Welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westerbelt. We'll be bringing you another story from our series looking at the global crackdown on climate protests very soon. But this week I'm bringing you another one of these

episodes that I've been calling messy conversations where we do something that

climate folks have studiously avoided for years and yeah get into some

nuance and complexity. Today I'm bringing you a conversation I had with

Riana Gunn right last year.

If you don't already know that name,

Riana was one of the architects of the Green New Deal.

She's also written about climate justice and policy

for a wide range of publications and books.

And today she's the Climate Policy Director at the Think Tank, the Roosevelt Institute.

Every time I read or listen to Riana on the topic of climate policy and social justice,

I learned something.

And towards the end of last year, I wanted to talk to her about two things in particular.

A report that she'd written for Roosevelt on how folks who care about

climate justice should be thinking about the wonky issue of permitting reform and an essay she wrote for the outlet Hammer and Hope about her concerns that the

green transition that she fought so hard for is at risk of leaving black communities

out. The two are not entirely unrelated. I

especially wanted to bring this conversation to you right now because I've been

thinking a lot about the resurgence of anti-renewables campaigns and rhetoric.

And how often I see folks in climate spaces kind of dismissing any concerns about renewables as just fossil fuel-backed products. of of renewables, so anything from concerns about mining to sorting out

complicated land rights issues, has made it really easy for fossil fuel interest to

weaponize and co-opt groups that started out as genuinely grassroots.

...