A climate Q&A for regular people

Also: Alice Munro doesn't get to tell this story [Donate ❤️]( [View in Browser](  July 14, 2024 Dear Cog reader, Amy Boyd Rabin, the vice president for policy at the Environmental League of Massachusetts, likes to joke that she’s an “indoorsy environmentalist.” She grew up in Texas where, she says: “It was either freezing or way too hot to be outside and the venomous snakes, scorpions, spiders and other assorted wildlife really could kill you.” Now Amy spends her days thinking about climate change policy. And this week, she wrote a Cog essay about two big climate bills pending before the state Legislature. There was so much goodness that didn’t make it into the piece that we decided to devote this week’s newsletter to a Q&A to continue the conversation. I think about climate change a lot; and we publish many essays on the topic every year. But it’s also scary and depressing and complicated and (yes) sometimes boring. Lots of climate coverage is head-spinning. Does a regular person actually grasp what a ton of carbon is? Or what 1 inch of sea level rise means? Since I read this [piece]( in the New York Times Magazine in 2018, I’ve tried to think about how we, at Cog, can share stories about climate change that are accessible, without dumbing it down or being too Pollyannaish about what’s ahead. I hope Amy’s answers help demystify the topic a bit for you, too. This interview has been excerpted for length and clarity. Cloe Axelson: What is the biggest misconception people have about climate policy and/or your work? Amy Boyd Rabin: Until now, environmentalism has run at the speed of making a good effort. But “good” is no longer good enough and climate science demands more than slow incrementalism, because climate change isn’t a future problem – it's already here. We can see it in the heat waves we’ve had this summer, or the lack of snow last winter. Even if we could stop our greenhouse gas emissions today, the climate is going to keep changing in ways we can’t predict for the next hundred years or so. What we’re fighting for now is how severe those changes will be and how many people will be killed in the drought, floods, fires, famine and wars that climate instability will kick off. We can still bend the curve significantly. CA: What should Massachusetts residents know about what most contributes to our carbon footprint? ABR: Transportation is Massachusetts’ highest source of greenhouse gas emissions – nearly 40%. We’ve barely reduced the levels since 1990, when we started tracking. Even though cars and trucks are more fuel efficient now than they were 30 years ago – and there are a lot more electric vehicles on the road – we’re traveling a lot more miles. We need to reduce the miles driven and cargo moved, and electrify cars, trucks, trains and planes. CA: Climate policies at the state level can make it easier for regular people to do their part. Can you give us an example of something that’s worked? ABR: I think it’s really interesting how state policy can influence consumer choices – making sure that efficient products are available and affordable, and providing education and financing so that consumers can make climate-friendly purchases and decisions. LED lightbulbs are one huge success story. The MassSave programs did such a good job getting LEDs onto store shelves and into most sockets in the Commonwealth, and they last for so much longer that there isn’t much of that low-hanging fruit left to collect. Now we need to create state policies that do the same thing for electric vehicles and heat pumps, making them the easy and affordable solution. CA: How do you talk with your kids about the climate crisis? ABR: I finally had “the talk” with my kids this winter when they, at 7 and 10, asked why we didn’t have big fluffy snow and accompanying snow days anymore. It went better than I had expected. When they were 5 or so, I started talking about the greenhouse effect. We’d lay under blankets to chat about how plants breathe in the CO2 that we breathe out, how burning fossil fuels let a lot of CO2 out, and it makes a blanket for the Earth. We’d then experience how much cooler it was when we got out from under the blanket. I still haven’t told them about all the time we’ve lost – that, despite the science being recognized before I was born, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions didn’t start to decline until I was nearly 30, and the U.S. didn’t ratify a climate treaty until after my eldest was born. I think I need to do more work on my own anger about the time we’ve lost (and are still losing) before I can let them in on that. You can read the full Q&A [here](. P.S.— Nobody can stop talking about President Biden. Will he be the Democratic nominee? Or will he step aside? We don’t know. But at this moment, we’re most interested in hearing from younger voters. If you’re under 35 – or are close to someone who is – we’d love to talk with you about a future project. Please email us at opinion@wbur.org and put VOTER in the subject line. Cloe Axelson Senior Editor, Cognoscenti Support the news  Must Reads [Alice Munro doesn't get to tell this story]( Andrea Skinner, the youngest daughter of Alice Munro, shared an essay this week about being sexually abused by her stepfather. Speaking up doesn't come without pain and loss and years of work to recover from the violence she suffered and from her mother’s horrifying betrayal, writes Janet Chwalibog. What it does come with is courage. 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