Climate Careers, Riding Cross Country, and Mindfulness with Anita Raman

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick!

On today’s episode, we talk with Anita Raman, Research and Policy Development Associate at the Cornell Climate Jobs Institute about Climate Careers, Riding Cross Country, and Mindfulness.   Read her full bio below.

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Showtimes: 
4:01   Nic & Laura discuss applying to senior positions
11:46   Interview with Anita Raman starts
13:29   Climate Careers
34:10   Field Notes- Riding across Country
42:50   Mindfulness

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This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.

Connect with Anita Raman at https://www.linkedin.com/in/anita-raman

Guest Bio:
Anita Raman is a Research & Policy Development Associate at Cornell University’s ILR School Climate Jobs Institute.

Raman studies the labor implications of climate change, advancing knowledge and policies that help unions engage in public climate debates and advocate for a just worker transition. Raman’s cutting-edge research advances climate jobs campaigns and supports eight states’ high-road climate labor policy development. Raman is a 2022 Public Voices Fellow on the Climate Crisis with the OpEd Project in partnership with Yale University, and her op-eds on climate jobs have been published in CrainsNY, The Buffalo News, Newsday, the NY Daily News, and more.

Before joining Cornell ILR, Raman implemented climate adaptation projects in the Global South at UNDP and published reports analyzing national climate plans and global agreements at the U.N. Secretariat. Raman also managed data and reporting for a NYS program that helped low-and-middle-income families migrate away from climate coastline hazards after Hurricane Sandy.

Raman received her M.A. in Climate and Society from Columbia University and her B.S. in Environmental Science from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Music Credits
Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa
Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

Transcript

Transcripts are auto-transcribed

[Intro]

Nic 
Hello, Welcome to Epi, your favorite environmental enthusiast Nick and Laura. On today's episode, we're gonna discuss applying to senior positions. We talked to a NIDA Raman about climate careers Writing Across the country, and mindfulness. And finally, Laura, do you know what the closest planet to Earth is?

Laura 
Oh my god. flashbacks to middle school the closest planet is Venus.

Nic  
So okay, so this is this the one that can be closest? There's a there's a trick to that. So what's the plan that is closest most of the time? Because, you know, we're our orbits are all they're all moving and all changing. So what is the planet that's closest to Earth? Most of the time? The moon just kidding. Oh, that's so great.

Laura 
Let's see process of elimination. I know it's not Pluto. I know. It's not your anus. No idea obviously.

Nic 
While you're doing it, there's a trick to it. It's all a trick. This is all a trick question. Did I do it on purpose? Yes, absolutely. But the planet that's closest to Earth most of the time is mercury. And the reason why is because mercury has a really short orbit. So it's just nearer to Earth most of the time. Because the other planets have longer, wider orbits. And so they're not as close all the time. So Venus gets the closest I mean,

Laura 
Mercury. It's like I know no one ever does.

Nic  
So Okay. All right, one last question. Question. What's the closest planet to every other planet? So if I said what's the closest planet Mars most of the time? What's the closest planets to Jupiter most of the time? What's the closest planet to Saturn most the time guess what the answer is? Earth. It's still mercury. Because ridiculous choice. So I found that out. This week and I'm like, I have got to tell someone. Okay, so am I smarter than a fifth grader? No. I did. I was I didn't get it either. I had no idea. All right, hit that music now. Yeah.

[NAEP Event News]

Laura 
Our podcast partner ACRA is hosting a webinar called do's and don'ts of subcontracting on federal projects. On April 12. Check it out at info dot, Accra dash CRM dashboard. And fantastic news everyone. EPR is doing an AMA sponsored by s TV on Tuesday, April 11. You may have previously heard Wednesday, April 12. But we changed it. It is now Tuesday April 11 at 8pm on our YouTube channel that you can find at EPR podcast from YouTube. And Nick and I will be available for you to ask us about career advice, your favorite pizza, toppings, movies or anything else on your mind. So mark your calendars and we hope to see you there. Now we have a sponsor for an AMA we need a sponsor for some episodes. So this one we do not Nick Are you ready for our 32nd challenge? Sponsor challenge?

Nic 
Yes, exactly. No, no. All right, you give me look at the images are not

Laura 
ready. Go.

Nic 
All right everyone today I have another fantastic wonderful product. We talked earlier about how we have bikes and they can get stolen, right? Yeah, well not anymore. With bikes on fire. Your bike will never ever be stolen again. Once you park it, you push this one button it will burst into flames. That's right. The entire thing will melt to the ground. And absolutely no one I guarantee you no one will steal that bike. And if you call now and the next 30 seconds, we will offer a free Fire Extinguisher to put it out. How about that? I

Laura 
love it. Let me go get my now. Alright, let's get to our segment.

