Getting Ahead of Climate Change

In this episode, host Dave Walsh is joined by the Senior Advisor for Climate Adaptation at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Joel Scheraga. Joel leads the EPA's work on climate adaptation to ensure the agency continues to fulfill its mission of protecting public health and the environment even as the climate changes. He joins Dave to discuss the efforts underway to prepare for and increase resilience to the impacts of climate change. Then later, JP Ervin discusses pioneering standards work on the ever-present additive, lead, and how it has gone from being in virtually everything to becoming more closely regulated in the products we use. 

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Presented by ASTM International

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Transcript

Voiceover (00:06):

Standards are everywhere from the floor beneath your feet to the aircraft above your head. This is standards impact presented by ASTM International.

Dave Walsh (00:20):

Welcome to Standards Impact, the official podcast of ASTM International. I'm your host, Dave Walsh, editor in chief of ASTMs flagship publication Standardization News. Today we're joined by Joel Scheraga, nationally and internationally recognized authority on the risks posed by climate change to public health, the environment, and the economy. He's also the senior advisor for climate adaptation at the US Environmental Protection Agency, where he leads the EPAs work on climate adaptation to ensure the agency continues to fulfill its mission of protecting public health and the environment even as the climate changes. So it looks like you have degrees in a broad range of subjects, from math to physics to economics. How did you eventually get into the environmental field and specifically the field of resilience?

Joel Scheraga (01:12):

It's a great question, Dave. I've heard that it said that nobody went to school and said, I'll work on standards. And in the same spirit, I didn't go to school and say, I'll work on climate change issues. In fact, growing up I wanted to be an astronaut. Unfortunately, back then I couldn't qualify because of my eyesight. But when I think back, I'll never forget a conversation I had with my dad and he was an electrical engineer and had already become a very successful business person. And my dad shared with me that when he was my age, when he was in his twenties, if anyone had told him that he would be where he was in his fifties, he would've laughed at them. Doors opened and opportunities were presented to my dad that he never imagined when he was in his twenties, and his message to me back then was that I would've similar experiences and when those doors open for me over time, I shouldn't be afraid to walk through them.

(02:23):

And that in a nutshell, really captures how I ended up where I am today as the senior advisor for climate adaptation at the EPA, helping to oversee and coordinate all of EPAs activities across the agency. When I went to Brown University as an undergraduate, I was going to be an aeronautical engineer. I still had hopes of going to work for NASA in the space program. While I was doing that, I took a class on geology of the moon, taught by the late Tim much who happened to be the head of the camera team on the Viking on Mars, which is the first vehicle ever to successfully land on Mars. I completely switched my major from engineering into geology and what was effectively planetary geophysics. I also studied economics. Then I went through that door and got my PhD in economics. I went into academia. I became a professor at Rutgers University and Princeton University.

(03:23):

But again, another door opened for me. I had an opportunity to go to work for EPA and here I am 36 years later still at EPA because I discovered how exciting it is to work on environmental issues and even more so to have the chance to make a positive difference in people's lives. I was given the opportunity to work on this new and emerging issue called climate change, which I confess I knew nothing about at that point in time and I've never looked back. It is so fulfilling at this point in my career as a public service to be working on environmental issues and on climate change issues, which are affecting everybody. So that's how I ended up where I am today.

Dave Walsh (04:09):

Since we're on a podcast here and we don't have a time limit, what are some of the most fulfilling issues that you've worked on? You mentioned climate change and environmental issues. What are some of the ones that you've enjoyed working on the most?

Joel Scheraga (04:20):

I have to say my most rewarding experiences are always on the ground. When I get to leave Washington and go out and visit communities and people all across the country, for example, some of the most rewarding experiences I've had has been meeting and working with tribal committees up in Alaska. Over half of the federally recognized tribes in the United States are in Alaska. They are and always have been on the front lines of climate change. They have been amongst the most vulnerable and having the opportunity to meet them and learn from them on a very personal level, how is climate change affecting their lives on a day-to-day basis, and then seeing the huge steps they have to take to deal with these impacts and finding ways to help support them as they deal with those impacts such as moving their entire communities from coastal areas in Alaska to new areas has been incredibly rewarding for me. It's tragic to see the impacts they're dealing with and the impacts it's having on their day-to-day lives, but it's so rewarding to work with them to try to find a better help.

Dave Walsh (05:36):

That's really interesting. Sometimes the best parts of the details like you just gave, that's a pretty good story there. You mentioned doors opening and one door that eventually opened for you was to A STM and the world of standards in general. So what eventually did bring you to A STM and standards development as a whole?

