When Climate Work Comes at a Cost: Dispatches From the Upside Down
Human-caused climate change is fueling extreme floods, wildfires, rising seas, and record-breaking heat all around the world. At the same time, some of the most senior U.S. government officials and other powerful actors are actively defunding climate programs, dismantling research institutions, erasing decades of environmental data, and launching direct attacks on climate professionals.
This week’s episode is about what it’s like to be a climate scientist, researcher, or environmental professional trying to do meaningful work in a country with a government that increasingly doesn’t want it. Many have faced harassment, threats, or dismissal — or live in fear that their funding will be frozen or cut. How does it feel to do climate work not just in an era of climate denial, but of deliberate climate erasure?
Episode Guests:
Rachel Rothschild, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan Law School
Brent Efron, Senior Manager for Permitting Innovation, Environmental Policy Innovation Center
J. Timmons Roberts, Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology, Brown University
**For show notes and related links, visit climateone.org/podcasts.
Highlights:
00:00 – Intro
03:00 – Brent Efron on how he got into climate work
05:30 – Efron relates a casual date he had in DC
08:00 – Efron is contacted by Project Veritas, who plans to release a video they recorded of his comments about his work at the EPA during the date
11:00 – Hate and public backlash following his remarks, as well as the EPA
13:00 – Efron is contacted by EPA investigators and the FBI
17:30 – His new job in climate policy and how it feels to be doing that work again
21:30 – Rachel Rothschild explains climate superfund laws
25:00 – An organization uses FOIA to request Rothschild’s emails with environmental groups, then filed a lawsuit
32:00 – Personal and professional toll it has taken on her
37:00 – Needing to have threat monitoring
41:00 – How she thinks about her work as a teacher
42:30 – J. Timmons Roberts explains his work on links between offshore wind opposition groups and entities tied to fossil fuel interests
48:00 – Marzulla Law sends a letter to Brown University demanding Roberts’ work be redacted
52:30 – Universities in vulnerable position right now
58:45 – Why uncovering climate obstruction work is so important
59:45 – Climate One More Thing
***
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