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Moms have done all sorts of hard things. It’s no surprise they’re leading the fight against global warming, too. Ricki speaks with wildfire expert Dr. Emily Fischer about the ways in which moms with science backgrounds are demystifying climate change in order to change our future for the better.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Dr. Emily Fischer, Ricki Lake

Ricki Lake  00:02

This is The High Life with me, Ricki Lake, where we find out how my guests crack the code to living a full and vibrant life. So you can too. I am coming to you from my home in Malibu, California, a place that is so near and dear to my heart. I’ve lived here for three years, and I love the fact that I can hike anywhere, just out my door, and walk on the beach in the evening, it is all right here, but like so many beautiful places in the world, I worry about the impact climate change can have on my home. Some days, the threats of wildfires, dangerous storms, sea level rise makes me feel nervous about the future, and I know I’m not alone, but I want to stay positive and proactive like we do on this show. Now, I’ve been curious for a while about what I can do personally to slow down these disasters and be a part of creating a better future for my children and their future grandchildren. That is why I am so excited to have my guest, Dr. Emily Fischer, talk to us about what we can do with all of this. Emily is a professor in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, where she focuses on wildfires and their effect on air quality. She is also a member of science moms, a nonpartisan group of scientists who are also moms working to demystify climate change, talk honestly about its effects and protect our kids’ futures. Science moms also sponsored today’s episode. I am so happy to have you here. Dr. Emily Fischer, such a pleasure. Thank you.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  01:29

Hi, Ricki, nice to meet you.

 

Ricki Lake  01:31

Nice to meet you too. You look like a young, beautiful Meredith Vieira.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  01:35

Oh, that’s nice of you.

 

Ricki Lake  01:37

You never heard that?

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  01:39

No.

 

Ricki Lake  01:40

So as we get started, this is what we do at the show here. We start off with an opening question, where are you personally getting your highs from? Where are you finding joy these days? Could be big, could be small. What do you got?

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  01:52

Oh, I find I find joy in a lot of places. This week, I’m finding joy in my kids. I’m finding joy in my garden. I swim in the morning with a group of ladies up on the reservoir. And so that brought me joy this morning. And and, yeah, so the outside always brings me joy like you, I think.

 

Ricki Lake  02:11

Me too, I took a beautiful walk on the beach this morning. I get out in nature every single day, and it is so special. So okay, let’s talk about Science Moms. I was not familiar until very recently. Can you tell us what is a Science Mom? And how did you get into this work?

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  02:28

Yeah, so I’m a Science Mom, where scientists from across the US who work on climate change in some way, so we’re often based at universities or at the national labs in the US, and our work either is directly linked to climate change or indirectly linked to climate change. And we all have children, and so we came together in 2020 in the sort of darkness of the pandemic. That’s actually when it started. And we learned at that time, myself and a small group of us were now much bigger. We learned that moms were worried about climate change and they weren’t confident talking about it, and so that’s that’s a terrible place to be right, to be worried about something, but not feeling like you can do something about it and not feeling like you can talk about it because you don’t know enough, or, you know, some reason like that.

 

Ricki Lake  03:26

I feel like that’s me. I feel very much like that is, it resonates with me. How many are you? How many Science Moms you said you started in 2020, a small group? How many have you grown to?

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  03:38

15, 16? We started as four, and now we’re we’re 15,16, and we’re kind of constantly adding to the group, moms to the group. And so we kind of cover much of the earth science discipline. So for example, I focus on, I’m an atmospheric scientist. I focus on air quality. A lot of work on wildfires. So when there’s an issue, we can speak to it and help people understand what that issue is and how many of these disasters that drive this fear. We can help people understand sort of the unnatural component of them, and how they’re linked to climate change and what we can expect in the future, and help people understand that they can act.

 

Ricki Lake  04:22

And you, personally, I know, have an experience of running from a wildfire.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  04:26

I do.

 

Ricki Lake  04:27

Can you share that with us?

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  04:29

Sure, so 2020, right after we started Science Moms actually right in that same month or two, I took my kids backpacking in the mountains that are literally right outside that window, but it’s so bright you can’t see that. And we spent the night out, and we had hiked a little bit. The next morning, the kids were whiny. They were five and eight at the time, and I saw the plume and that it’s fire, which was just on the other side of the ridge from us, grew to be Colorado’s largest wildfire, Cameron peak fire. And so my five year old and my eight year old at the time, and my husband, we ran out. And so they we covered in two and a half hours, six and a half miles, with a little kid just just running.

