Category: Commentary

PCSSM Writer Vanessa Schipani, in reflecting on Penn’s Climate Week, makes an argument for optimism in the aftermath of Hurricanes Helene and Milton and on the cusp of the 2024 U.S. election.

I grew up in Florida and have distinct memories of the destruction Hurricane Andrew inflicted on my state in 1992. I remember hunkering down, my dad nailing plywood over our very Floridian jalousie windows, filling up the bathtub with water, listening to a battery radio by candlelight and hoping our quaint, two bedroom cinderblock house would hold up. Luckily for us, it did.

My extended family in Miami were less fortunate. Meteorologists initially expected Andrew to make landfall closer to Broward County, where we lived, but at the last minute the storm ‘wobbled’ and hit Miami-Dade County head on instead.

My aunt and cousins lost their roof and had to live with my grandparents for a long while after that to get back on their feet. Unfortunately, they were far from alone. At the time, Andrew was the costliest hurricane ever to hit the United States, later to be topped by Hurricane Katrina, which still holds the record by a long shot.

To Floridians, hurricanes, including their unpredictability, have long been a part of life. But something felt different to me about Milton and Helene. For one, my family in Asheville, North Carolina – the same aunt and cousins who lost their home to Andrew – thought they were safe from major hurricanes by moving to the mountains. The fact that they weren’t was a wake-up call to them and unfortunately to many of their neighbors.

When it came to Milton, the difference between past storms and this one first became apparent to me when I watched a clip of veteran meteorologist John Morales come to tears while describing how Milton “dropped 50 millibars in 10 hours.” For those who aren’t familiar with how scientists measure hurricane strength, this might seem like an odd thing to get emotional about.

So, here’s a primer: There’s an inverse relationship between a hurricane’s atmospheric pressure, measured in millibars, and its windspeed. This is due to the fact that gases, which make up the air, move from high- to low-pressure areas; so, the lower the hurricane’s pressure compared to outside the storm, the faster the storm’s windspeed.

When Milton’s pressure dropped rapidly, as Morales said, its windspeed rapidly increased – so fast, in fact, that it set a record: In just two days it went from a tropical depression to a Category 5 hurricane faster than any other storm in history, where most of that growth occurred over the 10 hour period that brought Morales to tears.

Still choking up, Morales also pointed to a driver of that rapid growth: “The seas are so incredibly hot, record hot,” adding, “you know what’s driving that.” You guessed it, it’s climate change.

Why are warmer oceans fuel for hurricanes? Because they cause hurricanes to drop in pressure, which then causes windspeeds to rise. Warm oceans also cause hurricanes to carry more rain because warmer water evaporates, making the air more humid. And more rain means more flooding.

The storms themselves were enough to make me question whether we’d be able to get ourselves out of this mess. But the conspiracy theories about the storms really tested my ability to hold out hope.

Some questioned whether the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would have enough funds to help North Carolina and Florida recover (they do). Others claimed the storms were geoengineered in some way with the goal of targeting a specific part of the country (they weren’t).

In a weird twist, the conspiracy theorists were right about something – that humans were involved. As Yishan Wong, CEO of Terraformation, a forest restoration company, tweeted: “Conspiracy theorists who keep saying there’s ‘no way’ the hurricane could have intensified so much without some human cause are so close to getting it.” This irony was more painful than funny to me.

Then, over the course of attending two events put on by Penn’s Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media (PCSSM) during Penn’s Climate Week from October 14-18, I found reason to keep my chin up. The first event I attended on October 14 examined how we can get more scientists, engineers, and healthcare professionals – in short, data-driven people – into office.

The event featured Shaugnessy Naughton, the President of 314 Action, an organization with that exact goal, and Monica Taylor, Chair of the Delaware County Council and an Associate Professor of Public Health at Temple University, along with Michael Mann, PCSSM’s Director. Parrish Bergquist, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Penn, interviewed the group.  

Naughton’s story inspired me because she identified a problem – that there weren’t enough scientists in office – and, even after failing to win a race for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 8th District, persevered and founded 314 Action. So far, the organization has helped elect three U.S. Senators and over a dozen members of Congress, and has endorsed countless scientists running for state legislative and municipal offices.

“When you think about the issues facing our world and our country – climate change being at the top of that list – there isn’t an issue that doesn’t benefit from having scientifically-minded people at the governing table, not just waiting to be tapped as advisors,” she said during the event. “It’s been a challenge because scientists assume they shouldn’t be involved in politics, but this model has really failed us.”

She and the other speakers all agreed that we have to start thinking differently about who comes to mind when we visualize an ideal politician – this goes for scientists, but also for women, young people, and people of color.

An essential part of fixing this broken model and training scientists to run for office, said Naughton, is improving their ability to communicate with the public, in particular communicating scientific uncertainties and responding to the public’s values in ways that keep their trust. I couldn’t agree more. In fact, this is the basis of my own research. It was a relief to see others understand the vital importance of science communication to sustaining democracy.

Taylor, who received training from 314 Action, has gone on to incite real change in her county, including founding a public health department and a sustainability office. “Those offices are going to be there for generations to come,” she said. While there are costs to being in the limelight, like always having to be on, even when you’re at Target, “creating this long-term change is a really big reward,” she added.

We often pay more attention to federal elections, but voting isn’t just a federal affair. Taylor’s success is a reminder that local elections can have substantial impacts on our lives as well.

Later in the week on October 17, I also attended an event with Dan Utech, the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Director Mann on the progress the Biden administration has made in addressing climate change.

“We have to hold in our mind two seemingly contradictory facts,” said Mann at the beginning of the event, “that we haven’t made enough progress and yet at the same time that we’ve made a lot of progress.”

This sounds right to me. As Dan Lashof, Director of the World Resources Institute put it, President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is “the most comprehensive climate legislation the U.S. has ever seen.” However, “Earning top marks in climate action…will require continuing timely and equitable implementation of the legislation while taking additional action to fill policy gaps,” he added.

In addition to discussing some of the details of the IRA, Utech and Mann also discussed another Biden initiative, American Climate Corps, which aims to put young people to work to combat climate change. So far, the initiative has recruited over 15,000 people. Along these lines, Biden also set up a Youth Advisory Council at EPA with the aim of making “youth engagement a priority” in resolving environmental issues, Utech said.

Director Mann also asked Utech about federal agency responses to Hurricanes Helene and Milton and the conspiracy theories surrounding them. Utech pointed out that agencies, such as FEMA and EPA, have started to respond directly to misinformation on social media, in addition to deploying people on the ground after disasters.

“FEMA and EPA and other parts of the response are trying new things, including actively batting misinformation down as it comes into view,” Utech said.

Part of the Biden administration’s goal when putting individuals in leadership roles in administrative agencies, Utech told me after the event, was to make sure they were led by people who excelled at communicating directly with the public, both in person and on social media. This goes for EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan as well, he said, who’s probably had the most prolific social media presence of any EPA administrator.

Let’s take a second to think about the common thread that runs through both of these events. They tell a story of individuals working painstakingly hard to not only combat climate change but also the misinformation and disinformation that comes with it, both of which put people’s lives at risk. Yes, we have a lot of work ahead of us. Yes, there are others who knowingly and unknowingly are hurting this effort. But there are still a lot of us who care, who aren’t going to give up.

I agree with Director Mann when he said during the second event that “today the primary threat to climate action isn’t denialism, it’s nihilism, the notion that it’s too late to do anything.” While I admittedly don’t have empirical data to support this, I think it’s nihilism that drives many of us to conspiracy theories to begin with.

I want to acknowledge that I understand that temptation. In the aftermath of Helene and Milton and with the upcoming election, I feel that temptation too. Tired as we all are in 2024, still waiting for the barrage of disasters of one form or another to stop, nihilism tugs at you.

But giving in to nihilism is a choice I’m not going to make. Instead, I’m going to continue making my own contributions to fighting climate change and saving our democracy, including voting in the next election. Democracy isn’t a given. It’s something we must actively keep alive and nurture. The same goes for our planet.

As Director Mann alluded to at the end of the second event, when Benjamin Franklin was asked by a group of citizens what sort of government he and the other founders of the U.S. Constitution had created, he responded: “A republic, if you can keep it.” In other words, whether the republic lives or dies is in our hands. All is not yet lost.  

Dr. Romm has put together four COP28 primers, 1- or 2-pages long, because tragically, the 28^th Conference of the Parties to the UN-led global effort to avoid catastrophic climate change (Nov 30 to Dec 12) is built around two dangerous myths. These two myths are the notions of “net zero” and cheap carbon offsets—the subjects of two primers. Net zero itself is built around two supposedly major climate solutions that would, in fact, make things worse if we actually tried to scale them up in the next two to three decades. So, a third primer is on bioenergy plants with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), where growing biomass removes CO₂ from the air, and a BECCS system buries it. The fourth is on direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS), which pulls CO₂ directly out of the air and buries it.

Humans generate 50 billion tons (Gt) of CO₂-equivalent gases each year, and scientists tell us we must zero out those emissions by mid-century to avoid the worst climate impacts. Net zero is the hope that we could cut emissions by perhaps only 40 Gt/yr or less—and remove from the air 10 Gt/yr or more by 2050 with the three most prominent strategies by far: BECCS, DACCS, and tree planting. But science shows these 3 strategies don’t scale and 2 make things worse. New modeling finds scaling up bioenergy and BECCS increases CO₂ emissions and warming for decades, with net cooling not occurring until 2100 or beyond. Scaling up BECCS is not carbon removal, but more like deforestation.

DACCS is a costly and inefficient way to use vast amounts of renewable energy to achieve CO₂ reductions. That carbon-free power could have directly replaced the CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel plants, cars, and gas heating far more cheaply. Scaling up DACCS will be a costly misallocation of renewables for decades—until fossil fuel emissions are cut perhaps 90%. We should be investing mainly in RD&D of promising carbon removal strategies to see if any might be usefully scalable by 2050. As for trees, even planting one trillion would at best remove just 6% of the CO₂ needed by 2050. And that would require a wildly unrealistic area the size of the lower 48 states.

CO₂ offsets—where companies/countries meet CO₂ pledges by paying a developing country to cut emissions in their place—were artificially cheap (<$5 a ton) since the large majority were not real. So, it seemed like there was a bonanza of cheap offsets richer countries could buy from poorer ones to avoid the cost and effort of cutting their own emissions. But there wasn’t. Genuine offsets that were not double counted (claimed by both buyer and seller) were always going to be much pricier.

This 2-page primer explains the poorly understood but vast implications of the world’s decision at Glasgow (COP26) in 2021 to create “authorized” offsets that solve the double counting problem with a “corresponding adjustment” (CA) that ensures the seller can’t also claim the offsets it sells. First, if the voluntary carbon market doesn’t embrace the CA, “there is a risk [it] undermines the objectives of the Paris Agreement.” Second, the CA makes it much harder for the seller to achieve its Paris pledge—so it’s a bad deal for them. Third, that’s why, in 2023, a World Bank analysis found authorized offsets may cost over $100 a ton. Fourth, offsets make little sense when everybody has to go to zero. Selling off your easiest reductions cheaply to another country is self-defeating.

Below are the downloadable PDFs of the primers.

COP28 PRIMER: CO2 Removal and the Dangerous Myth of ‘Net Zero’

COP28 PRIMER: How the Voluntary CO2 Offset Market Threatens the Paris Agreement

COP28 PRIMER: The Dangers of Scaling up Bioenergy and Bioenergy with CCS

COP28 PRIMER: Direct Air Capture (DAC) and its Fatal Flaw

A Conversation with Journalists and Editors from Inside Climate News

Historically, journalists have struggled to report on climate change. If they reported on it at all, they incorrectly presented it as a debate, with the majority of the scientific community on one side and the fossil fuel industry on the other. Unfortunately, their aim of balance ironically led to biased reporting on the issue and ultimately a misinformed public, not to mention idle policymakers.

But Inside Climate News (ICN) was different, said Michael Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor and Director of the Penn Center for Science Sustainability and the Media (PCSSM), at a panel discussion on September 18. The panel was composed of editors and reporters from ICN, which is a Pulitzer prize-winning, nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that has been reporting on climate change since 2007.

“ICN never adopted the frame that was all too common back in the day that climate change is a disputed matter and we should cover both sides: They embraced what I think is the proper journalistic view that there are facts here and there is objective truth,” Mann said. “That sent a very important message to legacy media at that time, and I think ICN can take some credit for having shifted the dynamic. Now other media outlets start at that same point.”

ICN took climate change seriously before many other outlets did, as even in the early 2000s climate change was a severely underreported topic. “I was the guy who in the late 90s, early 2000s got laughed out of my newsroom for saying that we needed to have a climate beat,” said Michael Kodas, a Senior Editor at ICN. “People thought, we’ve got a weather report and that’s good enough.”

This lack of coverage on climate change is exactly why the journalist David Sassoon started ICN, said Vernon Loeb, the Executive Editor at ICN. “Everybody covers climate now but I would argue that 90 percent of the story is still uncovered,” he added. “I think our presence has made the case to everybody that, if you care about public affairs, you’ve got to be covering climate.”

But how do you get people to care about climate change in the first place? Echoing the sentiments of journalists at PBS and WHYY at a PCSSM event on September 12, Kodas said “storytelling is the key,” adding, “You can get people to pay attention to the survivors of a wildfire or the drama of an evacuation, and, before they know it, they’re learning about how climate change is related to those events.”

In some ways this may mean science might have to take a backseat when covering climate change. “As much as the science is important, if we can’t link the story to people who are experiencing climate change on a daily basis, how is the science going to get out there?” said Victoria St. Martin, a reporter at ICN. “My focus has always been on the people because, at the end of the day, climate change is an environmental injustice because of the people that are affected.”

St. Martin told the audience about a story she wrote about the residents of Grays Ferry who live near one of the nation’s largest and oldest oil refineries based in Philadelphia. The refinery was closed in 2019 after an explosion sent toxic fumes into the air. While this closure brought much joy to Philadelphians, people living near the refinery still experience what psychologists call ecoanxiety, a form of post-traumatic stress disorder related to environmental disaster.

“This refinery has forever changed generations upon generations of Philadelphians,” said St. Martin. “Climate change isn’t just about the dread of the future,” she added. “It’s also about the dread of where you’re living right now and we have to write about this.”

Marianne Lavelle, another reporter for ICN, agreed with St. Martin that putting the people front and center is the best way to tell the story of climate change. “I went to Kentucky where they’ve had catastrophic flooding because of two things closely related to climate change: coal mining, which stripped the underground and weakened it, and deforestation,” she said. Unfortunately, despite the flooding, the U.S. Forest Service still permitted clear cutting in the area.

Her way into this story was through a logger who was fighting against this clear cutting. “You don’t think of him as a tree hugger, but he realizes the connection with climate change,” said Levelle. “People across the political spectrum living in these communities near the forests are aware of how the forest is their protection from climate change – it’s literally a carbon sink.”

Discussion about how we can take action in our communities continued into the Q&A. In response to a question about what small businesses can do to help with climate change, Kodas simply said, “just exist,” adding, “Supporting our local economy – instead of having Amazon bring us another box that’s associated with a bunch of emissions – in itself is good for the climate.” Or as the saying goes, ‘think global, act local.’

Did you miss the event? See the recording here!

A Conversation with PBS, WHYY and PCSSM about Solutions-Driven Climate Storytelling

If someone were to ask you – what tools do we need to combat climate change? – a few things might first come to mind. We undoubtedly need laws aimed at reducing fossil fuel emissions, such as a tax on carbon. We also need innovative, scalable technologies for building more efficient electric cars and pulling carbon out of the atmosphere.

But in a democracy, there’s another tool that is at least as essential as these to overcoming climate change: effective solutions-driven storytelling. Promoting and studying this form of communication is central to the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media’s (PCSSM) mission. In conversation with filmmakers, journalists and leaders at Penn, PBS and WHYY, Philadelphia’s local PBS station, it was the topic of discussion at a recent panel event organized by the center held on September 12.

“As we continue to witness devastating climate disasters that now play out on a seemingly daily basis, the mission to communicate the science and its implications to the public and policymakers has become ever more essential,” said Dr. Michael Mann, PCSSM Director and Presidential Distinguished Professor at Penn. “Effective communication means connecting with not just people’s heads, but also their hearts. Compelling narratives and storytelling are essential in that effort. I can think of no organization that does a better job of that than PBS.” 

Bill Gardner, Vice President of Multiplatform Programming and Head of Development at PBS, moderated the first of two panels. He posed one of his first questions to Dr. Shane Campbell-Staton, a biologist and the host of PBS’s Human Footprint series: “How do your roles as both a television host and scientist interact when telling stories?”

Campbell-Staton said that he’s gone into a lot of episodes thinking he was the expert, but after talking with “people who are intimately connected with the subject, he’ll often find himself admitting he “didn’t really know all that much.” The show then follows him on that journey of experiencing different cultures and places and takes the audience along for the ride.

No matter where you come from or your political background, “the thing that everyone loves universally is a story,” added Campbell-Staton. “It’s easy to dismiss an idea, but it’s a lot harder to dismiss a person,” he said, which means that “telling people’s stories” must be central to communicating the climate crisis.

Fay Yu, the Executive Producer of PBS’s America Outdoors series, agreed with Campbell-Staton that person-centered stories are key. America Outdoors isn’t explicitly about climate change, she said, it’s about people’s connection, either through work or play, to the outdoors. But “you can’t have a show about people’s experience with the outdoors without facing the climate problem every single episode,” she said. “These are just people telling honest stories with no agenda,” which “reflects back on the audience because they’ve probably had similar experiences in their own lives.”

Social media can also be an important tool for directly engaging with audiences, said Maribel Lopez, Head of PBS Digital Studios. “We use our audience to inform the types of programs we’re going to create. We can simply ask them on social media, and, once we start to see themes, we know we need to do an episode on that subject,” she said. “There’s nothing more powerful than that because we want to help tell their stories, especially for younger audiences.”

When it comes to climate storytelling, especially for the youth, members of our own community here in Philly are also taking part. That includes Dr. Bethany Wiggin, Director of the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities, who discussed her project, My Climate Story, with local schools. “In a moment of despair, I thought, ‘what can I do?’ I’m a literature professor and an environmentalist, so working with my students here at Penn I’ve grown a curriculum that helps people tell their own climate story,” she said. “We share those stories as a resource for teachers,” who then use it to help their students tell their own climate stories.

