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