 

Ricki Lake  05:20

I can only imagine you these little kids running for your lives, right? Were you able to breathe?

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  05:26

Yes, because the fire ran parallel to us. So we were lucky, right? It never the smoke plume never blew in the direction it ran parallel to us. So I could see the big plume next to us. And I don’t know what would have happened if it had gone, if it had the wind had shifted, it would have been bad. So it was very close by, but it ran in parallel. The run didn’t come toward us. So I wasn’t breathing bad smoke, but I could see it.

 

Ricki Lake  05:51

And you kept your calm with your kids.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  05:53

Yeah, and like, the it was crazy, the pictures that we my husband snapped when we got back to the car, you know, and people are streaming by us saying, like, what are you doing in there with your kids? There with your kids? And I’m, like, trying to get out. Like, that’s what I’m doing. I’m trying to get out. So we had he stopped and took some photos as we as we went out the dirt road, because the way we came in had been closed. And those pictures, you know, that’s what they were using for some of the investigation of where that fire started and the source of the fire, because we were sort of the first people to take photos. We were close.

 

Ricki Lake  06:24

I would imagine it was traumatizing for your kids.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  06:27

Correct, there has been therapy. There has been therapy yeah, it has taken some of the love of that type of outdoor activity from my kids, and so, we’re working on helping them get back into nature at that time of year, but that fire persisted from mid August when it started, all the way until it snowed in November. So it it grew very large, and it sort of made the air quality here terrible in showering ash on us, right, just showering ash, and the skies would be dark and so I’m thinking about smoke, and I’m thinking about fires in my work. And until I experienced that, I think I didn’t understand the graphs to the to the depth, right? Like by living that I understood what on our current track, what climate change means for the West.

 

Ricki Lake  07:18

Well, I have my own fire story to share. It wasn’t a wildfire, but in 2010 I was renting a beach house here in Malibu, not too far from where I live now. It was a 900 square foot wooden it was like a boat, and basically I accidentally started a fire, and the fire the house was gone in 15 minutes, we ran out. My children at the time were 14 and nine, and I ran out of this burning house with the clothes on my back, my two kids, my dog, and my my phone, and, I mean, it was very traumatizing, and it was so fast, like, I mean, it was just I had lit this thing that was innocuous, that was for indoor use, that shouldn’t have been a threat at all, and It was defective, and it exploded, and the house was a wooden It was really scary. And I lost everything in the house. Moved here so one of the issues here where I live, the fire department can’t necessarily get up our streets, you know, it’s they’re narrow. They don’t have turnarounds, the lack of water sometimes. And with the Woolsey fire, many hundreds of people lost their homes because they left and didn’t stay. But I have something in place here, and I wonder what you think about it. It’s called a fire defense system, because I have a pool. Basically the idea is, when there’s a fire, we stay and we have fire hoses that we spread out across our property. I have a like a motor, basically, that has a pump. We throw the pump into the pool and use our own pool water to fight the embers. And we have a steel roof. We have the fire retardant stuff, sprinklers, everything in place. But what do you think about, you know, homeowners like me, taking matters in our own hands when the wildfire comes through.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  08:55

I’m impressed, and I don’t know that I’d be able to do it. So that’s that’s amazing, and I think it’s very smart to prepare everyone living at the wildland urban interface should be prepared. The thing that’s tricky about climate change, that’s, it’s becoming unnatural, because we’ve primed the environment to burn right? We’ve primed the world so that if something starts, it will grow quickly, and it will grow fast and it will get large, right? Which natural fire is a very natural part of our western ecosystems, right? But what’s happening now is unnatural, right? It’s we’ve moved from the the sort of natural cadence of things and size of things into unnatural disasters, where people are having to go to great lengths right to protect themselves and their families. And it doesn’t have to be like this.

 

Ricki Lake  09:53

When did it go from a natural disaster to unnatural? Was it capitalism? Was it like just the fossil fuel? Industry. I mean, like, when do you see, did in our lifetime? Did this? Did this shift?

