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Speaker 5: Oh hey, it's technically expired yogurt. That's probably still fine
Speaker 5: and may be even more alive. Ali Ward back with
Speaker 5: a promised special episode of Ologies. Oh what a couple
Speaker 5: of weeks it's been my god. If you're a patron,
Speaker 5: a patriar and O kompslash ologies, you know that I
Speaker 5: was in the er and why. But if you're not,
Speaker 5: and you're like, what did you die? I did not,
Speaker 5: but I will one day, but just not today. At
Speaker 5: the end of the episode, during the secret portion, I'll
Speaker 5: tell you why I find myself in the er for
Speaker 5: seven hours during a pandemic. But I thought I deserved
Speaker 5: some weekend loafing. I said to myself, Fuck all, let's
Speaker 5: make this intended bonus episode a full blown Tuesday one.
Speaker 2: Shall we?
Speaker 6: We?
Speaker 2: Shall? We did? Here?
Speaker 5: We are okay. So this is a really great conversation
Speaker 5: with my old pal, see Andrew Hall. He is an
Speaker 5: Emmy Award nominated editor, my first friend I ever made
Speaker 5: in LA decades ago, and the person who really helped
Speaker 5: me pave my path to being a science communicator by
Speaker 5: introducing me to find folks at Innovation Nation on CBS,
Speaker 5: which we're now shooting our eighth season. I'm recording this
Speaker 5: in a hotel room outside of Detroit shooting actually, to
Speaker 5: be honest, Innovation Nation check your local listings. It's on Saturdays, CBS.
Speaker 5: But first I want to say thank you to all
Speaker 5: the folks supporting via patreon dot com slash ologies. Thank
Speaker 5: you to everyone who recommends ologies to friends and family
Speaker 5: and who rates. Of course, to everyone who leaves reviews
Speaker 5: such as this fresh one. It was written by sev
Speaker 5: one two three, four five I'm a feeling, not the
Speaker 5: real name, but they said I have severe depression and
Speaker 5: listening to this podcast makes me feel so much better.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Ally sev one two three four five. Thank
Speaker 5: you for finding the time to write that, and I
Speaker 5: really appreciate you back. I hope this episode helps with
Speaker 5: some of the existential gloom we all feel. Actually, I
Speaker 5: know it well, so let's get into it, okay. So
Speaker 5: Andy first told me about the draw Down design project
Speaker 5: two years ago. He was vexed by climate change and
Speaker 5: he was inspired by the draw Down project discussed in
Speaker 5: the How to Save a Planet episode that we aired
Speaker 5: last week. And so draw down is the point at
Speaker 5: which greenhouse gases start to decline, which is the goal
Speaker 5: of folks aiming to reverse human cost climate change. So
Speaker 5: you will hear how Andy has always had environmentalism in
Speaker 5: mind and the power of art to start conversations and movements.
Speaker 5: How to approach climate change feeling less terrified and more empowered,
Speaker 5: How optimism helps scientists find solutions, and the social and
Speaker 5: cultural aspects of eco concerns. How sexism is not healthy
Speaker 5: for anyone really, Plus solar panels, babies, steak Zeus voting,
Speaker 5: comic books, movie posters, snack tables, what choices you make
Speaker 5: matter most? And how commissioning the world's best artists and
Speaker 5: illustrators to make climate gig posters is his calling in life.
Speaker 5: So I went over to his house one night after
Speaker 5: his kiddos were in bed. We were sip and whiskey
Speaker 5: and we were talking solutions and shooting the shit with
Speaker 5: my old old friend who is also the guy who
Speaker 5: now has to edit me on Innovation Nation every week
Speaker 5: and the founder and creative director of the nonprofit draw
Speaker 5: Down Design Project, Andy Hall.
Speaker 2: Did you, nerd know? Do you know who the fucking
Speaker 2: editor is?
Speaker 6: Me?
Speaker 2: And the tables? Some toned?
Speaker 6: Sorry?
Speaker 2: I know how many hours of my stupid face of
Speaker 2: your edit? What I know? Okay?
Speaker 5: The first thing I make you do is if you
Speaker 5: can say your first and last name in your pronouns
Speaker 5: you we're on.
Speaker 6: My name is Sandra Hall. Everyone calls me Andy. My
Speaker 6: pronouns are him? Is him? Yep?
Speaker 2: Correct? How long have we known each other? Sandrew Hall?
Speaker 6: My god, nineteen ninety nine, I know, so that is
Speaker 6: twenty oh years.
Speaker 2: That's crazy.
Speaker 6: Do people want to hear our like meeting story? Is
Speaker 6: that the kind of well?
Speaker 5: I think it's relevant, and I think it's relevant. You
Speaker 5: were one of my first non like came here, moved
Speaker 5: with roommates like you were one of my first people
Speaker 5: friends and I met.
Speaker 6: In La me too.
Speaker 2: In the time. You had a ponytail and birkenstocks.
Speaker 6: I never wore birkenstocks. I realized how you could, how
Speaker 6: you could add that to the image based on what
Speaker 6: I looked like. But I definitely never wore works.
Speaker 2: Did you wear tevas?
Speaker 6: I probably wore t Yeah, potato potato, Well, I disagree, but.
Speaker 5: Okay, they're they are They're a different vibe, they're a
Speaker 5: different five.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I met you you were a PA or
Speaker 5: you were a DGA trainee.
Speaker 6: I was a production assistant yeah, in Barbie commercial.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I was working craft service. Was it Taco
Speaker 2: Bell or Jack of the Box?
Speaker 6: It was Taco Bell. Before we move on, I think
Speaker 6: people should know about your craft service table.
Speaker 5: Okay, Yeah, well you talked about it. Okay, I still
Speaker 5: stand by it. I stand by standing by that craft
Speaker 5: service tab.
Speaker 6: So when I was this production assistant on the Barber commercial,
Speaker 6: I was stuck in this hallway and also in the hallway,
Speaker 6: same hallway, but from the stage next door in the
Speaker 6: Taco Bell commercial was Ali Ward and your craft service table.
Speaker 6: And I've seen a lot of craft service tables in
Speaker 6: my day, and I'm pretty sure this is the cutest, quirkiest,
Speaker 6: funnest craft service table ever.
Speaker 2: Right, you need levels levels.
Speaker 6: You had the risers. I had risers, right, and tablecloth
Speaker 6: over it. Yep. So each item was on its own
Speaker 6: little pedestal, and then you had a little placard for
Speaker 6: each item.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, yeah, you gotta label it. People need to
Speaker 5: know are these peanut butter pretzels? Are these sour patches?
Speaker 5: What am I about to eat?
Speaker 2: Here?
Speaker 6: Is this humus? Is this a cliff bar?
Speaker 2: Yes? What is it?
Speaker 6: Yea? And the when Ali posts on her Instagram, she
Speaker 6: has that blackboard with that like Ali font that tells
Speaker 6: you what theologist is. That is the exact handwriting. That's
Speaker 6: Ali's handwriting. I assume everyone knows that. I don't know
Speaker 6: that's the exact handwriting that was on each placard, and
Speaker 6: that The funny thing is that it's not like she
Speaker 6: doesn't try to do that. That's how Ali writes, like
Speaker 6: it was a grocery list, Like that's what it looks like.
Speaker 2: You're not wrong. You're not wrong.
Speaker 5: But I remember you were stuck by this Barbie door
Speaker 5: for so long, and I was like.
Speaker 2: Your graft service sucks. If you want to hate some
Speaker 2: of ours, you know, I eat some cheese.
Speaker 5: Man, and then we struck up a conversation and we've
Speaker 5: been friends forever. It's a good thing at a good
Speaker 5: craft service table.
Speaker 6: Yes, and now I'm on your podcast. What the fuck?
Speaker 5: I didn't realize that you had studied environmental engineering? Yes,
Speaker 5: so what did your Is that what your bachelor's is in? Yes,
Speaker 5: in environmental engineering?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 2: How did you get into film?
