April 17, 2026 • 37 mins
Peter Simek's path to leading one of the world's premier environmental platforms started with poetry, couch surfing in Rome, and tracking down an ecstasy kingpin on a mountaintop in Georgia.
In this episode, iHeartMedia Dallas/Fort Worth Region President Chris Long sits down with the CEO of EarthX for a conversation that moves from investigative journalism to traveling the world with a giant dinosaur puppet for the United Nations to reimagining what an environmental organization can be from its home base in the heart of Texas oil and gas country.
Peter shares how nearly two decades as a journalist taught him the leadership skill he leans on most: shutting up and listening. He talks about why founder Trammel Crow says you can't preach to the choir if there's no choir, how EarthX evolved from a 120,000-person Earth Day street festival at Fair Park into a global convening platform, and what it means to lead a fifteen-year-old startup through its next chapter, including a new policy institute focused on nuclear energy and an urban biodiversity plan for Dallas.
Plus: a first concert that might crack the all-time rankings (Page and Plant at Madison Square Garden), and the nineteenth-century botanist story he's told enough people about that now he has to finish writing it.
CEOs You Should Know DFW features candid conversations with leaders shaping business in North Texas and beyond, hosted by Chris Long, Region President of iHeartMedia Dallas/Fort Worth. Follow, Rate, and Subscribe on the podcast platform you are listening on!
In this episode, iHeartMedia Dallas/Fort Worth Region President Chris Long sits down with the CEO of EarthX for a conversation that moves from investigative journalism to traveling the world with a giant dinosaur puppet for the United Nations to reimagining what an environmental organization can be from its home base in the heart of Texas oil and gas country.
Peter shares how nearly two decades as a journalist taught him the leadership skill he leans on most: shutting up and listening. He talks about why founder Trammel Crow says you can't preach to the choir if there's no choir, how EarthX evolved from a 120,000-person Earth Day street festival at Fair Park into a global convening platform, and what it means to lead a fifteen-year-old startup through its next chapter, including a new policy institute focused on nuclear energy and an urban biodiversity plan for Dallas.
Plus: a first concert that might crack the all-time rankings (Page and Plant at Madison Square Garden), and the nineteenth-century botanist story he's told enough people about that now he has to finish writing it.
CEOs You Should Know DFW features candid conversations with leaders shaping business in North Texas and beyond, hosted by Chris Long, Region President of iHeartMedia Dallas/Fort Worth. Follow, Rate, and Subscribe on the podcast platform you are listening on!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is CEOs You Should Know with Dallas, market president
of iHeartMedia, Chris Long. I want to welcome everybody to
this edition of CEOs.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
You Should Know Dallas.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
My name is Chris Long, and I'm the market president
for iHeartMedia and I am here today with my new
friend Peter Simmec from earth X.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Peter, Welcome, Thanks so much, Chris, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, we're excited to have you.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
And as I warned you about two minutes ago, we
have to start with our opening question and it really
comes out of iHeartMedia is the nation's largest audio platform,
with eight hundred and sixty radio stations across one hundred
and sixty markets, podcasting, streaming, anything and everything you could
(00:47):
think of with audio. So I think I would be
remiss if I didn't ask you what was your first concert?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
And what podcast are you listening to right now?
Speaker 3 (00:55):
All right?
Speaker 4 (00:55):
First concert was late nineties Page and Plan that Madison
Square Garden the year they were touring with. I forget
some sort of Egyptian orchestra. So it's just fantastic.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Age in plant.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Okay, piece of led Zeppelin missing a couple of the
key members, but.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I don't know on that. I mean, we're gonna have
to talk because I told Peter.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Ahead of time that you know, we've begun a ranking system,
and I think that's at least top three or four,
Amanda will.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
To be quite honest with you, I don't know who
those people are until you said, thanks for paging both
of us. Now, then we'll go. Then we'll go to.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Maybe you've heard of his podcast, Peter, what are you
listening to podcasts?