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  10:04

Yes, you can really see the climate impact on wildfires. Since the early 80s in the western US, temperatures have increased, and as you increase temperatures, you increase aridity or dryness or thirstiness of the atmosphere, and so you dry out fuels, and you prime things for fire. That time is also following a history of fire suppression, right? So fire wildfires are increasing for a couple reasons. Climate change is one of them, a legacy of fire suppression is one of them. We’ve got more fuel to burn, and some grazing practices have changed grasslands and so making them more vulnerable. And I don’t work on that piece of it, but that’s another factor. So since the night, roughly the 1980s large fractions of the increase in burn area that we’ve seen, and there’s a very dramatic increase in burn area that you can look just, you just look across the West, you add up how many acres have been burned, and that’s increasing. And about half of the increase in burn area that we’ve seen since the 1980s is driven by climate change induced changes. And so it’s a large amount, right? And so we can, we can untangle some of this. That’s what Earth scientists are doing. And we’re saying, Gosh, we don’t have to have fire seasons that are accelerating like this. This is now an unnatural disaster. This is not a natural disaster. This component of it, this acceleration, and what climate change is doing has many fires are really complex. They’re really complex things, right? They’re these big things that even make their own weather, right?

 

Ricki Lake  11:41

Right? They make their own tornadoes, right?

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  11:43

Exactly yeah. So there climate change has a bunch of different ways that it’s impacting wildfires. It’s it’s extending the fire season. So there’s just more chances for burning. We’re making fires with earlier snow melt. There’s a greater chance of starting fires in the spring, and fuels have a much longer time to dry out, right? And it’s longer till the first snow comes to shut it down. So we’ve extended the fire season. We’ve also primed fires to grow. So like if you toss a match on a well irrigated piece of grass, it’s not starting a fire, right, but if you toss a match on dry grass, it’s starting a fire, right? And so we’re priming the environment for fires that are started to grow.

 

Ricki Lake  12:27

Well also the issue that comes up once there is a fire, the landslides and the mudslides. And I mean, Topanga, I lived right near Topanga Canyon. It was shut down for like, five months. I think there was only one way out, and they’ve since reopened. But they did it partially because they had to get it opened because of open because of fire season that’s coming, because those people are like, it’s like a death trap there. It’s terrifying.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  12:49

And I use examples like that. I mentor, I run a big mentoring program for undergraduate women interested in the earth sciences, and I use examples exactly like this, of why I’m encouraging women to go into these earth science fields and like, these are unnatural disasters. They have many elements to them. We need the air pollution people. We need the hydrologists. We need the geologists. We need to figure out where the risks are, and we need to fix them. So it’s because these, it just compounds, right? It just keeps going these sort of unnatural disasters. And it’s been the same here we have the area that burned here. You know, you drive through and there’s big signs, do not stop like there, because of the landslide issue, right? And so it’s, it’s terrifying, right? And but this is the thing to, I think, this sort of communicating to people like, doesn’t have to be like this. This is not an act of God. This is an act of man. It’s not an act of God, we’re choosing.

 

Ricki Lake  13:45

So what do we do? Like, it’s this podcast is super positive. It’s about joy. It’s about choosing to be happy. Like, what can we do? So we feel that we are empowered during this what we’re dealing with?

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  13:58

Yeah, so one thing that’s helpful for me is this mental switch of this is an unnatural disaster. We know the cause, and therefore we can do something about it. This is not something that we actually have to accept, right? I can say, I don’t want this. I don’t want this. This is not the future I want. This is not the future I want for my kids. I want to protect the things that bring me joy, and I want clean air, and I don’t want wildfires ravaging the western US and sending smoke places. So that is a shift, right? That in itself, is a shift from like, Oh, this is a thing that’s happening around me and I can’t do something about it too. Oh, we know what the problem is here. We can solve this. Like most moms, once they figure out what to do, they just, they just take care of.

 

Ricki Lake  14:47

Leave it to the moms they know.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  14:49

Just take care of it, right? So with science moms, we try to help people understand all the different ways that they can contribute, right? Because I find, personally, it feels better when I know I’m contributing. Yeah, when I know I’m doing something that’s relief in itself, and to be able to tell my kids you don’t have to worry about this, I’m dealing with this, that also feels good. So there’s many things that you can do. You’re doing one of them right now, right? So the first thing that we recommend is just talking about the issue, because we talk about the things that matter to us. You know, my kids are switching school, for example, this week, and my girlfriends this morning, I talked to them about it’s like, oh, this is, this is really hard, right? Like, I had that struggle with my girlfriends this morning, and they know that’s something important to me. And you doing the same thing with thinking about climate change, and what worries you that sharing is really important. So that’s the first thing. Everybody has a different level of comfort and speaking up, right? And so through science moms, we’re also trying to help people understand all the different ways that you can speak up. So I’m comfortable calling my county commissioner, for example, and just saying, like, hey, what’s our climate plan for the county?

