 and welcome to this new episode of our series, our public affairs series driving forces where we speak to people who are involved as activists in across a whole spectrum of different issues. But really what we are looking to find out more about is how and why they have chosen to spend much or even all of their time sometimes on social activism as opposed to the many other options that that they have. And today I'm speaking to an Arlington resident, Park Willby, who I will ask you, Park, first of all, thanks for being here, of course. But let me ask you first just to introduce yourself, you know, both your professional self and your activist self, which are of course completely dovetailed, but also, you know, in some separate arenas as well. So first of all, welcome and tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, James. So I'm Park. I'm a longtime Arlington residents since 2003. In the area, I'm on the board, for example, for Arlington meets and then professionally, I'm a professor at the Freedom School of Nutrition, Science and Policy at Tufts University. Excellent. So as you and I were discussing before we went on air, our Arlington audience is certainly aware of what is entailed from being a university professor. We have plenty of you guys in town to begin with. And of course, a professional population that really appreciates how much of a full time job that is. So the fact that you have found the time to work in this particular cause as a climate activist here in Arlington is something that we want to explore. So the balance of this conversation is going to concern the recent passage by the select board and town meeting of a climate emergency declaration here in town, which I know you and the groups that you work with have been, you know, are have been behind the scenes to make happen. So a quick congratulations to you on that. But also, we want to really delve into what the consequences of that declaration are, because on one hand, it's words, but on the other hand, I think it opens a lot of doors for future steps to be taken. But let's start because this is a series again that concentrates on what compels you personally with that. So how long has this been a particular cause for you, a cause of concern and of galvanizing action? And, you know, and how does it fit in to the rest of your rather full life? So, you know, our family has been paying attention to climate change for a lot of years. This particular campaign, we were just so delighted and even proud of our community at Arlington about the passage of this declaration of climate emergency. And so there's been a steering group in Arlington working on that in particular for about nine months, since about last August or September. So we had a series of fun activities. We had a shoe strike down by the Uncle Sam statue, and we had a Halloween event with a theme of climate change being scary, sort of tongue-in-cheek and a speaker from the Youth Sunrise Movement, and then a Winds of Change event. And finally, we had interaction with a lot of the key stakeholders here in Arlington, including mothers out front, East Arlington, Livable Streets, and the Clean Energy Future Committee, the Town Zone Committee working on climate issues. And then finally, that led to approval from the Select Board the town meeting most recently, just a couple weeks ago. And how, so, I mean, how was that easy work to do? In other words, first of all, gathering yourselves together. What is the group that you, what is the official name for the group that you are, I think, a spokesman for? Because, you know, you have been right out front. You're not a mother, but you've been right out front with us. Exactly. Yeah, so our little group is called Emergency Arlington, and we have a website to that effect. It's just emergencyarlington.org, all one word. And it was originally an initiative from Extinction Rebellion, the fairly lively climate action group in Boston, had realized that they wanted to encourage local and regional and municipal communities of people to have local declarations. And a lot of towns around around Massachusetts have been doing this. So Arlington is far from the first. A number of our peer communities like Lexington and Acton and Boston already had declarations like this. And but it's not really just an Extinction Rebellion project. Once we focused on trying to build some bridges in Arlington, we realized we needed people working without their organizations in Arlington. So we got advice from key leaders in sustainable Arlington. And you asked what was difficult, what was difficult was making, making sure that we found the right balance between being proud of what Arlington is already doing, but also recognizing how really serious the challenges we face are and what a high level of ambition is needed if we're going to be able to be answerable to our children and grandchildren about what we did during these years. And so getting that balance right was probably the hardest thing that we did. And so we really had to be listeners, I think, and had to take advice about how to push as hard as we could without stepping on toes too much. So how far back does this effort go? Where were the seeds for this? And again, that Extinction Rebellion kind of was looking to promote this kind of activity, municipality by municipality. When abouts did that happen? And then in the time since, what kind of commitment does this take from you on a weekly or monthly basis in terms of the time and energy you need to devote to it or choose to devote to it? Right? Well, you know, Extinction Rebellion's regional project really started at about the time we did. So it was in about August that