Well, welcome.

Today's second panel.

Thank you so much for joining us.

And thank you for coming back.

I'm Rick Ganley, host of NPR's Morning Edition.

Earlier we heard from experts who are working to make their communities more resilient to the effects of climate change.

And and now we'll go to you spending some time with the people who cover our communities, our towns and our cities, working to bring important information about the environment and the changing climate to the broader public.

So joining us are four journalists who bring a really broad, amount of coverage to solutions based journalism climate coverage to help our communities through this.

And I wanted to introduce them a little bit.

I want to remind you that this event is being live streamed, so I'd like to also welcome our virtual audience.

Thank you so much for joining us.

And for those of you who are here in our audience, please silent your phones.

But again, as we told you in the first panel, keep them with you.

You're welcome to submit questions.

On the back of your programs, there is that QR code that will take you to a form where you can submit questions for our panelists.

Some of you may have so many questions.

We do have several already in the queue, and we'll be getting to as many of them as we can.

I'd like to introduce you now to the journalists here with me on stage.

We're very happy to have them, and we're very lucky to have them.

And, thank you all for joining us, Maura.

Hope the magazine covers climate change, energy and the environment for Knpr.

My colleague in the newsroom said, just ten feet away from me, a pleasure.

Maura also helps lead our bi degrees climate reporting project that tells stories of the people grappling with the challenges of our changing world and exploring possible solutions.

Nila Banerjee is the chief climate desk editor for NPR.

The Climate Desk at NPR focuses on making complex science accessible to audiences, spotlighting barriers to addressing climate change and explaining solutions, and revealing how climate change has disproportionately affected marginalized people and where.

Really happy to have you here, nila.

Thank you.

Paula mora is an independent audio reporter in New England.

She was formerly a reporter on Wbur's climate and environment team, where she covered local communities resilience to climate change.

Welcome.

And Abigail Giles covers climate and the environment for Vermont public.

She focuses on the energy transition and how the climate crisis is affecting.

Vermonters and Vermont's landscape in particular.

Welcome.

So great to have all of you on stage here.

I've enjoyed all of your reporting over the years, and I actually want to start with a question that we did get from the audience that came up in our last panel.

And I think this is a great kind of a bridge question to this panel.

So let's put this to you.

Susan from Durham asks again, have we abandoned discussions of ways to reverse climate change?

Can journalism reignite that?

You know, Mara, let's start with you.

Yeah.

So I think that this a lot, I think in my work as a local reporter, often what I'm covering a lot of the time is climate change impacts.

You know, if there's, a weather event, if there's a study comes out, you know, when we see sea level rises getting worse, farmers are losing crops in a rainy summer.

And so I hear that, you know, like the, the idea that we're focusing a lot on impact and not too much on solutions.

I try really hard to cover solutions.

I don't think we're ignoring it.

And and you know, the journalist I know.

But I do think the idea of like, framing is, is really important.

So, in all of my stories about climate change impacts, I try to, you know, add the context that humans cause climate change and our are causing climate change.

You know, the IPCC says every tonne of carbon we emit matters makes the world warmer.

This is a choice.

You know, we we've made in our making.

And I think that context is really important from a solutions lens.

And then of course, covering climate solutions, you know, not just covering them, but bringing the journalistic rigor we bring to everything else, to those solutions, stories, you know, who's funding these, who's benefiting from them, who's losing out?

Is there greenwashing happening?

So, yeah, I guess that's sort of how I think about solutions.

But I'm sure these other journalists have.

Well, that that speaks to you don't want to know.

You don't want to turn people off.

You want to give them something, some kind of hopeful reporting as well as the facts.

And the facts can be very dark.

You know, Abigail, from your standpoint of Vermont, I know, you know, your reporting in the last year with with incredible flooding that happened over there.

Do you see that?

Do you feel that journalism can offer climate solutions that people are paying attention to?

Yeah, I think so.

And I think on the topic of, kind of like fatigue and, and the sort of desire to, to tune out, something that I find like very reassuring is that whenever we do polling of our audiences, our audience, I should say, time and again we hear that climate, environment are some of the issues that matter most to them.

And in particular around solutions and accountability reporting that happens at the very local level.

So I think that there's a really a critical and important role for local reporters to play, in particular in this space.

You know, not every newsroom can staff a full time climate reporter in the local news world.

I'm one of two climate reporters in our state.

And, you know, I think that there's a real service that we can provide by, like, Mara spoke to doing really diligent reporting, fact checking, looking for greenwashing and kind of, I like to think of it as providing the tools for constructive debate so that, communities and people and communities have good information about how to engage on this issue, which really does affect all of us and some of us disproportionately.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think I like how you said you pointed out, you know, kind of pointing out greenwashing.

We want to be careful of not being PR agents.

Obviously.

Neila, when setting the editorial strategy for NPR's climate board, climate desk, how much weight do you give stories that are focused on solutions?

I know your team hired a Climate Solutions reporter.

When?

So NPR's quite new to having a climate desk.

Climate change was was covered as a science story for a long time.

And so when we got the opportunity to create a climate desk, one of our first priorities was to, have a position that would look at solutions.

And I think the reason is that, solutions.

I mean, a lot of people like to talk about hope and, and, but I also feel like when you talk about hope, others can be dismissive of that notion and say that you're being Pollyanna.

And we like to think about is agency, right, that we have agency over what is happening in the world.

And I just want to go back to that question that Susan asked.

And the previous thing about, like, if you're talking about solutions, if you're talking about adopting, does that mean that you're giving up on reducing the pollution that's driving climate change?

When we work on solutions, you know, both at the network and then with our partners at member stations like, you know, we work with all three of these reporters, right?

We're looking at solutions that reduce the pollution that's making the planet hotter, and also that help us adapt.

