This is Unite and Heal America with your host, Matt Matern. I’m joined with the guest, Senator Ben Allen, and loved to have Senator Allen on the show senator has been the author and sponsor have a number of proposals regarding environmental issues that are facing California. And I want to focus on those in particular during the show, we’ve got about a half an hour at the senators time. So without further ado, welcome, Senator Allen.

Thank you so much. Good to be here.

Great to have you on the show. And just wanted to kind of take it from the top. Just kind of march down a few of these bills that you’re, you’re working on SB 54, the legislative plastics and waste reduction. Bill, what, tell us a little bit about that one.

Yeah, so this bill deals with the scourge of single use plastics that are out in our society, most of which are ultimately non recyclable. And it basically says to the producers, who are the folks who have most control over this, look, we gotta move you toward more sustainable packaging. We want we want to reduce the amount of plastic waste out there in general. And we also want you to start moving toward truly recyclable plastics or reusable, compostable, biodegradable.

Now, why does this matter? It doesn’t just matter, because it’s better for the environment. It also matters. Because it’s better for our consumers, in our cities, in our in our local governments that are basically tasked with the unenviable job of handling all of our waste. And it’s becoming increasingly untenable. There’s more there’s so much more waste now than there was even 10 or 20 years ago, because of the amount of single use plastics that are out there in the waste stream.

And it’s really, and by the way, our, we used to just send off a lot of this material overseas, a lot of it was going to China and Asia and elsewhere. And the the Chinese eventually said we don’t want America’s recycling junk anymore. So much of it was contaminated. So little, it was truly recyclable. And so it’s actually created a crisis for our cities.

The county of Sacramento just raised the the trash pickup rates by $10 a month on their on their ratepayers on their consumers simply partly because of this problem. And so it’s part of the reason why our cities and counties are so passionate about getting this, this bill across the finish line as well. It’s all about asking the producers who are the ones who ultimately have the most control over this system to move toward more sustainable practice packaging practices.

Yeah, there’s no doubt that we’re just drowning in plastics. And they have the seven different types of recyclables that not most of which are not really recyclable. And that kind of segues into your SB 343, which is the truth and labeling for recyclable materials. And it’s just, it’s crazy that most of them are not even really recyclable.

That’s absolutely right. So it’s interesting the rules are so we have some some rules that protect against fraud or false claims. So a lot of products are not allowed to say to say recyclable on their, on their, on their, on their product, but they do, and they are allowed to slap the recycling symbol on their product, which sends a signal to most consumers that the item is recyclable.

Most people I talk to you think that that means you can toss that into the blue bin? Well, unfortunately, so many, in fact, most of the materials that put the, the recycling symbol on their product is not actually recyclable in the end of the day.

There are a lot of items that are theoretically recyclable under perfect conditions. There are a lot of items that that are there. They’re not recyclable, even under perfect conditions, but they put it on there supposedly to encourage people to recycle, even if they can’t recycle that item.

And of course, there are a lot of items that that unfortunately, are are, are not recycled, because there’s no market for that for that. That particular type of plastic part of what we’re trying to do with SB 54, in fact, is to move the plastic manufacturers toward the ones in the twos the PDT the stuff that is truly recyclable, at the end of the day that will get recycled.

So we want to we’re basically telling the producers look, if you are not allowed to say that your item is recyclable, under our truth in advertising rules, you shouldn’t be allowed to put the recycling symbol on your product. Because that’s just very confusing to consumers, and it’s leading up down a garden path. Yeah,

I mean, it’s quite frankly, it’s just impossible for the average consumer to figure out the seven different levels of recycling. And, I mean, we’ve never really been trained on that as consumers to make that distinction when we’re throwing things into our blue recycling container.

That’s right. That’s Right. And a lot of people who are who are very dutifully putting all these items in their blue recycling container, actually, in some respects, sometimes they’re making it worse, I didn’t realize, you know, I mean, this comes from personal experience, I get the LA Times every morning, I would open up my paper, the newspaper came in, in a bag in a plastic bag that had the recycling symbol on it.

So I always dutifully put it into my recycling bin. Turns out and I’ve gone to visit recycling centers, those things are the bane of their existence, because it’s film that gums up the machines, that ends up getting needing to make the machines get fixed all the time, oftentimes it gets, it actually ends up in the paper stacks, which ends up contaminating the paper stacks, because it’s so flat, it just kind of ends up in there.