[Nic & Laura discuss applying to a senior position]

Nic 
I think we've said this on the show a couple of times, but it still keeps happening where people don't believe in themselves so they don't apply for things that are above their current roles and responsibilities or whatever even where they don't even think that they have the roles and responsibilities, the tools required to do the job anyway. And it's maddening because it's like you know you want people that are confident for sure. And so you'll be able to do believe it and you definitely don't want people who are ill equipped to do the job. But how do we get people to like let go of that perception. Oh, this job's not for me. It's too high. I don't do that because it's

Laura 
making me crazy. They don't believe in themselves but they don't want to set themselves up for failure essentially. So I think a lot of them are afraid to put themselves out there and then feel like an idiot in the interview. Or even worse on the job. And then they also don't want to like lie. I don't know. This is just like they're afraid that if they submit to something they don't have five years so I keep telling them like a lot of the people that I'm working with for their careers or adults they've been working you know, when it says five years of experience. They're like I don't have five years of experience in NEPA or I don't have five years of experience Uncle You have five years of working professional adult experience in life and certain things. So we really have to see if that works. You know, maybe it's okay if you and then let them weed you out. If you're going to apply for it. Let Nick say the experience you think you're bringing to the table isn't right.

Nic 
Yeah, I would totally agree. That's the thing that is so frustrating. It's like it's as I say you missed every shot, you don't take you know, and just if you're looking for a job, don't be afraid of that because it's one of those things it's really my job to sort through and say yes or no. And, you know, we've talked a little bit about like when you're applying for jobs that if you don't have something relevant then you have to find a way to make it relevant that is important. If you're just like, you know, what do we think we've gotten a lot picking up baristas but I had that come through like someone's like, I'm a barista. I'm like what else? You know, like, I'm not gonna spend the time energy and effort to figure out if this person really has the qualifications because they didn't take the time, energy and effort to put it in their resume. But if you have environmental background, even if you have some modicum of experience, like I've hired people that I know are great writers, the reason I hired them, it's because they're great writers, not because they knew how to do environmental work. That's like, to me the most important thing is you know, being able to being being fundamentally decent and being able to write like those are really really important for me and like the rest of the stuff you can learn even if you're a little bit behind on certain things. That's a challenge. I think the tricky part is like you know, if we put sales goals to something I know that scares a lot of people to where it's like we want you to help bring in work and

Laura  
skills. They're gonna be like what I can't do that. Nobody knows how to do sales.

Nic 
And so maybe that's where we take the conversation right now. Okay. Like one of those things that people are like, I don't know how to sell anything. I'm like, you get people to do stuff for you all the time, right? Yes, you've done that. Uh huh. Okay, well, then this is kind of like that. But it's just you know, it's just a little focused on on one thing, it's just, I feel like a lot of times we think of salespeople was like, Hey, guy, how's it going? And how the kids all right, well, you know, like the used car salesman, and most of the time, it's the opposite of that, where it's just kind of like, hey, it's good to see you again. Oh, my gosh, we've had so much fun working together with you. Do you have anything else coming up? You do awesome. We really we love working with you. Let's do it. You know, and we have clients like that too. Like, that's the easy thing. And sometimes it just, you know, it's all about opportunity that pops up. But then all you have to be is again, that fundamentally decent thing. If you're a good person, people like you. They're going to want to work with you more. And it's almost like you're not selling you're just being yourself working. And that helps bring in work and sometimes I think we get long

Laura 
lasting I think, you know, if you look at like Xerox has one of the best sales or have one of the best sales training programs. A lot of their stuff is just about making sure people understand what Xerox does, what solutions they actually have. And then you just listen to people ask them questions, and then offer them the solutions that you have to those problems. When they they come to work for you that they don't need to understand every single thing that Dawson does when they walk in the door. You're gonna tell him you're going to teach them that

Nic 
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it takes time. You know, there's there's always an expectation that you learn and then grow. You don't just like start off, flying off, but like there's definitely ways you can set yourself up for success. But yeah, all those positions take time, energy and effort to learn. You're always a little blind when you take a new job.

Laura 
I know at least one employer who's in adjusting their job descriptions to talk about what the job is, instead of saying this is what you need to know or this is what is required. It talks more about like, what are you going to do in this? What does the day to day look like? What skills are you going to use? And then let the person who's applying determine whether they have those skills or have done them in the past and saying like instead of saying, you know, needless required and then people are going I've never even heard of

Nic 
it. Yeah. Yeah. There's there's a balance to that because there's at this point for some of the jobs we have like I do want that person to have some NEPA, because there's some baseline I don't want to teach like, I don't want to teach this as an EA, for example. How do we find the balance between that like I don't necessarily need someone to be a NEPA NEPA

Laura 
expert, right, the biggest thing so let's, of course, senior is different than entry level or junior, but if you for that one position you were talking about earlier, what do you expect them to have? Because this is one thing they don't know, do I need to have actually done the work? Can I have taken a certification course can I have read a book? Like what do they need to know before they are qualified to have an interview?

