- Good afternoon
and welcome to Berkeley conversations
dialogues with experts
at the University of California, Berkeley,
about the challenges
arising and opportunities,
the challenges and opportunities arising
from the COVID-19 pandemic.
My name is David Ackerly,
and I'm the Dean of Berkeley's Rausser
College of Natural Resources.
Our topic today is the
connection between COVID-19
and the climate crisis.
I'll be joined by two faculty
and one of our graduate
students from the college,
and we'll introduce them shortly.
For those of you listening
in for the first time,
these webinars are broadcast
to you from our homes
where we're broadcasting to you via zoom.
On the Facebook Live platform
you can submit questions
through the web interface,
and we'll address audience questions
towards the end of the program.
I'm pleased to introduce our
panelists for today's dialogue.
Dan Kammen is a professor in
the energy and resources group
in Rausser college,
and also holds appointments
in the Goldman School of Public Policy
and the College of Engineering.
Dan is a specialist on energy systems
and climate policy with
an extensive network
of collaborative projects
around the globe.
He has been a coordinating lead author
for the IPCC since 1999.
And this is the group that shared the 2007
Nobel Peace Prize
and assigns an envoy for
the US State Department
appointed by President Obama.
Kamen also served as the
chief of renewable energy
at the World Bank.
Kate O'Neil is a professor
in the Department of
Environmental Science,
Policy and Management
also in Rausser college.
Kate is one of the world's
leading researchers
on the global waste system
and the author of waste
a widely acclaimed book
on the topic.
You may have heard recently
on Fresh Air with Terry Gross.
Kate is also an internationally recognized
expert on global environmental politics
and governance.
Valerie Vasquez is a PhD candidate
in the Energy and Resources Group.
Prior to coming to Berkeley,
she served in the Obama State Department
under both Secretary Clinton and Kerry,
Valerie advise national parties
and mediators of the United
States Paris conference
I'm sorry of the United
Nations Paris Conference,
contributing to the all
important Paris agreement
on climate change.
She recently joined a group of
leading women scientists
on an Antarctic Expedition highlighting
the threats of climate change
to this unique ecosystem
for doctoral research
addresses the intersection
of public health and
climate and the threats
of infectious diseases for
growing global population.
Our topic today is the intersection
of the COVID-19 pandemic,
the climate crisis
and the challenges to
global sustainability.
The global economy is
skidding into recession.
Reduced consumption and transportation
also may reduced CO2 emissions.
From India to China to the United States.
Skies are blue and the air
is cleaner in some cities
that it has been for years.
The pandemic has caused seismic shifts
and how we produce and consume goods.
But recycling programs have been set aside
and global supply chains
and waste disposal
streams up ended.
Government bailouts and investments
could double down on
the fossil fuel economy
and set back efforts to avoid
catastrophic climate change.
Or they could provide a
catalyst for transformational
investments in renewable energy
and equitable employment.
today's conversation explores
the balance of challenge
and opportunity arising at this moment.
Dan, I'd like to start with you.
CO2 emissions are down,
we're seeing these blue
skies around the world.
A global recession is not the way we want
to accomplish these goals.
And I think many people are inspired
to see what the world looks like
when we make these cutbacks
in greenhouse gas pollution,
but really wondering what
this means for the path ahead.
What opportunities does this create
as we seek sustainable
solutions to the climate crisis?
And how is the modeling work
that you're undertaking
in your research group
able to address this
intersection of Climate
and Energy Systems and the pandemic?
- And thanks, David,
I think that we often think of climate
as this incredibly slow moving system.
And in fact, some of the early
COVID climate comparisons
were what COVID hated quickly.
And climate is still a very long process.
And I think what we're
seeing is actually that
that's really not true,
because as you said,
the air is cleaner.
We're seeing 40 50% reduction
levels in NOx over cities.
And that's a mixture of
our stationary power plants
and vehicles.
And it really gives us a glimpse,
we were able to cut our
emissions but in a very bad way,
by a good chunk of what we need
to get to our climate goals
in a matter of weeks.
And so if we can restart the economy,
put people back to work,
but do so in a way that
we're taking advantage
of where renewable energy is today,
then there's a really
a positive opportunity.
And so a lot of the International dialogue
that I'm part of right now,
is really around different versions
of green stimulus packages.
We've proposed one for the United States,
South Korea has already adopted one
now we're seeing Germany
and France and Portugal
all speaking towards, they
want to take advantage
of this better air quality
wildlife back in our cities.
But as we restart the economy
uses as a moment where the stimulus money
that does get spent, doesn't push us back
towards the status quo or even worse,
where there's a rebound
and we do even more
fossil fuel systems.
And so we're looking at taking advantage
of record low prices for solar, wind,
geothermal energy storage,
and building that back into a package
that governments will want to do
because it puts back people
back to work much more quickly.
These renewable projects
are much more shovel ready
than fossil projects.
And they exist in every sector,
from industry to vehicles in particular,
to agriculture.
And so all of that is
really what the dialogue is,
is going on right now.
And so my lab has been doing,
is working closely with
partners and a few universities
in United States with Penn and with MIT,
with Oxford and with
(mumbles), in Switzerland,
to look at what elements
of that green package
can go most quickly into place.
Because of course, we're
now seeing unemployment
levels that are rivaling are now exceeding
the Great Depression.
- Dan thanks very much,
and I think we'll return
to some of those topics.
Kate, I want to turn
to you cause you know,
greenhouse gases are really
just a form of pollution
and waste which we put in the atmosphere.
But this COVID crisis is
impacting waste generation
and waste disposal and lots of other ways
in all around the world.
So you've been studying
waste streams for many years,
and tracking the emergence
of the zero waste campaigns
that are linked to our
efforts to get rid of plastics
in the oceans and these all
these interconnected issues
all tied to our efforts
to achieve sustainability.
How do you see COVID-19
impacting our approach
to waste and waste disposal
and how that may change
things going forward?
- Okay, well, first of all, David,
thank you for having me on
this conversation today.
With waste and recycling
right before the outbreak,
we were actually starting to feel like
we could make some real
difference in terms of
using sustained single use plastics,
getting rid of single use plastics,
and solving a lot of the issues
with global waste streams.