And it’s hard to sort out, and it actually makes the situation worse. So by trying to do the right thing, and looking at the recycling symbol and throwing that into the recycling bin, I was actually contributing to the problem. And so I want to just prevent that from happening to people in the future.

That’s, that’s a definite move in the right direction, we’ve got to take a lot of steps in that direction, because my recycling bin fills up faster than the regular trash bin, because there’s so many things that are plastic that I’m getting, and I’m trying not to buy that much. But it’s almost impossible not to buy it if you go to the store.

Exactly. It’s we are making it so difficult, so difficult for consumers to do the right thing. And my point is, there actually are some plastics out there that are highly recyclable. And, and by the way, there’s also a lot of those same items could be sold using less packaging and could be sold using glass or aluminum, which are very recyclable, especially aluminum, that can be recycled forever.

So the point is, why are we continuing to to package things in these non recyclable plastics, when there are better alternatives out there that actually can be recycled?

Yeah, it’s absolutely crazy. So I appreciate your work on on those issues. Why don’t we? Why don’t we switch to AB 646, which was the California by recycled act? And tell us a little bit about that one?

Yeah. So this is a bill that is sponsored by a good friend and colleague, Steve Bennettsville, right. And so this is a bill that seeks to basically put the state’s money where its mouth is, look, you know, if we’re, if we’re telling everyone, you ought to be doing a better job, with regards to recycled materials.

We ought to be doing more to actually, as we do our procurement as a state, we should be procuring items that are, that are used, made out of recycled content, that are that do waste reduction that are recyclable, reusable, biodegradable, etc. So it’s about the state putting its own money, where its mouth is.

And I think it’s a good first step towards helping the industries that are at the forefront of those technologies and giving them some, some support. And it really encourages those build businesses to get larger and get more customers, and so on and so forth. So we should be encouraging those businesses, because those are the wave of the future.

Yep. Yeah, that’s absolutely right. And the truth of the matter is one of the reasons why we had so many groups of industry business groups, not oppose our bill. And we actually worked very closely with lots and lots of businesses as we were promoting SB 50 for last year, and we will continue to this year, but there’s actually a lot of businesses that have a lot to gain, right?

The businesses that have done the R&D that have done the work that I’ve actually put in the time to, to to package their products or produce products that are packaged in more environmentally friendly materials. They’re the ones who stand the most to gain. And so there’s tons of really great California, homegrown businesses, that, that that are doing good work in this space, and they ought to be rewarded for it.

Yeah, that’s an excellent idea is that we will be at the forefront of this new industry, because that has got to be the wave of the future is the reduction of plastic usage, because it’s polluting our oceans. I just saw a program saying that we’re ingesting a credit card worth size of plastic as individuals every day that it’s disgusting.

I know. I know. And I was just really depressing. event, you know, hearing just the other day on microplastics that showed that something like four out of five human placentas have very high plastic levels. I mean, so this is getting into our babies. This is getting into our water stream, it’s getting into our blood. It’s I mean, I don’t we don’t even know what damage we’re doing to our to our own health. I think I think future generations are going to curse us for not taking more bold action.

Absolutely. I mean, because it’s the solution is eminently there. It’s not something we can’t do. We did it for 1000s of years. We live without plastic so it can’t be that’s absolutely true. And by the way, what we’re not even aware you know, the things I think take things like Styrofoam, right, I mean, you can you can you can you can replace that product with a perfectly environmentally with a fully biodegradable foam.

I mean, all all you’re trying to do is just protect your TV from getting dinged on the way from Best Buy to your house. There are other alternatives out there and we decided to be using them instead of of this dangerous fossil fuel, non recyclable product.

Absolutely. Well, you’re listening to Senator Ben Allen, and we’re talking about environmental legislation that he is working on here. You can find out more by visiting our website and checking out KABC 790. United heal America with Matt Matern. We’ll be back in just one minute.

You’re listening to KABC 790. Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern. And my guest, Senator Ben Allen. Senator, just wanted to talk to you about AB 802, which is the microfiber filtration in state and commercial facilities. Tell us a little bit about that long title.