Nic 
Not even get the job? Well, you know, it's one of those things like, you know, like it says NEPA the biggest thing that I need is someone who understands environmental policy, right doesn't have to be necessarily NEPA and know like if you understand how the regulatory process works, if you work in permitting, for example, you have at least a basic understanding of the process that's required. You understand technical writing, you understand nuances of clients, right? That's really the more important thing that necessarily straight up I know everything there is to know about NEPA, that's great. But like I say the we've talked about on the show all the time, there's people that do the things that are really, you know, they're similar, but completely different, you know, and, you know, the skill sets for permitting are really similar to the sub skill sets for NEPA, for example, like it's a good, that's a good allegory. I think both of those have similar needs, and that's a lot easier, a lot better. Like I would absolutely interview people like that. Who were like, well, I've worked in the permitting industry for a long time and like, that's great, you know, there's, there's a new potential revenue stream, right permitting, which we do some of but we could obviously always do more, and I can have somebody help on the NEPA side of things than they know this. It's even better than just straight up NEPA.

Laura 
Yeah. That's a good point, too. I'm always telling people you don't know what weird crazy other talent you have that you're bringing that they might find valuable and you didn't you know, again, you're thinking, Oh, this experience I have doing this thing doesn't have any like coding or something like that. It plays no role, but maybe Nick is trying to build an app for his program and you're like the person who knows how to talk about things. And so you know, you just don't know so people just need to stop self disqualifying themselves. And just take the chance.

Nic 
And that's all I'm saying. Don't stop disqualify. That's a good way to put it.

Laura 
Alright, so you're gonna have a flood of applications tomorrow as as everyone else everyone listening is gonna go submit an application somewhere.

Nic 
There we go. Good. I would be happy with

Laura  
that. Let's get to our interview.

[Interview with Anita Raman starts]

Laura
Welcome back to EPR. Today we have Anita Raman Research and Policy Development Associate epic Cornell climate jobs Institute on the show. Welcome,

Anita Raman 
Anita. I so nice to be here. Awesome.

Laura 
Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you became interested in environmental policy and research?

Anita Raman 
Sure. So as you mentioned, I'm research and policy development associates and I work at the Cornell climate jobs Institute, and we are housed within the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell. And I should say we also just became an institute like two weeks ago, we were an initiative within school and now we're our own institute. I was thinking about this this morning, actually, kind of like what's been this thread throughout my career. And I've been thinking about how we've had we had these enormous, like challenges and opportunities ahead. So one challenge being that we have to completely change our economy to become a clean energy economy. And that to that we have to adjust to this new climate normal and we have to make sure that the most vulnerable people have the resources that they need to adapt to this changing climate and environment. And so it kind of occurred to me that this question I've been trying to answer is, is this a just transition or is this just a transition? Like, how are we actually approaching these enormous challenges that we have ahead? I've been looking at both of these aspects of it, this the adaptation part of it, so making sure that people have the resources that they need to actually adapt to climate change, but also making sure that as we transition, we're doing it in a way that provides access to high quality climate jobs, especially for the people who are most impacted by climate change.

[Climate Careers]

Laura  
What made you decide to get like, what was your first degree and how did you decide to go after that?

Anita Raman 
Sure. So I, my first degree was in environmental science, and I'm not going to generalize but at least my family was very insistent that I go into medicine and become a doctor. And at the time I had learned I just started to learn about climate change in college. And I was thinking if we have no planet left, there will be no one left to heal. So this seems like a this seems like a different kind of healing that I need to work that I personally feel like I want to work on is like killing the planet and making sure that that we are protecting each other and protecting species and protecting the planet from anthropogenic climate change. So that's kind of how I entered this environmental science field. And it was so new at the time that I was one of the first graduating classes at UCLA. And it was a little bit scary because it was so new and I think it was just like, kind of becoming something where people were starting to use the word like sustainability. And people just kind of started talking about green jobs. And there was still this fear that people were going to, like, think of you as like categor put you in a box because you're an environmental science, like a lot of like hippie language kind of thrown around and it's like you want to be thinking seriously and you want to be especially as a scientist like you want it to be clear that this is coming from a place of of science and data and evidence. So there was definitely like a bit of fear of kind of owning that the field owning your the story owning even the interest in this. From there, I became really interested in global environmental issues. And already seeing this kind of inequity in who is experiencing the worst effects of climate change, who's causing the most like the worst effects of climate change. And that kind of led me in a direction of international development. So I worked at the State Department for a couple of years in a program in like the Science and Technology Office to help kind of facilitate best practices between the US and other countries. So understanding you know, what's working in various different countries to mitigate climate change. What are we doing and how can we learn from each other. And I kind of got deeper and deeper into this, and I was like, just really excited about the opportunities for countries to collaborate because this was such a huge, enormous problem that needs to be solved, you know, at the country level. And that led me to graduate school and then I had this dream that I really wanted to work at the UN and I really wanted to be part of this Paris Climate Agreement like conversation and I wanted to help facilitate this. And so I ended up there in 2015. And I was in like the Secretary General's climate change support team and it was really exciting. Because I was part of this initiative to help countries of the global south create partnerships to help them address climate change. So there's so much knowledge, indigenous knowledge and expertise and local solutions between and among countries of the global south and it was like it was a partnership to help facilitate that kind of exchange. I worked on setting up a partnership to southern climate partnership incubator and then I worked on some research there. I read every single nationally determined contribution. It's basically the report that every country puts out and how they're going to like mitigate and adapt to climate change. And I you know, I did a bunch of research on how all of these countries can achieve these different goals and what are basically the priorities that they have

Laura 
to get a job with the UN. I know a lot of people are like, would love to know.

Anita Raman 
Okay, well it started with an internship. And so, yeah, that that seemed to be the best way to get my foot in the door. It's it is very, very difficult to get in, especially in New York City. So I think definitely, you know, going to graduate school in New York City, and like the relationships between Columbia and like the new UN definitely helps. I would say that I do know a lot of people who have gotten like jobs and internships at the UN at different countries, and they've also had different like very different and also fulfilling, like, internships and jobs there too. And I think that's also a really a really good option. And

Nic 
I don't know actually, I have a curiosity question for you. It's based on like, you talked about like, family dynamics, right? Like your your family wanted you to be a doctor and I remember, you're right about like the perception of environmental professionals on the road, like, buying my first car, like for me, personally, I said, I was environmental scientists and like, oh, well, here are Priuses and I was like, Okay, well, that's, that's great. Thank you. Well, one, I can't afford that. And two, thanks for putting me in a box you know, but was your family when you decided to do this? Right. You know, I don't want to be a medical doctor I want to do this environmental thing was a supportive atmosphere for you or is it was a little more challenging.

Anita Raman 
It was a little of both from different parts. of my family. But it was mostly challenging because I'm a first generation American. And this was also a totally new field. And so the avenues that I were pursuing, were just so unfamiliar. And so there was this real pressure to kind of do what we know works, like follow the paths that we know can lead to success instead of exploring this new territory that we don't know where it's gonna go. We don't know how many jobs it's going to create. We don't know the quality of those new jobs. We don't know if you're gonna be like, yeah, it was just so much job insecurity and then at the same time, there was the housing crisis, and that's around the time that I graduated. And so it was it was really scary for my family, and I think I was definitely feeling a lot of that pressure. I'm really happy now to see that there are a lot more environmental programs and there are a lot more people and there are podcasts like this to kind of expose people to the number of options that they have in this field because there are so many and we need so many people and I wish I had heard that message like more when I was younger. That you know, this is extremely important and there are groups of people there to support you. As you embrace this pattern and figure out where you fit.

Nic 
Oh, yeah. That's awesome. Yeah.

Laura 
The climate change didn't become real until recently. And we're just noticing the other day that Fox News actually was talking about the problems of climate change. So even in these like, areas where they used to not even acknowledge it, they're starting to acknowledge it. So you're absolutely right, though, but around the time you graduated, it was still kind of like it was just go acrossing that tipping point where more people were starting to say, oh, yeah, this is an actual thing than the opposite.

Anita Raman 
Do you ever the time when I used to have like one climate denier scientist and then like one climate scientist, and then they would have them like talking about it because they felt they needed like two perspectives like yeah, that was that was a difficult Yeah, like happy to hear that, ya know, that they're actually kind of embracing this in the way that yeah, make sure that I can talk a little bit more about that in my work to

Laura 
do like, especially from like Cornell, you just said that this is now like an actual program for you. So not only we're talking about climate change is real, but now climate jobs is a real thing. Maybe give us a little description. Of like, maybe how Cornell defines it, or just in general, like what is the climate job because we talk about environmental professionals. That's really anyone who has like a green degree of some kind. I even have as a career coach, people approached me with like, I'm looking for a climate job. How would you sort of describe or define that?