Speaker 4 (01:37):
No, I'm deep in this podcast called Inside Trump's Brain,
which is the journalist Michael Wolfe, who's a somewhat controversial
journalistic figure but probably knows about Trump and Epstein deeper
than than many other people. Somewhat problematically can give the
amount of time you spent with them. But it is
an fascinating sort of insider's look at kind of our
(01:57):
current our current world.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
It sounds like a very leap, deep and winding rabbit hole.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
It is a rabbit hole.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Curious when do you listen.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
Making dinner at night? Okay, doing laundry.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Well, it's just interesting because you know, we talk about
like everybody has their own different listening habits, whether it's
for podcast streaming or whatever. You know, I tend to
be a dog walk listener, and as we were talking
about the Kan City Chiefs earlier, that's when I listened
to everything and everything Chiefs related.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
So anyway, we're excited to have you today.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Because we're gonna talk about Earth x YE and as
one of the most recognizable environmental platforms. I find it
interesting that you're based here in Dallas, in the heart
of oil and gas and all that comes with that.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Talk to me a little bit about that. How did
how did you start?
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Yeah, no, I mean that that very much is the
idea our founder, Trammel Crow says that, you know, you
can't preach to the choir if there's no choir. And
the idea of doing an environmental organization in a city
like Dallas or in a state like Texas, I think
it gives us an ability to kind of reach people
that aren't traditionally messaged to or engaged in the environmental
conversation and to think more broadly about what it means
(03:08):
to be engaged in trying to protect the future of
the planet. You know, we were founded fifteen years ago
really as an Earth Day street festival in Dallas, and
very much that idea of how do we get people
excited about about the sort of original Earth Day mission
and go back to the original Earth Day in the
early seventies. That movement was really what helped create the
EPA past, the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts and
(03:29):
all that happened under a Republican administration.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
So part of that mission.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Is to kind of bring back that there is still
this capacity that is need to build biparsing consensus around
these critical issues because we're all invested in energy, we're
all invested in the environment, in agriculture and food, and
there has to be ways to find common ground among
some of these cases.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, we can disagree on a lot of things as
a nation, but I would imagine air, water, land all
pretty important to both sides, pretty important so called aisle
so to speak. So when did you so, you said
Earthechs started fifteen years ago, You've been there for quite
some time.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
I've been around for about four years, okay, Yeah, and
you know we call it a fifteen year old startup.
I mean earthex has been a lot of things over
those fifteen years. I mean a lot of people locally
and Dallas probably remember when it was a big environmental
festival that took place down in Fair Park and we
had a one hundred thousand plus people doing everything from
little kids climbing trees to Sylvia Earl, the famed oceanographers
scuba diving in a pop up pool, and then political
(04:27):
leaders from around the country sort of speaking on stages.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
About three years ago.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
We stepped back and kind of reimagined what the event
is to try to see how we could lean into
that original message. Where do we add value to There's
a lot of environmental events that happen now an around
the world, and where do we add value When it
came back to that DNA of being a Texas based
group that's trying to build these sort of common ground,
market based bipartisan conversations around around the planet.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
So, yeah, so you.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Joined four years ago, there was a change three years
ago where you brought in for that change.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Yeah, I mean I've worn a few hats.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
When I first joined, it was at a time when
the earth X is building some new partnerships of the
United Nations and some other groups, and originally worked on
some impact campaigns. Actually, I spent about the first year
with earth X traveling the world. A giant dinosaur puppet
that we were doing activations.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
And rewind Yeah, say that again.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
So in about four or five years ago, the United
Nations Development Program launched a climate activation campaign and the
premise was a giant dinosaur walks into the un and
gives a speech saying, you know, the humanity can save itself,
unlike my species, we.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Didn't have a choice. Okay.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
The cool thing about that campaign is they had the
dinosaur voiced in about forty plus languages by celebrities in
those different languages. So in English it was Jack Black.