Yeah, so this is Richard blooms bill, my colleague, I’m I’m a supporter of the bill. But basically, so this is this has to do with microfiber. So in order to reduce the leakage of microfibers into our natural environment, and this is happening on a massive scale, this bill aims to identify the best available control technology to to to for micro fiber filtration.

And then it requires state agencies as well as commercial and industrial facilities to start adopting that that technology. So the idea is that by putting simple filters on a lot of, of, of items, right, we can we can stop the the you can dramatically reduce the microfibers that are that are ending up in our environment, just to putting in filters. So it’s not very high cost, but it can really dramatically reduced the microfiber pollution that’s going out into our water streams.

And when you’re talking to micro fibers, would that include the plastics and what else?

Micro fibers are typically plastic, I mean, it is the they’re incredibly small. So when you talk about all that plastic that ends up in your body, right, the credit card where the plastic ends up in your body, it’s typically it’s micro plastic, it’s microfibers micro plastic, they’re so small, they’re hard to they’re really hard to extract from water sources once they’re there. And then that’s what actually ends up in our bodies and starts impacting public health.

So how soon can we get these five, these filtration systems implemented into our, our water supplies? Here in California?

Yeah, that’s a great question. So this is not my bill. So I’m gonna have to refer you over back maybe your next interview you could do with Richard Blum, and he could talk to you. And by the way, Richard, who is my state assembly member, has been a great champion on the question of microplastics. And microbeads.

He was the one who transitioned a lot of those health care haircare and beauty care products away from microbial from from from plastic microbeads toward natural exfoliant. So I don’t know exactly what the timeline is, honestly, I’m supporting the bill. But but it’s his bill. So I’m not I might up on the details. Timeline, at least.

Yeah, it’s, it kind of goes to the issue that to be an informed citizen in today’s day. And age is a really full time job. Because there’s just so much information that floods through the system, and even somebody who’s in the system and is very educated on these issues. It’s challenging for you. I see and certainly challenging for me to stay up on top of these issues.

Such that Yeah, I know, I’ll tell you, I mean, and I gotta tell you, ultimately, legislature, especially it’s a team effort. Right? I mean, we’re really ultimately it’s about finding partners in the legislature, fellow senators and assembly members who, who you trust and you believe in and you trust, because we’re working on I mean, every single day, Matt.

I’m working on you wouldn’t be believe the number of issues we get to work we work on every day, from vaccines to parks, to insurance, to transportation, finance to school reopening to environmental challenges, I mean, every single day, you we literally work on every issue that the state works on, which is nearly nearly every aspect of life.

So. So it’s ultimately a lot of this job involves finding really good partners that you can work with and you know, Assemblymembers, Bennett and Blum and many others have been great partners in this work.

Yeah, well, it’s a challenging job managing California’s economy, which is the fifth largest economy in the world. So it’s it’s important work. So there’s another bill that you’re also sponsoring it’s AB 1276 to reduce unnecessary food service. Where do you tell us a little bit about that one?

Yeah, this is this actually pretty this bill is pretty easy to understand. This is Wendy Korea Isabella, another wonderful member from Los Angeles assembly um, so so the idea here is that it right now we have this plastic straws upon request bill. So you can get a plastic straw if you want it. But it’s upon request, the same idea is that with other single use food accessories, and like third party delivery platforms that you have, you should request it right.

So if so, for example, this is a pandemic right now, where a lot of us are getting takeout, the food’s coming to our homes, where we have cutlery where we have plates where we have dishes, and yet, almost always, they throw two or three or four little plastic ware, plastic ware packages in our in our bags, when when I don’t know about you, but I want if I’m at home, I don’t want to use the plastic or I want to use my, my silverware.

And so the idea is that that that companies should it should be upon request. So yes, absolutely. If you’re gonna go up picnic at the park, and you want to ask for some plastic were fine, no problem, but it shouldn’t just be thrown in there by rote. Especially given the fact that so many people are eating their meals, you know, at home or somewhere where they have access to cutlery, because it’s very wasteful.

Yeah, we’re talking about probably 10s of millions, if not hundreds of millions or billions of utensils, because the state of California has 40 million people. And if, if you do that 10 times a year, that’s 400 million sets of plastic were such a waste.