 

Ricki Lake  16:01

Just that question that like broad question.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  16:03

Just that question.

 

Ricki Lake  16:05

So what do they say when you do that?

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  16:06

They say all sorts of things. Sometimes they stumble. But just saying, Hey, I’m a parent, and anybody who cares about the future and as a parent should be very invested in this issue, right? This is one of the things that will drive the health and happiness of your kids moving forward, right and now is the time to make changes. The next 10 years, we have to come off fossil fuels. So just the simple you don’t have to know the answer. It’s not your job. It’s not everyone’s job to know the answer, but it is our job to ask the question. So simple questions like, what are you doing? What’s your plan? Right? I want to make sure there’s a plan so you don’t have to make the plan, because you’re not the representative, but they should be making a plan, right? And so share and the the Speak Up are two of the things. And the other thing is, sometimes we don’t realize just how easy it is to make swaps of things that are much better from a climate perspective.

 

Ricki Lake  17:04

Okay, yeah, I’m really curious about that. What are some of the things we can swap out that are better for climate change?

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  17:10

Yeah, and hopefully me sharing this swap out thing will give you a different perspective on we can do things. So there are so many technologies and practices that will help us that just need to be ramped up very quickly. Electric cars is a great example of that.

 

Ricki Lake  17:29

I drive an electric car.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  17:30

Good job, me too. They’re also more fun so.

 

Ricki Lake  17:33

They are, oh my god, yeah, I don’t want to, you know, I don’t want to say which one, because I’m actually embarrassed of the car that I drive, but I love it, and it’s my favorite car I’ve ever had, so fun. And nothing like plugging in and going.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  17:44

Yeah, never going to a gas station again. So it’s, it’s so fun, right? It’s so just there are an electric car is a great example of that, right? And if you start driving an electric car, right, that runs off your electrical grid in your area, those electrical goods will get cleaner with time as we move away from fossil fuels. So over time, your electric car just gets cleaner, like it’s already better than a combustion engine, and it will get cleaner over the lifetime of the vehicle, because the electricity that drives it is getting cleaner as we move the whole electric system toward wind and solar. So those choices, that’s a that’s a great example, right? Anything higher efficiency, anything that just uses less power, and anything that you can electrify, will get cleaner with time. I have an electric bike. Also very fun. It feels like you’re a slightly safer motorcycle driver, when you electric bike. So, all of those things, there’s many swaps that you can do, and they do make a difference.

 

Ricki Lake  18:48

Let’s take a quick break. We’ll be right back with more from Dr. Emily Fischer.

 

Ricki Lake  18:51

Oh, okay, so wait. So I already drive an electric car. Do you recommend solar? I couldn’t do solar for my house because I have trees, these pine trees that it was we weren’t able to do it here, but that’s something that everyone should be encouraged to look into.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  19:18

But you can probably buy green power, because that’s the same as me. I have a weird old roof line and big city trees that are the city’s responsibility, and I had my house also evaluated for solar, and they said you should just buy green power. So what I did was I started to remove the gas from my house. I electrified everything, and now I buy green power.

 

Ricki Lake  19:40

Okay, so what does that mean? Buy green power.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  19:42

It means you can often look at your power bill and pay a slight bit more to have whoever your power provider invest in renewable power.

 

Ricki Lake  19:55

Okay.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  19:56

And so you can make a statement there through. Know, your power purchasing, and that’s what I do. There’s other things you can do too that are kind of neat. And for I don’t know exactly where you live, and this is different everywhere. But here we have you can buy into community solar. There’s all sorts of things that you can do.

 

Ricki Lake  20:14

Oh, wow, I didn’t know that. Okay, I’m gonna, into that.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  20:17

Yeah, so it just depends your area. But here you can buy into, you can check something, and you can pay another three cents. There’s like, different things that you can do. And then you can also, you know, buy into community solar, and that’s becoming a thing, kind of community clean power, and that’s kind of neat.