Joel Scheraga (05:53):

I'll put in the context, Dave, of a major goal of our climate change adaptation program. At EP, a major goal that we have is to partner with states, tribes, territories, local governments, businesses, as well as other federal agencies to strengthen the adaptive capacity of our partners and increase the resilience of the nation while at the same time trying to advance environmental justice across the country to protect the most vulnerable. As I increasingly became engaged in EPAs work to try to support our partners across the country to help them anticipate and prepare for the impacts of climate change, it became clear that voluntary consensus standards were one very important mechanism that EPA and our partners across the nation could use to increase the resilience to climate change. I discovered that EPA was already using voluntary consensus standards in a wide range of activities, both regulatory and non-regulatory.

(07:02):

Why? Because use of standards helps the EPA achieve effective and cooperative engagement with industry, academia, non-governmental organizations and others. As we work together to try to protect public health in the environment and use of voluntary consensus standards like A STM standards also enhances public trust and the development of policies that enjoy broad consensus and buy-in. It's a real joint effort which gets buy-in from everybody. I dug deeper. I discovered that a wide array of standards EPA was already using were relevant to climate change. For example, standards to protect building occupants from wildfires and wildfire smoke, the increasing wildfires and intense wildfires that we're already seeing, partly because of climate change standards to help save water standards, to improve water quality as well as standards to assess greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. As of 2015, EPA regulations contained over 4,500 references to voluntary consensus standards and other private standards.

(08:25):

Approximately 40 different standards organizations, including a TM over 50 EPA staff from across all of our programs are already engaged in standards development. And to ASMs credit, of those 150 EPA staff, 50 of them participate explicitly in ASTM standard bodies alone. I was also attracted to the way that the TM development process is open to all interested parties. A STM procedures can help facilitate a process where all input and viewpoints are taken into account and treated fairly, and that's critical. David probably better than I do, standards are as good as the people at the table working on developing them, and it's essential to bring a diversity of perspectives for success, not just in the development of the standards, but also leading to success and actually adopting and implementing them. And I was so drawn to the fact that A STM is a neutral facilitator and making the last connection that approach that A STM takes that open and inclusive approach that gets buy-in from people with a diversity of viewpoints. That approach is consistent with the approach that we take in our climate change adaptation program at EPA where we're always trying to build partnerships. If I may, Dave, just to show where the opportunities lie. Looking ahead, that's what drew me to ATM and standards development, but what excites me is there's so many opportunities that still lie ahead.

Dave Walsh (10:16):

You've kind of touched on a few of the points that I think may come up in my next question, but I've been asking this question is a little provocative, but I ask it because it gets people to listen. What would you say to a person, someone who's in Florida knows why resilience matters, they get a hurricane every year most likely. But what would you say to someone else who maybe says, why should I care about resilience? Why should the world care about it?

Joel Scheraga (10:39):

It's a great question, and quite frankly, it's one that we need to do an even better job communicating to the public on a day-to-day basis because people all across the country, all across the globe are dealing with so many different issues in their day-to-day lives like feeding their families, putting roofs over their heads, finding jobs, and making a good living. So how does resilience and climate change fit into all that? Well, to begin with, let's start out by just noting that the climate has been changing for millions of years, and people always say to me, come on Joel, what's different now? And the answer is that since the industrial revolution in the late 18 hundreds, the climate has been changing at an increasingly rapid rate outside the range to which human society has had to adapt in the past. Where we are now, and I can't overstate this, climate change poses a real and present danger to communities all across the country, a real and present danger to the things people care about in their lives on a day-to-day basis.

(11:52):

Communities are already coping. We're not talking about something that's going to have been 50 years from now, like we were framing it 30, 40 years ago. Communities are already all across the country coping with more frequent and intense storms, droughts, heat waves, sea level rise and coastal storm surges and wildfires. Those impacts are affecting people's health and livelihoods and damaging infrastructure ecosystems, even social systems in communities in every region of the country. What's sad about that, Dave, and it's really troubling, is that certain communities and individuals, even though everybody's affected, but certain communities and individuals are particularly vulnerable to these impacts. For example, low income communities and communities of communities, very young children under the age of four, the elderly people with immunocompromised systems, tribes and indigenous people, but for everybody, including those most vulnerable people, these events are having costly impacts on public health, the environment, and the economy.

