Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. We begin today with our climate story of the week, which we're doing every Tuesday on the show this year, as many of you know. With the elevation of Tim Walz to Kamala Harris's running mate, we're going to look today at Walz's climate record as Governor of Minnesota. Remember, Walz was a high school geography teacher before running for Congress in 2006.

Geography is actually a pretty good grounding from which to approach environmental issues to begin with because a geographer by trade and by definition if you think about it, develops awareness of what's happening at different places on earth. In a couple of minutes, we'll talk with Dharna Noor, fossil fuels and climate reporter for The Guardian who was written explicitly about Governor Walz's climate record. First I want to play another excerpt from a speech and we'll use two during this segment.

A speech we sampled from yesterday that Walz gave last month. This was before he was tapped as Harris's running mate, and before Biden dropped out of the race. it was after Biden's disastrous debate performance in June, meaning people were starting to talk about Tim Walz as a possible candidate for something. The context was a conference he was already scheduled to speak at, put on by the company Esri for users of its GIS or Geographical Information System software.

Walz's had been invited to be the keynote speaker at the conference because he's known to be a data geek. He talked at length about how he loves using data, including geographic data, especially geographic data as governor of Minnesota to help identify and solve problems, climate change included. Because this speech is not explicitly a campaign speech, it gives us a different kind of window into how Tim Walz thinks about things. We'll take this in two chunks.

First, he identifies three pillars of his approach to government. He calls him environmental, social, and economic justice, environmental justice, social justice, and economic justice. In this clip, coming to that at the end, he talks about the importance of visionaries and what he and his wife named their first child. Remember, when he uses the initials, GIS, it refers to the mapping software that he uses for various things.

Tim Walz: Look, we have a vision of what we want to see our world to be. I believe you've got to have the visionaries. You've got to be, it has to be aspirational. My wife and I talk about this. We named our oldest daughter Hope for a reason. It's the most powerful word in the universe, but my wife often reminds me of this. It's not a damn plan. You can't hope we stop global warming. You can't hope we bring equity into how we're doing power and economic justice and environmental justice.

You have to have a plan. The tools for that plan are GIS. The tools set in front of us how we can transfer a vision of a fair society into one that actually has results. This is the interface with the cynicism of elected office. My job is to have to be able to convey that. GIS help build trust. Conveying data to people in a complex way helps build trust. If we can start to build the trust, we can start to make the difference. In Minnesota, that triple bottom line that we're trying to get at environmental, social, and economic justice.

Brian Lehrer: That's clip one of Governor Tim Walz as keynote speaker at last month's conference for users of GIS mapping software. We'll play another clip later in the segment where he talks explicitly about how he uses it to help establish climate policies and practices. Now let's bring in our guest. It's Dharna Noor, fossil fuels and climate reporter for The Guardian who has written explicitly about Governor Walz's climate record. Dharna, thanks for joining us. Welcome back to WNYC.

Dharna Noor: Thanks so much for having me back. Excited to be here.

Brian Lehrer: We'll talk about that clip in a minute, but your article notes that Governor Walz has signed one of the strongest green energy bills of any state. What makes it stand out?

Dharna Noor: He has indeed. I think that this, this policy, which in some ways is really a landmark policy for Walz's as Minnesota governor, really shows that he's able to be one step ahead of federal regulations on climate. Especially the regulations that the Biden administration has hoped to put forth. In this case the policy he signed requires Minnesota to reach 100% carbon-free energy by 2040. Only a handful of states are actually requiring the switch to clean energy to happen that quickly.

Even California's clean energy standard actually does not require it to happen so quickly. This was a law that was really widely praised by not only the big green groups, but also even some smaller environmental justice groups nationally and in Minnesota. I think that that says something about what he's able to accomplish when he's in leadership.

Brian Lehrer: In the clip, it was interesting as we get to know how Tim Walz thinks and speaks that he and his wife named their daughter Hope because he said it's the most powerful word in the universe. In that context, he celebrated the importance of visionaries. I thought that was interesting for someone giving a speech in the context of being a technocrat, really, right? Someone who uses data so centrally to help drive his policy decisions. I don't know if there's anything from your reporting to say about that, but it's just interesting to me from a climate perspective and from a who is this guy perspective to hear the intersection for him between big ideas, visionaries, and his interest in data. Any thoughts?

Dharna Noor: Yes, I could not have honestly picked a better clip, I think to illustrate this strength of Walz's. Walz's for more than a decade, actually represented a district of Minnesota that was really rural and Republican-leaning. I think that what many people have been so moved by in his record is his history of bringing skeptical voters on board for climate action. The way he's able to do that, it seems, is really making climate policy seem much more understandable.

As you're saying, this is such a good example of that because he's speaking about something that could be so bogged down in the details, could be so deeply technocratic. Instead, he's made it into this emotional pitch for hope and for belief in the future. If you look at the way that Democrats and climate experts for years have talked about the climate crisis, I think they've had a really, really hard time bringing it away from the technocracy. We know that President Biden, for instance, has tried really hard to make climate policy about jobs. This has been a shift in the past few years.

I think you're fighting an uphill battle here when for so long we've been told that the climate crisis is primarily a scientific issue. It's an issue that has to be dealt with by using technology. I think having somebody like Walz's really reframe this as an emotional issue that everyone can understand is really speaking to his strengths. My friend Justin Worland at Time magazine called him one of the country's most skillful climate communicators because of his ability to tie those green policies to the need for economic development, the need for jobs, the need for just like general human flourishing. I think that this really, really exemplifies that this clip.

Brian Lehrer: We'll hear him get more specific in a way more technocratic about mapping and climate policy in the second excerpt coming up in a little bit. Listeners, anyone from or with ties to Minnesota, or to Tim Walz personally, or to the issue of climate change generally want to call or text us with a question, a comment, or a story. 212-433-WNYC as we described Tim Walz's climate record as Minnesota governor with Dharna Noor who has written about it for The Guardian. 212-433-9692, call or text with your question, comment, or story.

You Minnesotans maybe talk about the resonance or non-resonance of global warming as an issue in a place known largely for how cold it is. 212- 433-WNYC. We're going to hear in the second clip even a reference to that out of the mouth of Tim Walz. For anyone with ties to Minnesota, you're especially invited or anyone else with a question, story, or comment on this issue. 212-4-3-3-WNYC. 212-433-9692.

Dharna, You've already made a comparison or two between Walz at the state level and Biden at the presidential level. You wrote that Walz signed a bill at the state level that's been compared to Biden's main climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act. What was in that $2 billion fund that you wrote about for Minnesota?

Dharna Noor: The fund was, again, one of the biggest wins I guess of the Walz campaign worth noting that he won this when actually he had a trifecta in governance and so. I think that that's maybe something that was possible for that reason. It really reflected, I think, what he made his priorities as soon as he came into office. He's quickly started putting through these-- or pushing at least these priorities to, for instance, align Minnesota's car emission standards with California's to build out better water infrastructure, better clean water infrastructure.

That was some of what was reflected in that $2 billion fund. There were also some policies that some environmental justice advocates were really thrilled to see more investments in clean water and wastewater, but also things like lead pipe replacement. He used that opportunity to take on what are known as forever chemicals, what people may know as PFAS. After he won that $2 billion fund, he actually signed one of the nation's broadest bans on the pollutants.

I think that that shows that he not only was able to enshrine that $2 billion in the budget, but also built from there and said, "Hey, now that we've got the resources, let's let really get some things done and let's make some clear policy promises essentially to say how we're going to use that money, and what it's going to accomplish.

Brian Lehrer: As a follow up we heard in the clip, and you just made a reference to it too, Walz talking about not just climate protection, but also environmental justice. In fact, that was the larger frame of that mapping data speech that he gave was these three pillars. I guess these are the three pillars of his governorship. I'm unfamiliar with him previously, but that seemed to be how he was framing it. Environmental justice, social justice, economic justice. You just referred to it a little, but I wonder if there's anything more you can say from your reporting about environmental justice measures he's taken, not just climate protection generally.

Dharna Noor: Sure. Again, I think that where Walz shines the most is when he's able to tie economic justice to these climate policies, which in a sense is a way of spotlighting environmental justice. Another thing that he did, for instance, in that $2 billion allocation was funded career training so that young people could get new jobs in the carbon-free energy sectors. That I think is a vision of the future. I'll say though, that his environmental justice record is not completely squeaky clean.

