Martin Froger-Silva woke up one day in fall of 2017 to find his Berkeley home surrounded by smoke: it looked like a scene from Blade Runner 2049. He looked outside and the entire sky was red, like he had been transported to the surface of Mars. For weeks on end, due to the California forest fires, Berkeley was in the "purple zone," which is considered the worst zone to be in on the air quality scale, with particulate matter above 300 ppm, or parts per million (if you're interested, you can check out your local air quality here). California was wearing N95 masks long before Covid happened because of these fires. At one point, Martin's partner looked at him and said, "We are breathing in dead people."

This was a major wake-up call for Martin, who had been working in immigration at the time: it made him realize he needed to go into working in climate change. He went on to get a graduate degree from Scripps in Environmental Science, and learned a lot about things like how the weather works. We asked him what some of his main recommendations are around what the average person can do about the climate, and his main piece of advice: get involved in local politics to see what climate policies are being considered in your state, and educate yourself on what is most effective. In the climate space, there is a decreasing emphasis on individual accountability as it relates to climate change, and a greater focus on how we can influence companies, whose emissions far outweigh the emissions of individuals in the US. We're starting to realize that this problem can only be solved with serious legislation, as opposed to hoping that our individual consumer actions will save us. One main focus for Martin is public transportation, but there are so many more climate-related areas for the average citizen to focus on.

Links:

Martin's website: https://www.martinfroger.com/

"The 6th Extinction," by Elizabeth Kolbert: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250062185/thesixthextinction

"This Changes Everything," by Naomi Klein: https://thischangeseverything.org/book/

"All We Can Save," an anthology of pieces by 60 women authors about the climate crisis, edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katherine K. Wilkerson: https://www.allwecansave.earth/anthology

Music is The Beauty of Maths by Meydän.

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