And, you know, there are people who collect drawers full of this stuff, you know, for the for the for the one for the one chance that they’ll have to, you know, to maybe use it. But then in addition, there’s just tons of people just toss it right into the trash without ever using it at all.

And so it’s just, it’s just very wasteful. I mean, so Well, another one that you’ve sponsored is AB 1371, the plastic film and E commerce of peanuts and all that type of stuff. What else is covered in that other than the peanuts that they throw in the E commerce? Material that yeah, mailers void fill?

So So I mean, ultimately, it’s about it’s about these plastic films that are very, I mean, it’s kind of like I was talking about with with the LA Times insert. You know, the truth of matter is Amazon, Amazon knows this. I mean, Amazon is slowly transitioning toward it, for example, there’s you can put it paper envelope, so many things. I mean, I get these books that are covered in plastic wrap.

And I mean, when I’m not talking about ancient I’m not talking about like antique books, I’m talking about just a used book, it’s just, it’s almost as though they’ve delivered a baby in it. I mean, it’s so over the top, the kind of packaging they put to protect the book that really in the end of the day doesn’t need anything but a basic cardboard envelope. So the idea is that we’re going to phase out the use of plastic films, mailers, void fill polystyrene peanuts, in E commerce.

And by the way, let me just remind folks, that there is perfectly usable and perfectly perfectly workable peanuts, right? That are that are they’re degradable. Right, they’re natural. They’re made out of, of corn starch, for example, the do the trick, they’ll they’ll protect your your item just as just as well as polystyrene. But if you toss it into a, you know, into a river, it’ll vow degrade within a few days.

That’s great, simple fixes like that to make a big difference, because it’s sickening, how much packaging Amazon sends items, like you said, and it’s just such a waste, but referring you to AB 888, which is a recycling export reform, that that caught my eyes that an important piece of legislation.

Yes, this bill isn’t. So once again, another bill by one of my assembly colleagues. And the last bill I mentioned, by the way that went on the peanuts was was Laura Freeman is also from LA, this bill is by Randy Gonzalez he’s from you mean 88 one right?

81 Oh, 81 this is Lorena spell so so basically, up until now, a lot of jurisdictions have been basically exporting mixed plastic waste outside of the state or outside of the country and the stuff gets it gets it gets landfill, it gets burned, it gets dumped, or otherwise improperly managed. And the idea is, is that that we shouldn’t we shouldn’t allow folks to to meet their their recycling or diversion requirements, if that’s what’s happening. And it’s it’s basically a major gap in the system right now that jurisdictions have been sending this stuff out, closing their eyes and ears and saying,

Oh, I think it’s getting recycled. And it’s of course not this was precisely what was happening with Asia. By the way, a lot of our stuff was getting sent off to Asia. They were saying, yeah, it’s getting recycled. Well, once you actually study the chain, it’s ending up being burned in small villages is ending up in enormous trash pits.

And yet, and yet the the jurisdictions that were sending these materials off, were getting recycling credit for these materials that were not being recycled, they were not being properly disposed of. And so this is, this is, you know, going to put some accountability to the system, that

it’s very important because I saw a little expos a about that and burning this trash in Thailand, and it’s just polluting these poor people’s, you know, air and it’s their water. And, you know, for us to ship it ship our problems off like that is is really unconscionable, unconscionable.

That’s a great way I wanted to just pivot before I let you go to talk about the homelessness issue and a bill that we have proposed, which was a homeless stipend to give homeowners who take in homeless people $1,000 a month to help reduce our homelessness crisis.

And part of the is because we have a bit of a housing shortage here, I read as many as 3.3 million units, we are short of what we should have in supply, and that’s caused our rent prices to go up by probably double in the last 10 years. And then we have this homelessness, I wanted to get your take on that and get your support to see if we can help move this forward?

Well, I think it’s a really cool idea. I mean, I’d be honest, it was actually I was presented to a group of La legislators. And I guess we were both hoping that one of my colleagues would take it up as a bill, they worked with the Legislative Council to get the language together. And so, you know, I guess what you and I have talked about is getting this into getting this into a package that we can present to the governor, maybe try to see if we can get into the budget process.