I think for instance HEATED, Emily Atkins newsletter did a long story about the skepticism that he's seen from indigenous activists. Because when Walz was actually running for governor, he explicitly promised that he would not allow this massive new Terasen pipeline, the Line 3 pipeline to come online. He did spend some time fighting it. He tried to halt the pipeline's development with a legal challenge. That continued until 2020. After that legal challenge was rejected, he actually declined to use his executive powers to stop the pipeline.

The pipeline actually was cited through the lands that were very important for some Indigenous communities locally. I think that really what this shows is that Walz does prioritize environmental justice in many cases when that's what the coalition wants. This is in some ways I think what some people see as a huge strength of Walz. I think for others, what gives them some pause about his record, he seems to govern by consensus. He seems to do what the coalition wants to do, which is it's amazing that he's able to get these things passed.

I think sometimes folks are a bit nervous about what compromises that can usher through. That's another example of a compromise that I think had some negative effects for people. I guess one more tiny thing that I'll note is that he was one of the few back when he was in the house, so quite a long time ago. He was one of the few Democrats to actually authorize the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline, which was a huge environmental justice fight for many people.

Something that was extremely controversial. This has been noted to show that he was one of the few democrats who actually voted for the pipeline, and also opposed President Obama's wetlands protections. This has been noted in a way to say that he's able to again, make these compromises read the room in a way. I think that some people are afraid, it means that he will not take a stand when it's difficult to do so.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Very interesting. Well, we have a couple of ex-Minnesotans calling in, so let's hear from them. Wendy in New Rochelle, you're on WNYC. Hi, Wendy.

Wendy: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I told your screener, we spoke briefly in the beginning of this year, January, when you had your program about the least reported stories or under-reported. I called in to discuss the Minnesota legislature and Tim Walz champion the free universal breakfast and lunch for kids. He's always fought hard for that. With respect to climate change, again, I was born and bred Minnesotan. The entire state, as most of the country knows, is vastly affected by the winter cold.

When the season started to change when I was young, there were very clear demarcations between them. People paid attention right away, and they started discussing, "Oh, look what's happening." Usually, you have a budget because you have to equip your home, your car to survive the winter. All that started to change. People, again, were very sensitive to that issue. Now I know people in Minnesota that have moved to different parts of the state because they're more receptive for the community to combat climate change.

Tim Waltz has been a champion about that, talking about it for as long as I've known him to be in office. People are very, very receptive to the issue of changing. Recently, with all the increase in home insurance prices, the issue has become really forefront, and we know that's because of global warming. The fires in Canada or California affect us immediately, even though we're 3000 miles away from California.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, the air pollution.

Wendy: It's a topic that's constantly spoken of by the Minnesotans, I know. I was there for just recently.

Brian Lehrer: That's so interesting. Of course, we have bad air days here in New York from the wildfires in Canada and Minnesota is up by the border there. I guess a stupid New Yorker's follow-up question might be, "Wouldn't in a place like Minnesota, people would welcome an earth that was five degrees warmer or so."

Wendy: Absolutely not. I was born in February in Minnesota, and we love the snow, the cold, we sort of got a chip on our shoulder about that. People don't want to see-- people complain, of course, about it getting dark at 5 o'clock and cold. Then, of course, in the last decade at least the winters have not been what they used to be of old. Again, people are very tuned into that. If you choose to live there you know that you're going to have this season and usually you want enjoy it and such.

Brian Lehrer: Wendy, thank you very much for your call.

Dharna Noor: Thanks, Wendy.

Brian Lehrer: Another one, Alan in New Canaan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Alan.

Alan: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I lived in Minneapolis in the mid to late '70s and early '80s, and learned everything I know about planning, about the climate, about sustainability from the work they did there in the 1970s. They took people out of their cars, they built bike lanes and walking lanes. They connected the city to the residential areas. In the winter, they would ski through the streets rather than drive.

