Deep Dive: Navigating Climate Unraveling

Citizen Engagement & Mounting a Proper Government Response to the Climate Crisis

Melissa Hoffer, Rachel Donald, Resilience
Hoffer post image

Melissa Hoffer is a pioneer: she is the first-ever Climate Chief for the state of Massachusetts—and Massachusetts is the first U.S. state to establish such a position. Is this a model that other states can follow? What policies are being championed to tackle the climate emergency? What are the prospects for governmental action to (1) help people navigate the challenging conditions imposed by global warming and (2) curtail fossil fuel use and re-envision both the energy sector and the economic status quo? 

Join environmental journalist Rachel Donald as she asks demanding questions, and learn how Melissa Hoffer and her colleagues are seizing the opportunity to change how Massachusetts approaches energy and economic policy on the quest to achieve net zero CO2 emissions by 2050.

Watch the complete interview here:

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Image via Adobe Stock.

Image via Adobe Stock.

Melissa Hoffer

Melissa Hoffer is first ever Climate Chief for the state of Massachusetts. She joined the Biden Administration as a Day 1 political appointee, serving as the Acting General Counsel and Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). She led the EPA’s Office of General Counsel through the transition until November 2021 and continued to serve as Principal Deputy General Counsel. Prior to that, she worked in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office as Chief of the Environmental Protection Division beginning in 2012 and was named chief of the newly formed Energy and Environment Bureau in 2015. Hoffer received a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law, certificate in environmental management from Tufts University, M.Ed. from the University of Massachusetts, and B.A. from Hampshire College. In her spare time, she raises a small herd of Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats at her farm in Barre, Massachusetts.

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