Teach-In on Climate Change in the Era of Trump — with Neela Banerjee, Manish Bapna, and Monica Medina - moderated by Ally Coll

Politics and Prose is pleased to announce the fourth in a series of discussions meant to keep our community informed and engaged during this exceptional period in our nation’s political history. The Trump administration has wasted no time pushing an agenda that favors fossil fuel production over environmental regulation, and its actions threaten to quicken changes in our climate for the worse.  Some of the major moves up to now have included: withdrawal (again) from the Paris agreement: a drill-baby-drill energy policy that calls for expanded fossil fuel extraction: a reduced emphasis on clean energy alternatives; the rollback of regulations on vehicle emissions, methane leaks, and other pollutants; the weakening of such agencies as FEMA and NOAA critical in dealing with the impacts of severe weather;  and the undermining of climate science. Our panel of experts will assess just how damaging to the climate these measures have been and how much faster the clock is ticking now toward further disaster. Also discussed will be actions that can be taken to push back through legal challenges, advocacy, state-level moves, and private sector efforts. Neela Banerjee is NPR's Chief Climate Editor. She manages NPR’s Climate Desk, which focuses on making complex science accessible to audiences, spotlighting barriers to addressing climate change, explaining climate solutions and revealing how climate change disproportionately affects marginalized people. The desk coordinates a nationwide collaborative of dozens of member stations aimed at strengthening local climate journalism. Manish Bapna joined NRDC as president and chief executive officer in August 2021. With more than 700 attorneys, scientists, advocates and policy experts on staff, as well as three million supporting members, NRDC is confronting the interlocking climate, health, nature and inequity crises facing the world today. Prior to joining NRDC, Bapna’s leadership roles have focused on scaling solutions at the intersection of the environment and human development. He served as a senior economist at the World Bank for seven years, where he designed and implemented water, forestry and rural development projects in Asia and Latin America; then as executive director of the Bank Information Center (BIC), a nonprofit that works to protect the rights of local communities and the environment from the negative impacts of projects and policies financed by development banks; then as executive vice president and managing director of the World Resources Institute (WRI) for 14 years.Monica Medina is an Arnhold Distinguished Fellow at Conservation International. She most recently served as the first woman President and CEO of the Wildlife Conservation Society. From 2021-2023, she was the Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs and the first U.S. Special Envoy for Biodiversity and Water Resources at the U.S. State Department. She is a former small business owner having founded Our Daily Planet, an environmental e-mail newsletter. From 2015-2021, Medina was also an Adjunct Professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Medina has had a long career in environmental law, policy, philanthropy, media, and advocacy, including at the Walton Family Fou ndation and the National Geographic Society. Ally Coll (who will moderate) is an Assistant Professor of Law at the City University of New York (CUNY), where she teaches courses about constitutional separation of powers, the modern administrative state, and the federal courts system. She was previously a litigator in private practice and spent time on Capitol Hill as an aide in both the U.S. House and Senate. Coll received her law degree from Harvard Law School and her B.A. in History and Political Science from Tulane University.