Conversation with Gina McCarthy, Climate Czar
March 8, 2022
Gina McCarthy, the top national climate official in the federal government, headlined a Brandeis Journalism webinar focused on how to improve communications and coverage of climate change. As the government’s first National Climate Advisor, McCarthy serves as President Joe Biden’s chief advisor on domestic climate policy and heads the White House office focused on mobilizing a whole-of-government approach to tackling the climate crisis and securing environmental justice.
She was in conversation with Neil Swidey, a professor of the practice and the director of the Brandeis Journalism Program. Swidey, who is also editor-at-large of The Boston Globe Magazine, wrote an in-depth magazine cover story in 2018 about McCarthy.
McCarthy, a Boston native who served five governors in both Democratic and Republican administrations, served as the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama. A former professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, she serves as chair of the board of directors of the Harvard Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment.
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“If you can’t talk to people, you’re gone,” said Gina McCarthy, the federal government’s top national climate official, during a March 8 Brandeis Journalism webinar. The fate of climate change policy, if not our planet, she suggested, will rely heavily on our ability to communicate with one another.
The event featured McCarthy, the nation’s first National Climate Advisor, in a wide-ranging, spirited, hour-long conversation with Neil Swidey, the director of the Brandeis Journalism Program. Swidey drew from the hundreds of questions that Brandeis students and other webinar attendees had submitted.
After a welcome from Brandeis President Ron Liebowitz, Swidey kicked things off by asking McCarthy how she can possibly maintain her optimistic attitude even though climate change is such a bleak issue and existential threat. She cited her Irish heritage and her knowledge of what works from her many decades in public service. Using the metaphor of a Boston Marathon runner, McCarthy criticized the many climate change activists who greet signs of progress by lamenting how much more there is left to do. “Well, for Christ’s sake, don’t remind me of that when I’m going up Heartbreak Hill,” she said. “Celebrate every damn step!”
Before serving as President Biden’s chief climate advisor, McCarthy ran the EPA for President Obama. She stressed that her job isn’t to make people understand climate change – or even to care about the climate. “The goal is to get them to act in a way that’s consistent with what climate tells us,” she said.
McCarthy cautioned people not to talk down to those who disagree with them about climate change – or to try to prove how wrong they are. Instead, she suggested focusing on solutions where there can be common ground, like the shift to clean energy. “I need people’s spirits lifted right now,” she said. “I need them to be hopeful.” In the end, she said, hope – not fear – is going to drive change.
—Nashvin Kaur