Episode Transcript
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0:02
Welcome back to Drilled, I'm Amy
0:05
Westervelt. Today we're
0:07
bringing you another one of these
0:09
conversations I've been calling Messy Conversations
0:12
where we get into lots of
0:14
different aspects of the climate
0:16
crisis and how we're talking about it today.
0:19
My guest is Mary Ann Eise
0:21
Heglar, who you might remember as
0:24
my co-host on the podcast Hot
0:26
Take. You might also know
0:28
Mary from her many excellent essays on
0:30
the climate crisis and especially how
0:33
it intersects with civil rights. A
0:36
few years ago she wrote an
0:38
essay for the Boston Globe about
0:40
how she felt as a woman
0:42
living in the world of climate
0:44
crisis and constantly being asked for
0:46
her thoughts on whether she wanted
0:48
to have kids. That
0:50
story ended up being a lot about
0:52
how she interacted with her nephew and
0:54
how she thought and talked to him
0:56
about climate and that
0:58
ended up becoming a children's book,
1:01
which is out today. It's
1:03
called The World Is Ours to Cherish
1:05
and it's an excellent way to start
1:08
talking to the kids in your life
1:10
about climate. This is a
1:12
topic that I find really difficult. I
1:14
have kids and I get asked all
1:16
the time about how to talk to
1:18
them about climate. The assumption being
1:20
that I have figured that out and I have not.
1:23
So I thought I'd have Mary on to talk
1:25
about that and her book and
1:28
of course Mary being Mary and me being me,
1:30
lots of other things that have nothing to do
1:32
with either of those as well. That
1:35
conversation is coming up right after this
1:37
quick break. Environmental
1:43
justice is a talking point in
1:45
every politician's toolkit. But do you
1:48
ever wonder where it all began? On
1:50
this week's throughline, we're taking you back
1:52
to 1978 where a
1:55
fight against a toxic dump in
1:57
North Carolina started the environmental justice
1:59
movement. Join NPR's Climate
2:01
Week and listen to Do Line
2:04
wherever you get your podcasts. If
2:09
you're listening to this show, you are
2:11
probably at least climate curious.
2:15
One thing that I get asked all
2:17
the time is, okay, I understand that
2:19
this is a big problem. We
2:22
need to act now, but what can I do? The
2:25
climate crisis can feel like such
2:27
a huge overwhelming problem, which is
2:29
why this April, former
2:31
US Vice President Al Gore and
2:34
the climate reality are holding
2:36
a free training on what's happening with
2:39
the climate and what we can personally do.
2:42
And actually, I'm going to be part of that training. It
2:45
all happens in New York City April 12th
2:47
through the 14th, and it's going to be
2:49
big, really big. If you
2:51
want to know what climate change means for
2:54
your future, your career, your part of the
2:56
country or the world, this training is for
2:58
you. You'll get to
3:00
hear straight from former US Vice President
3:02
Al Gore and a lineup of incredible
3:04
thought leaders, scientists, experts, and more at
3:07
the top of their fields. I'll
3:09
be doing a training on climate
3:11
disinformation as part of this. You'll
3:14
come away with a real understanding of what's
3:16
happening to the planet and the skills to
3:18
make a difference. If
3:20
you complete the training, you'll join the
3:22
Climate Reality Leadership Corps, a community of
3:24
nearly 50,000 change makers all over the
3:26
world. To
3:30
learn more and
3:32
apply, visit climaterealityproject.org/new
3:34
dash York. That's
3:38
climaterealityproject.org/ new
3:41
dash York. I hope to see you
3:43
there. Happy
3:50
book day, Mary. Happy book birthday. It's
4:01
been a long time coming, as you know. Had
4:04
no idea a children's picture
4:07
book took this long to produce, but apparently it's
4:09
one of the types of books that takes the
4:11
longest. So I learned a lot over
4:13
the past couple of years. Actually, that
4:15
makes sense to me because I feel like. It
4:18
does when you think about it. Yeah, yeah. And
4:21
tell us the name of your book so
4:23
people can go buy it today. Yes,
4:26
the name of my book is The World is Ours
4:28
to Cherish. It's
4:30
a children's book. I think it's very
4:33
cool that your very first book is
4:37
a children's book. Yeah. And
4:39
it grew out of an essay that you wrote
4:41
about the time that you were spending with your
4:43
nephew. Yeah, so the
4:46
origin story is rooted in an
4:48
essay that I wrote in the
4:50
Boston Globe back in 2020 that
4:52
talked about the age-old question that
4:55
all the women in climate get,
4:57
which is like, are
4:59
you going to have children or why did you
5:01
have children? That
5:03
annoying debate that somehow always goes to
5:05
women and never to men. I
5:10
was trying to deal with that in
5:12
my way as someone who like, even
5:15
outside of climate, I'm not totally sure
5:17
that children are in my future. But
5:21
that as much as whether I have children
5:23
of my own, I'm really glad that there
5:26
are children in my life and how much
5:28
I love my nephew and how I buy
5:30
him. At that point, I was
5:32
the crazy aunt who bought him like books about
5:35
all these different animals all over the world. And
5:37
that little ping of guilt that I would have
5:39
when I bought him a book and being like,
5:41
I don't know if these animals are going to
5:43
be there by the time that he's
5:46
able to get out into the world. Now,
5:49
I say I was the crazy aunt
5:51
who bought him about children's books. Now I'm
5:53
the New Orleans aunt. So
5:55
that changed. Yeah,
5:58
so I'm buying him books about different. musical
6:00
instruments and stuff. So, and
6:04
about King cake. Oh my God, he's obsessed
6:07
with King cake now. I have created a
6:09
monster. But
6:12
yeah, I actually started writing
6:14
the book when I started to
6:16
realize that I was gonna leave New York, which
6:20
was in the winter,
6:22
early part of 2021. And
6:26
because I was leaving New York, that was where my
6:28
nephew lived. I realized I
6:30
might not be there when he started asking
6:32
questions about why the world is changing
6:34
the way that it is. And
6:36
at the same time, his mother, his parents
6:38
were moving back to DC and was like,
6:41
oh, I'm really not gonna be there when he
6:43
starts answering these questions. And
6:45
so, yeah, I started writing it. That's
6:47
awesome. I actually didn't know that part about the
6:49
fact that you were thinking
6:52
about, you know, just not being there to
6:54
answer those questions and writing it down and
6:56
stuff, that's cool. It was also
6:58
like a nervous project while my novel
7:00
was out on submission for
7:04
people who don't know what that means,
7:06
because only if you've been
7:08
in the publishing industry, do you know what that means?