they that they encouraged municipal level groups to start doing this. But you ask about the time since this is being recorded, right? Like, do I really want to be on the record on something my bosses might hear about how much time I've been putting in the climate action instead of my day job? Maybe so. But on climate action, this is one of two areas I work on. The other is trying to change, trying to change the way universities do their own work in a time of climate crisis. And so I would say this is about half of my volunteer time on climate issues has been this Arlington-centered project. Does it feel like a sacrifice at all? Like, does it feel like you are giving up or needing to give up other or the things that you could be doing or other interests that you have in order to be able to to push this forward? It's a burden in a way. But I wouldn't trade it in for anything because I feel like over the next few years, even, you know, you would feel that people currently have a very high level of awareness about the climate. But I think over the next few years, we're going to come to a somber realization that's kind of the next level more serious about what it is we've done as a community and a society in not addressing this issue sooner. And so in a sense, in a sense, it's a fair amount of work. And in a sense, it's better than the alternative by such a by such a long shot. And our own family has been practicing for a long time living a low carbon lifestyle in a way that's not austerity, that in a sense is not poverty. And so, you know, several years ago, we stopped flying, for example. And for a lot of my colleagues, it seems like, boy, that's got to be miserable. You have to be all cooped up by how can you have adventurous travel without without flying. But we go bike touring all over the northeast and in eastern Canada. And we make sure to take time to have fun in the outdoors that so it ends up being some level of work. But in fact, we're, you know, there's a road forward to do this, it feels very rewarding and is happy enough and fun enough to keep people engaged in the long run. Yeah, and I, you know, I will, because I can't resist have to throw in the fact that our audience will indulge me. I hope by, as I say that, you know, you and I have known each other for some years now, through at least one of your children, and a sport that we all share in common, Ultimate Frisbee, and I have coached your daughter, including on a trip to Minnesota for a national championship tournament, that we certainly didn't want her to miss, but was made more complicated by the fact that, as you said, you haven't flown in your family for a number of years now. But she found a way to get out there, she found a way to make an adventure of it. And, and clearly she did not miss that opportunity. Thank God for all of us. But, you know, I think that that's a good illustration of what it is that you're talking about your it's a commitment to a lifestyle that of course others can see the can see it as sacrifices but I guess once you make that choice, you simply adapt to the new, you know, to the new reality of that choice and, and you're able to still fill your life with stimulation it sounds like. Yeah. So, well done on that, on that note. All right, let's, let's talk a little bit. Let's talk more seriously and soberly about what it is that you are that, you know, the this cause that we've, you know, identified. But what we haven't yet mentioned is several things. So let me ask you about them. Number one, there's nobody that doesn't know that there's a climate emergency. Certainly in Arlington and in a much broader swap, there may be, you know, people who are in denial about that, there may be people who, you know, attributed to different factors, etc. But clearly, the signs have been building. It is both the most urgent of all things that we can do right now. And the least urgent feeling of all things, which is how we've gotten to this situation. How is it that you commune, you know, what, how do you convey to people that it is time for action? And that in some way without leaving us all kind of depressed and despondent about the idea that maybe it's too late for effective action. How do you, how do you thread that needle? It's so challenging, this question that you raised, because nationally in the United States, the United States stands out among advanced industrial or post-industrial formations for having one of its major political parties be an outright climate denial, right? That's, that's unusual. But in Arlington, that's not the issue that we face. The range of reactions that you'll find to climate issues in Arlington ranges from being explicitly climate activists, on the one hand, to being in sort of a soft denial on, on the other. And, and that's really widespread. It's so widespread because it's hard to avoid it. When you stare straight at a challenge like climate change, you're worried you're almost going to go blind from the ferocity, ferocity of it. And it's almost a surprising discovery to us that it really is possible to reflect on how serious this challenge is and how serious the social changes are that are needed to properly address it. That it doesn't cause our life to fall apart. You know, in our national debate about climate, people often say that for Americans, you got to go soft on them. They don't want anything that involves too much hardship or social change. So, you know, electric cars Americans can handle, but actually changing our consumption patterns is probably beyond what we're willing to do. And I just find it's not really true that that that if you if you get the combination right about optimistic technical