Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Today is day two of Climate Week NYC. Time to coincide with the world leaders gathering in New York for the annual UN General Assembly session and the so-called Climate Ambition Summit, which the UN is holding on Wednesday. Yesterday, definitely for the benefit of world leaders' eyes, climate activists staged the march to end fossil fuels. Media reports estimate tens of thousands of people took that walk on a beautiful day for it from 56th and Broadway ending at 51st and 1st just a few blocks from UN headquarters.

According to multiple media reports, President Biden was a key focus of the march as organizers targeted him for things like failing to totally phase out oil and gas drilling on public lands, though he has reduced it, and they want him to declare climate change a national emergency. Here's one marcher who WNYC spoke with during the march yesterday.

Female Marcher: We are so grateful for UN Secretary-General Guterres, who is leading the charge, asking world leaders to come with real commitments to phase out fossil fuels. This is the kind of leadership we need. We need President Biden to step up, to rise to that challenge, and commit to ending fossil fuels.

Brian Lehrer: The reports quote people at the march, young activists mostly, saying Biden risks alienating young climate concerned voters, diminishing turnout for him in reelection swing states next year potentially. On this show, just a program note, we're doing a segment every day this week for Climate Week NYC in conjunction with a loose knit media collaboration called Covering Climate Now, of which this show and WNYC are parts. In addition to our climate story of the week, which we're doing every Tuesday, all this year, we're doing segments every day for this Climate Week NYC.

Covering Climate Now also just announced its Climate Journalist Of the Year Awards. We'll have all three winners as the week goes on, including right now. The envelope, please, and the award goes to Amy Westervelt, founder and host of what she calls the Critical Frequency podcast network, which produces series, including the ones called Drilled, of which she is executive editor and Damages. She also writes articles for The Guardian and The Nation, MSNBC and The New Republic among other places, and is author of books, including All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and the Climate Crisis published in 2020. On a different topic, Forget "Having it all": How America Messed Up Motherhood published in 2018.

She has also won Edward R. Murrow and Rachel Carson Awards previously before this Covering Climate Now one, and now she's a Covering Climate Now journalist of the year. Amy Westervelt joins us and so does Mark Hertsgaard, executive director of Covering Climate Now. Now, he is also the environment correspondent for The Nation. Amy and Mark, happy Climate Week. Welcome back to WNYC.

Amy Westervelt: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Mark Hertsgaard: Thanks, Brian. It's always good to be here. A big shout out to WNYC for your leadership in climate coverage. WNYC was actually one of the conveners of the conference four years ago at Columbia University's journalism school that launched Covering Climate Now with the express goal of breaking the climate silence in the mainstream media. What you're doing with doing a show every Thursday on climate is exactly the kind of leadership that we hope the media as a whole will be emulating.

Brian Lehrer: Tuesday just for bookkeeping, but thank you. Mark, I'll let you start or continue. Why don't you just tell our listeners first why you named Amy Westervelt the Climate Journalist Of the Year.

Mark Hertsgaard: I couldn't be happier than to do that. Amy, hi, how are you? It's nice to be with you.

Amy Westervelt: Hi, Mark, thank you.

Mark Hertsgaard: Looking forward to seeing you on Thursday at the conference at Columbia. Before I extoll the reasons for Amy, let me just add that there are two other Climate Journalist Of the Year winners. One is Damian Carrington of The Guardian, and the other is Manka Behl of The Times of India. For all three of these-

Brian Lehrer: They will be, by the way, respectively guests on the show Wednesday and Friday. Go ahead.

Mark Hertsgaard: Terrific. With all of these three exceptional colleagues, we are honoring them for their growing body of really extraordinary work. What we try to do at Covering Climate Now is to lift up examples of the best practices so that all of us as journalists and newsrooms all around the world can look at those best practices and say, "Gee, how can I do something like that?" In Amy's case, I could go on forever, but I will say what we said in the award. Sports writers used to talk about a triple threat, somebody who could shoot, pass, and play defense. Amy Westervelt is a triple threat on the climate beach.

She is an amazing digger. She has really been after the whole side of the story about how big oil has been lying to us about climate change and not just about climate change. First story of Amy's I think I edited back at The Nation magazine, and she went back to the 1920s and showed how this is very deep in the DNA of the oil industry. In addition to doing those hard-hitting really path-breaking investigative exposes, Amy's also a really skilled radio journalist with a great delivery. I think you won, Amy, correct me if I'm wrong, in the very first year of awards, you won in your audio category for a brilliant piece-- pieces I should say, again about the climate deceptions.

