Legal Scholar Ethan Elkind

Ethan Elkind is associate director of UC Berkeley and UCLA’s climate change and business program, with a joint appointment at both universities’ law schools. He is also the author of Railtown: The Fight for the Los Angeles Metro Rail and the Future of the City. Before participating in a discussion of the future of trains in Southern California, he explained how he talks to climate change deniers and aspiring lawyers in the Zócalo green room.

Q:

When did you last travel by train, and where did you go?


A:

This morning, when I was heading out here to L.A. I took the BART train to the Oakland airport.


Q:

What dessert do you find impossible to resist?


A:

Cheesecake. Especially if there’s some kind of berry on it—strawberry, blueberry, raspberry. Otherwise, plain cheesecake.


Q:

What advice do you give to aspiring lawyers?


A:

I was going to say don’t go to law school. [Laughs.] Don’t go with the herd. Law school gives you the tools to do almost anywhere you want to do, so don’t let the institution make the choice for you by herding you to a private firm or some other place. You’ve got to stay true to what you’re excited about doing. And don’t go in right out of college. Try to take at least a year off, unless you really know what you want to do. Don’t treat it as a way to delay life choices.


Q:

How do people typically react when you tell them you’ve written a book about trains in L.A.?


A:

There are trains in L.A.? No. They ask, why’d you write that, what made you interested in it? I get a lot of questions about that. And, when is the train coming to my neighborhood?


Q:

What do you wake up to?


A:

Sunshine, my wife—that’s a tough one. Usually the alarm, a radio station—adult alternative music. Sometimes a trash truck. Occasionally my neighbors leaving for work. I have a few neighbors who work really early in the morning.


Q:

What profession would you practice in your next life?


A:

I’d love to be a radio talk show host.


Q:

What’s the quickest way to dispel climate change deniers?


A:

I usually talk about all the positive things, and try to shift the debate away from science—energy independence, the fun of driving an electric vehicle, the fun of kissing your gas station goodbye, more local jobs. I try to go to the positives that we would get in our society if we could switch out of dirty fuels. It’s more disarming the deniers rather than getting in a debate. My basic philosophy is you can never convince anyone of anything.


Q:

Do you have any recurring dreams or nightmares?


A:

Not recently, but I had a series of dreams where I was swimming in the air. It was a zero-gravity kind of thing, but not like in movies where you’re bouncing off a space shuttle. I was kind of swimming through my backyard. I haven’t had that one for a while.


Q:

What’s your hidden talent?


A:

I can do accents and impersonations.


Q:

What’s your best one?


A:

George Takei, Mr. Sulu. I interviewed him for the book, and he has a very poetic voice, a nice way of speaking. I can do Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan.