Speaker 1: The topics and opinions expressed on the following show are
Speaker 1: solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not
Speaker 1: those of W four WN Radio It's employees or affiliates.
Speaker 1: We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
Speaker 1: or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability,
Speaker 1: explicit or implied shall be extended to W four WN
Speaker 1: Radio It's employees or affiliates. Any questions or comment should
Speaker 1: be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing
Speaker 1: W four WN Radio.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Fearless Fabulous You. I am your host, Melanie Young,
Speaker 2: and if you follow me regularly, you know I love
Speaker 2: to introduce you to inspiring women who have created amazing
Speaker 2: second acts. I think I'm on my third act at
Speaker 2: this point in my life, so I support all women
Speaker 2: who find new purpose and passion at new stages of
Speaker 2: our life. And that is really what my guest today
Speaker 2: is doing. We're kind of soul sisters in other ways
Speaker 2: because I live now in New Orleans and she was
Speaker 2: born and raised in New Orleans, and she is doing
Speaker 2: amazing things in an area that we are all very
Speaker 2: concerned about, and that is climate change. Now that I've
Speaker 2: moved to New Orleans. It's like in my face every
Speaker 2: day because we just started hurricane season. But you know,
Speaker 2: even in Tennessee, where I used to live. In New York,
Speaker 2: where I lived for much of my life, we were
Speaker 2: hit by hurricanes quite often. The worst one in New
Speaker 2: York when I lived there was Hurricane Sandy, which was
Speaker 2: just incredibly destructive. We were talking about that last night
Speaker 2: at an event. It is a global situation. As I
Speaker 2: travel the world visiting wineries for my life as a
Speaker 2: wine and food writer, I talked to farmers all the
Speaker 2: time who are being impacted by climate change. This is
Speaker 2: not your backyard, it is our global backyard. And Kathleen
Speaker 2: Biggins is changing the conversation and really moving the conversation
Speaker 2: forward in this area. And we're going to talk to
Speaker 2: her about this.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: Kathleen Biggins, founder and president of Sea Change Conversations, a
Speaker 2: nonprofit dedicated to expanding the conversation in a very constructive
Speaker 2: way about climate change. Welcome to Fearless, Fabulous you.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's such a pleasure to be with you.
Speaker 2: Well, Kathleen, we're going to start with your backstory. As
Speaker 2: I mentioned, you were born and raised in New Orleans.
Speaker 2: Tell us our listeners about your life here and what
Speaker 2: your early interests were and where you ended up as
Speaker 2: pursuing your education.
Speaker 4: Sure, so, as you said, I grew up in New Orleans.
Speaker 4: I was the youngest of three girls. I used to
Speaker 4: take the street car to school every day and loved
Speaker 4: growing up in New Orleans. Just thought it was the
Speaker 4: most interesting place on the planet, and indeed it still
Speaker 4: is in many ways to me. I had the opportunity
Speaker 4: to go to college at the University of Virginia, and
Speaker 4: then afterwards I spent a year as a rotary scholar
Speaker 4: in Europe, traveling around and being exposed to so many
Speaker 4: different types of cultures.
Speaker 3: And no matter where I went.
Speaker 4: Though, there was no place like New Orleans, and it
Speaker 4: always has held such an important place in my heart.
Speaker 4: And that actually has helped kind of propel me because,
Speaker 4: just as you said, if you're living in New Orleans,
Speaker 4: climate change is a really big threat. And I will
Speaker 4: say that my love for my home city is part
Speaker 4: of what really pushed me to start this outreach.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting because you, actually, like me, were in
Speaker 2: a communications spell for many years. I had a public
Speaker 2: relations business in New York and young Communications, and you
Speaker 2: worked for Ogilvie and Mail. Like me, you knew you
Speaker 2: wanted to move to New York and pursue the life
Speaker 2: because you make it there, you make it anywhere. And
Speaker 2: I was the same way. I left Atlanta and Chattanooga
Speaker 2: where I was from, to Tedson, New York, and like you,
Speaker 2: slept on friends sofas and until I got that land
Speaker 2: of that job. How long did you work in that
Speaker 2: field in advertising and marketing?
Speaker 4: So I worked at Ogilvie probably around nine years, and
Speaker 4: then I moved to Princeton, New Jersey, which is where
Speaker 4: I reside now, and worked for a marketing company there
Speaker 4: for several years until I had my second child, And
Speaker 4: so then I took some time out and really did
Speaker 4: volunteer work as I raised my two sons, but was
Speaker 4: always quite involved in a wide range of things. I
Speaker 4: was on the board of our local symphony as well
Speaker 4: as the Watershed Institute, which is a environmental group in
Speaker 4: the area. So always wanted to give back to the
Speaker 4: community and always wanted to have the opportunity to continue
Speaker 4: to learn and contribute.
Speaker 2: That's wonderful that you were able to do that. What
Speaker 2: in you're Marriorg How long have you been married to
Speaker 2: your husband and what does he do? Oh wow, so
Speaker 2: we've obviously you had a supportive husband to do that.
Speaker 4: Indeed, we have been married now for thirty seven years.
Speaker 4: Thirty eight years, congratulations. And he is very supportive of
Speaker 4: this outreach because believes in it as well. But he
Speaker 4: actually runs a consulting business that helps companies relocate big
Speaker 4: chunks of jobs. It's called location economics. So it's been
Speaker 4: really intriguing for me to have that lens on this
Speaker 4: issue because he's helping so many companies decide where to
Speaker 4: move in to help me understand how kind of movers
Speaker 4: and shakers within the business world are factoring in climate
Speaker 4: change or factoring in some of the there are needs
Speaker 4: that are being impacted by climate change. So it's been
Speaker 4: a great partnership in a marriage and also in what
Speaker 4: we do, I would think.
