Los Angeles Times environmental reporter, author and filmmaker Rosanna Xia visited Punahou this week, engaging Academy students and the broader community in conversations about journalism, climate change and the power of storytelling.
Xia, a 2020 Pulitzer Prize finalist for explanatory reporting, covers California’s coast for the Los Angeles Times, reporting on issues ranging from sea-level rise to ocean pollution. She is the author of California Against the Sea and director of the documentary Out of Plain Sight, which examines the legacy of toxic dumping off the coast of Los Angeles.
During a talk story with students on Monday, Aug. 24, Xia shared insights from her work at the intersection of science, policy and communities. Introduced by senior Tahan Bapna ’27, Xia discussed the role of a beat reporter and encouraged students to approach complex environmental issues with curiosity and specificity.
Drawing from her reporting, Xia challenged students to consider how they would explain climate change to someone else. Their responses touched on human impacts, natural disasters and adaptation, underscoring the complexity of an issue that Xia noted cannot easily be distilled into a few sentences. She emphasized the importance of making broad environmental issues specific by telling stories rooted in people, place and community – an approach that can help audiences better understand how climate change is affecting the world around them.
That evening, the conversation expanded to the broader public of families, local alumni and community members during “Storytelling and Sustainability,” a public event at the Wo International Center. Xia joined Makena Coffman ’98, director of the Institute for Sustainability and Resilience at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, for a deeper discussion that built on themes introduced with Academy students earlier in the day. Their conversation explored the connections among climate change, sustainability, policy and storytelling, and how communities can better understand and respond to environmental change.
Xia’s visit also included conversations with AP Environmental Science and various English classes, students interested in journalism and filmmaking and Punahou faculty and staff. The visit was presented through a collaboration between Punahou’s Davis Democracy Initiative and the University of Hawaiʻi’s Better Tomorrow Speakers Series and Institute for Sustainability and Resilience, creating opportunities to examine environmental challenges through the lenses of journalism, science and community.