7:11
Like that means you're taking this
7:14
very stressful. It means that your book
7:16
is being shot from different editors
7:18
at different publishing houses to see if they wanna
7:20
buy it. And it's like going
7:23
out to be judged and you need something
7:25
to do. That's
7:27
what's going on. Especially with a novel,
7:29
because for nonfiction,
7:32
you know, like you write a proposal and you write like
7:35
one sample chapter, right? But for a novel,
7:37
like you've gotta write the whole thing first.
7:39
The whole thing. The
7:42
whole thing. You've like invested
7:45
a lot of time. Yeah, your heart
7:47
and soul is on a page and it's going out
7:49
to be judged. It is like, I need something else
7:51
to do. So I'm not just sitting here thinking about
7:53
this. Yeah, yeah, totally.
7:57
Fun fact, I have children and
7:59
I... do not know how
8:01
to talk to them about climate change.
8:05
It's like something that people always ask
8:07
me advice on because the assumption
8:09
is, and it's not a wild
8:11
assumption, is
8:14
that, you know, well, you work on this subject
8:16
all the time and you have kids, so you
8:18
must have figured out how to talk to them
8:20
about this. And to be honest, no, I feel
8:22
like I might even be worse
8:25
than the average person at talking to
8:28
them about it. Like, to a
8:30
weird extent, sometimes they'll ask me stuff. Like,
8:33
just the other day, Archie,
8:35
my older kid, was asking me about- Oh,
8:38
well, this guy now? He's 11, and he
8:41
was asking about emissions or
8:43
something. And
8:47
I kind of like clammed up, it's terrible.
8:49
It's like, but it's sort of like that
8:52
thing where it's like you, I don't know,
8:55
I find myself having this very lizard
8:57
brain reaction where I just wanna
9:00
protect their innocence for
9:06
as long as possible. So, well,
9:09
kids figure stuff out so quickly. I'm
9:12
sure that they've been worrying about it.
9:14
And really more helpful
9:16
if I talk to them than avoid
9:18
it. But it's hard, it's hard to
9:20
talk to kids about that stuff, especially because also, there's a
9:23
level of guilt to it too, where
9:30
you feel like, oh God, I
9:32
can't believe we didn't fix this in time. And
9:37
yeah, that pang of like, oh my God. The
9:41
thing that always gave me that feeling that
9:44
you were talking about with the animals was
9:46
when Archie, who's 11 now, he's
9:49
been obsessed with the idea of
9:51
going away to college since he
9:54
was like seven. And not even because
9:56
he understands what that is or he
9:58
wants to study or something. really just
10:00
having a roommate. I mean,
10:03
in his mind, it's like permanent
10:08
sleepover, you know, like, I could just like
10:10
live with my
10:13
dad. I know, I know. So
10:15
he's always like, when I go away to
10:18
college, like, you know, could I do
10:20
this? Could I do that? And every single time he
10:22
would ask, I would always be like, Oh, you
10:25
know, in my mind, I'm like, you're,
10:28
there's not gonna be college, you're gonna be
10:30
like involved in water wars, you know. Oh,
10:35
wow. Okay, well, maybe that's not the
10:37
best starting point for the conversation, Amy.
10:39
But my immediate fear response, I'm
10:44
like, yeah. So anyway,
10:46
yeah, I guess my very
10:49
long winded question
10:51
here is like, how, how
10:53
did you figure out how to start
10:55
talking to him about this stuff? Well,
10:59
I also have a lot of questions
11:02
about that. I'll get, I'll
11:06
get to them. But how
11:08
did I figure out how to start talking about it?
11:10
It was like, I just started thinking about what
11:13
is the operative word in climate
11:15
change. And I think it's
11:17
change. And so that is
11:20
the message of the book of like,
11:22
the world is very
11:25
magical. It's very beautiful. But also the world
11:27
has changed. And the world that you're growing
11:29
up in is not the world that I
11:31
grew up in. But the
11:34
world will always keep changing. And
11:36
it's changed because you're here, you will
11:38
continue to change the world and we
11:41
can change the world together, right. And
11:43
so going with the idea that change
11:45
is inevitable, and it can be good or
11:47
bad, and you can play a part in
11:49
what that change looks like. So I
11:52
really leaned into the idea that I
11:55
and no one else really knows what's
11:57
going to happen, but we can control
11:59
what we do and what our actions are. And
12:02
I had to fight a little bit of
12:04
a battle to make sure that the book
12:06
stayed honest. Because
12:08
I think part of
12:12
the trouble with climate books is that
12:14
people always want a climate book to
12:16
be just closed book
12:18
hopeful. And
12:21
I think you can write, I
12:23
think I did write a hopeful climate book. But
12:27
I think you also have to be honest,
12:29
because as a friend of mine
12:32
said recently, Daniel Jose
12:34
Older, if you lie to children, you don't
12:36
deserve them. And
12:38
so I got
12:40
some pressure to make
12:43
the, in the beginning of the
12:45
book, it's like there's more fires, there's less water,
12:47
there's this, there's that, to make those things come
12:49
back as a resolution to the book.
12:52
And I was like, that's not realistic.
12:55
That wouldn't happen in their lifetimes. And I'm
12:57
not going to lie to these children. And
13:00
so that took some convincing, because I think
13:03
it's just, honestly, a lot
13:05
of people in
13:07
our communications industries don't realize
13:09
how bad the climate crisis
13:12
has gotten. And
13:14
I think we're still in this place of stopping
13:16
global warming, preventing global warming. It's
13:18
like, oh, that ship sailed, right?
