Climate change is everyone's fight

The conversation about climate change has come a long way from the days of polar bears and melting ice caps, but as our guest this week shares,  there's still a long way to go in creating truly inclusive climate policy. In order to do that, those who are most impacted by environmental racism need to be involved in the policymaking process.

Rhiana Gunn-Wright is the director of climate policy at the Roosevelt Institute and one of the intellectual architects of the Green New Deal. She grew up on Chicago's South Side and talks about how environmental justice shaped her life from an early age — event if she didn't know that's what it was. We also discuss how climate reform is connected to other parts of America's political system and efforts to reform democracy.

‍Michael Berkman
From the McCarney Institute for Democracy on the campus of Penn State University. I'm Michael Berkman.

Candis Watts Smith
I'm Candis Watts Smith

Jenna Spinelle
I'm Jenna Spinelle, and welcome to Democracy Works. This week, we are talking with Rihana Gunn-Wright, who is the director of climate policy at the Roosevelt Institute, and one of the intellectual architects of the green New Deal. And I visited Penn State earlier this semester, and our students loved having her here, she has kind of an infectious energy, which I think also comes across in the podcast interview. But she's also done some truly incredible work on the green New Deal. And I think before we dive too far into that, it might be good just to kind of take a step back and remind everybody what the green new deal is, and some of what it was trying to achieve.

Michael Berkman
But yeah, the green New Deal was much in the news over the past what was a year or so now, I can't really even remember when all of that came up. And it was a very ambitious proposal that included trillions of dollars in efforts to both move the United States off of reliance on carbon fuels, and also to encourage renewable energy. And then it also had a lot of social programs that were related more to the New Deal portion, I suppose that included universal health care coverage, no, and a lot of issues that were not necessarily directly related to the environment.

Candis Watts Smith
I'm surprised not surprised that a person like Rihanna is one of the intellectual architects of the green New Deal. I mean, insofar as she's a Yale educated Rhodes Scholar, but she's also a black woman from the south side of Chicago, and has kind of right, like if we think about and talk about who should have a say, and who is close to problems, and what might come if we ask all sorts of people their ideas. It's no wonder that someone like Rihanna, would help to develop a policy that is not just a one time bill. It's not a one time thing, but a multi year national policy around climate mobilization, that centers not just the federal government, but state, local indigenous governments in a coordinated way, for environmental justice, for racial equity, for inclusion, and for and recognizing that the climate issue is a structural issue, which means that everything that we do touches it, and so we need to have policy orientation, that touches everything, to make it all to make it all come together.

Michael Berkman
Yeah, I mean, surprising given who she is, but also not surprising when you start to speak with her and you understand how her own personal experiences have shaped her approach to activism and getting involved in politics and getting involved in in trying to make change it she had a has, I think, a real talent for connecting her own personal experiences to larger systems and structures, and forces and how to address those and and how to impact them.

Candis Watts Smith
One of the things that comes up is a recall of history. And so far as I think that people are kind of like, well, this is a really big problem. Is the government capable of helping to solve such a major problem? And history says yes, history, right. So the green New Deal, right is, in part a play on this new deal on FDR is New Deal, which was huge. It was multi year, they changed the way that we think about the role of government it we have policies today that we take for granted, that come out of the New Deal. And so even just kind of using that language and harkening back to a time when people look to the government and said that you need to do a thing. And then it did the thing, or do a lot of the thing.

Michael Berkman
You know, one thing that really struck me when this when they started talking about the Green New Deal, and there was this enormous price tag connected to it and they're trying to do everything at one time and whether or not they ever really believed they could do everything at one time or not. There was certainly putting everything out on the out on the table. At one time. Of course the New Deal was passed with a huge democratic majorities just a very different political environment to try to do this with essentially a one vote majority in the Senate and what five vote majority in the House. What I what I think really It has to be recognized as a huge achievement for the people behind the new the green New Deal. And certainly Rihanna Gan. Right.