On a count of my experience there, I actually went back to architecture school, became an architect and a planner, and now I actually talk to people quite frequently. Later in the day I'll be going to India to do that actually in New Delhi. It was extremely-- it affected my entire life. I actually owned a home there for 22 years, but back on the East Coast now and trying to talk about the experiences I had there and the lessons I learned.

Brian Lehrer: Alan, thank you so much for that story and your call. Dharna, anything you're thinking as you listen to those first two callers?

Dharna Noor: Yes, absolutely. Really your question about whether or not what Minnesotans would welcome a shift to a slightly warmer climate. I think actually is a really smart one. Before I was at The Guardian, I was a reporter at The Boston Globe. Honestly, I would never ask people this directly, but it was something that occurred to me from time to time. What New Englanders would tell me all the time is like our whole economy is really built on this cold climate.

We rely on maple syrup, we rely on tourism, money from the skiing industry and from snowboarding and things like this. We also have our way of lives, our focus, for instance on our children's first snow and our waiting for the white Christmas every year. I think that in that way it slightly hotter weather is a thing that can really upend people's way of life in not only places like New England, but also cold places like Minnesota. I think that the fact that that Walz has been able to make it clear that climate change is not only an issue for places like California or Texas that are already hot.

Also, an issue for colder places like Minnesota is pretty impressive. I'll also note that speaking of his history as a school teacher, two, all other things that his $2 billion allocation in 2023 did were giving incentives to schools to install solar power, which is pretty incredible. Schools are of course a really important part of infrastructure that people interact with constantly. Then also he put in rebates for people to access heat pumps in a way that actually made it affordable for them to do so.

Heat pumps are this cutting-edge technology that can be used to heat and cool homes, something that was also boosted the Inflation Reduction Act. Again, here I think that he's really placing the focus on a particularist kind of climate policy that benefits Minnesotans specifically. It's not just about the electric stoves. It's not just about getting fossil fuels out of your out of your water heater and things like this. It's also about heating the air in a way that's actually efficient and electric.

Brian Lehrer: It is interesting on being from Minnesota and would you welcome a world that was five degrees warmer? How people, of course, everybody's different as an individual, but I've seen how there's at least a pattern that exists of people being very acclimated to the climate wherever they grew up. Somewhere else that we may feel experienced as normal they don't. Actually, one of my best friends in my adult life has been a guy from Minnesota, a Lutheran minister in fact, who has a congregation on Long Island. The only time he felt normal in New York was in the winter.

Dharna Noor: Totally. Of course, the climate crisis also makes weather less predictable. If in Minnesota all of a sudden after having a 20-degree day have a 50-degree day, that's probably pretty disorienting culturally. Also can have enormous consequences for all sorts of sectors of the economy and can damage infrastructure and people's homes and things like this. A reliably cold climate, I think is really what people are after as well.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with our climate story of the week, looking at Tim Walz's climate record as Governor of Minnesota. When we come back, we'll play another clip of Walz's speaking last month about how he uses geographical data to help make climate policy. Data geeks, gardeners, and others you'll be interested in this. We'll keep talking with Dharna Noor, climate and fossil fuels reporter for The Guardian, and take your calls and texts at 212-433-WNYC.

Brian Lehrer on WNYC. It's our climate story of the week, looking at Tim Walz's climate record as Governor of Minnesota with Dharna Noor, climate and fossil fuels reporter for The Guardian. With your calls and texts at 212-433-WNYC, stories, questions, comments. Minnesotans, welcome to call in and give us any aspect of any of this. 212-433-9692. Some of the texts coming in, listener writes, "I live in Minneapolis, our Christmas last year was rainy and 54 degrees. It was creepy."

Another one writes, "It doesn't just get warmer with global warming, but more extreme cold and snow." Another listener writes, "Walz's record on standing up to industrial extraction activity in the boundary waters--" that's the beautiful area in the northern part of the state-- "fall short of his rhetoric on environmental and social justice." Keep texting us folks and keep calling us.

We'll play another clip now of Walz's speaking last month at a conference for users of the geographical data software known as GIS, which stands for Geographical Information Systems. In this clip, he speaks specifically about climate challenges and opportunities for his state and how he uses his background as a geography teacher who uses this GIS software to inform his policies.

