Former White House climate adviser talks climate, future with SRU community
SLIPPERY ROCK TWP — Ali Zaidi’s climate action and leadership conversation at Slippery Rock University dove headfirst into confronting the high costs and vast impact of the climate crisis.
He said he didn’t do this to “doom and gloom,” but to keep it real with students in attendance.
Zaidi, the former White House National Climate Advisor under President Joe Biden, spoke with a little over 150 attendees at SRU’s Robert M. Smith Student Center ballroom Monday, April 7. The speech and Q&A session circled around climate change, policymaking and leadership.
The event was held by SRU’s Macoskey Center and the West Penn Energy Fund.
Zaidi, who was born in Pakistan, grew up near Edinboro, about an hour north of Slippery Rock. While working for the Biden administration, Zaidi served as an adviser on climate policy and climate-related legislation.
“My career over the last decade has really been defined by responding to a crisis that’s really shown up at our doorstep, all across the country. And one of the things I draw people’s attention to is that it’s costing us a lot of money already,” Zaidi said.
Scott Albert, vice president for facilities at SRU, said he first listened to Zaiti while attending an economic development conference near Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
“During his White House service between 2021 and 2025, Zaiti advanced a broad effort to reestablish climate and clean energy leadership, by designing and implementing a wide range of executive actions and key legislation, including the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act,” Albert said.
Zaidi’s speech highlighted a wide range of topics related to climate change, such as previously safe areas becoming more at risk to climate disasters, as well as the financial impact of towns and homes damaged by severe weather.
He talked about meeting people in places like Asheville, North Carolina, that were hit by flooding from Hurricane Helene after previously believing a hurricane couldn’t reach that far inland, as well as farmers in eastern Pennsylvania who’s crops were damaged by wildfires hundreds of miles away.
“There’s the dollars impact, and there’s potential for trillions of dollars of impact in industries like health care and the real estate sector. But the money kind of obscures whatever that person is feeling, walking down the street,” Zaidi said.
Zaidi said important areas of focus for future climate policy include access to clean air and water, economic development, good paying jobs and lower consumer costs. He focused on building up capacity for clean energy, transportation and industry as a key area the students who go into the climate field will have to focus on.
He talked about how not everybody has access to things like electric cars or biking to work every day, and that climate leaders have to work to make green energy efforts accessible.
He also emphasized to students the importance of getting out into the communities their future work could be impacting and listening to what others have to say outside of their work sphere.
Zaidi implored the crowd, largely made up of SRU students in science-related majors and professors, to stay optimistic about the future and focus on opportunity for improvement.
“If you’re young and you feel slouchy, or maybe even super angry, you are very justified in that,” Zaidi said. “But if you look hard, as I do, you also see this massive opportunity to repair all the things in our society that are broken and to lift us up into a better status quo.”
