{"id":1049,"date":"2021-06-11T20:05:21","date_gmt":"2021-06-11T20:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/michigan-voices\/?page_id=1049"},"modified":"2021-06-11T20:05:23","modified_gmt":"2021-06-11T20:05:23","slug":"s2e8-transcript","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/michigan-voices\/s2e8-transcript\/","title":{"rendered":"S2E8 Transcript"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br>Wed, 4\/28 12:52PM 31:44<br>SUMMARY KEYWORDS<br>people, pennsylvania, worked, impacts, solutions, sustainability, climate change, environment,<br>class, climate action plans, terms, sarah, climate impacts, listening, environmentalism, epa,<br>opportunity, climate action plan, issues, climate<br>SPEAKERS<br>Sarah Pinter, Jon Haisfield<br>Jon Haisfield 00:26<br>Welcome to this episode of Michigan voices. I&#8217;m your host, Jon Haisfield. And today we<br>take a dive into issues surrounding the world we live in. whether we realize it or not,<br>everyone interacts with the environment on a daily basis, the air we breathe, the water we<br>drink, and the food we consume is all sourced from the environment. The environment is<br>constantly feeding us the resources we need to survive. So it is imperative that we strive to<br>protect it. But what exactly can we and future generations do? What role can we serve in<br>the greater scheme of things? Today, we seek to answer some of these questions by<br>taking a glimpse into those who play a role in helping to solve some of the biggest issues<br>surrounding our environment, working toward providing us with a more sustainable future.<br>Joining us today will be Sarah painter, on Ohio University alum who majored in<br>mathematics and statistical environmental science. Before getting her master&#8217;s in<br>sustainability management at American University. post graduate degree, Sarah worked<br>on the federal level for the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, and now works in<br>the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. Before we begin this interview,<br>we just have a brief disclaimer that must be addressed.<br>Sarah Pinter 01:42<br>What I am saying in this interview is reflective of my experience and my opinions, and it<br>doesn&#8217;t reflect what is happening at the state level of Pennsylvania. I&#8217;m not claiming to<br>J<br>S<br>PODCASTFINAL Page 1 of 12 Transcribed by https:\/\/otter.ai<br>represent the EP. I&#8217;m not claiming to represent the governor&#8217;s office. These are just my<br>thoughts.<br>Jon Haisfield 01:59<br>So without further ado, Sarah, welcome to the podcast. And thank you for joining us.<br>Would you like to start off by just telling us a little bit about yourself?<br>Sarah Pinter 02:09<br>Hi, I&#8217;m Sarah printer. Now, I&#8217;m currently an executive policy specialist with the<br>Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. I grew up in Pennsylvania, in<br>moon Township, which is outside of Pittsburgh, real close to the airport, if you&#8217;ve ever<br>flown through that airport, went to school out there. I went to college at Ohio University in<br>Athens, Ohio, not Ohio State the other one. And I got a Bachelor of specialized studies in<br>mathematics and statistical environmental science there. And I was involved with our<br>student senate as our Environmental Affairs Commissioner in my senior year, moved on<br>from there to graduate school at American University where I studied sustainability<br>management. My first job from there was moving into the Environmental Protection<br>Agency at the federal level, which I worked in the national Homeland Security Research<br>Center, which no longer exists, so<br>Jon Haisfield 03:13<br>Wow. And now you work for the pvp. So clearly, you&#8217;re very well versed in the<br>environmental protection and sustainability industry, having worked on both the federal<br>and state level, I&#8217;m curious as to what led you down that path? And were you always<br>interested in these topics?