13:20
Like, I think you remember
13:22
when we were on hot take and we got the question
13:24
of, what do you think of the
13:27
debate between mitigation and adaptation? We were like, what
13:30
is it, 20-10 hell? I
13:32
know. What kind
13:34
of question is that? Yep, yep.
13:37
So wait, but I also have
13:39
to end this answer with a question.
13:42
What kind of messages do you think your children
13:45
are getting from the outside world about
13:47
climate change, that they're internalizing?
13:50
That's an interesting question. So also,
13:52
while you were talking, I was
13:55
thinking about the lying to thing. And I
13:57
was like, oh, maybe that's why I'm avoiding
13:59
talking. them about it because I don't like I
14:01
don't really lie to them. I mean,
14:04
you know, sometimes I tell little lies
14:07
like we don't have any cookies. Because
14:10
mommy's eating them.
14:12
We don't have
14:14
cookies. But
14:18
I don't you know, like about how
14:20
life works in general, I don't
14:22
write shy away from like reality.
14:26
So like, so yeah, I feel like part
14:28
of it is I'm like, Oh, I'm not
14:30
ready to have this like fully, you know,
14:33
honest conversation with them about
14:36
this. But it's, you know, I'm gonna have to.
14:39
But yeah, I think, I think
14:42
that, you know, my older kid
14:44
in particular, like he's, he's like,
14:47
you know, goes on TikTok and
14:49
like goes on YouTube and watch
14:51
other things. Fortunately, he
14:55
he also talks to me about everything that
14:57
he sees. So I know
14:59
like, he's being, you
15:02
know, fed something then, then I know
15:04
and also I've instilled in him from
15:06
a very young age, like a level
15:09
of skepticism. So like, he'll totally
15:11
fast with me. You know, he's
15:13
like, I heard this,
15:15
like, is that true? And like, no,
15:17
who said it? You know, what,
15:20
what organization are they with? Who's paying
15:22
them? You know, all of that stuff.
15:24
He's, he kind of has
15:26
that filter. But also
15:28
we live in Costa Rica. So he goes
15:30
to a school where
15:33
like he has an ecology
15:35
class three times
15:37
a week. And like they
15:39
actually talk about all
15:41
kinds of stuff related to the environment
15:43
in general and climate change and all of
15:46
that stuff. So he is getting, you
15:48
know, an education. But
15:51
I don't think and, you
15:53
know, actually, both of my kids,
15:56
it's really funny, like, in for both of
15:58
them, like they you know, at some point in
16:01
school, kids always get asked this, this
16:03
question that's like, if you had, you know, a
16:05
million dollars, what would you do? Or if you
16:07
had like endless amounts of money, like what
16:09
problem would you solve or whatever? And both
16:12
of them like immediately, they
16:15
immediately say, shut down the oil
16:17
industry and give everyone a house. Oh
16:22
my God, you must be so
16:25
proud. So they did get some they're
16:27
getting like, you know, they're getting
16:29
subliminal. These are your
16:31
kids. That's not subliminal.
16:33
That's not subliminal. No,
16:36
little, little fossil fuel
16:38
haters. And I love it. I know.
16:41
So honestly, I think that's
16:43
like interesting, because it's like they know
16:46
more about the fossil fuel industry than
16:48
they know about climate change, which actually,
16:50
yeah, you know, that's the root cause.
16:53
And I wonder, like, especially
16:55
with older kids, that might be the
16:57
better place to start, because otherwise, it's
16:59
just like, are they supposed to go
17:01
fight the air? Well,
17:04
also, I feel like, I
17:06
feel like, yeah,
17:09
I know, like, when I when I talk to other young
17:13
people, other people's kids, and
17:15
they talk about climate,
17:17
like, a lot of times it's sort
17:19
of this deserved, you
17:21
know, like anger at
17:23
previous generations for like failing to,
17:25
you know, deal with this problem
17:28
and this and that, which is not, you
17:30
know, like I said, I mean, that's deserved
17:32
in some ways. But I feel like it
17:34
is important for kids to understand
17:36
like, how, I don't
17:38
know, I guess, like how power structures
17:40
work and like how limited
17:43
their, you know, parents or grandparents
17:46
were in like, their ability to
17:48
really do something and how much that
17:50
plays into it, which doesn't leave, you
17:52
know, I knew and I have talked
17:54
many times about this sort of like
17:57
false dichotomy between
18:00
individual responsibility and
18:02
systemic change. I'm
18:04
not trying to say like, nothing any one
18:07
person does matters or any of
18:09
that stuff. But, but like, you know,
18:11
giving them but at the same time, like with
18:14
and I have talked to my kids a little bit about
18:17
this, but I also don't want them to feel like, yeah,
18:20
to feel like, oh, well, nothing I do is
18:22
going to matter because the Yeah, systems are
18:24
so powerful, there's nothing I can do to
18:27
teach them. But that's true of
18:29
really, like any social justice issue, you
18:31
know, like I exactly for some reason,
18:33
people see climate change is different, right?
18:35
Like you're supposed to find the one solution.
18:38
It's like
18:40
people are just desperate to dip one
18:43
toe in and be done. And it's
18:45
like you don't you don't think about it that way with
18:48
anything else. Right? Nobody thinks
18:50
like, oh, you were nice
18:52
to that one lady, but you didn't solve racism.