Susan Phillips, Senior Reporter and Editor for WHYY News Climate Desk, moderated the second panel, asking Mann, “how can we both tell effective solution-driven stories and also hold the powerful accountable?” Sometimes stories themselves can hold those in power to account, Mann responded, especially youth stories, citing a recent court case in Montana that resulted in the state now having to take concerted action to deal with climate change.

“Our youth have legal standing because their future is threatened,” he said. “What won the Montana case were the powerful stories that young folks told on the witness stand about how their lives were impacted by the climate crisis. It was so compelling that all of the fossil fuel money in all the world wasn’t able to compete with the moral authority of those children’s stories.” Now that precedent is set, he added, and youth in other states can take similar action.

What about journalists? Given their commitment to fair reporting, journalists can’t engage in advocacy, which raised the question during the event of how they can contribute to telling solutions-driven climate stories. Phillips and Sarah Glover, the Vice President of WHYY News and Civic Dialogue, discussed a good example.

“An education reporter teamed up with a climate reporter at WHYY and did a story about how kids in Philly are going to school in un-airconditioned buildings built in the 1930s, when no one would have thought that in September it would be 98 degrees,” said Philips. But WHYY did more than just report the facts – they also examined the costs to local businesses if they potentially stepped up and helped schools.

“We’re not saying to businesses – you need to do this. We’re saying – what would the result be if you did?” added Glover. “A news organization can’t be passive. We can’t just sit back and report the findings of today. We also have to trigger conversations about solutions.” This story is soon to be published.

In short, a central moral of the panel event was this – much like all other tools for fighting the climate crisis, solutions-driven storytelling is and must be a team effort. Journalists, professors, filmmakers and citizens themselves must all take part.

Did you miss out on the event? View the recording here.

A Sneak Peak Into What SEJ Offers Penn and Philadelphia Next Spring

A question that crossed my mind boarding the plane at 6:45am on a Tuesday heading to Boise, Idaho (of all places). I was heading to a state known for potatoes and nature, and also the location of this year’s Society of Environmental Journalism (SEJ) Conference. Although this is published in May, I wrote this hardly a week after the conference is finished excited to share my experience and hopefully drum up some excitement in Philadelphia for what is sure to be an interesting experience at Penn in April 2024. While I don’t want to spoil all the fun by sharing every detail of my experience, I aim to share some highlights so that as my colleagues, students, and other interested parties read this may be more inclined to attend next year.

Straight from the horse’s mouth, “SEJ’s mission is to strengthen the quality, reach and viability of journalism that advances public understanding of environmental issues.” SEJ was founded in 1990 in Philadelphia, PA by editors and producers working for the Philadelphia Inquirer, National Geographic, Turner Broadcasting, and Minnesota Public Radio. This organization provides environmental journalists with a way to network with others in their field, acknowledge their colleagues’ work from fellow journalists through awards, fellowships, and conferences and webinars. This is certainly a society for journalists by journalists, but the very nature of journalists lends it to being a good place for other interested parties who might want to be involved.

Much like other conferences, there are panels, plenaries, talks, exhibitors (read: branded swag freebies), coffee throughout the day, catered meals, and opening/closing receptions. Having been to a variety of types of environmental conferences at various sizes, I thought I knew what to expect here. However, as I quickly learned, journalists and communicators operate differently even if their conference at a surface level seems similar to the annual meetings of Ecological Society of America or Geological Society of America. Journalists know how to get to the heart of an issue and ask the most striking questions – even when you are casually networking and discussing shared experience or interests. This was especially demonstrated during the all-day field trips (which covered a variety of environmental and energy issues in the Treasure Valley region) and the plenary talk with Department of Interior (DOI) Secretary Deb Haaland.

Let’s start with the all-day field trips. I signed up for “Tour 1. Sagebrush Country: Sunrise at the Lek”. What luck that seeing a sage grouse lek is a bucket list item for me. There are several species of grouse in the United States, and they all have unique mating rituals. I first learned about Greater Sage Grouse and their cousins (e.g., greater prairie chicken) as an undergraduate in a summer ornithology course. As someone who has been birding ever since, it was on my nature bucket list to see a sage grouse lek in action and this conference gave me that opportunity. It also allowed me a glimpse at how journalists work in the field.

The sage grouse lek field trip was in part organized by Ashley Ahearn of the NPR Grouse podcast from Boise State Public Radio News. Ashley’s love for the species certainly shines through on the podcast, but even at 4:00am when we gathered and then were making the trek to the lek, her enthusiasm for the species and their conservation issues is enough to wake you up (despite the sun not having come up yet and gentle rocking and movements from the field vehicle). We were greeted by some cows who occasionally acted as roosters mooing to greet the day and it was approximately 24°F when we arrived to the lek site at 6:30am. As you’ll see in the photos below, a lek is a relatively open area which leaves the male sage grouse especially vulnerable to predators such as the golden eagle. Luckily for the grouse, we saw no such activity while out at the lek. While at the lek, we learned more about Greater Sage Grouse biology and conservation issues from Dr. Jennifer Forbey (professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Boise State University) and Michelle Commons Kemner (wildlife staff biologist, Idaho Department of Fish and Game). We were fortunate to see many male sage grouses displaying at the lek.

The trip to the lek was followed by a panel discussion of stakeholders including North American Grouse Partnership, Idaho Conservation League, Idaho Governor’s Office of Species Conservation, and a cattle ranch owner who work together for sage grouse conservation. Despite their varied backgrounds and beliefs, they all could agree that the main two issues facing sage grouse were invasive species and uncontrolled wildland fires (a common theme for conservation and land management issues in the western continental U.S.). From a scientist’s perspective, this field trip was an absolute delight and I used my observational skills to see how journalists approached the field trip. Between asking thoughtful and pointed questions throughout the day, taking photos, and copious notes, I dare say that journalists and scientists are not so different in the way we approach topics it’s just that our implementations for story telling are different.