One of the one of the challenges we have to think about here is how this type of arrangement goes at a more specialized professional level. So even when the state pays for professional managers, and housing and apartments for unhoused individuals, they don’t always agree to go into this Housing Agreement, or they don’t follow the requirements to be there. So you know, so So but but that being said, I think it’s a good idea.

And, of course, it’s not always as simple as just getting a homeless person into into housing, I’m there. And one of the problems we find is when we get out homeless people into into shelters or into some of the supportive housing, they need wraparound services, they need social services, they need mental health services, they were oftentimes there are some people who literally just need a roof over their head to get, you know, get back on track.

But there’s a lot of people in our homeless community who have serious mental health challenges, and other challenges associated with getting themselves back on their feet. So we have to think about all those factors and forces to write definitely wraparound services are absolutely necessary, necessary for a lot of the homeless population.

And one of the organizations we’ve worked with is called Share and they housed like 395 people this last year, and, and they have a counselor that works with, with the homeless persons that are are housed through their program, which is worked out really well and on average, within a year those persons are back in, in the on their feet and housed in kind of regular circumstances.

So what did they do? Like what is what what’s share special sauce? Like what are they? What what sort of services do they provide that make the difference for these folks?

I think it’s a combination of job services and getting them in touch with mental health care professionals and you know, drug and alcohol counseling and, and all the rest and just kind of shepherding having somebody there for the person so that they can help direct them and, and and as we all know, if you don’t have family support to having that extra person there to say, Hey, let’s go here, you can do this and and they know the system to get them the help they need to to relaunch.

Yep, yeah, no, I well. That’s what that’s certainly conforms with my understanding, right that it ultimately it’s about, you have to have a little bit of scaffolding, you have to provide an additional layer of support. But but if you know, especially, especially right now, where you have a lot of people because of the pandemic, who have fallen into homelessness, but they haven’t been homeless for too long.

And for folks who haven’t fallen into homelessness because of very severe mental health or addiction issues, those folks I think are most ready to be helped by a program like you’re talking about and so on. I like the idea. I’m gonna go back and see what sort of progress it’s been making through it the legislative conversation so far.

And, and let’s work together to see if we can, you know, amplify it and get it written up and get it in front of the governor and some of the legislative leadership and see where we go with it.

I greatly appreciate your help there, Senator. And it’s been a pleasure having you on the show. You’ve been listening to Senator Ben Allen, as KABC 790. Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern, and we’ll be back in just a minute.

This is Unite and Heal America with Matt matter, my guest is Sweta Chakraborty, and she is a risk and behavioral scientist on climate change. And really happy to have you on the show. Looking forward to talking about the work that you’re doing. You’re back in DC, and welcome.

Thank you. Looking forward to this. Thanks for having me.

So tell us a little bit about your background, and what brought you to this issue of climate change.

So it’s one of those things that once you know what’s going on, you can’t look back. And this was never really my plan. I studied behavioral science. And I was actually applying it during my post doctorate to understanding how to improve patient outcomes. So looking at why patients don’t take their prescription drugs in accordance to their doctor’s instructions, and trying to understand that behavior and how to improve upon behavior.

So it wouldn’t be better outcomes for the patient. And then society because ultimately, individual decision making and this is key, this is true for climate change. individual decision making actually impacts society more broadly. And so while you would think this is somebody’s personal choice or decision as to whether to take a medicine, or whether to consume energy in a certain way, that’s actually not the case, we are really all connected, and we live part of a collaborative ecosystem.

And so I was introduced to climate change during my postdoc, actually, at a conference, somebody else was talking about it. And I was like, Is this actually true? And we’re talking about 10 years ago, so not not that long ago.

You know, I feel that exactly what you’re saying. And we’ve known this for a long time, Exxon back in the 80s, did a study where they projected with the amounts of carbon per, you know, per million, or whatever, I can’t remember the scientific terminology, but parts per billion, and they projected it and they were like dead on.

It’s unfortunate, we had to wait till it got to this point, we are locked into 1.5 degrees warming no matter what. And the Paris accord said that that should be what we max out at at the end of this century. But we’re actually on the trajectory to reach it by mid century. So we’re not only are we hitting what we should be maxing out at 50 years before, we are what does that mean for where we’ll be at the end of the century, we’re like still on a trajectory where we are going off a cliff as a global society.