Candis Watts Smith
The difference in the kind of political orientation of 21st century Americans is that there's just a dominance of neoliberalism. And the kind of idea that the government should be taking part in this is really kind of like a, I mean, it is certainly a structural roadblock, but it's also a psychological roadblock about the possibilities. And then there's the, you know, part that we've discussed earlier in the season with Don Moynahan, that there's just been a lot of undermining of the administrative capacity of the government. But I think what's important is that it's not a forego a foregone conclusion, that things could be different and that a lot of people want things to be different. And a lot of people want to think, a broader, bigger vision, especially given the catastrophe that we are that scientists predict that we're facing sooner rather than later, Michael, you've done polling about how people across generations feel about this. What what did you all find?

Michael Berkman
Yeah, and the mood of the nation poll it really Kevin monger was the one who was behind a lot of this a lot of these questions. But yeah, we find that Gen Z. So the youngest generation puts climate at the top of their list of most pressing problems and the generation before them, the millennials. Put it a second. And but older folks really don't. And this is very much something that I think and this is what my colleague, Kevin would would certainly argue that this is an area where younger Americans feel like they've been really saddled with a serious problem, if not existential disaster by older generations that they feel like we're going to need to do something about so yeah, climate, climate is an issue that really does sustainability. Lots of issues around climate really do Energize. Certainly, I see it in our students. And I imagine you see it at Duke as well.

Candis Watts Smith
So my sense is that, you know, that generational kind of dimension is really important. But I I imagine that if we ask people who are actually feeling the effects of environmental injustice, and have for decades would also say that this is something that they would want to see that later policies of urban renewal meant that, you know, people's communities were raised for highways, and the people who live near the highways are more likely to have asthma. But if we have, you know, a dimension of vulnerability, there are probably millions of Americans who absolutely would see that the climate crisis is not existential right, it is actually the life that they're living, and it's influencing their health outcomes. And also are all sorts of things right, like the shape of their opportunity structures influenced by by climate crisis.

Jenna Spinelle
And I think that, as you'll hear in the interview, Rihanna counts herself and her family as among those people who feel the effects of environmental racism and environmental injustice, directly in their own lives and her own upbringing. So let's go now to my conversation with Rihana Gunn-Wright.

Jenna Spinelle
Rihana GunnWright Welcome to Democracy Works. Thanks for joining us today.

Rhiana Gunn-Wright
Oh, of course, it's an honor to be here.

Jenna Spinelle
So lots to talk about regarding your work on climate policy and how that intersects with democracy. And you know, on the show this season, we've been talking a lot about policy implementation as democracy in action and inequality and inequity as a policy choice. It's one thing to sort of look at that from an academic perspective, as we often do on the show. But I've also heard you talk about your experience growing up on Chicago's South Side and kind of saying that the government sort of forgot about you when you were growing up there in the 90s. I'm wondering if you could start by telling us about those experiences and how they've maybe shaped the way you've come to think about policy.

Rhiana Gunn-Wright
Yeah, so I grew up on the south side of Chicago and a neighborhood called Inglewood and Englewood was in in a still one of the poor neighborhoods in the city. And when I was growing up there were just a lot of like abandoned lots like the park wasn't particularly well kept up. Trash at the bus stop that you know, things like it just wasn't very well kept up by anyone but But the community members. So I remember there was this one woman on my block in particular named Miss Mary who used to like pick up the trash every day and like organize like community pickups and like get us to pick up trash like, and but that was her way of me of like taking care of the community. And I just remember growing up, like, accessing services always felt difficult, right? Like if people call the police, the police might take forever to come if they came at all right, like, the abandoned lots were technically like city property. And I mean, they might come and mow them. But often I remember Miss Mary talking about having a call to get them to mow them, like they didn't come look after them and pick up the trash. Like, there was just a real sense of like neglect, I don't know how else to explain it. Like, it just felt very much like we were alone. And also the only services that we ever really saw work cops, right? Like, we're police. And just, I went to a magnet school. So there were kids from all over the city, they're in elementary school. And I remember going to where they lived. And it just looked, I don't it just it was clear that they just weren't nearly as forgotten. Right? It just that there was like a real sense that, you know, things are cared for the streets were like, there weren't potholes in the streets, right. And the sidewalks weren't crap, you know, like, just stuff like that. And I guess it really shaped my understanding of policy in the sense that it really helped me to understand that both like policy has a role in shaping the world around you. But also that it has a real role to play and like, how welcome the world feels to you, like how much your surroundings and even just the physical environment reflect how much you matter, if that makes sense. You know, like, I just need to remember, like our neighborhood school. I don't, it was, oh, you know what I mean, the it was old, I think the heat worked. Right? But is those sorts of things like that those conditions would not be the case and a school in a different neighborhood where they have more money.