Anita Raman  
Yes, that is the question. So there's a focus that we generally have when we talk about climate jobs. And I think that oftentimes, like especially in the environmental field, we talk about how it's important to decarbonize as soon as quickly as possible at whatever costs no matter what, like, just get it done, and I think that sometimes there's a little bit less thought given to how, how are we doing this? Like, who are the people who are going to be most affected by this transition? And so when we think about climate jobs, we we think about high quality jobs right. And so we were to achieve three goals. So to reduce emissions, tackling the climate crisis, creating high quality jobs and then building a diverse and inclusive workforce. And this high quality jobs is the most important thing that I think we need to really think about when we're thinking about adjust transitions. So for example, I will tell you that I come from a place that is I grew up in a place that was mostly fossil fuel driven. The biggest economic contributor was oil. And many of my friends and like their parents worked in an oil refinery jobs and these were good union jobs with pensions, and with health insurance with good benefits that provided for the whole community. These are community sustaining high quality jobs. And the taxes from the industry paid for my schools paid for our hospitals paid for our libraries. And so how are we going to make sure that the jobs that people are transitioning to are good jobs and what we're learning and what we're studying right now is like, what is the quality of these new jobs that are being created? We want to make sure that as we do this transition that these are going to be high quality, family sustaining community sustaining jobs, and that people have good jobs to transition to. And so what we do is we work with Union coalition's in different states to help them develop a proactive climate agenda that is worker centered, and I think for a long time there's been this argument about like economy versus environment. And there's been this tension even between environmentalists and unions, where unions are trying to protect their membership, like in fossil fuel jobs, too, because these are again, high quality jobs, and environmentalists are trying to just transition as quickly as possible and so it's kind of changing the conversation where you were thinking about what are the new high quality union jobs that can be created in these new clean energy fields? And how can we make sure that their labor standards on these new jobs and how can we make sure that they're family sustaining and so for example, our work started in New York after Hurricane Sandy, when it was kind of a wake up call for New York, just by the effect that it had on entire communities, but also unions and it was it was a wake up call, and it was in the sense that Cornell brought together a group of of New York unions to have a conversation about like, what what are we going to do now? Like, you know, the writing's on the wall, climate change is happening. We have to deal with this. And so my supervisor Lera, Skinner held a several year process with the unions to come up with the kind of climate plan for New York and the ways that we can create these high quality jobs, and also get a lot of clean energy work done. And so these unions became a group called Climate jobs, New York, and they started running campaigns and one of those campaigns was to was for the governor to advocate for nine gigawatts of offshore wind with labor standards. attached. And they won and New York State invested $300 million on offshore wind infrastructure with labor standards. So this was really successful in New York. And so our team decided to run the same process in other states, so it's convening labor unions conducting interviews, understanding the energy, labor and environmental landscape of a place and then developing climate jobs recommendations that can achieve these three things high quality jobs, reducing emissions and building a diverse and inclusive workforce and also add like adding resilience to to different places. And so now we're working in 16 Different states, across the country, working with labor unions, mostly building trades, but also a time service unions, teachers, unions, nurses unions, and helping them develop these kinds of climate jobs recommendations, and then they're running campaigns and they're winning. And I'll say in New York, for example, the offshore wind goal that the labor union set was actually higher than the environmental groups goals that they set. So it's really exciting because we know how labor unions have the ability to rally workers and get things done and they run a very democratic process and it's really cool to see that kind of being turned in a different direction where they're actually they're advocating for new jobs for many people. And then it's also about bringing new people into the workforce. So people who have traditionally been excluded or who are most affected by climate change. And so a big portion of our work is ways that we can bring new people into this union workforce. So through pre apprenticeship programs, and targeted community hiring, and working with community groups and ensuring that these like new opportunities are being available and accessible to communities who need these jobs most. And so yeah, that's,

Nic 
yeah, it's a multi faceted approach, right? It really is quite collaborative, right. So you have to work I'm certainly at work with other environmental professionals in your day to day so how do you do that? What organizations do you work with to help you achieve those goals? So
_______________
Anita Raman 
So so when we're writing our climate jobs recommendations, we do interviews with people across the state. So I've interviewed academics, I've interviewed environmental groups, nonprofits, different community groups, as well as labor unions to understand the landscape of a place and what they've seen that works well what they think should be done better and gathering a lot of expertise in various different areas. So our recommendation generally spans several sectors, so transportation, energy, buildings, resilience, adaptation, and then we have our workforce development recommendations. And so we do policy research. And we gather, we do like many interviews, gather as much expertise as we can to determine what could be the best opportunities to achieve these three goals of you know, lower emissions, high quality jobs and, and a diverse and inclusive workforce.

Nic 
I had this like wild experience, doing this exact same thing that you're talking about, in a way in New York. It was basically a Transmission Line project, right. So it's going from there basically taking a power line from hydroelectric dam in Canada, all the way down to New York City. Oh, I got this project. Yeah. So I worked on the environmental policy part of it. Okay. And it's almost like it wasn't like the first time this was happening. This is like my first like, my first window into here's green jobs that are doing things that's completely different than how we were doing it. Right. It's just It's just different. And it scared everybody. And we had people have had a public meeting, where they literally were like, you're gonna dig through our our cemeteries, to save fish. And we're like, what are they top what? And it turns out, you know, just just were scared. They were afraid of those things happening, but were they you know, they were accusing and being angry and coming with all that, that really, really negative energy. But when we talk to them about what happened because it really we find out okay, they had to like a coal power plant, right. That was the main job driver for the community. And then it failed twice. It failed two times and they want us to come back and they're like, well, we need the the media dat power to come back on. We need that to come back. And so that wasn't really what they were saying what they were saying is we need the jobs. You know what I mean? And so like, I love that what you're doing is basically instead of saying, Well, you know, you failed twice so sorry. You're like, he's that kind of like what you guys do is say, hey, we understand where we're coming from. It's not just jobs. It's not just projects, it's jobs that help these communities that have lost some of those jobs. Is that kind of what you're? Yeah, that's