And it doesn’t mean that humankind is going to cease to exist. But it does mean that there’s going to be widespread suffering. So now that we know that how much of that suffering are we willing to accept. And that’s something we have to contend with. And I say that not to scare people. But as a behavioral scientists, the reason that it’s important to know what we’re actually facing is because that’s how you actually get people’s attention.

It’s a saturated information landscape out there, people are being hit with stories around so many different things and major issues that deserve attention, like gun homicides and other things COVID-19. So where does climate change kind of fit into this information environment, we have to get people’s attention by calling it what it is, it’s a crisis.

It’s an emergency and scaring people is acceptable, because it’s actually aligned to the reality of the risks that we’re facing with climate. But then it’s really important that we come up with solutions that we provide hope and positive action steps forward, because we can overcome this. And that’s really important to remember.

But I think one of the big challenges, how to communicate this message to a society that many parts of it are skeptical of the information and skeptical of science and skeptical, what they perceive as becoming from the left, as opposed to this just being accurate information.

As somebody who has been a registered Republican for the last 30 plus years. I mean, the Republicans used to be pretty solid on on environmental issues, and over the last 30 years, that’s kind of dissipated pretty substantially and now with President Trump was or former President Trum. Fortunately, he you know, he completely called it a hoax and and a lot of people 77 million people voted for that.

Not completely, I don’t believe every second every one of the 70 million people thought that climate change is the hoax but but still there. There was a lot of communication that downplayed the risks. of climate change.

Yeah. And that is so dangerous because it just plays into this polarization that we’re seeing in the US. It is these things need to be disentangled. And it’s wild to me. It’s not because I study it. But it’s still wild that I had to study it. The fact that whether or not somebody is willing to wear a mask, whether or not they believe in climate change, whether or not they think infectious disease is a real threat, you can based on that, figure out where they fall on the political spectrum.

And that should not be the case, the fact that these identities are these positions are so entangled. But that’s what it is because we’re tribal by nature. And we’re born with a blueprint, this is the sociologist and me are the interested sociologists. We’re born with a blueprint of really needing to belong to a group.

And it’s, it’s fine, because it’s worked for us, since the dawn of our species, it’s actually been a very good survival mechanism that’s been very good for human evolution. It’s allowed us to set up societies and to create communities and come up with these really incredible advances in science and technology and human ingenuity. And but it’s brought us here to this really complex, interconnected landscape that our brains aren’t really wired to understand.

And we get overwhelmed by that kind of information. Because our brains still look more like our ancestors, those who set up these societies that 1000s of years ago, versus the supercomputers that we actually need to look resemble more closely to be able to understand just how complex some of these risks are. And what we do when we are faced with these kinds of risks is rather than take the time to really interpret what that means.

We’d rather we kind of fall back into what is a, what our innate wiring how our brains work, but we fall into kind of the group identity. And if that means it’s easier to kind of take a position on climate because well, I’m a registered Republican, and that’s what my group or my tribe is doing, I’m going to do that. So that’s a challenge that that’s what I do daily.

In fact, as I communicate to the public, on the work that I do with the group, we don’t have time, based out of Sweden, Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden, and the work that I do in advising Science and Technology Policy, we really need to lead with information that is relevant for people that takes away any sort of barrier resistance because of their, their identity.

It is a challenge is something that I faced when I was out there on the campaign trail to discuss these issues. And I mean, I just found it, it’s just stunning to me that people who are intelligent people were taking positions that were contrary to the available science. And and that’s just a real tragedy, because we have to act like you said, we don’t have time and we need to act now.

So just kind of pivoting a little bit to some of the other work that you’re doing on a policy basis. And what do you think, are the the critical policy changes that the US and the world should be making in the next 5-10 years?

Yeah. That’s a great question. Because ultimately, we need individuals to get the best information possible, we need to lead with the science and the facts. But we need to recognize that individual behavioral changes, while we need to shift how we think about energy and how we interact with the environment and how we consume, we need to do broadly shift that and make that a persistent behavioral change.

But ultimately, we really need multilateral efforts at that at the highest levels of governance to address some of the overhauls in across sectors to really address the warming trajectory that we’re on. And, you know, Obama started it with a clean power plan. But he was using deterrence measures. So it was regulating Dirty, dirty energy.