 

Ricki Lake  20:37

Yeah, we all have to do be in this together, right? I mean, I have a drought tolerant garden. I compost like are all these things, things to consider with helping the environment.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  20:48

They’re all good for the environment. They don’t directly address climate change. So yes, and but not toward climate change. So climate change is driven by fossil fuel use. Fossil fuels emit carbon containing gasses they build up in the atmosphere, they make a blanket, and they trap the sun’s heat at the surface. And so we need to remove anything that’s making the blanket thicker. And so there has to be a direct link to reducing the use of gas, coal, oil, right? So that’s how you know that it’s good for climate change. If you can tie it back to using fewer fossil fuels, that’s it. It’s that simple. So there’s many things that are good for other aspects, right, water is important as air quality, right, feel good. And that doesn’t necessarily address climate change directly.

 

Ricki Lake  21:39

If we could do one big act every like every week, what can we do?

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  21:45

I would raise your voice. This is an us problem, so I recognize that people say I don’t know if I want to call someone. I don’t know, but anything you can do to raise the issue up is very, very important, because this is an us problem, right? That the atmosphere isn’t is an us thing. It doesn’t have boundaries. It doesn’t have borders.

 

Ricki Lake  22:08

We all need air.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  22:09

Yeah, and, we all use infrastructure, right? And solving the climate crisis will require investing in infrastructure that one reduces our reliance on fossil fuels, two, helps us adapt to the impacts of climate change that we’re feeling now right? Those are big infrastructure projects that need to occur. And so those kind of us solutions require raising your voice and saying, I want these things. I want things that are friendly for the climate. And so I would recommend that, and that can be at any level. That can be in your school district, say, can we get some electric busses? I also don’t want my kids breathing the nasty stuff that comes out of Teasel exhaust. It could be that simple. Can we get some electric busses? It can be, you know, at the county level, it can be at the state level, it can be at the national level. And the other thing that I think is good is just join a group. Join a group. Any there on the Science Moms website, you can see different groups that are working at all different issues, other parent groups. Join a group and work with the group on this.

 

Ricki Lake  23:15

Anyone can join@sciencemoms.com Okay, for those of you listening, you want to get involved. Okay, great. You know what I would add is I would add, if you care about this issue, as we all should, because we all need clean air to breathe, we should get out and vote.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  23:29

Yeah, and and vote for people who have a climate plan, right, who have an unambiguously strong plan on climate change.

 

Ricki Lake  23:38

Right, okay and then, what about all the naysayers out there, the people that say climate change is not real, you know? I mean, there’s a lot of people that we know, some people I’m related to, and what do you say to those people to convince them that this, I mean, the train has left the station, correct?

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  23:56

Yeah so most people know. Most people feel it is getting hotter. They know that they didn’t have fires like this when they were younger. And so I don’t actually find that many people that don’t believe in climate change, what we should do about it and how society should optimize our response, I think is something we should have a very healthy discussion of, right? This is we all care about the future. We all care about our kids. We all want joy for our families, right? How do we do that and solve the climate crisis? So for me, it’s pretty straightforward. I’m like, I’m in an atmospheric science department, everyone around me, I can’t name someone right in any professional circle that doesn’t say this is a huge issue that we absolutely have to address, and we see it in all these different environmental records, right? But most people in the US feel and know at this point that this is a problem right at the coast. Sea levels rising. Beaches are being damaged in the West. Wildfires are occurring in the south west. It is unbelievably hot, these heat waves that we’ve had are awful.

 

Ricki Lake  25:14

Oh, I can’t imagine living down south right now. Just these record. I mean, it just every day it’s breaking a new record.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  25:20

Exactly, and so, because we’re feeling these things so directly in the last couple years, this sort of nay saying is just not possible, because it you your community feels this right. Instead, people are saying, oh shoot, do I need AC for the first time? Oh no. How do I balance heat and air quality? Oh no, what’s the best way to do this? How do we respond quickly? Like, those are the kind of questions that we’re getting now.

 

Ricki Lake  25:46

I mean, does it get you down? It’s it feels like, if you know, we’ve been hearing about this, and I think it was like something like 2040 by if we don’t get this in gear by 2040 it’s too late, right? Do you see it as being too late?