Jenna Spinelle
Right? I mean, that and that brings in the idea of power, which I know has been a through line of your your work. And you know, throughout your career, I guess, when like, when did you begin to connect those dots that oh, this is about people who have power and people who don't, and who can exploit that lack of power and some of those types of things.

Rhiana Gunn-Wright
I mean, honestly, I was raised a lot with that understanding. I didn't believe it though. I remember my mom would talk a lot about why this would happen or like why the city might not be as involved or like why they weren't keeping up with things or in particular, she worked in education. So she would talk a lot about like school funding and how it was connected to, to like, how it was connected to the CPS budget and making money and how CPS was shifting to a more sort of like, profit, not a for profit model. But it was starting to be run more by folks who had sort of run businesses and consultancies and have been looking at for profit models, right who've been working for for profit companies who were not educators, right, and the effect that that had on, you know, how funding happen in our local school or why it might not be as well funded, etc. And so she talked a lot about you know, power about the effect of like race about, you know, like, why, why these things might be happening and why we might not be getting responded to in the ways that other people were, and I remember growing up, I thought she was nuts, Psych ma you and these conspiracy theories. I was like, stop. No one is like sitting around thinking about that kind Have stuff only to grow up and be like, oh, oh, yeah, they actually are. And so I can't. So I feel like I always that understanding was always around the at least at the most base level is like, this isn't something that is just happening, that this is the expression of a system that is set up to, to act and do different things.

Jenna Spinelle
Yeah. Oh, and speaking of awareness, I know you've you've also when you were at, in college it at Yale, you've talked about the sort of what the climate movement was like to start to bring in some of your work on the on the green New Deal and, and climate policy. So take us, take us back in time to really not that long ago as to what your impression of the climate movement was, and maybe how, if at all, that connected back to the experience that you were bringing in from Chicago.

Rhiana Gunn-Wright
So I came of age around like, the inconvenient truth error. So there was a lot of discussion about global warming is what mostly talked about as global warming. But it was very, I just remember it being like very technical and very scary. Right? It was, I remember there being these really scary discussions of like, what could happen, really, and they were really sort of rooted in the natural world, like, extreme weather, the ice caps, melting things that just really sounded very catastrophic and apocalyptic. And then, at the same time, there was a lot of discussion. I remember there being a lot of discussion about the like destruction of natural ecosystems in the world to like the coral reefs, and in particular, polar bears, and like those videos of like starving polar bears, which were still so sad, and when I was in college, it had changed a little bit. But it's still, to me felt very technical. And when I was at college, a lot of the discussion was about fossil fuel divestment. And there was a divestment campaign at Yale, to divest our endowment from fossil fuel investments. But again, I understood why. But it also felt technical in a different way. All of a sudden, it was also it was about like, finances and investments and what companies were doing and like how our endowment works. And, and again, it was, it felt like it felt above me in certain ways the the people running those campaigns, I remember them, largely being white, being wealthier, and at the time, I was really interested in and I still am policy related to, to poverty. And at the time, I was really interested in welfare rights and welfare policy. And I wanted to be involved in policy that felt like really directly impactful for people I had grown up with that would like really change their material circumstances. And you know, that feeling of neglect that I felt like I grew up around, and I just climate at the time, I just, it didn't seem connected to that, right. It seemed to be about these bigger levelers and these, like, really high levels of change, right? Like, we're talking about the federal government or like weather systems or carbon footprints, which are somewhere out in the atmosphere, right to me at the time, or like, where incredibly wealthy organizations invest billions of dollars that are controlled by like, wealthy white men that I never see. I was like, Okay, I just, none of it really felt connected at the time. And it took me a really long time until I was in my 20s to really start to understand environmentalism in a different way, and to really actually understand how Those how all of those things, especially the fossil fuel industry, did, in fact, affect communities like the one.