change such as improved heat pumps that function just as well as our own furnaces and the only downside is that they have some expense associated with them. And on the other hand, changing the way that we use our automobiles or changing the amount of flying that we do in a way that doesn't impoverish us also is something that we can completely adapt to. The alternative is just to kind of pretend we don't need to make these changes. And in my experience for people who are not in outright climate denial that what happens when they try to do that, when they try to understate what amount of social change is needed, is that at some point they'll lurch from underestimating how much change is needed to kind of a panicky pessimistic sense that everything is doomed. And this befuddles me. I think it's why jump like a light switch from not doing enough to thinking that we're all doomed right there in the middle is the appealing is the appealing option, which is to tell the truth and act on it as if it was important with a good deal of our time. And so to anybody who will listen, I'm like grabbing them by the lapels. I'm saying, hey, let's do it this way. Let's act on the challenge that we face. It's not going to hurt us. So let's talk a little bit about how we can act on the challenge that we face as a community. And of course, acknowledging that we could spend our entire time talking about the fact that Arlington is a single town, you know, surrounded by other like-minded towns. As you said, we are not the first to make this climate emergency declaration. In fact, we are joining a number of other communities in our area in so doing. And yet we all recognize that there is only so much impact that we can have as community and surrounding communities. We could spend our whole time on that. I'm going to put that aside for the moment and just ask you that question of turning words, beliefs, ideas, fears into action. What will this declaration of a climate emergency be able to do in that direction? So the declaration has kind of five provisions. And you'll see that the provisions actually have a sense of realism about what can one town do. The first thing is a town can really declare emergency. That's an acknowledgement about what level of priority are we putting on this. Our second provision is that Arlington should be telling the truth. And this involves, to some extent, just talking frankly from our town leaders about the climate. It should be something that's not just mentioned like once a year on Earth Day, but it's a fairly substantial investment. And that also includes a bit of reporting that the town is doing, is currently working on through a greenhouse inventory, through an association of regional governments called the MAPC, gives us this protocol for developing a greenhouse gas inventory to kind of report what is our town emissions. The third thing is that Arlington should really act. Each of the actors that makes decisions in Arlington should, whenever they face a choice about something that's more or less climate friendly, should choose the more climate friendly option. And this could be the school board when deciding what furnace goes in the new school building, or it could be the zoning board, or it could be pretty much any town government entity. But the fourth is that we ask Arlington town leaders to be advocates at the state and national level on climate. And so this recognizes that the town has to answer to authority under kind of our federal list system from higher levels of government. And the fifth is climate justice, so that there's such a temptation on major social challenges when belts need to be tightened. It always seems like the belts are being tightened for those who had less to begin with. And so doing this with a sense of justice is the other key priority. Yeah, that is an excellent distillation, let me just say, of those five tenets on the one hand, but also of the situation kind of generally here in town. So let me ask you that within that framework, it would, well, we spend a lot of time at ECMI and ECMI news, and in our public affairs programming, speaking to town leaders oftentimes to our energy manager or town manager or planning department director about ways like kudos that we are receiving as a green community. And certainly Arlington has a well-deserved reputation and has put lots of grant money to excellent use in this area for at least a decade now, if not more. How do you see that? How do you see Arlington, first of all, as already in the vanguard? And this climate emergency, as you were just saying, you know, wanting there to be more advocacy on the you know, state level and beyond, perhaps, but also having town officials making decisions on the basis of this is an emergency. So let's choose this option if we have several. Have we not been doing that already for a while? And do you think we can ratchet up those efforts and will the result of the declaration? James, I think these are great questions because I would say you have just put your finger on the issue that we've had most difficulty finessing over the last year. Because if we were to say Arlington is doing no good at all, it would be impossible for us to build bridges with the key stakeholders who are most expert in this area. But if we said Arlington is doing all fine, then people would wonder, hey, so why do we need a declaration of emergency? But the truth is somewhere in the middle. I'm very proud to be in a place that's not an explicit climate denial. And I'm proud to be in a place that's got a lot of energy on things like changing our electric sourcing, which Arlington's been a leader on, or encouraging solar panels, and