In danishue was Nikolai Costellwildel the Game of Thrones. So
this campaign went viral, and what we did at Earth
X was build out a sort of in person activation
campaign where we took the real life dinosaur to you
(06:01):
went events to Davos, to Rwanda for a youth summit,
and we sort of traveled with this dinosaur just raising
awareness around around climate and the necessity for everyone to
kind of be invested in saving the planet.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Okay, don't be humble. Was this your idea?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
No, it wasn't my idea.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
It was it was a big team originally put the
whole thing together and then but the activation piece was
sort of the brain child of two friends of mine.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
That's crazy idea. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Well, the reason I ask is that as i've I've
spoken to leaders such as yourself, it's fascinating when you know,
you hear about those aha moments or when oh, I
was sitting on a chair by the pool and I
decided to do this. Like we had one guest, Shannon
McClinton from Farmhouse Fresh, and she's like, yeah, I was
a runner and I used to get my heels with
(06:49):
crack and I made a lotion and I sent it
to Oprah and they got back to her, like, you know,
those moments are amazing.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
The closest to that moment we had is, you know,
I went to south By Southwest that year and my
friend brought one of those crazy plastic dinahs for our costumes,
and I thought it was kind of an insane idea,
And you wore it to crash this thing?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
He wore it.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
I never went to Dino, but he walks into this
room where they were having a panel conversation about the campaign,
and everyone went crazy and phones went up and everyone
was shooting, and it was like, Okay, there's something here,
so we want we found that we kind of doubled down.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
And so you've been at Earth X for four years
fifteen years old.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Started as a festival, right, Were you aware of VERTHEX
at that time?
Speaker 4 (07:29):
I was, you know, I was a journalist here in
Dallas for years, and that's one of the reasons that
drew me to it, Like I think, you know, there
was this environmental group in my backyard that some people
knew about, a lot of people maybe didn't know about,
but that was quietly building out these relationships of groups
like the UN and it had this sort of Dallas
reached to the world, which I think is one of
the unique things about Earthex.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
And one of the things we're trying to.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
Really develop is how do we use our convening power
to not just bring together people from different backgrounds and
cultures and perspectives, but how can we bring the world
to Dallas and then also Dallas to the world. So
we're doing a lot of work this year with local
environmental groups and trying to connect them to international conservation
organizations to see how that sort of best practice that
know how can inform how we think about preserving our.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Own sort of backyard.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
How big of an organization is Earthex.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
It depends how you frame it. You know, our thirty
to forty employees, but you know we work with a
wide range of parts. Sure, so our event will have
it's one conference in April from the twentieth to the
twenty second, but there'll really be twenty plus conferences happening
within that umbrella. And that's because we have relationships with
all these other organizations that'll come in and hose house
(08:35):
their own their own events within our event.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
So obviously, in a rule like yours, with the focus
of earth X, pretty important job it is you. There's
there's purpose and responsibility. Right, let's rewind a little bit.
Got out of high school. You went to the University
of Dallas, that's right, English major.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yes, I did a little snooping on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
So but what you know, you're in an important leadership
role now coming out of University Dallas.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
What was the dream?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
What was the goal? Great? You know, I wanted to write.
I didn't know what I wanted to write. I was.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
I was writing short stories and poetry and all those
very lucrative, practical things. And and you know, I looked
at my heroes, my writing heroes, and a lot of
them were journalists, so I uh, like, you know, people
like Hemingway or Fakner and and so I thought, well,
if I'm going to try to figure out how to
be a journalist, why not move to Rome and couch
surf and try to break in that way. So I
(09:33):
moved to Italy for about a year and sort of
started to get little assignments as a stringer and a
reporter and kind of moved into journalism and then just
fell in love with the profession. So it very quickly
became the thing that I really For most of my career,
I was a long form magazine writer and investigative reporter,
which is interesting, an amazing ticket into anyone's life that
you can kind of learn about people.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
And how they work.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Okay, so I'm gonna I'm gonna go off path just
for a second. Most interesting person you wrote about?
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Oh man, that's a tough one. I'll tell you kind
of a while stares. First one that puffs to mind.
There is, I don't know if you know, the Star Club,
famous club in the eighties back in Dallas. Back in
the eighties, kin sort of a cultural movement. It's famous
because it's the place where the drug ecstasy kind of
hit the America.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Everyone's got to be known for something, right.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
That's what they're famous for.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
So it was sort of in a certain sense of
birth of a certain kind of club culture. So I
was investigating a lot of the people around that world
at that time, and there was one there was this
rumor of this one kind of drug dealer who became
quietly like the extpsy kingpin of Texas in the in
the eighties.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
And he's a sort of elusive character.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
And it took months to track him down and finally
found him on the hilltop in Georgia after having served,
you know, multiple years in jail for running this global
drug empire. Was now I'd read that to himself as
like a kind of new age guru running like.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
The Texas Kaiser, so saying he was the Texas Kaiser.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
So said, yeah, exactly. So it was that was just
you found him on a mountain top, on a mountaintop
in Georgia. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
You know, I have more fun doing this because the
stories that I hear, and that was not on my
Bengo card, it's.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
A random one.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
I did a lot of writing about subcultures and kind
of funny American character.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
How did how did?