Because as a lot of you know, if we turned off all greenhouse gas emissions now that carbon dioxide is still baked into our atmosphere and the planet would continue to heat.

So what we're fighting for is for every 10th of a degree, not to make it worse, because this is what it looks like right now.

1.1 it beggars the imagination what it's going to look like at 1.5 or 2, right.

So that is what what the battle is about.

It's about about adapting to what's happening now and preventing it from getting worse.

We do that through, a solutions reporter who is wonderful.

Unfortunately, she's like one person doing the job of, like, four people at the Washington Post.

Right?

And she does everything from looking at, I mean, she's done stories that were really popular that really break it down for our audience.

Like, what is a climate solution, you know, and how do you, as regular people figure out, like what's real and what's not?

So so that was one of our most popular stories last year.

But also when reporters are writing about things that aren't firmly in the solution space, right?

They, they they don't just write about the problems, but they write about how we can address them.

So, for example, our climate and corporations reporter Michael Copley, he, he's been writing a lot about plastics recently because, the petrochemical, the fossil fuel industry sees petrochemicals as a way to keep producing and keep adding to their bottom line, even as EVs and, and renewable energy and all of that drive down use of it as fuel.

So, plastics are everywhere.

It's an issue.

How do we deal with it?

And so one of the things he's looking at is this treaty about, you know, this global treaty that's being negotiated to reduce plastics, right?

And the discussions around that and who's in the way of that?

So we find through our audiences that they really like solution stories, but they also like, you know, a fact check, like a gut check through accountability.

And they really like science that pertains to their lives.

And all of these things I think are woven together.

So that's that's how we do it.

It's not just Julia, our solutions reporter, but every reporter, when they're doing stories, they're not just like laying out a problem for you and then you're miserable.

They're also like, you know, telling you like what?

Like what is the solution here?

And what's the barrier?

Is it political will?

Is it lobbying?

Is it science?

You know what is the barrier here or some combination?

Paula.

Could solutions based stories potentially help with audience fatigue, you think?

I think so, what I see, also echoing what Neela was saying, like it gives to the communities and to the readers and, listeners, the sense of agency, especially, when you go to a community and you are covering a climate solution that was thought for many, many months, all everyone together, like, people, some NGO, some, the municipality and other groups all try to bring everyone to the table like I've covered some, solutions that were like this.

And Massachusetts, for example, did doing research.

Of what people really need, what they are concerned about.

So this really, makes people make people feel they, they can they their say will turn into something that will help their lives.

And I was also looking at, the Reuters Institute report, on digital news and they, they found that, even people who say they don't, they avoid the news because they are fatigued or because they, they can't see more tragedy or anything like that.

They are interested in solutions, stories.

So most people who read the news and are tired and people who totally like say they avoid the news, they are interested in solutions, stories.

I think that brings up the question about climate journalism being perceived as being an ideological, need from Nottingham as just a question about that.

It's clear that climate journalism is often perceived as ideological, which means that many people just frankly tune out.

Everybody's in their own, echo chamber.

So how do we, as journalists think about that challenge?

Does reaching those who are alienated by much of climate reporting factor into your work?

How about you, Maura?

Yeah, I'm I'm for sure familiar with that perception.

Something that I think guides me and grounds me in that is that I feel like climate change is maybe something, maybe one of the few things that we all experience, like we we truly have a shared experience of, and whether people are having that experience with shorter ice fishing seasons or experiencing more heat in their workplace, you know, there's their dog has like a ton of ticks on it.

And the in the summertime, you know, like we all have some sort of personal connection.

It's affecting our lives in some way.

And I think connecting with that, helps, helps me think about how to connect with people who, see it as an ideological issue, because it's sort of like allows that personal connec you know, allows us to think about why we care about living on earth and, and why we might care about climate change.

I also think understanding why people who see it as an ideological issue do see it as an ideological issue is really important.

And, and sort of getting a sense for why, you know, people believe what they believe, why they may not believe in the reality of climate change.

What's stopping them from from incorporating that understanding into their work in their life?

That's a journalistic question I'm really interested in.

And I think just sort of like, you know, I don't I don't necessarily see my job is to, to change people's minds, but to connect with what reality they're experiencing.

Yeah.

And we talk about this all the time.

And tomorrow night I'm talking about this all the time.

The ski season shrinking in New Hampshire.

It's obviously a big tourism state recreation big business.

So there are places there are ways to talk to people in the business community that might be at a more conservative end of the spectrum.

When you're talking about climate change, Abigail, do you see that in Vermont as well?

Yeah.

Something that I heard, I think, from a former editor was, you know, people might not use the language of climate change, but everybody in Vermont likes to talk about the weather.

And that's something I found as a reporter.

I was an agriculture reporter before I was a climate reporter.

And I met plenty of people who were farmers who would tell me, you know, I have seen change in the way that my family farm and the resources that I kind of tend to, the way that they sort of manifest, the way that my business runs in recent decades.

And they might not be using the language of climate change in some cases.

Although we have many farmers in our state who are huge proponents of climate action and do a lot of advocacy.

But I think that there's a lot of power in climate stories, whether it's after an actual disaster or just about trying to sort of understand what it means to find resilience and to adapt to this, this future that we this really it's our it's our present reality, especially in small communities.

There's so much you said, I think, for hearing your neighbors voice on the radio and just feeling seen and kind of remembering that, like, these changes are things that all of us are experiencing.

I think, you know, in northern New England, people are so connected to the landscape.

We love where we live.

You know, I talked to a youth advocate actually this morning who told me when he feels tired, he goes and sits by the river behind his house.

And I love that.

I think that that's something that we can all identify with.