But unfortunately, the
story I have to tell us
not too positive,
although there are lots of
sort of connections and
potentially good opportunities.
I think for any of us who've
been in like the Berkeley
bowl parking lot or any supermarket
one of the first things
we might have noticed
is a lot more leather
gloves, plastic gloves,
masks and so on.
We've noticed that we can
no longer take tote bags
into the stores and in fact suddenly
plastic bags have made a reappearance
I think a lot faster than some of us
might have expected.
So there's some, the resurgence
of single use plastics,
both in terms of bags, gloves,
also packaging and stores
is partly justified in terms of hygiene,
but I think it's also being pushed
by the plastic industry as the solution.
So this is something as we
move forward after this,
we're gonna have to push
back on and really question.
Nationally, the waste sector
has really had to fight
actually had to fight to be included
as an essential service
under executive orders,
certainly federally,
and this was surprising again to them.
Waste workers, sanitary
workers around the country
are right on the front lines
of the fighting the virus,
and many have been infected.
Sanitary, sanitation work was already the
fifth most dangerous occupation in the US,
including the military.
So this is one more risk
and if you look globally,
you see global waste pickers
are literally being shut off as an idea
from being outside and doing their jobs
in other words, robbed
entirely of their livelihood.
So we have a lot of
different issues going on.
We have medical waste.
We have many others sort of
concerns that are related.
We have a lot of local
authorities pulling back
on their recycling.
And we have also seen the,
probably the closure for
quite a long time of goodwill,
Salvation Army, those sorts
of charities and people.
So, a lot to think about.
I think the main problem
coming up is gonna be
reinstating Zero Waste
policies once this is over
the fact that so much has
been rolled back so quickly,
lead someone like me to say,
are we looking at the depth
of zero waste right now?
And I think asking that
question is important,
because I think it'll only reinforce
support for moving back to
those policies once we can.
- Yeah, thanks, Kate.
I think what you're really emphasizing
is this is a moment when we are really
become aware of how interconnected
all these problems are.
So certainly, in the university,
we're all busy study,
you know, we've become specialists
in one topic or another
and suddenly we step back
and we see that they're all interlinked.
And Valerie On that note,
I wanna turn to you and you've
been studying this question
of how climate change and
public health are connected.
So what is the pandemic reveal for you
when you think about your research
and your context with all your colleagues
about the nature of global disease?
What does it mean to seek joint solutions
in the future for both
the public health crisis
and a stable climate and
a sustainable future?
- Thanks very much, David,
for having me here today.
I think as you noted in
as Kate and Dan has said,
the public, and health,
the public health and climate debates
are really inextricably linked
in the context of COVID-19.
I think that there are
actually three aspects
of that connection that we
should be thinking about.
First and foremost, what COVID-19 reveals
about the nature of disease is that
it's just that it's global.
In our highly connected world,
a disease that originated you know,
3000 or 6000 miles away
can be at our doorsteps
in a day or less.
So we wash our hands, we wear masks
and we shelter at home and we
take all of these precautions
not only to protect ourselves,
but to protect our neighbor, our child,
that person we never met
those three states away,
or a whole ocean away.
So from the perspective
of community minded,
decisive action,
where seemingly small individual choices
make a really big impact on other people.
The way that we mobilize against COVID-19
needs to be reflected in the way that
we mobilize against that
other big global affliction
called climate change.
So there are two are individual choices
like the car we buy, or the
food we eat, for example,
add up to international implications,
with really long lasting effects.
I think the second lesson
we can take from COVID-19
is that there are severe
public health effects,
both caused and exacerbated
by the same human actions
that drive climate change.
So the pandemic is demonstrating
that we as a human society
need to be thinking
not only about effective
climate strategies,
but kind of to Kate's point,
from a more holistic perspective
about effective environmental strategies,
and that includes biodiversity management
and includes land use practices
and food production that acknowledge
the interconnection between ecosystem,
animal and human health.
So this is an approach
sometimes referred to
under the banner of one health.
One manifestation of this
is recognizing that
anthropogenic climate change
with its warming temperatures,
and it's shifting precipitation
is doing a lot to alter
habitats and migration patterns
for many animals and insects
as well as the diseases
that they carry in complex ways.
And so these changes are
moving the geographic ranges
for a number of terrible illnesses
that are popping up in places
that we hadn't seen before.
As well as increasing the contact rate
that wildlife have with humans.
And that heightens the
risk of of new diseases,
like COVID-19.
And I think Finally,
a third lesson that follows from,
sort of follows from this observation
of the overlaps between
public health impacts
environmental concerns is
that COVID-19 really shows us
a specific example of
how we can find so called
cobin admits for climate change
by addressing specific
public health problems.
A study that was recently
came out of Harvard,
and it can be found on
the med archive website
while it goes through
scientific peer review,
assess the relationship between
exposure to find airborne
particle pollution
called Pm 2.5 and COVID-19 mortality.
So it found that long term exposure
to higher concentrations of Pm 2.5
significantly increased the death rate
for those infected with COVID-19.
It's a pretty stunning finding actually
that shows for every one microgram
I believe it was per cubic meter.
So it is an incredibly tiny
amount of this pollutant,
you can expect a 15% increase
in the COVID-19 death rate.
So, pm 2.5. air pollution,
which includes that carbon,
also known as CIT also
happens to be a major
accelerant of climate change.
So Dan sort of talked
about this on his intro,
but it can be 100 to
2000 times more potent
than carbon dioxide.
And it's emitted by burning fossil fuels
and things like cars and power plants.
And it doesn't stay in
the atmosphere very long,
just days to weeks.
So that that short lived aspect
is why these widespread
shelter in place orders
that have kept businesses shuttered,
have also led to the beautiful clear skies
that we've all observed.
But of course, you know, these clear skies
come at a terrible economic cost,
even as lives are saved
by the social distancing.
And the worst part is,
the segment of our society
that it seems are suffering the most,
from the COVID-19 crisis are also those
on the frontlines of climate impacts.
So these are people living in
highly polluted dense urban areas,
people with pre existing health conditions
and people living in poverty.
In the United States, the
people, in each of these groups
are overwhelmingly people of color.
So, what I'm coming to is in particular,
the results of the Harvard
study, demonstrate the
importance of continuing to enforce
air pollution regulations,
both during and after the COVID-19 crisis.
And just to quote from the study,
they entered, the researchers anticipate
that a failure to do
so can both potentially
increase the COVID-19 death toll
as well as hospitalizations
that can further
burden our healthcare system
and draw resources away
from COVID-19 patience.
As we begin to think about how
to reopen our states safely,
and how to re energize
our economy in the US,
it's critical to be aware of reversals,
or potential rollbacks of environmental
and climate oriented regulations
that have either happened or
planned at the federal level.
Because air quality is one example
of where COVID-19 really enables us to hit
two birds with one stone by addressing
both public health dangers
and protect our climate.
- Oh, thanks, Valerie.
So there's quite a few things.
I think I may come back
to a couple of those
a little later and come
back to you especially
around like the biodiversity issues
which of course I'm interested
in some of the health issues.
And I think one thing you're highlighting
is that all along for anyone
looking for climate solutions,
it's really important that
when we look for solutions
to the climate crisis,
we're also finding short term benefits.
And of course, these air quality issues
are places where the short term benefits
and the long term
benefits can really align.
Those investments are so important
as well as not allow this moment
to be the moment when things roll back,
just like you said.
I do want to pick up actually,
from the very beginning of your answer,
you highlighted some points
about international interactions.
And this is a question that I'm gonna
ask each of you to weigh in
from your own perspective.
So we're seeing a real
push and pull right now.
Because we have forces of isolationism
forces, sort of national protection
that wanna seal the borders,
isolate us from the world,
keep the disease from
moving around, potentially,
and maybe in some small communities,
they'll, sort of be able
to protect themselves.
But then on the other hand,
we're just reminded this
is the most global event
we could imagine the most interconnected
event and global cooperation essentially
is a key past the solutions
when we're looking at a global problem.
So we do have this real
tension with climate.
Of course, this has been
incredibly important
the climate negotiations have been,
some of the most dynamic
interactions between
governments at a global scale,
but also some of the most challenging
and frustrating dialogues
in terms of coping
that we get to where we can
build stable climate change.
So what are we learning
from this pandemic,
about these tensions
between the drive towards isolation
and local solutions versus
that push for global cooperation?
And how might that, the
lessons we're learning now
shape climate policy and years to come?
And, Dan, if I can turn to you first,
what are your thoughts on
these international dynamics?
- Well, I think you're
seeing a couple of features
that are critical, and
certainly no one country
can manage COVID if it's
part of the global community,
and so the successes that we're now seeing
in New Zealand and in South Korea
and in California to an
extent, are really ones
that only work if we don't
then get a reintroduction
or reinfection rates.
And this points to what has been
the hallmark of the climate politics,
and that is that it is a global
comment or a global tragedy,
depending how you approach it.
And so the degree to which we recognize
that the solutions we're investing
in are going to affect us
only if we all jump in.
When California when we began
our climate process here,
we were several percent
of the world's emissions
now we're under 1%.
And so one of the arguments
was why keep pushing forward,
but it's clear that if you don't get
a good kind of infection, the anti COVID,
if you will, and we get positive synergies
with both our local and
our foreign neighbors.
You don't get anywhere.
So California has a very
strong climate partnership
with China.
We have some significant
deals around clean vehicles.
These are things that
all of our governors,
really Governor Brown did
a huge amount to launch.
These are all aspects
of learning from COVID,
that we're gonna have to take
much more seriously more
rapidly under climate.
Because right now, we had
a wonderful breakthrough
intellectually in Paris,
I would argue, hastened very strongly
by what President Obama and
President Xi did from China,
in terms of coming up with a deal
that really advanced the conversation.
But we don't get there if we don't advance
and right now, only one country
is actually on pace to
meet their climate goals.
And that's actually country
most people don't recognize
it's actually Morocco.
Gambia is sort of there.
But really, Morocco is the only one
that decided to pivot its economy.
And its lessons like that.
What do you do locally
that will produce jobs
that will produce clean energy
that will give you these
benefits of clean air and water.
But then how do you do it in a way
that builds partnerships
and so when I was at State
Department in science,
as the science envoy,
my job was specifically
to work with governments
that wanted to move ahead.
And so Morocco was very clear.
I worked with a number
of East African countries
and South Africa.
And it really was that
coalition of the willing.
And that's really one of the
interesting lessons COVID.
Because if we do well in California,
but a neighboring state doesn't do well,
this is literally like
having a smoking section
on an airplane, we don't succeed.
And so getting our
climate strategy to work,
there's a lot of lessons
from the COVID process.
And of course, we're seeing
these protests going on
at different state
headquarters and state offices.
And those are really scary
because they ignore the science
they also ignore the degree
to which we're in it together,
and they also highlight the real,
I think tragedy, COVID itself
is the kind of risk we
expected and the IPCC.
But we're making it a tragedy
by not taking it seriously
in terms of public health.
And as Valerie said, this is absolutely
an issue where the racial
and the economic injustice
are vast.
We're seeing far levels,
far lower levels of testing,
far harder to self isolate,
inability to go to work
if you're low income,
often if you're an immigrant minority.
So those issues have
been the sticking points
of climate for years.
And now we're seeing them played out
in this accelerated way around COVID.
So I think just to pass it on
the one real clear lesson is that
our climate policy is only as strong
as it's an international partnership.
And it's only as useful as
it uplifts the most
exposed, most vulnerable
citizen anywhere.
And that lesson has not been one,
that heads of state have been willing
to act on in the past
and so Perhaps if we get any,
I don't want to call it a silver lining.
But if there's a learning
lesson here in COVID,
it's really that issue about
the most exposed people
in relief camps are the most vulnerable.
And even when you come to the University,
we're already seeing early data,
that productivity of women academics,
is being hurt more than men.
Because in whatever dynamic
goes on in many homes,
there's been a shifting of a little more
of that household burden.
So we're even seeing it
like the micro environment
of universities where
these inequalities ramp up.
- Thanks, Dan.
It's very true.
And I think I think, really,
what you're highlighting
there is that any crisis brings
to light the underlying equity issues
and whether it's from a local scale
to an international scale,
they get, they sort of
come into the light of day
and are just much more clearly exposed.
And we have very much the
same concerns around the way
that our changing climate impacts
the vulnerable population
and now it's highlighted in
sort of speed and really
brought it forward
so quickly as we look at
the impacts of disease.
Now I do, I wanna go back to you,
cause you started out,
I'm going to stick with
the international theme.
So you started out working for NGOs,
you worked with the US government,
you worked with the United Nations,
and you had a front row seat
in the Paris agreements,
watching those negotiations,
then you came back to school,
we're thrilled that you're Berkeley,
getting your PhD and
looking ahead to the future.
So what do you see as the
role for young scientists
contributing to these
next steps contributing
to policy and research and
then from your perspective,
how is this crisis impacting the way
you look at your own future career
and maybe some of your colleagues
and other students and
other students impact?
- Yeah, thanks, David.
I think what I really
took away from my time
working in the climate,
environmental policy space
is the critical importance
of decision making
that's grounded in science.
So from the incredible
vantage point that I had,
both nationally and internationally,
I saw how leadership had
to be informed by facts
in order to be effective.
But I also saw how complicated it can be
to both understand as well
as communicate those facts.
So climate change impacts are complex.
So when we're talking
about how to prevent them
in the future, how to address the impacts
that are already manifest,
it's not always an easy
task to explain them.
So climate changes is this
chronic slow moving problem,
as we mentioned earlier,
and we as a species
aren't naturally set up
to think about long term problem solving
so much as we are about immediate,
you know, fight or flight type dangers.
So what I wanted and why I
returned to graduate school
is really to be able to
inform the policymaking
that I was involved with
from a scientifically guided
risk management perspective.
So what this current awful situation
that we're currently in
is reaffirming for me
is that the intersection
of science and leadership
is precisely where I want to be.
COVID-19 is in a much more acute
and immediately visible way
than climate change, laying bare
many of the necessary areas
for targeted improvement
in our policymaking both
at the national level
and the international level.
So good science is gonna have to guide us
in how to make those improvements.
And as I tried to outline
in my earlier answer,
in many respects, the problems
that are being exposed
by COVID-19, with pollution
with our food chain,
with many of the things
are also extremely relevant
to the climate crisis.
So I feel very lucky
to be here at Berkeley,
studying the complexity of these topics,
and hopefully improving
my explanation of them
as well as my ability to
contribute to their solution
for me, as well as for others
in a formative stage of building
our careers as scientists.
I think that this is a really
remarkable period in history.
Because daily, we're
witnessing the importance
of evidence informed decision making
and the value of
scientists and policymakers
working together to
understand the world around us
and establish a way forward
on this terrible disease.
We get to watch scientists themselves
step up as role models of cross sectoral
or international cooperation,
as they share data, and as the advocate
for transparency and methodologically.
So in many ways, we're seeing
some of the hardest parts
of conducting good science,
you know, the time it takes
and the difficulty inherent to explaining
uncertainty in results,
just in front of our eyes
on the news on a daily basis.
So for young scientists
interested in contributing
to policy and leadership,
at really any level, local or,
or national or international,
it just puts into
perspective that our work
is about more than being in a lab
or behind a computer screen.
It's about communication
and being in shape,
like ensuring that your contributions
really reach the people who need the most.
- Well and in that light,
we're all I'm very pleased that all of you
are on this call.
I'm pleased to be here too,
because this is absolutely the case.
This is, what we wanna be
doing in the universities
is getting our expertise and our knowledge
and all the thinking
that happen internally
and share it with the world
and that's how it can make a difference.
And, Kate, on that note, this
is not a new topic for you.
You've been studying global politics
and the intersection with
environmental concerns
for many years you've written about it,
you teach about it.
So what are you learning that maybe is new
that even with that experience
you hadn't anticipated?
And do you see, what do you see here
that could become maybe semi permanent
or permanent changes
and how we do business,
especially at an international level
as we go into the future?
- yeah, I'm gonna put my
international relations
slash global politics
hat on right now.
And you know, we're in
a very serious moment.
I think we've been seeing
over the last couple of years
climate change has kind of a speeding wave
coming towards us and
realizing how much we needed
to adapt the institutions
that we have globally
to react well, to this oncoming crisis.
That's always been a huge issue.
You know, you look at climate politics,
you have Kyoto agreement in 1997.
Paris Agreement next big step up to 2015.
We're five years later
and only one country
is conforming with
that, this is a problem.
So if you think of climate
change as a speeding up wave,
you can almost think of
COVID as like a tsunami,
like we're seeing that,
we saw the waters, the waters flowing out
and the tsunami is coming
back and hitting us.
And I think that there are
some really major lessons
in terms of looking at how
the international community
has responded, the role of
the World Health Organization
and how it can connect with
environmental institutions.
And these, to recognize that these issues
are increasingly issues of social justice
and distributive justice,
and their issues where
we really need to, where we realize
that we can't actually use the past
as a model for the future.
We've really got to develop
new paradigms and quickly,
and if I can say just at
the level of world order,
I think we're at a very
serious crisis point.
It's no mistake that the
architects of the New World Order
after world war two said,
Okay, we're gonna reject protectionism,
we're going to build
an international order
based on economic
prosperity, globalization,
strong domestic infrastructures,
welfare states distributed policies.
If we deglobalize in this situation,
we build protective walls.
We stop communicating, the
international community
is gonna be in in big trouble.
The only country I see during that
is the United States right now.
And we have been on this pulling out phase
for quite a while and I
think we're gonna have
to deal with either
getting back on that track
or letting the international community
stepping aside as we were
told on climate negotiation
and letting the international
community do this on its own
and pull back.
I really hope we don't
get into that situation.
But we have to recognize
that's a possibility
in the interest of world peace.
- Yes, thanks.
So actually, you're
bringing our attention back
to what's happening here in the US.
And let me follow up on that.
And actually, I'm gonna
pose a question to Dan.
So, Dan, you've been active
in all the discussions
around the green new deal
and the way that the US government
could really be pivoting
to address the kind of climate solutions
that a lot of us leave or needed
for the kind of future
we'd like to envision.
And that is really taking a new turn now.
And you've been involved
with a lot of people
talking about a green stimulus.
So what would it look like,
given the opportunities
that we have right now with investments
either by the US government
or other governments
around the world,
what would it look like to
turn those stimulus industries
and address the opportunities
towards both economic
recovery and public health
and the social justice
and the energy transition
for climate solutions?
- Well, I think that really highlights
what Valerie said that's a mouthful.
It's a often a complex mixture of things
you're trying to optimize.
But I do think that what the COVID crisis
has put in people's eyes is that
there are some fundamental things
we have never seen employment,
unemployment levels
spike this high and this fast.
This is truly a hockey
stick of employment,
like the hockey stick of climate
and the solutions which can
absolutely get caught up
in the politics of state, local, federal.
And certainly in California,
we have a pretty serious disagreement
with the federal government right now.
There are some some interesting truths.
And so the group of us that came together
to draft the green stimulus,
were really people who had worked on
a variety of Senate and
presidential campaigns
and pulled together the
things that seemed to resonate
again and again, red state,
blue state, north south,
and they were over and over again,
the opportunity to get people back
to work particularly quickly.
The number of shovel ready projects
from doing weatherization of low income,
urban tenements to doing weatherization
on Native American lands,
to take advantage of some
of the new partnerships
that data science can give you,
We can now get much more accurate data
on what is the solar
resource available here
that we might wanna use locally
or send it to 500 miles away.
And that Energy Information
Technology linkage
is one that's very
appealing in a lot of ways
on Capitol Hill, because
it plays into understanding
what benefits you get out
of a smarter ag policy.
And so this green stimulus team,
which is just a delightful group,
I mean, they're they're
largely group in their 30s.
There's about 16 of us.
And many of them have been engaged
in efforts where we have real data.
And so one of the pieces of data
that is initially a little bit surprising
is that we now know very clearly
and both liberal and
conservative economists agree
that the stimulus that we
did under President Obama
in response to the economic
crisis was too small,
flat out, there's really
no argument about it.
And it was because there was a real worry
about hitting the T word.
That's the trillion word.
We don't care about the trillion word now,
apparently, the COVID stimulus
was a $2 trillion effort.
And so it was proposed here is
about the same 1.7 trillion,
but specifically not a one time giveaway.
And so a really key element
that came out of work done by
the Council of Economic Advisers,
is that you want to do it
and then renew it until
unemployment gets under
a benchmark levels, such as 3/1/2%.
And so the call here and
many of the most interesting
competitions we've had with Democratic
and Republican members
of the House of Senate
is how do we instill this in a way
so that our investment in rooftop solar
for low income communities
and heat pumps and fuel cells
for industry to get them
back to work right away?
Because we could deploy immediately,
those are opportunities
that we want to know
that this won't be a
shut off in six months
if we get a little improvement.
And people stop caring about COVID
and move on to some other crisis.
And the last bit, of course,
is the adaptation story.
These crises don't happen alone,
we are moving towards the
California fire season.
And we are seeing these kinds
of effects around the world.
And so one of the key
aspects of the green stimulus
was to recognize that what COVID does,
at best is weaken us against other crises
to come be they fires,
droughts, unemployment,
whatever comes next.
And so one of the key aspects of this idea
of the green stimulus
is to rebuild strength
into the economy so
that we can really deal
with what's coming next.
And we don't know how long
we'll be out of work as at a go
- Yeah, well, that gives obviously
gives us a lot, we thank you a lot
we hope people think about Washington.
And Kate, I wanna come back
to your interest in waste,
actually, and what Dan was
saying at the stimulus.
So if you tie together,
you know, your international perspective
that may be coming more to
the domestic perspective.
And then that personal perspective,
like you said, you go
to the grocery store,
and everything's changed
from all these habits
that people are developing.
Do you see real opportunities
to connect maybe,
especially through this perspective
of government stimulus investments
to connect investments to sustainability,
the investments in waste reduction
and the zero waste
campaigns in this moment
around public health?
where's where's our opportunity right now,
in the face of all these pressures,
like you said, just to
stop using reusables
and just go to more disposable goods?
- Yeah, that's that's a good question.
I think that we are sort of working out
that all of these these aspects
belong together in the same bill.
I mean, we've already
we'd already seen before
this broke out.
A lot of efforts, at
first for the first time
at the federal level to
build circular economy
and zero waste policies
into whatever green packages
were being put forward.
So we think that as more
and more recognition
that waste and plastics,
plastics in particular
across the lifecycle,
incredible contribution,
incredibly bad contribution
to greenhouse gas emissions,
so that in and of itself,
and I think more plastics
than simply just waste
has really connected
my whole field with
that of climate change.
And there was really more
recognition nationally
and locally that we really
couldn't talk about,
the two things independently.
So I think there's a very broad coalition.
You know, I talked to
people in the waste industry
and those associations
who totally get that
and that's what they're trying
to push for in the alliances.
They're trying to build quite effectively.
If I might put out another
connection that I think raises
some issues about
adaptation and rebuilding,
which is both I work on disaster waste,
as well as the other kinds of waste.
So a lot of that has been
about climate disaster waste,
after hurricanes after fires.
And now you're seeing well, medical waste
is definitely part of that continuum.
And that issue area has always fallen
between the cracks of immediate response
and longer term rebuilding.
But as we've seen with
them, climate disasters,
it takes forever to recover from those.
The waste that's generated,
and I think it also poses
a lot of dangers to others.
And the final point I would just make is
that the environmental justice issues
are so clear that the same communities
that are affected by climate change
by disproportionately by COVID-19
are also the ones who are exposed most
to plastics to hazardous waste facilities.
We incinerate a lot of countries
incinerate medical waste.
So all of these have to be
dealt with in a package.
You're thinking about
comprehensive environmental
justice issues.
- Yeah. thank you.
Because you are an environment
and I want to pick up a little bit,
again, bring us back
to the disease aspects.
And Valerie question for you.
And for those of you
watching on Facebook Live,
several questions, a number of questions
are being submitted, we'll
be turned into those briefly.
And we'd love to get
more we almost certainly
won't get to all of them.
But please do put your questions in there.
And we've got a crack team looking at them
and feeding them up to us so
that we can address them to you
in the time we have remaining here.
And so Valerie, in your work,
when you look at disease,
a lot of diseases around
the world really intersect
with issues of quality of life,
especially for rural populations.
So the medical issues to
the environmental issues
are quite intertwined.
So whether that's malaria
or tropical diseases,
and now we have it in a
new context for COVID.
So where do you what do you
see as the opportunities here
to invest in long term
whether it's maybe it's may be
Us stimulus, maybe it's international
or maybe it's other countries
to invest right now in
addressing public health
and at the same time address
in some of the biodiversity sorry,
invest in some of the biodiversity issues,
the sustainable land use issues,
the food production issues,
where does this open
opportunity for us and make it
maybe more urgent than it was
for the world's population?
A lot of us have been
aware of these things,
thinking about them a lot,
but people have, their
attention gets diverted
and pulled lots of directions.
Now hold has ever our attention focused
on this one moment and
maybe an opportunity
to think more collectively
about how these issues
are connected.
Where do you see the
opportunities opening up?
- Yeah, absolutely.
I think one of the most difficult truths
that we have to acknowledge about COVID-19
is that it came about as a
result of human activity,
full stop, but a second difficult truth
is that it wasn't generated
by any single action of ours
rather it's the confluence of many actions
on many fronts over many years,
by countries around the world.
So it was the result of
several cumulative decisions.
Like because this was the result
of several cumulative decisions,
I think mending our
ways, as a human society
and figuring out where to invest
is going to be a lot harder than improving
in just one or two areas.
There's a simple question of proximity.
So as we clear, more wild
spaces to build homes
and to build towns, we're
disrupting a delicate balance
of ecosystems.
Big predators tend to die off first,
and we're left with
fewer and smaller members
of the animal kingdom
that reproduce quickly
and are more capable of carrying disease
into our communities without themselves
being affected by it.
So this is things like rats and deer.
And the biodiversity that's so reduced
by us humans expanding into the areas,
the expanding the areas
where we live and work
brings us into more frequent contact
With these animals and raises the danger
of transmitting zoonotic diseases,
so diseases that jump
from animals to humans.
And you know, we are, after all
just one of millions of
species on this earth.
But according to some estimates,
the physical space that we've preserved
for all those other species,
about 90% of that protected conserved land
doesn't actually include the full range
of environmental
conditions that's necessary
to emulate existing habitats.
And it's not just issues
like deforestation
or insufficient
conservation that increased
the threat of disease,
the way we manage our food sources,
both wild animals and domesticated ones
can really heighten the
possibility of spillover.
So that goes for the same
kind of large scale feed mill
and breeding facilities
that we have here in the US,
in addition to the wet
markets full of wild animals
that we've been hearing
so much about these days.
So there's a lot there's
been a lot of talk
on the news especially
about the difference
between the disease and the cure.
And whether the disease COVID-19,
or the way that we're going
about protecting ourselves
from it might carry
more significant impacts
and negative impacts for our society.
But I hope that the
takeaway from all of this
is that the most cost effective measure
is actually prevention.
So this is not the first time
that a virus has brought
the world to its knees,
and absent real change,
it's hardly going to be the last.
So to incentivize the necessary overhaul,
we have to invest in it as you point out.
I think that, you know, one of
the things we might consider
is whether the current allocation
of our significant national
security budget in this country
really reflects the reality of the dangers
that we're facing today,
and the dangers that we can expect
to be facing in the future.
So you know, what I'm getting at is that
emerging diseases and their causes,
so the degraded ecosystems,
the Bible Diversity, mismanagement,
climate change are huge.
And they're costly threats
in this modern world of ours.
I read somewhere there's approximately
1.6 million animal viruses in nature.
And while we think only a small percentage
of those could probably infect humans,
it's important we can, we do all we can
to find out which ones those are
and investigate their potential
transmission pathways.
But that reality sort of demands
rethinking our traditional approach
to ideas of protection and prevention.
And it requires investing
not just in surveillance,
so like monitoring the potential
presence of new diseases,
but also investing in the science
of understanding them better,
and retooling our society
and infrastructure
to be more resilient, as both
Dan and Kate have mentioned,
when we encounter them.
So I talked earlier about
the importance of scientists
and government decision
makers working together.
I think in addition to you know,
things like species conservation
and improvements in animal husbandry
and land management practices,
one small concrete action
might be to incorporate more scientists
in our policy making and invest in that
to improve our ability
to forecast the ways
that damages to our ecosystems
might translate into human suffering.
- Well, that okay, that
gives us some big challenges.
But I really appreciate
your main point there
that there is, probably
any problem we face
if we can prevent it, we're
better off than we are,
of course, trying to scramble
and recover afterwards.
So I do want to turn and
start posing some questions
to you all that are coming
from our our live audience,
and actually take one right to,
actually I'm going to
start with you, Kate.
And just take it, a lot
of people wanna know,
what can they do.
So here we are, especially
when we think about climate
and sustainability issues.
A lot of people in our
extended Berkeley community
and around the world Of course,
have dedicated their own personal action,
whether it's everything from
the proverbial change a light bulb,
to the adoption of electric cars
and everything about the
way we operate in the world,
the way we travel.
And now we're all sheltering in place.
And in this weird new world,
where the are the most
effective thing we can do
on behalf of our collective
society is to stay put
and it's a strange kind
of personal action.
But when we try to find the intersection
of the COVID crisis
with the climate crisis,
and what, can you give
any advice at this moment
for what people can do
in their personal lives,
that can make a difference on both fronts,
both the health front
and the continuing effort
that everyone wants to make a difference
in terms of sustainability?
- Yeah, I think this is a
particularly challenging time
to think beyond the immediate
priorities of stay home,
save lives, but in the recycling area,
the advice is keep recycling.
Put your gloves In the trash you know,
various advice like that
which is pretty important,
stop, if you're cleaning out your house
stop trying to get rid
of your your large stuff,
put it someplace else
cause there's nowhere
for it to go right now.
Yeah, so I think that
people need to be thinking
also about longer term how they going
to address these challenges.
And I tend to put my
groceries directly back
into the cart and back into the tote bags
that are in my car
So a little bit
(David laughs)
of advice there.
So really talking mostly
about that waste side.
I think as far as climate and energy
there we're learning a
lot about what it means
to work at home.
And a lot of that has to do with actually
has led to reducing energy consumption
in the business sector.
And that I think, is something
we can learn usefully from,
maybe a lot of us won't fly
as much as we did anymore.
So there's a lot of thinking through
to be down about that, but I think also
to realize that we can't omit the values
of human connections in this crisis.
And we're seeing safe from the results
of the campus climate survey
that came out yesterday
that people are finding
this mode of connection
very stressful, and looking
for ways to kind of minimize
the stress until we move back
into a more live version of our world.
- Yeah, absolutely.
And, Valerie, I wanna ask you
if to reflect on this as a student.
So amongst all your
colleagues and your peers,
do you see people
rethinking their own sense
of their personal action?
And actually don't want
to leave that comment
that Kate just made if there's anything
you wanna share about
the way that students
are feeling the stresses
and addressing the stresses?
And I don't know if you're
taking any classes right now
and trying to shift into
taking taking classes online.
But it's been quite an
extraordinary moment
for everyone to embrace
these changes so quickly.
- Yeah, definitely.
Really, I think that has
been great to be part
of the Berkeley community in this time,
where people have really
been making an effort,
whether it's at the lab level,
or the departmental level,
in being empathetic towards each other,
and really understanding that, you know,
we're dealing with a lot
of things on the homefront,
in addition to this current crisis,
you know, being understanding about
how collaborations might
evolve during this new period.
So I think it's been
difficult but encouraging
to see how Berkeley has been handling it.
And, you know, insofar
as my fellow classmates,
I think one thing that a
lot of us are thinking about
is like, I'm lucky to have
funding over the summer,
for example, but there are a lot of people
whose internships have fallen through
and who are sort of
scrambling to find plans
for the fall for the funding is Well,
so that's something I
think that we all need
to be sensitive to.
And we're all hyper aware of
these days at the graduate student level.
- Yes, and thank you for bringing that up.
And there's no question
this has drawn the attention
of the university from the
top of the administration
to every student thinking
about the impacts
and how what we can do to just
keep people moving forward
in their career development right now,
and then think ahead to the long term.
A moment ago, Kate, you
mentioned, air travel.
And actually, I'm turning
the question to Dan here,
cause I know you've thought
a lot about these problems.
So one question that
came from the audience's
I wanna get on a plane
again, I wanna travel.
So you're not alone.
A lot of us are feeling a
little unexpected change,
especially for those
whose professional lives
have been traveling a lot.
So do you see any opportunities?
This may not be a COVID question.
This is just a great energy question.
What are the opportunities
in the airline industry
to make air travel more
sustainable in terms of
the climate impact that's separate from
the public health impact of course,
people moving around
transporting diseases,
as they move around the world.
But the airline industry has been
one of the more difficult ones to crack
any new insights on what's on the horizon.
- It has been.
So actually one of the things that we do
is we use the University
of California as a testbed.
So there's been a series
of annual challenges
called the cool campus challenges
where the different universities compete.
And they actually use a
carbon footprint calculator
that we built in my laboratory
called coolclimate.berkeley.edu.
Although we rebrand when
we do the UC wide one,
so it's just the cool campus challenge.
But it highlights that for many of us
who have gone for greener electricity
and follow a lot of Kate's advising
in terms of how you shop
and looking at things
at the food miles involved in
what you eat and the waste.
We often buy things from Amazon.
It's a small little
dongle for our computer,
and it comes in a massive package.
And so thinking about
all those waste streams,
even if you do a good job
on all of these things,
and generally your electricity,
and then your food and your vehicle,
we find that for many
of us, myself included,
it's air travel.
That's the massive elephant in the room.
And so one of the things you can do
is that there are airlines now
that are pushing quite hard.
And so the first phase
of getting air travel
more efficient was actually to ground.
Can you get away from running planes,
running the jet engines?
Can you plug them into electrically
while they're sitting at the gates,
and now we're seeing a series of airlines,
including KLM that are
moving quite aggressively
to try out the short and medium
range electric airplanes,
taking advantage of the
innovation space on batteries.
And so one of the areas certainly
is you can feel better
about your footprint
by offsetting it, by buying carbon offset,
something which I noticed it's hard to do
at a university because
they consider ironically
offsetting your miles
is considered a luxury,
I guess it's like business class
for the environment or something.
But it's not easy to do
for students and faculty,
but definitely picking airlines
that are being leaders in this space.
And certainly just like in one lesson
that we're seeing now is you
don't just go to the market,
you don't just go to the
drugstore, you trip chain.
And so one thing for international travel
or domestic travel on by
airline is trip chain.
And that is trying to combine conferences,
do not do an out in the back for two days
to London or to Beijing, but
combine it with other trips
that you actively need to do,
and really use that less
than that's come up.
And then many people in
academia and outside,
I found they actually
there are some elements
of the zoom meeting world,
the Google Hangouts that are beneficial.
There are some that are tiring.
I mean, we're all discovering that,
there are some real downsides,
but doing the trips you need to do
and really thinking about
your overall carbon footprint
is I think the biggest lesson
while we support the airlines
that are becoming leaders,
lower carbon, air carbon..
- Yeah, now, thank you and I and you know,
you mentioned these some
silver linings from zoom.
And don't, we can't, we
don't wanna overdo it
cause it is somewhat exhausting.
But we're seeing people
show up in seminars.
And of course, here we
are doing this right here
and reaching an audience
that might not have had
the time to tune in,
of course, there's more
time sheltered in place,
but it allows us to reach out
to our Berkeley community,
which we're thrilled to do.
And I want to stay with you for a moment
and just ask another question
that came from the audience.
The green stimulus, you know,
we were mostly hearing about
stimulus from Washington
and of course, the states
are turning to Washington
and saying we need help also,
just with the impacts on state
budgets are extraordinary.
But if Washington is moving slowly,
which may be the case right now,
do you see are there ways that the states
can be the source of a stimulus?
Now of course, this is a dilemma
cause they're suffering
from the revenue shortfalls,
but what are the opportunities for states
is to be the source of investment
in a green stimulus kind of effort,
rather than Washington
if it's not forthcoming
from the federal government.
- Yeah, well, I think
there's good news here.
And there's some real partisan news.
So California Governor Newsom last week
announced the state stimulus package.
In fact, Tom styer is the chair
of the state's effort to get people back
to work by investing in these areas,
and both Governors Brown and
Schwarzenegger are on it,
including some really impressive
environmental justice leaders and others.
So I think that at the state level,
but in a state that has some resources,
we are seeing an effort here,
but we're also seeing the challenges
were the debate over which states
are net payers into the federal coffers
and California is one of those,
as is New York, and those
that are net beneficiaries
and this became a New
York versus Kentucky deal
for some obvious reasons from last round,
but I do think that ultimately the states
will play a critical role for too reasons.
One is that most of the money
that we pushed out from the federal level
will actually go to businesses
and to states directly
that they be redistributed.
And so having a plan that's
integrated, is really important.
And so California and now New York State,
New Mexico and Washington
State all have in place 100%
clean energy zero carbon goals by 2045.
And 2045 is pretty close
in terms of carbon terms.
So we're seeing in those states
is a really useful dialogue around
is this the COVID brake that
allows us to think differently,
and not reinstall more natural gas
or not sign additional deal
for fossil and instead take advantage
of these benefits that will come directly
and that's one of the features
that we've heard again,
Governor Newsom certainly we've heard it
from Governor Cuomo, which
just introduced for New York
a very pro, environmental
social justice element
of their story.
And so I think in terms
of someone listening,
it's really getting behind the local
to national candidates for office
that reflect that mixture of getting
Americans back to work,
and doing so in a way
that's equitable and green.
And that really will be the
battlefront for exactly.
- Kate, there's a related
question I wanna pose to you.
And it's really about the
state, federal state local.
And now going back to
your interest in waste,
on the zero waste campaigns,
where do you, where are the
greatest threats right now
in terms of the pressures on governments
to pull back whether
it's for economic reasons
or health reasons?
And what level of government poses
the most important opportunities
to keep our work moving forward
in terms of waste reduction
and managing waste streams?
- Okay, yeah.
So traditionally, waste in this country,
unlike other parts of the
world has been very local.
So that's kind of where we're targeted,
a lot of activity around zero waste
at city ordinances and so on.
The State of California, though,
has recently been shifting towards
creating state level
circular economy policies
that I think have probably,
given California's relative weight
both in the US and in the world.
I think it's a very effective place
to target these opportunities.
But I think too, we're realizing
there's a couple of things
that have come into play
about thinking about the waste
and that is moving back
back into the product stream
that things like packaging,
things like electronic
devices that are Plugged,
you know, suffer from
planned obsolescence,
the role of the petrochemicals
and plastics industry
in shifting how we think, you know,
pushing for moving away potentially from
using getting rid of single use plastics.
I mean, again, let me point to the speed
at which all of these
plastic bags appeared,
branded plastic bags
appeared in our stores
is kind of scary.
So I think, I think targeting
at the big city level
at the state level.
And if we get the right government
administration next time
at the federal level is gonna
be probably the most important way to go.
- Yeah, well, thank you.
We are near the end.
And I want to pose one additional question
to each of the panelists.
In just a couple moments for each of you.
And Valerie, I'm gonna start with you.
Is there anything you have seen?
Or let me ask that differently?
What have you seen in the past
month that gives you hope?
So where might you be
seen the silver lining
in this very difficult
moment for the issues
and concerns that you really care about?
- Yeah, I think I mentioned
briefly earlier, empathy.
And I think on a very personal level,
I'd say the thing that gives me hope
is the incredible empathy
that I've seen demonstrated,
not just by medical professionals,
who are doing things
like bringing telephones
to isolate Word so that family
members can be in contact,
but also by colleagues reaching out
to check on each other
by people volunteering
to go and grocery runs for their elderly
or vulnerable neighbors.
So just small daily acts
of kindness and generosity,
that are the sort of thing that are gonna
help us through this.
And I think they really exemplify
the kind of pay it forward.
Everything you do counts,
attitude that's really
required for bottom up change,
whether we're talking about
the pandemic or global warming.
- Thank you.
And that is a message that
transcends all topics.
It's not just climate
and it's not just health.
Kate, what do you,
what's the bright moment that
you've seen in the last month?
- I'm gonna echo Valerie,
first of all, and then
my husband this weekend
was listening to a podcast
about Apollo 13 a long one
and telling me all the details
and made me think about that intersection
between human ingenuity and technology
that we have Lost lately.
And we are seeing again,
with the tremendous move
to build ventilators to provide
the protective equipment
and new forms of ways of combating cope,
can be applied to climate
change into other issues.
So, I would say just now
that we can think about
technology as a tool, a human tool,
and as something we can use
for greater global good,
that is, moves our students
beyond thinking about
how can I get rich making the next app
and instead towards, how can
I better the global system
and also maybe towards a wider commitment
to public policy and
and social engagement.
- Thank you, Kate.
And, Dan, last word.
- I think a lot of us
came back from the last
Climate Conference in Madrid
really depressed because
the exciting youth movement
that went in was squashed
by the fossil fuel economy
and the leaders that you caved into that.
And if nothing else
we've seen during COVID,
that it is possible to change
that stay pretty quickly.
And that climate change is not gonna be
some slow dinosaur compared
to the rapid COVID.
We're gonna see supply chains interrupted,
we're going see all kinds of things
very quickly happening to us.
And if this does anything,
I think it's really reopened the eyes,
particularly of young people,
that the case they were
making going into Madrid,
is when we need more than now than ever,
and they are given some extra ammunition.
So we just have to support them
and not get them shut down this
year as they were last year.
- Thank you, Dan.
Thank you, Kate.
Thank you, Valerie.
And thank you all for taking the time
to share your insights with our audience.
Thank all of you for joining
us for today's episode
in Berkeley conversations.
I hope this gives you some new things
to think about and ponder as
we look at this intersection
of health and climate and sustainability
and look ahead to our future.
Speaking of the future,
you can find information
on future episodes
of Berkeley conversations
on our campus websites.
We hope you're all staying healthy.
We extend our best wishes to anyone
whose family or friends or loved ones
are suffering any health
impacts or economic impacts.
We're pleased we can bring
a little bit of Berkeley
to you during this extraordinary time.
And we look forward to
seeing you back on campus
in the future.
On behalf of all of us from UC Berkeley
and the Rausser College
of Natural Resources.
Thank you, and have a great day.
- [Dan] Thank you David.
