 Hi, my name is Jalen Panadosi. I am a senior at UVM, studying film and television studies. I'm here joined by Sarah Nielsen, a film professor at UVM and Amy Seidel, a professor at UVM, teaching environmental studies. Today we are at CCTV discussing environmental issues and just like the impacts in Burlington. I guess so just to start off our conversation I'm just gonna ask you guys just like questions that you can respond to whatever. So how did you guys get like interested in the environment like growing up I guess and what made you choose your career to study the environment and do things that like you deeply care about because of the environment. Oh okay we'll start with me. I grew up in New Jersey which is not a place you typically think of as environmentally aware or conscious. It does have I think the most super fun sites of any state in the country but I grew up in an area that was semi-rural. I really loved being outdoors and as early as I could I started doing actually trail work in National Parks with the Student Conservation Association which was an outing organization and got I've always loved animals and I've always loved being outdoors and being able to leave New Jersey as a high schooler and I went to Yellowstone. I spent a summer in Yellowstone back country and then I spent a summer in Arizona back country and I just loved being outdoors and so when I went to college I went to Dartmouth College I ended up doing English and environmental studies and most of the English was creative writing and I got interested in film and started doing screenwriting and I also was my interest in environmental studies started then and so I've always been sort of involved in animal studies, environmental studies early on. I ended up going to film school though and I have was more focused on sort of racial issues in film and social justice issues and more recently probably within the past ten years or so I've been teaching much more classes that involve environmental studies, racial issues and film so that's sort of the crossover of those interests. So similarly I had a family who was really really interested in birds and I would go birding with my family all the time and we would keep lists of birds we would wait for certain birds to arrive every year we would it was sort of the way people kept track of baseball statistics you know we kept track of birds and so I went to college and I was so interested in natural sciences and like Sarah was also interested in humanities so I my degrees were in in natural science and poetry as I left being an undergraduate as I graduated I became a pretty much a field itinerant biologist and I studied systems all around the world I studied polar systems and the Arctic and the Antarctic and tropical systems and temperate mountain systems and I really saw the world and and saw the incredible variation of ecosystems that exist on the planet it was not all of them but it was just stunned and awed by them and so I decided to do a PhD first a master's in entomology the study of insects and butterflies in particular and then I began working on the effect of climate change on alpine communities in particular these really interesting creatures that after the last glaciation 10,000 years ago exist in the highest altitudes in North America so that you can imagine they're a pretty good thing to study a pretty good organism to study with a warm and climate so that's how I got into it and then I found myself in environmental studies as an ecologist thinking what I really like to do is think interdisciplinary about these problems because the challenges are so complex ecology and natural science are really important but the humanities and the narratives and the policy and the sociology of how we're here the ethics of the values we hold that bring us to these challenges or help create these challenges are as important as the science so environmental studies for me is a home where I can be an ecologist but I can also be an interdisciplinary thank you guys I guess moving on to just like talking about like Burlington and like recent weather I'd like to ask you guys obviously the past few days it's been ranging from like 30 like 40 degrees which is pretty nice I guess after the negative degree weather but a few weeks ago it went from like being like 60 to like 30 or 20 which was like a drastic change not just 30 40 and since you guys like understand like just like climate change and stuff I was wondering if you could describe like its effect like on the Burlington community I guess and what like effects like anything you could talk about this one is all Amy's as a film historian this is not my I'll take this one so when I teach about the variation you just described which is so spot on there's a lot of variation in weather and there's variation in weather with and without what I call human induced climate change which is the phenomenon we're experiencing but with climate change we see more variation and we also see a strong signal towards warming so imagine a graph that has a lot of jagged lines which is that sort of 60 to 20 to 60 to 10 kind of variation what we see or what atmospheric scientists see is that our climate over time has a signal of warming for sure spring is coming earlier winters are shorter summers are hotter and there's a lot of noise or variation around that signal so the nature of the of the carbonating the atmosphere is to have changed our weather which is our climate over time as well as to bring more variation to our temperatures and to see some really clear signals the early arrival of spring probably more like two weeks three weeks earlier and these other kinds of generalized events warmer summers shorter winters essentially a climate that's looking more and more like like Appalachia like North Carolina one thing I mean I'll add to this too so one thing that you're