Then we saw a pivot from that when Trump came into power, and he removed all of the regulations that Obama had put in place, unquote, coal, oil and gas, and had Trump stayed in power another four years, some of those those lifting regulations during the Obama era would have gone into effect in a way that would have been really problematic for the US, in terms of the nationally determined contributions to the Paris Accords.

And the amount of emissions we wouldn’t be releasing, it would have been a disaster, we would not even come close to meeting our our contributions that we have. We promised when we initially signed the Paris Accords during Obama, but thank goodness, he wasn’t here for another four years. And instead Biden’s come in. And what Biden’s done differently is rather than do the regulations on dirty energy, he is instead providing the carrot over the stick.

And so it’s really just energizing renewable energy sector in a way that we haven’t seen. And we’re talking about 3 trillion following the most recent stimulus package that came out that is really being geared towards meeting this really ambitious goal of decarbonizing the electricity system in the United States by 2035. That would lead us to net neutral by 2050.

Now, that is so key because we We have to domestically do what we say we’re going to do when we’re at that global stage when we’re interacting with other world leaders because we need them to also do the similar thing. So we can’t come across as hypocrites. And for the last four years during Trump, we really did it was very embarrassing.

Well, you’re listening to Unite and Heal America, my guest, Dr. Sweta Chakraborty. And we’ll be back in one minute, the thank you KABC 790 Unite and Heal America.

You’re back with Unite and Heal America, this is Matt Matern and KABC 790. My guest again, doctor Sweta Chakraborty, a risk and behavioral scientist and climate change. We’re talking about the changes that President Biden is planning to make, and what are some of them, the additional changes that you see coming down the pike? And why are they important?

Yeah, he’s done. He’s done incredible things with his executive orders already. He put a moratorium on the Keystone pipeline. And just to spend a second on that. So union workers were very disappointed because of jobs lost there. But the $3 trillion prep plan, which is rolling out is going to potentially allow for way more jobs to be created.

And in industries that really will advance the US has interest in becoming net neutral by 2050. And again, that is really critical to have that going on at home so that the case can be made at a at a multilateral level that other countries need to do the same, that’s really going to be important.

And he’s doing, he’s doing everything pretty quickly in these first critical 100 days of making that happen by appointing cabinet level positions with people that get it and making sure that there’s cross communication and collaboration across agencies where historically we wouldn’t have seen that unnecessarily.

So Department of Transportation has people to judge heading it up now. And we’re talking about electrifying the, the transport sector. So that’s really important that that relationship exists with Department of Energy, for example. So power sources for that sort of electrification can occur, we can’t do one without the other. So this collaboration is one example of how Biden is really taking significant steps in action.

He also saw that environmental justice, and correcting for historic environmental racism and historic wrongs, like redlining of neighborhoods, resulting in pollution for specific communities that have been historically disenfranchised, primarily black and brown communities that’s being addressed. The Secretary of the Interior is the first indigenous woman that has ever had a position of that, that level, Deborah Holland, and so the appointments are great, the efforts that are underway in first 100 days are really critical.

And I think we’re gonna see with this bill coming out some real traction being made towards America, putting them putting their money where their mouth is, we can’t just demand everybody, you know, address climate change if we’re not doing it at home. So it’s been, it’s been good to see what’s happening so far.

But what I’ve seen also is in the market, the market has responded to these efforts. And you see, alternative energy companies have rallied in the market, creating billions of dollars in additional cap market capitalization for many of these companies. In hydrogen sector. I’ve been driving a hydrogen car for the last three years, and you can only drive those in California because there isn’t a network of those stations to fill, refilled hydrogen into the vehicles, and we really need to roll that out, it wouldn’t be that expensive.

Probably a few billion dollars to roll out a hydrogen network across the country. And then that is truly the cleanest fuel much cleaner than electrified vehicles, because we don’t have the battery waste. Do you see any action on that front?

I’m a proponent of clean energy and whatever needs to get us there to a fully renewable portfolio, including hydrogen, including nuclear. So it definitely has a role to play. We really just need to take our take our reliance on fossil fuels, if we don’t include nuclear and hydrogen in that portfolio, then the default for not just a lot of places in the US, but around the world will be to fossil fuels.