Anita Raman 
a good question. So, so much has been focused in the past on job loss, but we've really focused on job gains. So what are some of the new opportunities that are available? So for example, what are the transferable skills? What are the new areas of opportunity? So for natural gas workers, for example, in New York, there's a real excitement around district heating system and geo grid system. So these are systems where you can still use natural gas infrastructure but run hot water through it and then you can connect homes or buildings to this system with heat pumps. And so it's actually a type of geo thermal heating system on a larger scale that natural gas workers can actually maintain their jobs doing this work. So this is like there's some really interesting, exciting innovations. And so for example, like the plumbers union was really involved in New York. The Plumbers union is like a lot of allied natural gas workers are part of the UAE, the United association of plumbers and pipefitters. And they were really important advocates for legislation in New York for these like district heating systems to get approval for these. So that's like an example. And then sustainable aviation fuels a huge is a huge opportunity for fossil fuel workers because a lot of the skill sets are very similar in producing sustainable aviation fuel as they are producing petroleum like their refineries for both. There are a lot of opportunities in what are some other areas that I've been studying? Oh, of course, like building retrofits like this is a huge area of opportunity. Because think about like the number of buildings that we actually have to decarbonize. We need all types of workers in every single trade. We need people who can replace windows when people can also paint like paint roofs to make them cooler. We need people who can install solar panels but also people who can install new electric like electric like power in a home. We need people who can lay down like the utility lines. We need people who can underground utility lines for resilience purposes like we're so there's so much work to be done. And that's kind of when I say that sometimes we don't think of the who the people like the workers or the how, like, how is the best way to do this, like what's the best way to do this transition to make sure that these good jobs are not lost. But these same people get to keep their jobs and that but they're doing different kinds of work that's helping this transition happen faster, and that their voices are being collectively heard to move policy so that this work can happen faster and sooner and quicker. So

Nic  
does that make sense? Yeah, that's awesome.

Anita Raman  
earlier but it's about like, really the new opportunities and that's what actually gets people excited is that like, knowing that they can, because like people in their own trades know the best way to like they want to create the job they're gonna go into like they're the best they have the best knowledge of what they're able to do in a new in a new type of industry. So

Nic  
and the less they have to learn, the sooner they can transition. It makes a ton of sense. It makes almost too much sense actually. No, that's fantastic.

Anita Raman 
Yeah, so like in our in a lot of our climate jobs reports we talk about we make it very concrete. So here's like a recommendation like you should install this much energy you should retrofit this many buildings. This is how many new jobs that would create this is what the emissions reductions would be. And these are how this is how you make it a high quality job like these are the labor standards you would apply. Like these are the policy decisions that need to be made. And this is how you would create a high quality job. And this is how you make sure these jobs are accessible to people and communities who need these jobs most.

Nic  
Yeah, which is absolutely brilliant. It makes a ton of sense. But you're talking about like doing different work with different people, different things. And you've mentioned a few times about you know, just workforce and adjust system in place. Are there specific initiatives to bring in a more diverse workforce that you could speak to, like, is there something IV found that there's certain connection points with communities or certain guidance or guidelines that you can you can talk to about making sure we do have a diverse workforce.

Anita Raman 
So a lot of the policy recommendations that we develop are focused on equity and ensuring that these new climate jobs being created or going to the communities that need the most and so generally, after you write these recommendations, these climate jobs coalition's will be formed climate jobs, Texas, which kind of Texas climate does Maine, Rhode Island, and so I can think of an example in Illinois where we supported this. We've provided policy research and technical assistance to climate jobs, Illinois, and they, in collaboration with many environmental justice groups and environmental and community groups past Cgn, a climate and environmental justice act, and which is so far today, one of the most like what a landmark climate and equity piece of legislation out there right now.

[Field Notes]

Nic 
It's really interesting, engaging stuff so dang, yeah, so now it's time for field notes. This is the part of the show where we talk to our guests about memorable moments during their work. We encourage listeners to share their stories with hashtag gillnets, so we can read them on a future episode. So do you have a fun, memorable or otherwise Wow story for us?

Anita Raman  
I guess like an interesting thing is that I biked across the country once like from Seattle to DC. And I'm and then I took a bus from like DC to New York, and that's how I moved to New York. Right? I did it like a group of people for like six weeks. Well, the story is that as soon as like my my fourth day in New York City, my bike was like pretty much stolen like most of it was like destroyed like the the wheels were gone like the handlebars are gone. Like all of the like, parts were just like destroyed or missing or whatever. And I was so heartbroken and I kept that like my bike frame what was left of it like under my bed for like three years thinking like maybe I'll like put it back together. Like I'll be really handy. And all that and then I ended up having to move say like, you know, I put it for someone to take and then I kind of forgot about it. And then I wrote this report and my job about ways that New York can create new climate jobs and like reduce emissions and we found that you know, when the pandemic happened, there was a huge increase in bicycling in New York City, but with that was another was like a huge increase in bike theft. And I remembered how I don't like anymore because of how my bike was stolen and how heartbreaking that was. And I ended up like writing an op ed about how we need like bike storage in New York City. And then like another like Streetsblog in New York picked it up and they were like, Hey, do t like why don't we have enough bike storage and then like I somehow accidentally became like a bicycle advocate.

Nic 
After that, like what?