pointing to though is a widespread use of climate misinformation so we're talking a fair amount in our class right now about climate denial one of the strategies is exactly what you did to say well look it's really cold right now is an arctic front coming through like how is this global warming we've had these long winters or we've had this long you know events and that's often used for climate denial that's actually like the number one strategy to use to say well there's no heat in the of the planet you know look at here and actually Donald Trump did this he often mentioned like there's no climate change look how cold things are look how things are going this way so just thinking persuasively like how do you counter that argument when you can say look it was freezing this morning look at it killed all these plants or you know these weather looks so odd but something you had mentioned like the the melting of the lake it's been years since the lake has been frozen like there are clear indicators even on this sort of local level of things that you would anybody would notice and be like hmm that's a little concerning like maybe I should think about this even though I'm hearing other voices telling me that this is just an anomaly or this is you know not typical or this is a odd and exceptional event so what I mean the the flood of misinformation out there is constant and continual I just read that Twitter has a 30% increase since Elon Musk took over on Twitter of climate denial and climate misinformation and one of the biggest discourses people use is what you're talking about like there's no consistency in whether these are just random events they're just happening and there's no like overall evidence even though there is predominantly overwhelming evidence that human cause climate change and there's also a very strategic strategy to not use global warming so the climate denial people do not want anyone to say global warming they want you to say climate change because climate change doesn't sound threatening when you say global warming all of a sudden it gets scary because all of a sudden it means uh-oh we're getting hotter and hotter we all know we're getting hotter and hotter but how do we deny that's occurring we say it's random we say so it's it's not just getting hotter it's getting colder it's doing this it's doing that I know we talked a lot about that in our class um just about how like the scary terms because it's like happening like that's why people like denialists or whatever they want to like say like oh there's what you said like oh like well the ice the arctic whatever there's still ice or snow or whatever so but it's because it's like happening right now is why people are trying to justify it it sounds like well I think it's like how do you make and the the interesting thing about there is a study that came out looking at who is posting all the misinformation and it's not random individuals it's very intentionally done by the fossil fuel industry the petroleum industry they are the number one's people no corporations posting you know denial climate change denial so they're hiring very well paid pr people and publicists and strategists knowing how to create messages that are really persuasive I mean it's frightening if you look at all the posts on twitter on facebook they are being orchestrated by these massive multimillion dollar corporations that we are funding with tax dollars that are destroying our environment so this idea too that climate denials coming from you know a random joe in his basement is absolutely not true they're orchestrated public relations attacks that are met know very well how to persuade people make them feel uncertain to question what they're thinking to see things as oh maybe I'm wrong maybe it's not so bad maybe I shouldn't worry and and it's when you look at the actual amount of money being poured into that climate denial strategy it's scary it is scary and then how do you counter it so I mean it there's clear evidence by every climate scientist that the planet is warming it is global warming but when you have all these very heavily invested players not wanting you to hear that message you end up with all this confusion you have in this country and the inability to act on it yeah I'll just add to that thank you sir though it's just so it's just that so much clarity there and I really appreciate the the data around Twitter too and and the the landscape that we live in around truth and narrative and and and false information and I'll say that for for more than a decade the mason university and Yale school of of communication has kept these real it's really good track they call it the six americas in which they survey the american population around climate change and the gradient of complete denial as Sarah just characterized and people who are ready to act actually actually asking to be taxed or asking to be put in a position where they are where it's demanded of them that their communities and themselves are are acting on climate change so the whole range and what we have seen over time over this decade of of polling is some variation but increasingly 70 73 75 percent falling in those americas because they divide us into six from denial to ready to act who are ready to act or who accept who are no longer neutral and so I think that what is a powerful kind of question in film and television and and media studies is how is it that the same landscape that we're all living in where there are clear changes as Sarah says you know that the lakes don't freeze not just here but in minnesota the ottawa river did not freeze you know this year and has been melting out earlier and earlier these kinds of things are so clear to our human sensibilities of season and time that that signal and other kinds of truthful statements are winning the day the question now is as Sarah so aptly said will the support of fossil fuel industry and the system that continues to carbonize our atmosphere for the benefit of their profits be ultimately politically made you know not only disputed but ultimately a crime because it is a crime to to not transition to something that is ultimately not releasing carbon into the atmosphere thank you I guess I guess this is kind of segueing a little bit but I just wanted to ask you guys this both similar question that I had from both of your classes that I just came up with I know we both have talked about like indigenous populations recently and me and Sarah's class were talking about marginalized communities and how like they're the ones who are being like the biggest affected by climate change and I was wondering if you guys had anything to say about that or just I know we have the abnaki tribe in berlington how like tribes like that maybe be like reacting to climate change since I mean they don't have as many resources as we do but they're like populations like that are being the most affected by it well maybe I'll start go ahead so I think that I think that what you're saying is there is a really it's a point of real attention for us because absolutely vulnerable populations to climate chaos coming in the form of flow of wildfires and floods and other kinds of climate implicated storms which we can actually look at their probability and know okay much higher probability that those storms are going to happen because of climate change because of global warming is going to affect brown and black people people who are under resource who are living in vulnerable areas and that includes indigenous communities as well and this has been very clear right now and so climate justice is at the core I think of the climate movement and and is increasingly I see a front and center starting place around policy and the way we mitigate the impacts of climate change is to say who are the most vulnerable how do we resource those vulnerable communities sometimes the responses those communities may need to move into new landscapes and this is a very complicated issue because as you say with indigenous communities they may have been there for literally millennia uh lasking communities having you know evidence that they have resided for four five thousand years in this in an island perhaps in the Pribilof Island so this is an extraordinary time for cultures and communities to be so impacted um and I think that finally climate justice is at the fore of of policies and of people who are leading if I will the climate movement I see more indigenous voices I see more voices from the BIPOC communities that are the most vulnerable and I'm really happy to see that change because for a long time that wasn't true so from a film perspective then so the question is how do those voices get represented in some way that you know as mainstream audiences would be exposed to so it's true when you're within a environmental movement people are very conscious of climate justice when you go to you know seed pack or you go to these meetings and everyone's talking about especially this latest meeting was all focused on sort of reparations and how do we deal with the damage that developed nations are doing on indigenous communities across the world we don't see it anywhere so we don't see I mean we've been reading in class the narratives we see about climate change don't focus on you know the women that are being impacted the children that are being impacted what we do see is a lot of negative attention especially on migration on climate immigration so all that we see in the media portrayed in a very negative light I mean I can't think of a mainstream movie anywhere that's telling a narrative about those populations and how they're being impacted by climate change so just thinking in terms of like as a humanities based person how do we tell that story how do we make that story accessible to a broad audience and not just sort of the community talking about these issues so how do we bring it into conversation with people to make it something that is important to them that they would care about that they're invested in and so just as a communications point of view I mean we can sexually talk about it we think about it we care about it but in terms of who's controlling message what stories are being told where are those movies where are the movies about those communities where there's documentaries that get played at certain festivals but the the crossover has not happened I mean I struggled in my writing climate change class to come up with a handful of films dealing with climate change I struggled and you would think a social issue right now so important nobody's telling that story we're getting another superhero film we're getting you know another sort of rah rah American action adventure film it's certainly not being filled with narratives about climate change so like where do we begin like where do we begin telling these stories in a way that's accessible to others I mean literally we're talking Wally you know happy feet I mean I couldn't find any films for my class it was very frustrating besides documentary but again that's a niche audience they are on board before they even watch the film it's not going to change your point of view it is not speaking to the percentage you're talking about which is like 30 percent I mean Americans that still deny climate change is pretty significant so why are we not talking to them why is film not being produced that speaks to them why is programming not and the amount of climate denial is rampant it is rampant on social media it is certainly present and is certainly sort of muddying pool in terms of these conversations so of course we care about indigenous people but where is their story being told where is that so so from my point of view it's like we have a long ways to go before we actually get those people you know their voice is heard they've always been marginalized they're always silent no one's speaking you know speaking their story I was just gonna say since you were talking about like documentaries and just like those types of films more showing like climate change I thought of like just like the Vermont International Film Festival and just how I was thinking oh yeah maybe they might have like more things on climate change but I guess you're right especially from our class they do though I mean they do definitely there's been a focus and awareness and there's there's more films this year there were a few films in the academy award that dealt with issues about climate change so there's definitely an animation the short animation film and the short documentary subject when we're both about issues of climate change so it is being produced but it's not the big films I mean there was don't look up like like Leonardo DiCaprio tries to produce material that's sort of talking to a broader audience but no one even understood that film like a lot of people thought it was about the pandemic so if you're going to make a climate change film you would hope it'd be about climate change and not the pandemic like if the audience doesn't even understand that that's a pretty bad sign so it's like why are you incapable of even when you intentionally want to make a film about climate change you can't even explicitly state it's about climate change are we so resistant to presenting this material we're so afraid audiences are going to turn away it's frustrating I mean that's really sort of the challenge for our class and we've been spending the semester talking about how do you tell stories about climate change that you know are factually correct that are sensitive to diversity issues and voices that are not heard and that are marketable that someone's willing to produce and it's it's a real challenge yeah I I mean I'm thinking as you speak about you know what films and the one that comes to mind is Beasts of the Southern Wild yes which is an incredible film I don't know eight years old maybe now about the Louisiana Bayou in particular and and people who have been compromised by the placement of levies that actually protect others and then make other communities more vulnerable so a really powerful sort of surreal film about those communities living in the Louisiana Bayou so close to sea level so easily inundated by sea level rise but it really what Sarah is saying is really kind of making me think about why is it that that we have this sort of almost fits and starts to narrating what is obviously a historic and planetary event you know there's never in the history of the planet has has there been this event this rat well there has been similarly rapid but never you know human induced event right such that we have actually eclipsed the next ice age so rather than entering another ice age that we would normally do based on the geometry of the earth and in the universe we will we will not be doing that we will stay warm through the next what would be an ice age otherwise this is a powerful story to tell and and and not only that but there's a powerful there are powerful messages of how communities are responding and how human empathy is an incredible through line in us and sense of place and concern right that these that that while we know that the power lies oftentimes in profit motive and and and things that we could characterize as not caring there's tremendous amount of municipal and state and local concern for each other in fact that's why the idea of of sort of climate adaptation while it might appear transgressive like well if we can't mitigate it we should just stop mitigating or trying to mitigate we should just adapt but in fact it's here we're living through it we will live through it because of the nature of the fact that the atmosphere has changed so what about stories about how we are adapting how we are simultaneously mitigating and adapting I think that could be I hate to draw this analogy Sarah will probably maybe disagree with me but it has a little bit of a wartime feel do you know what I mean like there there needs to be heroics there needs to be great empathy for one another there needs to be yeah there needs to be some winning over because we all want ultimately the same thing which is a life that is secure and safe for ourselves and our families I mean I know that sounds so basic maybe ideal but I think it is a through line in human in the human dilemma and we I mean we've read in class I don't know if you've read Amitav Ghosh yes so his I mean his book the Great Derangement is all about why we are incapable of telling stories about climate change and his point is that it's so sort of cataclysmic that we as humans can't fathom it within our normal modes of fiction writing I mean you've read the article so I mean his basic argument which I think in many ways is persuasive is that it seems so beyond reality and so implausible that to put it in a narrative nobody would believe it is a basic argument that modern novels function in a certain way and the stories tend to focus on interpersonal relationships contained within a like understandable world and if you start bringing in catastrophic flooding tornadoes which he experienced hurricanes it seems into the realm of the fantastic it gets into the realm of sci-fi and those genres we don't accept as real we don't accept them as you know plausible so it partially and I think it's an interesting argument is the problem of you know how do you speak these tales in a genre that people will buy is happening today and so if we focus too much on the sort of catastrophic it becomes something that we don't think of as present and especially a lot of there are sci-fi films dealing with climate change actually