Onto another highlight of the conference, keynote plenary with Department of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland followed by a panel discussion with Joan Mooney (Principal Deputy Assistant, DOI), Tracy Stone-Manning (Director, Bureau of Land Management), and Martha Williams (Director, US Fish and Wildlife Service) moderation from Debra Krol. Secretary Haaland highlighted some recent conservation and land management achievements, and announced some upcoming plans and projects that are sure to make stakeholders happy. These projects include $39 million from infrastructure part of the IRA towards fish passage projects in 22 states, $140 million for water projects (84 projects in 15 states) related to the Colorado River, workforce training for wildland fire fighting, and cleaning up legacy pollution.

However, there are just as many projects and plans that people are unhappy about to say the least. The first question out of the gate, once Secretary Haaland and the panel were done speaking, was about the Willow Project – an oil drilling project that could potentially release a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere. While the IRA and DOI substantially reduced the scope of the Willow Project, it is still something that was approved much to the severe disappointment of environmental activists and the Native American people this project could impact.

The question asked Sec. Haaland to share her personal feelings on the approval of the Willow Project and how the DOI follows the science and law on the approval of the Willow Project. This was her first mention that as the DOI Secretary she does not have personal feelings, and went on to explain that this was a difficult and complicated decision for the administration but they are honoring leases that have been in effect (but not yet active) since the 1990s. When pressed on this point, she went on to add that this decision was remanded to the DOI by the courts due to the actions of a previous administration.

A follow up question not dissimilar to the first asked why hasn’t Biden spoken out on the Willow Project given how high profile the project is and the criticism that the President isn’t ending new drilling on federal lands and may allow more drilling. Sec. Haaland began her answer by mentioning that part of that is a question for President Biden as to whether he should speak out publicly on the Willow Project. She then went on to acknowledge that the Willow Project is high profile but by law they have to process permits and there is an obligation there to process them to allow drilling. However, Sec. Haaland then went on to say “we do the best we can. We need a transition to clean energy and wants people to talk about that” and then gave an example of the offshore wind projects, the transmission line in Arizona to getting energy to rural communities in the west. She went on to add “we’re not turning a faucet off and no one is using gas and oil”, and that she is glad there are activists speaking our as it’s their future “who are going to feel the neglect we’ve been inflicting on our earth for a long time”.

Secretary Haaland was a politician and activist before she became Secretary of the Interior. It was nothing short of impressive to see Secretary Haaland navigate the pointed questions from journalists and aim to provide answers that while may not satisfy or reveal personal feelings from Sec. Haaland, but did aim to address the questions in part. In the tone of her voice and the careful choice of words belay her political experience. The dance between governmental leadership and probing journalists was on full display during the Q&A portion of this plenary.

Similar to the sage grouse display on the lek, governmental leadership is often forced to dance in an effort to appease stakeholders. While I think this is a dance we believe we’re familiar with, it is something else entirely to witness in person the way in which leadership can be constrained by the boundaries of their office and administration. However, despite watching this tango between Sec. Haaland and journalists, I think the following poignant statement she gave perfectly sums up her beliefs even if she did provide more than one “no comment” and does not “have personal feelings” as the secretary of the interior. In the closing portion of her keynote address, Secretary Haaland said something that I think all stakeholders interested in promoting better land management practices and conservation of ecosystems and species can agree on: “So many humans reap the benefits when they [humans] get out of the way and let nature lead”.

I can say with all honestly that SEJ was one of the more enjoyable and energizing conferences I’ve attended. Perhaps it’s because journalists and communicators are a little more naturally extroverted than my academic colleagues and peers, but I think at the heart of this is also the way in which conference topics were discussed and how stories were told. No doubt that high level science was being shared and discussed, but unlike at an academic conference where I have seen heated discussions break out over the best conservation methods of an endangered snail species, the spice of these discussions were in the avoidance of answers, the directness of inquiries, and the depth of the discussions. This conference coming to Penn is of course an opportunity for academics to share their work with journalists in an effort to encourage their science to be shared. Moreover, this conference is an opportunity for academics to understand how their science is communicated at large and connect with the lively and tenacious people behind those stories.

An interview with author Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on his new book on how the Right Wing captured the Supreme Court with dark money

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island doesn’t shy away from debate. Perhaps this shouldn’t have surprised me – he’s a former attorney after all. But I was surprised, nonetheless. Media coverage of politicians often involves sound bites of deflection – clips of frustrating, not-quite-answering-the-question responses. So, when I sat down to ask Sen. Whitehouse about his new book, The Scheme: How the Right Wing Used Dark Money to Capture the Supreme Court, experience told me he would deflect as well.

For the most part, Sen. Whitehouse – who is a member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, among others – did not give me those kinds of answers. I read his book, which he co-wrote with Jennifer Mueller, looking for holes and tensions in his argument, and (hopefully) my questions reflected that. It was, indeed, my intention to “grill” him, as he says at the end of the interview, and I’d say he withstood that grilling. Or as a philosopher would put it: He was a good interlocutor.

As a former journalist now researching journalistic practice through the lens of philosophy, since the interview I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s needed to cultivate an honest exchange between a politician and a journalist – a conversation of substance, not of sound bites – that also engages and informs readers. There are plenty of pieces in that puzzle, but here, I think, are two important ones.

First, time. Journalists need time to prepare thoughtful, well-researched questions – questions that bring out the nuance of the topics at hand. And politicians need time to get a grip on the topics they’re going to be grilled on. The interview itself must also be long enough to permit getting into the gray. And last, but not least, the reader needs to have the time to read the piece. I can say time was on my and Sen. Whitehouse’s sides. I hope it’s on yours as well.

Second, a commitment to being a good interlocuter – both the journalist and the politician. What does that mean? Examples usually speak louder than adjectives. Hopefully, the interview below provides a picture of what being a good interlocuter entails. But, in short, I think it involves listening to and respecting one’s debate partner, knowing what you’re talking about and having the freedom and ability to clearly articulate your ideas.

So, do I buy his argument? I’m not sure. Do I think dark money has flooded politics? That’s an obvious yes. Do I think the Right used dark money in an organized way to capture the Supreme Court? The verdict is still out on that one for me. As he admits in his book, Sen. Whitehouse relies mostly on circumstantial evidence. While this evidence may not win my full-blown belief, it does demand more digging. However, whether or not we buy his core argument, the solution remains the same – get dark money out of politics.

