6:01

And that

6:03

innate curiosity, that biophilia, as

6:05

E.O. Wilson calls it, the

6:08

magnificent entomologist, is

6:11

just part of who we

6:13

are as humans. It's normal to love

6:15

the world. It's less common to make

6:17

that your job. But of course, once

6:19

you fall in love with

6:21

nature, with one ecosystem, or a few

6:24

specific species, and you find out that

6:26

they're threatened, you're like,

6:29

wait a second, what are

6:31

we doing about this? Is there a grown up

6:33

who's already on top of this? Is this not

6:35

sorted? Seems like we should protect forests and coral

6:37

reefs and all the rest. It's

6:39

funny, my mom was cleaning out the

6:41

closet and found these old school papers. And

6:43

apparently I was writing the same essays since

6:46

I was like 10 about

6:48

nature being great and how we should protect it.

6:50

So it wasn't always going to

6:53

be the ocean. I wanted to become a park ranger

6:55

at one point or an environmental lawyer. But

6:57

yeah, the ocean seemed like it needed more

7:00

advocates at the particular moment I was

7:02

thinking about graduate school. You

7:05

open your book by saying that

7:08

anytime you tell people that you

7:10

do climate work, they invariably ask,

7:12

and I'm quoting, how

7:15

fucked are we? Yeah. Well,

7:17

Aiyana, how fucked are we? Well,

7:23

we're pretty fucked, but

7:27

there's a lot we could do to

7:29

have a better possible future. And I

7:31

think it's important to

7:33

always hold both of those

7:35

things together. We have already

7:38

changed the climate. We are

7:40

already seeing the intense heatwaves

7:42

and floods and droughts and

7:44

wildfires and hurricanes. All of

7:46

that is already supercharged by

7:49

our changed climate, but

7:51

there's still so much

7:53

we can do. We basically have

7:55

the solutions we need. We're just

7:57

being really slow at deploying them.

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19:20

out more. Fox

19:27

Creative. This

19:29

is advertiser content from Zelle. When

19:33

you picture an online scammer, what do you see?

19:36

For the longest time, we'd have these images of somebody

19:38

sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on just

19:40

kind of typing away in the middle of the night.

19:43

And honestly, that's not what it is anymore.

19:46

That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud

19:48

fighter. These days, online

19:51

scams look more like crime syndicates than

19:53

individual con artists. And

19:55

they're making bank. Last

19:57

year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion. It's

20:01

mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure

20:03

that's been built to facilitate

20:06

scamming at scale. There

20:08

are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers

20:10

all around the world. These

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are very savvy business people. These

20:15

are organized criminal rings. And so once we

20:17

understand the magnitude of this

20:19

problem, we can protect people better. One

20:23

challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face

20:25

is that scam victims sometimes feel too

20:27

ashamed to discuss what happened to them.

20:30

But Ian says one of our best

20:32

defenses is simple. We

20:34

need to talk to each other. We need to

20:37

have those awkward conversations around what do you do

20:39

if you have text messages you don't recognize? What

20:41

do you do if you start getting asked to

20:43

send information that's more sensitive? Even

20:46

my own father fell victim to a, thank

20:48

goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell

20:50

victim and we have these conversations all the

20:52

time. So we are all

20:54

at risk and we all need to work

20:56

together to protect each other. Learn

20:59

more about how to protect

21:01

yourself at vox.com/zell. And

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put in the time. for

24:01

Senate and the House that get

24:03

it, that actually are going to

24:05

do something on climate is also

24:07

critical. But the president is staffing

24:10

all the federal agencies, the Environmental

24:12

Protection Agency and the National

24:14

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and

24:17

NASA and the Department of Energy and

24:19

the Department

24:21

of Interior that are all making

24:23

these decisions about permitting for fossil

24:26

fuels or offshore renewable wind

24:29

energy, right? But I'll

24:31

also give a shout out to

24:33

local politics because it is

24:36

at the city council level, it is

24:38

at the public utility commissions, it

24:41

is at the school boards where we're deciding,

24:43

are we teaching our children about what we

24:45

can do about climate change? Are

24:47

we investing in municipal

24:50

composting? Composting makes a really

24:52

big difference because

24:54

rotting food in landfills emits tons of

24:56

methane, a super potent greenhouse gas. Are

24:58

we building out bike lanes

25:00

and all of this public transit infrastructure

25:03

that we need to reduce our

25:05

reliance on fossil fuels? All of

25:08

these local decisions really matter

25:10

too. So for those who are

25:12

sort of overwhelmed with what's happening at the presidential

25:14

level, it is absolutely worth

25:16

your effort to think about local

25:18

elections and how you can support

25:21

climate leaders down ballot. I

25:25

initially wanted to ask

25:27

you what gives

25:30

you the most hope right now, but then I

25:32

got to the part of the book where you

25:34

write and I'm quoting again, fuck hope, what's the

25:36

strategy? Do you feel

25:38

like we, the Royal, we actually

25:40

do have a clear concrete strategy

25:43

for that

25:45

better future? Because the path to the

25:47

shitty future is crystal clear. It is

25:49

just keep doing what we've been doing.

25:52

And this is where I think

25:54

media, Hollywood, music,

25:57

art, culture makers

25:59

broadly, really need

26:01

to dive in with us because

26:03

I cannot

26:06

literally show you what the future could look

26:08

like. I can talk about it, I

26:10

can write about it, I can interview

26:13

people about it, I can, as

26:15

I did for this book, commission art about

26:17

it, but I feel

26:20

like if it's possible to go through

26:22

our day-to-day and not encounter anything about

26:24

climate, which it currently is, I mean

26:26

for example, less than 1% of the minutes

26:30

on major TV news stations are

26:32

about climate. And that's actually

26:34

gone down, I think it was 1.3% in 2022 and now it's down

26:36

to 0.9% in 2023,

26:42

right? So we're going in the wrong direction. If this

26:45

is not part of our day-to-day exposure,

26:48

then it's just always on the

26:50

back burner, there's always something more

26:52

important. And we're thinking about climate

26:55

as something separate from

26:57

our other concerns. Whereas it's actually

26:59

just the context within which everything

27:02

else right now is

27:04

playing out. So there's a chapter

27:06

in the book called I Dream

27:08

of Climate Rom Coms where I

27:10

interview producer Franklin Leonard,

27:13

founder of The Blacklist out in

27:15

Hollywood and Adam McKay, filmmaker, writer,

27:17

director about the role of Hollywood

27:19

in this because basically to date

27:21

Hollywood has just shown us the

27:24

apocalypse, the fire in brimstone,

27:26

the day after tomorrow

27:28

kind of stuff. And

27:31

there are very few examples of not

27:33

like utopian rose-colored glasses stuff,

27:35

but like literally what if we just

27:38

used the solutions we had and

27:40

projected that forward? What

27:42

would that look like? I

27:45

always loved Nietzsche's

27:47

idea that we have art in order not

27:49

to die of the truth. And

27:52

you can interpret that in different ways I guess,

27:54

but for me it means

27:57

that the job of art isn't to hold up

27:59

a mirror. And

30:01

what about carbon capture technologies? I feel

30:04

like all of our optimistic scenarios include

30:06

an assumption that we're

30:08

going to get increasingly better and

30:10

more efficient at removing existing

30:13

carbon dioxide from the

30:15

atmosphere. Is that a safe assumption? Well, we're

30:17

really bad at it now, so I'm sure we'll

30:20

get better at it. Okay. Are we going to

30:22

get better enough? Maybe I'm

30:24

asking. I have no idea. Because we have

30:26

to, right? Like, this has to be part of the

30:30

solution or part of the strategy. I

30:33

mean, the first interview in the book

30:35

is with Dr. Kate Marvel, who's a

30:37

NASA client scientist, who says, sure, great,

30:39

like, we should pursue carbon

30:42

capture and storage. But

30:45

it's important to note there that this is not

30:47

like a get out of jail free card where

30:49

we can keep burning fossil fuels and just catch it

30:51

back. It takes a

30:54

lot of energy to do carbon capture.

30:56

So we basically need to focus that

30:58

effort only on taking out carbon

31:01

that is already in the atmosphere. We can't

31:03

just use that as an excuse to not

31:05

change our ways. So I think, again,

31:08

that brings us back to energy conservation

31:10

and the shift to renewables being fundamental.

31:12

And if we figure out

31:14

carbon capture, that's a bonus. But also,

31:17

we need to

31:19

give a lot more credit to

31:21

the OG, the original gangster of

31:23

carbon capture, which is photosynthesis and

31:25

plants and protect and

31:28

restore ecosystems, forests,

31:31

wetlands, mangroves, all

31:33

of that are a critical piece of this

31:36

too. And we just absolutely do not give

31:38

enough credit to nature, which by

31:40

some estimates is 30 or 40% of the solution we

31:42

need if we

31:45

are restoring ecosystems. You

31:48

know, I've had conversations with people like Andreas

31:50

Malm. He was a guest on the pod.

31:53

He says, which sounds bad on the

31:55

surface, but is actually encouraging. And I

31:57

think you were hinting at this earlier.

32:01

We don't have a science problem, we don't have

32:03

a knowledge problem, we know everything we need to

32:05

know to do what we need to do, and

32:07

there are already viable alternatives to move us in

32:09

that direction. What we

32:11

have is a political economy problem. Certain

32:13

financial interests are invested in locking us

32:15

in this paradigm. This is obviously a

32:17

big obstacle, but at least we know

32:19

what the problem is. If we lack

32:21

the knowledge or the technologies, there's not

32:23

much we can do about that. But

32:25

we know, and if

32:27

we've learned anything about markets, they'll

32:30

move in the direction of profit. So

32:33

maybe we can't change the economic system, but we

32:35

do understand its incentive structure and we can work

32:37

within that. So we're going to have to find

32:39

a way to make non-fossil fuel energy sources cheaper

32:41

and more efficient and lucrative. So just tell me

32:43

that's the case. Tell me there's a shit ton

32:45

of money to be made in green energy, because

32:47

if there is, that's good news.

32:50

There is a shit ton of money to be made

32:52

in green energy. I can

32:54

say that unequivocally. I think

32:57

this is probably a McKinsey study

32:59

that found getting to net zero,

33:01

net zero greenhouse gas emissions, is

33:04

a more than 12 trillion

33:06

dollar business opportunity. And

33:08

in 2023, 1.8

33:11

trillion was invested in the clean energy transition, which

33:13

was a new record.

33:15

It's worth saying also that also

33:17

in 2023, over a trillion dollar

33:20

was invested in additional fossil fuel,

33:22

but renewables are ahead as a

33:24

global investment amount. And

33:26

also last year for the second year

33:28

in a row, banks generated more revenue

33:31

from environmentally friendly investing, about

33:33

3 billion dollars, than they did

33:35

from fossil fuel investing, which is

33:38

2.7. I think those are still

33:40

too close. But

33:42

yes, the economics are absolutely

33:44

turning in favor of clean

33:46

energy, which is great

33:49

because we would need to do it anyway.

33:52

But it's certainly easier when the

33:54

balance sheet is in your favor.

33:56

Yeah, and look, I

33:58

bring all this up not to make the overall. a

34:00

really simple point that capitalism

34:02

is bad. I think it's

34:04

a little more complicated than that. And even if you

34:06

believe that, it's not helpful to leave it there. Well,

34:09

even if you believe in pure

34:11

free market capitalism, I

34:14

mean, I think a free market folks need

34:16

to just acknowledge that the market is not

34:18

free. So right now we have

34:20

a completely insane

34:22

amount of subsidies still

34:25

going to fossil fuels. And

34:28

if we just reformed fossil fuel subsidies

34:30

and put a price on pollution, which

34:33

is all this greenhouse gas stuff, we

34:36

could generate trillions of dollars

34:38

in government revenues, which could

34:40

be used to address the

34:42

climate crisis, right? So subsidizing

34:44

all the bad stuff is

34:46

not a free market. We

34:48

haven't been giving renewables a

34:50

fair chance at this. The

34:53

game has been rigged for

34:55

the continuation of fossil fuels.

34:57

All those lobbying dollars have

34:59

really paid off. And

35:01

so we're now just starting to see that shift

35:04

a bit, which is evening the playing

35:07

field. And guess who wins when it's

35:09

a fair fight? Photons

35:11

is the answer. Wind, the

35:14

stuff that's free and just out there, and we

35:16

can just catch it. So,

35:19

okay. Okay, so wait a minute. I

35:21

can't quite tell if you agree with

35:23

me or not in the big picture sense, right?

35:26

Do you actually agree that

35:28

we can work within capitalism?

35:30

We can use the internal logic

35:32

of capitalism to get on

35:35

the right path here? No, I do. And

35:37

I think we must. We do not have

35:39

time to completely take apart and put back

35:41

together a new economic system within the next

35:43

decade, which is when we need to basically

35:46

make this huge leap in addressing the climate

35:48

crisis. So yeah, what I'm saying is that

35:51

already renewables make economic

35:53

sense. Already

35:55

green buildings and the

35:57

shift to electric transportation.

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39:32

say the best thing we can

39:34

do when confronting an existential

39:36

crisis is imagine what could be

39:39

on the other side. What's

39:41

the most realistic best case scenario for

39:44

you? Big

39:46

picture. Yeah. The

39:49

dream for me when I think

39:51

about getting it right really starts

39:53

with nature starts with putting

39:57

photosynthesis on the pedestal. It

39:59

deserves. and thinking

40:01

about, you know, how we are

40:03

shifting our food system, how we

40:05

are shifting transportation, how, I

40:08

mean, I imagine like all of Gen

40:10

Z just refusing to work for the

40:12

fossil fuel industry, right? Or as

40:14

Jane Fonda says, like, you know,

40:17

don't sleep with anyone who works in

40:19

fossil fuels, just like ice out that

40:21

whole sector. Just

40:23

turn all of that into

40:26

something that's really unappealing. I

40:28

imagine a future where our homes are

40:31

not drafty because they're well

40:33

insulated, right? Where we don't

40:35

have traffic in cities and

40:38

on highways because we have much better

40:40

transportation. We have high speed rail. I mean,

40:42

for the love of God, can we get

40:44

like some fast trains in America? Sort

40:47

of embarrassing that we don't have that. Where

40:49

we have just delicious

40:52

local foods, where we have restored

40:54

coastal ecosystems that are buffering us

40:56

from the impacts of climate change,

40:59

where we actually have fewer deaths jobs because

41:01

more of us are out in the world

41:03

doing this stuff, which is so gratifying.

41:07

And where we can actually just

41:10

slow down and

41:12

enjoy life a bit more

41:14

because we have our

41:16

shit together and because culture

41:19

has caught up with this

41:21

climate reality and the

41:24

status quo and what is aspirational

41:26

have changed. I

41:31

mean, it's worth a shot, no? Oh

41:34

yeah, no. I'm

41:37

just gathering my thoughts and

41:39

I'm also trying to summon all

41:41

the hopefulness that I can. What

41:44

do you think? Well, here's the thing. You

41:46

don't actually need to be hopeful. I'm not

41:48

hopeful. I think that hope is

41:51

insufficient even if we have it. We

41:53

need a plan. We need to each

41:55

find our role to play

41:57

in climate solutions. One of

41:59

the major... things that I sort of encourage

42:01

people to do is think really specifically

42:03

about what you can do, not the

42:05

generic list of like march,

42:08

protest, donate, spread the word, lower

42:11

your individual carbon footprint, which is all

42:14

good and well to do and I do

42:16

it. But if you and I and teachers

42:19

and doctors and farmers and

42:22

project managers and web designers were all

42:24

doing exactly the same thing, that would

42:26

be a total waste. So instead of

42:28

thinking about hope, whether you have it

42:31

or not, it doesn't really matter, just

42:34

do something and you'll feel

42:36

good regardless of the outcome because

42:38

you will have contributed to making

42:40

things slightly better than they

42:42

would otherwise have been. And if we

42:44

each do that, it sounds corny, but

42:47

it is factually accurate that all that

42:49

stuff adds up. And if you need

42:51

a place to start,

42:53

I offer this concept of a

42:55

climate action Venn diagram, which is

42:57

three circles, sort of a simplified

43:00

version of the Japanese concept of

43:02

Ikigai for finding your purpose, which

43:04

is one circle is what

43:06

are you good at? So what are your

43:08

skills, resources, networks? Like what can you specifically

43:11

bring to the table? What is

43:13

the work that needs doing is the second circle.

43:16

What are the climate and justice solutions you want

43:18

to work on because there are hundreds of them.

43:20

And the third circle

43:22

is what brings you joy or satisfaction,

43:24

right? Like what gets you out of

43:26

bed in the morning? And how can

43:28

we each find our way to the

43:30

sweet spot in the center of

43:33

that Venn diagram and just live

43:35

there for as many minutes of

43:37

our lives as we can? Well,

43:40

to do this, one thing

43:42

we clearly have to do is

43:45

make people feel emotionally the

43:48

stakes of this without also

43:50

pushing them into quietism or

43:53

despair. And so the question is how

43:56

do we do that? I mean, I

43:58

have to say There's a

44:00

reality here that sucks, but it's true. You

44:03

know, and maybe this has changed marginally in

44:05

one direction or the other. But poll after

44:07

poll that I've seen shows that. A

44:10

lot of Americans simply don't care about climate

44:12

change that much, or they might care, but

44:15

it's nowhere near the top of their list

44:17

of priorities, which is why politically it just

44:19

doesn't move the needle. And that makes it

44:21

difficult for legislators to deal with a problem.

44:23

I mean, I lived in Louisiana for a

44:25

decade. The coast there is disappearing. Cultures

44:27

and ways of life and towns and

44:30

communities are disappearing. And still a lot

44:32

of people in that state refuse to

44:34

connect the dots.

44:36

So how do

44:38

we help them do that? How do we make them feel this?

44:42

First, I think it's important to acknowledge that

44:44

the majority of Americans are concerned about climate

44:47

change and would like our government to do

44:49

more about it. We

44:51

hear so much about climate deniers that we think

44:53

it's like half the country. It's like 12 percent.

44:57

Yeah, just because I tried to correct that and say they just, it's

45:00

not that they don't care, but they

45:02

just care about many other things before.

45:05

Absolutely. And so I think what you're

45:07

referring to is the sort of pulling

45:09

on political priorities, like what determines who

45:11

you're voting for, like what, you know,

45:13

what is that ranking? And climate rarely

45:16

breaks the top five or 10 issues

45:19

when you're thinking about jobs,

45:21

economy, housing, wars,

45:23

all of this other stuff.

45:25

Right. And I get that.

45:27

We have these day to

45:30

day concerns that

45:32

are critical to our quality of

45:34

life, to our well-being. And

45:36

I don't fault people for ranking those

45:39

higher. But I do fault

45:41

us for not understanding that those

45:43

are connected to climate change in

45:45

some very significant ways. There's

45:48

an incredible organization called Environmental Voter Project.

45:50

And this is what they do. There

45:53

are something like 10 million

45:55

Americans who actually have

45:57

environment as their number one issue.

45:59

politically, and they are already registered

46:01

to vote, and they simply do

46:04

not go to the polls. Can

46:07

you imagine if we had another 10 million

46:09

climate voters who

46:12

were voting in every election and

46:14

then politicians were like, oh shit, I guess

46:16

there's a whole demographic that cares about this

46:19

that's very active politically, we're going to have

46:21

to earn their votes. That

46:23

would absolutely change the game. And so

46:25

all of their work on turning out

46:28

environmental voters is making a very

46:30

big difference. So for those who are

46:32

like, ah, climate and politics,

46:35

it's like such a mess. I

46:37

would say join me in volunteering

46:39

with Environmental Voter Project, helping to

46:41

get people who care engaged

46:43

and having their voices

46:46

heard because once we have a

46:49

larger constituency of active climate voters,

46:51

that will shift the politics and

46:54

the politics follows culture. So it's

46:57

not politicians that are leading the way.

46:59

They are followers. So the

47:01

more of us speak up about this

47:03

as a political priority for us, the

47:06

faster we'll get these changes that we

47:08

need. Do you have thoughts about

47:11

how we can convince skeptics or even

47:13

just outright deniers

47:16

that this work must be

47:18

done? Do we even need to engage with skeptics

47:22

and deniers? Is that fruitless or

47:24

is it necessary? I personally

47:26

am not out there on Al

47:29

Gore's internet debating climate deniers. I

47:31

just, it's not my jam.

47:34

But again, that's a small portion

47:36

of Americans. It's an even smaller

47:39

portion of the global population. And

47:41

so where I focus my effort

47:43

is for the people who already

47:45

care, who are already concerned, just

47:48

saying, we need you. We

47:50

need you working on solutions. Welcome.

47:52

Roll up your sleeves. We'll help

47:54

you find ways to plug in

47:57

and do something that's useful. to

48:00

circle back to our point earlier,

48:02

which is the economics of a lot

48:04

of these climate solutions are just really

48:07

favorable. So we don't actually need

48:09

to debate whether greenhouse

48:11

gases being spewed by burning

48:13

fossil fuels and blanketing the planet and

48:15

warming it is a thing that's happening,

48:17

even though it's very clear. It's

48:19

been for 50 years, that's what's

48:21

happening. We just need to

48:24

say, hey, who wants a good job in

48:27

engineering and manufacturing?

48:30

Like let's build some more battery,

48:32

wind, solar plants

48:35

and installation. And

48:38

so the benefits of the

48:40

Inflation Reduction Act are mostly

48:42

being experienced in red states

48:44

that are getting all this manufacturing

48:46

capacity, all these green jobs, even

48:49

though all of their representatives voted

48:51

against that funding. So

48:53

I think with that shift, with

48:55

those benefits going to politically

48:58

conservative areas where climate

49:01

denial is higher, we may

49:03

start to see an even

49:05

more rapid and strong embrace

49:08

of climate solutions even

49:10

without talking about climate change. We do

49:13

not actually have to agree on the

49:15

problem to collaborate on the solutions. And

49:17

so that we have in our favor. Yeah.

49:24

You seem very angsty and

49:27

nervous and concerned and I appreciate it.

49:29

My therapy appointment is in two weeks.

49:31

I'm not your therapist, but there is

49:33

like a whole burgeoning sector

49:35

actually of climate therapy

49:37

because climate anxiety is a real

49:39

thing and people are

49:42

understandably grappling with it. The prospect

49:44

of life on earth ceasing to

49:46

exist in the way that we

49:48

have always known it is

49:51

freaking terrifying. But

49:54

I think, and there's sort of

49:56

like this term, like climate sad

49:58

boys, that those. of us working

50:01

are like, the climate sad boys

50:03

are back again. Here come the doomers,

50:06

like always asking us how bad it

50:08

is. All right. Hold on. All

50:10

right. Look, I'm

50:12

also trying to speak to the angst

50:14

of people listening as well. I

50:16

hear it and I feel it often.

50:19

I don't want to minimize it, but

50:21

I think the more we just focus

50:23

on possibility and what we can each

50:25

do and just acknowledge that we as

50:27

individuals cannot control the

50:31

future of life on earth, but we can do

50:33

our part and kind of like, I

50:36

don't worry about it day to day. I

50:38

spend very little time thinking about the

50:40

problems because that doesn't actually change what

50:42

I need to do. I

50:45

need to do my work at Urban Ocean

50:47

Lab, this policy think tank for the future

50:49

of coastal cities that I co-founded. We need

50:51

to help cities adapt to sea

50:54

level rise and build

50:56

out offshore renewable energy and restore

50:58

and protect the coastal ecosystems that

51:00

will help buffer the impacts of

51:03

storms. Like that's how I

51:05

spend my days. And so my days are full

51:07

of creativity and problem

51:09

solving and great collaborations and

51:11

like punctuated with moments of

51:13

delight and tiny victories. And

51:16

what more could we expect out

51:18

of life? I

51:20

think to me, that's enough to

51:22

just do my part. Something

51:25

we've seen in recent

51:27

years, climate activists, blocking

51:30

traffic, throwing paint on

51:32

artworks and museums, I

51:35

think that's stupid on purely

51:37

strategic grounds. But I do

51:39

wonder how you think

51:41

about the role of activism and

51:43

protest and how that can

51:46

be most beneficial. I mean, I think

51:48

Bill McKibben said to you in your interview with

51:50

him that he doesn't think there's any

51:52

scenario where we don't have to march in

51:55

the streets. And that seems probably right to me,

51:57

but is that how you feel? wise

52:00

man. I definitely agree. I mean,

52:02

we have to voice our objection to

52:05

things that make no frequent sense. We

52:07

have to voice our objection to continuing

52:10

to subsidize fossil fuel companies with our

52:12

dollars. We have to

52:14

voice our objection to people

52:17

who deny climate change, calling

52:19

the shots. Some of

52:21

the more extreme forms of protest,

52:23

if we're honest, make people

52:25

like me seem more reasonable. And

52:27

I'm grateful for it, right? Those works of art

52:29

that had soup thrown at them are fine. They

52:32

were covered with glass. They were wiped off. Everything's

52:34

fine. So I think

52:36

we need to just, for one, keep things

52:38

in perspective. But also, if we're acknowledging that

52:41

the future of human life on this

52:43

planet, the quality of life

52:45

for our species is literally

52:48

being determined by what we do

52:51

in the next decade, then is throwing soup

52:53

at a painting really the worst thing we

52:55

can imagine? Is it

52:57

the most effective messaging? Well, I think

53:01

we could have done better. I

53:03

think there's obviously much better climate

53:05

communication that can be layered

53:07

on top of protest. But

53:09

I absolutely see a value

53:12

for protest, and it opens

53:14

the door to a

53:16

lot of policy conversations. And

53:18

that is the role to shift the Overton

53:20

window to make politicians and

53:22

executives feel like they have to

53:25

do more and faster

53:27

by just exerting that social pressure

53:29

and removing the social license to

53:32

operate, to say, we are watching

53:34

you, we are voting at the

53:37

ballot box, and we are voting with our dollars, and

53:39

we will name and shame the bad

53:42

actors and welcome you

53:44

onto the side of climate solutions whenever

53:46

you're ready. Dr.

53:50

Aiyana Elizabeth Johnson, thank

53:52

you for outing me as a climate sad

53:56

boy. And honestly,

53:59

seriously. Seriously, I do feel

54:02

better after conversations like this.

54:04

I do feel better after reading your

54:06

book. All right, there we go. Fill

54:09

in your Venn diagram and get

54:11

to work. Thanks for existing

54:13

and thanks for coming in. Thanks

54:15

for having me. All

54:29

right, thanks for hanging out with me for another

54:32

episode. I hope you enjoyed it. As

54:34

always, you can tell me what you think of

54:36

the episode. You can drop us a line at

54:39

the greyarea at vox.com. I read those emails, so

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review whenever you get a chance. This

54:46

episode was produced by Travis Larchuk and

54:49

Beth Morrissey, edited by Jorge

54:51

Jest, engineered by Patrick

54:53

Boyd, back checked by Anouk

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