Part One:
Our guest is Maria Ivanova, Associate Professor of Global Governance and Director of the Center for Governance and Sustainability, at UMass Boston. We discuss the first Earth Day in 1970, 50 years ago today. It was a shot heard around the world, pressuring governments around the world – including the U.S. – to take the environment seriously. Today, too, our political representatives will commit their energy to solving the climate crisis only if the voices of the public advocate strongly that our planet depends on timely action.
We also address the way that individuals matter in the making of public policy. A country can enact good policies but they won’t succeed unless we have people implementing them who are dedicated, creative and persistent.
Part Two:
Our second guest is Mark Hertsgaard, environmental reporter for The Nation, and Executive Director of Covering Climate Now, a global consortium of news organization covering the environment, formed last year because the climate issue was not getting enough coverage in the media.
We discuss the need to combat the media’s lack of scientific literacy, which leaves them susceptible to being taken in by a lot of the fossil fuel industry’s false narratives around global warming.
Journalists must follow the facts as far as they go; they can’t allow their ideology to get in the way. Covid-19 is teaching us lessons in media coverage as well as in public health and epidemiology. The primary lesson is that we have to respect the science. The vast majority of Americans does, indeed, want to hear what the scientific community has to say, what their scientific research is showing. People want to decide how they’ll behave based on true factual information.