So, I think there's a lot of opportunity to sort of start with the place of like, what is our shared reality and our shared experience of this place and that we are invested in together because it's where we live.

And I also think too, there's, you know, as was spoken to by everybody earlier, I find that letting the science drive the, the stories we tell is, is hugely important as well.

You know, there's a lot to be concerned about, but I think that the science also tells us very clearly that there's still time to make different choices, that there is a window through which we can we can take action to make the future that we inherit better.

And so, I, I think that, you know, ideal ideology is one thing.

But as reporters, I do think it's important for us to, yeah, help people to better understand the science and make sure our reporting is grounded very carefully in what we know and what we don't know.

Let's talk more about, building trust with audiences.

Neela, what are the ways that you try to bring in NPR's climate coverage to to different kinds of people.

Whether it's on the political spectrum or.

Right.

I think I think that's a really good question.

And I and I think there there are multiple ways that we do it.

I mean, the first thing is to tell stories about all sorts of different kinds of people, right?

And to to talk about their experiences.

And, you know, even if somebody is suffering through something and they don't identify it as climate change, I mean, people are still experiencing things in communities, and you need to be reporting on that.

I think the fact that we in the national network work with member station reporters who have such nuanced and compassionate views, like the reporters you see on this stage, also really helps, and I think that, there's also there also needs to be a recognition that, climate change reporting is not ideological, but there are forces in the society that have taken the science over the last 30 years, and somehow made accepting climate science a political position.

And it's not, you know, but it's become a touchstone for some people politically on, you know, but but the, the fact of the matter is, like a lot of people who who deride climate change as a hoax or something like that, they're, I think, a loud minority, because polling that NPR has done with Harvard and the Robert.

Wood Johnson Foundation a couple of years ago found that the vast majority of Americans this is a big poll.

It's like more than 2000 people, the vast majority of Americans have experienced climate change largely in the form of heat.

I mean, look at us today, right?

We are in New Hampshire, and it is, I don't know, 80 something degrees outside like this is not the way it's supposed to be.

I'm not saying this moment is being driven by climate change, but it's more that there are certain trends that are occurring.

So people are feeling it.

And the and the polling has shown that, that across the political spectrum, you know, regardless of how people identify, they see that things are changing.

Now, do they describe it to, you know, to consuming fossil fuels?

You know, there's that it's human driven.

That's I think where you have that kind of partizan divide.

Right.

But I also think that when you look at if, if a lot of the rejection of climate change happens among American conservatives, there's also a division there among the older generation and the younger generation.

And, and we at NPR time and again, have spoken to younger conservatives who see this, and they want to do something about it, and they want their voices as conservatives to be part of the solution.

And, you know, and they're having a hard time breaking through.

And they tell us this, right.

But this is not, you know, something that journalists have made it ideological.

It is the water we have to swim in.

And function in.

And I think that as long as we continue to elevate people's experience and we also show that, like people who are, you know, calling it a hoax or, you know, whatever are really not just like the regular people out there who are experiencing it and that there is a diversity of voices among, you know, if you if you think like, oh, you know, American conservatives, they don't think climate change is real, that's not true.

Right?

And if we show that and show the solutions they have, and so we for the stories that we are going to do in the space in the coming months, that, you know, that, that that's how you get through, you know, a number of stations around the region and are included, or together through the New England News, collaborative.

Maura, how's that been working out for us?

Well, I, I love collaborating.

I mean, I know all of these people through collaborations.

And we love having.

I mean, it really, it's great.

Like, I'm so glad to be here because of the people who are on the stage.

They're great.

Yeah, I, I've had just like, I think it's really transformed how I think about my job as a reporter, because I get to see really amazing reporters do stories and then feel ambitious myself about the kind of reporting I want to do.

Particularly in New England.

I mean, we experience really similar climate impacts across the region, but our states handle it in really different ways, policy wise.

And in New Hampshire in particular, it's really helpful for me to have points of comparison.

You know, how our other state legislatures, handling these problems and, you know, how is New Hampshire's approach different?

And then, you know, that allows us sort of the long view as we look into the future, how are those policies working out?

You know, like how how are people in these states that are handling climate change really differently, experiencing those policy differences?

If you're just tuning in to our live stream, welcome.

This is the second annual by Degrees climate summit.

I'm your host, and here with us today are some esteemed reporters in the climate space.

Nila Banerjee, senior climate desk editor for NPR.

Moral obligation, climate reporter for New Hampshire Public Radio, polymer and independent audio reporter here in New England.

And Abigail Giles, who covers the climate beat for Vermont public.

And just a reminder, again, if you've got questions, there's the QR code, on the back of your program, please scan it.

Give us a question.

We'd love to hear from you.

Let's turn now to some examples of the kinds of solutions based stories that we've been talking about today.

Abigail, let me start with you, because this is kind of breaking news.

Vermont Governor Phil Scott has just vetoed a bill that would require the state to source all of its energy from renewable sources by 2035.

This was passed by Vermont lawmakers.

What has been the arguments for it?

Yeah, this is a really interesting policy.

So, one of the I think interestingly, the the sort of controversy around this policy is not about whether or not for Mike should go to 100% renewable power.

Actually, every utility in the state, supports this this bill.

And along with, you know, renewable developers, I think, as you would expect and, environment most environmental groups in the state.

But where this sort of, kind of sticking point, I think, between the governor and lawmakers has, has been is over how to get there.

So essentially, this policy would quadruple the amount of new renewable power that Vermont utilities purchased from the New England region.

And, you know, essentially why that sort of matters from an emissions perspective is that we have an interconnected grid.

So Vermont is absolutely dependent on natural gas burned elsewhere in the region.

We are heavily dependent on nuclear power, and by and large, that isn't generated within our borders.