Jenna Spinelle
So in in discussions about, about political reform and maybe other types of large scale changes, while this concept of moving, the Overton Window often comes up, you know, we're trying to shift the bounds of what's acceptable in our society or in a in a political system. How did you think about that in relationship to the green New Deal? I mean, I could see on the one hand, yes, it's good to sort of shift the way we think about these things. But also, like, I feel like in some ways that might be kind of a cop out to say, oh, no, no, we don't actually need to pass these policies. We just need to like, move things kind of incrementally. I will, we'll get to the rest later.

Rhiana Gunn-Wright
Yeah, so I mean, we definitely thought a lot about the Overton window. But our goal was never to just shift the way people thought about climate change. Right? It was to do that, but in service to making the preferred path of action around climate change, to be one that reflected or really was like a green New Deal, right. So it was about changing the way that we thought about a problem, but it was also changing what we think of as the acceptable set of solutions, and the quote, unquote, best way to deal with the issue. So that was the goal. And I think that sometimes when people we talk, I hear people talk about the Overton Window a lot. But I think that's part of what gets lost, like the Overton window is not just about changing the way we think about an issue. It is about creating a political opera tunity to adopt a particular set of policies, right. Like it is about shifting the way we think about something for particular, and, and so that is what we were interested in, in doing. And the goal was always to have the response to climate change in the US be one that was based on the framework of a green New Deal, the green New Deal has many people point out was never a specific policy. But it was very, certainly a framework that created a set of principles, and a set of projects and a real blueprint for how, how the federal government should approach dealing with the climate crisis.

Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, and on a I don't want to call it superficial, but it's also like, I think, a lesson in how to make a policy sticky, or how to, like make it resonate in in people's minds. You talk about how you did that, how you sort of made it look cool, and seem so cool. And get it you know, get people talking about it?

Rhiana Gunn-Wright
Yeah. Yeah, I laugh because I was such a hectic period in my life. But, I mean, it was. I mean, and there were so many people involved, there were a number of us involved in the effort. I mean, one thing was to be everywhere, right? Like, I don't remember. I don't know if people remember. But like, so the, the protests and Nancy Pelosi is Office happened, people started talking about a green New Deal. The resolution happened. And then we were like talking about a green New Deal, constantly, all the way through the primaries into the election after. Right. And so that happened, because we were just talking about it all of the time, right, in media on podcasts and interviews. I think the other thing that so we just tried to create a lot of, for lack of a better term, like I wouldn't say not a lot of discourse around it, and keep that discourse like that flow of discussion about it's constant. I think the other thing that we tried to do is that we did was like, we didn't shy away from it, even when it became like, target of conservative attack. Right, like we didn't stop talking about it. And we didn't change the ways that we talked about it, I guess to sort of focus on those criticisms or to act like they weren't there. And I say that because I think that's scary. But it was necessary. I think, you know, the other thing that we tried to do was like there was of all of us who worked on the green New Deal, there were for folks who really were focused on electoral folks who were focused on movement, folks who were focused on policy. And so I think that helped it to be sticky, because in each of those spheres, which are really crucial to, to sort of shaping what we think about as politically possible and feasible, and also attractive as a policy, right, there were folks who were focused on each of those things and constantly pushing on each of those areas. And then I mean, I think it didn't hurt that we were young, that Representative Ocasio Cortez was involved, and then that Senator Markey came on board. So it was sort of a cross generational conversation, and that we also sought to talk to people who I think, hadn't been involved in talking about climate before. And also who weren't always like the quote unquote, like very serious people. Yeah.

Jenna Spinelle
And thinking about kind of centering that human element and trying to give voice or at least give give a listening ear to people who are not typically part of these these conversations, right? How did you work to build trust with communities, particularly those who are not just like you were describing at the beginning of this conversation not used to having time and attention from people who are involved in in decision making or or in politics?