And that’s just something we cannot afford. And so I’m curious to see to what extent that will be included in to the loans Programs Office, for example, within the Department of Energy is going to be looking closely at hydrogen and nuclear.

And there’s a lot of scope for innovation in in, maybe not, maybe not renewable electricity, like nuclear, but it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot of potential for new even better technologies around let’s say small modular reactors going forward. I think whatever, whatever gets us to the priority of getting to net neutral by 2050. We need to have as part of the as part of as playing a critical role.

I think the government should partner with the car companies because Toyota and Honda have have rolled out these hydrogen cars. And there are other 10 or 15 other car companies that are planning to use that technology. But I think they need the support of the government to roll out the stations in order to create a network where they feel comfortable, hey, if we produce these cars, there’s going to be a market for their use.

And we certainly have subsidized the oil industry over the last 100 years, it seems reasonable that we give the hydrogen industry a modest subsidy. And as you said, it will kick off millions of new jobs in that sector, because there are a lot of support industries that are necessary to create a cleaner economy.

Yeah, I love what you’re saying, I’ve worked with torture impact. It is a global network of investors. And it’s a it’s a membership subscription network. And so what we do is we have invitation only conferences where we look look at all of these potential innovations and sectors. And we bring together and mobilize investors who individually can make an impact, but collaboratively, we’re talking about a lot of capital.

And so we just hosted one of these, and I have an op ed out in the hill with the outcomes of this conference, but we just hosted one on the role of nuclear energy in reaching net zero, and we actually have hydrogen coming up too. So I I’m really looking forward to see what the global consensus is in terms of the science and where the opportunities are, with technology capital being inserted. And that’s what could be a game changer.

Absolutely. And they’ve, they’ve advanced the technology substantially in the last 10 plus years, as more money has come in to the to the field. And naturally, if more is invested, the technology will move forward even more.

So look forward to that I wanted to pivot a little bit to your your work with the UN partnership and earthday, as well as the app that you have for climate change. So maybe you can talk a little bit about those three things.

Yeah, it’s an exciting time, because this is we’re we’re getting close to Earth Day, April 22. And last year was the face 50th anniversary. Again, Earth Day started, when it was very clear that we needed to be more respectful with how we engage with environment 50 Or 50 plus years ago at this point, and now we’re finally at the mark where it’s it’s that unfortunate, I told you so.

But we can still solve this. So that’s let’s get people’s attention. This is it’s absolutely critical that we come together as a global populace, regardless of who you are. And what you do, you have a stake in getting this planet off the warming trajectory that it’s on.

And the way to do that we want to make it easier for people is there’s a free tool, it’s called we don’t have time, it’s an app, it’s very easy to use, and free to download, please take a look at it, what it allows you to do.

And again, it doesn’t matter if you don’t work in the climate change space, as a concerned individual, about your family or community of the future, it’s worthwhile to just get engaged and to see who is doing what in terms of changing operations. So that business, and not not even just business. But organizations are practicing what we practicing their operations that are aligned to the science that are aligned to the data.

That’s what we’re holding organizations accountable on this app. And we need the public to join in this effort. And if there’s ideas and campaigns that are created, virtually, they end up having real life impact. And so we encourage you to join this app and get engaged get involved, or the Day is coming up. There’s incredible programming that we don’t have time organization that I belong to, that offers this free tool, this free app called the we don’t have time map.

We’re partnering with birthday this year. And then we are also going to have a presence at COP26, the UN’s sixth anniversary from the signing of the Paris Accords. And it might be virtual this year. We’re still figuring it out. But it’s actually meant to be in Glasgow in Scotland. So keep it keep an ear out for that there’s plenty that you can do to get really engaged and play your role as a stakeholder in the environment.

Well, we only have one earth and we need to take care of it. This has got to be our top priority everybody individually and collectively, this is what we need to be focusing on. And that’s really what brought me back or brought me into the private or from the private sphere into the public sphere because I believe that the environment is our number one issue.

We need to focus on it. So thank you so much, doctor Sweta Chakraborty, it’s been a pleasure having you on the show. This is Matt Matern, KABC 790, Unite and Heal America. We look forward to having you back next week. Until then.