We of course, draw a lot of power from Hydro-Quebec as well.

So essentially, in order to sort of offset the fossil fuel dependance in our electric sector as a region, investing in new renewables is really the sort of way to do that.

You know, lots of also important factors there around where they're sited, where, you know, whether it's where there's demand and storage.

And, you know, like many New England states, especially rural New England states, we have a very aged and in some places constrained electric grid in Vermont.

That's going to require very expensive upgrades no matter what we do policy wise, in the coming decades.

So, essentially, you know, the governor, pitched an idea that would have had fewer of those new renewables, and would have allowed nuclear power to count as well.

With the sort of hope that that would have less of a cost burden on electric rates.

The best modeling that we have, at the moment from legislative analysts in Vermont is that, you know, this change would essentially, cost between about five and $13 on the average electric bill by 2035.

There's a lot of uncertainty there around transmission and and all sorts of infrastructure.

But the long and short of it is I think there's agreement, interestingly, in Vermont that we need to get to this goal.

There's just disagreement about how to do it in the most cost effective way.

So the governor's veto this.

But is there a chance for an override?

You know, we actually just before we got on stage, heard from our, said Senate, pro to president pro tempore, and he, was very clear that lawmakers do plan to attempt an override, the policy, you know, they they pretty much had just about close to what they would need, that sort of, two thirds majority in both chambers.

When the bill moved through the, the, the state House this session, that vote would happen in mid June.

So we'll have to see.

And this is, one of a sort of suite of climate policies, a major flood resilience bill.

The climate Superfund Act, which has gained a lot of attention, I think, in the national media, that the governor is expected right now to probably veto.

So this is an election year.

I was actually just at a demonstration this morning, held by youth at activists, high school students on the statehouse steps that they were really sort of imploring, you know, lawmakers and the governor to take action on climate.

And so I think, again, you kind of see some interesting breakdowns around age and, just the way that people sort of think about this question of how fast we need to move and how to do it in the most cost effective way.

I think for a lot of young people I talked to in Vermont, they say there's really nothing I wouldn't pay to be able to see my grandkids ski.

Which is a different perspective than is held by, by by others in the state.

So I'll leave it there, but okay.

Stay tuned.

We'll be reporting on it, I'm sure there from from Abigail on that.

Paula, I want to bring you in here.

You reported on some folks, in Boston recently using something that is an all their idea, steam to heat buildings.

How can that help with climate change in the city?

Yeah.

So this idea that they have, could have a, pretty significant impact, because, do you know that those steam that come from the streets of New York or or even Boston and Cambridge, like, they are part of a, network of miles of pipes?

That the steam was initially a by-product of coal, and now it's a by-product of producing electricity, by burning natural gas.

So it it helps, heat a lot of buildings.

And the idea that this company, has is to use this, network of pipes in Boston, Cambridge, by changing again the source of the steam production to, a cleaner, source, which would be an electric boiler.

So they just, they are finishing the installation of this boiler.

And because buildings are responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions in Boston, cutting those emissions from heating the buildings could help the city reach, there's net zero emissions target in 2050.

There's a report that said, it it could cut roughly 20% of the emissions if the, the steam to heat these buildings, went, well, clean.

So the company has about like 20, 200 clients in Cambridge and Boston.

And these are large buildings.

Those clients, they're hospitals, biotech labs.

They are museums.

So it's very interesting.

But also there are some challenges, of course, like no solution is a silver bullet, as we've seen in our reporting.

The cost of electricity compared to natural gas is like 3 to 5 times.

And also the Massachusetts grid is still mostly powered by fossil fuel.

So the electricity that is powering the electric boiler that would be powering the electric boiler, because it's not working yet, would still be generating emissions.

And then to become net zero, the company would have, will have to buy, renewable energy credits locally, which would add to the cost as well.

So in the story, what the experts told me is, is that lowering building emissions, they're so important to, to, to reduce overall emissions.

You might be like it is likely to be a combination of many actions.

Like it could be the this cleaner steam also reducing, the energy consumption by, increasing insulation and also changing, installing electric heat pumps.

Like, there are many solutions for the buildings.

And one is this, clean steam.

It's an interesting concept because of the economy of scale that you could do with a cityscape.

Obviously, a building so close together.

Mara, you've done a lot of reporting on the more on the move towards community power here in New Hampshire in particular, how is how is it changing the state's energy landscape?

Yeah.

So community power, just as a refresher, I'm sure many of you are familiar with it, but community power is this idea that, municipalities can become the entity that's purchasing and selling power to their residents instead of a traditional utility company?

The utility company still delivers that power through their their transmission and delivery delivery system.

So, you know, I think, with community power in New Hampshire, it's pretty new.

I don't know, for me, it seems sort of too early to say how exactly it's changing our electric or energy system, but something that I've experienced talking to to folks in towns, I think more than now, 60 towns who either have adopted community power programs are in the process of adopting them.

It's just that so many more people are interested in how we get our energy and how their homes are powered, and are taking the steps to go to town meeting to learn about it, to, look at their electric bill, and to, to sort of care about, like how we get our power, which I think especially with energy.

You know, I started as a climate reporter with no energy background.

I took Dartmouth's Energy 101 YouTube class to, like, understand how to report on it.

And, it can be really scary, like, it can be really opaque.

And I think the fact that community power has gotten so many people involved in understanding how the electric system works is really, interesting and something that is transformational.

Community power providers also say, you know, this system can can help us adopt more renewables in the state.

I think that's something I'm really interested in learning more about, watching it sort of play out as, as it goes along.

So yeah, I want to talk more about, climate solutions here, but I do want to get to some, some audience questions.

We've got one from Amy here in the audience.

The language seems to keep changing between climate change and climate crisis.

Which term do you use in your reporting and why?

Neil, I'll start with you.

Yes.

So, oh, I forgot to say one thing about solutions when you asked earlier, like the most important thing, and that is that NPR climate has a solutions week, that we did last year that was enormously successful.

Yeah, that was my next question.

Oh, never mind.

I'll talk about it.

I'll talk about it later.

But okay, so crisis versus change.

We we have discussed this because, there's like some very solid media like, the Guardian, that use terms like climate crisis.

Climate disruption.

We talked, among the reporters in our desk and, NPR also has the standards and practices editor, but we haven't gone to him with this yet.

But I think we are going to stick with climate change for right now.

And I think because, regardless of whether you think it's a crisis or a disruption, it kind of goes to what we were talking about earlier.

Like, you don't want to signal something that shows like you're, you know, that that you're being ideological or, or, that you're, you're hewing to a certain worldview, the that and that somehow that is informing your reporting, like people talk about, you know, scientists use a whole kind of range of language.

And right now, climate change is what, what a lot of them still use, a lot of also use crisis.

And so that is what we have decided so far to stick with.

But it is an ongoing conversation.

And you should know that like in media across the board, right there is whatever we're covering, whether it's politics or, you know, gender, race, climate, labor, corporations, there's a constant revision and discussion within any media about the language that's used based on what history, society, facts, evidence, you know, those basic things tell us.

And so that's kind of what we're going with.

And what our reporters feel comfortable doing.

And, and, you know, and and that's right now it's climate change.

I do want to talk a little bit more about our region here.

You know, New England particularly affected by flooding, as we've seen in the past year and a half, we're seeing the heaviest increase in flood events than anywhere else in the country.

Many communities hit hard last summer, especially in Vermont.

Abigail, you reported extensively on those floods.

How did you see communities come together in the aftermath of of that?

It was really pretty incredible.

I, I think that this is a story where, the people just everyday people who saw their neighbors get flooded, who saw just destruction wrought in their communities, deserve the credit for what happened next, which was that we saw grassroots organizations be formed overnight by people, in some cases, who had never been organizers before.

We saw these sort of small pockets of like, very real time solutions work happening with minimal resources.

Just because people saw some an opportunity to do something for somebody else.

And they did it.

And it was really interesting.

You know, I interviewed people, who lost all of their belongings but spent the whole night trying to pump out their, you know, next door neighbor's basement when they saw that they everything they had had been, you know, had been taken away and and just these incredible stories about sort of what resilience and community can look like in the face of these terrible, terrible disasters that we know from, you know, lots of research through the University of Vermont disproportionately impact, you know, people who live in mobile home communities, people who are lower income in our state, and people in rural communities and I think when we talk about environmental justice, something that was a huge takeaway for me from reporting on flooding was that, you know, we as people in this world are not passive recipients of the damage and harm caused by climate change.

You know, we have power.

And I think that when we think about, what the future can look like, for me, it was just a really interesting moment to talk to people who had lost everything and said, I feel more sure than ever that this is the place that I want to be in my community.

Because of the experience I had with my neighbors during this event.

I just think that there's something really hopeful there.

And, you know, I have talked to many people across the political spectrum who have expressed interest in trying to figure out how do we make our state more resilient to climate change, what what do we do to prepare for the next event?

And so I think that there's those are stories that to me, as a reporter, need to be told, like we need to hear each other and we need to we need to hear that even in these moments of terrible despair, I think there's great opportunity for hope.

Well, how our towns and cities, in particular in Vermont, preparing.

I mean, we're talking about municipalities with very small annual budgets that are facing millions and millions of dollars in damage to infrastructure.

And not to mention, of course, the personal stories, as you reported on, of people losing homes and and belongings.

How does the state, how does a city as a municipality has a small town prepare for future events like that?

This is a question that I think almost every community in Vermont is grappling with right now, in a bigger way than we have, really, I think since Tropical Storm Irene, which happened about a decade ago, was really catastrophic.

There in our state, I would imagine.

New Hampshire is probably this way, too.

I know that you have, you know, coastal impacts as well.

Much of the flooding that we see is this kind of riverine, fluvial flooding.

So essentially, rivers move, they jump their banks and they move really fast, and they take a lot of stuff with them.

And that's the sort of that's like the big climate impact that we in Vermont or expected to see more of, you know, with climate change from a sort of natural disaster perspective.

And, there's actually a bill in our legislature right now that was borne out of the challenges, but, small towns were really going to their, their delegations and saying, we can't solve this problem on our own, which attempts to sort of take this kind of watershed scale, like the whole river planning approach to new development in these super hyper flood prone places, which by and large, are not regulated right now by the state or by FEMA, by the federal government, which is very focused on sort of inundation, flooding.

So this is a policy that is pretty kind of revolutionary.

And there's been really interesting tri partizan support.

This is a major climate bill that would restrict development in a state that, you know, for, for which that is a super contentious, often Partizan issue.

And essentially small towns are saying we need help.

We need we need the state to say to help us plan up and down the river, to say, you know, to make sure that a town at the top of the watershed isn't doing something that's going to create worse, flooding downstream.

And the last anecdote I'll add is that we know from an economic perspective, because of our experiences with Tropical Storm Irene, that these policies can make a big difference.

You know, there was great, great modeling done by the University of Vermont that looked at how a major wetland complex just above, the town of Middlebury saved that community millions of dollars during that disaster that, in damages that were incurred by another community that didn't have that same buffer on the same the same river.

So, I think there's a kind of excitement around, you know, like, how can we potentially solve this problem?

Yeah.

Paula, I see you nodding your head.

One with Abigail here.

What about you?

What what kinds of solutions have you seen in your reporting that communities on a local level are doing when it comes to the effects of that heavier, heavy rain and flooding that we've seen?

Yeah.

I was hearing Abigail, talking about this, wetland that protected one, of the towns and much more than the other.

And one of the reporting, one of the stories I did was in the town of Redding.

It's north of Boston.

It's part of the mystic River watershed.

And there's this very, interesting initiative, the resilient mystic Collaborative.

It's a group of 20 municipalities in the mystic River Association that they got together not only to figure out where in the watershed, they could make, projects that would help, reduce flood damage, in the future, because of the increase of heavy rainfall.

So they, they got together and they ran this computer model and found some places that would be the priority.

And the first one to get the funding.

They they got a lot of funding, like they got municipal funding, federal funding, state funding.

And were able to start the the project last year.

And it's going to, it's due to be ready in July.

What they did is that they found in, tributary of the mystic River that is in Redding, the a bridge on the river.

They they had a conservation area that belonged to the city, to the town.

And they dug seven ponds so that wetland area would be able to hold more stormwater when the, the, the flash flood or the storm would come.

And some of these ponds also filter the water, which is very interesting because the water come, from pavement, from, from homes and all this type of, carrying all, all types of dirt or, or other stuff.

So it's going to also have the system to, to filter the water.

And what else what what is very interesting that they're doing.

Also, they're enhancing the area not only to hold water, but also to become, more pleasant, the park and the boardwalk.

So when people imagine, like when the the heat, in the summer gets, more, gets harder to bear.

Like, people will have this boardwalk and, and shadows to, to walk through this part of the city.

And also they will have some, views and, parking in the boardwalk, will be accessible.

And they will also enhance the number of, increase the number of native trees so they can absorb more water.

And so it's basically like enhancing this and of course, like this project small, it will help alleviate the flooding, mainly in the neighborhood where it's located.

But the idea is that several projects like this through the whole watershed will help reduce, the impact of flooding and, for example, for communities upstream, as we are talking here, like, the idea is that they can hold more water when it rains so slowly.

Go down to the, the communities downstream.

And what I've heard from other projects, because like the Charles River.

Watershed Association also has some projects, going on, like the idea for downstream.

Communities is that the water goes fast, runs fast and doesn't have the time to, to flood like they go fast to the, to the ocean.

It has a cumulative effect of like.

Yeah, yeah.

So the idea is like more and more projects like this will will have a bigger impact.

Well, Mara, you've done an awful lot of reporting on flooding here in New Hampshire as well.

You have a piece up this week, a fantastic piece about flooding that happened, about six months ago.

The storms in December, in particular about people have been flooded out of their homes and trying to get help promised help.

How are towns and cities in the North Country, you know, working to become more resilient when it comes to flooding like this?

Yeah.

So, so this is sort of an effort to follow up, in the aftermath of, of that flood, I think, on an individual level, what I heard from a lot of the folks I talked to.

So I talked to these three, three people, one woman who lost her home, the reverend of a church that lost their first floor and, the head of a school that lost two of their classrooms.

And each of them told me, you know, like, they never thought that they would see that kind of flooding.

Like, this woman didn't live in a flood zone, didn't have flood insurance, didn't think she needed flood insurance.

The reverend of this church said, you know, this church has been around since the early 1900s.

That had never flooded, similar with the school, been around since the 70s, never flooded.

So, I think it's just that sort of acceptance that, like, the way that our relationship to these river is, is changing and has to change as climate change, you know, the atmosphere is warmer, can hold more water and more water can sort of fall in the course of a storm.

And for people who are realizing that in really intimate ways, it's, it's a really hard thing.

And also, for each of those people, they said things like, you know, I don't want to live near water anymore.

I'm going to be like, much more careful when I pick the next place I'm going to live.

The reverend of the church.

And they're only rebuilding the the top floor of the church.

They're not going to redo the basement because they want to know the chances of floodwaters coming again.

So I think that sort of like visceral learning, requires us to become resilient in some ways that are build resiliency into our lives.

Like, you know, these are all people who are recognizing that climate change poses a threat that's that's larger than they thought it was.

And that's that's requiring them to become resilient.

And then on the on the government level, you know, towns I talked to this particularly the town of Conway has a sort of Band-Aid approach for this, this part of town that gets cut off on both sides by flooding.

So it becomes sort of like an island.

And for the past, many storms, they've just stationed an ambulance and a fire truck in that part of town before it starts raining, so that people in that place that become sort of an island in this neighborhood have access to medical care if if they're, you know, can't, get out of their neighborhood for a couple days.

And that town, you know, they suspended solution, but now they're sort of trying to get federal help to, raise the roads that flood out and create culverts and drainage.

It poses the money question because it's, you know, even if they get 90% of the project funded, it's still, you know, a tax hike for, for folks in town and requires voter voter input and buy in.

So, yeah, I think I think places are trying to become more resilient and also struggling with the, with the money side of things.

Yeah.

The do you see that?

I see you nodding your head too.

Did you, do you see that when you're in actually reporting for NPR that towns and cities are, you know, trying certain things.

But of course it comes down to money.

Sorry.

Yes, it does come down to money.

Towns and cities are trying things.

And one of the interesting things, you know, as, as you're talking about the tomorrow when I think about solutions is that, you know, you can try solutions and, and they might not work the first time.

Right.

And, and that doesn't mean that you just give up.

So for example, like, Paula, what you were talking about with this, this effort to slow the flooding along these, these watersheds.

So like last year, what I was pitching was this whole thing about climate Solutions Week that NPR had, like, we did a story out of China about this notion of sponge cities, no clue what they were talking about.

But basically, it's what we call, you know, green infrastructure.

It's like building things like ponds.

It's like building things like, you know, culverts, just basically ways to to remove pavement and absorb more water.

And there were terrible flooding in China last year.

In the year before, lots of people were killed and genre which our, our reporter there found the guy, the architect who is behind this landscape architect was behind this idea.

And he and you know, and he was really like, obviously he mourned the harm.

But he also said, you know, it's not like like we can't just try solutions.

And if something doesn't work perfectly, then we just, you know, toss it out.

Right.

And it does require constant investment.

You know, we are seeing through, the Inflation Reduction Act, the infrastructure bill, more money being made available to states and other jurisdictions to do to, you know, to build, more resilient infrastructure.

And, you know, and then there are places that are rejecting it, like, you know, like one of the stories we were working on last week, which we're still trying to get a handle on, is what just happened in Florida.

Right?

So governor DeSantis signed a bill that basically says, like, not only like this is what we're trying to figure out.

You can't mention climate change, right?

But does it mean, like, you can't consider climate change when you're planning infrastructure?

Yeah.

This was also something that you guys might remember played out in North Carolina years ago, right about a decade ago.

So so there's, you know, like there's money becoming available.

It might not be enough, but you also have to have leaders in your communities who are willing to, to, to look at what the science is saying about what could happen in their community, what's already happening because the past is no longer precedent.

Right.

And so and so, you know, so, and then I think it's incumbent upon your representatives, your governors, your ages to push either on the local level or on the federal level to get the money to, you know, to build this resilience.

So that's, you know, that's at the end of the day, I mean, this country has the money to do it.

Right.

The question is whether we we're going to do it.

We do have an audience question here.

And this goes right to the heart of what we have this panel for today.

How do you express urgency and alarm without falling into disrepair, despair, excuse me?

Or disrepair?

Well, this repair as well, yes.

But, you know, it's I think that's that goes to the heart of the matter here.

So let's start with you, Abigail.

I, like I said, I was just coming from, talking with a bunch of, high school students about climate change, and I was really moved by something that this one student said to me, which who he's been trying to advocate for, climate action in, in our state house since he was in middle school.

And he's a senior and he's about to graduate.

So he was reflecting on on kind of now having been through a couple of legislative cycles and seeing bills die and vetoes and, you know, override efforts and, you know, he he essentially said, like, there's no time for despair.

There's like there just we have to we have to move forward.

And so I think like that sentiment is something that is, is actually very well supported by the science.

And, and I think it's useful, you know, at the same time, I think it's a responsibility of journalists to make sure that we are telling stories that center the perspectives of people and communities who are bearing the the worst impacts of of of climate change and amplify their voices, amplify the solutions that they're bringing forward.

And and, you know, I think that's one answer to that question is that sort of work.

But on the flip side, you know, I do think that there there is a degree to which, you know, we've lived in a time where there is unprecedented federal funding for this kind of work that's out there.

So it's just a matter of whether states and communities are going to be able to go get it and if they're going to do that.

So, yeah.

How about getting.

Yep.

Go ahead.

I think, if we stick to the science and to the facts, and as you also said, like interview the people who are living it, we we can bring, very, accurate picture that then people can, decide in and and work with that that, that would bring like if we do a good journalism, it will be a way to, to help people to understand the reality and not go like for something sensationalist.

And I also wanted to go back to one thing that Neela said this, the people in Redding, in the mystic River, which, by the way, is the most urbanized area in New England, which is most bathed, in less absorption of water.

And the rate, they hope, to reduce flood damage.

They don't even hope to reduce, flooding.

So that was something that, struck me that they started with, with Nadine not even thinking about reducing flooding or, and the flooding.

It's just like the damage that we, we hope to to reduce.

By uma.

Yeah.

I, sometimes I feel like I'm repeating myself on the radio all the time.

Which I know a little about that.

Can can on my on my worst days feels like an incredibly frustrating experience.

But I went and posted this climate plan a couple summers ago, and, we heard from the poet laureate of Boston who had this amazing poem, and in it she repeated these lines over and over again, and they became like, more powerful every time you heard them.

And there was an NPR reporter who pointed out, like, you know, we think sometimes about repeating ourselves on the radio as a say, it's like really frustrating.

And it just helped reframe for me, sort of like, you know, we we live in this reality that's really hard to come to terms with.

And when you hear something over and over again and it can actually sort of like allow you to process it and allow it to sink in.

So, yeah, that's that's one way I think about it.

I also think it helps to take like a Neela, you just said, like, past isn't precedent anymore.

But I do find that it helps to look into history at sort of like, for me, it's like, you know, this climate change feels a bit feels like a big and scary thing.

There's other times in history where big and scary things have happened, and communities have had to continue, or live through it and move forward.

And that's something I don't know if that works for everyone, but that gives me a lot of comfort.

Nila, how does that play into the selection of stories that you do for NPR?

Or does it it.

Well, so it sort of does.

I mean, it's I think part of it starts with the, the people we hire.

Right?

So, so the climate desk, you know, like I said, we didn't have a climate desk until a couple of years ago.

It was mainly after science stuff.

So there's four editors, including me, and one of them is a visuals editor.

And then there's seven reporters.

And I think that they're constantly thinking about these, these pillars that we have.

Right.

And that, you know, it's science.

It is, it is looking at the disproportionate effects of climate change, who contributed and who's now, you know, catching it in the teeth.

Right.

It is, accountability and it's solutions.

So I think like that actually, like shapes their thinking.

I don't really assign a whole lot of stories.

Right.

Like they the reporters, you know, have ideas about stories.

The editors, you know, I mean, news will happen where like, oh, who's going to cover X, Y or Z?

But but you know, they we've picked people for whom these things are important and and you know, they are the science is the absolute foundation of everything.

We are not going to get over our skis on this.

Right.

It has to be.