quite a few sci-fi is the one genre but that tends to be the place where you do you deal with the fantastic with the pop you know what might possibly happen in the future but not what's happening now and so that's and he's gotten more I mean he was just here speaking and the talk to him yes and got to I got to talk with him later and he he's pretty hopeless I'd have to say at this point and it was kind of interesting because he was sort of like I don't think narratives are going to help us get over this I mean base but we're not even at the point where we're telling narratives I mean we're still trying to figure out what that means and people are it's not that people aren't but in film it's really it's really absent and there's many structural reasons why I mean I'm not just saying it's because of the subject matter but there are not voices being heard expressing what's happening in terms of climate change in any sort of real way or addressing other voices that are not like dominant with male hero white hero narratives and that's not helping us that's that's definitely not representing sort of the reality of who's being impacted by climate change thank you for that well I don't know if that was very hopeful no we're sort of balancing each other have hope here just to kind of close things off I guess I guess I wanted to you guys talk about obviously you guys have both made these drastic changes in your life like Amy you live like in a remote area you have the electric car and the solar roofs like Sarah you like don't eat meat you thrift you do all these things to limit both your impacts I guess just like a small statement you could say like for somebody watching this who wants to do something to change their carbon impact and like where they could start I mean I'll start with this because it's been interesting to me and as part of our conversation in class I've realized there's all this emphasis on anxiety and like I said to my class and it's just because we were talking about like why don't we have anxiety about poverty why don't we have anxiety about gun violence why don't we have anxiety about racism why don't we have anxiety about like really serious pressing issues and I think we've gotten into this trap of linking climate change with anxiety which leads to inaction it's become sort of a formula to me about like this is too overwhelming I can't deal with it it's not you know dealable and so partially I think we have to move to like what are practical things you can do that are reasonable and doable wearing thrift clothes anybody can do cutting back on your meat consumption and if you look at the main drivers of climate change meat consumption is like the number one does everyone need to eat beef every day does everyone need to go McDonald's like is it really that difficult to cut back on meat consumption is it that difficult to ride your bicycle is it that you know it's like do you need to buy all kind of chachkies from amazon every day do you need an amazon truck going to your house every day like there are definitely structural things all of us can do that are not cataclysmic and shouldn't be associated with you know the collapse of humanity but it's gone to this point like to ask for even little things and I think it's because it feels so overwhelming and so beyond doable but there are to me the message should be focusing on all of us can contribute in certain ways and they do have impact I mean the other sort of great climate denial thing is you can't do anything it's beyond any human contribution one person can't do anything and that message is just so defeated and anxious causing and creates people not acting so like don't eat a hamburger every day you know buy some used clothing most people wear one outfit seven times and throw it in the trash wear your outfit eight times like you really need to go get fast fashion for a new outfit every day like it's those small things and I know they're hard but they're doable and they're definitely contribute they do contribute you can make a contribution to what's going on wow so this is such a rich area and I I completely understand why when we're given the news we're given or we're reading something becoming more knowledgeable about an issue we want to be morally aligned because otherwise we have this feeling of cognitive dissonance we know some things up and our behavior is not in in in in consonants with our action and I would I would I would I would ask us to to think critically about the individual level I think it works in order for that alignment for us to feel like we are morally sound individuals acting appropriate to the knowledge that we have but when we take it up a scale we realize too that one of the strategies is to diffuse this issue across individuals to say it's it's the amount of flying you're doing or it's the amount of consuming you're doing when we exist in a system that is run on cheap fossil fuels that now we understand has this inadvertent but now very very very very very just just cataclysmic issue of carbonization of the atmosphere of global warming so that system needs to change and that system changes through political action and and us acting in the democracy in this country of demanding that we no longer use a fossil fuel industry in our world so absolutely I agree with Sarah that that moral alignment is key to our moral well-being but we need to think at the scale of this is a system that is a political economic system run on cheap energy that can no longer run on cheap fossil fuels it has to end and the way it ends just the way we ended you know the subsidy of tobacco or you know eugenics movements or or other things that were nefarious for society that were social ills was politically and and that's where I think ultimately uh the change needs to happen well thank you guys for coming thank you thank you thank you Jaylin