Speaker 2: So it's a big topic because people relocate. You know,
Speaker 2: housing is important, and I know here in Louisiana the
Speaker 2: cost of insurance is through this roof, and our friends
Speaker 2: in California they're struggling right now with this because of
Speaker 2: the fires, and insurance is becoming a huge issue. That's
Speaker 2: why I rent, not by I've learned. I was fascinated
Speaker 2: by the fact, and I think it's wonderful that you
Speaker 2: did step away. I think it's important to underscore to
Speaker 2: my women listeners that it is perfectly okay to step
Speaker 2: away from your career and do the you know, take
Speaker 2: time off to be with your family, and do it
Speaker 2: without any regrets or worries. I mean fortunate at a
Speaker 2: supportive husband, but it is important. A lot of women
Speaker 2: struggle with this. I didn't have to because I never
Speaker 2: had children, but I think it's great that you did,
Speaker 2: and then it provided you the time to pursue interest
Speaker 2: in your talents. In other ways, what was interesting is
Speaker 2: you became involved with garden clubs, and that really was
Speaker 2: the jumping off point to where you are now with
Speaker 2: one of them. There were several going with sea Change conversation,
Speaker 2: so give us a little backstory on that.
Speaker 4: Sure, as you said, it's often really important to have
Speaker 4: the ability to pursue new passions and to strive for
Speaker 4: new talents or new accomplishments, and so gardening with always
Speaker 4: one that I wanted to be better at and that
Speaker 4: I felt I was not that knowledgeable and was a
Speaker 4: little intimidated by it. So I joined a local garden club,
Speaker 4: the Garden Club of Princeton, which is part of the
Speaker 4: Garden Club of America, and I learned quite a lot
Speaker 4: through that association.
Speaker 2: But one of the.
Speaker 4: Things is the fact that many people don't know is
Speaker 4: a Golden Club of America has a very strong environmental platform.
Speaker 4: They believe very much that we should protect the natural
Speaker 4: world and that we should be educated on the natural world.
Speaker 4: And yet they are in no way a partisan group
Speaker 4: or a left leaning group, or even what you would
Speaker 4: call an environmental group. They have a very reasonable and
Speaker 4: I would say passionate, but not partisan voice in this arena.
Speaker 4: And one of the things they do every year is
Speaker 4: hold the conference in Washington, d C. Where they bring
Speaker 4: in delegates from all over the country to learn about
Speaker 4: the priorities and to hear from people on the hill,
Speaker 4: people in the administration about issues that were wending through
Speaker 4: that were topical to these times. And I attended one
Speaker 4: of these conferences representing my club, again, the Garden Club
Speaker 4: of Princeton, and I heard from a military person and
Speaker 4: from a business leader that climate change was real.
Speaker 3: And almost knocked my socks off.
Speaker 2: I was like, it's not real.
Speaker 4: What and yet these two really illustrious, smart, articulate leaders
Speaker 4: within their fields were saying that it indeed was true.
Speaker 4: And that was kind of my first awakening. And then
Speaker 4: a couple of years later, Hurricane Sandy hit our region
Speaker 4: caused a great devastation, and I heard that climate chain
Speaker 4: has kind of exacerbated the amount of damage that had
Speaker 4: been done. And so I went back down to this
Speaker 4: conference and learned that in fact, climate change was coming faster,
Speaker 4: and it was going to hit us harder, and it
Speaker 4: was going to be much more expensive and painful if
Speaker 4: we didn't get in.
Speaker 3: Front of it.
Speaker 4: And that was kind of a wake up call for
Speaker 4: me something I had been just intellectually interested in and
Speaker 4: kind of following became a calling, became a desire to
Speaker 4: wake up my colleagues and friends and loved ones who
Speaker 4: really didn't think of climate change as a true threat
Speaker 4: or something that was pertinent to them or that they
Speaker 4: had to worry about. And yet I knew we were
Speaker 4: all collectively really on a dangerous trajectory. And it was
Speaker 4: a communications challenge, if you will, how can we wake
Speaker 4: people up without turning them off because it was a
Speaker 4: topic people didn't want to hear about and didn't want
Speaker 4: to speak to others about.
Speaker 2: It's so interesting, you know a couple of things. First
Speaker 2: of all, I had no idea that garden clubs were
Speaker 2: that active in you know, kept I think about my grandmother.
Speaker 2: She was the garden club. But they were a little
Speaker 2: white gloves and they you know, looked at camellias. But
Speaker 2: it's not that. And I'm already telling about a story
Speaker 2: to write about that. It's very interesting. I have to ask,
Speaker 2: what about Katrina? You didn't mention herk King Katrina? How
Speaker 2: was and that was two thousand and five and this
Speaker 2: light bulb was two thousand and six. Sandy was later?
Speaker 2: Was your family? How was your family impacted by Hurricane Katrina?
Speaker 2: Was your family here?
Speaker 4: So my parents moved out the year of Hurricane Katrina,
Speaker 4: so right before the storm. So so I did not
Speaker 4: have direct family here. I did have cousins and aunts here,
Speaker 4: and they obviously suffered as well.
Speaker 3: But Katrina was an.
Speaker 4: Interesting challenge because so much of the damage really was
Speaker 4: because the levees failed, which many say is more of
Speaker 4: a man made issue than the fact that the hurricane
Speaker 4: was so powerful it overwhelmed us. It was more that
Speaker 4: our defenses failed, and so I haven't linked that as
Speaker 4: closely to climate though I do think that my understanding
Speaker 4: that nature can overwhelm us, that the power can be
Speaker 4: so strong and something that humans can't control, that many
Speaker 4: Americans haven't experience, though they are more frequently now. But
Speaker 4: growing up with hurricanes as part of your I won't
Speaker 4: say daily life, but part of your consistent fear and
Speaker 4: concern and changes your perspective on nature and humanity, human's
Speaker 4: relationship with her interesting.
Speaker 2: And I'm glad your family was lucky. We live on
Speaker 2: in Lakeview where it was underwater, and the streets are
Speaker 2: still a mess. I think they're finally fixing them. How
Speaker 2: long has it been?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: Here's how climate change has really impacted me, and I
Speaker 2: think everybody you know, I think once you explain it
Speaker 2: as how it impacts your day to day life. You
Speaker 2: know the cost of food, food, in agriculture. I travel
Speaker 2: a lot to Europe and I talked, as I said earlier,
Speaker 2: to wine producers. They're having to alter vineyards and adapt
Speaker 2: because of mold, mildew, excessive rain, excessive heat. The grapes
Speaker 2: you're sensitive. It's not just grapes, it's all agriculture. Is
Speaker 2: being impacted by it, and that's why your food prices
Speaker 2: are up. So that's where it hurts the pocket book.
Speaker 2: It hurts the pocketbook when the insurance companies want to
Speaker 2: raise your policy rates because of more natural disasters that
Speaker 2: keep be happy, whether it's earthquakes, floods, rains. I think
Speaker 2: about my friends in Asheville, North Carolina, who in their
Speaker 2: lives never thought their talent would be hit and it did.
Speaker 3: You're absolutely right.
Speaker 4: So just to clarify for your readers for a second,
Speaker 4: one of the things that we try to do is
Speaker 4: bring that reality that climate change is hitting things you
Speaker 4: care about right now, right your insurance or the stability
Speaker 4: of your community exactly, but also that we shouldn't see
Speaker 4: it within a partisan perspective, but in fact it's a
Speaker 4: human issue because it impacts our jobs and economy, our
Speaker 4: health and safety, and geopolitical stability, things that all Americans
Speaker 4: care about. And then we try to localize our messaging
Speaker 4: because we travel all over the country doing this and
Speaker 4: I think it's thirty three states now, about twenty two
Speaker 4: thousand people reaching out towards moderates and conservatives who may
Speaker 4: not see that climate change is impacting them already and
Speaker 4: may not believe still that it's a conversation that they
Speaker 4: need to or want to have. And you're absolutely right
Speaker 4: by translating it down to how it matters today individuals.
Speaker 4: It's an important way in and its important way for
Speaker 4: people to open their perspective on the issue.
Speaker 2: You've got to address the nimbi's and not in my
Speaker 2: backyards and the not in my lifetimes, like that's the
Speaker 2: next generation, but it does impact everybody today. And you
Speaker 2: underscore at See Change Conversation, which is a nonprofit that
Speaker 2: you are nonpartisan, non political, and you avoid the word
Speaker 2: environmental activism, which I think is really important. Why is
Speaker 2: that important to underscore and your mission at Sea Change Conversation.
Speaker 4: Because I think it's so easy to pigeonhole it if
Speaker 4: you say it's an environmental issue, and obviously it has
Speaker 4: environmental impacts, clear, but the fact of the matter is
Speaker 4: these impacts are now cascading outside of the natural world
Speaker 4: into our human systems, our economy, our communities, and whether
Speaker 4: we can be strong even as a society, our health systems,
Speaker 4: and so all of a sudden, if you pigeonhole it,
Speaker 4: it seems something small and it's easier to identify as
Speaker 4: something that is appropriate for the left, because they're the
Speaker 4: ones that are the Greenies, they are over there. But
Speaker 4: when instead you position it as well, this is impacting
Speaker 4: our geopolitical security, or hey, this is impacting my wallet,
Speaker 4: this is impact acting what I have to pay for
Speaker 4: your health, my health exactly, and then it becomes, as
Speaker 4: I said, a human issue. And we drive so hard
Speaker 4: to help people understand that we're all in this boat
Speaker 4: together and we all need to care.
Speaker 2: So when did you you established Sea Change Conversations in
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen, you decided to create the nonprofit? What were
Speaker 2: the steps to do that and why you decided to
Speaker 2: You know, there are many ways to create a nonprofit
Speaker 2: and its purpose, right, why give us the why in
Speaker 2: terms of we know what propelled you to it, But
Speaker 2: why did you decide to focus on conversations and really
Speaker 2: what becomes education and awareness building? Ah?
Speaker 4: So, we, as I said, we wanted to find a
Speaker 4: way to wake people up with turning them off. And
Speaker 4: originally we were just focused on our home community of
Speaker 4: Princeton Right Garden Club.
Speaker 3: And we realized that there are many people.
Speaker 4: Again, colleagues, friends, even loved ones who weren't really in
Speaker 4: the group who didn't want to hear about it, didn't
Speaker 4: want us to talk about it to the met a
Speaker 4: cocktail party or over dinner or waiting in the school line.
Speaker 3: It's like a no go.
Speaker 4: And so we were like, Okay, how can we get
Speaker 4: them into the conversation. And we realized that if we
Speaker 4: replicated what had happened to us down in Washington, d C.
Speaker 4: At these conferences where these outside experts came in and
Speaker 4: talked about it and we listened because they weren't greenies,
Speaker 4: they weren't environmentalists, they were someone different talking about it,
Speaker 4: that maybe we'd have a chance.
Speaker 3: And so we started.