(13:12):

And now let me bring it to dollars and cents because at the end of the day, that always resonates with people. Since 1980, the United States has incurred over 1.5 trillion in damages from weather and climate disasters. The economic impacts have become so severe that the vulnerability of local communities to future impacts is now influenced credit ratings for municipal bonds. I have to say we're also seeing local government officials whose communities are rebuilding from major disasters, things like hurricanes, you alluded to those in Florida and elsewhere, wildfires, which we've seen a lot of over the last couple of years. So the bottom line, Dave, is that local government officials and state officials understand that adaptation is smart government and it helps ensure that the investments they make with scarce taxpayer dollars are effective even as the climate changes. And again, to put this in dollars and cents terms, the National Institute of Building Sciences estimates that the nation avoids $6 in future disaster costs for every $1 spent on hazard mitigation. That's why the person on the street should be thinking about and considering why climate resilience and adaptation matters. Well,

Dave Walsh (14:46):

And that was a great summary of the issues and basically a good outline of the problem with a lot of thrown in that people can relate to myself coming from New Jersey, I saw them rebuild twice in the last 15 years. Now there are two different hurricanes, but A STM and the committee you're part of are about solutions, right? So you're part of committee E 50, which is environmental assessment, risk management, and corrective action. What kind of work is your committee doing and what are some of the specific standards and things that you're working on there? What are some of the solutions that you're creating?

Joel Scheraga (15:18):

As we've gone out and we've talked to local government officials across the country, we've heard from them, most of us aren't from the New York cities or the Chicagos or the San Franciscos that already have a lot of experience and expertise and financial resources to deal with climate resilience and adaptation. Most of us in the 40,000 communities across the country are middle to smaller sized underserved communities that in many cases don't even have a person on our staff to apply for those resources to know that they exist and then to manage the resources if we get them tying it to ATM and the outstanding work A STM does. We're obviously exploring various mechanisms because one size doesn't fit all, but we're exploring various mechanisms to help improve the resilience of investments and adoption of voluntary consensus standards is one very important mechanism. The work being done in several ASTM communities, for example, E 50 0 7, the subcommittee on climate communities in which I'm involved and E 60 0 8 in which I and others from EPA are involved are relevant to improving the resilience of these investments.

(16:42):

And that's why we're working so hard with ASTM right now. And again, just focusing on E 50 0 7, several of the task forces have been set up that are enormously helpful to us working with our partners across the country. For example, the terminology task force that I'm involved in has already developed a definition for climate justice, which is focusing on those most vulnerable communities, the definition of climate justice that we're already using at EPA. There's a mapping task force, which is helping us identify where the different vulnerabilities are across the country, the sorts of things that communities should care about, and there's a water task force. So I hope it's clear how critically important standards are for ensuring that we partner with communities and businesses all across the country to get to these resilient outcomes because at the end of the day, it's about protecting the people on the ground and the things that they care about.

Dave Walsh (17:47):

So just to get into few specifics for the lay people out there, when you say resilient outcomes and you talk about resilient investment, are you talking about a situation where, for instance, here in New Jersey we built from Irene and other storms, frankly, but you're talking about a situation where when you go to rebuild your home, rather than choosing a wood frame again, maybe you could use reinforced concrete things like that that would make, that may not be a great example, but along those lines where you're more resilient when you rebuild rather than just putting up the same infrastructure that failed the previous time.

Joel Scheraga (18:22):

Absolutely, and I love your example, and let me build off of it. Having grown up in New Jersey and Connecticut myself and having visited some of the areas in Connecticut that were affected by Hurricane Sandy, it was very interesting to see that people who had to rebuild their homes were already elevating them. The people who could afford to we're already elevating them in anticipation of sea level rise in the future and more severe storm surges communities that have things like water utilities in coastal areas like here in Washington dc, those communities are already thinking about the vulnerabilities of those water utilities to sea level rise and storm surge, and they're thinking about ways to protect them from future sea level rise and storm surge. The other way people are responding, Dave, is they're trying to be smart about where they invest. As you know, when you buy a home, if you're in a floodplain, you have to get flood insurance if you want to get a mortgage, unless you're paying for the home out of your own pocket.

(19:36):

You want to make sure that even if you're not buying a home in a flood zone, that it's not going to be in a flood zone in the next five or 10 or 15 years as the climate changes. Or if you're building a new home, don't build in a flood zone, a bad flood zone. Think about building in a more secure area, won't be in a flood zone in the future, and I'll use again for you, a very real example, very close to me in Maryland where I now live now where T City which is nearby has incurred horrific, horrific storm events over one, which occurred a number of years ago, and then almost two years later, exactly the same sort of horrific flooding event that wiped out their downtown area. Businesses were destroyed, homes were destroyed, and back then, Ellicott City pretty much just rebuilt and rebuilt the way they were, and people chose to stay in Lict city whose homes were damaged or destroyed in many cases destroyed when the same event occurred two years later. To their credit, the community said, we can't keep rebuilding in the same way. We have to be smarter, and they've put in place incentives and actual practices to increase the resilience of that downtown area so they won't be damaged in the same way when these sorts of events happen again in the future. That's the sort of thing that we're talking about,

Dave Walsh (21:22):

And I think that resonates with people. Everyone can relate to the fact that they don't want to rebuild their home two, three times in the lifetime of their mortgage. And

Joel Scheraga (21:30):

I have to say, what's also interesting, Dave, and again, this gets to the connections to corporate America and the financial community. If you are a bank that is issuing a mortgage, you probably want to think twice about providing a mortgage, like a 30 year mortgage to somebody whose house may not be in a flood zone now, but like in five years may be in a flood zone or in 10 years. All of this also has significant even economic implications for individuals like you and me in our own homes, but as well as for businesses as well as the financial community.

