Betsy Fitzgerald folded her arms. “Are you kidding? I pride myself on staying on top off all current events: global, national, and especially local. This factory is nowhere near the T subway system and no buses go there, so there’ll be lots of commuters’ cars pumping more fossil fuel fumes into the air. And the real problem is that Tru Blu gum is totally over-packaged—wrappers over wrappers over wrappers. It’s so not green. But…I don’t know about toxic chemicals, Avery. I didn’t read anything in the paper about their carbon emissions or--”

“Carbon emissions? What’s that?”

Betsy smiled and leaned back in her chair. She loved being asked to explain things. “Well, you see, Avery, producing energy from fossil fuels releases CO2, you know, carbon dioxide, into the air--“

“And that factory is going to use a ton of energy!” Avery shouted, without bothering to listen to the rest of what Betsy was saying. She was getting more pumped about this project by the second.

“That’s not really what I was going to say…” Betsy started.

Katani began to shift uncomfortably in her chair. “Actually …” she started. “Oh, never mind.”

“What?” Avery asked.

Katani shrugged, “Well, it’s just that, maybe this factory isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I mean, it’s bringing business to the city. They’ve even contracted my dad to do some work, and he didn’t mention anything about the factory being a big polluter. He thinks it could really help out the local economy.”