Anita Raman 
No, there's like it's a TBD now I wish I have a good good resolution to the story right now. I know that DOD is still like working on potentially doing they did a pilot project where they put out these like what I'm talking about when I say bike storage is like covered bicycle. Like lockable. Like stories that can go in part in like, in free car parking spots. And they did like a pilot project. And then like they kind of stopped and so right now there, it's still kind of in limbo. Yeah, that's where we are. Yes. Yeah. It's kind of an equity issue. It's really sad how we think so much about like cars but not as much about bicyclists and like, especially in like New York City, there's so many people who need their bike for their like livelihoods because they deliver their like delivery people. And so it's been kind of difficult for in that regard. And plus, like people just want to be safe during the pandemic and they want to stay like social distance and so they want to bike and it's just, you know, it's also like a climate thing where you it's just better to reduce emissions.

Nic  
I don't know it's, it's so I used to bike all the time to write I used to do that a lot. And then I saw someone get hit, or Well, I actually saw them reset his leg actually is what I saw, which is almost worse because I could you know, you can imagine that was not fun for anybody involved. And I already had like a couple of like close instances and I was in Richmond at the time. I was like me and maybe maybe I need a new hobby. I need a new one that's less dangerous, but I still feel like I miss it a lot, you know, so I don't know Do you ever like ever say like, Hey, I'm gonna get a new bike. This is the year I'm gonna do it again. Or

Anita Raman 
now I do have a bike. I just, I just got an electric bike. Well, my dad mailed me one from California that he was no longer using. But it's winter so I have get to ride it around. So but I'm hoping in the spring I'll I'll take it to work. Oh, I also Okay, no, there's a good part of the story. I after I wrote it off that I told my workplace like I was like, hey, we need like bicycle storage. And then like they actually made bicycle started for everyone in the building. So oh,

Nic 
I don't know. That's great. Yeah. I do a cross country like what do you like that must have taken I don't know, how long did it take? And it seems like the most exhausting thing to do. Wait a move. I feel like

Anita Raman 
Yeah, well luckily somebody like we had it was like 12 of us and there was like somebody with a van who was carrying or like stuff. So that was nice. We didn't have to carry I've seen people who do that who carry their stuff like on their bike. But yeah, it was six weeks is 3300 miles. So it's like an average like 83 miles a day. And all different types of terrain like yeah, it was

Laura
you have to cross mountains. How did you Yeah, so

Anita Raman 
there's so we I think there's the hardest part was like the Continental Divide, which is like, around like Montana and you're, you're basically going up what feels like a steep like completely 90 degree incline and it's like you're kind of biking it like four miles. an hour. Not sure you're really moving. Like I didn't file you get to the top and it's just like, like whizzing all the way down like like for like miles and miles and it's fantastic. So definitely there's there were there were like steep mountain ranges. And then Pennsylvania had a lot of like rolling mountain ranges and then everything in the middle was like pretty flat, which was nice.

Laura
How much food did you have to eat?

Anita Raman 
Yeah, I actually want a pie eating contest.

Nic 
Going on a lot of

Anita Raman 
food Yeah, I would eat like entire pizzas. Like, you know, like, like being pizzas by myself. I was there was a lot of yeah, a lot of energy for that kind of thing. Yeah,

Laura
start breaking so I can eat whole pizzas like,

Nic  
oh, that's hilarious.

Laura
I've always wanted to like walk, you know, the whole like, what's the guy's name? I wanted to walk across the country because I don't want to bike I'm afraid of the being on a bike on the road with cars but like I would love to ride a horse or just walk across the country. Yeah, I kind of really nice

Anita Raman 
like Appalachian Trail. Wha

Nic 
Oh, yeah. So north south. Yeah, like Alabama to Maine. I think

Anita Raman 
about like the last like three days or three days before the bike ride was supposed to be over that somebody died doing the same thing. Same ride like two years before like somebody had turned a corner I got hit by a truck and I was like, great. Cool. Thanks for not telling me that earlier. Yeah, I was at an age where you kind of like think that they can happen to you and like you're invincible and every you know, like, so. I don't know. Yeah. So

Nic 
that's true, right? Nothing can happen to you guys.

Anita Raman 
Yeah, so

Nic 
that's really cool. That's a very cool story.

Anita Raman 
Yeah. Like the Micromobility is so cool, because it's just like, it's such a different way to experience the world. Like you feel the wind on your face. Like you feel like, you know, like the inclines and declines, and it's just like you're more with the planet.

Nic  
Oh yeah. 100%

Laura 
and watching Love Yeah, love it. attempt a documentary by a family that was attempting to do it on bikes with their like three to five kids. I can't remember. It seemed like a lot of kids and a dog. And they made it like a week. get very far. So it was like the documentary was all oh, we're doing it blah, blah, blah. And then it was like, Okay, well, it rains. So we had to get a hotel last night or whatever happened. And then it was like, Okay, now we're fast forward a week. And then Okay, we're done and you're like okay, you drove the whole second half I know.

Nic  
Let's challenge it like you do like an Appalachian Trail right? So it's supposed to be a four month hike and you cannot do that if you don't know how to hike that long until they go like ah I go to I go hugs all the time you go to for like an hour. That's not the same thing as going on a hike for months and

Anita Raman 
that you're you're trading as you're doing it?