18:54
So you might as well have been a asshole
18:57
for Yeah,
18:59
that sounds absurd. But
19:02
I also, um, I
19:05
also want to talk about this generational
19:07
problem that we tend to have in
19:09
the climate space. Because I honestly think
19:11
that might be the driving
19:13
force between both of my books. So
19:16
shameless plug. I have another book publishing this
19:18
year. It's called troubled waters. It is a
19:20
novel. And it comes
19:23
out May 7. And it is a book
19:25
about climate change,
19:27
school desegregation, and the things that
19:29
are lost between the generations. And
19:33
quick pause, that is the most coherent
19:36
way I've ever been able
19:38
to explain it. I was
19:40
like, wow. Great. I've been
19:42
struggling with that. However,
19:46
it deals with this thing that I
19:48
have always found very problematic and bedeviling
19:50
in the climate space, this idea is
19:53
the previous generation's fault. And
19:56
like, our grandparents didn't know what they were doing
19:58
when they were setting the world on fire, right?
20:00
Like that was just this fallacy that I heard
20:03
every freaking where and as a black person,
20:06
whose grandparents were active in the civil
20:09
rights movement, whose great,
20:11
great, I think great, maybe three
20:13
great grandparents were slaves. That
20:16
sounds absurd to me. Right.
20:18
Like we were still waiting on 40 acres
20:21
and a mule. We wanted to go get our
20:23
land, go farm it and mind our business. That's
20:25
what we wanted to do. But
20:27
we weren't able to do that. The last thing we were
20:29
doing was finding oil and digging it
20:32
up and setting it on fire. So like this
20:34
idea of like, blanketing
20:36
previous generations with this like
20:38
guilt was really insulting to
20:41
me and to, you know,
20:43
my grandparents and even my
20:46
my parents. Yeah. So
20:49
I, I wrote the novel to kind of
20:51
deal with that. And also, like you
20:53
were saying you have guilt talking to your
20:56
children about climate change. I feel guilt
20:58
talking to my mother and my mother's generation
21:00
about climate change, because it's like, y'all
21:02
already dealt with a lot. I
21:05
don't want to also bring this to
21:07
you. And it's like, as a friend
21:10
of mine once put it, there are
21:12
certain conversations that you're not qualified to have
21:14
with your mother when she's older than integration. Like
21:20
lecturing my mama about plastic bags,
21:22
please. I will
21:24
not be doing it. And then also
21:27
with the children's
21:29
book, I think what we do with
21:31
the younger generation is we'll
21:33
be like, alright, buddy, go,
21:35
go save the world, go fix it.
21:38
Like our children are going to fix it.
21:40
The kids are all right, they've got this,
21:42
blah, blah, blah. And I feel like that
21:44
is abandonment. And like they
21:46
are fighting for their lives. They're not fighting
21:48
for yours. Right. So I know
21:51
that you've seen this phenomenon too, where it's
21:53
like, oh, we're going to be fine because
21:55
Gen Z is going to save us. Gen
21:57
Z might save themselves and then they might
21:59
be showing because what
22:02
like that's cruel, to just leave
22:04
this all in their lap. And
22:06
so I made the point in
22:08
the book of making sure that like, yes,
22:11
you will change the world, but we'll do
22:13
it together. You're not in this by yourself.
22:16
So that was a big, a
22:19
big point of the of the
22:21
narrative of like, making sure that the
22:23
child understood that this was communal and
22:25
to go get involved in like, their
22:27
suggestions at the end for things to
22:30
do. And most of them are about
22:32
like, I think the biggest thing children
22:34
can do to protect prepare themselves for
22:36
climate change is to build community and
22:38
know their neighbors. Yeah, I say that
22:40
as an introvert. Like that's
22:42
not. Yeah, totally. That's the
22:45
answer I always give to people
22:47
to in terms of like,
22:49
what should we do or or and also
22:51
actually the what the what gives you
22:53
hope question too is Oh my gosh, I hate
22:55
that question. I know, I know. But it is
22:57
like, you know, when I see communities really coming together,
22:59
I'm kind of like, okay, like people can figure
23:02
this out and be okay. Yeah.
23:05
And it's like when a like children
23:07
can understand things like we
23:09
live in a place where there are tornadoes. When there's
23:11
a tornado, this is what you do, right? Like,
23:13
I remember those girls as a
23:15
kid. I'm sure you remember like
23:17
fire drills, earthquake drills in California.
23:19
Yeah. So like
23:22
kids getting them involved with how to
23:25
prepare for a disaster, what to
23:27
do, where to evacuate to a
23:29
few, like a couple years
23:32
ago, I was at my therapist office and
23:34
her her child was often there, he had
23:36
to have been like, maybe six or seven.
23:39
And he also, I don't
23:41
know if it was YouTube or TikTok, he would always
23:43
be listening to these videos and I overheard him once listening
23:46
to these videos about climate change. And
23:49
I asked her, are you not worried
23:51
about him like getting nightmares getting scared
23:53
or anything like that? And she's like,
23:55
actually, no, he comes back from those
23:57
videos, like with a lot of like
23:59
good questions. He likes to strategize with
24:01
me about this was in New Orleans.
24:03
Like when there's a hurricane, where do
24:05
we evacuate to and how soon do
24:08
we go? What are the categories like
24:10
he, he learning how to be prepared
24:12
and like, so as I was
24:14
writing the children's book, one of the things that
24:16
I was aware of was that these children that
24:19
the book is, is going to, they
24:22
don't know what that world looked like
24:24
before. So this world now that's their
24:26
normal. So the idea is
24:28
so half of half of the book is for
24:30
the parents. Um, then it is
24:32
for the, or in, in some ways
24:35
the book is to comfort the parents more
24:37
than it is to comfort the children. Cause they're just
24:39
like, all right, we got storms all the time. This
24:41
is what the world is. Right? Like cause before that
24:44
they were just, you know, in the womb. Right.
24:48
Totally. I actually was, I
24:50
was just talking to, um, a
24:52
friend of mine who,
24:54
um, is
24:57
also a reporter and has kids and she was, and
24:59
still is really like an education reporter,
25:02
but she started getting into doing
25:04
more climate stuff recently because her kid
25:07
when she was seven, I
25:09
think just said sort of
25:11
off-handedly to her. Um,
25:14
you're so lucky that you got to be a
25:16
kid before the world was exploding. Oh
25:20
wow. Whoa.