Tim Walz: You know what really challenges people is when you have an aspiration and it's so big, they can't wrap their mind around how they're going to get to those solutions, so you've got to be very clear. You've got to understand. The issue around climates. Look, folks in Minnesota know severe weather is a possibility all the time. We understand it from floods to wildfires to everything else. We are going to do our part in this. Last year, we passed the most aggressive, and this is where my political opponents said, "He's trying to turn Minnesota into California."

They never say that crap in February, though. They never talk about it in February. It's, "Oh, no, don't talk about California in February. It's cold here." Our post is, we're going to have clean energy by 2040. The issue is, if the public doesn't know how we're going to get there. If there's not measurable, displayable progress that they can see, it's going to be very, very, difficult to get them to buy in. One of the things you're looking at this histostol map, which is great to say a word in audience that people know what it is, Pete Boggs. There we go. Where we got much of that.

These things are critically important. There's a lot of you in this room that certainly know that. They make up about 3% of the Earth's surface. They contain about 30% of the Earth's carbon sink. Minnesota has the second most of these only behind Alaska. To map them where they're at, really important, but that's just the start because Minnesota is also a world leader in agricultural production. When you take corn and soybeans and sugar beets, and you add to that animal agriculture, we're the leading producer of turkeys.

By the end of this, I'm like tour guide for Minnesota too. If you eat turkey, it's coming from that. We also have people. In the metro area of the Twin Cities, it's about three million people, and, of course, they're spreading out. The maps and all of you in here that make this happen, we're able to be very deliberate on our land usage to make sure above all else, we're protecting that peat land. We're protecting that carbon sink, and we're continuing to build for the future. Those are things we're doing. Look, we're 2040 energy.

We are the first state off the coast that's a clean car state that has California clean air standards. All those things make a difference, but we could ruin all that progress by simply not paying attention to little things. When we give land use permits and things like that, we are down to the square meter on where these important lands are at.

Brian Lehrer: Governor Tim Walz's at last month's conference for users of GIS, Geographic Information System Software. We'll talk about that clip in a minute with our guest. I want to go right to another caller because it's not every day that's somebody calls in from Inverness Scotland. Fairly in Inverness, you're on WNYC. Hello. Thank you so much for calling in.

Fairly: Hi, can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear you just fine. Yes.

Fairly: Oh, great. Thank you. Firstly, it's so exciting to talk to you, my mom and I absolutely love your show. For a little bit of context, I am a GIS professional-- I'm a US citizen. I'm actually from New Jersey as I'm sure you can tell. I work on environmental data for nature conservation.

Brian Lehrer: I think that's a South Jersey accent. Cape May around there. No, I'm kidding. Go ahead.

Fairly: Yes, exactly. Basically, as a data professional, I'm just so excited to hear someone-- well, Tim Waltz combining data with really clear climate communications like this is my top political issue. As somebody who works with climate data, I've tried to do that with modeling drought in Scotland, and I found an increase in extreme drought risk. I've been laughed at like right to my face as I try and communicate that because it's just not what people expect.

For this issue, we really need evidence-based decisions, but ones that people can actually understand. I also think that that hope message that he brings in the emotional side is so important because it's such a huge and overwhelming issue. Like as conservationists, it can be hard to engage with, let alone for people who aren't already interested or engaged. I think seeing that combination coming together is really interesting, particularly because this is what I do day to day all the time.

Brian Lehrer: Can I get you to talk a little more about being an environmental communicator? I mean, in my secret geeky background, I actually have a master's in public health with a concentration in environmental health. Within that, because I was coming out of journalism already when I went to grad school for that one of my main tracks was what they call risk communication, which is environmental communication. I learned a lot about how a lot of scientists coming out of that world with their heads and laboratories and data and stuff.

They're not the kind of humanities people who speak to audiences a lot and are experts at communicating. That was one of the things they taught at Columbia. The environmental health sciences public health program was risk communication, how to talk about environmental risk, in my case to general audiences. It's something that scientists struggle with and go to conferences to learn about. We hear how good Tim Walz is at it.

Our guest, Dharna Noor from The Guardian was just describing how Time magazine gave him some a citation for being an environmental communicator in particular. How do you go about it, Fairly, and where do you find the biggest path to success to be in that track?

Fairly: I think it is challenging. My first degree was actually in history and I think that that has really helped me. I kind of transitioned from humanities into science and data. Having that experience of the more analytical process from a humanities point of view has helped. I think it's also trying to think a lot about your audience. When communicating drought in Scotland, I don't necessarily need to go into all of the details of how I worked with the climate data and everything.

I think the best way of going about it is trying to think about how it will actually impact the people that you're talking to. Understanding that they don't have to get all of the details in order to actually understand the message and the impacts. Also then focusing on what could be done about it and how you can implement change that you're looking for. Or try and pivot toward that more hopeful message I think is helpful as well. trying to not get too bogged down in the details because a lot of the time that doesn't actually matter in my experience.

Brian Lehrer: Fairly, thank you so much for calling in. I really appreciate that you and your mom-- you said your mom, right, listen-

Fairly: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: -and call us again.

Fairly: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Fairly in Inverness, Scotland. Well, pretty interesting. Dharna, anything you're thinking about with respect to that caller, or I can ask you about the clip we played?

Dharna Noor: Yes. I guess I'll just say that I really think that this speaks to the need for more teachers in positions of power. Who could possibly be better at explaining the need for these earth-changing policies than somebody who's had experience doing that for middle schoolers and high schoolers?

Brian Lehrer: As an environmental communicator, maybe we heard the best example of that in the first clip where he was trying to make it not only very concrete, but infused with hope, not just fear. I think so much of the time when we talk about the threat of climate change, we're talking about things to be afraid of. Here's this upbeat can-do vibe, speaker Tim Walz talking about climate in that context.

Dharna Noor: Totally. I'll say I think that this is something that a lot of people have found really refreshing. I do know that there are folks in Minnesota who have been a little bit, I don't know, disillusioned I guess with his way of speaking. Because despite his focus on hope they'll say that he has, for instance, given big agriculture or other industrial groups too much power in their regulations. I think that for them it can be frustrating to hear somebody speak about hope and speak about taking on this huge issue in a way that nobody has before.

When in some cases what they say is, well, he's just, a slightly better version of the same thing of what we've seen. I think that on the federal stage for so long, again, we've been spoken down to about climate change. The issues have either sometimes been oversimplified or in other cases they've been completely in the realm of technocracy, completely in the realm of the technological solution leaving it to the experts. I think having somebody who can explain these benefits to us in a way that we can all understand, I think will be really helpful in the [unintelligible 00:32:40].

Brian Lehrer: I appreciate your standpoint as a reporter at The Guardian trying to give us the 360 view. Not just cheerleading obviously, but talking about when despite his rhetoric and the upbeat vibe that he protects environmentalists haven't been a hundred percent satisfied with his record. That's really interesting. Another text from a former Minnesotan says, "We lived in Minneapolis downtown in the late '90s. Snow that fell in early winter, stayed there until spring.

We used to see the bank time and temperature clock from our apartment, and for a solid week, every time we looked at it in the morning, it's at minus 30 degrees. The TV station downtown would have its ritual of throwing water into the air and watching it freeze during its morning broadcast. The news would advise people to wear eye protection if there were to be outside for a long time due to the cold weather." I guess that listener is making the point that it doesn't quite happen like that as regularly anymore.

In that second clip, Dharna, Walz referenced California and how his political critics on the right will say he's trying to turn Minnesota into California, which I thought was interesting, both for itself and for the fact that now a month after giving that speech, he's the running mate of Kamala Harris who is from California. The Trump campaign you reported on this, is explicitly criticizing him for attaching his wagon to California emissions policy for gasoline-powered cars. You reported on Harrison climate policy too, in another article.

Do their environmental records or positions or how far they want to go generally match up?

Dharna Noor: I think that in some ways they've got different strengths. Again, as I've said before in at least one case, Minnesota under Walz actually achieved a climate policy that's more ambitious than what California has. Requiring all utilities to be obtained from carbon-free power by 2040. Of course, California is a much larger state. It's one where the oil industry is much more powerful. Minnesota is not exactly known for fossil fuel extraction. I think that brings a different level of challenge for Harris. Where I think that we've seen a lot of environmentalists really praise Harris is her willingness to go after polluters in the courts.