Speaker 4: Off just doing speaker series in Princeton and we served
Speaker 4: really good wine and really good food and then invited
Speaker 4: people to come and they came, and we had speakers
Speaker 4: like the former governor Christine Whitman, who had also been
Speaker 4: the head of the EPA, who was a Republican governor
Speaker 4: who was very very savvy on climate change, in climate policy.
Speaker 4: We had a rear admiral come in and talk about
Speaker 4: the military perspective. We had had a risk strategy from
Speaker 4: Gloman Sachs come in and talk about risk strategy assessment
Speaker 4: and how we're not doing that well in the realm
Speaker 4: of climate, and we had many others, but it created
Speaker 4: that safe route in in Princeton. However, I was getting very,
Speaker 4: very frustrated that people who came were not coming to
Speaker 4: all of them and we're getting kind of a deep
Speaker 4: dive in a specific SLVER issue, but not a three
Speaker 4: sixty view. And that's when I wrote, with climate experts
Speaker 4: and energy experts this PowerPoint primer or primmer if you will,
Speaker 4: Yees brought forward and we originally showed it to the
Speaker 4: garden clubs. They asked this to bring it to National.
Speaker 4: We showed it to National and they were like, oh,
Speaker 4: we really like this. We want you to open our
Speaker 4: conferences down in DC for several years running because they
Speaker 4: felt it set the table. It framed the issue in
Speaker 4: a nonpartisan way, in an inclusive way that other speakers
Speaker 4: could then build off of, and people who were there
Speaker 4: as delegates hurt us and then invited us to come
Speaker 4: to their communities and bring this conversation there.
Speaker 2: And at that time we.
Speaker 4: Decided we really need to expand and become a not
Speaker 4: for profit because we needed to fundraise and able to
Speaker 4: afford to travel the country even though those speakers are
Speaker 4: all volunteers.
Speaker 3: Just we needed to be able.
Speaker 4: To maintain what we were doing, and so that kind
Speaker 4: of led us to are not for profit status.
Speaker 2: So you raise money which basically funds the speaking programs,
Speaker 2: right the primer and you have three levels of primers
Speaker 2: from what I see on the website, which for our
Speaker 2: listeners to see change conversations dot org. But why don't
Speaker 2: you explain that more?
Speaker 3: So we.
Speaker 4: Raise the funds for several things. Now, we definitely to
Speaker 4: help us get out to places that don't have the
Speaker 4: budgets to really pay to bring us. So for our
Speaker 4: travel costs, we often stay with our hosts to keep
Speaker 4: the costs down.
Speaker 3: So we really do this.
Speaker 4: As I said, our volunteers speakers are all volunteers, and
Speaker 4: so we do everything we can to keep our costs down.
Speaker 4: But we also spend a lot of time on creating
Speaker 4: follow up information that will continue the dialogue, continue that
Speaker 4: conversation with audience members after we leave that market.
Speaker 3: So we have.
Speaker 4: Monthly newsletters of news of hope, news of concern. We
Speaker 4: do blogs, we do webinars, We do all sorts of
Speaker 4: education materials even in schools and for other groups. Again
Speaker 4: and to bring this kind of non partisan, inclusive voice
Speaker 4: to the to the broader discussion, if you will. So
Speaker 4: we definitely do that. We also do tailor our primers.
Speaker 4: We have different types of primers. We have those that
Speaker 4: use health and focus just on how climate change impacts
Speaker 4: our health and safety, because that's a really important way in.
Speaker 4: And we also have primers that focus more on business
Speaker 4: for business audiences because we've also been asked by many
Speaker 4: companies to come in and talk to their employees to
Speaker 4: help them understand why perhaps that company is pivoting to
Speaker 4: a new strategy because of the realities of climate change.
Speaker 4: And so, yes, we have the ability to tailor, and
Speaker 4: we have several already tailored that we are currently presented presenting.
Speaker 2: So climate change is a big topic and then there's
Speaker 2: a lot of little topics in it. You know what
Speaker 2: I'm going to ask you, how you define I think
Speaker 2: this is important Probace should have done in the beginning,
Speaker 2: But how you define climate change? Because there are people
Speaker 2: who deny it. Some people have called it global warming.
Speaker 2: It's climate change. Who it's not. We're warming. There are
Speaker 2: places that are raining more or muddy more. It's not
Speaker 2: just about heat. It's about a lot of other things.
Speaker 2: It involves food waste, which is a big topic with me.
Speaker 2: I've covered it a lot. So it's you know, how
Speaker 2: it's you said, it's a lifestyle. How would you define
Speaker 2: it to someone who says it's not my problem. I
Speaker 2: don't know if it's really true or not.
Speaker 4: Well, the way we define it often in our presentations
Speaker 4: is it's simply the changes in our long term weather
Speaker 4: patterns are hot, are cold, our rain or snow, even
Speaker 4: our wind and water currents. And when we talk about it,
Speaker 4: we talk about really the changes that we have started
Speaker 4: to feel since the mid twentieth century. So think about
Speaker 4: what was normal that then. It's very different than what
Speaker 4: is normal today. And I think most people, even deniers,
Speaker 4: are noticing that things are different, that the weather is
Speaker 4: much less predictable, that it's kind of gotten on steroids.
Speaker 4: Things that happened before are happening in a much more
Speaker 4: powerful and dangerous way. Many people say natural cycles. Our
Speaker 4: presentation addresses that straight on and helps them understand why
Speaker 4: it's not. Many people say, oh, the climate's always been changing,
Speaker 4: and we help them understand why today's changes is at
Speaker 4: a rate that is really unprecedented and is being caused
Speaker 4: by human activity, and.