a few other topics. But there is no place in the country that is doing enough on climate action. And I think places that are fairly prosperous, including let's say the whole top two thirds of the income distribution in the United States are using more of the world's resources than places that we think of as less good on climate. So we might read about coal plants in India, but people in India on a per capita basis use less than a quarter of the carbon budget that an American uses each year. And so our level of ambition has to be higher. And so when you think about what Arlington is doing, areas that we're doing well, we've gone over, but things that we could really step it up on include active transport, such as cycling and pedestrian transport, not just as something fun to do on a Saturday on the Minuteman Trail, which is of course our local gem and a great source of pride. But as such a big part of our transportation equation, that it would reduce how much do we need to be driving cars. And you asked about sacrifice, would this be a sacrifice? Think about Mass Ave, right? How much time people spend in traffic jams on Massachusetts Avenue? And if we had our transportation oriented more around public transportation and around active transport, the question is, would that be a sacrifice? Or would we not immediately see that our whole lives are better, right? Like that our air is better, that our level of frustration with our daily commute is better. So that's an example of one area on which I wish Arlington would step up. At some points in the conversation, even with very good climate people in Arlington in the past year, they've said, but you can't really expect people in Arlington to get out of their cars. I can. I totally can. And it would take less time than you might think. People look at the Netherlands, which has this wonderful cycling tradition. We see the videos of people with the cycling infrastructure and we think, yeah, but Netherlands, they're practically Scandinavian. It must be something cultural, but it is absolutely not. You look at photos of Amsterdam in the 1950s and it has as much automobile traffic as we have in Arlington today, right? This was absolutely a social decision. And the fact that they took 40 years with it, we don't have 40 years. We have to imagine a somewhat faster level of work even than that. So I don't know for sure that that's going to happen, but I know for sure that it could and that if we had the courage to attempt that, we would be glad we did it. Um, what are the next steps that you plan to take with, you know, emergency Arlington and to both kind of build on this progress that we've made so far and to take full advantage of what, again, the declaration opens up as a possibility, as possibilities. You know, our steering group plans to keep keep meeting after after a short rest and break, right? Right. Well deserved, like right there. I think our next goals are to essentially retain some representation and presence with some of the other key stakeholders. Like I just, I cannot tell you how much admiration I have for sustainable Arlington mothers out front, the Clean Energy Future Committee. And so I think we're going to have somebody continue to attend each of these meetings and and be a source of encouragement. But then I think also on maybe a couple issues that we don't see immediate stakeholders emphasizing enough such as climate justice and such as active transport and public transport, bus transport really on the Massachusetts Avenue Corridor on some of those we may stay active ourselves advocating advocating for improvements and for priority in that area. Let me ask you, I mean, I have just one or two more things I want to ask you about. But one of them is something that we have not addressed at all directly in this conversation. And yet it runs absolutely through the issue of climate change and what we can do about it and how urgent it feels, etc. And that is the generational the distinction between generations and generational attitudes about this. I am sure that you know have known from an early age in your own household with your kids. I have with mine and with the high school students I used to teach for many years that there is a level of concern of fear of dread and therefore of urgency among our our children's generation that I do not I just see as starkly different from people who are my age and over. What are your observations and thoughts on that situation and and do you see something hopeful in there? Obviously that our children are our future. We all know that they're the world and these major decisions is are not in their hands right now. And that's probably to our detriment, frankly. But I'm just wondering if I can get your thoughts on that whole aspect of this very complicated and multifaceted situation. Yeah, you know, the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg often gets told by people your age and my age that she's the source of hope for them. And she gets quite angry at this. She scolds people our age about not having shouldered the responsibility. And so, um, yep, no, I think I think what would, you know, what would give everybody hope is seeing the level of action and ambition. This is true also for one of the key challenges in international climate negotiations, which is, you know, you think about the Paris Agreement a few years ago, which was the biggest progress in international diplomacy on climate issues that had been had to date. But a lot of the challenge turns on poor countries feeling like rich countries haven't done enough and rich countries feeling like poor countries haven't done enough. And I think that somebody