Nic 
Yes. It's also scary.

Anita Raman 
That high stakes Yeah,

Nic 
yeah. Drop out of it. Yeah, that's true. You always have the option to to not do it in our finish. But yeah. And as you do prep for it. Did you just or did you learn by what you say? Some people say that? Are you that some people?

Anita Raman 
No, I decided the week before it started and I was I was like the last person to ever to get to like the site every time. And I was while I was doing it. Yeah, that is. That is

Nic 
it? I was like, Wait a minute. She said that. I'm gonna write that I need to add basketball. That's awesome. Yeah, that's pretty cool. That's a really cool thing.

[Mindfulness]

Laura 
There is one thing I'm dying to ask you before we start wrapping things up because I know I can always use help with this but do you have suggestions and tips on practicing mindfulness? Because I think this is something that you do, right?

Anita Raman 
Yeah, so I'm actually doing a teacher training course through CLA on mindfulness. I got into this kind of an accident and just like kind of, you know, taking your class past class and we're like oh, this is interesting, you know, and then realizing that it had just so many benefits for me in terms of focus, concentration, but also empathy. And I realized there's just so much value to taking the time to stop and be in the present moment and over time, my practice has deepened and I've just kind of combining this with like the with the environmental work that we do. I just noticed it in myself and in others, like there's so much emotion about this work. There's so much frustration and anger and resentment and fear. There's a lot of like these these emotions that are kind of brewing and sometimes our our work can kind of come from that place. But it can also come from a different place it can it can come from a place of love and kindness and empathy. And I think that mindfulness is also really beneficial because it can help kind of bring awareness to all of these feelings and and let them all be there, but allow you to kind of take the time to take the right action from the right place, if that makes sense. Yeah,

Laura
is it just meditation or is are there other approaches to mindfulness that you incorporate?

Anita Raman 
So I would like to say that mindfulness is the practice is actually real life. There's a point where you're on the cushion, but like the practice is actually in real life when you're in real situations where you can be reactive, and you can be angry, and you can do what you've always done. And those are, those are the times of actual practice. When you when you take you know, you stop and you you know, come back to your body, you pay attention to your breath and you you just take us make some space and you can see things a little bit more clearly. And I think it's made me a better researcher because you know, when you're not automatically trying to justify your existing perceptions about the world and you take some time to see things clearly. You can open up a lot of new avenues and a lot of just new perspectives. I've also just found it good for relating with people to an understanding different perspectives and you know, there's the like natural gas worker who is completely and understandably concerned about losing their job and losing their pension and like and feeling frustrated because, you know, why are these people not thinking about me and about my future? And then there's the there are the environmentalists who are thinking, you know, what is my future if we don't deal with this crisis, and so, there's just so many there's so many feelings, there's so many people and I think, yeah, definitely this this, this practice has really helped like deepen my empathy and, and care for and being able to hold all of these people in my heart and yeah, work from that place.

Nic 
And I would say to it's, it's absolutely essential, right? I mean, you mentioned that everybody has, can approach the same thing with fear and if you don't, and they don't have to be afraid either. I think it's fantastic. It is

Laura
yeah. Try to be more mindful as I go through my day. We are running out of time. Is there anything else you want to talk about before we let you go?

Anita Raman 
Yeah, okay. So what I will say is that this work is so important, and it's definitely expanding and it's really important to have more professionals at this intersection. of climate and labor, because this field is just rapidly growing this need to help labor unions incorporate climate language into the collective bargaining, like that's extremely important and making sure that there's language to protect workers if there's an extreme event and if it's too hot outside making sure that they're getting paid that they have water breaks. So there's so many aspects of this that are Berliners that there's the work to organize and there's work in my field to with helping labor unions and just workers in general mobilized around climate change. So helping them kind of understand the role that they play and the power that they have to actually influence their workplace and the power that they have to actually influence change. So for example, you know, New York, labor unions were really were very strong actors behind making the city divest their pensions, divest the pension. System from fossil fuels, and that was a huge win. And this is a pension system for 1000s and 1000s of workers. And so there are so many ways that workers can make real substantial climate change and there's a real need for experts and researchers and, and workers and just everyone to kind of to know that they have this power and ability to make this kind of change. So there are tons of opportunities. There are opportunities at Cornell, there are opportunities within the labor unions. And so I think that this this field of climate and labor is definitely growing rapidly.

Nic 
Oh yeah. 100%

Laura
that's really awesome in Listen people, she's talking about jobs and connections to jobs. So I'm sure there are some people who may want to get in touch with you and so I need to how would you recommend they do that?

Anita Raman 
People can definitely get in touch with me on LinkedIn. I need a a an ita Rahman ra ma N.

Laura
Awesome. This was great. Thank you so much for joining us today. And good luck on your your future projects. We'll catch you next time.

Anita Raman 
Thank you so much.

[Outro]

Nic 
And that's our show. Thank you, Anita for joining us today. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday. Don't forget to subscribe rate and review. See you everybody.

Laura
Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai