 Hello and welcome to In the Studio. My name is Bryce Parker and I will be your host for this episode. On this program we will be discussing the growing issue of climate change and how the young people and concerned citizens of Davis are taking action in our community to create a grassroots movement to combat the effects of climate change. On September 20, 2019, students around the world took to the streets to demand action on climate change. Here in Davis, over a thousand marched to City Hall and Central Park. In addition to the protests, students delivered letters to local elected officials and school officials demanding action on the issue. Today I'm joined in the studio with Megan Phelps, the chair of the Climate Reality Project at UC Davis. Thank you for being on the show. Thank you for having me. So, Megan, first I'd like to talk about just the general issue of climate change. Why now are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of students just saying enough is enough we need to get changed now? Well, a lot of people are asking that question with the rising awareness about the issue without really understanding the science behind it. And last fall, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report saying that median estimates project that we will reach a tipping point in 2030 at which point we will have no, we will reach a tipping point and be unable to reverse the effects of climate change and see a Hot House Earth scenario. And also, more recently, last week, 11,000 scientists stepped out of the science objectivity and declared a climate emergency. So it's clear that we are in a crisis. Okay, so for the people at home, can you sort of tell people what exactly does, you know, so about 10 years from now to reach a tipping point where there's sort of no going back. Is that right? Right. And what is the no going back scenario kind of look like? What does a Hot House Earth look like? I've heard like Hot House Planets like Venus. Is that what we're dealing with or something? Can you just, yeah, give me the science here? Yeah, so at that point, CO2 levels and the temperature of the Earth will be so high that feedback loops, positive feedback loops which are self-reinforcing will continue on and increase warming so that we can't recover from them. Like, for example, melting Arctic ice, which usually reflects sunlight, will stop reflecting sunlight, which leads to more melting, which leads to less reflecting sunlight. And so that's one example. Okay, and could you tell me about how your organization, the Climate Reality Project, has both a national and a local aspect and you're the chair of the local part at UC Davis. So can you tell me the goals of both the national organization and more specifically what your organization's doing here at UC Davis and Davis in general? So Climate Reality Project is a national organization founded by former Vice President Al Gore and their model is solving the climate crisis by spreading awareness. So they do trainings throughout the world during the year to get people comfortable making presentations and talking about climate change. So after doing a presentation in Los Angeles last year, I decided to start a chapter at UC Davis and we can have more local level goals surrounding climate action. So for example, we have a couple campaigns this year. One is Get Up the Vote. One is a K-12 Climate Education Program. We also have an on-campus educational campaign and then also with recognition of the effects of animal agriculture on the environment, a sustainable diet campaign. Okay, and on your website, I read a little bit about your organization and I saw that you're trying to get people from across the political spectrum involved in talking about climate change and I just wanted to know what does that look like? Yeah, so climate change has become a polarized issue but it hasn't always been that way and in order for us to make progress to solve this existential threat, we have to have a collaboration between all sides of the political spectrum, which means mobilizing Republicans, Democrats, everywhere in between and recent polls are showing that young Republicans are more concerned about climate change than older Republicans. So while party preference is still the best indicator of concern about climate change, there's increasing awareness among people in my age group. Okay, and can you tell me a little more about you mentioned you're working with K-12 students. Can you tell me a little bit about what that looks like? I'm assuming it's at schools in Davis. What schools are you going to and what's sort of the plan for that? So as of now, we haven't gone to schools but we're developing different educational things including art projects and making climate change relevant to young students because their futures are at risk. So right now we have an event planned coming up and we are trying to have a youth component so that parents can come and have their kids engaged with the issue really with the recognition that it's an intergenerational problem. Yes, when I was at the climate strike on September 20th, there were people of all ages there from I think elementary school, maybe kindergarten all the way to people who were 90, 95. So I was wondering can you speak to that day and what it was like to see that number of people coming out from all generations concerned about climate change? Yeah, that was an amazing day in Davis and all around the world people were marching with that same dynamic of a wide spectrum of ages and something that I find really inspiring about this movement is that it's youth driven and the people who will be affected by the decisions made today are leading the movement unlike pretty much any other movement we've seen. Yes, and I'd like to sort of get to the goals of the movement. I read about group delivering letters to some officials at UC Davis demanding changes, that's true, right? And I just wanted to know about that and sort of your experience with dealing with people in power and communicating to politicians, leaders of schools and that sort of thing and where you found that your voice was being heard and where people in positions of power could maybe make some improvements in their listening abilities. So last winter or last fall I helped pass a climate emergency resolution at UC Davis which was through the UC Davis Student Senate and it was the first of its kind that I know of in the world but I mean not to say that there are no other climate emergency resolutions but in college campus and then last spring the UC, actually I think over the summer the UC regents declared a climate emergency and pledged to divest from fossil fuels so they said that it was because of fiduciary responsibility and because fossil fuel investments are becoming financially unstable but in reality I think it's more accurate to say that it was because of pressure from students emailing them, writing them letters throughout the whole UC system there is a fossil free divestment movement so in that way they have been responsive so not explicitly and then more recently I went last week to the California Teachers Union CalSTRS, their pension fund is heavily invested in fossil fuels and they're considering revoking their investments so I testified in front of them and it has been a really long, that was not the first testimony so in that way there are a lot of people who are reluctant to, as we can see, take action Alright and so with the progress with UC Davis getting them to divest from fossil fuels is that just UC Davis or is that the UC system as a whole that's doing this? That's the UC system as a whole That's great, it would seem that especially with long term investments that investing in fossil fuels not only is immoral but also considering the way things are going maybe a bad investment That was part of also the CalSTRS divestment hearing people were presenting evidence that they've lost millions of dollars even in the past because of fossil fuel investments Okay and let's talk briefly about I want to know a bit about the work with have you worked with the City Council of Davis on anything? I want to know a little bit about what has Davis divested from fossil fuels and do you know anything about that? Is our city being funded by fossil fuels in any way? What's going on there? I'm not totally sure about that I was at a climate emergency resolution hearing in Davis in I believe January of 2019 so Davis has declared a climate emergency and they have probably one of the most specific climate emergency resolutions even though London, Berkeley let's see, Hoboken, New Jersey a bunch of cities throughout I think actually the entire United Kingdom as well have declared climate emergencies but Davis's climate emergency resolution has specific provisions I'm not literate on them so that's kind of the status of UC Davis as a city Alright and let's see I'd like to also, let's go back to your organization How do people get involved with your organization? Do you mostly take just UC Davis students or is it something that the whole community can get involved in? We really appreciate having community support because it is such a big issue so we have a lot of events coming up and you can learn more on our Facebook page which is Facebook's slash climate reality at UCD and we update our events on that page so definitely like us and come to our events And I found out about you through Cool Davis and so I was wondering other organizations like Cool Davis is that something your organization is affiliated with that is also a good place for people to find out about stuff in Davis? Yeah, so Cool Davis is a great organization that we partner with and we support each other's events I would say We also support other UC Davis groups like the Davis Sunrise Movement, Zero Waste and Sustainability Club and then we're also partnering with International House for some events coming up Alright, well thank you and thank you for coming on the show and it's been wonderful today that we've been able to have this discussion about climate change and I would like to end it here and thank you so much