I interviewed Sen. Whitehouse after a panel event on December 9 associated with the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media (PCSSM). He was joined by Michael Mann, the PCSSM’s director; Kathleen Morrison, Chair of UPenn’s Department of Anthropology; and Joseph S. Francisco, a Professor of UPenn’s Departments of Earth and Environmental Science and of Chemistry.

The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

OpenSecrets reported that Democrats raised more dark money than Republicans in the 2020 election. You admit this in your book, while also mentioning a comment that a Republican senator made to you: “‘Democrats had better start raising a lot more dark money,’ if “we wanted to do anything about it.” Here’s the tension I see: Given the way that the game is played, you’re likely going to lose if you don’t raise dark money. But if you do raise dark money, then the public’s going to see Democrats as corrupted as well. Do you worry about that?

Imagine peewee football. One team goes out on the field, but they also bring baseball bats. When the ball is hiked, they whack the other team with the bats. That team would win really quickly. So, we have to bring baseball bats, too, in order to not be blown off the field.

The misdirection here is to focus on who’s using dark money. The real focus should be on who lets dark money onto the field – who requires it and protects it. The vote that we just had on my DISCLOSE Act makes it pretty clear – we got every single Democratic vote. We couldn’t get a single Republican to vote with us.

I think the failing of Democrats is not in using dark money ourselves, rather than letting ourselves be blown off the field. I think our failure is not understanding how important an issue this is both to our country and to the public and giving it the prominence that it deserves, so that we put real pressure on getting the baseball bats the hell off the Pee Wee football field.

The ACLU didn’t support the DISCLOSE Act. In a 2010 letter to the Senate, it claimed the bill “fails to preserve the anonymity of small donors, especially chilling the expression rights of those who support controversial causes.”

That’s false because the bill actually has a $10,000 floor. So if you think that somebody writing a $10,000 check is a small donor, well, we can have an argument about those terms. But I think what ordinary people think of as a small donor, we don’t even touch.

Why do you think the ACLU continues to oppose it then?

I don’t know. They go back to a case that’s important in ACLU legend: the NAACP membership case. In that case Alabama wanted the membership lists of the NAACP. At that time of state-sponsored violence against civil rights actors and against Black people in general, the NAACP sued and said, if we’ve got to give up all of our members, there’s a real danger that people are going to go to their doorstep with a can of gasoline or put a bomb in their basement, like they did to the churches.

The decision there – no, we’re not going to let that list out in this circumstance – was the correct, proper legal decision. But I think it’s not the same thing when a billionaire uses a front group to manipulate American politics to his advantage.

If the $10,000 isn’t the right break point, then maybe it should be $100,000, but at some point this business of anonymized manipulation of politics has to stop because it degrades citizens’ ability to understand what’s going on around them.

Speaking of citizens, I wanted to ask you about Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

My least favorite decision.

In chapter 19 of your book, you address principles conservatives say they stand for, precedent being one of them. In fact, you say respecting precedent is at the “heart of the court’s legitimacy.” But you write that the conservative Supreme Court has repeatedly disrespected precedent, the overturning of Roe v. Wade being one example.

And Shelby County v. Holder, and on you go.

But you simultaneously argue that there are some court rulings that we should overturn, and I’m guessing Citizens United would be among them.

Absolutely.

So, how do you walk the line between rooting out what you’d call problematic rulings, but also stick to precedent?

If you brought together a panel of really respected lawyers and legal academics, you could whittle down to the fingers on one hand the number of cases where it’s widely accepted that something seriously went wrong with the Supreme Court’s opinion. So, the number of precedents that would have to be overturned to make things right is actually very small.

If you look at some of the real stinkers, they have a common flaw, which is that they stand to a significant degree on false factual premises. Why is that important? That’s important because as a matter of law, fact finding is not a role that belongs in appellate courts at all. It belongs in district courts. So, when the Supreme Court goes about fact finding, it’s in an off-limits area.

When the facts that it finds are provably false, then, not only are they in the off-limits zone, but there’s no factual credibility to their finding. So, there’s a principled way to look at those decisions and say – this decision needs to be struck down because of the false factual premises upon which it is structured – without throwing out precedent as a general proposition.

What then is the false fact in Citizens United?

The false facts in Citizens United are that the unlimited political spending the decision unleashed was going to be independent of political campaigns and transparent to the public. Neither is true. You have to rely on groups like Campaign Legal Center to explain how independence isn’t there because it’s a little bit complicated.

But the transparency piece is blindingly obvious. All you have to do is look at the so-called outside spending that’s taking place in the political races that just concluded. There is demonstrably non-transparent spending happening in our elections. So, there’s no doubt that that premise of the decision was wrong, and wrong not just at the fringes – it’s billions of dollars. It’s a systematic flood of hidden special interest influence. You really can’t get much falser than that.

Speaking of transparency, Mike Mann asked you a question about the role of the media in bringing to light dark money actors. As you noted, the media are under intense financial pressure, especially local news, and, for that reason, may not be as able to uncover corruption. Given that transparency is so important to you, and given that a central role of journalism in democracy is making the system more transparent, would you support more public funding for journalism? Or are there other solutions?

One obvious solution we hope to pass into law this year allows small media outlets to gather together and gives them an exception from anti-trust laws. They can then say to Google, Facebook and other big tech platforms – if you want our content, you’ve got to pay us – in the same way that a musician can say to a radio station you can’t play my song without paying me. I think this is a way to restore the market balance, so that revenues go back to newspapers.

That would be an easy first step where you don’t have to face the danger of a government-controlled media, like in Putin’s Russia. There’s going to be a lot of anxiety about too much government funding going into media outlets. I think we steer clear of that problem by fixing that market dysfunction. I think there’s a real likelihood of getting that done.

You mention multiple times in your book that some practice by the Right isn’t normal. It’s how you put together the circumstantial evidence that makes up your argument. So, that made me think, if I can find one instance where you say something isn’t normal and it is, then that’s a hole in your argument.

Right, exactly.

I may have found one and I’d like to hear your response to it.

Go for it.

In chapter 12 of your book, you discuss so-called ‘plaintiffs of convenience.’ You write, “When you start with the case and then go looking for the client, that’s abnormal, a sign of an ulterior purpose. Lawyers for the conservative movement make no bones about the fact that they’re challenging a law or policy that they just don’t like.” But plaintiff finding is a regular practice of civil rights movement actors and a big part of test-case litigation in general. In short, it does seem like a normal practice.

There are two points to make on this. The first is that just because two different groups do something abnormal, it doesn’t make it normal. And second is it’s totally not normal for people to come into court to seek to lose a case. That’s just not how the system works. Trying to lose is a very telling signal about what the litigants expect from the Supreme Court. Then throw in that after the Janus case I think the plaintiff of convenience was now on the payroll of the litigation group.

So, when you add up – wanting to lose, plaintiffs of convenience, putting the plaintiff on the payroll, having front groups litigating who don’t disclose who their donors are so the costs are absorbed by someone who’s not even in the court room – that puts up enough red flags. The court should have been more cautious about taking cases that come up to it that way. Instead, it welcomed those cases and provided them with a fast lane.

I’m also concerned that the continual finger pointing of the Left at the Right, and vice versa, is at the root of polarization. When you write a book as a Democrat pointing the finger at the Right wing, do you worry about contributing to polarization?

I’d go back to the analogy I used during the panel: If you think of our Congressional sphere as a playground, there are areas of the playground in which bipartisanship is possible and areas in which it’s impossible. Having been in Congress a while, I’ve seen that boundary shift. It shifted very abruptly on climate change after Citizens United. It went from being very bipartisan with lots of bills kicking around to 100 percent partisan with no Republican participation in any serious climate measure. Like that [snaps fingers] you could see the shift.

When you see a shift that sudden, you can’t help but look at why, and there you see the fossil fuel industry. It happened exactly coterminous with the Citizens United decision, which I believe the fossil fuel industry saw coming. They were ready day one to go into Mitch McConnell’s office, to go into the Speaker of the House’s office, and to say – you will have unlimited money from us if you knock off this climate bullshit, and we will torture anyone on your side who crosses us on this, and you, as the leaders, need to enforce this as party policy.

So, in a situation like this – where they’re spending at least tens, probably hundreds of millions of dollars, in every election – if you don’t go at that outside force that is putting pressure on colleagues, you’re never going to win the battle. I would actually make the argument that the more pressure I can put on the fossil fuel industry – the more I can call out its maligned behavior, the more I can make people suspicious of the industry and make it flinch back from its political influence mischief – the better the chance for bipartisanship.

In fact, Republicans might even be blinking at me that they’d like to help, like the guy in the prison camp who blinked in morse code ‘torture.’ Pretty heroic. There are Republicans who I have a good enough relationship with that I get the equivalent of that blinking.

There are countless conspiracy theories devoted to the idea of a deep state. Often people are told they’re crazy for believing them, but your book implies they might not be. For example, you write of “a system increasingly rigged with shadowy forces.” You do lay out evidence, but I worry that your book might support conspiratorial thinking generally, even if you’re right. How do you expose corruption, but avoid fostering conspiratorial thinking?

It’s hard to expose corruption without raising the notion that there is corruption. That’s sort of a self-proving thesis. The problem with the deep state argument is that it implies that the mechanism of government itself – the staff people, the career servants – are themselves the problem. But the problem is outside influence being brought to bear on those people. And you actually saw a lot of resistance from within the agencies to some of the weird Trump stuff because they knew it was wrong, if not illegal.

If you want to weaken government, and, therefore, make it more vulnerable to these special influences coming from outside forces, then having the American people think that those government staff folks – career civil servants and employees – are all a bunch of weird deep state aliens who are answering to some unknown master some place, that’s a really good narrative.

So, a lot of what your book is about is power: Corporate power. Supreme Court Power.

Totally. That’s the currency we’re dealing with here.

What’s the solution then? Do corporations have too much power? Does the Supreme Court have too much power?

I think the Supreme Court has way too little accountability. I think that the segment of corporate America that wants to play hard in politics has way too much power, and I think citizens have been dramatically deprived of power by being deprived of the ability to put the jerseys on the players and know who’s saying what on whose behalf.

There’s absolutely nothing in the Constitution – in the Philadelphia debates or in the Federalist Papers – that suggests any role whatsoever for non-human persons in American democracy. None. Not a whisper of it.

Corporations are not people?

Corporations are not people. They are not part of “We the People,” and they have no business in politics as the founders saw it. The role of corporations in our politics has been the creation of Republican appointees on the Supreme Court, beginning with Justice Lewis Powell and working their way through to the current court. One could easily envision a politics in which corporations had no role. One could very readily envision a politics in which, we’re going to give corporations a role, but they’re damn well going to tell us who they are instead of operating through some phony front group.

Is there anything you want to add?

No you’ve grilled me to the ground. I have nothing left.

Well, thank you Senator Whitehouse.

My pleasure.

By Shawn Patterson Jr. and Michael E. Mann

In mid-October, a pair of climate activists from the group “Just Stop Oil” garnered substantial international media attention when they threw tomato soup across Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in London’s National Gallery. “Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?” they asked the crowd.In light of these non-violent, disruptive protests the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) investigated the impact these actions have on public perceptions of climate change.

Over two surveys, we attempt to answer three questions. First, does the public approve of using tactics like shutting down traffic or gluing oneself to Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earing to raise attention to climate change? Second, do these tactics affect public beliefs surrounding human-driven climate change? And third, do the framing of these tactics influence that support?

Overall, we find that the public disapproves of non-violent, disruptive climate protests. A plurality of respondents (46%) report that these tactics decrease their support for efforts to address climate change. Only 13% report increasing support. There are important sub-group differences in this measure of support – White respondents and Republicans were both more likely to report that these efforts decrease their support compared with Black or Hispanic and Democratic respondents.

Second, through a survey experiment, we find that priming these protest efforts does not affect respondents’ beliefs toward climate change. Specifically, we find that asking about non-violent, disruptive protests before asking whether respondents believe human use of fossil fuels creates effects that endanger public health does not influence respondents’ answers.

And finally, we find that these effects are not predicated on the framing of the tactics deployed. We find no difference in support for these efforts when we vary whether respondents are asked about “damaging pieces of art” or “pretending to damage pieces of art.”

These results shed some light on the potential effectiveness of efforts to raise awareness and support for climate activism.

