Climate Change Interview: How Local Policy Can Address a Global Problem

calendar_today 5 April, 2024

Climate change poses a worldwide challenge. “Global warming will intensify multiple and concurrent hazards in all regions of the world,” warned the United Nations in their 2023 IPCC report. But despite this issue’s global scope, responses and solutions primarily unfold at the local level. 

As Northeastern University professor and scientist Brian Helmuth explains, “While climate disruption is a challenge in and of itself, it always interacts with local factors. There’s no way to disentangle climate threats from land-use change, from improper development, from historical factors affecting communities. They’re all interacting with one another.” 

For this reason, effective climate work requires a comprehensive approach that looks beyond technology. Climate scientists and other experts must consider political feasibility, social justice issues, and even cognitive and psychological factors.

Our interview with Professor Helmuth, a climate change expert, sheds light on this intersection between climate science and public policy. Helmuth also explains how Northeastern Master of Public Policy and Master of Public Administration students can use experiential learning to contribute to important work on climate and sustainability. 

Meet our expert: Brian Helmuth is a marine scientist and professor with joint appointments in Northeastern’s School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and the Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences in the College of Science. His course in Sustainable Urban Coastal Policy is available to MPA and MPA students as an elective or as part of an optional add-on Graduate Certificate in Sustainability and Climate Change Policy.

Helmuth’s work focuses on predicting the ecological impacts of climate change on coastal ecosystems – and on the people who rely on those ecosystems for their livelihoods. In addition to his work in marine science and climate policy, Helmuth collaborates with the Cognitive Laboratory of Environment and Arts Research, and his lab also works closely with institutions such as Boston’s Museum of Science to explore climate adaptation strategies with community scientists.

Helmuth is passionate about working with communities to improve their climate resilience: their ability to absorb the impact of heat waves, sea level rise, and other threats. He cautions that focusing too closely on theoretical solutions is counterproductive when addressing problems that affect people’s daily lives. 

“There is no technological fix without collaborating with the community to figure out whether that solution will work,” Helmuth says. 

As someone standing at the intersection of marine science and public policy, how do you view your role in climate work?

I come from a marine biology background – I became a reluctant climate scientist because everything I was studying kept dying. 

What became rapidly apparent is that, while finding scientific and engineering solutions to environmental problems is key, it is never sufficient in itself. Bringing public policy and social justice into the equation is the only way to enact change.

So, as someone whose career has really shifted towards use-inspired research, we have to find solutions from a multi-prong perspective. How do we look at the underlying science? How do we look at the policy landscape that promotes or constrains our solutions? How do we weigh human factors, such as how environmental cognition influences our individual choices? 

It also takes a social justice perspective to understand the differential impacts of climate change. How can we take that into consideration? How can we work collaboratively with communities that are at high risk?

You mentioned “use-inspired research.” What is that, and how does it relate to policy?

Rather than just coming up with a result that is theoretical – that potentially has applications – use-inspired research asks how the solution can actually be implemented. 

That should involve co-developing strategies with communities — which is where policy comes in. 

I can come up with any number of solutions from the science perspective, but if they’re ever going to have real world implications, those solutions have to be placed in a policy context. They have to be explored and implemented with local communities.

When it comes to climate, numbers and research don’t always resonate with the public. How do we encourage people to care about climate change?

No person ever experiences climate, right? Climate is a 30-year trend in large-scale weather conditions. Nobody cares about climate – they care about weather that is driven by climate. 

We have a mantra in this work: “All climate change is local.”

So you can’t talk in terms of changes in global average surface temperature, because it doesn’t mean anything. It really has to connect to people’s lives. And people all think in very different ways and come from different backgrounds. No one model is going to resonate with everyone. 

A lot of this work is just figuring out how to listen, to find out what people care about and then use that information to frame things like climate change within that context. You have to start with where people are.

When local viewpoints are neglected in environmental policy, what are some potential consequences?

In academia, there’s always a risk of coming up with solutions that are so technology-focused that when you hand them to a group of people they promptly ignore them because they’re not at all what they had in mind. That’s a tendency we really have to push against. 

There’s this great example from Iraq, where an NGO came in and replaced a broken bridge with a beautiful metal structure. Three years later, the bridge rusted, and people went back to building bridges with marsh grasses because that’s what they knew —that’s what worked. If the NGO had just spoken with the people to begin with and tried to understand the local practices and reasons for not adopting Western approaches, the NGO would have saved a huge amount of money and effort. 

You see that over and over again, not just in international development, but in communities closer to home. What somebody sitting in a lab in the university thinks is a solution may not be the same thing as somebody who lives it. 

I think that’s one thing Northeastern’s Master of Public Policy (MPP) program is really good at. We start from the perspective of the people in the community.

How do differing cultural perspectives enrich our understanding of climate policy?

In the U.S., we have what’s called a “WEIRD” perspective: Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic. It really stands in contrast with a lot of indigenous perspectives – perhaps with most cultures around the world. Understanding that difference is key to the diplomacy angle. 

We often go in with a very Western perspective about how diplomacy proceeds, and perfect can become the enemy of good, because we think everyone has to get on exactly the same page. In reality, small steps can be very consequential. That’s what our talks started with: a list of small improvements we can enact that will do some real good, without requiring Iran and Saudi Arabia and the U.S. to all agree on the same thing.