Dave Walsh (22:10):

Well, we've talked for a while now getting on to our usual time limit, but we do have one other question that we like to ask our guests. It really could go anywhere if you think that this could be humorous or if it's very serious, because listen, we've had some good answers. The president of A SCM talked about a standard for a device on ships that helped with rat infestation, so there are standards for everything. But I'd like to know your favorite standard and which one you think is either the most impactful or the most interesting.

Joel Scheraga (22:43):

I have to say my first knee jerk reaction was standard of excellence, but I know what you're referring to in all sincerity. I would have to say my favorite standard right now is the one I'm working on, the terminology standard. Because I'm learning so much about standard development processes, I'm discovering how cooperative and collegial people with these diversity of viewpoints with sometimes very different perspectives, how collegial and constructive the conversations are. That's getting us to a terminology guide that will be useful to all ATM task forces as they deal with issues related to climate change. All candor, that's my favorite right now. I'm having a blast. I will say it takes more effort, more time than I knew originally, but it's definitely worth it, and we're building some incredible relationships. I guess I'd also like to wrap it up by doing a shout out because in these A SDM processes, you get to work with some fantastic people, and I'd like to give a shout out to Helen Waldorf, who is the head of the Climate and Community subcommittee. She's a joy to work with as well as to Molly Linac at a SDM who has that incredible challenge of herding all these sheep and getting them all to participate in a constructive way. It is just such a joy working with a S tm, and it's an investment of time, but it's an investment of time that truly has implications for the welfare of the nation as well as the welfare of the globe. So thank you.

Dave Walsh (24:29):

Thanks for your time today, Joel, and thanks for being with us, and thanks for the good words about A STM. The people are going to think I'm putting you up to this, but I'm not.

Joel Scheraga (24:37):

No, no, no. And I have to say, first of all, it's such a joy and a privilege to have the opportunity to do this with you, Dave. I've always admired your work, but again, I jumped at the opportunity because my appreciation and EPAs appreciation for the importance of voluntary consensus standards and the work that A STM is doing is sky high and wanted to share that with the public. So thank you again.

Dave Walsh (25:07):

And now it's time for our regular standard spotlight segment with SNS content editor, JP Urban.

Speaker 4 (25:18):

In 1978, the US Federal government banned the use of paints containing significant amounts of lead. As a result, many people in the country today might think the dangers of this toxic substance have been eradicated. However, less than half of the countries around the world maintain similar restrictions. Lead is particularly commonplace in lower and middle income countries where the pace of development and the lack of restrictions can mean that such paints are very widespread. Lead paint can harm people in myriad ways, and it is especially dangerous for young children. Unfortunately, the substance also has many attractive qualities that have made it a persistent part of human culture. For at least 8,000 years, it has been used in piping, jewelry, gasoline, medicine, and even as an additive in wine. It is especially valuable in paint where it performs well and can be cheaper than alternatives. In 2023, A STM formerly partnered with the Global Alliance to eliminate Lead Paint.

(26:15):

The program is chaired by the US Environmental Protection Agency and led by staff of organizations such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization. The Lead Paint Alliance promotes a phase out of the manufacturer and sale of paints containing lead through its work. It raises awareness, encourages prevention programs, and supports legislators. Prior to joining the Alliance, A STM members spent decades on efforts to detect the toxin and protect people from its effects. Some of the involved committees include the Committee on Air Quality D 22, the Committee on Paint and related Coatings, materials and Applications, DO one, and the Committee on Environmental Assessment Risk Management, and Corrective Action D 50. Many of these standards are test methods. They provide a variety of techniques for identifying the substance and even address issues such as how to conduct inspections, sample lead, prepare it for analysis and perform record keeping. Members remain vigilant and they're developing multiple work items for potential new standards. One would provide a practice for the field collection of airborne samples that might contain lead. Another standard would offer a guide for using publicly available data to determine the risk of lead exposure in the drinking water of public and tribal schools.

Dave Walsh (27:33):

If you want to learn more about any of the standards discussed in this episode, visit astm.org for all the latest. And if you enjoyed the show today, remember to like and subscribe so you never miss another episode. I'm Dave Walsh, and this has been Standards Impact presented by A STM International.