Speaker 1 (11:21):
How did you get into that? Like it just kind
of story took you that way?
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Yeah, the story.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
I mean, it's sort of my rule of dumb with
journalism is if if I was obsessing about a topic
or staying up too late researching it, then then I
knew that was something I wanted to find a way
to write about.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Okay, So this is interesting because in that role, like
you said, you found something you had an interest in,
and if you felt like you could write about it,
you did. So it's a very singular role. Well, now
you're in a leadership position, an important leadership position where
you're you know, you have a large staff, you're putting
on very important events.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
It sounds like you're going to the un some pretty
heady stuff that you're responsible for.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Did you ever see in that role as an investigative
journalist moving that direction because they don't seem to track together.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Yeah. No's that's a good point.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
It's you know, but I always when I, even when
I was writing, there was always sort of an entrepreneurial
angle to it.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
That's fair. I was trying to one of the reasons.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
One of the ways I got into the type of
writing I was doing is I launched sort of an
online digital journal, so I was always trying to like
figure out how to run my own thing, build my
own publications, going with different ideas, and then back to
the obsession sort of later in my career, I was
really just writing a lot more about environmental issues and
becoming a passion about that and wanting to sort of
(12:38):
engage in that in a broader way.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
But I think to a certain extent, you're right. I
mean I was used to running my own.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Clock, running on my own schedule, really loved that freedom.
But then transitioning into that leadership role and also you know,
working in the team and building a staff super thrilling
as well.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
So at what point in all of that, Because it's
interesting when you talk to CEOs and founders and they
kind of have different paths.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
You know, there's a lot of CEOs came up through
a company founders. You know, we've spoke.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I mentioned Shannon McClendon from Farmhouse Fresh and doctor Harrison
from dentistry, Like they knew in college that they wanted
to do that and they started right out of college.
They never worked for a big corporation. They created their
own companies, right, think about like you kind of came
from a different literally you're a different angle from any
of these other leaders that I've found. What was the
(13:29):
biggest challenge you found moving from a you know what
in sales would be called almost an individual contributor. You
ran your own business, did what you needed to do
from your own clock for the most part too. Now
you got people coming to you, they're looking to you.
You're setting the culture, you're setting the vision and all
of that.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Talk about that transition.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Yeah, the challenge or the transition.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
I mean, I'll talk a little bit about sort of
what where the commonality was, because I think that a
lot of the work I did as a writer was
really trying to understand people and their motivation and you know,
what drives them?
Speaker 3 (13:59):
When it's spires them?
Speaker 4 (14:00):
What why they show up to do the things they do,
why they make the choices? And I think I kind
of lean into that a lot in turn of understanding,
you know, what was the team I had, what.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Were the pieces we need? What would what did people
care about?
Speaker 4 (14:11):
How can you find the right lanes for people to
work in their space so that they're you know, empowered
and have the ability to do what they do, and
that that was a different way to maybe come at
it than coming.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Up through more of a familiar corporate structure.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
But like, I think that that ended up serving and
you know, has been serving well, and in the role
I'm in now.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Yeah, yeah, I don't think. I don't think there's any
one way.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
And then so I find it interesting that, you know,
because again, you could look at it on the surface
and say, well, you were a writer, you worked for
yourself and all that, but you were creating a business.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
You know, Yeah, you were the.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Business so to speak, and your ideas were the business.
When did you get to a point where you thought,
maybe not at Earth X, but somewhere you wanted to
lead the charge somewhere.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
You know.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
I think for so many people, COVID was kind of
that time when you step back and go, Okay, what
a I doing? Where's my I'd been up by that time,
been writing with d magazine for about a decade and
was looking for the next path and the next choice,
the next thing, and you know, I really a friend
of mine actually had joined our texts and he kind
of helped recruit me over and we had done a
(15:15):
lot of work together on sort of Dallas and Texas
policy and politics. He was a sort of a community organizer.
I was a writer, so we collaborated a lot, and
so it was really that idea. Again, I think the
isolation of COVID having worked, everyone was like, oh, we
had the shelter in place during COVID. I had not
been to the office for like a year before COVID
because I was just doing my own thing, and but
there was really that idea of Okay, what about joining
(15:37):
a team, what about And then we talked about the
dinosaur thing. When I traveled with my friend Marty Martinez,
who runs an agency here in town called Social Vault.