25:29
I know. I know. But, um, like
25:32
actually when I was, when I was
25:35
thinking about your book and
25:37
this conversation and stuff this morning, I was like, you
25:39
know, in a way, because
25:41
actually a lot
25:44
of people are not necessarily like super clued into climate.
25:48
Writing a kid's book about climate
25:50
change is like a
25:52
little bit like, I mean, I feel like it's
25:55
very applicable to adults as well. Like, I
25:58
bet the parents will actually. learn a lot
26:01
in reading this book too because
26:03
I hope yeah yeah I wrote
26:05
it as much for an actual child as
26:07
I did for someone's inner child so like
26:10
you know I want people to buy the
26:12
book obviously so but I'm being very genuine
26:14
when I say you could buy this for
26:16
a grown friend children's
26:19
books kind of function as like
26:21
a really fancy birthday card sometimes
26:24
so you really totally you have a friend
26:26
who's like really struggling with how to deal
26:28
with climate change and needs it broken down
26:30
to their inner child actually this book
26:32
could be good for that true it's
26:34
like it's like a um
26:37
you know like a gentle dose
26:41
of reality it's nice and
26:44
it's got really pretty pictures because a
26:47
really good uh illustrator Vivian Meinikris she
26:49
did a great job that's
26:51
so cool did you get to um like
26:53
were you and she working together on stuff
26:56
or or did she kind of like take
26:58
the book and then come back with some
27:00
ideas and like how does that whole process
27:02
work yeah so she and I
27:04
never communicate it um but I will
27:07
say that is that Random House gave me
27:09
um shocking to me shocking
27:11
no it's pretty normal um
27:13
but Random House gave me a
27:16
lot of leeway in terms of
27:18
who the who the who
27:20
the illustrator would be like more than normally
27:23
would be given to an author normally
27:25
the author has no say whatsoever um
27:28
but they actually I
27:31
said I want a woman of color they
27:33
were like absolutely they gave me options I
27:35
got to pick and then you know
27:38
she she did her thing and I was
27:40
able to give feedback I
27:42
was like I she automatically did a
27:44
lot of like skin tone diversity
27:47
and ethnic diversity um
27:49
but I gave more feedback about like
27:51
I want different types of hairstyles for
27:53
example um and
27:55
uh at the end there was still a
27:57
little bit of like um I
28:00
want to see this type of protest and not that type
28:02
of protest to fit with the story and she's just
28:05
like matched it perfectly So yeah, yeah,
28:07
she did a great job That's
28:09
awesome Okay, I want
28:12
to ask you because since we haven't
28:14
recorded a podcast since the end of
28:16
hot take I want to
28:18
ask a very
28:20
hot takey question to which is Are
28:24
there what other what like? I think
28:27
Media or books or
28:29
anything in that like realm Have
28:32
you consumed recently that that
28:34
like tackled climate in a way that you
28:36
found? interesting or good
28:39
or entertaining or Yeah,
28:42
what's your what's our climate culture? recommendation
28:45
right now So
28:47
I actually Haven't
28:50
had a lot of time
28:52
to consume a ton of media unfortunately,
28:54
I I've
28:59
been enjoying true detective The
29:01
episode or the season that set in
29:04
Alaska that yeah, I have a lot
29:06
of climate change undertones Yeah,
29:08
I think they might be on like the last
29:10
episode. So I'm excited to see what happens there
29:13
Yeah, you know what? I actually like I was
29:15
finding it really boring until the last the episode
29:17
last week and I was like, okay And now
29:19
we're like now we're getting into it Yeah
29:24
Yeah, I'm gonna give a spoiler But
29:27
I felt like they I don't know it was like I
29:32
Don't know. Yeah, I felt like it was like
29:34
a lot of setup the first three
29:36
episodes, you know but
29:38
story is good like there's There's
29:41
like a mining company and their
29:44
climate scientists and you know, there's
29:46
indigenous people Protesting the
29:48
mine and there's like yeah,
29:50
it's interesting. There's a lot of like
29:53
really timely Threads that
29:55
they're pulling on there. Yeah I
30:01
Honestly, I feel like
30:04
maybe I just haven't been watching
30:06
enough TV, but I feel like TV kind of
30:08
sucks lately. Yeah, I
30:11
agree. Netflix is not putting out super
30:13
great stuff. Well,
30:16
I think we're experiencing the aftershocks
30:18
of the writer's tray. Yeah,
30:21
definitely. See what it is. This must
30:23
be it. Yeah. I've
30:25
been like watching these shows come out
30:27
and being like, you can't be serious.
30:29
They turn games into an actual game
30:31
show. I know. It's
30:33
so weird. So weird. And
30:37
then you have the nerve to increase the price of
30:40
the subscription. I know. I
30:43
know. Yeah. Outrageous.
30:45
Outrageous. Yeah. I
30:48
feel like there's a lot
30:50
of nostalgia going on too that I wonder,
30:52
like, I don't know. I wonder how much
30:55
of that is a little bit of, like,
30:57
just avoidance of not
30:59
just the climate crisis, but sort
31:02
of like all the intersecting crises
31:04
that we're living through today. Yeah.
31:08
Because I keep seeing stuff that,
31:10
yeah, it's either like, yeah, it
31:12
just seems very, like, weirdly
31:16
nostalgic. Yeah. Or dystopian. It's
31:18
like one or the other. That's
31:21
it. Yeah. Well,
31:23
so as far as books are concerned, Lessons
31:27
for Survival by Emily Raboteau
31:29
is, I mean, it
31:31
publishes in March, but you can preorder
31:33
it now. And I've been reading an Advanced Reader's
31:35
Copy. Awesome. Yeah.
31:38
It's really good. I was, it goes some
31:41
of everywhere, but it's
31:43
basically about mothering during
31:46
climate change and COVID and
31:48
all of these other sorts of converging
31:50
crises. So I
31:53
think that's a good source. And
31:56
I've been ordering a lot of books
31:58
from Palestinian writers. I'm really
32:01
excited to read those because
32:03
I am watching and reading
32:05
the Palestinian struggle and
32:07
like this really amped
32:10
up indigenous resistance movement. Like we've
32:12
seen in the US what happens
32:15
when indigenous people resist. The
32:17
response is like swift
32:19
and overwhelming and just
32:22
wildly overblown. Yeah.
32:24
And that is I feel like what we're seeing
32:26
in Palestine as well and it's just
32:29
it's really shocking and sad for
32:31
me to see the climate community,
32:33
too many people, not everyone
32:36
obviously, but too
32:38
many prominent people acting like this
32:40
is divorce from climate change. Yeah.
32:44
Because if you understand that land back
32:46
is a climate solution, then how
32:48
do you not see this as a climate?
32:51
Totally. I know where I have
32:53
seen that kind of weird like,
32:56
I don't know,
32:58
just like blind spot or
33:00
a willing blind spot in
33:02
the climate space in particular
33:06
is around discussions
33:08
about US politics. Like I
33:10
keep seeing people kind of
33:12
being like framing the
33:15
election this year in the US as like,
33:17
well, climate people better get behind
33:19
Biden because Trump is going to
33:21
be worse for the climate. So,
33:23
you know, like
33:26
just because you're not in love with the
33:28
IRA doesn't mean blah, blah, blah. And
33:31
I'm like, are you just like totally
33:33
ignoring the fact that Biden is also
33:35
funding a genocide right now? Because
33:37
I'm pretty sure like everyone I know who's
33:39
on the fence, that's the thing they're worried
33:41
about. It's not about the details of the
33:44
IRA, man. I
33:46
mean, also the IRA was not awesome.
33:49
I think they need to be honest about
33:51
that. I think, you know, that big
33:54
sea change event that the climate
33:56
movement had back in 2020. I
34:00
think some folks need to come out
34:02
and be like, oops, I didn't mean any of
34:04
that. Oh, maybe. Oh,
34:06
because you obviously didn't. So
34:09
be honest about where you
34:11
actually are. People
34:14
made a whole lot of commitment that are
34:17
obviously not true. It's
34:20
really unsettling, because I'm seeing
34:23
the exact same thing in media, too,
34:26
where all these newsrooms were
34:28
like, we need to do a
34:30
better job of, well, actually, on race and climate.
34:32
They're like, we need to do a better
34:35
job of covering this. And we need to
34:37
be more intersectional and more
34:40
diverse and all this stuff. And
34:42
then three years later, it's like
34:45
either people are getting let go or people
34:47
are leaving because they've been so burnt out
34:51
by trying to do the thing
34:53
they were hired to do, but
34:55
nobody actually supports it. I
34:59
mean, exciting the infrastructure
35:01
the entire time. Exactly.
35:03
Yeah. It's very disappointing.
35:07
It's really disappointing. And you know
35:09
the thing, actually, I just wrote
35:11
about this recently. And we put
35:14
out an episode with Rihanna Gunwright,
35:17
who I know you also know and are
35:19
friends with about this issue as
35:21
well, that I
35:23
feel like there's this weird
35:26
idea that
35:29
we need to quote unquote stop
35:32
climate from being pulled into
35:34
the culture war. And it's
35:36
like, first of all, you
35:40
don't really decide that. That gets decided
35:42
for you. That's how that whole thing
35:44
works. But secondly, the
35:47
whole reason that that
35:49
backlash is happening right now is
35:52
because it was
35:55
starting to be effective. It was actually
35:58
growing the movement to be more. intersectional
36:00
and more inclusive and all those things. And
36:02
that is scary because a more, you
36:06
know, broad based movement is going to
36:08
be more effective. You don't
36:10
the reaction, you don't go,
36:12
Oh, no, we better stop doing that. You
36:14
know what I mean? Hey, also
36:17
for me, it's like, what
36:19
name something that matters that
36:21
doesn't become part of the culture
36:23
war. Also, it's been part
36:25
of it for I'm like the entire
36:27
like basis of climate denial is culture
36:30
war shit. Like if you look at
36:32
those strategy memos from the, you
36:34
know, late 80s and early 90s,
36:36
it's all like figuring out who
36:39
to target. And it's completely based
36:41
on identity, and figuring
36:43
out what kinds of messages to push
36:45
around climate in terms of making it
36:47
seem elitist making you know, all of
36:50
this stuff. I'm like, this has been
36:52
the strategy for a
36:54
while guys, like, you
36:56
know, right? Yeah.
36:59
And whenever you bring people of
37:01
color into it, uh,
37:04
it's always like racism is always
37:06
going to be part of their cultural war. It
37:09
always is. But also it's
37:11
just Yeah, like what matters that isn't part
37:13
of the culture war that just means it's
37:15
trading. That's right. That's right. It
37:17
means it's important. And that
37:19
they're and that like, there's a fight
37:22
going on over it, which like, yeah,
37:24
that's very true. Quit
37:29
being a punk. We
37:34
want to do this without getting bullied. Like,
37:36
like, no, I want to take your lunch money. Yes.
37:40
Yeah. I'm
37:42
just it is honestly, it shouldn't be shocking
37:45
to me, but it is shocking to me
37:47
the number of people that I still, you
37:50
know, hear some version of
37:53
I really just want to keep it
37:55
about science and technology as those science
37:58
and technology are somehow devouring. divorced
38:00
from politics and culture. Exactly.
38:03
I'm like, this is so interesting that
38:05
you think that like, if
38:08
you think of it that way, it is that
38:10
way. You know? And
38:12
like, I'm going to be honest here, no surprise. It's
38:15
mostly men I hear from thinking like this.
38:18
Oh, yeah? Is it mostly white
38:20
men? It's mostly white men, yes,
38:22
who are just like totally confused
38:24
by the fact that their thoughts don't
38:27
constitute reality. Yeah,
38:30
it's really something.
38:33
Really something. My head hurts. But
38:35
yeah. Also,
38:39
hot take question for you. How do
38:41
you feel about like all state of
38:43
climate media at this point? Because
38:45
you've seen trends come and go. What trends do
38:48
you feel like you're seeing return and
38:50
which ones are you seeing emerge? Well,
38:53
I'm unfortunately kind
38:55
of seeing a lot
38:57
of the commitments that were made walked
39:00
back as media, to be
39:02
fair, like we still haven't figured
39:04
out the business model for digital
39:07
media in particular. And
39:10
I think a lot of places are struggling to figure
39:12
out how to stay afloat. I'll
39:14
tell you one troubling, very troubling trend
39:16
I'm seeing is that all
39:19
of the, there's like
39:21
several climate foundations that are
39:23
interested in funding media. And
39:26
the way that they're going about this is
39:28
like instead of funding actual
39:31
reporting, it's like
39:33
they want to fund it, but they also want to control
39:35
the story. And this is always like the big struggle. Right?
39:38
It's like that
39:40
they, like in order
39:42
to do that, they're just sort of starting
39:44
their own little research
39:48
organizations and then doing this
39:50
thing where they're like, we'll
39:52
fund this research and
39:54
then that can get fed to journalists.
39:57
And that way we get to control.
40:00
what the journalists are seeing, what the
40:02
story is, and where the story turns
40:04
up, because we're
40:06
going to gatekeep this research
40:09
so that we can parse
40:11
it out as this exclusive
40:14
thing that I'm only giving to
40:16
you at The Guardian, or you
40:18
at The Washington Post, or you at
40:20
The New York Times. Because
40:24
I have such a window
40:26
into this, and I know how the
40:28
sausage gets made, I'm seeing these stories
40:31
everywhere where I'm just like, oh,
40:33
this is basically like a manufactured
40:35
story by an
40:37
NGO that did
40:40
the research and handed it to this
40:42
reporter. And the reporters do their due
40:44
diligence and check the facts and stuff
40:46
like that. But I'm just like, okay, I
40:49
get how this seems like
40:51
a successful strategy, right? It's like, it's
40:53
working, they get to control the story,
40:55
and they're getting stories into
40:58
like big outlets, right? So they get to
41:00
put in their little impact report at the
41:02
end of the year that they had X
41:04
number of New York Times stories this year
41:06
or whatever, you know? But
41:09
at the end, like long term, I'm like,
41:11
can you just like zoom out for a
41:13
brief second here and like, think
41:16
about how bad
41:18
for the general health of not
41:21
just journalism, but democracy, it is
41:23
to like train reporters
41:25
not to do their own
41:28
reporting, and to train
41:30
newsrooms to just
41:32
rely on your research instead of
41:34
building out their own investigative
41:37
capabilities. Like you're, I
41:39
don't know, I just I'm like,
41:41
this is not how we're gonna
41:43
like save
41:45
climate media. Yeah, it's
41:49
gross. Yeah. I
41:51
had someone just at a at
41:53
a conference recently, I met someone
41:56
who, you know, was one of these
41:58
like, kind of pseudo
42:00
journalistic outlets. And he
42:02
described himself as quote,
42:06
an activist pretending to be a journalist.
42:08
And I was like, dude, it's so
42:10
fucking hard for those of us who've
42:13
been climate reporters for a long time,
42:15
to like, bat
42:18
away the accusations of being
42:20
activists all the time. Yeah.
42:22
Like, you're just like fully
42:25
put into it. It's not
42:27
helpful. It's not helpful at
42:29
all. Ah,
42:33
frustrating. Because what it
42:35
does is then it makes everybody double down
42:37
on all these dumb rules
42:40
that also don't help like around
42:42
supposed objectivity or, you know,
42:45
quote unquote, unbiased coverage or
42:47
whatever it is, you know,
42:50
it's like, it's
42:52
not, I don't know, I just feel
42:54
like it would,
42:56
you know, would be cool is if like a
42:58
foundation wants to invest in media, they would actually
43:00
talk to like a journalist about
43:02
it. And like, maybe even ask
43:04
a couple questions about how media
43:07
actually works. Yeah,
43:09
yeah. That would be
43:11
great. Yeah, I
43:13
think that plays into something
43:15
else I see in like the broader climate community,
43:18
right? Because there's like, there's the
43:20
journalism community and there's writers community
43:22
and the climate community and
43:24
there's like overlap in certain places, right?
43:26
But in the broader climate community, something
43:29
I think I see a lot
43:31
is like, if you don't quite understand what
43:34
writing is, in a lot of ways,
43:38
I might be about to go into a little bit of a rant.
43:41
But like, I will often get like,
43:44
Mary's a climate journalist or Mary is
43:47
a climate reporter. I neither one of
43:49
those. Right. I'm
43:51
a writer. And then like,
43:53
I remember when when I
43:55
say that, I mean that like journalism is a
43:58
specific type of writing. And Essays
44:01
are a different type of writing.
44:03
Opinion is a different type of
44:05
writing. Like we need to let
44:07
words mean things. And as a
44:09
writer, it drives me insane when
44:12
words are stripped of their meaning. So
44:14
like another thing I've gotten when I
44:17
announced the books was you
44:19
were always an author to me. Do you
44:21
know what author means? Author
44:26
means that you have authored
44:28
books. It's specific to books.
44:31
You can't author an
44:33
essay. You can't author one standalone poem.
44:37
Authoring books. And that's
44:39
funny. That's OK. It doesn't comfort
44:41
me to be like, you are
44:43
always an author in my eyes because what
44:46
are you looking at? Or another time I
44:49
said that I wasn't an organizer. Don't you
44:51
think your words organize people into certain ways?
44:55
What? No. Organizer
44:59
is a specific job
45:01
and a specific thing. And it's,
45:03
yeah, like you said, it's OK
45:06
for there to be requirements involved
45:08
with that. It's
45:11
OK to have the flavor. You don't need to
45:13
be all things. And I think
45:16
in particular, there seems to be
45:19
this confusion about
45:21
what it is to be a writer or
45:23
what writing is. Or
45:26
that there are different types of it. Because
45:29
you wouldn't expect someone to be an
45:31
expert on tornadoes and wildfires at the
45:33
same time. But for some reason, if
45:36
you're a writer, that means you're every
45:38
single type of writer that's ever existed.
45:41
It's true. And you're a poet. Actually,
45:43
I just had this issue recently on
45:46
LinkedIn, a place I now hang
45:48
out sometimes, thanks to Elon Musk. I
45:54
posted something on there because we did
45:56
a big story with the
45:58
Center for Climate. reporting and
46:01
the intercept about Sultan
46:04
Al Jabbar and the UAE
46:06
and Adnok and the most
46:08
recent conference of the parties
46:11
COP that was in Dubai last
46:13
year. And
46:15
it was like an investigative piece
46:18
about their use of US
46:21
PR firms over the last 10 years
46:23
to kind of like make this whole
46:26
thing happen where you get the president
46:28
of an oil company presiding over a
46:30
climate summit. So I posted about
46:32
it on LinkedIn and this woman was like, why
46:35
aren't you talking about the positive things that
46:37
are happening at COP? You know, or like,
46:39
why aren't you talking about the fact that he has
46:42
a woman on the bleeding,
46:45
you know, and I'm like, I don't give a
46:47
shit if a woman makes bad policy or
46:49
a man makes bad policy,
46:51
ma'am. Like it's bad policy.
46:53
Yeah, like the fact that it's a woman, you
46:56
know, perpetuating this, this,
47:00
like, the status quo does not make it
47:02
like, innately feminist or something,
47:04
you know, but also, I'm not
47:08
that type of reporter, like, I'm
47:10
an investigative journalist, investigative journalists, like
47:13
buying by definition, are not
47:15
doing like puff pieces.
47:18
Exactly. You know, I'm like,
47:20
I'm like, that's not, you know, and
47:22
it's not that I don't think there's anything like
47:24
she kind of was like, why aren't you ever
47:26
writing like positive stories? I'm like, because I'm
47:28
an investigative reporter. So like, I'm reading my shit.
47:30
If that's what you're looking for, I'm not the
47:32
writer for you. I'm
47:35
not the, yeah, there's lots of people doing that. They do great
47:38
work at it. Like, if I'm
47:40
investigating something, it's because like something
47:42
smells wrong about it, not because
47:44
I think it's awesome. You know what I mean? You
47:48
should do that. Like you should do like some sort
47:50
of like deep dive investigation
47:53
into a theme park and find
47:55
out it's actually awesome and everything runs
47:57
on solar power. I
48:02
would love it if I went to
48:04
dig into something and I found that actually
48:06
it was way better than I thought, but
48:08
that's literally never happened and it probably won't.
48:11
But also, again, this is
48:14
a different type of, this is one
48:16
very specific type of journalism. What you're
48:19
looking for is not what I do
48:21
and that's fine. Go
48:23
elsewhere. We
48:26
don't all have to do solutions journalism.
48:30
We don't all have to do investigative
48:33
journalism. There are
48:35
many different types and
48:37
it's very irritating. No
48:40
irritating. I love we went
48:42
off in a million directions and I'm going to bring
48:44
it back to the book and I'm going to ask
48:48
you, did you have any inspirations for
48:50
yourself when you were writing this book?
48:52
Were there other kids books that you
48:55
were thinking of or other books in
48:57
general that you admired
49:00
or other communicators on
49:02
climate that you were thinking of?
49:04
What were your inspirations? I
49:07
went to look at different children's
49:10
books up on the shelves and
49:12
children's books that tell children
49:15
about things that we think of
49:17
as difficult. There was this
49:19
explosion of children's books about racism.
49:23
There's a children's book about Julian
49:26
is a mermaid, I think is the name of
49:28
it, where it's like he is
49:31
a little boy who is
49:34
questioning his gender and
49:38
finding acceptance. We're
49:41
not trying to do culture war stuff on
49:43
this podcast. I
49:46
know, of course not. I
49:51
kind of looked at those
49:54
books that broached difficult conversations
49:56
with children. I also
49:58
thought a lot about... just
50:01
poetry, right? Like just noticing that a
50:03
children's book, especially for this age group
50:05
that I'm going for, which is like
50:07
the youngest of the youngest, it's
50:10
basically just a poem. It's
50:12
a child appropriate poem. And so I
50:14
wrote the first draft in one day and
50:18
that did not wind up being the
50:20
final draft. But
50:23
it's just like you have to
50:26
follow your emotions. And
50:30
so I was also thinking about
50:32
poets like Langston Hughes, Paul Lawrence
50:34
Dunbar. I
50:36
started reading their poetry when I was
50:38
like seven. So
50:41
not to brag, but I did. And
50:44
so I went back to some
50:47
of those inspirations and like how
50:49
to describe nature and make
50:51
all of that child appropriate. That's
50:54
cool. That's awesome. Awesome. Well,
50:56
I'm excited. I appreciate the
50:58
help of that this book will provide
51:01
me in talking to my
51:03
kids about climate change. Thank you.
51:05
I want, okay, by the way.
51:11
So yeah, and people can, where should people
51:13
buy it? That's like, you know,
51:15
your preferred place. bookshop.org,
51:18
you can go to bookshop.org
51:20
and look up your local
51:22
bookseller and then buy it through
51:24
them, which I think is the best
51:26
way to do it. And
51:29
I have one last question for you. What
51:32
are you if you love dad jokes, but you
51:34
don't have kids? Mary.
51:42
Wow. Try
51:44
again. You
51:48
love dad jokes, but you don't have kids.
51:52
Uh, uh, hello,
51:55
what? A
51:57
faux pas. That
52:00
is actually good. I
52:07
like it. Thank you. Thank
52:09
you so much. Thank you. Thank
52:11
you. Thank you so much. I'm
52:15
so excited that we got
52:17
to do another little podcast
52:20
here and yeah, go by
52:22
the best people
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