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  25:59

No, I don’t, but I do see that we need to work very hard over the next 10 to 15 years. So I view this timeline. I’m my kids are are busy. They need a lot of parenting right now, right? One late elementary one middle schooler. It’s full on parenting time.

 

Ricki Lake  26:17

And new schools. So it’s a lot.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  26:19

New schools and the whole thing, right? And, and I view it as this timeline. I have to work on climate change as an issue, and I have to get my kids out of the house, right? This, this next 10 years, this is I need to be. I need to do all the things do I wish that timeline was not compressed every day, yes. And do I still go outside and feel joy. Yes, I don’t get down for this. I just say, keep going.

 

Ricki Lake  26:47

There’s a lot of work to be done.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  26:48

There’s work to be done. Just start doing the work you don’t have time. I just think to myself, I don’t have time for that. I don’t have time to like, be sad. I have to do, and that’s comforting in itself, right? I’m like, did some things great, now go do something else, right? That that cadence and attitude, I think, is helpful.

 

Ricki Lake  27:08

That’s, a mom right there.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  27:09

I would be lying if in 2020, right after we ran from the fire and the plumes of ash were falling on me, that I did not cry, right? Like that would be, that would be a lie. That summer, I was like, goodness, this is what returning fires like. This looks like. This is what mega fires looks like. This is, I don’t want this.

 

Ricki Lake  27:30

Right in your backyard.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  27:31

Yeah, I don’t want that. And that’s, that’s just clear but, with it comes this. What I have is this understanding of how it works. And I know we don’t have to have it this way that we just need to make a choice.

 

Ricki Lake  27:47

Okay, let’s take a quick break, and then I have more questions for Dr. Emily Fischer.

 

Ricki Lake  28:12

My sons are in their 20s, 27 and 23 one of them is a very serious relationship with his girlfriend, and I honestly don’t know if they want to have children, partially because of the what their what their future looks like. I mean, yeah, and it makes me really sad, and I also understand, how do they see a brighter future for themselves when we’re looking at these statistics and the state of of climate change in these fires?

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  28:43

I can tell you how I think about it, and I suspect you might feel somewhat the same as many moms do. Having kids is one of the best things I’ve ever done.

 

Ricki Lake  28:53

Me too.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  28:54

Yeah, right. There’s it is this. It’s so hard, right? But it’s also so amazing.

 

Ricki Lake  28:58

Yeah, it is the hardest job and the greatest job. You know, it can be both and.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  29:03

And I don’t want people to take that away from themselves. And there’s nothing that commits you more to a future, to the future, than having kids. And so that’s brave, right? That’s a brave thing to do. And so I would tell people that if family is really important to them, and that’s something they want to try be brave and work on climate change, those are those who don’t have to be mutually exclusive, those they just don’t. The other thing I would say is when you think about who represents you. If you care about kids and you want a family and you want these things, right? Those people should have good climate plans, right? That’s the thing that needs to be in place for you to feel confident moving forward. So that’s the way I think about. It is, I think I wouldn’t change my choice, and I want other people to feel that joy and work on it too.

 

Ricki Lake  30:10

Yeah, it all of it is so depressing. And I’m an optimist. I’m a total, like, OPT I see the glass is half full, and yet, like, I’m just, I’m trying to, like, hold on to that optimism. So what do you think the future holds for our kids and our kids’ kids?

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  30:28

I see a lot of positive things. I do think with Science Moms, we’ve been able to help so many people come out of the slump around climate change, right? And say like, this is a top priority now for me and for my family, I don’t know, I don’t know every detail, but I know this is real, and I know that it’s solvable, and I know a couple things that I can do to push us in the right direction. So I feel good about that. When my own kids ask me about climate change, what I tell them is, I tell them I’m working on it, because that is, I think, the thing that helps them. So that’s what I would recommend other parents do, and then follow through.

 

Ricki Lake  31:17

So Emily, you tell your kids that you’re working on it. Do you say that specifically to not burden them with too much information? You know, is that good parenting to say it that way.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  31:27

Parenting is so hard that I don’t want to tell anybody what’s good or bad parenting. But I do get asked questions about how to talk to kids about climate change quite often. And so how you should talk to your kids about climate change. Really depends on the age of those kids.