You know, it was really that working in a team
and a pair of I was like, this is a
lot of fun and we can do a lot and
we having those you know, collaborative skills and complimentary things.
It was kind of a yeah, that was sort of
like I want to go this way.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
So I would imagine with what you do at earth
X and getting the message out and all that, you know.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
The important work that you all do.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
There's a balance between urgency and optimism, you know, versus
you know, we're in this drastic situation versus, hey, there
are things we can do, and how do you find
that you merge that together and make the message that
people can work towards.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
That's that's a great question.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
I think it's, you know, messaging when I think about
what Earth acts is and what makes it unique back
to the you know what we're first talking about, you know,
it is about messaging because if you're trying to build
these bridges between different communities, different you know, groups of
people that maybe see issues in different ways, have different perspectives.
I find that it's really about how do you create
find the language that can you know, realign people's values
(16:43):
and why they're and why they why we have shared
sort of investment in some of these things. And sometimes
you know, the audience you're talking to is motivated by
the imperative of the moment. You know that that that
there is an urgency to act on some of these things.
And what we found, I think, especially in the climate
movement over the last decade or so, it's that same
urgency turns off other audiences. They're like, why are you
telling me that the sky is falling? There's you know,
(17:05):
I'm trying to avoid groceries. I'm trying to get my
kids through school. There are more important things, and so
then you have to shift that. Maybe it's you're approaching
not through that sort of sound the alarm, but more like, well,
don't you want to pass.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
The world down to your children?
Speaker 4 (17:17):
That's like the ones you grew up in, that kind
of thing, And so it's always I think, calibrating to
those different audiences and knowing who you're talking to and
then finding that common ground.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
So I would imagine as I'm thinking about this, your
experience as an investigative journalist and talking to a lot
of different people, different beliefs, backgrounds, et cetera. When you're
sitting in rooms with business leaders, thought leaders, activists, you
have all these disparate positions. Do you find your background
(17:47):
allows you to pull pieces together and find common ground?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (17:51):
I mean, to be honest, my job for a lot
of years was trying to get people to tell me
things that they wouldn't tell anybody. Sure, So yeah, whatever
reason that that background and some inate ability to be
able to.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Build that trust.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
And often it's one of the best skills you learn
as a journalist is just shut up and just be
quiet and then you just let people talk and talk
and talk, and then they say all the things you
want them to say without you even asking.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
But yeah, I think it is exactly that. I think
it's about.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
Back to that idea of how do you understand people's motivations,
their background, where they're coming from, why they might think
the way they do, what really, you know, what really
is why they're invested in issue or why they may
see the world in a certain way, and then just
kind of lean into that and try to look at
the world through their eyes.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
So we're not on camera right now.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I'm smiling at Peter because I just realized, given your background,
this is kind of like me playing one on one
with an NBA player interviewing you. So thanks for being
kind and taking it easy on me. I would have
to imagine that it was a little overwhelming though at first.
Right you're taking on other people now, and not that
(19:00):
you didn't, but but as you you came in, you
were elevated. Now you're setting the course. Did the course
change at all with earth Aechs?
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Did the vision?
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I mean, I mean had divisions that it's still pretty clear,
But were there things you had to change?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
And how did you go about that great.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Question, I think, yeah, it's incredibly overwhelming because I think
earth X is a is a large, complicated organization.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
We work in a lot of spaces.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
Like one of our virtues is we try to you know,
be all encompassing in terms of different focuses and industries.
And we were talking to people in energy and corporate
sustainability and conservation and so there's a lot of different
ways you could do and I almost felt like I
got handed, you know, keys to a really nice sports
car and then it's like, Okay, how do I know
how to drive this thing? And yeah, I think one
(19:45):
of the questions that you know, I was personally invested
in and heard from people from the outside, a lot
of people who have familiar with earth expert out of
ten is like, so what does what does earth X do?
And we know you have this big event, but how
are you actually having an impact in the world. And
so one of the first things that I kind of
want to to focus in on is how do we
both tell the story of the work we've done and
then also find ways in which we can sort of
(20:06):
advance and have more tangible impact around our event and
outside our event. So that was sort of we're creating
I mentioned building these bridges between local environmental groups and
international We started working IUCN, which is an international conservation network,
on a biodiversity plan to build out. We're moving towards
(20:27):
building out sort of an urban biodiversity plan for Dallas
to try to look at how we could be better
stewards of the nature that exists in the city, because
there is a lot of amazing, you know, outdoor spaces
in Dallas, even though it doesn't have that reputation. And
then also we launched a sort of a nonprofit within
our nonprofit called the Artheics Institute to look at sort
of biparson policy and say, Okay, we're convening all these
(20:48):
people that have different perspectives and trying to find this
common ground, but how do we make sure that those
conversations actually turn into tangible suggestions.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
And so we're.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
Looking year one not around nuclear energy, which is a
big issue in Texas. Texas has really emerged as a
leader and especially state leveled new energy regulation. How can
we kind of help bring that conversation to the rest
of the country. So we're convening a lot of state
legislators from around the country in April. And then part
of that is to come up with some policy recommendations that.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Can kind of outlast the conference and be passed on.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
To other advocates who want to see those turn into reality.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Great, let's talk a little bit about Earth Xxpo.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yeah, tell me the ideation how it started.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
The expo itself, I mean it came out of that,
came out of that street festival, sure, and then and
then really was about being bringing in as much of
the general public into into the environmental conversation. And to
do that by being you know, a big fund spectacle,
almost like a trade show where you have all these
different NGOs exhibiting boots, but then also you know, activities
(21:49):
and things that are happening, and you know, actually after
after COVID again back to that that pivot point, that's
when we kind of stepped back and said, you know,
this type of event wasn't having as much traction as
it did back in twenty nineteen when we had one
hundred and twenty thousand plus people in a fair park,
and figuring out, you know, how can we kind of
evolve So this year, actually our event the last two
(22:09):
years was more of a traditional business conference this I
think we're trying to find this happy medium sure, because
we do have access to this large green space within
within the at Hilton Adatole where the conference takes place,
and we'll have activations from Keep America Beautiful and the
FIFA Dallas team that they're doing kind of a preview
of of their community engagements that they'll be doing during
(22:32):
the World Cup. Because we're doing a whole sports and
sustainability conference also at the event this year, so we're
finding ways to bring in some of those groups to
show off what they do and create some fun and excitement.
We'll have a whole sort of free component to the
conference this year in addition to the sort of traditional conference.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Well, I would, I mean, I think we all know
that sometimes, most times the best way to get a
message through is sharing with people versus talking at people.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
And that sounds like a great environment.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Different touch points interest like you said, you know, soccer
and the other ways to just have that conversation is
so important.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
I was at the waste Management Phoenix open about a
month ago, and not a place where you'd think there'd
be an elevated conversation.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
About the environment coverage.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
Yeah, but they they have put together over the last
however many years, this program where they've completely eliminated landfilled
trash cans at the event. So you have one hundred
and eighty thousand people coming in every day, and they've
systematically worked with every single vendor so that every piece
of material that touches food has to be compostable, and
every everything that isn't compostable must be recyclable. So all
(23:38):
they have is compost and recycle ements the whole thing.
It's a nearly zero waste event. Interesting, and it's golf,
and not just golf, but like the biggest party golf tournament. Well,
and within twelve you know, a few hours of being
on the ground there, you forget that there aren't garbage cans.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
At first, ke where are the garbage cans? I don't
know what to do.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
But then suddenly you don't think about it anymore. And
that's a perfect exam about how you can use events
or sports or these.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Topics and issues that people love.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
They're already sort of cultural drivers that can create this
sort of behavioral change without it making you feel like, oh,
it's my responsibility to be good. Yeah, I'm a bad
I'm a bad person for putting it in the wrong.
Can they just make it so that it's really it's
it's like stupid proof.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
So for those of you that don't know, google waste
management golf tournament, that's it.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
I didn't realize that.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
Yeah, I was blown away by it, really And I'm
a little bit of a recycling skeptic because I know
that there's a lot of stories out there where some
of the recycling ends up in landfills and Indonesia and
all sorts of It's.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
A complicated world.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
But this was a proof positive that in this closed
environment they were able to actually build out a circular
system for trash.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Okay, I just have to ask was that their original
plan or did they did it evolve?