Speaker 3: It's really straightforward.
Speaker 4: Once you lay out the science in a very nonpartisan,
Speaker 4: comprehensive way, that part of climate change isn't that complicated.
Speaker 3: The part that is complicated.
Speaker 4: Is how the fact that we are changing our composition
Speaker 4: of our atmosphere by putting up more greenhouse gases, primarily
Speaker 4: by burning fossil fuels, and how that is cascating across
Speaker 4: the natural systems, and how those changes are impacting, as
Speaker 4: I said before, our human systems. And that gets quite complicated,
Speaker 4: and there's lots of room for disagreement and pushback, and
Speaker 4: we recognize that.
Speaker 3: But the science is.
Speaker 4: Pretty darn clear, and what we can see and experience
Speaker 4: with our own eyes and in our own backyards is
Speaker 4: getting clear as well. And so I think that really
Speaker 4: helps us that once we lay it out in a
Speaker 4: very welcoming, nonpartisan, here's the fact kind of way, we
Speaker 4: really can get people to open their minds and go, wow,
Speaker 4: this is something I need to care about.
Speaker 2: I think those are really good points. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: it becomes a hotbed because you've got companies that you know,
Speaker 2: I grew up in Chattanooga examples. I grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Speaker 2: When I grew up there in the seventies, it was
Speaker 2: named one of the most polluted cities in the United States.
Speaker 2: There was, you know, the Chicken poultry farm. The whole
Speaker 2: city smelled, the processing farm. There was Schultz Tannery smell.
Speaker 2: There was the Cisco. There was every kind of manufacturing
Speaker 2: and they were dumping into the water and they were
Speaker 2: admitting into the air, and it was filthy, and as
Speaker 2: a result, many people moved away. Chattanooga had a bad reputation.
Speaker 2: Nobody cared about it, and finally people woke up and
Speaker 2: invested in turning things around to with the mission and
Speaker 2: goal which they have succeeded doing to make it green
Speaker 2: and invest in environmental programs and also invest in fest internet,
Speaker 2: the things to make life make it more smoothly. And
Speaker 2: now it is a very hot destination in Many people,
Speaker 2: including a lot of Californians, are relocating there because it's
Speaker 2: considered safer to live there now than California seems to
Speaker 2: be burning up or falling into the ocean. And I
Speaker 2: love California. So that's an example of cities and communities
Speaker 2: becoming realizing there's a problem. But it took the bad
Speaker 2: publicity to say, oh, we got to do something because
Speaker 2: everybody was leaving, including me. That's an example.
Speaker 4: Well, I was just in Chattanooga this year. Presently, maybe
Speaker 4: it was the last fall, but recently we were just
Speaker 4: in Chattanooga, and it is a happening place. It is place,
Speaker 4: and people are so proud of it and about the
Speaker 4: fact it's becoming more of an economic powerhouse and a
Speaker 4: place that people want to live. So you're absolutely right.
Speaker 4: These things are tied directly to our quality of life
Speaker 4: and quality of our local economy.
Speaker 3: I do think.
Speaker 4: I think that in the realm of climate change, though,
Speaker 4: one of the misperceptions is that climate action has to
Speaker 4: be painful in a sacrifice, and it's just not the
Speaker 4: case anymore, right, And so you know, taking climate action
Speaker 4: is actually super smart economically that yields so much in
Speaker 4: return that it's really short sighted and expensive not to
Speaker 4: And that's a message that we've been able to also
Speaker 4: get out there that I think many people don't get
Speaker 4: because they just get hammered, Oh it's going to cost
Speaker 4: me more money. Oh it's going to drive up my
Speaker 4: energy costs, And that's just a tiny sliver that's not
Speaker 4: really the full picture at all.
Speaker 2: Well, also, you said your husband's in the relocation business.
Speaker 2: It also impacts where companies set up their businesses and
Speaker 2: where they relocate people and where people move. New Orleans
Speaker 2: is suffering because it's lost a lot of people. It
Speaker 2: lost a lot of people after Katrina, but it has
Speaker 2: continued to have a declining population because it has an
Speaker 2: image problem. It has a part, the good part of
Speaker 2: the image, but the negative part is you know, hurricanes dirty.
Speaker 2: We just had a massive blackout in the middle Memorial
Speaker 2: Day weekend, one hundred thousand people out energy because they're
Speaker 2: load shedding. You know, there are so many factors and
Speaker 2: you see it and they need, you know, and the
Speaker 2: government is a bit discombobulated on how to funnel those
Speaker 2: funds to make it happen, and they're gonna have to.
Speaker 2: It's going to be a wake up call. We thought
Speaker 2: Katrina was. It wasn't and it has to be. But
Speaker 2: I think one of the reasons it's going to be
Speaker 2: a wake up call is that economically, people are leaving
Speaker 2: and businesses aren't coming in. And that sometimes is the
Speaker 2: spark when you realize the population is exiting and investment
Speaker 2: is not coming in that's when people say we need
Speaker 2: to do something, it should be other reasons as well,
Speaker 2: like health and wellness and whatnot. But that's what I think,
Speaker 2: that's what spurred Chad Nigga.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, and you're also absolutely right that businesses
Speaker 4: are making decisions based on what is best for their
Speaker 4: bottom line, where their facilities will be safe.
Speaker 3: And also where.
Speaker 4: Where they can get the type of energy that is
Speaker 4: being mandated by many of their stakeholders, and especially if
Speaker 4: they're international companies that they're mandated on the global scale
Speaker 4: or by Europe and other people that are at the
Speaker 4: forefront that are forcing these global companies to raise their standards.
Speaker 4: And so companies have embraced clean energy and many of
Speaker 4: the climate strategies that make sense. Unfortunately, we are still
Speaker 4: in a place where it is a partisan hot potato
Speaker 4: and tend to use it to whip up their base
Speaker 4: on both sides, and that's just not helpful. But it
Speaker 4: definitely still is not. As I mean we phrase this,
Speaker 4: the vast majority of Americans are concerned about climate change.
Speaker 4: The vast majority of Americans, like almost eighty percent, want
Speaker 4: more support of clean energy, but we aren't seeing that
Speaker 4: reflected in the political actions right, both at the federal
Speaker 4: level today and at the state level in many areas.
Speaker 3: So there's a lag.
Speaker 4: There's a political lag from where the constituents really are,
Speaker 4: where the action is.
Speaker 2: And the sad thing about that is that people give
Speaker 2: up and they go, I give up. I can't you know,
Speaker 2: they move into their little bubble and do nothing, and
Speaker 2: you don't want that. So I here's my question to you.
Speaker 2: What when you you and your volunteers go talking to
Speaker 2: communities and you're in large communities and small I think
Speaker 2: a lot of the people in the underschool what can
Speaker 2: I really do? Is it really it's above anything I
Speaker 2: can control because of the unfortunately the bureaucracy of layers
Speaker 2: that change policy. What can people, individual people do or
Speaker 2: small groups of people do in their own communities, because
Speaker 2: there's really grassroots this is where you can make the
Speaker 2: biggest steps. What can they do? What simple steps? Would
Speaker 2: you say?
Speaker 4: So while you say that people are eager to do
Speaker 4: things that I would say that while people are concerned,
Speaker 4: they rank it quite low on their hierarchy of what
Speaker 4: when they go to vote, So it may be fourteenth, seventeenth,
Speaker 4: twenty ninth, so hello, it needs to get high.
Speaker 3: It needs to be one of the first.
Speaker 4: Things that you say is important to you when go
Speaker 4: to vote, because it impacts the things that you do
Speaker 4: care about most. Your family's health, your job, you know,
Speaker 4: the safety and viability of your community. Immigration is greatly
Speaker 4: impacted by climate change. So anything you care about almost
Speaker 4: I mean, I know, I'm making a blanket statement is
Speaker 4: impacted by climate joints, and we have to help people
Speaker 4: connect those dots and bring it much further forward. It's
Speaker 4: also a topic that's not spoken about a lot. Most
Speaker 4: people don't hear it spoken about very much at all,
Speaker 4: and so they aren't aware of just how strong the
Speaker 4: support is amongst others to have climate action to become
Speaker 4: a safer situation, and so raising your voice talking about
Speaker 4: it is one of the most important things you can do.
Speaker 4: Taking action on a local basis. There's all sorts of
Speaker 4: ways of getting involved in helping smart smart and I'm
Speaker 4: gonna say smart not just willy nilly action at the
Speaker 4: local basis, from helping to ensure there's enough of a
Speaker 4: green canopy and areas that currently are more exposed because
Speaker 4: that is one way of mitigating that extraordinary heat that's coming,
Speaker 4: to helping local regulations on water and land usage and
Speaker 4: even on clean energy access and construction to enable that transition,
Speaker 4: because sometimes we need to do an investment up front
Speaker 4: to have a lot of savings on the other side,
Speaker 4: and that's been a real hiccup for people who aren't
Speaker 4: willing to make that investment in order to get those savings.
Speaker 4: But that's where governments and policymakers can really play an
Speaker 4: important part. But only if you raise your voice and
Speaker 4: say it's important. And I want to just call out
Speaker 4: Texas for a minute, because in Texas is a really
Speaker 4: interesting place right now. They are the number one producer
Speaker 4: of renewables. It's like they are the powerhouse of the
Speaker 4: country right now, which is kind of shocking. But in
Speaker 4: solar and when batteries, they are just making it happen.
Speaker 4: And part of that is that they are deregulated energy
Speaker 4: market and they really allow the market to push things forward,
Speaker 4: and when solar and battery are pretty darn and expensive
Speaker 4: and in many places less expensive than the fossil fuels.
Speaker 4: So there was a real move a foot this just
Speaker 4: last month to kind of corral the growth of renewables, saying, whoa,
Speaker 4: we can't let that happen. We have to boost fossil
Speaker 4: fuels and hinder renewables. And it passed one part of
Speaker 4: their legislator, but didn't make it over the finish line.
Speaker 4: And at the same time, what did make it over
Speaker 4: the finish line, and let's see if it gets vetoed
Speaker 4: is support of clean energy for distributed energy on rooftops.
Speaker 2: So interesting?
Speaker 3: What made that happen?
Speaker 4: That had to be pushed back from businesses and rate
Speaker 4: payers and numbers are saying, hey.
Speaker 3: It's going to be more expensive. What are you doing? Stop?
Speaker 2: And it's the pocketbook.
Speaker 4: It matters economics, and there's the bottom line, and the
Speaker 4: constituents' desire to have this.
Speaker 3: Energy was strong enough to stop this political push.
Speaker 2: It's interesting, correct.
Speaker 3: And we'll see if it's stay stout next year it
Speaker 3: could be back.
Speaker 4: But I thought it was a fascinating tale because I
Speaker 4: don't know that that could have happened five years ago,
Speaker 4: ten years ago. I think it's because clean energy now
Speaker 4: it's something people desire and is less expensive and gives
Speaker 4: all these added benefits, and people are recognizing it.
Speaker 2: I think people just need to realize and understand the
Speaker 2: benefits and that it's not beyond them that they have
Speaker 2: to be part of a you know, part of solving it.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, apathy goes nowhere, advocacy does. And
Speaker 2: you don't have to be an activist. You can be
Speaker 2: an advocate and say I support it, but you know,
Speaker 2: it's important to have awareness. I think that what might
Speaker 2: be helpful on your website. It would be really good
Speaker 2: to see some books suggested reading on this topic. I am,
Speaker 2: as we were talking, one of the people I wish
Speaker 2: and I'm going to ask you about environmental people in
Speaker 2: time you'd love to have met. I would love to
Speaker 2: have met Rachel Carson, Oh, yeah, who wrote Silent Spring,
Speaker 2: and she ended up about pesticides and the impact on
Speaker 2: health and later died of cancer. And we know that
Speaker 2: the use of pesticides does directly impact your health. And
Speaker 2: I have you know, I am a breast cancer survivor,
Speaker 2: so I always wonder, you know, even though I have
Speaker 2: the genetic gene if the air in New York after
Speaker 2: September eleventh augmented the situation because it was very toxic
Speaker 2: air and a lot of people developed cancer after that.
Speaker 2: And I always wonder because I was living fairly close
Speaker 2: to ground zero on fourteenth Street, So you wonder about that,
Speaker 2: but I'd like to have met her. But I think
Speaker 2: you know, I've made a note to read that book.
Speaker 2: I've actually never read it. I've only heard about it,
Speaker 2: which is why I thought reading lists would be helpful
Speaker 2: to understand the impact. Who what, Who in the world
Speaker 2: of environmental advocacy or activism would you like to meet
Speaker 2: and why or do you respect? Right now? Why?
Speaker 4: Wow, that's a tough question.
Speaker 3: Well, one I would.
Speaker 4: Say is Heyhoe, Catherine Hayho Okay, the chief scientist of
Speaker 4: the Nature CONCERNCY. Now, she is a climate scientist who
Speaker 4: is also an evangelical that she hails from Texas. I
Speaker 4: think she was Canadian originally, but now she's been living
Speaker 4: in Texas and she is one of those people who
Speaker 4: can connect the dots in a really great way. I mean,
Speaker 4: she's a scientist, but be she has the compassion to
Speaker 4: reach across the aisle, to reach people who see things differently,
Speaker 4: and to even reach to and evangelicals, which is a
Speaker 4: group that has historically uh to embrace climate change. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and in some cases reticent to even believe that. You know,
Speaker 4: the Earth is as old as many scientists say it is.
Speaker 4: But think it'stead that I believe started like around two
Speaker 4: thousand years ago. Any of your evangelical listeners can correct me,
Speaker 4: which which makes it hard for some of our slides,
Speaker 4: because we go back and rush, you know, eight hundred
Speaker 4: thousand years ago, twenty thousand goes to how aberrant today
Speaker 4: is to help them understand. But Katherine Hahoe has a
Speaker 4: book called Saving Nature, which is a wonderful book. And
Speaker 4: Catherine herself is just a force of nature and one
Speaker 4: that is so well respected on the international stage, so
Speaker 4: she would definitely be someone I interested.
Speaker 2: I'll look her up. I'm not familiar with her.
Speaker 4: And if you think about what we're doing, fossil fuels
Speaker 4: are just bits of plant and animal manner that fell
Speaker 4: to the earth millions of years ago, got silted over
Speaker 4: and with time heat and pressure pulled deep underground and
Speaker 4: turned into pools of elemental carbon, which we call oil,
Speaker 4: natural gas, and coal. It was deep underground, and then
Speaker 4: humans came and said, really rich and energy portable, really storable,
Speaker 4: I'm going to use it, and they created this vibrant
Speaker 4: economy that we all have benefited from. But they were
Speaker 4: taking in that carbon that was deep underground over millions
Speaker 4: and millions of years. I started pumping it up in
Speaker 4: the atmosphere at alarmingly fast rates, as much as forty
Speaker 4: tons of carbon every single year. So that is upsetting
Speaker 4: the balance that always existed, and I don't think people
Speaker 4: have computed that in their brains that what we've done
Speaker 4: is kind of push nature out of the balance that
Speaker 4: has existed since human civilization has been on the planet.
Speaker 2: Actually, it's a simple in summarizing that. It's an imbalance
Speaker 2: of nature when nature becomes inbound, and if you look
Speaker 2: at it, it's like your body. When your body becomes
Speaker 2: toxic and imbalanced, you get sick.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess you would would say that. I guess
Speaker 4: what I would say is we're putting it into a
Speaker 4: different balance, and one that our species isn't suited for,
Speaker 4: because nature goes in and out of different balances all
Speaker 4: the time. And the fact that she happens to have
Speaker 4: lingered at the sixty degrees fahrenheit kind of typical temperature
Speaker 4: for the last ten thousand years was lucky for us
Speaker 4: because it's really good for our species. But it's not
Speaker 4: like that's where nature wants to revert back to. So
Speaker 4: if we knock the temperatures up to higher temperatures. It's
Speaker 4: not like nature wants to come back to that balance point.
Speaker 4: So I guess, I guess you're right and thinking that
Speaker 4: we're making her sick, But I think it's more that
Speaker 4: we're knocking her into a space that is no longer
Speaker 4: suitable for us.
Speaker 2: But that's a great way to explain it to people
Speaker 2: that it's beyond them for some when you get into
Speaker 2: science and the word fossil fuel, which I quickly looked
Speaker 2: up while you were talking, because there are a lot
Speaker 2: of people who don't know what fossil fuel is. It's
Speaker 2: you know, there are terms that are confusing, which also
Speaker 2: would be helpful, is like what the terms mean, because
Speaker 2: I looked up a few while we were talking, because
Speaker 2: you want to use them correctly, but you want to
Speaker 2: better understand what carbon emissions is. You know, it's bad,
Speaker 2: but what really is it? You know, how is it?
Speaker 2: How is it created? And why is it bad? You know,
Speaker 2: because people talk about cows and the carbon emission, you know,
Speaker 2: on and on and on, and I think, uh, delineating
Speaker 2: it and explaining it, which you can do through communication,
Speaker 2: is critical because otherwise people kind of shut down because
Speaker 2: they don't understand right, well.
Speaker 4: So let me let me then give your audience a
Speaker 4: tiny little bit of knowledge on that. So, sure, greenhouse
Speaker 4: gases are critically important to making the planet habitable. Without them,
Speaker 4: were totally frozen. But they only make up a teeny
Speaker 4: tiny portion of our atmosphere, less than one percent. And
Speaker 4: when we talk about green house gases, primarily are talking
Speaker 4: about carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and even water vapor,
Speaker 4: which goes up and down really really fast. So without
Speaker 4: these greenhouse gases, as I said, we wouldn't have enough
Speaker 4: of the solar radiance captured to make us livable. And
Speaker 4: because there's so few of them, when we add to
Speaker 4: them by burning fossil feels really fast.
Speaker 3: We're kind of we call it thickening the.
Speaker 4: Blanket, making them more insulating, if you will, so let
Speaker 4: me rephrase this, Let me stop.
Speaker 3: This isn't good. Let me rephrase this.
Speaker 4: Okay, So let me explain what greenhouse gases are.
Speaker 3: Greenhouse gases are literally a tiny.
Speaker 4: Portion of our atmosphere that is comprised of these specific
Speaker 4: gases like carbon dioxide, methane, nitros oxide, and even vapor.
Speaker 4: Out of them, we would have a frozen planet. But
Speaker 4: when we add to them, they simply do their jobs
Speaker 4: too well, and that heats up the earth further and
Speaker 4: adds energy into our climate systems.
Speaker 2: You did a very good job explaining it, and I
Speaker 2: think you know we were cutting towards the end of
Speaker 2: the conversation here, but I think it's important to underscore
Speaker 2: a couple of things. Kathleen begins you. You had a
Speaker 2: prior life. It was successful. You chose to move into
Speaker 2: another dimension of it through your volunteerism, which I think
Speaker 2: is really in your community activities that you did after
Speaker 2: you left your full time job to care for your family.
Speaker 2: You found a purpose and passion to help create conversations
Speaker 2: around something that is important to all of us, which
Speaker 2: is climate change. It's not political, it's not actism. Its
Speaker 2: awareness and advocacy to help people in different communities understand
Speaker 2: that climate change is going to impact you everyone, all
Speaker 2: of us, whether it's your health, your safety, your environment,
Speaker 2: your pocket book, your ability to find work if you
Speaker 2: are going somewhere and the jobs are ount because people
Speaker 2: go elsewhere, it basically affects your life. And if you
Speaker 2: think it doesn't, you really are mistaken. And it's time
Speaker 2: to understand it. Even if you understand it in the
Speaker 2: basic way, like you explain that, it is important because
Speaker 2: even long after you and I are gone, you've got children.
Speaker 2: It will impact them. And really, at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, you know, you want to leave the world
Speaker 2: in a better place.
Speaker 4: Yes, indeed, I think all of us want to leave
Speaker 4: the world at least as good as we were given
Speaker 4: it for our kids exactly. And that's a universal feeling
Speaker 4: really across the island and across the and I think
Speaker 4: that is one of the driving forces that gets people
Speaker 4: to the table to understand this risk.
Speaker 2: Right well, you know, thank you for making the comedy,
Speaker 2: pushing the conversation forward, because without that important skill of communication,
Speaker 2: it would just go under the you know, into the heap,
Speaker 2: as they say, with with other waste and things that
Speaker 2: people do. Oh, that's messy. I don't want to talk
Speaker 2: about it. No, it's not. It is messy, and you
Speaker 2: do want to talk about it. And sometimes it's very
Speaker 2: important to talk about very messy, difficult things so that
Speaker 2: we can understand how they impact us. So we've been
Speaker 2: talking to we're going to you know, Kathleen Biggins, who
Speaker 2: has founded Sea Change, It's Sea Dash Change Conversations dot org.
Speaker 2: It is a nonprofit and you can actually go on
Speaker 2: the site and ask to have a speaker come to you.
Speaker 2: You've talked to twenty two thousand people in thirty thirty
Speaker 2: three states. It looks like it looks like Alabama needs
Speaker 2: some work here, Alabama and most of the Midway in
Speaker 2: the Rocky Mountains could use some help. But it's good
Speaker 2: to see how far you have come. Congratulations on this,
Speaker 2: and I wish you all the best moving the conversation
Speaker 2: forward even more.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you, Melanie. It's been a.
Speaker 2: Pleasure, absolutely so you've been listening to Fearless Fabulous you.
Speaker 2: I will post this show on my site, my page
Speaker 2: and on LinkedIn and everywhere else to share it with
Speaker 2: you as well. And I hope this has really raised
Speaker 2: your awareness but also your idea of why it matters.
Speaker 2: Because it does. And as I always like to say
Speaker 2: on the show at the end, you know you have
Speaker 2: one life. You can choose to live it on your
Speaker 2: terms or on terms that people set for you. I
Speaker 2: chose a long time ago to live on my terms
Speaker 2: and I choose fearless and fabulous, and I hope you
Speaker 2: do too. Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 4: The St.