Climate Conversations S3E11: Learning to Lead with Boston Latin School YouthCAN Co-President Susan Tang

Susan Tang: [00:00:00] [00:00:00] It really does affect absolutely everything we do, which is why I think that climate change is the single most important issue of this generation and surely that my generation will face.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:00:13] This is Climate Conversations by Climatex.

Curt Newton: [00:00:19] Before we get started, a quick note. If you haven't yet, please listen to episodes two through four in this season on learning to change where we tell the stories of three groups who have modeled our season theme. We had to cut so much good stuff out to create those stories, so now we're releasing extended cuts of the individual interviews. We hope you'll like them as much as we do and that they lead you to a richer appreciation for what it means to learn to change.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:00:46] In this episode, we interview Susan Tang, co-president of YouthCAN and a senior at the Boston Latin School. Welcome, Susan.

Susan Tang: [00:00:55] Thanks for having me.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:00:56] Susan, you're in high school [00:01:00] and yet you are deeply committed to climate action. How come?

Susan Tang: [00:01:06] I think I first got involved or interested in issues of climate change way back in sixth grade when for class we had to read Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, and that really opened me eyes to a lot of issues like sea level rise and all sorts of things that I felt were really deeply important. But since I was only in sixth grade, at the time I didn't really have a means to really do anything. I didn't have a great support network.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:01:34] So you didn't go out and protest when you were in sixth grade?

Susan Tang: [00:01:37] Unfortunately not. So it was only after I came to BLS and I found this network with YouthCAN that I was actually able to take actions against the things I'd only actually read about before.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:01:53] How'd you get involved? Was it [00:02:00] first at Boston Latin, or how did you get exposed to YouthCAN?

Susan Tang: [00:02:01] First at Boston Latin, in eighth grade my history teacher was Miss Arnold, and she's the faculty advisor for BLS YouthCAN. So throughout the year she was just promoting a bunch of different events, mostly for extra credit so she could drag some kids in. But I went to some of these events and I got involved in the club and she's sunk her claws in me and I've been in here ever since.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:02:23] I know those teachers. Are your peers as excited or as passionate about climate change as you are or is this still a growing movement?

Susan Tang: [00:02:34] It's definitely still a growing movement. Back in seventh grade, our first year at the school, we had this big assembly by the Lions for Climate Education, and the told the entire class, which is like 400, 450 people, about climate change, rising sea levels, species extinction, and how all of these things tie into different social justice issues. That was a really great [00:03:00] way to introduce a whole lot of people into climate change. But everyone in my grade pretty much knows that climate change is real, knows that it's a pressing issue, but it's really hard to keep people engaged in climate change, especially since most of its effects are way down the line. We'll see sea level rise by like, well, it's happening now, but most people think it's a thing of the future, it's not gonna happen until 2030, 2050. So they put it off in their minds and instead focus on different issues like maybe how the headmaster was trying to restrict our dress code or more pressing issues that people feel like they could identify more with. So I feel like that while yes, people are interested in climate change, and yes they know it's an issue, they have other things they feel is more pressing, which is kind of frustrating but it's just how it is.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:03:51] How do you approach your peers when they give that kind of response?

Susan Tang: [00:03:54] Mostly I feel like telling them about big facts like [00:04:00] sea level rises in Boston are project to rise what, a foot by 2030, and it's only gonna get worse from here. I feel like big facts like that, or how extinction rates are up a significant amount because of human caused climate change and stuff like that. If we use those statistics, I feel like people start to think about it more. Especially since we live in Boston and sea level rise is actually really bad and it's such a pressing issue. I feel like it makes people think about the issue in a different way.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:04:33] Also I'm guessing that a number people at Boston Latin know somebody or have relatives that will be affected that live on the coast or near the coast.

Susan Tang: [00:04:42] Yeah, definitely.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:04:43] And their lands will be flooded. So it's not off in the distance or somebody else, but it's people they know.

Susan Tang: [00:04:49] Yeah. And we saw earlier with all of the different blizzards that came through, we already saw huge amounts of flooding downtown, Longworth, near the aquarium, [00:05:00] also in places like Quincy. It was just like you couldn't even go outside, the water was that deep.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:05:05] What are the top priorities for you this coming year as the president?

Susan Tang: [00:05:11] Definitely education. We're still always wanting to push people more to learn about climate change. Most of the projects we work on during the year are education based, but I think I want to also work a little more on outreach. Last year we dabbled a little bit, we talked about how we wanted to partner with elementary schools and middle schools and teach kids about climate change, but we didn't really get the opportunity to do that. So since it's my last year, I really want to help cement something and try to make a change with people that are even younger than I am.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:05:43] When you say we, you mean YouthCAN at Boston Latin or you mean YouthCAN more broadly, or what's the size of the we here?

Susan Tang: [00:05:52] When I was talking just now, I was thinking just YouthCAN generally. It's a club of maybe 20-ish people in our school [00:06:00] from different grade levels, so I feel like we'd be able to do something with it.

Dave Lishansky: [00:06:04] How do you envision cementing it? What does that look like?

Susan Tang: [00:06:09] It definitely involved reaching out to a lot of different schools. I know there are a couple of different elementary schools in the Fenway area, which is where BLS is located, and it'd be really cool to be able to to go to them after school. Because we get out at 2:15 and other schools get out later. So it'd be cool to maybe sit in and maybe teach a class about climate change or something like that.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:06:32] Has that ever happened?

Susan Tang: [00:06:34] I don't think it has. Since YouthCAN is a relatively young club, they've mostly been focused internally on what they can do at BLS to make it more green. So they've done things like lighting retrofits where they make all of the lights LED or motion sensored so that we can save on our energy bills. Or they've done thing where they've installed water bottle filling stations to eliminate plastic [00:07:00] bottle waste from the student population. So it's mostly been focused internally. And while that's great, that's absolutely awesome, I think it'd also be really cool to focus on other schools that might not have the opportunity to do those things.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:07:14] What opportunities have opened up to you through your involvement in YouthCAN over the last couple of years?

Susan Tang: [00:07:20] Through YouthCAN I was able to get a fellowship with the Alliance for Climate Education I think two years ago, which was really an eye-opening experience for me. I taught me so much more about the political side or the networking side. We were able to go to speak to city councilors about climate change. We were able to organize an actual rally about climate change, which was absolutely awesome. YouthCAN has been a really great home base for me to come back to and it's also been a great springboard for me to go and explore other things like ACE, the Alliance for Climate Education.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:08:00] [00:08:00] The great thing about YouthCAN is that you always have a supply of fresh new kids coming up into the high school, but you also have, you'll be graduating in a year plus from now, right? So how do you maintain a certain kind of continuity of interest or what happens once you graduate?

Susan Tang: [00:08:23] Miss Arnold has always been absolutely amazing in recruiting people and keeping us on track. Without Miss Arnold, we would not be BLS YouthCAN. After I graduate, we already have a sort of next generation of YouthCAN leaders that are coming up. They're all rising sophomores. Would have been teaching them the ins and outs of what we have to do, like sending emails and other administrative stuff. I want to maybe usher them into more a leadership role so that YouthCAN can still continue on even [00:09:00] after me and the other co-presidents have graduated.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:09:02] What was the event at MIT this last spring? There was a summit, I think, that got organized. Was that with other high schools as well or just BLS?

Susan Tang: [00:09:11] BLS YouthCAN, we're the ones that organized the summit. We have an annual climate summit at MIT every year in May. It's been going on since YouthCAN's inception back in 2007. It does engage a lot of BLS kids. We invite everyone to attend the summit and learn more about different climate issues. We have different workshops, different exhibits, different keynote speakers, performances, all sorts of things. But it also does engage other schools from other towns and from all over Boston. I think the one big outreach thing that BLS does do is the YouthCAN summit. It's sort of our defining project every year.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:09:53] Towards the end of the school year, so it's sort of a capstone in a way.

Susan Tang: [00:09:56] It is.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:09:56] Any highlights that you want to bring out and let our listeners know [00:10:00] about from the summit this past year?

Susan Tang: [00:10:02] This year we had this really cool musical group, I think they were called (Mellowdigo 00:10:07) and they were a musical group, but all of their equipment was bike powered. So all of their stereos, all of their mics, and they had these bikes and they had people from the audience come in and pedal on them so it would power all their equipment. It was really cool. So you could tell when someone got tired and left and someone else filled in for them, that couple of seconds before it got filled in, the mics would cut out because there'd be no one pedaling. It was just really cool to see that. I think people really like that.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:10:37] I hope somebody took a YouTube video of that.

Susan Tang: [00:10:39] I'm sure there's something out there. They're awesome.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:10:43] Uh-huh. Nice.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:10:44] Very interesting. You were mentioning how BLS served as a hub. How do you get other schools involved? Let's say there's a school that isn't involved right now. How do they get in touch or what's the procedure for getting them into YouthCAN?

Susan Tang: [00:11:01] [00:11:00] I believe the whole idea of YouthCAN when it was first founded was a climate action network of youths, as in it was supposed to be a thing branching out into other schools. I know there's a YouthCAN at Boston Latin Academy, but they're not as big as us and we're not in very frequent contact. So I think in order to make an actual cohesive network, we'd have to do a lot more outreach, like writing emails to other schools and definitely finding a faculty advisor that's also passionate about climate change in every school that we would reach out to.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:11:37] One thing I'm curious about is how you're in-classroom activities and learning experiences connect to the YouthCAN experience. Tell us a little bit about those links there to things you're doing in the classroom or you notice other people are doing in the classroom linking to the YouthCAN activities.

Susan Tang: [00:11:55] This year I was fortunate enough to take [00:12:00] AP environmental science with Mr. Gay. He's an amazing teacher. This class really wow-

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:12:06] Flash alert. We've actually podcasted him in the past.

Susan Tang: [00:12:09] He's awesome.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:12:10] A year ago, yeah.

Susan Tang: [00:12:13] While YouthCAN did give me a good background on climate change, I feel like AP environmental science really, really helped me dive so much deeper into climate change and all of the interconnectedness and how it's nature and how it really affects everything we do today.

 In terms of how YouthCAN is active in other classrooms, I know that we have a lot of data that YouthCAN has collected through different audits that we've done, like water audits based on how much water we use, power towel audits, so how much paper towel waste we produce, trash audits, so how much trash we produce as a school. I know some statistics classes have actually been using this information in their courses, which I think is really cool.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:12:59] That's fabulous.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:13:01] [00:13:00] Somebody must have visualized or anything like that crunched the data. Did the school do anything about it?

Susan Tang: [00:13:07] YouthCAN has done a lot of audits in the past, and when we get that sort of data it really gives us a great baseline for what we should do our projects on. If we see that our electricity usage is crazy high, then that year we might try to focus on different ways that we can get our electricity usage to go down.

 I think last year we did this campaign where we made a bunch of door hangers for classroom that just reminded teachers to turn off their lights, and sure enough we saw the electricity usage go down. So it's really great to have that sort of data to give us a great baseline. It's to first of all show what we should be focusing our projects on, and second of all, to show how our projects have affected the school with quantitative data.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:13:54] So that your fellow students and the teachers for that matter see that you're making a difference?

Susan Tang: [00:13:58] Definitely.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:14:00] [00:14:00] At MIT we really don't care about quantitative data at all.

Susan Tang: [00:14:04] Really? That's surprising.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:14:08] Are there other such data driven projects that you can tell us?

Susan Tang: [00:14:12] When we got the water bottle fillers installed, they have this little number thing that shows us how many plastic water bottles that it would have saved from the landfill by using a reusable water bottle with the water bottle filling station. I remember when we first got them, students were obsessed with those numbers. They would be like, oh my god, this went up 1,000 in the past week, or they'd have competitions. They'd be like, oh this water fountain was only at 10,000 or that one's at 20,000, so this one's obviously better and stuff like that. They'd be like competing with different water bottle filling stations to see which one could save more water. It was just really cool to see that happen throughout the student [00:15:00] body.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:15:00] I feel like these kinds of small nudges can sometimes be pretty interesting.

Susan Tang: [00:15:04] Yeah. They get students talking.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:15:06] Yeah,

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:15:07] Yeah that's important to engage everybody in a conversation about what's going on and how they can play a part.

 One of the things that I'm curious about is compared to when you started Boston Latin and now, have things childhood in terms of where you think you're headed in terms of your career or schooling in the future beyond Boston Latin?

Susan Tang: [00:15:28] Yeah, definitely. Coming into BLS as a little seventh grader, I was like 13 years old. I was like I'm gonna go through this school and I'm gonna be a lawyer. And while that's an awesome job, I feel like after doing YouthCAN, after doing ACE, after taking AP environmental science, I've sort of taken a step back and looked at it and went do I really want to do this with my life? I think as of now, instead of pursuing law school, I'd prefer to [00:16:00] do environmental science or environmental studies and really focus on that as my career path. I think all of the things that I've done with this club have really, it's really just left me with one option, or one clear option for me, and the only thing that really feels right for me to actually pursue as a career would be an environmental scientist.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:16:23] Fabulous, yeah. Even within that there are lots of different options of things that you can do. You talked in some of our earlier conversations about the notion of intersectionality and how all of these different issues that people care passionately are actually linked. So I'm thinking even within environmental science there could be a social justice angle. Could you say a few words about that?

Susan Tang: [00:16:46] Climate change is such an all encompassing issue. It really does affect every facet of our lives. It affects our economy. It affects different social justice issues. I know because of climate [00:17:00] change and global warming and the weather being warmer in general, what happens to elderly people who aren't going to necessarily have access to AC? What happens to people who are living in poverty who don't have access to AC? That really affects their health too. What happens when air pollution gets so bad that people can't breathe anymore? That's also a different social justice issue. What happens when sea level rise and people lose their homes, people are displaced, and then it causes the whole issue of migration with environmental refugees having to flee to different places? And then it gets all political with people closing their borders and all sorts of stuff like that. It really does affect absolutely everything we do, which is why I think that climate change is the single most important issue of this generation and surely that my generation will face.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:17:53] That's awesome, kind of not really, [00:18:00] meaning-

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:18:00] It's the great assessment of our pickle

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:00:00] Meaning it would be much better if we did not have to face that reality, but it's great that people in your generation and further on are gonna have to roll up their sleeves and do whatever needs to be done. Does it feel overwhelming sometimes?

Susan Tang: [00:00:17] Absolutely. It's like my generation has really just been left with this huge issue that we're expected to fix, because if we don't fix it, there's gonna be nothing left to fix. That sounds a little bit extreme, but things are only gonna get worse unless we do something about it now. So yes, it's overwhelming, but I have faith in the people of my generation. I have faith in the youth. I have faith in people like the other members of YouthCAN and the younger members and the future members. I'm sure that together we can do something about this huge issue that we're facing right now.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:00:57] What are some of the [00:19:00] promising trends you see?

Susan Tang: [00:01:03] Before with the early YouthCAN, as I mentioned, it was more about trying to change small things in our school to make our school more environmentally friendly. It was about things that you could do as an individual, like recycle or compost or switch to a reusable water bottle. But now I feel like it's more the focus that YouthCAN has taken on since I've started and throughout that is that it's way bigger than that. We have to do things like lobby our lawmakers to now have a huge natural gas pipeline running through West Roxbury. We have to do things like ask our representatives to commit Massachusetts to 100% renewable energy. While doing things as an individual is obviously great, it's not going [00:20:00] to be as effective if we don't have the legislative power behind all those things.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:02:03] Amen to that.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:02:05] I was thinking maybe you'll have a dual degree, natural science and law.

Susan Tang: [00:02:11] Maybe.

Dave Lishansky: [00:02:13] What's it like to be a leader of that youth that really has to take this charge? You are the president of your group there. Does it feel like a lot of responsibility? What's it like to be leading the charge on that?

Susan Tang: [00:02:28] Since I'm technically co-president, it's not like all on me. So some of us will send out emails and reminders to YouthCAN members for meetings and stuff. Some of us will make agendas and stuff like that. It's not just me. I think it's really important to note that it's not individuals leading a movement. It's sort of our whole generation or whole groups of people that are taking steps forward in terms of climate change and a more sustainable future. [00:21:00] So that being said, it is a challenging job. There's a lot of different things that we have to think about and it's gonna be tough.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:03:11] Have you ever had either a peer or an adult be confrontational with you about this?

Susan Tang: [00:03:18] Thankfully, most people that I've met have been really supportive. They're like oh my god, it's so great that you're such an activity for climate change and stuff. There was this one incident. I was at a protest in Harvard Square with someone from the Alliance for Climate Education and it was against this showing of a film sponsored by Shell about how great natural gas was.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:03:44] Yeah, I remember that.

Susan Tang: [00:03:45] We were confronted by this one woman who came out and was really rude about it. She was like, why are you guys here? And she was trying to be all confused. You guys should be happy for this, natural gas is great for the [00:22:00] environment, and why are you guys protesting? We're doing great work here. We're on the same side. And it was just like, wow, this is really weird because it was the first time that I'd been met with someone that had such a conflicting opinion with mine. That was interesting.

Dave Lishansky: [00:04:16] How'd you deal with it?

Susan Tang: [00:04:18] It was mostly just the person I was with who was older, they were a sort of mentor to me. They sort of talked them down. Um, no, it's not. It went back and forth for a while. But we stuck it out there.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:04:32] That's good. I think that's a great experience actually.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:04:37] You mentioned also that there was a partnership between Boston Latin and 350 Massachusetts?

Susan Tang: [00:04:43] Yeah. We've worked closely with 350 Mass in the past, as have we with the Alliance of Climate Education. Obviously, with the annual assembly that we have for the incoming seventh graders where they talk a lot about social justice issues in terms of climate change. [00:23:00] So we have worked with them in the past. We've also worked with 350 Mass on things like converting households to renewable energies and stuff like that. So we've worked on campaigns with them before, which has been really cool.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:05:13] What'd you learn?

Susan Tang: [00:05:16] That campaigning is hard and it's hard to make people care about things.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:05:22] It's really you gotta figure out what people do care about and see what the connection between what they care about and what you're talking?

Susan Tang: [00:05:30] Definitely. When we were trying to convince people to switch their households to renewable energy, mostly what people cared about was the money aspect, so we really played that card. They're like oh, with renewables energies you can save so much more money that if you just stayed with oil or natural gas.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:05:50] Did it work?

Susan Tang: [00:05:51] It worked, yeah. We got a bunch of signups from different parents.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:05:57] I found that with some other groups they focus [00:24:00] on health effects because everybody cares about emphysema and whether they can breathe and stuff like that. So health effects is another way that people have found useful to engage others who might not otherwise care.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:06:14] You feel like your generation is gonna take this on. Is YouthCAN doing something that will sort of ramp up the action? Is there an idea of what the next generation of high school climate activists is gonna look like?

Susan Tang: [00:06:37] Something I found in recent times that I found super inspirational is the Parkland shooting survivors and how they've really amassed a huge following because of the trauma that they faced and how they've really utilized this grassroots organization to bring so many [00:25:00] people together against such a massive issue, to try to press their legislators to take action. I find that super duper inspirational and they have so much courage for what they're doing. So I feel like-

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:07:13] And they're facing a lot of flack.

Susan Tang: [00:07:14] Definitely. It's awful. It's like why would you tell this kid that they're faking the whole thing, that they're faking the trauma when they're obviously not. They're just speaking up for what they care about.

 I feel like that really relates to climate change as an issue because in order to get legislators to care about it, we have to show that there is a bunch of people, and especially youths, behind this issue of climate change. I feel like we definitely have to appeal to different facets of people that are going to be affected by climate change so we can play a whole lot of different cards to get different people. If we [00:26:00] talk about how species are going extinct at a faster rate than since the last mass extinction, that might get people who love animals involved. And if we talk about how sea levels are projected to rise an enormous amount within the next couple of decades, that might get people living on the coast involved.

 Since climate change is such an intersectional issue, appealing to different people that are affected by it, we can definitely amass a huge network, a grassroots movement of people that are passionate about climate change and people who are willing to speak out against it.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:08:38] So people don't have to necessarily know about the details of climate science, they just have to understand the impacts of what's happening?

Susan Tang: [00:08:48] While it is good to understand how it's happening, how they're going to feel is definitely going to get people involved.

Dave Damm-Luhr: [00:08:55] Each person has a little different emotional hook, I think.

Susan Tang: [00:08:58] Yeah, definitely.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:09:00] [00:27:00] As a parting thought, if someone in your age group was listening to this podcast, which I hope they are, is there something easy that high school student could do to get involved in climate action?

Susan Tang: [00:09:17] Talk to a teacher about climate change. Talk to maybe a science teacher or any teacher who might care about climate change and try to set up a club at your school about climate change, what you can do at your school to make it greener, and from there reach out to other schools, see what they're doing, try to get them involved. Because the only way that climate change is really going to be combated with our generation is by working together and working in a network.

 There is so much power in youth. I think people, youths don't even understand how much power they have. It's like when older generations look at us [00:28:00] and they see oh, they're pressing for this issue and they're so passionate about it, then that's something that really, really powerful. Since youths are going to be the future for our country, for our world, to have youths really passionate about an issue is what gets people going. We have so much say in so many different issues, and I feel like we really need to utilize that to the best of our abilities in order to make any change happen.

Rajesh Kasturirangen: [00:10:29] Thank you, Susan, for spending this time with us and sharing your thoughts and all your passion. We hope that in a couple years you'll be telling us about the next exciting thing that you're doing.

Susan Tang: [00:10:42] Thanks for having me.

Curt Newton: [00:10:46] We hope you've enjoyed this extended interview cut. Please be sure to check it out in context in the prior episode for next gen learning to change with Boston Latin School [00:29:00] YouthCAN.

 The Climate Conversations podcast is engineered and edited by Dave Lishansky. Project and media support is by my MIT open learning colleagues Laura Howells and Mikaela Joyce. Please subscribe and rate us wherever you find your podcasts. Join the community on climate.mit.edu and be in touch at Twitter, climatex_mit, and Facebook, group name MIT Climate. For my cohosts, Rajesh Kasturirangan and Dave Damm-Luhr, I'm Curt Newton. Thanks so much for listening.