In a Grist Magazine interview, Braddock, PA Mayor John Fetterman — the guy you’ve probably seen in the Environmental Defense Fund’s Carbon Caps = Hard Hats ads — explains how to talk about the environment with folks living in small, blue-collar towns like Braddock:
The people that are already in your corner are obviously the ones you don’t have to convince. It’s the working-class folks that might get their news from Fox, or may have grown up in more conservative circumstances. Say, look, you don’t have to consider yourself an environmentalist. You can drive your pickup truck, you can live your life the way you want to. But wouldn’t it make sense to not only care for our environment but also create and replenish the critical mass of blue-collar jobs in this community, this country? We still have to make things in this country. I’m very much a believer in that. You can think that global warming is a myth and the sun revolves around the earth, but here’s how it could benefit your community through this very common-sense approach.
Q. Are folks in Braddock receptive to talk about passing a climate bill?
A. Most people are like, “What the hell is cap-and-trade?” It’s kind of like derivatives, where these economists can’t explain what it is. So there’s a lot of esoteric things involved. But when you explain that this is the kind of thing that helped get lead out of paint and acid rain and these other things, and how it can create the demand for steel, they get that. There are 250 tons of steel in a windmill. If we build a million windmills, that’s 250 million tons of steel. They understand that, that gels for folks.
When you say global warming in 75 years will raise the average temperature by a degree and a half, that doesn’t mean anything to me. I’ve got to eat. My house is falling apart. So not playing to people’s concern for the environment, but [being] pragmatic—you want a job again, let’s pass this bill.