Then finally, and this is something that's so important in today's era where frankly, it's hard to get journalism to pay. Amy Westervelt is also an extraordinary media entrepreneur. When she was trying to get her podcast started, some of the big boys in the business at first were interested. Then they said, "Oh, no, nobody's ever going to be interested in a podcast about climate change, [unintelligible 00:06:50] goodbye and thank you." Amy said, "Oh, really? Okay, well, I'm going to go off and do it by myself." Within a year, she had a million listeners. That's the grit and determination that all of us as journalists need as we cover the biggest, most important story of our time.

Brian Lehrer: Some of you thinking, "Wait, didn't we used to hear the phrase NPR's Amy Westervelt?" Yes. [laughs] That was one of the things that Amy did before she went out on her own into climate entrepreneurship. Listeners, we can take your Climate Week calls. I want to make sure everybody knows the phones are open and that we're inviting anyone who attended the march yesterday who wants to call in and say what it was like for you and what message you want listeners to take away from it if they weren't there themselves. 212433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Amy, any Amy Westervelt fans from her NPR Days or any of her other work, or any questions or comments for Amy now named a Climate Journalist Of the Year by Covering Climate Now, the journalism consortium, or executive director of Covering Climate Now, Mark Hertsgaard, is also environment correspondent for The Nation. 212433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Amy, congratulations and I want to dive in on just one very recent example of your work that was just released yesterday for MSNBC, called How Big Oil is using friendly judges to muzzle free speech. I'll bite. How is Big Oil using friendly judges to muzzle free speech?

Amy Westervelt: Well, I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this on your show, but journalists don't write the headlines. I'm not really sure what exactly that headline is referring to, but the story is about how the industry has been very active in general in criminalizing free speech in myriad ways. They are deeply involved in passing these things called critical infrastructure laws, which are making protest much more criminalized in many states. It's almost half the states now. I think 21 states have these laws now, which increase the jail time and fines associated with protest near critical infrastructure, which is defined incredibly broadly.

An overpass, a rail railway, a pipeline, a power station, a refinery, any of these things could be critical infrastructure, a bridge, [chuckles]. It's hard to find any place that wouldn't be near something that fits that definition. It's being used just in West Virginia last week, the law went into effect and four days later, climate protestors were arrested and charged under the new critical infrastructure law. There's that. There's the RICO charges against the Cop City protestors are a good example as well. That is a pretty extreme charge to use, criminal racketeering, against peaceful protestors.

Brian Lehrer: Can I ask you to dive into that one a little? Because that one jumped out at me from your article. People following the Trump indictments know that he's being charged in Georgia under RICO racketeering laws. This report that you wrote said, "RICO charges are also being brought in Georgia against climate and other protestors." What?

Amy Westervelt: Yes, yes. It's really an escalation of some of the tactics that we've been seeing used to try to suppress climate protest. For a while now, there's been this tendency to try to describe climate protestors as "domestic terrorists" despite the fact that there's not any violence against people involved. It's occasionally some pretty minor property damage. In this case, not even that. It was people peacefully occupying a park. I don't know how that fits the definition of either terrorism or racketeering. [laughs] In this case, especially because it's criminal racketeering, not civil racketeering, which you have seen some of those charges being levied at protestors and organizations as well.

The thing that's scary about it is not just that those charges come with increased jail time and fines, but that it loops in any organization that's involved with protests as well. That's really meant to scare off organizations like Greenpeace, or the Sierra Club, or the NRDC, big environmental organizations that have been involved with organizing protests, which is not an illegal activity in this country, but are now being roped into these RICO claims. I think it's something people should be paying attention to.

Even if climate is not your issue, this is not going to stay contained only to climate protestors. Once states and the federal government start to think about protests as a criminal activity, that's not a good path to be on.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Wasn't that one-- just to finish this stretch of the conversation. That particular one at the park that you referenced, a joint protest against the destruction of some trees there, if I remember correctly, which is climate-related, an area called the lungs of Atlanta, I think you described it as in your article, and-

Amy Westervelt: As did the same state agency that is allowing it to be razed in order to build a police facility, which seems strange. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: Right. Razed, R-A-Z-E-D, and that's what I was going to say. In combination with the protest against the so-called Cop City, this big training facility that some people object to for the kinds of techniques that reportedly they're going to be training police in.

Amy Westervelt: Ironically, some of those techniques include the sorts of counterinsurgency tactics that are being used against protestors, which again, just seems like such an escalation to be using military tactics against US citizens who are exercising their First Amendment right is a bit concerning. Again, these were peaceful protestors. None of them were doing anything. The police did, however, shoot and kill one of the protestors who had their hands up at the time, according to the DeKalb County coroner which ruled that shooting a homicide. It's an interesting contrast there.

Yes, I think the fact that you saw this united protest that was both pushing back against over-policing and pushing back against the destruction of nature and ecosystems and things like that is probably what prompted the massive overreaction. I think that seeing those groups aligned is not something that industry wants to see or that lots of people in power want to see, frankly.

Brian Lehrer: We're talking various issues related to Climate Week NYC and the UN General Assembly being here in town, and about to have a Climate Ambition Summit on Wednesday called by the UN Secretary-General with Mark Hertsgaard, who's been very patient and hasn't spoken in a while. The executive director of the group Covering Climate Now, which has just bestowed three Climate Journalist Of the Year Awards, one of them to our other guest who has been speaking most recently, journalist Amy Westervelt. Let's take a call from somebody who was at yesterday's March to End Fossil Fuels. Erin in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hey, Erin, thanks for calling in.

Erin: Hi, Brian. Thank you. I was at the March to End Fossil Fuels yesterday with the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, and we were there really to highlight our victory this year, passing the Build Public Renewables Act in June, which is some would say the most ambitious climate legislation in New York history. DSA and the rest of the Public Power Coalition really want that to be the first of many steps towards publicly-owned renewable energy across New York State.

I just have to say, as a member of the communications team, seeing the mass movement towards clean energy in New York after years of organizing, getting that bill passed, there's a lot of energy in the streets and in the legislature. As always, anyone can join up with DSA, but I think there's a lot of energy for many more bills like this.

Brian Lehrer: That's good. What was your-- I was going to ask Mark if he was there and the impression that he got as a reporter, but let me ask you before you go, Erin, as a marcher and a DSA member. The media reports I've been reading have been saying disappointment with President Biden despite good climate things that he's done was a main focus. I'm curious if you felt that way or experienced your fellow marchers that way.

Erin: Well, I see a lot of people on the streets, old and young, all these different demographics, and a lot of those signs were anti-Biden. I think that personally, I think what Biden was hoping to pass on climate with Build Back Better was really fantastic, but this is an emergency. This is a crisis, and we need the most powerful action we can from the executive branch to pass really transformative legislation. We can't wait. That's why we're really focusing on the mass organizing and then also rallying New York State legislators and the federal government.

Brian Lehrer: You think a lot of your fellow DSA members might sit out the 2024 election if Biden doesn't do a lot more on climate, let's assume it's Biden versus Trump.

Erin: I really can't speak for the rest of DSA, I know that no one wants Trump in office again, and we'll go to the polls if necessary. I think that we really want to show that this is a powerful movement. Our electeds are beholden to us, especially all these young people I saw at the march yesterday who want to have a clean, livable future.

Brian Lehrer: Erin, thank you. Thank you very much for your call. Mark, it's always something the political left has to grapple with, right? How much to abandon liberal politicians, meaning politicians who are merely liberal, who they see as not going far enough, but at the risk of say, electing Donald Trump again by not turning out.

Mark Hertsgaard: You're right, Brian. Yes, I was there covering the march yesterday and one quick addendum to what the caller said about that. She's quite correct that that New York State legislation is really, really exceptional and pioneering. AOC, when she spoke at the end of the rally yesterday, called out that legislation praising it, and said, "This is what we want to see, not just here in New York, but elsewhere." She had a very, as usual with AOC, very pungent soundbite about it. She said, "We are not going to go from fossil fuel barons to solar energy barons. We want publicly-owned power, energy should belong to the public."

That was very striking. There was, of course, a huge crowd roar at that. I did notice that the conversation both from the podiums and in the placards, and the chance that people were giving during the march were all focused on Biden, which frankly, as a political reporter, I get it, but I also think is quite strange. Joe Biden, as the caller just mentioned, wanted to do a whole lot more with his climate policy, with the Green New Deal, Build Back Better program, and the Inflation Reduction Act. Why wasn't he able to do that? Because there is a 50-vote Republican veto in the Senate, and you add to that Joe Manchin, a coal baron, literally a coal baron from the state of West Virginia, who's the Democrat. He's the vote that Biden needed to pass anything. That's why the Inflation Reduction Act did not scale back fossil fuels. The White House wanted to do that, but they ended up with an Inflation Reduction Act that hugely spends a lot of money to build out clean energy, but does nothing to stop dirty energy. It's all carrots and no sticks, but that's simply a reflection of the reality in Washington.

If the people who are out there marching want to change that, I don't think that it's just enough to say, "Oh, Joe Biden, you're not doing enough." Go out there and give Biden or whoever's going to be the Democratic nominee or president, give him a congressional majority so that he can pass these things.

Brian Lehrer: It wasn't just AOC or Greta Thunberg generation people at the march yesterday. It was Jean in Washington Heights generation people, which I say because she cited her age to our screener. Jean, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Jean: This is thrilling. I'm a great fan of yours. Wherever I am in North America, I tune into you every day or as much as I can. Aside from that, I want to speak to the mood of the marchers. I reached the point of 80, as I said, and I don't want to give my last name because I get fraud calls all the time. I just love that march yesterday. Finally, people were coming out of their sloth and out of their denial, even if they weren't the exact representatives, there was such a heightened atmosphere of we can do something. It's not just talking about it, it's not just marching. It's we are going to push.

Now, it takes more than one big, big march to do that. I organized when I was younger. It was like I was going home. I was going to my youth and my middle age, and I loved it. There was so much enthusiasm and I couldn't find my group. I marched with the Sierra Club, which I belonged to but there were so many groups. There were drums, there was rhythm, there was enthusiasm, there was joy. There was a great team spirit. I think that that's what we have to look to but they have to keep going. As the last speaker suggested, have to keep going, but he was suggesting go to vote. Going to vote is not enough.

We have to have the '60s kinds of marching, the '60s kinds of feistiness for all the different issues, especially the ones against Jim Crow and against patriarchy. We have to keep going because this is the most serious. This goes beyond World War II and I wrote a book about, I decided I wanted to explore evil, so I chose World War II, but I think I would choose climate change. I'm really thrilled to be able to speak to this. I was thrilled that I went yesterday on my own. I couldn't find anyone to go with me. People said I'm going to meet my sister. I'm going to meet my sister-in-law. I go late and leave early. I said I am just going to go.

I got on the subway for the first time in three years. I had been so nervous about the subway, but the subway was fine. Everything was great. People were very kind to one another. There was just a generous joy.

Brian Lehrer: Beautiful call, Jean. Thank you very much for making it. Please keep calling us. We're going to run out of time soon, but Amy Westervelt, I want to touch one more thing with you that I promised the listeners earlier in the show because we've been covering the auto workers' strike. I see you wrote an article in The New Republic this summer called Is Big Oil Turning on Big Auto? Also, to get your thoughts in the current political context, that while Biden and other Democrats are supporting the strikers by citing the greed of the owners and supporting their central demands like percentage raises that approximate the raises their CEOs are getting and a return to actual pensions, Republicans are blaming auto worker woes on climate policy. You knew I'd bring this back to climate somehow, right?

Amy Westervelt: Yes. We all saw this coming. It's not just the Republicans. Actually, the automakers themselves have also blamed climate policy. It's a very handy get-out-of-jail free card for them to say, "Oh, well, we would pay them more, but these electric cars just have lower margins and things like that," but the reality is that automakers, like a lot of companies, will take any opportunity to undercut wages for workers and workers were promised a just transition in automotive. Instead, what's happened in a lot of cases is that jobs have been eliminated.

People have been laid off and then younger people that they can pay less have been hired instead and that's all been blamed on the transition to electric vehicles. I think that this is a really key moment actually for the climate movement to show solidarity for labor and to push back on this narrative that, "Oh, see, this is what happens when you have climate policy, is that it's bad for workers," because that is a story that the fossil fuel industry has been using for at least, I don't know, 100 years now and the automakers are availing themselves of it now too, but it's just not true. I hope that people can see through that noise.

Brian Lehrer: Mark, a last word. I'll cite the tweet from a Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, one of the three states where plants are being struck right now. He wrote workers deserve a raise and they deserve to have their jobs protected from stupid climate mandates that are destroying the US auto industry and making China rich. Give us the last word.

Mark Hertsgaard: Coming from someone who raised his fist at the January 6th rioters, that man is not a patriot and he should not be listened to. I think this program has showed you why Covering Climate Now was so proud to name Amy Westervelt as one of our Climate Journalists Of the Year. Well deserved and congratulations, Amy.

Amy Westervelt: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Bringing it back around to the lead. Very professional journalist of you, Mark Hertsgaard, executive director of Covering Climate Now, or I should say environment correspondent for The Nation, and Amy Westervelt, one of three Climate Journalists Of the Year that Covering Climate Now has just named. We're going to have the other two on the show as this Climate Week NYC goes on. Amy, do you want to just have a last, last word and promote anything that you're working on in particular, your podcast, something from your podcast network, or anything of your choice?

Amy Westervelt: Sure. Everything climate that we do now is on the website drilled.media. There's podcasts, written stuff, documents. We've got all the primary documents behind every story accessible there now too, so drilled.media.

Brian Lehrer: Amy and Mark, thanks so much.

Amy Westervelt: Thank you.

Mark Hertsgaard: My pleasure.

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