As an attorney, I think that she's really familiar with the movement for accountability. I think that that's something that we've not quite seen as much from, from Walz, of course, as a politician and not a lawyer. He was not ever the DA or anything like this. I think that where we've seen him really shine is more on the policy side. Maybe that will mean, I think, for optimistic folks looking at this upcoming election, I think maybe that will mean that they're able to complement each other.

There's also just obviously a nice way that having somebody from a cold state and somebody from a warm state having somebody where agriculture is very important and somebody where energy is very important. I think that in concert we can see that there are huge swaths of America that have been represented by people like them in places, a bit like the ones that they've represented. Hopefully, that means they'll be able to play off of each other's strengths in this way. I guess we'll have to see what they cook up together on climate policy.

Brian Lehrer: Listener texts. Do you know anything about Walz's stance on conservation, wildlife, and hunting? Specifically being from a state that has a lot of hunters and wildlife, for example, if I'm not mistaken, referring to Minnesota, there are a lot of black bears that are being overhunted in Minnesota. It's a little bit off-climate, but do you know anything about that?

Dharna Noor: About the hunting?

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Walz's stance on what the listener calls conservation, wildlife, and hunting? If you don't know, that's fine. It's a little off-topic.

Dharna Noor: I do think that it's interesting that Walz has in some ways like Bernie Sanders not been quite as anti-gun, in all cases because he comes from a hunting state. I think depending on who you are, maybe you think that that's awful or maybe you think that it'll help him to appeal to a new voter. I'll say that he has certainly prioritized ecosystem conservation in some ways. Maybe that means that he's able to play both sides here. Able to speak to the hunting communities, but also able to put through some important ecosystem protections. I'm not as familiar with his hunting record, of course, or his protections on wildlife records.

Brian Lehrer: Because you're a climate and fossil fuels reporter.

Dharna Noor: I will be curious to see what he chooses to elevate, I guess, from that part of his policy record.

Brian Lehrer: Right. It's interesting how it ties to gun policy and that parallel maybe with Bernie Sanders. I guess if there are a lot of dead bears in Minnesota, maybe RFK Jr. can bring one to Central Park, but that's another show. Some people got that reference. All right, last thing. Walz will presumably be debating J.D. Vance at some point. Have you reported on what Vance says about climate policy to preview the contrast we might witness then?

Dharna Noor: Only a little bit. Really I don't think could be more different in this way. Vance, of course, has really downplayed the effects of climate change. He is not an outright climate denier, but he has certainly said that there's no such thing as a climate crisis. He's made fun of environmental activists and called them hysterical. I think he once said that if you think that the climate crisis is catastrophic, the solution for it is to produce more fossil fuels in the United States.

Really hearkening back to this old world Republican way of speaking about this, this all of the above strategy, this specific elevation of fossil fuels. Again, Vance is from a state that is known very well for producing lots of fossil fuels and so maybe that's playing into it too. What I also think is really interesting is that from very different sides, they both do have this populous bent to their rhetoric. I, for one, would love to see the two of them have a conversation about the climate crisis.

Both of them, of course, speaking to different beliefs in the climate world. In some ways, I think competing for some of the same hearts and minds. Still competing for the undecided voters. Competing for those who might not have climate change at the top of their list when it comes to political priorities. I think that really they're well suited to take one another on, in this way. Two populous with very, very different versions of a worldview on the climate crisis.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, interesting. We had a listener yesterday who texted that they would love to see a series of single-issue debates between Harris and Trump, and then presumably by extension Vance and Walz. They could do climate for an hour, inflation for an hour, immigration for an hour, go down the list. Of course, we're not going to see that. Hopefully, we'll get our 90 seconds on climate when these debates actually take place.

Dharna Noor: Yes, exactly. Hopefully, we get our 90 seconds.

Brian Lehrer: That's our climate story of the week, which we do every Tuesday, all this year on this show. Looking today at Tim Walz's climate record as Governor of Minnesota with Dharna Noor, climate and fossil fuels reporter for The Guardian, and listeners originally from Minnesota or Inverness Scotland. Thank you for your calls. Dharna, thank you so much.

Dharna Noor: Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer in WNYC. Much more to come.

 

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