Rhiana Gunn-Wright
That's a really good question. And the fact is, we didn't do a good job in the beginning. So we talked a lot about environmental justice, and we talked about racial justice, and we design, you know, the green new deal to have both of those be very central. But we did not actually talk to many environmental justice groups, as we were sort of building out the vision of the green New Deal, like in the early stages. And so we did actually get a lot of well earned flat for that. And it did actually take time to rebuild that trust. It did. And what it took was building like, honestly, spending a lot of time relationship building, right, just getting to know people, letting them get to know, us sort of starting new formations, or being part of new tables, where those folks I should've said, EJ, it's we're at the table as sort of core members. And, and I think, increasingly, sort of widening out when we started, the green New Deal was like, it was a small group of us, like really working on it, and sort of pushing it forward and really involved sort of day to day, and campaigning for it and building out the vision of it. But then, as time went on, like the green New Deal, took on a life of its own right, and became a much larger space, and sort of became grounds for a movement. And I think it was hard at the time. But ultimately, we had to let that happen. We had to let it be diffuse. And that meant that the leadership of a green New Deal movement has become more diffuse. And now there are a lot more folks who directly represent or are part of environmental justice communities and the orgs that come out of those communities, leading that movement and And it's not just like the 12 of us or however many there was of us there's, you know, a bunch of coalition's lots of organizations, right doing take doing their own take on the green New Deal.

Jenna Spinelle
How do you think about the connection of all these other systems economic and and these, you know, this this discussion of power? Like, how does that connect to the other parts of our democracy, right, whether it's the electoral college or the makeup of the Supreme Courts? I think the the question the student asked you was, if you could change one of those things, what would it be about maybe broaden it a little bit in and just ask you how these other parts of our democracy fit into this work?

Rhiana Gunn-Wright
Oh, yeah, the other parts of our democracy are crucial for this work. People often ask me like when we we need to have a green New Deal. And I'm always like, the same institutions, you would need to have a multiracial democracy of functioning one are the same ones, that we would need to have a green New Deal, because ultimately, the economy is deeply shaped by government, which is created by our democratic and political institutions. Right, like, I work in economic policy, think tank, and one of the things that we talk about the most is that markets don't just happen out of nowhere, government creates markets, right, they operate based on laws that are set forward. And so if you want to change the economy, right, and you want to have something like a green New Deal, you have to change the people in power, and the people who are making policy. And without democratic reforms, that's actually really different. Right, like our democratic systems from like the Electoral College to the filibuster, to increasingly like the makeup of the Supreme Court, like those operate to keep particular people in power, often a particular type of people, and to preserve the power of, you know, certain parts of our, of our population. And, and so, for instance, like, just even thinking about having a popular vote, how that would change. What is possible when it comes to climate politics, it would be massive people of color, are more likely to both believe that climate change is a thing, and to vote based on to vote to support climate policies. On the other hand, conversely, older white men are the least likely to believe that climate change is real, and to vote for climate action. So if we have a political system that favors right, older white men, as opposed to, you know, a popular vote where the preferences of people of color be far more pronounced, that alone will change who's in power and how amenable they are to climate policy. And so democracy reforms are really, really, really central to that. I mean, in part, because, and I'll end on this is because after so many years of like neoliberalism, in particular, a lot of our politicians think less about governing a society and more about running an economy. And that thinking is consistently rewarded, by the way our political system is set up right now. And so having a democratic system where the voices of people of color are more represented, would really be very disruptive to that. And having people in play in power, who think more about governing a society will make things like climate action so much easier. Because it wouldn't just be about dollars and cents.

Jenna Spinelle
All right. Well, we could keep talking about this particular strand of the conversation all day long, but I know we have to wrap up here. Thank you for all of the work that you've done for our climate for our democracy. And thank you for joining us today to connect the dots.

Rhiana Gunn-Wright
Oh, of course. Thank you for having me.

Candis Watts Smith
Thank you, Jenna, for that great interview. And also, I'll just send a special thank you to Rihanna for her infectious lab. She has such a good spirit. And, you know, one of the things I think that stood out to me is this kind of idea that the green New Deal is a very much bottom up, that there's a recognition that people do understand the problems that they live with. And they have solutions and proposals for these problems that, you know, people who experience unemployment, people who are at the frontlines of climate change, racial injustice, they have ideas about how to guide institutions to tackling the problems that they face that they face, right, not just, you know, top down elites, wealthy business folks, big corporations, etc, doing the doing all of the problem solving that real people, if given the opportunity can make a difference. They can make high quality proposals for our most difficult problems.

