Environment & Climate – Can Business Bridge the Gap? Stephanie Hanes & Mark Trumbull

Let's Find Common Ground

USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future

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5 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2021

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Banks & businesses are betting big on sustainable investments. Can they help politicians bridge the gap on climate change? When Joe Biden talks about the challenge of fighting climate change, he mentions jobs: not green jobs or renewable energy jobs, but “millions of good-paying union jobs.” The new administration is working to reframe the conversation about the environment at a time when many of Wall Street’s largest banks and corporations are betting big on sustainable investments — from electric cars and trucks to new kinds of renewable and carbon-free energy. On Let’s Find Common Ground, we interview journalists Stephanie Hanes and Mark Trumbull of The Christian Science Monitor, and learn the latest on the changing landscape in the great debate over the environment and climate. Can business help politicians from both major parties bridge some of their differences? Listen to find out.

Transcript

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0:00.0	How we talk about the environment and climate has a lot to do with how we see things.
0:05.0	Do we focus on the threats or spend more time on innovation and the opportunities for constructive change?
0:11.0	With a new administration, the debate and the language being used are changing, almost week by week.
0:22.0	This is Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Ashley Melntite.
0:27.0	And I'm Richard Davies. In this episode we ask, can business bridge the gap?
0:32.0	Sustainability investments by financial and corporate leaders are rapidly increasing in both sides and frequency.
0:40.0	We speak with Stephanie Haynes and Mark Trumbull of the Christian Science Monitor.
0:45.0	This episode is the latest in a series with monitor editors and reporters.
0:49.0	Stephanie is the newspaper's environment and climate change writer.
0:54.0	Mark is currently the monitor's economy and science editor.
0:58.0	I'll Stephanie first about framing.
1:01.0	The words and phrases used by the Biden administration to talk about environmental challenges and more positive in some ways, aren't they?
1:08.0	Well, I think for a long time people have framed climate change in environmental terms.
1:17.0	And people have talked a lot about the potential dangers of climate change.
1:22.0	And at a certain point, I believe that some of the people who are quite concerned about climate, they realize that this is not a particularly motivating way to talk about a big issue.
1:33.0	And so what you've seen is climate change advocates starting to really talk in terms of solutions and opportunities.
1:43.0	Of how addressing this reality is a great way to build jobs, to build innovation, to mobilize human capacity.
1:54.0	And you're seeing that shift in the rhetoric because that's more appealing for people. It doesn't make people just want to hide.
2:02.0	Mark, I was really struck by the different tone from Joe Biden when he spoke to Congress recently.
2:09.0	He seemed to frame climate change as something that could be exciting for the American economy as opposed to just doom and gloom.
2:20.0	Absolutely. And as Stephanie was just saying, there's a very good sort of tactical reason for that.
2:26.0	And I think there's also a substantive shift in thought that's been happening that goes beyond democratic party agendas.
	...

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