I’ve also learned a lot from working with the Fifth National Climate Assessment. I contributed to the ecology chapter and the Blue Carbon Working Group section. And rather than taking an old-school perspective of, “We’re just gonna look at ecosystems as being independent of humans,” we really were looking at them as a coupled human-natural system — or even better, a socio-ecological system.

For the first time, there was an emphasis on indigenous ecological knowledge in the assessment. In the past, there were nods in that direction, but now there’s an effort to really thread that throughout this whole report. We’re drawing on that traditional knowledge to shed light on changes that have been observed in the U.S. over many years.

Northeastern’s main campus is in Boston, a city that’s especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Can you tell us what you’re seeing on the ground?

All the things that are happening in other parts of the U.S. are impacting us here, too. We’re dealing with sea level rise. We’re dealing with heat island effects and extreme heat waves. 

The waters here are also warming very quickly, so while the risk of hurricanes and flooding is certainly severe, a lot of the impacts are happening in the water itself. The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 97% of other large bodies of water on the planet, making our coastal zones ground zero for climate change. 

Coastal ecosystems, like the salt marshes that protect shorelines, are at high risk here. Our fisheries are at risk, along with all the people who rely on fisheries. 

Why are Boston and Northeastern rewarding places to work on climate policy?

Boston is a world leader in trying to solve climate problems. This is really an epicenter for – or a lab for testing out – coastal adaptation strategies. 

Reverend Mariama White-Hammond, who is the city of Boston’s chief climate officer, has given talks about all the innovation Boston is doing. And in addition to all the universities and public initiatives we have here, there are also many private corporations focused on addressing climate change. 

I came here about 10 years ago, and one of the main reasons is that the Northeastern faculty are very focused on use-inspired research and cutting-edge approaches to problem solving. That’s at the heart and soul of Northeastern as a university.

Thinking back on your time here, which aspects of the university have really made an impression on you?

At Northeastern, it’s so easy to work across different colleges and units. We really have a culture here of starting with the problem that you need to solve, rather than feeling confined by departmental boundaries – and that forces people to collaborate in innovative ways.

I would also say my colleagues want to make a difference in the world. I’m not saying that’s not the case at other universities, but there really is a high concentration of people here who think very broadly about society. 

Finally, more of my students go into fields outside of academia than stay in academia. They’re working for the government, working for NGOs. That’s very different from programs at other universities.

What experiential learning opportunities are available at Northeastern for students interested in climate change or environmental policy?

We constantly have students working on different aspects of these issues. 

One example would be the work of public policy student David Sittenfeld. As part of his PhD dissertation, he and other Northeastern students along with people from the Museum of Science ran a program called Wicked Hot Boston. They got volunteers to drive around during heat waves and measure differences in temperature across the city, and they found that there’s up to a 15-degree difference in temperature depending on where you live. 

What that study really highlighted was that the hottest places were the ones with the lowest vegetation and the highest amount of pavement cover, which happen to be places that were traditionally redlined. So low-income communities of color, communities that are already our most vulnerable, are also experiencing the worst heat island effects. On a day where the thermometer at Logan Airport was saying it was 90 degrees, it was well over 100 or 110 degrees in some of these neighborhoods.

Afterward, David put together a series of deliberations to bring community members together to talk about heat islands and the solutions they envisioned. He created a role-playing game of sorts where people could step outside their own views and see the world through the eyes of somebody with different priorities. David has come back to my policy class to run students through that exercise as well. 

We’re also working at a local salt marsh in Revere called the Rumney Marsh, where we’re trying to maximize the benefits that marshes provide to people. Students have been collaborating with town managers and officials from NOAA. 

An MPP student did a policy analysis of overlapping statutes, because you’d have federal, state, and local laws all converging in this same area – and in some cases contradicting one another. That analysis helped us understand which people we needed to get in the same room to discuss solutions.

Northeastern clearly attracts a lot of people who are enthusiastic about changing the world. How do you keep that idealism alive in your students? 

Focusing on wins, even if they’re small, is key for all of us that work in this area. Otherwise, it is easy to slide into despair about climate. 

What’s one piece of advice that you give your students?

None of this is solvable by one person — it’s got to be a group of people, which invariably has to include members of the community you’re trying to work with. That’s why one of our first priorities is to help students consider issues from other viewpoints and develop the skills for a team approach. 

About the Master of Public Administration and Master of Public Policy Programs at Northeastern University

Northeastern University, a top-50, R1 research institution, offers two interdisciplinary, community-focused degree options for professionals ready to make their mark in the world of public service. Northeastern’s School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs offers these two degree programs. Our Master of Public Administration option is a career-oriented program designed to shape leaders who are ethical, efficient, and effective. Meanwhile, our Master of Public Policy (MPP) program equips future policymakers with the comprehensive research and analysis skills they’ll need to best support the public good. Students in each program benefit from the world-class education, research opportunities, and expert faculty provided by Northeastern’s College of Social Sciences and Humanities. Students may take classes online, in person, or in a mixed modality format. MPP classes are offered on our Boston and Arlington campuses. MPA classes are available on our Boston campus and will also be offered on our Oakland and Arlington campuses beginning in Fall 2024.