Speaker 6: I worked on a set when I was a senior
Speaker 6: in college, and I got the bug and I moved
Speaker 6: to LA and then I ended up on Barbie commercial
Speaker 6: next to Ally Ward.
Speaker 5: The rest, as they say, is history. It's just slowly
Speaker 5: warming seawater rising under a bridge. So in the interim,
Speaker 5: we both got married. Andy is now the dad to
Speaker 5: two adorable kiddos with his wife, doctor Erica Hall, and
Speaker 5: a few years ago Andy bought the twenty seventeen book
Speaker 5: draw Down, the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse
Speaker 5: global warming, by environmental scientists Paul Hawkin and Catherine Wilkinson,
Speaker 5: who was on last week's guest episode How to Save
Speaker 5: a Planet, and Catherine and doctor Diana Elizabeth Johnson co
Speaker 5: edited the book All we Can Save about Climate solutions too.
Speaker 5: But sorry, we're getting ahead of ourselves here. Tell me
Speaker 5: about draw Down, Tell me about what kind of captivated
Speaker 5: you about that research and about that book that you're read.
Speaker 6: It's just basically a list of solutions to global warming
Speaker 6: mm hmm, both sinks that suck greenhouse gases out of
Speaker 6: the atmosphere and ways to reduce putting more greenhouse gases
Speaker 6: into the atmosphere. And it's very nerdy and just like math.
Speaker 6: It's just like they got statistics, but a bunch of
Speaker 6: scientists they modeled all these solutions and they just made
Speaker 6: a list of which are the different ones, which are
Speaker 6: maybe the best, and what we should focus on. And
Speaker 6: it's like, I really responded to how pragmatic it is.
Speaker 6: It's super apolitical. It's just like, here's what we need
Speaker 6: to do. And it's so inspiring because a when you
Speaker 6: read it, you learn we have the solutions, like this
Speaker 6: is something that is completely doable, and you realize how
Speaker 6: practical the problem is. It's just this practical problem that
Speaker 6: we have to solve. It's not this pie and the
Speaker 6: sky thing, and the way the way the media covers
Speaker 6: climate change, the climate anxiety of spreads online, there's sort
Speaker 6: of this fog around what to do about it, and
Speaker 6: this really cuts through that. It's just like, here's what
Speaker 6: we need to do. Here's a list. I just found
Speaker 6: that really inspiring because I don't I don't encounter that
Speaker 6: a lot. Right when you're when you're doom scrolling on
Speaker 6: your phone, it's not like this, this really pragmatic list of
Speaker 6: the things you just need to do. And that's part
Speaker 6: of my it's partially my personality, Like I just respond
Speaker 6: to that kind of thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think a lot of us are like I
Speaker 5: just do I use paper straws. Well, things get better then,
Speaker 5: and all of us are very confused about our individual
Speaker 5: responsibility versus how can we move a needle politically or
Speaker 5: socially so that this.
Speaker 2: Can kind of reverse itself. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I remember we were we met up for coffee when
Speaker 5: you found this book, and you were like, what do
Speaker 5: you think some of the biggest contributors to global warming are? Like,
Speaker 5: what are some of the biggest changes we need to make?
Speaker 5: And yeah, I was like, we gotta stop toasting bagels.
Speaker 2: Like I didn't know the game.
Speaker 6: To ask that question.
Speaker 2: Do you ever do that? At hey cocktail parties? You
Speaker 2: got anyone want to guess what's number three on the list?
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 6: I mean I've tried. That's not the best cocktail party.
Speaker 6: It's hard to it's hard to do that. You have
Speaker 6: to pick your moments right with that game. But it's yeah,
Speaker 6: it's really fun because when you look at the book,
Speaker 6: it's like, not always the things you think it's gonna.
Speaker 5: Which is the whole point. We don't have these conversations enough,
Speaker 5: and everyone runs around in their own little anxiety bubble
Speaker 5: about how it's their individual responsibility to reverse climate change.
Speaker 5: No one wants to be the bummer at a dinner party,
Speaker 5: and the problem seems so enormous, so we don't talk
Speaker 5: about it in casual, positive, proactive ways. But when Andy
Speaker 5: showed me this draw down book list, my verbatim reaction
Speaker 5: was like, wait, wait, wait, what I did not know
Speaker 5: about this? What if I recall correctly? Probably I said
Speaker 5: to Ford more times about whatever? How many can you
Speaker 5: list off from memory and order? Probably at least at
Speaker 5: least the first couple.
Speaker 2: I'm sure.
Speaker 6: Well it honestly, it keeps changing because they keep updating it. Okay,
Speaker 6: but the number one thing, I think it's no longer
Speaker 6: number one, But the number one thing when the book
Speaker 6: first came out was properly recycling your refrigerants.
Speaker 5: Shocking. I'm like, refrigerator, what I feel like. I had
Speaker 5: never heard the refrigerants were even a problem in terms
Speaker 5: of global warming until we were sitting in that coffee shop.
Speaker 6: It's a huge problem. And what's great about that one
Speaker 6: is it's not it's not it's something we think we
Speaker 6: can all agree on, Like, let's just recycle our refrigerants properly.
Speaker 6: It doesn't require a revolution in the energy sector. It
Speaker 6: doesn't require everyone to stop flying to see their grandmother.
Speaker 6: It's like the kind of thing that we could just do.
Speaker 6: And since the book came out, there has been a
Speaker 6: lot of movement on that, and there's a lot of
Speaker 6: that happening. And those are the kind of things that
Speaker 6: are easy, you know, low hanging fruit solutions.
Speaker 5: Okay, what is up with refrigerants? It is not a
Speaker 5: chill situation. So hydrofluorocarbons are organic compounds. They're made of
Speaker 5: carbon fluorine and hydrogen atoms, but they're made by humans
Speaker 5: and they can warm the atmosphere a thousand to nine
Speaker 5: thousand times more than carbon dioxide. Oopsie, we made this stuff.
Speaker 5: So a lot of the leakage, about ninety percent, happens
Speaker 5: at the disposal phase. So can we just use something
Speaker 5: else when we can? There are natural things like propane
Speaker 5: and ammonium that are less hard on the planet, and
Speaker 5: so hydrofluorocarbons are starting to get phased out now more.
Speaker 5: There was even legislation about winding down their production that
Speaker 5: was kind of just tucked in, just kind of crammed
Speaker 5: in there into the COVID nineteen relief bill that was
Speaker 5: passed in December twenty twenty. Which is why voting in
Speaker 5: local elections and congressional ones has more impact than the
Speaker 5: paper bag that you had to use a trade of
Speaker 5: Jose because you stopped on the way home from work
Speaker 5: and you forgot your usual tote. Stop beating yourself up
Speaker 5: about it. Forgive yourself, I forgive you.
Speaker 2: What are some of the other big ones?
Speaker 6: I mean, the big one is really electrifying everything. So
Speaker 6: the big ones in the energy sector are if you're
Speaker 6: trying to electrify your sources of energy. That's obviously solar
Speaker 6: farms on shore and offshore wind, rooftop solar nuclear, which
Speaker 6: is controversial. There's other funky ones like burning biomass and
Speaker 6: like converting waste to energy, but the big ones are
Speaker 6: all the kinds of solar and wind power, really and
Speaker 6: that's the main thing that really needs to happen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, is stop combusting a bunch of coal and barfing
Speaker 5: carbon into the atmosphere.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5: And let's start using all of this solar radiation that
Speaker 5: is barding the planet anyway.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, And I am not a client scientist, nor am
Speaker 6: I an energy expert, but I'm just inspired by the
Speaker 6: how doable it really is. Like all this technology exists,
Speaker 6: it doesn't need to be invented, exists. It's way ahead
Speaker 6: of where anyone thought it was going to be ten
Speaker 6: years ago. And we and by way, I mean politicians
Speaker 6: and people who run big companies. They if we get
Speaker 6: them to could just do it. It would be easy.
Speaker 6: Not easy is maybe the wrong word, but it's doable.
Speaker 2: It's not completely unfeasible.
Speaker 5: We're not just like on a crash course toward an
Speaker 5: incinerating planet. Where everyone's children and babies are all just
Speaker 5: crackling toast because it's too hot correct, which.
Speaker 6: Is worth noting that it's worth noting that no one
Speaker 6: really thinks that's going to happen, I know, the worst circumstances,
Speaker 6: despite the fact that the media makes it seem like
Speaker 6: that's what's going to happen, But there are really terrible
Speaker 6: outcomes that we can still right.
Speaker 5: I feel like when you started looking into this, you
Speaker 5: seemed like you were very motivated by the fact that
Speaker 5: you had a daughter. Yeah, a very cute, smart, wonderful daughter,
Speaker 5: and he thought, oh, I gotta leave this place better
Speaker 5: than I found it, I suppose. So is that what
Speaker 5: motivated Good Old DDP the Drawdown Design project.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's certainly part of it. And the other thing
Speaker 6: that happens when you have kids is it's like instant
Speaker 6: ego death reevaluate what matters. You know, it's such a cliche,
Speaker 6: but it's completely true. You just realize all the bullshit
Speaker 6: that you've been spending your time on in your twenties
Speaker 6: is like, maybe it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: It starts you see the clock ticking and you think, like, yeah,
Speaker 6: what can I work on? What can I do.
Speaker 5: I feel that same way with about Grammy. She's gonna
Speaker 5: die before me, but I'm still ha been the planet
Speaker 5: for her. But have you had you ever taken on
Speaker 5: a design project like this before? I mean you've directed,
Speaker 5: and you've produced, and you've edited, and you've been nominated
Speaker 5: for Emmys and all this stuff.
Speaker 6: I mean no, in the sense of illustration, definitely, But
Speaker 6: it wasn't initially. I didn't initially come to illustration like
Speaker 6: I was initially after I read this book, just inspired
Speaker 6: by it and frustrated by how this approach to climate change.
Speaker 6: I didn't see that reflected in at least the media
Speaker 6: and art and conversations that I was having. Yeah, so
Speaker 6: I just I wanted this way of seeing, you know
Speaker 6: that we have the solutions, positive mindset. I wanted to
Speaker 6: see more of that in the world, And when I didn't,
Speaker 6: then I started thinking about, like me, how could I
Speaker 6: get it into the world.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we were talking about how it's not necessarily something
Speaker 5: you would bring up at a cocktail party at this
Speaker 5: stage in like where we're at with culture. But I
Speaker 5: remember you saying I want something that you can hang
Speaker 5: on the wall that would be a beautiful art piece
Speaker 5: that you could talk about with people, so that climate
Speaker 5: change and what we needed to do as people wasn't
Speaker 5: just like, well, we're fucked, but actually, okay, this is
Speaker 5: a conversation I'm having. And I also think it should
Speaker 5: be noted that a big fan of fish and gig posters,
Speaker 5: is that kind of what led you to do something
Speaker 5: so visual?
Speaker 6: Yeah, of course, I mean there is an aspect of
Speaker 6: it where I'm a comic book fan and I love
Speaker 6: gig posters and I love alternative movie posters, And because
Speaker 6: I knew that world and I knew those illustrators, it
Speaker 6: just seemed obvious and obvious way to tap into that
Speaker 6: kind of talent and just to make cool climate art,
Speaker 6: you know. I mean that a nice way to say this,
Speaker 6: you know, like there's just a lot of really lame
Speaker 6: climate art out there, right, you need any more crying earths.
Speaker 6: We don't need any more sad polar bears on a
Speaker 6: nice flow, you know, Like we don't need another there's
Speaker 6: no planet planet b m M poster. Like I just
Speaker 6: want to see some cool climate art that's positive and
Speaker 6: like reflects the excitement that it that there is going on,
Speaker 6: and like the kind of climate solution community.
Speaker 5: So in the Is Your Carbon Footprint BS episode of
Speaker 5: How to Save a Planet that we ran last week,
Speaker 5: doctor Johnson and Alex Blomberg talked about how the term
Speaker 5: carbon footprint was pushed by fossil fuel companies to kind
Speaker 5: of shift the environmental burden onto consumers, sort of a
Speaker 5: why are you hitting yourself move but involving mass extinctions.
Speaker 5: And then they crunch some numbers to reveal that the
Speaker 5: average Americans pretty big carbon footprint. It's sixteen tons of
Speaker 5: emissions yearly is zero point zero zero zero zero's zero
Speaker 5: zero zero zero zero three percent of global emissions. So
Speaker 5: they said that is a decimal point, and then nine
Speaker 5: zeros and then a three, so yes, pitching in to
Speaker 5: lower RS matters. But there are big systemic things that
Speaker 5: are at work here. So the Drawdown team of over
Speaker 5: two hundred scientists and policy makers made a list of
Speaker 5: technically viable existing solutions and found that refrigerants were a
Speaker 5: big deal. Food waste is another big one. Family planning,
Speaker 5: tropical forest restoration for carbon sinks, and onshore wind turbines
Speaker 5: were also biggies. So big solutions to big problems. So
Speaker 5: Andy read this and was inspired to help communicate these
Speaker 5: strategies in a very visually arresting way. He also loves concerts,
Speaker 5: So think of a gig poster or a movie poster
Speaker 5: or comic book art. He commissioned four, each with one theme.
Speaker 5: We're going to describe them each. Also, just so you know,
Speaker 5: I really believe even this project from its very inception,
Speaker 5: I make no money from this, obviously, this is a
Speaker 5: nonprofit endeavor. I'm actually buying some and we're doing a
Speaker 5: giveaway on Instagram this week viaologies Instagram and the draw
Speaker 5: Down Design Project Instagram. So follow draw Down Design Project
Speaker 5: on Instagram. But yes, the designs.
Speaker 2: How did you come to the four that you decided on?
Speaker 6: Well, to be honest, with your help, I got together
Speaker 6: a room full of interesting people and we just talked
Speaker 6: about it.
Speaker 2: Way smarter than us.
Speaker 6: Way smarter than us. There were some scientists, sent some
Speaker 6: people in marketing, and just some smart people we know,
Speaker 6: and yeah, we just looked through the book and all
Speaker 6: the different solutions and just kind of talked it through
Speaker 6: and kind of narrowed it down to for climate change
Speaker 6: solution themes. So the first one that I really wanted
Speaker 6: to present was like political engagement. You know, when people
Speaker 6: list the things that anyone can do for climate change,
Speaker 6: they list that you should stop flying, and you should
Speaker 6: drive an electric car, and you should get a plant
Speaker 6: based diet. And yes, those are great if you want
Speaker 6: to reflect your values in your everyday life. But really,
Speaker 6: to me, you should vote for climate candidates and you
Speaker 6: should send money to climate organizations. You know, there are
Speaker 6: a lot of studies that show that, you know, if
Speaker 6: you send money to organizations that are lobbying for climate
Speaker 6: change solutions like that, just impact dwarfs. Anything else you
Speaker 6: can do, you know. So our first print is called Engage,
Speaker 6: and it's about political engagement. That one is by this
Speaker 6: gig poster artist named Brian Steely, and I knew his
Speaker 6: work because I'm a fish fan and I've seen his
Speaker 6: work Officials, and he has this really cool Monoligne style
Speaker 6: and it depicts three figures who their arms are joined
Speaker 6: and they're all they're all presenting themselves as being engaged
Speaker 6: in the climate fight. So one has a ballot and
Speaker 6: she's maybe pushing it into a ballot box that shape
Speaker 6: like the Earth. There's a fun fisherman looking guy who
Speaker 6: has a megaphone who is, you know, shouting for his rights,
Speaker 6: and there's another guy with a placard who's probably marching.
Speaker 6: And I didn't prescribe these images to the illustrators, like
Speaker 6: I gave them the solutions that their print was going
Speaker 6: to be inspired by, and they just went with it.
Speaker 2: Oh that's great.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: What was it like for Engage when you got some
Speaker 5: of the first art back.
Speaker 6: It was pretty exciting, you know, because it definitely it's
Speaker 6: fun when you have this idea in your head of
Speaker 6: what you want something to be and then you collaborate
Speaker 6: with someone else who's really talented and they do a
Speaker 6: better job and you could you get to see it,
Speaker 6: and it was just really fun learning about the printing process.
Speaker 6: So these are all screen printed, which is a really
Speaker 6: analog process, which is traditional to gig post, which is
Speaker 6: so it's not like a digital inkjet printer if you
Speaker 6: haven't seen it before. It's like a press and the
Speaker 6: printer makes a screen for each color layer and then
Speaker 6: they individually press each layer of ink onto the paper.
Speaker 6: So it's a very analog process, and the prints themselves
Speaker 6: have like a ton of texture. The paper on this
Speaker 6: one is this really cool blue cover stock, and so
Speaker 6: when you see the blue on that one that's just
Speaker 6: the raw paper. So when you touch the blue part,
Speaker 6: it's just raw paper, there's no ink there. And then
Speaker 6: the rest of it is the ink colors. Just a
Speaker 6: combination of a super fun image that is inspired by
Speaker 6: climate change solutions and the ideas you hang something like
Speaker 6: this on your wall and when you first see it,
Speaker 6: you know the text that tells you what the solutions
Speaker 6: are is not doesn't dominate the image, and so the
Speaker 6: idea is that it's kind of an art piece first,
Speaker 6: and then it allows people to ask. Hopefully they ask
Speaker 6: you what it is, and then if you are familiar
Speaker 6: with the solutions that it's inspired by, then you can
Speaker 6: have a fun conversation about what those solutions are right.
Speaker 6: And all the solutions are things that you can do.
Speaker 6: None of these prints depict things you shouldn't do right,
Speaker 6: because a lot of environmental language and press and propaganda
Speaker 6: around environmentalism is really negative focused. It's really like about
Speaker 6: austerity and the things you shouldn't do, and that is important,
Speaker 6: there is a place for that, but I really wanted
Speaker 6: these to be positive about things that you can do affirmatively.
Speaker 5: Right, rather than things you're doing wrong. You should be
Speaker 5: ashamed of yourself.
Speaker 6: I don't think. I think we've got plenty of shame
Speaker 6: people who people who believe in climate change and believe
Speaker 6: in the climate science and are scared about it, they
Speaker 6: feel bad enough, right, I don't think I think there
Speaker 6: was a place for that initially, but I think now
Speaker 6: we need to start getting excited about what the world
Speaker 6: can look like if we do these things.
Speaker 5: And so the aim is to galvanize people and to
Speaker 5: essentially kind of get them excited about making some change
Speaker 5: and yeah, being more involved.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and just be as fun.
Speaker 5: It just should be fun, yeah, and pretty.
Speaker 6: Just yeah, the whole the point is to do something
Speaker 6: fun and exciting and like positive. You know, I want
Speaker 6: people to feel good.
Speaker 2: Right, tell me about Cultivate.
Speaker 6: Cultivate is inspired by plant based solutions to climate change,
Speaker 6: and it is by a UK based artist. Her pen
Speaker 6: name is Tula Lote. Her real name is Lisa Wood. Okay,
Speaker 6: I've been a fan of hers forever she does. She's
Speaker 6: a comic book artist. She's done some really cool stuff
Speaker 6: for Marvel and a bunch of other common companies. She
Speaker 6: also has done a bunch of alternative movie posters Formanda,
Speaker 6: which is how I know her. She has this incredible
Speaker 6: drive poster and yeah, she was on my short short list,
Speaker 6: and she said, yes.
Speaker 5: It was it Banana's getting emails back from people that
Speaker 5: you really liked their work and they were like, yeah, sure,
Speaker 5: I'm done.
Speaker 6: Yes it was bananas.
Speaker 5: Cut bangs, text your art crushes, eat more plants because
Speaker 5: your body and mind will thank you. To be honest,
Speaker 5: your guts and forehead are going to be like finally, finally, bitch.
Speaker 6: So for her it was plant based solutions. The background
Speaker 6: is all pink and the main figure is a woman
Speaker 6: in a blue dress. She's probably a farmer, you know.
Speaker 6: She's carrying a big bundle of wheat that is just
Speaker 6: gorgeously drawn. The detail in it is so so beautiful,
Speaker 6: and she's got a bamboo pole over her shoulder and
Speaker 6: she's kind of looking off into the distance. You know,
Speaker 6: I kind of go back and forth. I don't know
Speaker 6: if she's sad or determined. It's just a beautiful image.
Speaker 6: It's it's, you know, like a lot of great illustrations,
Speaker 6: it's hard to pin down exactly what it means. It's
Speaker 6: just it's evocative when you see it. Every single one
Speaker 6: of these artists when they sent me their initial idea.
Speaker 6: They would send the idea and they would invariably say,
Speaker 6: but you know, I'll tone it down a little, is
Speaker 6: what they would say, because I think they were reacting
Speaker 6: to what they have normally seen in like climate art.
Speaker 6: Is this sort of NPR tote bag, Yes, sort of
Speaker 6: toned down let's not be too crazy sensibility. And I
Speaker 6: would always email back and be like, do not, under
Speaker 6: any circumstances tone it down, so as crazy as you
Speaker 6: possibly can. Like, the whole point is for this to
Speaker 6: be as expressive as possible.
Speaker 2: And then what about Empower?
Speaker 5: I feel like Empower is one of the most colorful
Speaker 5: of the bud two.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so empower is about So empower is inspired by
Speaker 6: solutions to climate change based around health and education, primarily
Speaker 6: for women and girls. This one is this one was
Speaker 6: It took a long time to decide whether or not
Speaker 6: to include this one in the set because this is
Speaker 6: a controversial set of solutions to climate change. And if
Speaker 6: you're interested, I encourage you to go to the Project
Speaker 6: Drawdown site and read more about it there. They have
Speaker 6: a great way of talking about it. But these solutions,
Speaker 6: which are basically education equity, educating girls, giving girls access
Speaker 6: to family planning, and I included climate justice on this
Speaker 6: one because that seemed to fit in the theme of empowerment.
Speaker 6: But those first two solutions, education equity and giving girls
Speaker 6: access to family planning, are controversial because the basis of
Speaker 6: that solution is there'll be less people.
Speaker 5: Okay, let's get into this. So this is the draw
Speaker 5: Down's health and education solution, and there are a few
Speaker 5: components to it. First is universal education, So the Drawdown
Speaker 5: website reports that sixty two million girls around the world
Speaker 5: are kept from their right to education, but that making
Speaker 5: school affordable, helping girls overcome health barriers, reducing the time
Speaker 5: and distance to get to school, and making schools more
Speaker 5: girl friendly would help. And they say quote, educated girls
Speaker 5: realize higher wages and greater upward mobility, contributing to economic growth.
Speaker 5: Their rates of maternal mortality drop, as do mortality rates
Speaker 5: of their babies. And education also equips girls and women
Speaker 5: to face the impacts of climate change. They can be
Speaker 5: more effective stewards of food, soil, trees, and water even
Speaker 5: as nature's cycles change quote, which this brings up the
Speaker 5: family planning issue. So according to Drawdown research, women with
Speaker 5: more years of education have fewer and healthier and are
Speaker 5: better prepared to actively manage their reproductive health. I'm just
Speaker 5: going to quote the Drawdown Project directly here, they say, Quote,
Speaker 5: some two hundred and twenty five million women in lower
Speaker 5: income countries say they want the ability to choose whether
Speaker 5: and when to become pregnant, but lack the necessary access
Speaker 5: to contraception, and the need persists in some high income
Speaker 5: countries as well, including the United States, where forty five
Speaker 5: percent of pregnancies are unintended. Currently, the world faces a
Speaker 5: five point three billion dollar funding shortfall for providing the
Speaker 5: access to reproductive healthcare that women say they want to have.
Speaker 2: End quote.
Speaker 5: Obviously that gender language was binary, but non binary tran folks,
Speaker 5: I see you too, and the draw down continues. Honoring
Speaker 5: the dignity of women and children through family planning is
Speaker 5: not about governments forcing the birth rate down or up
Speaker 5: through natalist policies, Nor is it about those enriched countries
Speaker 5: where emissions are highest telling people elsewhere to stop having children.
Speaker 5: When family planning focuses on healthcare provision and meeting women's
Speaker 5: expressed needs, empowerment, equality and well being are the result.
Speaker 2: The benefits to the planet are side effects.
Speaker 5: So Okay, what's the numerical bottom line here? How much
Speaker 5: do health and education really impact the planet. So by
Speaker 5: centering human rights issues of reproductive health and universal education
Speaker 5: over the next thirty years, it would.
Speaker 2: Reduce or sequester eighty.
Speaker 5: Five point four giga tons gicket tons of carbon dioxide,
Speaker 5: which is great if you weren't already sold on the
Speaker 5: more people having access to education and control of their
Speaker 5: own reproductive planning stuff. Personally, I am all for people
Speaker 5: of all genders getting the school they want and getting
Speaker 5: to make their own reproductive choices. Bonus, just a lot
Speaker 5: less loose carbon boiling the oceans.
Speaker 6: But this is one of those things that as you're
Speaker 6: researching solutions to climate change, you discover that even if
Speaker 6: they're was no global warming, all of these things are
Speaker 6: worth doing. All these solutions to climate change have all
Speaker 6: these incredible co benefits, and so even if educating girls
Speaker 6: and giving them access to family planning made climate change worse,
Speaker 6: it would still be worth doing.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 6: But it just so happens that in the modeling and
Speaker 6: project draw down it makes you know, it reduces greenhouse
Speaker 6: gases over time. So it's a controversial one. I decided
Speaker 6: to include it because I have a daughter, and I
Speaker 6: just believe in these things for women all over the world,
Speaker 6: regardless of climate change. I'll leave it at that.
Speaker 2: Also, some of our.
Speaker 5: Biggest voices I feel like in climate advocacy are women
Speaker 5: absolutely absolutely had access to education education, yes, and were
Speaker 5: empowered to use their voices.
Speaker 6: Yes. Well that you know if you look at the
Speaker 6: review of this in project draw down, they describe how
Speaker 6: when women get access to education, and we're primarily talking
Speaker 6: about women in other countries other than Western countries, they
Speaker 6: tend to rise into leadership roles and they just they
Speaker 6: tend to be leaders in a way that are as
Speaker 6: climate friendly. Right, then the businesses they run and the
Speaker 6: leadership positions they take, there's just a lot of knock
Speaker 6: on and co benefits to making sure women and girls
Speaker 6: have a fair shake all over the.
Speaker 5: World, and just in general, like gender equity across the spectrum,
Speaker 5: I feel like when there's more recognition of that that
Speaker 5: tends to apply toward LGBTQ and trans folks in general,
Speaker 5: where we're just trying to across the board get more
Speaker 5: equity for people. Yes, which is a good thing, no
Speaker 5: matter what. Yes, which is great. Andy wrote me a
Speaker 5: note afterward, just to reiterate how passionate he is about
Speaker 5: the co benefits of these solutions.
Speaker 2: He says climate.
Speaker 5: Justice also lifts people out of poverty. Access to family
Speaker 5: planning also lets girls choose their own path. Electrification also
Speaker 5: freese people from the silent epidemic of killer air pollution.
Speaker 5: Wildland protection also saves us humans places to enjoy. Regenerative
Speaker 5: agriculture also makes produce more nutritious and saves farmers money.
Speaker 5: Plant rich diets also have personal health benefits. He says,
Speaker 5: nearly all climate change solutions are worth doing even if
Speaker 5: global warming was a non issue.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 5: I also love that he's made these posters and these
Speaker 5: visuals that can spark conversations, and as they're doing, it
Speaker 5: remind us to get more involved in the things that
Speaker 5: do move the needle. So if you can help reverse
Speaker 5: climate change, you can also clean out the garage. You
Speaker 5: can write a novel, you can adopt a bunny like
Speaker 5: you've always wanted to live your life, you can do it.
Speaker 5: So the next poster is called empower Yes, and can
Speaker 5: you describe that one?
Speaker 6: Yeah? So that's by a Brooklyn based comic book artist
Speaker 6: named Carrie Randolph. He's worked for a ton of different
Speaker 6: comic book companies, and he wanted to do a print
Speaker 6: that was inspired by Jack Kirby. Jack Kirby is one
Speaker 6: of the godfathers of comic book illustration. A lot of
Speaker 6: the images that you've that everyone has sort of internalized
Speaker 6: from the sixties and seventies he drew. He's a huge influence,
Speaker 6: especially on Marvel stuff. And so the main figure in
Speaker 6: this one, the girl in this figure, her costume is
Speaker 6: of like a very Kirby costume, and the background in
Speaker 6: this one all the like sort of intergalactic swirls and
Speaker 6: circles that is a very typical of a Jack Kirby illustration.
Speaker 6: And it's nicknamed Kirby Crackle. So it's a real Kirby homage.
Speaker 6: This one. It's a real comic book which is great.
Speaker 6: And she's just an awesome figure. I love her expression,
Speaker 6: I love her attitude. I love that her hit job
Speaker 6: turns into a cape. Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2: And the last one is Electrify.
Speaker 6: So Electrify is by an Italian collective of illustrators who
Speaker 6: are pretty well known in the gig poster world.
Speaker 5: They're called Malleus, and their style is kind of trippy
Speaker 5: and flowy.
Speaker 6: They do these sort of vintage look San Francisco Bay
Speaker 6: Area gig poster inspired illustrations, and yeah, I gave them
Speaker 6: that they were I gave them the climate change solutions
Speaker 6: that their print was going to be inspired by, which
Speaker 6: is building, retrofitting, solar voltaics and electric vehicles, and this
Speaker 6: is what they came up with. This one is really
Speaker 6: cool because it's hand pulled by them in Italy in
Speaker 6: their own studio. The other three it's a screen printing
Speaker 6: machine that is still operated by a human. It's still analog,
Speaker 6: but it allows for more precision. Whereas there's his hand pulled,
Speaker 6: it's literally just like the artist is pulling like a
Speaker 6: glob of ink over the screen on this wooden frame,
Speaker 6: and so the ink just kind of gets denser. It's
Speaker 6: a little messier at the edges in a great way,
Speaker 6: and it gives it that really classic gig poster look.
Speaker 6: It's a sort of a Zeus like figure with crazy
Speaker 6: red hair, and he's got one arm pointed up to
Speaker 6: the sun and I think he's sucking energy out of
Speaker 6: it like a solar panel, and his other hand is
Speaker 6: coming into the foreground and he's got some lightning bolts
Speaker 6: coming out of it, and there's a bunch of hungry
Speaker 6: electric plugs that look like snakes in the foreground, ready
Speaker 6: to get some juice. I love that they're European plugs.
Speaker 6: They're like the two twenty vault plugs. There's an awesome
Speaker 6: moon with this cool grid in it in the background
Speaker 6: and clouds, and the orange and blue inks in this
Speaker 6: one are metallic inks, so it has a little shimmer.
Speaker 6: It's just a great illustration.
Speaker 5: So people can get them as a set, or they
Speaker 5: can get them individually.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So if you go to our website Drawdown Design
Speaker 6: Project dot org, then yeah, you can buy one, you
Speaker 6: can buy two, you can buy three, you can buy four,
Speaker 6: and their first sale by donation.
Speaker 5: So Andy's Drawdown Design Project is a nonprofit and each
Speaker 5: print is seventy five bucks and one hundred percent of
Speaker 5: the proceeds go to the Coalition for Rainforest Nations. And
Speaker 5: the Coalition for Rainforest Nations develops policy and tools to
Speaker 5: achieve sustainability for forested and adjacent agricultural lands. They manage
Speaker 5: tropical rainforest areas in support of climate stability, biodiversity, sustainable development,
Speaker 5: and poverty alleviation. And they create financial tools in partnership
Speaker 5: with governments and communities, businesses and stakeholders, they improve living
Speaker 5: standards for forest dependent communities and they're setting a precedent
Speaker 5: that enables similar outcomes in other tropically forested countries. So
Speaker 5: I really encourage you to think about the messages you
Speaker 5: want to keep top of mind, the art that inspires you.
Speaker 5: Think about getting a draw Down Design Project poster as
Speaker 5: a gift for someone and you can contribute to talking
Speaker 5: about climate change solutions galvanize some others. So we are
Speaker 5: buying two sets of draw Down Design Project posters and
Speaker 5: we're giving away eight posters this week via their Instagram
Speaker 5: at draw Down Design Project. So that is on Instagram
Speaker 5: at draw Down Design Project, so follow them and you
Speaker 5: can enter there we'll be giving away eight. You can
Speaker 5: also just buy one yourself at Drawdown Design Project dot
Speaker 5: org and those proceeds will go to the Coalition for
Speaker 5: Rainforest Nations. Thanks to the following sponsors for making that possible.
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Speaker 5: Okay, the format and content of this episode obviously not
Speaker 5: like other Ologies episodes, So instead of Patreon questions, I
Speaker 5: just shouted a bunch of andy at the end that
Speaker 5: I thought you might want to ask him.
Speaker 2: Can I rapid fire questions?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Okay, forming a nonprofit? How big of a pain in
Speaker 2: the ass? Was that?
Speaker 6: It's a giant pain in the ass?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 5: Any tips for someone who's like I want to be
Speaker 5: a nonprofit, but I don't know what to do By red.
Speaker 6: Tape, you gotta find every in cast. So we're based
Speaker 6: in California, and I found a website that basically laid
Speaker 6: it out for me what I needed to do. Okay,
Speaker 6: every state's going to be a little different.
Speaker 5: I put some links on my website at aliwar dot com,
Speaker 5: slash ologies, slash Drawdown Design Project, but those are five
Speaker 5: oh one C three, dot org, Council for Nonprofits dot org,
Speaker 5: et cetera.
Speaker 6: So find the one in your state and you just
Speaker 6: you just kind of got a barrel through it. There's
Speaker 6: this one form I had to file that got returned
Speaker 6: three times because I didn't. I mean, the reasons were insane.
Speaker 2: And that's my nightmare.
Speaker 6: I did this at the height of COVID, so like
Speaker 6: the I R s and the Secretary of State were
Speaker 6: like really slow. Anyway, it was a paneass, but it
Speaker 6: was fine.
Speaker 5: What is your like dream scenario, like global outlook for you,
Speaker 5: like tell me the.
Speaker 6: Human race or for these posters, for these posters. Wow,
Speaker 6: my dream outlook is that we sell them all and
Speaker 6: raise a bunch of money for our charity and then
Speaker 6: make more. I just want to make more of them.
Speaker 6: I have a you know, I have this list of
Speaker 6: my dream illustrators and artists that I want to make
Speaker 6: cook posters. But my other big thing is like I
Speaker 6: just I don't know how I'm going to find out
Speaker 6: if it happens, But I just want someone to hang
Speaker 6: one of these on their walls and I want someone
Speaker 6: in their life to ask them about it, and then
Speaker 6: I want that to create a fun, non judge conversation
Speaker 6: about climate change solutions between those two people. So if
Speaker 6: that happens to anybody, please let me know somehow.
Speaker 2: Making dreams come true?
Speaker 5: Yeah, who do you look to on like a day
Speaker 5: to day or week teek basis for climate information? Like
Speaker 5: who are some of your climate activists, climate scientists heroes?
Speaker 6: I really like the Volts substack my David Roberts. Okay,
Speaker 6: just google it if you want us abscribe to it.
Speaker 6: That's really great information. I really like reading Rebecca Solnitz's
Speaker 6: pieces in The Guardian. She seems to absorb a lot
Speaker 6: of information that then she kind of digests for the reader,
Speaker 6: but she also has a kind of pragmatic and positive outlook,
Speaker 6: like I do. Definitely How to Save Your Planet, which
Speaker 6: is a great podcast. Those are the main ones. There's
Speaker 6: a ton of other resources out there, and a lot
Speaker 6: of them, like it kind of depends on your personality
Speaker 6: what you're looking for, But I would kind of caution
Speaker 6: people from overloading themselves on this kind of stuff, Okay,
Speaker 6: Like I'm interested in it. And since I started working
Speaker 6: on this project, I really wanted to be up to
Speaker 6: date on the science, just because I wanted to make
Speaker 6: sure I was being as accurate as possible. But part
Speaker 6: of my goal in doing this is to kind of
Speaker 6: focus people on the things they can be doing without
Speaker 6: driving themselves crazy. I have a lot of friends who
Speaker 6: suffer a lot of climate anxiety, and they have a
Speaker 6: tendency go too deep and make themselves crazy. Like, there's
Speaker 6: there's a lot of amazing wonky people out there figuring
Speaker 6: out the details, Like I don't. I don't think everyday
Speaker 6: person needs to know every nuance of how we need
Speaker 6: to upgrade the electrocrid. You need to vote for people
Speaker 6: who are going to take care of that.
Speaker 5: Right, Any changes that you have made in your life
Speaker 5: since starting this project, like any any like infrastructure changes
Speaker 5: or personal changes, or if you had to give advice
Speaker 5: to someone.
Speaker 2: Of things that they could help them.
Speaker 5: Sleep a little bit better if they've got kids, or
Speaker 5: if they are just concerned about all the fish out there.
Speaker 6: And yeah, well it really depends on your life and
Speaker 6: your level of privilege. Right, I'm fortunate and that I
Speaker 6: have time and the means to invest in some things
Speaker 6: that could improve my individual footprint. But you know, there's
Speaker 6: a lot of people in this world who are just
Speaker 6: trying to get through the day. As part of why
Speaker 6: I think it's so important to vote for people and
Speaker 6: invest in leadership in this issue. But if you are
Speaker 6: the kind of person who has the ability to take
Speaker 6: to vote some of your free time to this as
Speaker 6: long as after you voted for climate candidates and you've
Speaker 6: sent money to organizations that are doing a lot of
Speaker 6: great work, those are the number one things you should do.
Speaker 6: After that. It's really about electrification, Like get nerdy about
Speaker 6: electrifying your house. I know, my old natural gas stove
Speaker 6: died and I was like, I'm getting an electric stove,
Speaker 6: and so I had to dive into a whole pain
Speaker 6: in the ass situation of upgrading my panel. Like I
Speaker 6: didn't have a high enough amp panel to have an
Speaker 6: electric stove, so I had to get an electrician out
Speaker 6: to do that work. And then I could finally get
Speaker 6: the electric stove so I could eliminate that fossil fuels
Speaker 6: from my house. As much as a pain in the
Speaker 6: ass of that was, like doing that work is great
Speaker 6: because I like that electrician now knows how to do
Speaker 6: that job. It's just a way of refocusing.
Speaker 5: Everyone and any changes you've made diet wise.
Speaker 6: Do more plants, Yeah, more plants. Most it's really about beef.
Speaker 6: That's the you know, just don't that's where it's at.
Speaker 6: That's where it's at, right, I mean, if you look
Speaker 6: at the charts, it's beef and farmed shrimp. Farmed shrimp,
Speaker 6: farm shrimp, like people should really, you know, there's all
Speaker 6: kinds of reasons to eat less meat, but like it's really,
Speaker 6: you know, beef and farm shrimp.
Speaker 5: We also talked about shrimp in the Oceanology episode with
Speaker 5: Doctor Johnson. I previously thought they were the cockroaches of
Speaker 5: the sea, just plentiful to gobble. I had no idea
Speaker 5: about the bycatch issues and the mangrove destruction. So the
Speaker 5: Monterey Bay aquariumcfood watch dot org has more info on
Speaker 5: what the better farmed shrimp species and forces are. Some
Speaker 5: farms out there are doing it more safely.
Speaker 2: More power to them. But anyway, now you know, damn.
Speaker 6: Out one of our So it's worth noting that one
Speaker 6: of our solutions on our Cultivate poster is regenitive agriculture.
Speaker 6: So anyone, if there's any regenitive farmers out there now,
Speaker 6: they're mad at me because they're going to tell me
Speaker 6: that there their farm with their pasture land and they're
Speaker 6: grazing grass fed beef is actually a good thing, which
Speaker 6: is true. So regenerative agriculture is amazing, and there's a
Speaker 6: ton of really fun opportunities to make farming better. But again,
Speaker 6: I think that kind of narrative is is distracting people
Speaker 6: from what's more important, Yeah, which is the big system
Speaker 6: changes that need to happen, and that can only be
Speaker 6: made possible by politicians and you know, corporate leaders like
Speaker 6: those people need to be pressured, whether it's through voting
Speaker 6: or other ways, to make the big changes. If you're
Speaker 6: obsessing about light bulbs, yeah, I think your energy is
Speaker 6: being put in the wrong.
Speaker 2: Place, no pun intended, right, even.
Speaker 6: Though listen, I changed all my light bulbs because I
Speaker 6: want to live my values. But I know that that's
Speaker 6: why I'm doing it.
Speaker 2: M Hm. I just got solar.
Speaker 6: That's awesome. I have panels also, they're so it's so fun.
Speaker 6: Well that's part of part of it. It's like it's
Speaker 6: just so fun. You go up there on the roof
Speaker 6: and I look at them, and I look on my
Speaker 6: phone and I see all the all the vaults coming
Speaker 6: into my panels. It's just fun. And a lot of
Speaker 6: these climate change solutions are just so cool. They're just
Speaker 6: worth doing even if we didn't have this problem.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they're just on the cutting edge of technology anyway.
Speaker 5: That you know, the the notion that we are still
Speaker 5: digging into the earth to burn oil when we have
Speaker 5: all of the sun coming at us is bananas.
Speaker 6: It's it's I'm trained as an environmental engineer. That's where
Speaker 6: I got my bachelor's degree. That was in the nineties, right,
Speaker 6: And at that time, there was no consensus around climate change.
Speaker 6: And I remember being shown the data as a student
Speaker 6: and the professor being like, is what's going on here?
Speaker 6: And it not really being that clear. And so I've
Speaker 6: watched the issue evolve since then into where we are now,
Speaker 6: where everyone knows it's happening, everyone knows it's human caused,
Speaker 6: and everyone knows we have a limitum amount of time
Speaker 6: to do something about it. And that's not that long.
Speaker 6: That was only twenty five years ago. You know, this
Speaker 6: is moving fast, and so yes, we should stop digging
Speaker 6: up fossil fuels. But we're not being punished for doing that,
Speaker 6: like it made sense at the time, and a lot
Speaker 6: of people's lives were made better because of fossil fuels.
Speaker 6: They're not evil. It's just an innert substance, right, and
Speaker 6: so we need to stop using them. But just practically speaking,
Speaker 6: it's a practical problem. It's not a moral one. Fossil
Speaker 6: fuels aren't evil. We just they're just bad for us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
Speaker 5: So when it comes to choices like solar, there are
Speaker 5: a lot of co benefits there too. The technology there
Speaker 5: is progressing pretty fast, and depending on whether you lease
Speaker 5: or buy the panels and your roof in your house,
Speaker 5: the reduction in your electric bill can offset the cost
Speaker 5: in just a number of years. So there are also
Speaker 5: tax benefits to it too. So if you're at all
Speaker 5: in a position to like remodel a bathroom or look
Speaker 5: into solar, check out the solar panels. We finally got
Speaker 5: them a few months ago, even though our kitchen cabinets
Speaker 5: are from the eighties and they don't really close.
Speaker 2: But we'll get to that.
Speaker 6: The next thing that really needs to happen is the
Speaker 6: grid needs to be modernized and to be able to
Speaker 6: take in all the solar, and there needs to be
Speaker 6: storage installations so that we're storing all this solar as
Speaker 6: we can use it at night. But whatever, you should
Speaker 6: just do it. It's fun. It's just so fun.
Speaker 5: We have the app to and my dad is like, ah,
Speaker 5: send me some screencaps. I want to see how much
Speaker 5: you're generating down there. And it also does ease the.
Speaker 2: I'm going to use the AC, but I know it's
Speaker 2: coming from solar. I don't feel as bad, which is nice.
Speaker 6: Yeah, don't feel bad though.
Speaker 2: Don't feel bad.
Speaker 6: It's hot.
Speaker 2: It's hot.
Speaker 6: People die in heat waves. Its stroke AC is you
Speaker 6: need the AC? I don't feel bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And just a side note, there was a great piece
Speaker 5: in The New York Times in June by Christopher Flavelle
Speaker 5: and callan Good Luck about how indigenous communities are affected
Speaker 5: by things like rising tides, melting ice, dried up wells,
Speaker 5: and rising temperatures, threatening not just subsistence or cultural practices,
Speaker 5: but basic safety and survival. As infrastructures on reserved lands
Speaker 5: tend to be underfunded, so it's a lasting impact of
Speaker 5: being forced onto small tracks of sometimes the least desirable lands,
Speaker 5: and another example of how climate justice intersects with a
Speaker 5: lot of human rights issues.
Speaker 6: We can't all go back to living off the land.
Speaker 6: It's just not where modern society is. Yeah, and also
Speaker 6: our standard of living is makes us healthier and saves
Speaker 6: lives and we live longer lives. We need to get
Speaker 6: excited about the fact that we can, to a certain extent,
Speaker 6: like have everything we have if we make these changes.
Speaker 2: The fact that it is.
Speaker 5: Feasible that we can make sweeping progress on this without
Speaker 5: everyone having to go back to pre industrial times, yes,
Speaker 5: is exciting.
Speaker 6: And it's just true. There's another great resource. This guy
Speaker 6: saw Griffith. He's an Australian inventor and engineer, and he
Speaker 6: has this organization called Rewire, and he wants to focus
Speaker 6: everyone on how electrifying everything is the way to go. Like,
Speaker 6: let's get excited about this awesome world where everything's electrified
Speaker 6: and there's no more air pollution, you know, I mean
Speaker 6: climate change aside, it's just going to be better if
Speaker 6: we can do it.
Speaker 5: I just I love that you taken and the excitement
Speaker 5: of a gig poster and a show you want to see,
Speaker 5: like gathering with friends and something that's cool and applying
Speaker 5: it toward cool shit that we can do to make
Speaker 5: the planet better and make it better for people like
Speaker 5: I guess that's how things get done, is no matter
Speaker 5: what the problem is. I feel like if you're acting
Speaker 5: from a place of optimism and hope, you're going to
Speaker 5: get more done than if you're acting from a place
Speaker 5: of like doom and shame.
Speaker 6: Right, And I don't know if that's true, to be honest,
Speaker 6: We've had a lot of doom and shame when it
Speaker 6: comes to climate change. So let's you know, let's see
Speaker 6: if this works too, and maybe different things work for
Speaker 6: different people. That's part of it, right, Some people are
Speaker 6: going to get motivated by fear, but a lot of
Speaker 6: other people are gonna get motivated by getting excited about
Speaker 6: it and all the awesome things that are just co
Speaker 6: benefits to climate change solutions. There's this Currt quote, Okay
Speaker 6: that is like a huge inspiration for me. So the
Speaker 6: quote is we are what we pretend to be, so
Speaker 6: we must be very careful of what we pretend to be.
Speaker 6: It's just it's just really the inspiration for this whole thing,
Speaker 6: because I think we need to tell stories that depict
Speaker 6: the future we want, not the future we're afraid of.
Speaker 2: Oh jeez, that's a life lesson.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I mean, if if we're telling stories about how
Speaker 6: terrible everything's going to be, I think everything's going to
Speaker 6: be terrible. But if we tell stories about how awesome
Speaker 6: it's going to be, maybe it'll be awesome.
Speaker 2: That's really good advice. Andy, And I have to say
Speaker 2: that it's unlike you.
Speaker 6: It is weird, right, it is weird. It is so
Speaker 6: unlike me. It's funny. I like it, but it's not.
Speaker 6: You know, that should give you confidence because I'm not
Speaker 6: coming from some place of pie in the sky optimism.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I've just like read the articles and done the research
Speaker 6: and read this amazing book that ever no one should read,
Speaker 6: Project draw Down, and like it's impossible not to come
Speaker 6: to the conclusion that like this can be done.
Speaker 3: Ah.
Speaker 2: That's really good advice.
Speaker 5: So ask good friends for great advice, and ask smart
Speaker 5: climate scientists basic questions and then make something good out
Speaker 5: of it. Thank you so much to founder and creative
Speaker 5: director Andy Hall of the Drawdown Design Project for letting
Speaker 5: me hang out and chat with him about it. You
Speaker 5: can find out more at draw Downdesign Project dot org.
Speaker 5: Follow them immediately on Instagram at Drawdown Design Project.
Speaker 2: We will be giving away eight posters this week.
Speaker 5: You got to follow them. We are at ologies on
Speaker 5: Twitter and Instagram. I'm Ali Ward with one L on
Speaker 5: social media, do say hi. Special thanks to friends doctors
Speaker 5: Christine Corbett and Casey Handmer for hanging out in the
Speaker 5: initial meetings and giving some great feedback and ideas to Andy.
Speaker 5: Thank you to Aaron Talbert for admining the ologies podcast
Speaker 5: Facebook group. Thank you Shannon Feldas and Bonnie Dutch of
Speaker 5: the podcast You Are That for handling all the merch
Speaker 5: at ologiesmerch dot com. Thank you Susan Hale and Noel
Speaker 5: Dilworth for all of the behind the scenes Ologies business.
Speaker 5: To Emily White of the wordery for transcribing episodes and
Speaker 5: Caleb Patton for bleeping them. Those are available for free
Speaker 5: at the link of the show notes. Thank you Kelly
Speaker 5: Dwyer who made my website aliwar dot com. If you
Speaker 5: need a website, her website is Kelly R. Dwyer and
Speaker 5: that's linked in the show notes.
Speaker 2: She's great.
Speaker 5: Thank you Hanka Rama and honestly the best husband I
Speaker 5: have ever had. Editor Jared Sleeper of Mindjam Media, and
Speaker 5: of course thank you to Stephen Ray Morris, who's also
Speaker 5: helping on our edited down, short kid friendly Smologies episodes
Speaker 5: that come out every two weeks, alongside zeg Rodriguez Thomas
Speaker 5: who also works on those. Nick Thorburn made the music.
Speaker 5: And if you stick around, I'll tell you a secret
Speaker 5: and is promised here's why I was in the hospital. Okay,
Speaker 5: who get comfortable. I'll try and make it quick. So,
Speaker 5: over the pandemic, some of my regular schedule doctor's appointment got.
Speaker 2: Pushed backed, right, So if you've heard other.
Speaker 5: Episodes, you may know that I'm in this slim percentage
Speaker 5: of very exclusive uterine people whose ovaries just decided to
Speaker 5: fuck off decades early. So my ovaries pieced out, literally
Speaker 5: shriveled up, and stopped working sometime in my thirties. So
Speaker 5: I'm on a cocktail of estrogen patches and testosterone creams
Speaker 5: and such. But for the first few years they were
Speaker 5: giving me progesterone so that I would bleed like a
Speaker 5: normal person. But they didn't mention that progesterone pills heads up, y'all,
Speaker 5: can make some people just straight up not want to exist.
Speaker 5: Anymore and can be reduced to a weeping pile of
Speaker 5: hair and tears, which was what happened to me. Not
Speaker 5: everyone again, slim percentage happened to me. So the doctors
Speaker 5: gave me a new kind to try. At the start
Speaker 5: of COVID. Once again, it was not good for my brain,
Speaker 5: and I stopped, and I hadn't been able to see
Speaker 5: my obgyn again. Unopposed estrogen means maybe some endometrial cancer risks.
Speaker 5: So I went to my OBGI in last week and
Speaker 5: she was like, oh shit, you stopped taking the progesterone.
Speaker 5: I was like, oh, I did, but I couldn't come
Speaker 5: in here. Everything was so busy, and she was like, well,
Speaker 5: let's check you for cancer. So what we'll do is
Speaker 5: we'll scrape your insides out like a pumpkin and then
Speaker 5: we'll send some chunks.
Speaker 2: Off to the lab.
Speaker 5: Also, I should note there was a new resident doctor
Speaker 5: in the room and they were like, can he practice
Speaker 5: on you? And I was like, sure, man, you got
Speaker 5: to learn to be a doctor somewhere right That somewhere
Speaker 5: starts right now in my crotch, which I'm fairly certain
Speaker 5: was the first one this particular doctor had ever used
Speaker 5: a speculum on bless us heart.
Speaker 2: Did it hurt the whole thing? Of course it hurt.
Speaker 5: They scraped my insides, but yeah, I chewed on my tongue.
Speaker 5: I got through it. The nubie doc got some chunks
Speaker 5: for pathology. Thumbs up, way to go. The next day, however,
Speaker 5: I had the worst, weirdest pain of my whole life,
Speaker 5: so much pain, freakish spasm or something. Jared had to
Speaker 5: call my doctor. They were like, bring that lady in
Speaker 5: the er stat And then later I saw on my
Speaker 5: medical notes that the nurse on the phone had typed.
Speaker 5: In patient can be heard in the background audibly moaning,
Speaker 5: which was accurate. Anyway, went to the er. People barfing everywhere,
Speaker 5: people bleeding, hallways filled with beds. Anyway, I had a
Speaker 5: bunch of ultrasounds, a bunch of pelvic exams. I had
Speaker 5: a COVID brain tickler for good measure, and they were like, well,
Speaker 5: that was weird, but you're fine.
Speaker 2: Get out of here. So I was like, we'll do So.
Speaker 5: I was woozy for a few days and then your
Speaker 5: pod mom, Jarrett shredded his meniscus.
Speaker 2: That's part of your knee in.
Speaker 5: Jiu jitsu and can barely walk, and so we spent
Speaker 5: the rest of the week in and out of MRI
Speaker 5: places and physical therapists and urgent care for him. What's
Speaker 5: my point? My point is cut me a little slack.
Speaker 5: This bonus episode is out a little late.
Speaker 2: And this is.
Speaker 5: Also just a super aside. I'm hiding this at the end.
Speaker 5: But every once in a while I'll have someone leave
Speaker 5: a comment.
Speaker 2: Or a tweet about how politics.
Speaker 5: And science don't belong together.
Speaker 2: But literally policy is.
Speaker 5: Like based on information and information and science, and I
Speaker 5: just a big, big sigh. Anyway, everything's fine. I'm in
Speaker 5: a hotel room outside of Detroit. I'm gonna go get
Speaker 5: a salad. I'm feeling better. Thank you for your patience,
Speaker 5: aren't you glad? You will never scrape a pumpkin in
Speaker 5: the same Also, you gotta let doctors practice on you.
Speaker 5: He didn't do the scraping. It was actually my obign
Speaker 5: He was fine. He was just a little nervous, but
Speaker 5: he was great. Okay, thank you for being doctors. I
Speaker 5: appreciate it so much. Okay, bye bye.
Speaker 7: Bye, pacadermatology, hobbiology, r doo, zoology, lithology, Yeah, ninology, meteorology, paratology, napology, zeriology, ethology.
Speaker 6: Are you a Fishead too,