot to hold bodies like the governor's office
and utilities accountable for the climate plans
they've said that they would implement are really important.
But I feel, honestly,
like I could just answer this question for like two hours,
so I'll stop there,
but there's lots of folks doing really good work.
- Awesome, I know I love "Hot Take"
with Mary Heglar and Amy, such a hilarious podcast.
- [Dharna] For sure.
- All right, here's kind of an overview question.
What makes good versus bad climate journalism?
I know that's kind of general,
but what are like the top things,
the top criteria you try to accomplish when writing?
- One thing that I think is helpful to remember
is that you can strike a balance.
You can not lie to people about the urgency of these issues,
but also not fall into unnecessary doomerism.
It is not good journalism to pretend that
the climate crisis is not dire.
It's not good journalism to pretend that
the climate crisis is something
we don't have to worry about yet,
something that is for next year, not to worry about now.
It's not good climate journalism also to fall
into this sort of trap of doom and gloom,
and not allow people to remember
that there are still things that we can do right now
that will dramatically slow climate change,
and frankly save many, many people's lives.
I think that also bad journalism falls
into the tropes of like blank or nothing.
I think that it doesn't help that bodies like the IPCC,
for good reason,
focus on numbers like 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius.
1.5 degrees Celsius is a really important target,
one that if we cross,
we will see catastrophic levels of warming,
but that doesn't mean that 1.39 is gonna be great,
and it doesn't mean that 1.51
is gonna be catastrophically worse than 1.5, right?
These are just benchmarks.
They are not themselves the goal.
And so I think that something that's really important
is to remember that journalism as a vehicle
for these kinds of facts needs to keep in mind
what's underneath these facts.
1.5 is both a really, really important measure,
and also a really arbitrary one.
And also I think bad climate journalism is boring,
and not engaging, and poorly written,
and doesn't make anyone wanna read it.
Good climate journalism often focuses on people,
is engaging, and makes people want to come back for more.
You can shake people up and really move people
without making it so that people just want
to crawl into a hole and never come out.
- Yeah, absolutely.
I think of Emily Akin and "HEATED"
when I think of that type of climate journalism
that's both realistic,
but also kind of punky and irreverent,
so it gets people coming back for more.
- Absolutely. - Professor Healy,
I will pass it off to you
now that we're sort of coming to the end.
- Yeah, so just one last kind of related question,
professors and general members of the public
often would like to write op-eds
and submit 'em to major newspapers.
But as we all know,
getting op-eds place is quite challenging
for various reasons,
either your writing isn't up to scratch,
or the message doesn't resonate with the editors.
Have you got any kind of general tips
for members of the public or Salem State community
and in writing op-eds,
and how to go about that.
- Know what your hook is before you even pitch the story,
I think is a really important one.
In some ways, I hate giving this advice to people
because there shouldn't have
to be a hook for climate change.
There's always some horrible climate impact happening
in many different places at the same time.
At any point in time, there are like 5 million hooks,
and so in some ways you should just be able to say,
"Hey, I have something to say about climate change,"
but realistically, that is not the thing
that people are going to read then,
and so it is not the thing that people
are gonna commission you to write.
So I think it's really important to stay on top of the news,
stay on top of the current conversation,
and often the way into that is not just
looking at climate disasters,
but is looking at other kinds of climate events
and being able to tie them to the climate crisis
because every story in this day and age is a climate story.
I think we've seen really great examples of this recently,
where many people are tying the current war in Ukraine,
and then this kind of ensuing energy crisis
to the need for just transition to green energy.
I think that looking outside of things
that's kind of squarely fall within the climate beat,
so to speak, and thinking about climate change
a little bit more broadly can be a really important way
to think through what you're going to write.
I guess honestly, some other things are just
don't say too much,
and make sure that you know exactly what the point
that you want to make is before you start writing.
I'm saying this not only to all of y'all,
but also to myself,
I think that sometimes the most successful stories
are ones where you can just say,
"I need this many words to make this one point,
and there are five other points I could make along the way,
but instead I'm just gonna focus on saying
this one thing and saying it really well."
So getting clear on exactly what it is
that you're trying to say before you start writing,
I think is a pretty good way to approach
I think something like an op-ed or an article.
- Excellent, okay.
Thanks so much, Donna.
So I've got some notifications on upcoming events
at Salem State, I'll just briefly mention.
So between April 11th and 22nd,
we climate mini golf course on the library quad.
Thursday, tomorrow, we have the Friend of the Earth award,
which will be presented to HEET
and to Boston University Professor Nathan Phillips.
And we also, on Friday,
have the role of museums in the climate crisis
with the Peabody Essex Museum curator Jane Winchel.
And then on Thursday, next week,
we have a session with Tara Gallagher
on addressing climate change on Salem State's campus,
and why it matters.
Okay, so if folks are interested in other climate events,
we've got a lot going at Salem State.
I would like to, again, thank you Dharna for your time.
It was a really great conversation.
Thank you, Joey.
Hope everyone has a nice evening,
and we hope to see you all again soon.
Okay, that's it. - So much for having me,
really appreciate it,
and thanks for all of your work Noel,
and thank you Joey as well.
- [Noel] Okay.
All right, thank you.
Goodnight, everyone.