 

Ricki Lake  31:43

I was just gonna say, at what age do you start and how do you even broach that subject without scaring them.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  31:49

Exactly, so really young kids just help them. Love any part of nature. Can be a bug, can be your park next door, anything just outside, and so that’s where I would start with the youngest, youngest, right when you get into later elementary and middle school, ask them what they already know, because it may be something that came up in school, or it may be that they have only a Little bit of information you can find on sciencemoms.com some very, very simple videos. I’m talking a minute, 30 seconds of the basics of climate change, right? Basics of this is where carbon gas emissions come from. This is what they do to the atmosphere. This is how we solve it, right? And so getting them really simple, age appropriate information is good, but ask them what they already know. As you get to the older kids, they may know more than you. It’s more likely that they actually do know more than you do. And so there you can ask them also what they know, but also how, if, how you can support them, if they would like to take action, or if they see things that you could be doing.

 

Ricki Lake  33:02

I understand also, there’s probably clubs in schools, right for kids to get involved. And I think that can be really empowering if they’re directly involved with solving the problem.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  33:12

Exactly, and you can teach your kids all kinds of civic engagement around climate change, right? So say, hey, let’s learn about what a petition is, if you’re a middle schooler, okay, what would you like to see your school do? You would like to see your school have electric busses. You would like to see your school purchase green power, right? Whatever it is. But then teach the kid the civic engagement tool. This is called a petition. You people sign it. This is who you would bring it to that kind of stuff. So there’s lots of there’s lots of ways depending on your kid’s interest and what they already know and what is accessible to them for an action, right that that that really is kid dependent.

 

Ricki Lake  33:52

It feels like there’s no there’s no coincidence that these are moms that are taking this, this issue on. We need women and mothers to get in and make this, make this an issue that we deal with.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  34:04

Yeah, and the other thing that might hearten people is that we’re busy. Moms are busy, but moms have done all sorts of hard things moms have.

 

Ricki Lake  34:09

Moms give birth. Let’s start with that, moms.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  34:10

Let’s start with that. Moms give birth exactly, but also they’ve ended child labor, really shut down drunk driving in this country, right. Moms have been particularly in the US, right? Moms have been a part of massive changes, and have pushed them forward when they decide just not acceptable. This is just not acceptable.

 

Ricki Lake  34:39

Gun violence, taking.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  34:41

Exactly yes, right? So climate change should be the same for moms, right? There’s no one that is more invested in the future than moms, and we need to just push it forward right now, the next 10 years, push it forward.

 

Ricki Lake  34:52

Yes, what do you think the the intersection of motherhood and advocacy is?

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  34:58

For me, it gets emotional quick. I’m very invested. I yeah, that’s how it is for me. I don’t know how it is for you, but for me, I feel I can come to something in a way that’s that’s very genuine and very raw sometimes, like I I feel accountable, and I feel, I also think that parenthood is something that really allows you to relate to anyone that that has gone through that experience, right? You see another parent and you see I see you.

 

Ricki Lake  35:33

There’s a certain empathy that only another mother sees with another mother, yes.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  35:39

Where you see you? You’re like, I see that meltdown, I see that, struggle, right? So I think like comes that connection and also that the genuine caring.

 

Ricki Lake  35:53

Yes, well, this conversation has been super enlightening, and I want to remain hopeful. I really do, and I appreciate the work that you are doing, for your children, for our children and and for educating me, and I think so many others listening. And I want to say I am so proud to have science moms as a partner of this show. Please join the millions at sciencemoms.com that are raising their voices to prevent more unnatural disasters. You can learn how to protect your kid’s future. Please join them, and I plan to do so at sciencemoms.com thank you, Dr Emily Fischer.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  36:28

Thank you, Ricki.

 

Ricki Lake  36:28

Such a pleasure.

 

Dr. Emily Fischer  36:29

Thank you. It was so fun to meet you.

 

CREDITS  36:33

Thank you so much for listening. There is much more of The High Life with Lemonada Premium subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content like rapid fire sex questions with my friend and sex therapist Emily Morse, subscribe now in Apple podcasts. The High Life is a production of Lemonada Media. Isabella Kulkarni and Kathryn Barnes produced our show. Our mixes by James Sparber. Executive Producers are Stephanie Wittels Wachs, and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Additional Lemonada  support from Rachel Neel, and Steve Nelson. You can find me @Rickilake on Instagram. Follow The High Life with Ricki Lake, wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership.