Thou Shalt Save The Fucking Planet

Daniel Scheffler wants us to take action on climate change and the environment right now - if Greta Thunberg can do it, so can all of us in our daily lives and whilst on the road. Governor Inslee from Washington and M. Sanjayan, the CEO of Conservation International, also weigh in. #travel

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Everywhere, a production of I Heart Radio. I'm
your host Daniel Scheffler. This week's commandment thou shalt save
the fucking planet. Well, here's the thing. I wish I

(00:22):
knew exactly how to save the planet. I simply do
not have the answers, But as a frequent flyer, every
week traveler, it certainly is something I want to be
thinking about as I see this great Earth. I do, however,
think they are small ways, like thinking about personal waste

(00:42):
and being more conscious of how to take take take
from the planet, and then they are more systematic, big
ways that government and big tech can help us. Perhaps
the problem is we can't agree on a simple thing.
Just how important is nature to you? The Amazon is

(01:03):
on fire as we speak. Why does it seem like
half the planet cares and the other half much less so?
Michael and I talk about microplastics in the oceans all
the time, and now we've started wondering about the fish
we consume Poisson de plastique. Doesn't that sound delicious? Also,

(01:27):
Elon Musk's mission to Mars feels like it's becoming a
real possibility, So perhaps some are even less inclined to
care about nature on the third rock from the sun.
But alas the future is here, and I think the
future is now, we can agree that a productive, diverse

(01:50):
natural world plus a stable climate have been the very
basics that have formed our civilization's successes, And so recycling
feels really good to me. When I go to my
local farmer's market or popping at a farm stall, or
when I shop at places like organic Farmer That's with

(02:10):
a pH in case you wanted to look that up,
it does all feel fantastic to me. And I love
that when I walk around Tokyo there are no trash cans,
that it's my responsibility to take my trash home with me.
But let's be honest, what does it really mean? What
am I actually impacting as I trend all over the

(02:33):
world with my sneakers made from ocean plastic that has
been recycled. I do think we need to be talking
about regenerative farming, and the best way to see this
and understand this is to travel to places where it's
being done on big and small scales. In fact, we
should be doing that right now. I hope that President

(02:56):
Warren next year will start offering subsidies to organic farming
when she takes office. That can be my side hustle
organic farming lobbyist. Okay, so back to what feels utterly
wonderful whilst I'm traveling. What feels really good is when
I remember to bring my reusable water flask slash coffee flask.

(03:20):
I recently started counting how many plastic bottles of water
get foisted on me during a transcond flight, and it's
not pretty. Then for the moment, being part of the
Paris Climate Agreement does also feel utterly fantastic. It is,
in fact, Climate Week in New York as we speak.

(03:41):
And just knowing that there are forces from all over
the globe that are beyond my comprehension working on helping
this planet, well fuck, that feels sensational. As someone who's
on board an aeroplane, often I realize that I'm also
doing my fair share of harm to the planet. I'm

(04:01):
also not suggesting we don't fly ever again with all
some kind of perspective. So now, my friend Nick, who
lives in San Louis, Obispo, plants a tree for every
trip I take on a plane. Mother Earth thanks him
actively so as a frequent frequent traveler, I'm clearly not

(04:22):
doing enough, So what else should I be doing or
thinking about doing? I am recycling, I'm always shopping local.
I do turn off the lights and air conditioner in
hotel rooms when I'm not there, and of course I
do not need my hotel linen and towels washed every day.

(04:43):
I think about new ways to aid in this department
all the time. Of course, I would love any suggestions,
so please reach out. Eco tourism was a movement that
started to take shape back in the nineteen eighties. It's
the oldest and most commonly used word for it, and
now we say things like sustainable tourism or green tourism, Responsible, ethical, mindful.

(05:09):
Ecotourism is essentially all about bringing nature and wildlife conservationists,
with local communities and the responsible travel industry together to
ensure development is focused on long term sustainability rather than
strong term profit. So let me tell you a little
story about a dear friend's mother, let's just call her

(05:32):
Lie Lie. Lie Lie recently told me that climate change
and the destruction of this planet is part of the
bigger plan. It will rid the earth of the glut
of population, and it will make space for the right
amount of humans to be here. It is, after all,
natural selection, a sort of natural order of construction and destruction.

(05:57):
When she said it, it felt so severe to me.
But there's something to it, and I just cannot stop
thinking about it. Maybe the planet is saying, okay, enough
parasites be gone. Speaking of Lila, well, she's extreme, but
nobody's pushing the conversation forward the way she does. As

(06:18):
much as I like Algon, he just isn't hitting the
same notes that Lilac can. She's dedicated her whole life
to all this change, and you know what shocks her
most the fact that she thinks nobody's speaking out and
she's right, why are we not all speaking up? Last

(06:39):
week in New York, kids took off school to go
protest for the planet, and I feel that's crucial, but
not enough. They may actually need to call lie Line
to lead their march and be their mascot. She's charismatic
and speaks her truth. In the nineties seventies, living in

(06:59):
the original Venice Beach, she would pile the kids in
the car and head over to the fast food chains
drive through. She'd pull up and the family would roll
down their windows and yell at whichever ill fated teenager
was earning minimum wage at the window. How could you
use styr foam and all that clastic? Today she drives

(07:21):
a tesla and she uses it for dumps the diving
in San Francisco. She recently told me that people are
discovering all her good spots, but she still does love
it because, as Lilae says, they throw out all this
ugly fruit that is perfectly good to use for jams
and who knows what else. I adore Lilae, even though

(07:45):
she told me that my very expensive cologne was making
her tongue tingle and it was probably not good for
her by arm. She lives on hundreds of acres in Yosemite,
and she has woofers, the World Organization of organic farmers,
who come and work and live on her land. They
learn how to go back to the land. And this

(08:07):
is where my travel thoughts come into play. Isn't this
an amazing way to travel the world, Like let's go
to a kibbutz and learn how farming is done in Israel?
Or what have we traveled to Bolivia and see how
Class Maya's teams are employing young people in LAPAs to
learn to cook with native ingredients in order to rely

(08:28):
less on imports, or what about going to farms outside
Abu Dhabi and working on them for a day or
two because who knew that the UAE even had serious
farming happening. Lila is inspiring, to say the least. In
her extremity. She does somewhat push people away, but that's

(08:49):
what the fringe does here. But without her, will all
be ruining the planet every day with hardly enough regard
for this life. Can some and please give this woman
her own Netflix show or a podcast. She can kind
of be the Murrie Condo of the environment. She would
come into your home or your business, or your country

(09:11):
and show you how to clean it up. Imagine this, No, no,
put that down. That's far too much plastic, Daniel. You
do not need to use single use gloves to touch
that meat, Daniel. Are you going to use those vegetable scraps?
They are very good for the manure, and those carrots
and beach shavings they are perfect for coloring my hair.
I hope you're planning to drink that urine, Daniel. It's

(09:33):
very good for your immune system. We all need a
little lie line in our lives. In all my travels,
I find it difficult to always see and understand what
everybody's doing to save the planet. Lilac excluded, of course,
A few places that stick out to me on my
travels are Botswana, Guyana, and Costa Rica. Of Course, the

(09:58):
obvious northern European countries I've been to, like Denmark and
Sweden and Finland are also included. In Botswana, they took
the country's entire military or defense budget and poured it
all into conservation. Just think about the impact. If we
slivered even two percent of our defense budget into conservation,

(10:21):
it could change the whole country. Costa Rica is by
far the most eco conscious tourism place on the planet
right now, with an endless amount of regulation around hotels
and resorts being able to build and operate on principles
that are good for the planet, less waste, less destruction.
In Guyana, they aim to achieve one clean and renewable

(10:44):
energy supply by and then I found this incredible travel
app operator Utopia. They're based in Mexico and they're offering
biocultural trips. Utopia is a platform that will house travelers
to search for authentic experiences outside the conventional routes. They

(11:06):
access rural communities, especially the indigenous ones, with hosts who
want to share the incredible natural richness of their land.
They preserve the natural and cultural heritage of Mexico by
revolutionizing tourism. Okay, so what is going to make the
biggest impact. That's probably what we should be thinking about

(11:27):
on every trip we take. I try not to preach,
but rather want to have an open dialogue and try
and figure this all out. Together. We could save the planet,
but first we need to find some common ground. I
faint when I see photos of seals covered in oil.
My heart caves when I see forests on fire. But

(11:49):
that's not everyone's messaging. It needs to be something that
affects everyone in their daily life. Okay, fine, let's sci
fi this. Margaret Atwood's new book is out after all,
and I just flew out of Gile Lead. This is
the Netflix series you've been waiting for. All humans get

(12:10):
a horrible disease infected by the Earth from its very core,
all at once. The more you do to help save
the planet, whether it's banal recycling or big legislation, it
all starts to heal you. The cure is to help
the planet. If you do nothing, you just start wasting away,

(12:35):
slowly dying, killing yourself every moment, and if you help,
you may live. Maybe this is already happening and we
just don't know it. And now let's talk to Holly,
my dearest friend, for some conservation history. I sat here

(12:59):
being silent for minutes. He was so busy on your
phone getting Costello ticket. Have a little chat. I did
that before we started. Don't throw me into the kidding.
These are very important things. But one of the things
that you talked about was conservation, and it's an interesting
subject because different areas of the world have such different

(13:20):
histories of conservation. And I thought we could talk a
little bit about the juxtaposition between Western culture and then
how conservation has been handled in South Africa because they
intertwine during the colonial era and some interesting things happen.
Do you know when the first national park in the
world was created in America? No, do you want to

(13:44):
guess what country? It's one you've been to. I mean,
that doesn't narrow things down very much at all. In Mongolia, Oh,
I knew this. And it's interesting because there is debate
over when people would say historically, the conservation movement begame
it like a lot of people link it to industrialization,
which is natural because there was a resultant reaction to

(14:06):
that that there was concern over what we were doing.
But really what is often discussed as the first conservation document,
at least in Western culture, dates back to sixteen sixty two,
and that was paper titled Silva, or a Discourse on
Forest Trees and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesty's Dominions,
and that was written by John Evelyn and presented to

(14:29):
the Royal Society, and that was actually at the urging
of the Royal Society as the King was planning to
build some more fantastic things and they wanted to consider
what that would result in in terms of the forestry.
It's kind of interesting because he really does talk about
things that we're still discussing today. There's a lot about
deforestation in England and his concerns about it at the time,

(14:51):
and he really was one of the first people, at
least on paper, to introduce this idea of replenishment of
forest resources. So as you're kind down trees for lumber,
we need to be replacing those trees with saplings and seedlings,
and it was actually really successful. People weren't like, you're
a nut, what are you talking about. They're like, oh,
these are things we should think about. But really it wasn't,

(15:12):
as I said, until the early industrial era that we
really first start seeing people raised some red flags about it.
Prussia and France started looking at these problems, and as
early as the eighteenth century, so in the seventeen hundreds,
they were considering how they were going to manage their
forests and how agriculture was going to be managed to
not completely deplete the land of its options and its

(15:34):
natural resources. And then the Napoleonic Wars had some other issues.
That is actually when the first conservation laws came into
being was during the Napoleonic Wars, which were specifically related
to teak trees. People were very concerned about them, and
so that was the first time someone said, if a
tree is smaller than this, you cannot cut it down,
like they had to be mature trees only. And then,

(15:55):
as you know, science developed, there was more and more
information that people could kind of feed into the papers
that they were writing in the research that they were doing,
and slowly, over time we get more and more interest.
Theodore Roosevelt in the US was a big proponent of
conservation at a time when the conservationists of preservationists were
kind of at odds. In case anyone doesn't know, conservation

(16:15):
is about management of resources. Preservation doesn't want to touch
the resources, but just essentially cordon them off and let
them be. But at the same time, if we turn
and spend the globe a little and look at South Africa,
there's an interesting thing. So before colonization, before Europeans decided
to move in and do their thing, there was kind

(16:36):
of already a natural harmony with the natural world and
the people, and they kind of just inherently understood that
this is not a thing we should strip and destroy
for our own benefit. There was a religious element to
some of that, where they just naturally held certain things
in a sacred space and so they would not touch them.
One of the things that is interesting is the idea

(16:57):
of totem animals, like sacred animals could not be hunted
at all, and that was they didn't need a law.
They just understood that that was the thing that was
off limits. And then scarce products were really just reserved
for things like honoring people in the highest levels of society.
They were not something like oh I he got and
everything I want and everything. Let's get all the ivory

(17:18):
things and then suddenly you have destroyed the ivory sources
the beautiful animals that produced them. And of course during
the colonial period, westerners moved in and wanted to build
all the things and did the same things that were
causing problems in Europe. In the US, there was also
a strange thing that happened, which is that conservation grew
as an idea, but places that were demarcated for conservation

(17:42):
were also only for rich people to enjoy. In some cases,
there were entire groups of indigenous people's that were moved
off of land because they were like, no, no, we
want to save this land so white people can go
stand in it and have wonder. I know, you lived
here a long time, but you go somewhere, which is
kind of a really messed up way to look at it.

(18:04):
And of course, eventually, particularly post apartheid, that's really when
South Africa established it's more modern approach to like park
management and looking at truly nature as something that needed
to be cared for and protected and and how that
kind of is still. I mean we are all every country,
I think, with a few exceptions, is still working out

(18:26):
the best ways to deal with things. Because this technology
evolves and grows, we are accidentally depleting resources we weren't
even thinking about. Even in the early days of cold
there were people going, this doesn't last forever. Do you
understand that? But we're still having the conversation a hundred
and fifty years later. But it's one of those things
where you, I think the idea of conservation kind of

(18:46):
gets lumped in as a by some folks, not everybody.
It almost gets seen as like, no, this is a
like a hippie dippie thing. This is nice to have
a need to right, this is this is for those
people that are socialists commuters with nature. But what these
people before colonization in South Africa inherently understood is that

(19:08):
there's a symbiosis involved that you can't deny. And if
you completely destroy an environment and the animals there for
your own benefit, you are ultimately destroying yourself. Maybe not
yourself and your generation, but your people behind you are
going to reap the bad results of all of those

(19:29):
those desire driven decisions that were made that ultimately hurt
both the earth and it's creatures. Well, like in South Africa,
four happened. Nelson Mandela came out of prison and it
became a democracy, and suddenly South Africa opened up to
the world. Suddenly it became popular and at that point

(19:50):
was the first luxury safari launches that opened Singita. They
were like, wait, everyone's looking to South Africa. We should
do an INCREDI doable place where people could come and
appreciate the wild and conservation. That's when Singita started and
they started building these beautiful launches so that it wasn't
just camping in the bush, think like Meryl Streep out

(20:14):
of Africa. They turned it into a much more finessed experience.
It's glamping with animals, well a little even more fabulous
than glamping. I mean, Singita has this u incredible footprint
in South Africa and Tanzania and Zimbabwe, where they've had
very wealthy founders and investors bring a kind of needed

(20:40):
conservation element to luxury tourism and safari where if you
want to go there's a huge amount of the money
goes to conservation. I mean in Tanzania, in the Grammati Reserve,
which is where the sinky is. They have nine hundred
full time anti poaches patrol rolling, which is incredible. So

(21:02):
when you go to the right places, you realize that
your money is going towards conservation where it's like a
country like Botswana did this amazing thing where they took
the entire military budget and put it all towards conservation,
which is incredible. And when you go there and you
stay at wilderness has these incredible largest little mambo and mambo,

(21:25):
and you spend time with some of the game ranges,
they'll explain to you how every little element can now
be funded by these projects. I mean, Africa is like
so important because it hasn't been developed as much as
a place like America has or Europe. Right the level

(21:45):
of industrialization is just not there to create that right
now for a slight respite. And I'll be right back
with everywhere after a word from our sponsors. You've just
been somewhere, what say we go everywhere? Now? Well, I
guess like the thing that we haven't talked about with

(22:06):
all of this is that there's an element of global
warming attached to all of this. The planet is warming,
Animals are migrating in different ways. Land is changing, so
the grassland may not be the same grassland as it was,
and these animals are forced to move and where will
they go? So this is my thing. I mean, you

(22:28):
worked at a zoo, right, So like I volunteered at
an aquarium. I always say you work there, I mean,
you volunteered at an aquarium. What's interesting for me is
that in some ways, I feel very uncomfortable with zoos.
I feel uncomfortable watching an animal in captivity. I'm used
to seeing animals in I guess from a game drive vehicle,
but not in a cage or large cage. I'm seeing

(22:51):
them in a more natural setting. I know it's also
fenced in, but that's for antipoaching reasons. But I have
a sort of uncomfortableity with zoos. I I like, I
kind of appreciate the animals, but I feel like bad
that they are in a cage. Yeah, And I mean
I feel like we should acknowledge, right, there are much
different levels of zoos and aquariums. Like good zoos and

(23:13):
aquariums are often dealing with rescue animals, and there is
a balance. I completely understand the desire to not see
those institutions exist anymore. There is a flip side though,
right where at the same time, I think to the
average person, it's a teaching tool to really drive home
the message of conservation. It's one thing to look at

(23:36):
a picture in a book or even look at a documentary.
But then when you see one of these majestic creatures,
hopefully in as naturalized an environment as possible, up close,
it shifts you, like you realize really what we're fighting
for likely what needs to be saved. Well, when you
go to Africa, that's the thing that hits you. It's

(23:58):
impossible for not to write if you singing this animal
in this state and you think, wait, this is with nature.
It has to remain like this. Yeah, And the thing
is right, like, not everybody is going to get the
chance to go to Africa. And that's where I'm like, no,
I get it. But again, it's very tricky and it
it is one of those things where you want to
make sure that the animals are getting optimal care. And

(24:21):
I mean, I've had the good fortune to speak to
like veterinarians and facilities like that, and and it kind
of breaks my heart because I know there are people
who are vehemently against the very places they work. But
when I see these people, they are dedicated exclusively to
really like their lives are about that work. I mean,
they're like the people that sometimes don't go home for

(24:42):
a week at a time, their kids don't see them
because whatever animal might need their attention at any given moment,
so they'll just sleep on the floor in their office.
I mean, there's a side of it. I think that
people don't realize that. For the most part, people nobody
gets into like becoming a biologist or veterinarian of exotic
animals for the money or fame, right, And they're certainly

(25:04):
not there because they don't love animals. So that's like
the trick, right. It's not a high paying profession. It
does require a lot of personal sacrifice, particularly if you're
working in a big facility like that, because quite frankly,
like a whale doesn't care if you have some stuff scheduled.
Maybe they're sick, or maybe they're pregnant, or maybe they're
you know, there are any number of things that might

(25:24):
and those people will almost always just shut down their
lives and be like, Okay, well I have to take
care of this thing, and that's all it is. So
that's like the flip side of that discussion, is that
one it does I think drive conservation for some people,
and too, there are a lot of people behind the
scenes you never see that really have put a lot
of their personal lives aside just to make sure those
animals are cared for. Well, Holly, have you ever been

(25:47):
bitten by an animal? Oh? Yeah, tell me about your
near death experience with an animal. I don't think I
have a near death one. I mean I certainly like
I grew up when I was very young, we lived
in airs Oonah, and when it would rain heavily, like,
the tarantulas all come out, and I loved them, so
I would just scoop them up and put them in
like a coffee can and be like, this is my pet.

(26:08):
I don't know why I always named them Bill, but
I did. My mother was petrified and was always like
at the very edge of her nerves, possibly going to
lose her mind because I would walk outside and pick
up a tarantula without thinking. But I never got bit
by any of those. I did get attacked by a
pack of dogs when I was a kid. That was
a little scary. Yeah, it was like in a completely

(26:31):
not remote place. It was like in my neighborhood, but
there was just there were a bunch of stray dogs
that ran around and I was terrified of them. And
I'm sure that didn't help matters. But they chased me
at one point down my driveway we had a long driveway,
and tackled me and I was very scared, and my
dad came out and fired a pistol and scared them away,
of course he did. Well, thank you so much for

(26:56):
being with me today. So in case you want to
hear Holly talks and all, which she does all the time,
well bless you too. You can do that on stuff
you mist in History Class, which is my regular history
podcast that is at missed in history everywhere on social
media or missed in history dot com. All the things
you didn't know, We're fascinating. There they are. For my

(27:20):
next interview, I'm with Governor of Washington State, j Ininsley.
He recently ran for president but is now more focused
on the environment. Tell me how are you on today?
I'm great. I'm in a great state, the Evergreen State.
We got some nice rain yesterday which might hopefully suppress
the forest fires that are increasing because the climate change.

(27:42):
So that's good news. We like some rain on occasion,
I'm complaining good. I believe there's a story of you
walking and standing in some of the fires. The aftermath
of the fires tell me a little bit about that. Well. Unfortunately,
as governor, I have experienced firsthand the face of climate change,

(28:04):
which is the most obvious one is the fires that
we've had, both in Washington and California. I've gone to
the multiple communities here in Washington when we've had an
emergency response where lives have been lost, been in California
and walked through Paradise, California. It's the town of twenty
five thousand. It's not just some little crossroads that burned
the ground. And I walked through at night with Governor

(28:25):
Jerry Brown's emergency coordinator, and it was like we spent
about an hour and there was nobody there and it
was like the scene of a post apocalypse Hollywood movie.
I've been to Seminar Springs where I've met a woman
who really stands up out to me in this trail
of disasters, women named Marcia Moss, who showed me her

(28:45):
entire ownership was a little pool of melted aluminium which
used to be her mobile home. So I've seen that,
and I've walked with people who have real tears over
a real crisis. So this is not an abstraction to me.
This is a real peep with real suffering. And I
wish I could say it's just fires. It's the flood
victims the Midwest who have met like Regina Haddeck who

(29:07):
lost her nonprofit called Address for Success. They took your
victims of domestic violence until her nonprofit was washed away
by the floods. It's the people in the Everglades who
love the Everglades. Something like forty acres of the swamp
was on fire. When your swamps are on fire, you know,
you know you've got a problem. So I've had many
walks with many people who are feeling this looming disaster.

(29:31):
That's not a future thing, it's a reality today. So
you can say, I know a lot of folks who
have been affected by this. How do you think it
affects travelers, people that are traveling internationally locally, whether you're
going to Disney or going to Denmark. I think it's
important to look at climate change, like how do you
think people engage with it? It's interesting you asked that question,

(29:56):
because the only plus side I can think of from
a travel perspective is it has encouraged some people to
travel to locations they otherwise may not have because they
realize it's their last chance. As you actually see people
in some sense promoting the idea if you'd like to
see a glacier, you need to come now because they

(30:17):
won't be here for another decade or two. The fact
that Glacier National Park in the near future won't have
glaciers is stunning lee damaging to me. I'm just heartsick
about this. But other people have got off the couch
and go and see the glaciers. So that's the best
out side you can possibly think, if there is one.
But the obvious questions are as people are encountering this themselves,

(30:39):
travelers in the heat of Europe this year, I've talked
to some people that just were really troubled by the heat.
It's ninety degrees and anchorage. For goodness sakes, if you
want to go walking in the permit frost, now you
kind of melting. You walk in the muck because it's melting.
There's real consequences to this, you know. The folks when
you think about Malibu as a paradise in the coastline

(31:00):
of California, not so much when people are now terrified
and wondering how I'm going to live here? Actually, so
it has real world impacts on people. Hopefully travel is
helpful in inspiring people to get engaged in the effort
to defeat climate change, because the more you see of
the world, you more you understand. It's a very beautiful place.

(31:21):
It's very unique. There's one little blue planet hanging out
in space and it's very gorgeous. And the more you travel,
the more you understand all of multiple things that are threatened.
The folks who would like to go to scuba Iland,
coral reefs, very significant parts of coral reefs are very
much endangered. You know, the Great Barrier Reef had tremendous
bleaching events in our national parks, We've had huge bleaching

(31:45):
events of coral and that's the reality right now. So
you literally are having the disappearance of major attractions in
the travel universe featured around the beauty of the earth
as we know it. So travel, I hope you can
help by encourage people to get engaged in this mission statement.

(32:07):
How do you think we make this real for people
to day today. Like the problem is that so much
of it comes from a speech, but so much of
it is like being you being told by your teacher
and you being a mand boy, you must recycle, you
have to do this after this, and people seem to
especially America, when it's all about freedom of choice, it's

(32:27):
all about the First Amendment, It's all about I don't
want government to tell me what to do, Like, how
do we get it into people's minds that this should
be important to People are moving very rapidly on this issue.
The polling is indicated that, and the reason is it
is not speeches by politicians. I wrote a book about
this twelve years ago, and at that point it was

(32:48):
an abstraction with people. Now it is reality. So that
reality is changing hearts and minds, including the United States.
People at least say we ought to do something about
climate change, and so the public is now there on
the vast majority of Americans that want to see action
against climate change, it is unfortunately just one of the

(33:08):
parties and politicians that have refused to act. Half of
the Republicans the United States believe we should deal with
climate change, but none of the Republican politicians are because
they're all afraid of Donald Trump's shadow. It's time to
get rid of that shadow, get a president who will
realize that when turbans don't cause cancer, they cause jobs.
Climate change is not a hoax, it's a president reality

(33:30):
that's burning down Paradise, California, and flooding Hamburg, Iowa, and
making the shoreline of Miami Beach and an inndation zone.
And it is true, this is our very last chance.
We will not have another chance to deal with this
uh other than the next administration. So tell me something
personal that for you set to work on this the

(33:54):
longer term. Is my dad was a biology teacher. I
grew up in the outdoors. My mother and father helped
fix the alpine meadows on the shoulders of Mount Ray
Near during the summers. I certainly fell in love with
those alpine medals and forests early in my life, and
I know that they're threatened right now. I have a
picture in my office of a magenta paintbrush, which is

(34:14):
a little flower. The only place that grows in it
Washington State, essentially, and it may be extinct an hundred
years because the tree lines moving up with temperature changes
which are crowding out the alpine meadows. So this is
something that goes back to my youth, but it also
on the other bookend of my life as a grandparent.
You know, I was walking with my grandson a couple

(34:35):
of years ago on the beach and I was seeing
him flip over rocks and looking at the little urchins
and everything, and you just see his little face light up.
When when you see a kid see a new life
form and you see that connection, it's very exciting to watch.
And I realized that that feeling he had was the
same one I had when I was seven or eight.
My dad would take me down to the shoreline or

(34:57):
car keep park and I remember that feeling of seeing
limpets and urchins for the first time. So this is
deep with us. The reason I've used travel as this
vehicle is because it changes your possession, It puts somewhere else,
and it falces you in so many ways to find humanity,

(35:17):
to find connections. How do you think we have that
discussion internationally? Well, you know, my friend Rick Steves, who's
been doing tremendous work, I'm behalful of travel, and he
looks at at this not so much as an industry,
but he looks at it as a way of enlightenment,

(35:39):
and it is. And people bring things home much more
than postcards. They bring home a new appreciation, a of
common humanity. And you know, I know it's like perhaps
a cliche, but it's true. The more you travel, you
more I understand that we're all the same, right, So
that's a cliche. But the most important aspect of travel.
But as far as a climate changes, she you will

(36:00):
find anywhere in the world today you go, you will
see impacts of climate change. It doesn't matter where it is.
If you go to the Arctic, you will see melting
glaciers and tunder If you go to India, it's too
hot to go outside Paris. It's really uncomfortable to walk
around just because of the heat. So we have a
common humanity because we're all mother's father's sons and daughters.

(36:25):
But we're a common humanity because we're all threatened by
a common threat right now. And I actually think that
this has the potential to be one of the most
unifying aspects of human history because it's the one thing
we've all faced at the same time, every single human
on Earth several billion people face the same threat at
the same time, and it requires a joint, unified effort

(36:47):
to defeat it. So travel could be a very important
part aspect of that to give us a chance of success.
And that's what we need desperately right now. Now, Everyone
for a time out except postpons. We'll be right back
with more everywhere. Welcome once again to everywhere. Let's hark
back to it. For my next interview, I'm with Sun John,

(37:16):
the CEO of Conservation International. We are at his DC
office overlooking Reagan Airport, talking about how important conservation is.
I think at the core of most people there is
a strong thread of empathy, and there's a strong thread

(37:37):
of wanting to be liked and like. And I think
if you are really putting yourself on the line and
you're saying something in a very honest and thoughtful open way,
I think most human beings we'll find some resonance with it,
even if they disagree with you. I do think though,
that for the vast majority of the world, the conclusion

(37:58):
that I'm coming to any come to conservation or climate
change or anything like that, that these changes are not
going to happen because I'm telling someone they need to
do it, They're going to happen because people are going
to see that it's in their own self interest, their own,
as I founder says, their own enlightened self interest to
make that change happen. And for me, that's been a

(38:20):
big shift because when we learned about conservation, we learned
about nature, and when learned about wildlife and the environment,
the predominant language is the language of love. You watch
David Attenborough read You're Wilson put Surprising author, you read
any of these people, it's a it's an owd to love,
the love of the world and the wonders of the world.

(38:42):
And the truth is I feel that I feel that
throbbing in me all the time. I joke and say
I have a little cabin in Montana because I like
going for a walk in the words, knowing there's something
bigger than me, greater than me, grander than me, older
than me. They can come out of the words and
take my head off. I kind of like that. But
it's not a great value proposition for most of the world,
save the forest, it might one day kill you. For

(39:04):
most of the planet, I think it has to be
not just a language of love. It also has to
be a language of value, and if people don't see
the value in it, it's going to be hard to
really motivate them to make those changes at the scale
that we need to make those changes. How do we
show people that value? So your question, I would ask

(39:24):
you this is do you truly believe that we need nature?
Do you truly believe that you truly believe that the
world is better with wild places and with nature surrounding us?
I actually do, because I can't think of places the
most environmentally damaged places also tend to be at the
very bottom of the pet when it comes to every

(39:46):
form of human development index. Go to Haiti and then
go to the Dominican Republic. You'll see the difference in
how nature is protected. And it's obvious to me who
has suffered part because of the destruction of nature. Right,
So it's not like I've gone to a lot of
places where they've done a great job of destroying nature
and now it's a flourishing, amazing place with incredible intellectual

(40:10):
stimulation and money and all that. It doesn't tend to
work that way. It tends to work. I was just
in Rwanda. You know, this is a country that has
come through a cataclysm, and you look at the way
they talk about nature. You took the way they take
care of plastics. You take a look at the way
that they deal with waste disposal, or about conservation, about gorillas.

(40:33):
You know, the head of the Ruanda Development Board was
speaking to me and basically said, look, we're small country,
and I'll protected here. It's a pretty small but we
are still able to do quite a lot. And amazingly,
we're actually expanding our Girla habitat this year because the
gorillas are out of room. They've grown, the population actually grown.
So I think these things go hand in hand. I

(40:54):
think it's pretty good evidence to show environmental destruction happens.
It then followed by human misery. So what is your
plan as a person and your plan for conservation international? Wow,
that's a big question. I like my big questions. That's

(41:15):
a really big question. I genuinely believe that we have
ten to twelve years to sort of forget this equation. Right.
It doesn't mean that in twelve years the world blows up,
but it does mean that the path we're on is
the path we're on, and we're not going to be
able to jot the world into a path of sustainably
after that time. The science shows that the data is

(41:37):
pretty strong on that these are the best years of
my life. I look at my team around here. You know,
half our staff of millennials. You know, I don't want
them to live a wasted life. I really don't. So
for me, my my plan, my plan for myself personally,
but also the team that I surround myself with is
let's not live a wasted life. Let's go all in,

(41:59):
let's go for it. We're never going to regret it.
I know that, I know that we're not going to
regret it. So Contrivation International is built on a very
simple premise that people need nature. We truly believe that
humans thrive when nature thrives. What we are pushing really
hard are three things. At first, is we want to
protect all of nature. That is most important to climate.

(42:21):
It turns out to the destruction of nature, particularly force,
particularly tropical force like the Amazon. Turns out that the
destruction of nature is about thirty of the contributions of
greenhouse gas missions that's going up into the atmosphere. Put
another way, if you look at the worst emitters in
the world, if if before station was a country, it

(42:43):
would be China would be the worst, the United States
be right there. Then it would be deforestation. That's what
we want to tackle. We want to end the destruction
of intact forests and big tropical force systems. Two, we
want to massively increase how much ocean is under conservation protection.
The oceans have got very little little of our attention.

(43:03):
They're hugely important to people on the planet who depend
on it for their primary source of protein. They are
vastly under protected. So we want to massively increase the
amount of oceans under conservation protection and conservation management. We
were planned for doing that. And the third it's more
in a funny way, in a more subtle way or

(43:24):
more interesting problem. You know this word sustainability, and we
throw it around all the time. I can tell you
commodities that are sustainable, like this coffee that I'm drinking
actually right now is actually sustainably grown, and that it's
grown in a way that doesn't tend to damage the environment.
I can't tell you a place that is sustainable. No

(43:44):
one will fully agree what that actually means. We want
to demonstrate that. So there are sixteen places around the
world where we are working with governments, communities and companies
to demonstrate sustainably at scale. And what I mean by
that is people can grow things and live a better
life without destroying nature that they need. So if I

(44:05):
can show you coffee production going up fullfold while before
station going down by half, I say that place is
approaching sustainability. Something that we need to talk about is
how do we translate conservation into a travel sphere. So
to me it's obvious. You pack your banks, you get
on the plane, and you go to Costa Rica and

(44:27):
you see funck Man. They're doing something differently here, Like,
how do you understand the importance because I don't think
people do. We talk about sustainability, as you said, so loosely.
We talk about being green so easily. But how do
we tell people to travel to see this, to understand this.

(44:51):
I don't have an answer, fair enough, I have a thought.
I love your thoughts. We live in a hyper disconnected world.
The more connected we are in some ways, the more
disconnected we are, and there is no sense of geography anymore.
There's no sense of place. I think one of the
wonderful things that travel does, even though I fully appreciate

(45:13):
the environmental cost of travel, and we can talk about that.
One of the wonderful things it does is it, if
done right, it really reconnects human beings. It connects them
to each other and connects them to place and connects
them to nature. And I think that's a very very
powerful thing that we have lost. And we haven't lost
it for centuries. We've lost it for probably the last

(45:35):
a hundred years, eighty years, and we need to find
that again. You know, I can sit here in my
office and fire off emails and buy things from all
over the world and just get it delivered at my
home in this weird sort of landscape that never had
existed anytime before in human history. You know, we're sitting
here on the banks to Potomac River, right so we're

(45:57):
here in Crystal City, just you know a couple of us.
Up here is old Town, Alexandria, and just beyond that
is Mount Vernon, and I bit that route almost every
day I live up there. George Washington founder George Washington
would take his wares from Mount Vernon and tundled them
down a cart path right along the river to that

(46:19):
Alexandria Pharma's market every Saturday and sell it there. Imagine
that sense of place and what you would get and
the food and the environment. Imagine that kind of seasonality
playing a real role in people's lives. That's lost today.
That's completely lost today. I think one of the most

(46:41):
beautiful things about Traveler is it just it makes you
human again. You know, we would you and I love Africa,
and I was just saying to you, you know, I
would just in quite literally the crazle of humanity. You know,
maybe thirty miles from Old of I where they found
the footprints that, at three point four million years old,
the first direct evidence of an upright hominid, actually a

(47:04):
pair of them at least walking across this landscape when
a volcano was probably lovers. Maybe certainly you could see
the Tilton one. They think it was because the female,
the smaller of the footprints, was carrying a baby on
her hip. But it was a day that we know
it was raining because you can see the little drops
of rain. There were hyena tracks and jackal tracks and
guinea foiul tracks criss crossing their footprints. Same thing animals

(47:28):
I see today. You stand on that soil, you smell
that air, You want to look at those umbrella shaped
trees and you think there is cellular memory here. If
you've never even ever been to East Africa, if you're
a human being and you're in that landscape, you go,
oh my god, I feel like I'm at home. The
air is about seventy degrees, the breezes relatively dry. Their

(47:51):
landscape of short grass, coupled with those umbrella shaped trees
is exactly what we make our lawns and our golf
force courses to look like. And if you quint and
see some baboons in the distance, they look like a
bunch of guys playing golf way up there, you know,
poking around with a little stick in the dirt, right,
and and you're like, I'm home, even if you've never
been there. So there is something real about humans that

(48:15):
makes us want to connect to place. And I think
we've been unbelievably disconnected. With some benefits. Of course, I
think it's time to reconnect to me. That's the best
part of travel. So I want to talk about my
darling friend, Madigan's mother, who I'd love you to meet.
Her name's Maybel. She lives on I think two acres

(48:38):
on the edge of Yosemite, and she is the most
extreme environmentalist I have ever met, and she thinks the
warming is good. It's gonna rid half the planet of
people who don't deserve to be here, and they'll be
space so we can grow and farm again. She dumps
the dives in San Francisco. I'm gonna go dumps the
diving with her for one of my episodes because she's like,

(49:02):
I know where all the good spots are people like her.
It's too extreme and people can't hear it and it
pushes them away. But somewhere in the middle there needs
to be a path where people would want to trend along.
How do we get people to do that with us,
to believe in what we're doing and not feel like, oh,

(49:24):
it's nonprofited world, I can't engage, or it's maybe oh
it's so extreme, I can't engage. Great question. Look, I
have a lot of respect for folks who live a
particular kind of life because they truly embody this notion
of don't preach, just live it and do it yourself,
and you can learn a lot from that. It is difficult, though,

(49:47):
to scale that. There's an old story about how narrow
you know the first Prime Minister of India once lamented
that it took a significant part of his treasury to
keep them Hatma meaning Mohamma Gandhi to keep the Mahatma
in poverty. And what he meant by that is every
time Gandhi had to travel somewhere, they had to bring
like two goats of spinning wheel, a whole bunch of rise,

(50:10):
you know, like he needed the accouterments to create the
illusion of what he was trying to do. Because he
was a symbol, he'd be sort of transformed into a symbol.
So and I understand that, and I understand the value
on then and what you can learn from that. But
I don't think that the way to solve the world's
problems is to sort of you spend time in Boulder.

(50:33):
Boulder has the sort of attitude that I'm gonna get
in trouble with people in Bolder, and they know what
I mean. Like there's this sort of general feeling like
if we just solve boldest problems, the world will be fine.
And it won't be fine because there are people on
the other side of the planet who for whom a
plastic bottle which we don't want anymore. And don't want
to have is this only way in which they can

(50:55):
carry water. You literally drive around some parts of rural Tanzania,
their kids on the side of that street literally asking
you to chuck out a plastic bottle because they want
that container. So that you know, it's a big, complex world,
and so what we try to do. What I try
to do is find a way to seek inspiration from
folks like Maple or Boulder, but understand that the challenge

(51:21):
we have is how do we scale without scale? And
that's you know you talked about your test I mean
that's really what Ellen was willing. You know, he could
have stayed at trying to create a boutique car at
a very high price point, and he could have created
a successful company doing that forever. The minute he just decided, no, no,
I don't need this. What I really need to do
is get these batteries into everything they have to completely

(51:44):
change the model. That is the future. It's not having
a hundred thousand dollar Testla, it's having genuinely a thirty
thousand dollar electric vehicle that can do the amazing things.
Tell me a personal story, something personal, then it inspires
you or you think about conservation because of some experience.

(52:05):
There's an image that sticks with me and it happened
on a journey that I made. When I made the
first documentary film that I was in. It was called
While Left in a war Zone and I did it
for the BBC, and what I did was I retraced
the footsteps of David Attenborough. So we grew up with
David Attenburg, still growing up with David Attenborough. But back
in the day, you know that guy, you know, was

(52:27):
the only model we had on television about what someone
who cared about animals did. What most people don't know
is that his first beginning into television was actually in Syrileon.
It was actually the same village that I grew up in,
quite literally, so I went back to syrian and sort
of retraced his early footprints. That was the show. One

(52:48):
day during that show, we were traveling through a rainforest,
very difficult terrain, trying to climb into a mountain which
even he didn't actually have a chance to explore, and
we needed a place to camp, and there's a little
village and we kind of got to it just as
dusk was setting and set up little tents on the
surrounding edge. Of the village. And I walked into this

(53:09):
village and I saw a gaggle of boys eight, nine,
ten years old, maybe about half a dozen or so
of them, and they were crowded around a little smoky fire.
And as I got to them, I could see that
they had a white piece of metal tin that had
clearly cut from some signboard that you know, you see
on all those African streets, and they're using that tin

(53:29):
to frantically fan the flames of this very smoky, dirty fire.
They had something that they were roasting on top of
the fire, and as I got closer, I realized first
that was a monkey, the dead monkey that these boys
were burning the fur off and roasting kind of by hand.
The second thing I noticed was the white piece of
metal that they were using to fan the flames had

(53:51):
a logo on it, and the logo said World Food
Program w FB. I have a photo. I snapped a
little for I didn't really fully understand the implications of
what I had just seen until later that night, as
I was sitting in my tent with the rain dripping
on it and looking through these images. Here's a bunch

(54:12):
of kids in Africa who are going to share a
very small monkey as their primary source of protein, and
they're faring the flames with the sign board for the
World Food Program. And it struck me like a bolt
of lightning. If there was those light light bulb moments
that when when governments fail, when civil society fails, when

(54:36):
even nonprofits flee, it's nature that provides the ultimate safety net.
It's nature that holds. And that was a revelation to
me that you cannot protect people if you're going to
do it on the at the expense of nature. It
has to be that nature has to be that underlying

(54:56):
safety net for all of us. Mhm. It's so beautiful.
What makes you um very angry about this business? Because
it's tricky. A lot of this is tricky. I really
wonder what people are doing with the enormous amount of

(55:19):
wealth that they have. It doesn't make me angry as
much as it makes me really sad. You know, our
chairman at our last board meeting made a very interesting
comment and he basically said, I look around this table,
and I think about the first board meeting we had,

(55:39):
and if I just think about how much those individual
people who are sitting around the table, how well they
have done in life and compare it with how much
this organization has grown while we have grown, and we're
grateful for that personal wealth is galloped ahead. And that's
the piece that I really kind of get both frustrated

(56:03):
and angry and sad about that we are going to
have a generation that is wealthier than any generation that
has ever come on the planet, and that generation is
going to turn over. People are gonna die, and that
money hasn't been put to the service of the planet.
You think about this really just a simple point. Nature

(56:23):
is never going to be as cheap as it is today,
so there's no point in waiting five years. You're not
going to get a bargain next month. So if you
have something and you want to do something to save
the planet, do it now. You know what makes me
angry Giant endowments. Giant endowments make me angry. I don't

(56:44):
get that. I don't get how you're saving so much
capital for some future when the crisis is happening right now.
And the ability to change that trajectory so much within
our grasp every day that goes I the freedom to move,
the freedom we have to operate and change trajectory gets

(57:05):
much narrower. But basically, we don't want to put money
to warrants things that we cannot see. To me, there's
the fundamental issue with conservation. I can't see it. I'm
sitting in Washington, d C. Show me. I can't see it.
The trees looks fine, that it looks lovely, like all

(57:26):
the planes going, everything looks fine. I need to see
how fucked we are in order for me to care,
I think me, But no, I think you're right. I
think we need to visualize that. We need to see it,
We need see the impact of it. We also need
to see the impact of what we're giving to because
the spending that we do today, I mean, you know,
the amount of money, private money, private money that goes

(57:46):
into ocean protection is less than you know, the last
Marvel movie, right, that's insane to me, right, Or Or
the amount of money that goes into the Amazon, right,
private money that's going to protect in the Amazon, which
is on fire right now. It's on everyone. Actually, the
pledges that have been made less than like two of
these planes that we've just seen take off right by here.

(58:08):
The scale of the problem is so much bigger than
the goodwill that we're generating, and so we have to
think about this a little bit differently. We have to
work on one people who have the ability and capacity
to convince them that they can do something great and
important and good right now. And I genuinely think I mean,
I think that for most folks, it's not a question

(58:29):
of how much can they give, It's a question of
how much can they imagine? You know, people will put
a hundred and fifty million dollar gift to build a
building at a university that has a you know, thirty
billion dollar trust fund sitting behind it. But that same
kind of cathedral thinking doesn't seem to happen with the environment.

(58:51):
The second thing is we've got to be able to
show We've gotta be able to show that we're making
progress in a real, meaningful way. My last questions you,
which was on my mind, is you call yourself Asian,
which I love. How is it to be Asian? And
serily o, did you think about it? Did you feel Asian?

(59:12):
Did you feel different? We thought about it every day.
I've always felt like I'm a little bit of a
stranger in a strange land. I've never fully felt like
I've actually ever fit anywhere really well. Probably the closest
and strange that the probably the closest have come to
a being completely at ease in my skin is either

(59:34):
in East Africa or interestingly, in Montana. It is a
very wide place, but there's something about that lands, given
the people who I surround myself with, this sort of
rural part of Montana, Granite County, that I find honest love.
We're always aware of uskin color. And you know, people

(59:54):
who say that they don't see color sort of insane
because you always it's raised just saying it because they
I think they're saying it in sort of a way
to sort of say, I'm not by implication, you are
if everyone who's off color sees color all the time.
Being in Asia, when we left Sri Lanka to come

(01:00:16):
to Africa, we had never seen I had never seen
a black person. I don't think my mother had either.
The only portrayals we had was on television, and imagine
what that was like in the seventies. So you know,
it was a huge cultural shift to all of a
sudden have our doctor being black African, or the pilot
who flew the little plane that would drop supplies off

(01:00:37):
to be black African. That was an amazing shift. It
really helped open my eyes to what makes it similar
rather than what makes this different. So good news about
that kind of childhood is that it makes me a
bit of a chameleon. No matter where I travel, I
can usually slip in. It also makes me always little
bit feeling like I'm a little bit of an outsider.

(01:01:00):
New York taught me, for the first time in my
life to feel okay in my own skin because I
was just part of all this. In in Africa, I
felt of the place, but also an unwelcome visitor, you know,
being white, And I felt that my parents were fierce

(01:01:22):
anti apartheid employed people of color, helped people of color,
But we were also part of the problem. As much
as we were not directly the problem, we were indirectly
the problem. What was weird is like I used to think,
why does no one else have black friends or Indian
friends or Asian friends. It was just me. I was

(01:01:43):
the only one, like of the kind of realm the
white kids hung out. I hung out with everybody. But
it's complicated, you know, it's it's you know, prejudices are
strange things. They're literally learned over small periods of time.
You know, I have a baby daughter, brand new ten
weeks old. I didn't know this, but babies can't see color.

(01:02:04):
They really are color blind, and they learned to see
color somewhere between like two months to four months. So
it's clear to me that certainly color prejudice is learned
to behavior. There's no adaptation for that in evolutionary terms, right,
So you will learn it, and just like you learn
some of these things, you can unlearn these things too.

(01:02:26):
My theory on a lot of the stuff is, let's
talk about grace. I'm going to suck it up. I'm
going if there's a wrong thing, but let's talk about it.
Correct me, shame me, whatever you want to do. But
rather let's talk about it and let me feel uncomfortable
because it helps me on my path. Yeah, and I've
to be you know this. This could be treading into
dangerous waters here for me. But I will say that

(01:02:48):
some of the reactions one gets on social media and
stuff like that not just what I've seen people say
who have fully acknowledged that they are learning. It just
seems like people want people to be born perfect and
perfect meaning in their own mold, and we're not. We're humans.
We have huge histories that we come with, and it's

(01:03:10):
our ability to believe those at the doorstep and transition
that's what makes it special. So I'm really a bit
saddened and really dismayed at the victual that is thrown
at anyone who kind of stumbles and pretending that we're perfect.
You know, I love to stumble. I stumble all the time.

(01:03:31):
It's perfect. I stumble and then I think my husband
helps me get back up and he's like, everything's fine.
And I love that, you know. I think that the
stumble is almost better than the idea of being perfect completely.
The best stumbles is when you when you're on the road,
and the stumbles you make during travel is what makes

(01:03:53):
those journeys special, whether it's through life, whether it's through
a physical journey. Thank you, thank you well. I had
a good time. I hope you did too. If you'd
like to reach us, go to Everywhere Podcast on Instagram,

(01:04:13):
Everywhere Part on Twitter, or the website everywhere podcast dot com.
Thanks for listening. I'm Daniel Scheffler signing off. I'll be
seeing you Everywhere. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,

(01:04:36):
visit the I Heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.