<br>Sarah Pinter 03:33<br>Actually, not at all, I did not know coming into college that I was in interested in<br>environmental stuff whatsoever. When I entered college, I was majoring in Mathematical<br>Statistics. And the reason that I chose that major is because I had a statistics teacher in<br>high school who told me I was not good at it. And so I said, I&#8217;ll show you all major in it. But<br>what really brought me down the path of environmentalism was you know, it was my fall<br>semester freshman year. So I was just starting out, and I needed to take one more class,<br>and I&#8217;m looking over my options, and I&#8217;m looking at the schedule I currently have. And I&#8217;m<br>saying, Okay, so, Tuesday and Thursday, I have this kind of like opening and it would be<br>good to take a class at that time. So you went through our course catalog and kind of<br>J<br>S<br>J<br>S<br>PODCASTFINAL Page 2 of 12 Transcribed by https:\/\/otter.ai<br>filtered by, you know, this is the day in time I want to take a class, what can I use to like fill<br>my schedule to keep my scholarship, and I was offered the choice between ecology and<br>the 21st century or Vietnamese. And I&#8217;m sure that there would have been a very interesting<br>timeline where I did choose Vietnamese and now know how to tweak it. But in this reality, I<br>thought that ecology on the 21st century would be the better choice for me. So I, you<br>know, started my classes and the first three days of that class, I thought, oh my god, this is<br>So boring. I couldn&#8217;t take it. And I was honestly getting ready to drop the class because we<br>were just going over things like, what&#8217;s a biome versus a hemisphere? And I was like, I can&#8217;t<br>believe this as a college class, like, I&#8217;m not at all interested in this. And then the day that I<br>was gonna decide, like, all right, so like in class today goes, Well, I&#8217;m gonna just continue<br>with this to get the science credit. And if not, I&#8217;ll just drop it in, figure out something else.<br>And in that day, in class, we started to get into the, the 21st century problems of ecology in<br>the 21st century. And I mean, I can really pinpoint the moment in that lecture that led me<br>down the path that I&#8217;m currently on. And it&#8217;s one my professor, he showed a slide like an<br>image, a satellite image of an algal bloom in the Gulf of Mexico that was so large, it could<br>be seen from space. And that image has stuck in my mind for all of these years, because<br>like, Oh, my God, like that was the moment that I realized, like this is now this is<br>happening. And like, I didn&#8217;t realize how serious this could be like, we can see the damage<br>that we are doing in real time. Like, it&#8217;s so obvious how did I never think about this before.<br>And so from then on, I was like, absolutely hooked on this class. I loved it, it was really<br>fascinating. But also, you know, as I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;ve talked about sustainability a lot, it<br>seems like so, you know, also, like, fascinating, but alarming. So I took that class, loved it,<br>finished it out. And I thought, well, I want to know more about this. And so I started taking<br>more ecology classes. And then I got into from ecology into like, forest ecology, and then<br>plants. And so my minor ended up being in botany. And so I kind of grew out from just this<br>one moment, you know, I think a lot of people who were in the sustainability field, have<br>stories about growing up, and you know, they would fish with their dad and go on family<br>hikes. And like, it&#8217;s always been a part of their lives. But I was somebody who, you know, I<br>grew up pretty standard suburban, like we&#8217;ve been outside, but we weren&#8217;t out in the<br>mountains every weekend or anything like that. And so it was really a matter of being in a<br>position to try something new. That led me to where I currently am. And I you know, that&#8217;s<br>some of the advice that I give to everybody who&#8217;s like just starting out in college is just try<br>whatever it is that you think might be interesting to you, because it taking this one class,<br>because it fit in my schedule at this time, change the trajectory of my life for the better. It<br>really has become like from that class forward. just such a passion for me that I never<br>realized that I could even be interested in.<br>Jon Haisfield 07:53<br>So Moral of the story, take advantage of all you can, because you never know what<br>J<br>PODCASTFINAL Page 3 of 12 Transcribed by https:\/\/otter.ai<br>opportunities may come your way. Wow, that&#8217;s just that&#8217;s so interesting. And then from<br>there, you went on to get your master&#8217;s in sustainability management. And after that got a<br>job working for the EPA. So what was that like?<br>Sarah Pinter 08:14<br>So I worked for technically, my employer was Oakridge associated universities. But I didn&#8217;t<br>really I mean, that&#8217;s what it said on my paycheck. But I worked at the EPA in n hsrc, every<br>day. And so it was just a process of like, keep putting out the applications until somebody<br>gives you a chance. And so I did not only apply it EPA, I applied to like World Wildlife<br>Fund, you know, all of the other big names The Nature Conservancy, so it took a lot of<br>patience, but I did eventually get the call and then end up getting the job. And I started<br>there in January of 2018.