has to go first. And in a spirit of climate justice, it really should be places that are comparatively more prosperous. And so, um, I mean, we can do it. We can do it. And it's not like taking strong action reduces the pressure on India and China to do their share. I think when we take strong action, it increases the level of moral pressure on people in other countries to do likewise. And so don't wait for somebody else to do their share. If we do our share, we have the opportunity with a clean conscience at that point to shout and to tell other people what to do also. Um, just to follow up and really good point about the international scope of this and also that the peculiarities of that dynamic. But just to return again to the kind of the generational question, you were, you were mentioning Greta Thunberg and how she, you know, is a, you know, as a reluctant or not spokesperson for her generation around all these issues. She is not shy about scolding us. I'm wondering in your work with young activists with your own children and those of their generation, what, what do you find are the are their attitudes about this? Do they share Greta's inclination to say, come on adults, get your, get your act together? Absolutely. We have a video link on our website to the speaker, a public speaker from Arlington High School, who was at our Halloween event in October. And this, those students have been just some of the terrific collaborators and they organize like professionals. I mean, they will put a committee together, plan an event, arrange the public speaking and the public relations. They are not joking around. And that is not somebody from somewhere else. This is our own youth acting so effectively. These are skills that we would want them to have in any line of work. If they were working on how to be an effective banker or how to be an effective engineer, we would want them to apply these same organizational skills and we see them applying it to their own climate action work. And let's make it rewarding for them. You know, I have a strong sense and I imagine the audience will also, that you maintain a sturdy, steely, positive attitude about what we can do and what can happen going forward here. In, you know, lastly speaking, tell us, you know, how you hold, how you arrive and stay there as in under, having a very full understanding from what I can tell of just how big the challenges and difficulties and obstacles are in front of us, both as act on the activist side, just to get people to start to embrace these changes. And then the fact that as you said about the Netherlands, we don't have the luxury of make instituting a social change that, you know, plays out over some generations or something. So how, what is your attitude about these things going forward? Did I read that correctly? Number one, and number two, if I did, how do you hold on to that kind of sense of optimism in the face of all of this? Boy, is that a profound question. So, you know, I've got resources and each person has to find their own. This is almost something on which I can't give people advice, but we find it in our family, we find a source of support. Even in our climate work, we find it in taking pleasure and friendship in the community of people that we work together on. My family has a faith tradition. So for people who have a faith tradition, that can be a source of support on these things. In our case, we go to Calvary Church, the Methodist Church there by spy pond on Massachusetts Avenue. But for a hundred different traditions, there's lessons that are a thousand years old to 3000 years old on how should a community handle times of crisis? This is not something that was invented in the last five years. That's something on which our ancient sources of wisdom had something to teach us for a long time. And so maybe the final thing is not to burn oneself out. Take a bike ride. You know, there's things that you can do that are practice on climate issues that are also so much fun and warm your heart so much that it keeps me smiling. There is zero chance that I'm going to sort of convert to being a doomer. I'm going down with the ship. I'm going to be pumping the bilge of this and singing a sea shanty no matter whether we're assured of success or if we're not quite assured of success. Well, I want to thank you very much because I cannot imagine again that our audience tuning into this will not also feel as energized as I do simply by sampling and getting and being in the direct line of your own commitment and determination, but positivity. So thank you for sharing all those aspects and also for your considerable knowledge about where we stand as a community and obviously what the challenges are more regionally and nationally and globally. So appreciate you taking the time today. Really do enjoyed the conversation a lot. Expect and I expect to follow up with you as your own as emergency Arlington and the various coalition members efforts continue to move forward and hopefully bring more good stuff to fruition. So thanks for joining us today, Park. We really appreciate it. Thank you, James for inviting the conversation. I have been speaking with Park Willdy who is as he said in Arlington resident for a long time now. Also a busy academic in his own right, but who nonetheless has spent quite a bit of time working on climate activism here in Arlington and we expect, as I said, to be able to check in with him as we move forward. We hope in this vital vital work that needs to be done. Thanks for joining us, everybody. Thank you first to Park and then to you out there in the audience. I'm James Milan. This has been Driving Forces. We'll see you next time.