Question 1 – Does the Public Support for Non-Violent, Disruptive Protest?

CLI1.      To raise awareness of the need to address climate change, some advocates have engaged in disruptive non-violent actions including shutting down morning commuter traffic and damaging pieces of art. Do such actions (decrease) your support for efforts to address climate change, (increase) your support for efforts to address climate change or not affect your support one way or another?

[IF INCREASE OR DECREASE]:

CLI2.       Do they (only slightly [decrease/increase]), somewhat [decrease/increase] or (greatly [decrease/increase]) your support for efforts to address climate change? 

Figure 1 presents the distribution of combined responses to the questions above. A plurality of respondents (46%) say that disruptive non-violent actions decrease their support for efforts to address climate change. Nearly as many (40%) say that these do not affect their support one way or another, while only 13% say that these actions increase their support.

Figures 2 and 3 highlight significant demographic differences in support for these tactics. 69% of Republicans report that these non-violent, disruptive protests decrease their support for climate action, compared to only 27% among Democrats. It is noteworthy however that even Democrats are more likely to report a decrease (27%) than an increase (21%) in support. Moreover, independents, who might be critical in establishing majority support for aggressive climate policies express strong disapproval of the tactics, with 43% reporting a decrease in support and only 11% reporting an increase.

White respondents and men are also significantly more likely to report a decrease in support, compared to Black, Hispanic, or Other Race respondents and Women, respectively.

In comparison, Democrats are significantly more likely to report that these tactics increase their support for efforts to address climate change in comparison to Republicans or Independents. Similarly, Black and Hispanic respondents are more likely to report increased support than white respondents. However, in contrast with Figure 2, there is no significant difference between men and women in their likelihood to report increasing support from these non-violent, disruptive protests.

While a plurality of the population appears opposed to such tactics (46%), the public could also be viewed as indifferent. These actions only slightly decrease (6%), slightly increase (2%), or have no effect (40%) on individual’s support for efforts to address climate change for 48% of respondents.

Question 2 – Do Non-violent, Disruptive Protests Affect Views on Climate Change?

CLI0.      Please indicate if you believe the statement below is true, false, or if you aren’t sure.

              Human use of fossil fuels creates effects that endanger public health

To address whether these tactics effect people’s perceptions of climate change, we embedded an experiment in the survey by randomly asking the above question to half of the respondents before asking about disruptive protests, with the other half being asked afterwards. This allows us to test the potential priming impact of these actions on support for climate action.

To test this systematically, Table 1 presents the estimated effect of treatment (receiving the question about disruptive protests before asking the above question) on respondents’ beliefs that human use of fossil fuels creates public health dangers. The treatment indicator is a binary variable (treated or untreated) and the outcome is a five-point scale ranging from Definitely false (0) to Definitely true (1), with respondents reporting to be “Not sure” placed at the mid-point (.5). We control for pre-treatment covariates (age, college education, gender, party identification, and race) to account for any potential imbalance that occurred in the randomization.

As the first model coefficient demonstrates, while the treated group was very slightly less likely to agree with the above statement, the differences were not statistically significant. These results suggest that hearing about these protest efforts did not affect respondent’s views on the public health dangers of fossil fuels.

Question 3 – Does the Framing of Protest Tactics Affect the Levels of Support?

ORIGINALCLI1.        To raise awareness of the need to address climate change, some advocates have engaged in disruptive non-violent actions including shutting down morning commuter traffic and damaging pieces of art. Do such actions decrease your support for efforts to address climate change, increase your support for efforts to address climate change or not affect your support one way or another? [Emphasis Added]

NEWCLI1.               To raise awareness of the need to address climate change, some advocates have engaged in disruptive non-violent actions including shutting down morning commuter traffic and pretending to damage pieces of art. Do such actions decrease your support for efforts to address climate change, increase your support for efforts to address climate change or not affect your support one way or another? [Emphasis Added]

The final question we address in these surveys is whether the framing of tactics deployed by these activists affects public support of these efforts. For example, The New York Times’ ran an article titled “Climate Activists Throw Mashed Potatoes on Monet Painting,” further describing it in the subtitle as “the latest attack on widely admired art.” However, it is not until the fifth paragraph that the article notes that “the food did not cause any damage to the piece.” This raises the question, does the public differentiate between “damaging pieces of art” and “pretending to damage pieces of art” in their views of these non-violent, disruptive protests?

To test this question, we conducted a second survey where respondents randomly received one of the two above questions. Was the public responding to the particularities of the tactics, we would expect to see greater support (or less opposition) in the “pretending” condition. As we can see from the distribution of responses in Figure 3, there does not appear to be such an effect. Respondents provided similar distributions of responses regardless of whether the actions were presented as “damaging” or “pretending to damage” pieces of art.

Conclusion

Overall, the public expresses general disapproval of non-violent, disruptive protests to raise attention to the dangers of climate change. A plurality (46%) report that such efforts decrease their support for their cause.

However, these efforts have minimal effects on people’s perceptions of the dangers of climate change. Priming these efforts had no effect on people’s belief that human use of fossil fuels creates effects that endanger public health. Moreover, the framing of the actions appears to also have a small impact – respondents did not differentiate “damaging” and “pretending to damage” pieces of art in their appraisal of such actions.

Surveys

Both studies were conducted by SSRS on its Opinion Panel Omnibus platform. The SSRS Opinion Panel Omnibus is a national, twice-per-month, probability-based survey. All SSRS Opinion Panel Omnibus data are weighted to represent the target population of U.S. adults ages 18 or older.

Data collection for the first study was conducted from October 21-24, 2022 among a sample of 1031 respondents. The survey was conducted via web (n=1001) and telephone (n=30) and administered in English (n=1006) and Spanish (n=25). The margin of error for total respondents is +/-3.5 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

Data collection for the second study was conducted from November 4-7, 2022 among a sample of 1025 respondents. The survey was conducted via web (n=995) and telephone (n=30) and administered in English (n=1000) and Spanish (n=25). The margin of error for total respondents is +/-3.7 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

Analyses of the results were conducted by Ken Winneg, APPC’s Managing Director of Survey Research and APPC Research Analyst, Shawn Patterson Jr., Ph.D.