<br>Jon Haisfield 08:58<br>Okay, so you get the job for the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, and then<br>what exactly did you do?<br>Sarah Pinter 09:05<br>So as I mentioned, I worked at the National Homeland Security Research Center, and to<br>reflect on my time there is very funny to me, because one of the big things that I was<br>helping with was the national bio defense strategy. And so the idea there was that the<br>United States up until the plan was published, did not have one centralized plan across all<br>of the government agencies about how to handle a biosecurity or biodefense hazard, like<br>a terrorist attack in terms of like a deadly pathogen or a pandemic, which ended up you<br>know, like only like less than a year later becoming a huge issue and so getting to see<br>very up close how the process of Planning for that when, while I was working there, it was<br>really, really interesting, even just for the sake of doing it, and without even knowing that,<br>you know, this huge world altering event was coming down the pike, and we would need<br>to handle it, it was also very much like a learning opportunity for me. So I got to go to<br>several different, like, comm says like the blue ribbon panel on bio defense and just kind of<br>listen to experts a lot, which was really, really cool.<br>Jon Haisfield 10:30<br>Okay, so what sort of topics did these panels cover<br>S<br>J<br>S<br>J<br>PODCASTFINAL Page 4 of 12 Transcribed by https:\/\/otter.ai<br>Sarah Pinter 10:34<br>a wide range of topics, but basically, disease outbreaks, you know, malicious biosecurity<br>hazards from, you know, like other countries, what they might do if they were trying to do<br>a bio attack on the US.<br>Jon Haisfield 10:50<br>Okay, so you are listening to these panels with government officials discussing some very<br>big topics, dealing with the environment and environmental policy? Can you sort of pull us<br>into these conversations as far as what are they like? And how do we go about<br>approaching such issues?<br>Sarah Pinter 11:08<br>There is so so much collaboration, and even for as much as we did, like, there&#8217;s always<br>somebody who you&#8217;re not going to think to bring to the table. Because there are just so<br>many people who have so many different areas of expertise. But you know, like, we met<br>with everybody from the Forest Service, and the Department of Agriculture to people in<br>the CDC, and you know, across the world, like all of these different, interesting experts<br>who had something to bring to the table in terms of telling us what the best practices are,<br>and how we might be able to apply them. But I think the spirit of collaboration is<br>absolutely like, the cheapest thing that I noticed is, you know, recognizing that we cannot<br>have all of the answers because we don&#8217;t like we have such a narrow focus in what it is<br>that we think about. And that&#8217;s not the whole story. And I think that you really start to see<br>that most pronounced when you bring in the social sciences, this is a thing that&#8217;s<br>becoming a lot more mainstream to talk about, but like issues of environmental justice<br>and environmental racism, you know, what happens when our standard procedures and<br>our standard permitting and you know, the way that we&#8217;ve always addressed both, you<br>know, mundane, everyday issues, like where to put, you know, a factory that&#8217;s going to<br>emit pollution versus like, how do we respond to disaster? We&#8217;ve done things in a certain<br>way for so long, not realizing that it doesn&#8217;t help everybody equally. And that&#8217;s, there are a<br>lot of reasons for that. And how do you identify what those reasons are, and address it so<br>that you do have more equitable outcomes in the future. So I think really bringing in as<br>many people as we could was, like, the most important thing that we could do in terms of<br>creating plans that actually help you can&#8217;t expect to have a plan that serves people that<br>you haven&#8217;t talked to, right, like if this is going to directly affect somebody, or how they<br>might be able to either, you know, live the rest of their lives comfortably or respond to a<br>disaster, whatever the case may be, you know, if you&#8217;re not talking to them about what<br>will happen in their communities, but you don&#8217;t, you can&#8217;t possibly create the right plan for<br>them.<br>S<br>J<br>S<br>PODCASTFINAL Page 5 of 12 Transcribed by https:\/\/otter.ai<br>Jon Haisfield 13:33<br>Yes, I agree. I think collaboration is imperative in solving our biggest issues. I mean, the<br>more people we talk to, the more input we get, the more options and ideas we have to<br>choose from. And I think that&#8217;s one of the things that that EPA does well, is that they they<br>talk to the right people.<br>Sarah Pinter 13:53<br>Absolutely, absolutely. You want to think about all of your stakeholders and how it might<br>impact them. I think that was basically the crux of it for me was, you know, talk to smart<br>people always as much as you can. Because you always, always always benefit from<br>speaking to somebody who knows more about the topic than you, especially if your work<br>directly pertain to the thing that they know more about.<br>Jon Haisfield 14:17<br>Yes, definitely. Definitely. So now to segue into what you currently do, you worked for the<br>Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, and part of what you do is deal<br>with making climate action plans. So what does that entail?<br>Sarah Pinter 14:33<br>So I will say that that is largely the effort of our energy programs office here in<br>Pennsylvania, and they are just an absolutely fantastic team. But I oversee two programs<br>in the policy office, I oversee the energy Programs Office and I oversee our bureau of air<br>quality. And so this is a program of the energy Programs Office. It was originally part of<br>act 70 of two 1009 that said we had to start doing climate action plans. And so there have<br>been several iterations of these, they&#8217;re supposed to be updated every three years. And so<br>we&#8217;re on the 2021 iteration of both the climate impacts assessment and the Climate<br>Action Plan. And so the Climate Action Plan is not a policy document, necessarily, what it<br>does is, it shows Okay, these are Pennsylvania&#8217;s climate goals. And here are some actions<br>that Pennsylvania could take, in order to reach them. It&#8217;s not prescriptive. So we don&#8217;t<br>have to do everything A, B, and C in the exact order that says in there, but these are, you<br>know, the most salient ways to reduce our carbon emissions is what you would find in the<br>Climate Action Plan. The climate impacts assessment has taken a little bit more of a<br>variant form over the years, for example, or 2018. Climate Action Plan talks a lot more<br>about impacts to the Chesapeake Bay and agriculture and that sort of thing. Where as<br>the 2021 version is much more of a holistic approach, which we&#8217;ll be covering, what are the<br>J<br>S<br>J<br>S<br>PODCASTFINAL Page 6 of 12 Transcribed by https:\/\/otter.ai<br>impacts to health? What are the impacts to the economy? What are the impacts to<br>agriculture, and forestry, and really trying to take a more holistic approach to thinking<br>about climate, especially in terms of looking specifically for environmental justice issues,<br>and seeing how equity pieces in to how people are already feeling the impacts of climate<br>change, and how we can use that information to come up with more equitable solutions in<br>the future.<br>Jon Haisfield 16:42<br>So you helped develop climate action plans, finding ways to combat climate change?<br>Obviously, the discussion of climate change is a giant one. And there are a variety of<br>perspectives on it, you know, you get some people who claim that we&#8217;re way too late. And<br>there&#8217;s nothing that can be done others who don&#8217;t even believe in it at all. And so clearly,<br>climate change is a real thing. And it is an issue. My question for you is, how much farther<br>Do you think we have to go in terms of finding a solution? Have we just barely scratched<br>the surface? And what can we do to help?<br>Sarah Pinter 17:18<br>That&#8217;s the big question. But I think the first thing to caution is that environmental nihilism<br>is not going to help anyone. And certainly, it will not help the people who are most<br>vulnerable to feeling the impacts of climate change, you know, it&#8217;s unavoidable that we<br>will continue to feel those impacts, but we have the opportunity now, to make sure it<br>doesn&#8217;t get worse than it already will be. And in the process of making sure that we&#8217;re<br>drawing down those carbon emissions, to keep future generations safer, we also have to<br>make sure that the solutions are not going to be harmful in any way in terms of, you know,<br>economic impacts, because we know that people who, you know, live closer to coastlines,<br>or live in arid climates are already facing existential threats. And a lot of times these are<br>the most vulnerable people across the world. And so those are the people that we really<br>need to keep in mind. You know, I&#8217;m extremely lucky that, you know, I live very<br>comfortably in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, we&#8217;re not really at risk of any direct, severe,<br>threatening climate impacts right here. Pennsylvania&#8217;s biggest threat is going to be heat<br>waves in the next century, and you know, I have air conditioning, right? These aren&#8217;t things<br>that like will impact me directly, as much as it will impact other people. And that&#8217;s<br>incredibly important to keep in mind. Because, you know, when we think about how<br>people will feel what will happen with climate change, a lot of us who have the ability to<br>be a keenly aware of the issues in in an academic sense, and have the opportunity to<br>understand the climate dynamics at play, will not be the ones really feeling it when all is<br>said and done. And so, you know, you&#8217;re really saying if your position is that, well, climate<br>change is happening, there&#8217;s nothing we can do to stop it. Now, we might as well not try,<br>J<br>S<br>PODCASTFINAL Page 7 of 12 Transcribed by https:\/\/otter.ai<br>you are only doing more existential harm to the people who are most vulnerable to feeling<br>it. And that will be people in poorer countries that will be people who live in, you know, I<br>think of places like Philadelphia or Washington DC, where there is a history of redlining<br>and people who are going to be in the floodplains when sea levels start rising, are the<br>poorest and most vulnerable among us. And so I do think that, you know, is there one<br>solution to climate change? No, there&#8217;s not that&#8217;s why it&#8217;s important that we create plans<br>that are sort of everybody involved because we have so much that can be done. And we<br>need to make sure we&#8217;re choosing the solutions in the most beneficial way possible. And<br>again, you know, I kind of mentioned this before, but the way that you do that is to talk to<br>people who are smarter than you who know more about it, and can come up with ways to<br>make sure that the solutions that they&#8217;re bringing to you can have the greatest impact. So<br>it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s a matter of, first of all, talking about what the needs are, because there&#8217;s not going<br>to be one solution that works everywhere, it will have to be a regional approach. And it<br>will have to be, you know, considerate of the needs of people of communities and whole<br>countries and where they&#8217;re at in their development. And it also has to be, you know,<br>something that isn&#8217;t going to be so slow and gradual that it&#8217;s almost like we&#8217;re not doing<br>anything at all. But it also can&#8217;t be so rapid that it&#8217;ll collapse. And we have to go back to<br>the old way of doing things. You know, it&#8217;s extremely complicated, and there are solutions<br>available, but it will take a lot more political will and the associated funding than we<br>currently have for it.<br>Jon Haisfield 21:12<br>So you bring out the fact that we need more political will, I don&#8217;t really want this to get too<br>political. But exactly how important is it to have leaders in our government invested in<br>climate policy, and moving climate policy forward,<br>Sarah Pinter 21:28<br>it is a huge difference, it makes a huge difference, to have leadership at the highest levels<br>of government that are interested in moving climate policy forward. And not only that,<br>but they&#8217;re doing so in a way that is giving consideration to, you know, the people that will<br>be impacted by the changes that need to be made to preserve our environment. And it&#8217;s<br>not even just the fact that they are doing that. But the fact that that sends a signal down<br>to the state and local level, that you will have backing for the things that you need to do<br>on on your more localized scales. This is not an endorsement of any particular politician, it<br>is just saying that when you have leadership at the highest levels, that is going to be<br>supportive of what you&#8217;re doing, it makes the whole process, you know, down at the lower<br>levels closer to the state, local community level a lot easier to me.<br>J<br>S<br>PODCASTFINAL Page 8 of 12 Transcribed by https:\/\/otter.ai<br>Jon Haisfield 22:27<br>I couldn&#8217;t agree more. So climate action plans and climate impact assessments are part of<br>the energy Programs Office, but there is another side of your job that is involved with the<br>Bureau of air quality. So what is their role?<br>Sarah Pinter 22:44<br>So I would say that mostly what they&#8217;re doing is, is more on the regulatory and about<br>putting limitations on what can go into our atmosphere. And they&#8217;ll they do research and<br>some grants as well. But they have more of the jargon and have the job, I guess. Not. And I<br>don&#8217;t mean to say that to denigrate them, because they are I mean, like that&#8217;s the bulk of<br>how we&#8217;re protecting the environment. It&#8217;s a lot less glamorous and a lot harder, but like<br>the most essential piece of what we do in terms of creating a clean environment.<br>Jon Haisfield 23:22<br>Okay, so they deal with a lot of the regulations that deal with what gets put into our<br>atmosphere, I guess what comes to my mind, and maybe that&#8217;s just because we&#8217;re just<br>talking about climate change is co2. One of<br>Sarah Pinter 23:37<br>the interesting things to note is that co2 is not considered a criteria pollutant. And that&#8217;s<br>not just a Pennsylvania thing that&#8217;s, you know, across the country. And so what that<br>means is that, you know, we don&#8217;t consider carbon to be one of the things that affects air<br>quality the most. And so that&#8217;s an interesting dynamic as well, because while it is having<br>this heating effect, it is a naturally occurring part of our environment. And so you know, we<br>have criteria pollutants, like oxides of nitrogen, oxides of sulfur, and so you know, a lot of<br>times when we&#8217;re doing regulations, they&#8217;re more focused on criteria pollutants, but we<br>don&#8217;t have at a at a national scale, we don&#8217;t have a great framework for regulating how<br>much co2 gets into the atmosphere because it is a naturally occurring part of our<br>atmosphere.<br>Jon Haisfield 24:38<br>So then what sort of steps are we taking to prevent it?<br>Sarah Pinter 24:42<br>J<br>S<br>J<br>S<br>J<br>S<br>PODCASTFINAL Page 9 of 12 Transcribed by https:\/\/otter.ai<br>There&#8217;s a lot there&#8217;s so much so it&#8217;s a matter of putting requirements in place through<br>either the alternative energy portfolio standards or other methods to set a minimum<br>number of like a minimum amount of electricity that has to be generated through<br>renewable non carbon sources. And it also has to do with how you&#8217;re regulating pollutants<br>put into the atmosphere from industry and our manufacturing processes. Yeah. So I mean,<br>it&#8217;s it&#8217;s about drawing it down and creating a lower carbon electricity grid. It&#8217;s also about,<br>you know, we&#8217;re transitioning to more electric vehicles. And that&#8217;s something that the<br>state and the country as a whole will be supporting in the ways that we can. But that&#8217;s not<br>something that has to come from the state level, because I would say that we are already<br>reaching market maturity for passenger electric vehicles, we still have a ways to go, I think<br>on medium and heavy duty, meaning basically like trucks and vans that you use to<br>transport things. But light duty passenger vehicles are a huge source of transportation. In<br>California, for example, transportation is the number one source of carbon pollution. So<br>just getting people out of internal combustion engine vehicles is another huge way that we<br>can do that.<br>Jon Haisfield 26:07<br>Wow. So out of all aspects to the environment and environmental policy you deal with?<br>What is of most interest to you? And what are you most passionate about?<br>Sarah Pinter 26:19<br>I guess, I would say that I spend the most time on our Climate Action Plan and impact<br>assessment. And I do think that that is extremely interesting to me just to learn, you know,<br>what exactly is happening in Pennsylvania because of climate change? And what can we<br>do to make it better, both in terms of like, how do we draw down the carbon, but also, how<br>do we build solutions that benefit everyone in Pennsylvania? equitably?<br>26:53<br>Wow.<br>Jon Haisfield 26:54<br>So my last question is a bit of an obvious one. But nonetheless, it&#8217;s very important. A lot of<br>people listening to this are going to be college students and millennials looking to make<br>change. What sort of advice would you have for someone who is concerned about<br>environmental issues? Or maybe just even wants to learn more about them? How can we<br>J<br>S<br>J<br>PODCASTFINAL Page 10 of 12 Transcribed by https:\/\/otter.ai<br>future generations do our part? And what advice do you have to give them<br>Sarah Pinter 27:24<br>just if there&#8217;s anything that interests you just go for it? Seriously, like that is how I found<br>what I now love to do. If you find something that sparks your interest, like even if it doesn&#8217;t<br>seem like it fits with what else you&#8217;re trying to do? Allow yourself the opportunity to try it<br>because it is only good things have ever happened for me, because I&#8217;ve been willing to put<br>myself into new and interesting areas. In terms of sustainability. Specifically, I will again,<br>bring up something I said before about like, Don&#8217;t lose hope. Don&#8217;t be nihilistic, you know,<br>there will be people after us who inherit what we have now. And you know, our generation<br>did not cause this problem. But like it or not, we will be the ones to live through it. So how<br>do we create a better future for ourselves? And how do we save future generations from<br>disaster? That&#8217;s a huge question. And so for my third piece of advice, I will pull from my<br>dad, and I&#8217;ve used it, I think, in every interview, and anybody who will listen to me for more<br>than 15 minutes at a time, will have heard me say this, at some point, I was expressing<br>some similar concerns to what you were earlier about how everything about<br>environmentalism right now is it&#8217;s just so bleak. And it&#8217;s so sad, and I feel like I don&#8217;t have<br>any hope. And I just don&#8217;t know what to do. Because how are we ever going to fix this?<br>How can I ever do anything that could fix this. And, you know, he said to me, there&#8217;s a lot<br>wrong in the world. But you don&#8217;t have to change the entire world all by yourself, you just<br>have to do whatever you can to make your corner of the world better. And that really<br>changed my perspective on environmentalism as a whole. Because, you know, I can&#8217;t fix<br>everything that&#8217;s wrong with the world, but I have the opportunity to help my own little<br>corner of the world to be better, and to do our part. And so you know, I grew up in<br>Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania is my corner of the world I can do what I can to make this a<br>better place for the people that live here. And if everybody adopted this attitude of you<br>know, I don&#8217;t have to fix what&#8217;s going on everywhere all the time. But I can help with this<br>issue in my community now we would be in so much better of a place and you know,<br>obviously balanced that with it&#8217;s easier to work together than to work in cloisters. And so<br>you know, collaborate where you can learn what you can from people who are smarter.<br>Neil, but don&#8217;t get overwhelmed by the scale of the problem when you have the<br>opportunity to make things noticeably better in the community that you find yourself in in<br>the space that you find yourself in. And fourth and final, just pick up some litter. It&#8217;s really<br>like the easiest best thing that you can do. It requires no education, no extra skills, just get<br>out and pick up some trash. Even if you just take like a little shopping bag with you and fill<br>that up and then toss it. You&#8217;ve helped the environment. You did that all by yourself, and<br>you&#8217;re contributing less to that giant garbage patch in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.<br>Jon Haisfield 30:53<br>S<br>PODCASTFINAL Page 11 of 12 Transcribed by https:\/\/otter.ai<br>Jon Haisfield 30:53<br>Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Michigan voices. Thank you to Sarah for<br>a great interview. Sarah, for those who don&#8217;t know is actually the sister of a current UVM<br>student, Noah who also helped put together this season. Keep listening to hear with him<br>and Julia have to say in the next episode, it is a great one. We have an amazing season<br>lined up for you and are very excited to share it. I&#8217;m your host Jon Haisfield. And this was<br>gaining ground<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wed, 4\/28 12:52PM 31:44SUMMARY KEYWORDSpeople, pennsylvania, worked, impacts, solutions, sustainability, climate change, environment,class, climate action plans, terms, sarah, climate impacts, listening, environmentalism, epa,opportunity, climate action plan, issues, climateSPEAKERSSarah Pinter, Jon HaisfieldJon Haisfield 00:26Welcome to this episode of Michigan voices. I&#8217;m your host, Jon Haisfield. 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