And if you're coming up with a solution, you know, like, is it is it not just like scientifically plausible?

Is it scalable?

Is it affordable?

You know, all of this stuff.

And I think, and I think in approaching it this way, a lot of times we do get asked as climate reporters, including like by my friends or whatever, like, how do you do it?

Don't you get like depressed?

And I don't because because I do feel like everybody on this stage that we are, we are we hope that we are helping the public.

Right.

We hope that we're giving you information to have that sense of agency and clarity.

And, you know, and I think a lot of times people like regular people who are not journalists feel despair because they feel like like I'm so small, I can't do anything.

And you're not small.

You have, you know.

Yes.

Like big corporations.

Big governments got us to this point.

Right.

But but we are, you know, like Mara was saying, like communities have come together before to do things.

And one of the solutions that we actually came, you know, like experts told us last year when Julia Simons said, what is a climate solution?

You know, talked about scalability, affordability.

She's a one of your one of the solutions that people have is your vote, right?

People are saying this now.

It is not a Partizan issue.

You know, there are places in this country that's one party or another.

But the example she used was Brazil, right.

You had, you know, Bolsonaro and there was a terrible deforestation there.

They elected Lula.

And deforestation has plummeted because and that is how people's votes matter.

So so these are the things, you know, that we can point out.

And then it's up to people to make those decisions.

And I think that's what prevents despair.

And I think like and I think the reporters on our team understand that.

And they support each other and they have colleagues, you know, at member stations with whom they're in constant communication and, you know, find a way to support each other that way to I'd like to add one thing, which is a parallel to, another big environmental issue that has been in the news a lot recently, which is PFAs contamination.

And I actually had a conversation with, Hayley Jones at Slingshot, there, you know, and advocate in, in New Hampshire and in Vermont, after the, the designation, of, you know, PFOA and PFOA, under the Superfund act, about just what, you know, they were hearing from communities they've worked with in the past who've organized around PFAs.

And I loved I think this has stuck with me forever, but it was basically like validation and that organizing works, that communities, frontline communities, do have power, even if it can take a really long time.

And so I think to me, you know, that's another major sort of environmental issue of our time.

I think that's another sort of example of something that can yield some hope.

Well, I appreciate that.

There's a panel of of environmental journalists on the stage.

You have hope because you have to have hope, I think, in order to offer hope.

So, as journalist, that's it's heartening to hear, we're running low on time, and I think we've got to wrap things up before we go.

And I do want to ask each reporter here on stage about what they're working on, what's upcoming for you.

Let's start with you have go.

We are looking ahead to our elections, in November and also to the veto session that our legislature or legislature is going to be holding in June.

Actually, all of the major climate bills this year are, expected to be on the docket for potential veto override votes.

So that'll be the big focus for me.

But, I actually love summer in Vermont when the legislature is not in session because I get to go out into communities and I get to be outside, and I get to do stories that are a little bit more in-depth and less reactive to policy.

So I'm eager to catch up with folks that I spoke with after the flooding last year.

And do some stories there and just broadly to sort of get out on the ground out of the state has.

Excellent.

How about you, Paul?

I would love to follow up with people that I, spoke to on these communities as well, to see how they are developing their other plans to to be more resilient, not only in the mystic River, but, there's other places like the Belle Isle Marsh, and also some indigenous communities that have, been working to bring traditional, indigenous knowledge to more people and, and to apply them in, in some areas, like there's this, municipal vulnerability, program in, in Massachusetts that one of the, the indigenous communities, was planning by the time I was reporting to buy back their ancestral land.

And it's been 200 years that they, they, went to Wisconsin, I think, and then, like, how are they doing now?

It would be very interesting to, to learn about more.

Yeah.

I have a couple of, like, really wonky energy and policy sites coming up, which I'm really excited about.

Interconnection building codes.

And also over the summer, working on some animal reporting.

So if anyone has animal tips, let me know.

But, but also, you know, following up the offshore wind industry as it, gains steam and, seeing how that plays out the summer as, as, the federal government holds stakeholder meetings in New England.

But yeah, that is also wonky.

So not as.

Like climate reporters.

They're just all nerds, myself included.

So, so there's no nerds in this room?

No, no, no nerdery in here.

So, let's see.

We.

So, So, yes.

So last year, Climate Solutions Week, which we did in October, was really successful.

And so we are doing it again this year in early September right after Labor Day.

I cannot tell you the theme, but there's a theme that is close to your hearts and your stomachs.

Let's just put it that way.

So anyway, so, we're really excited and, and we're having war, stories from member stations.

It's going to be on all of our platforms, digital audio and podcasts, and, and so, that that requires a lot of, work and kind of wrangling.

We are also covering the election, each, man who is running for president, putatively, you know, Biden and Trump, each will have been, president for term.

And they do have climate and energy records to look at.

And I think it behooves us to look at what they've done and what they plan to do, both in a, you know, kind of general way, but also to drill down, and then there's other stuff that's coming up that, that I think we'll have like a lot of, like important news you can use, like about rooftop solar and, and the, there's, there's also a project about how, extreme weather above fatalities from extreme weather and what we can learn and so that we can reduce the risk of that going forward.

But we're really, really excited.

But, but it's, you know, there's a lot of ground to cover between now and, and the end of the year, there's never enough time or reporters never, you know.

Well, I want to thank you all for coming here on stage and thank you in the audience as well.

Thank you.

Our virtual audience today.

I want to thank you and H for hosting Gracious hosts.

Indeed.

And thank you to all the staff at and as always, and NH PBS teams that made this all possible.

The tech teams, behind the scenes teams, the producers, the editors.

It takes an awful lot to pull off an event like this.

And, I think they deserve a round of applause.

So thank you.

Now.