Michael Berkman
And it's essential, because I mean, what what when you think of the really large scale kinds of social changes, I shouldn't say social changes, but policy changes that we've had in the United States. They came from social movements, civil rights, whether we're talking about voting rights, whether we're talking about abortion rights, vote, voting rights, I think I might have said that, but LGBTQ rights, the gay marriage movement, all of them required both the involvement of the mass public organized into these kinds of movements at different levels of government, and then hooking up with more formal organizations and forming it to more formal organizations, along with finding somebody within the government who's willing to take on the cause for them and fight it out there. And, and here, you know, they were they were able to do that they made a lot of progress.

Candis Watts Smith
Yeah, I mean, the thing is, is also, you know, even now talking to my students, for example, you know, they're like, I don't know, if the Black Lives Matter movement is gonna work, or I don't know if the Green Deal is gonna work. And what I think they don't understand is that the basics, basic things, eight hour work days, the fact that people can vote integration in schools, or at least at in higher education, were bold ideas, were ideas that people thought were near impossible than in our common sense now. And so the, you know, the conversation that Rihanna and Jenna were having about shifting the Overton Window, for very specific ends, I think, is really important. And, and that, you know, social movements help us to see that the world could be different, that gives us new ideas that maybe we hadn't even thought of.

Michael Berkman
And you're often not gonna, you're not going to win everything. On the first effort. I mean, many social movements took many, many, many years, and with many defeats, and then with smaller victories over time, that accumulate, and then perhaps ending in major legislation, like the Civil Rights Act, or the Voting Rights Act, or maybe not ending in major legislation, but a series of gains or or court decisions that work out in their favor.

Candis Watts Smith
So you know, I think one of the things that people kind of, they're cynical, and so far is the idea that like, Okay, well, the problem is too big or your solution is too out there. But if you kind of break it down one by one, they're, you know, they speak on kind of every dimension that is important to this problem. And the fact of the matter is, is that there is no domain in American life that is not touched by this problem. And there's a recognition of that, that there is something to do in each one of the domains. And they have to be done simultaneously with coordination and with boldness.

Michael Berkman
And one thing I really like about her first of all, she has us looking really locally at just how your own life is affected by. But also there has been a lot of activity on climate that has gone on in the state, some of it which will be quite significant nationally. I'm thinking for example, like California's decision to require electric vehicles.

Candis Watts Smith
So scientists say that we need to move at a quicker pace and on a bigger scale. And the, the free market is not going to do everything that we need it to do. We've seen examples such as the rural broadband issue, that when there's a issue of governance and of well being We cannot necessarily depend on the free market to pick up and solve these major problems.

Michael Berkman
Although they can be incentivized to solve the problem totally. Yeah. And I mean, I think a way that a way of thinking about what you're talking about is that both politics and markets are way of organizing society of addressing issues of distributing resources, of getting things done. I think markets probably do have a huge role to play in solving environmental issues. And they can act quickly. Actually, if they want to they can adequately vaccine. Yes. And with Yes, and with dramatic amounts of power to given how concentrated businesses, but there has to be government is going to have to play a role as well.

Candis Watts Smith
I think, you know, and, and Jenna get to this at the end of the conversation, that if we had a, an actual inclusive multiracial democracy, we might see that there are preferences that are just not being turned into votes for for many reasons. And so, you know, a lot of kind of what we're talking about is, you know, our representatives seem to be kind of hesitant about taking on these big problems and big solutions. But if we had a democracy, where people actually had a say, even their incentives would be, I think we might see that their incentives would be very different.

Michael Berkman
Yeah, that is such an interesting aspect of meeting Rihanna and hearing her talk, and, you know, just thinking about so polls give us an idea that younger people are committed to environmental issues, but but from Rihanna, you also get a sense that they envision democracy differently as well. They want to be involved they want bottom up, they are you highly educated, very smart, able to, you know, relate sets of experiences that older generations maybe didn't have, because people in power and older generations all tended to come from, you know, particular parts of society. And now, the younger generation is quite diverse. And people like Rihanna from the Southside of Chicago, go to Yale and are in a position to become, you know, really major players. And I just, I just think that's so interesting, and kind of exciting to see. See where it goes. So Jenna, thank you for that terrific interview. And please make sure you don't cut the cut her laugh out of the final cut because it is just so much fun to be around. Really enjoyed the opportunity to meet Rihana and have this discussion. So for democracy works on Michael Berkman.

Candis Watts Smith
And I'm Candis Watts Smith. Thanks for listening

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