Speaker 3 (24:53):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
I don't know if I can speak on behalf of
wastemage journalists.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
I know I didn't.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
I got a tour, I didn't get that deep. But no,
I think that it's you know that they were committed
to how do we how do we build more sustainable
sporting events? And now part of what waste Management does
as a service and their sustainability team is they go
and consult with other sports groups, teams, leagues around the
country to kind of build out these kinds of systems elsewhere.
So it's encouraging because it's like it's not a again,
(25:20):
like you said, it's not a I'm a bad person,
or I need to know something, or it's my response.
It just we just shift the way we do things
and suddenly it just becomes second nature. It's like seat belts,
Like we all wear seat belts that there was once
a fight where people are like, I remember you to
put my seat belt on. Yeah, Like it's so many
things like that. Or we can just find those cultural
touch points. Sports is a good one. Fashion is a
(25:41):
good one. And so we're at earthechts trying to find
those things that aren't typically thought of as your you know,
granola three hugger, crunchy type topics, but show how those
can be drivers and behavioral change.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
You mentioned something a minute ago about making connection and
really making an impact on people and trying to change
perspective at least find common ground, and you said it's
about listening.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
I talked to our teams here that.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
I work with that so often you think when it's
about sharing an idea, it's one hundred percent about talking
and listening is such an underutilized skill and so it's
funny should say that in your role prepared you so
much for that as a journalist is just shut.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Up and listen.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Yeah, it's pretty powerful. So okay, speaking of that, tell
me a top line. How you bridge someone you know,
we talked in Texas and all of that and preaching
the choir, which I think is a great way of
thinking of it. How do you bridge some of those
gaps between you know, the energy sector so to speak,
and what earthects is doing, Like, how do you do that?
Speaker 4 (26:51):
Yeah, I mean, well two things. One the example I
like to use because we do a lot of work
with hunters in the fishing community and angler community, and
actually the hunting community does does raise a ton of
money for conservation and a lot of the dollars that
go into the hunting licenses, it goes into how you
know we pay for public lands and and and but
(27:14):
you know, if you look at you know, in the
traditional sort of environmental community, there's a lot of obviously
people that are invested in wildlife and invested in life
and the peda supporters of the world, and so that
that seems like there should be a hard heart break
there in terms of perspective, But part of it is
just like how do you how do you frame what
the problem is?
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (27:34):
And so if people are coming at the problem with
different definitions.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
As long as the solutions are aligned, that's fine.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
So if you're talking to an environmentalist, you might talk about,
you know, restoring ecology or improving biodiversity, or how you know,
the open lands can sequest your carbon.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
And these kinds of things.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
If you go to the more conservative sort of ranching community,
that might not be something that they're interested in. But
if you say, don't you want to preserve open lands
because it's your heritage and it's part of your family's
history and you want your kids to grow up in
the same sort of environment that you treasured, then suddenly,
if they're preserving and creating wild spaces that are you know,
(28:12):
for for a different reason, those are still going to
be having those same benefits of you know, expanding habitat
and increasing biodiversity and sequestering carbon. So I think it's
sort of how you frame the issue can be helpful,
and the energy too. I think one I'll be like
one might be Frank, I think that the climate movement
kind of by demonizing the energy industry for so long,
(28:33):
missed an opportunity. And one way to think about is
within the oil and guests, you know, get into the
weeds on the whole history around messaging. But within the
oil and gas industry there's a ton of really you know,
accomplished engineers and scientists who may have them know how
to at least transition out of some of these you know,
more problematic sources of energy that that should be seen
(28:56):
as partners in the problem, not as not as adverse.
I remember being on a call with a an engineer
at Exon Mobile who was talking about one of the
problems he was working on. That's reducing methane emissions from pipelines. Now,
they weren't doing that because Exon Mobile was invested in
the climate, you know, climate change issue. They have to
(29:17):
ensure their pitch a bit in recent years. But they
were doing because there's a bottom line reason, like if
they were losing product from those pipelines. But the end
result was they were keeping methane out of the atmosphere.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
So at the end of the day, what do you care?
Speaker 4 (29:28):
Right, So how do you how do you build those
bridges and see people, as you know, as part of
the as part of the solution, not.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Part of the problem. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
So you talked a little bit about your heroes and
writing in your career journey to where you are today
as CEO of attacks. Who's a mentors or a mentor
that you can point to? Think about that that really
guided you along the way, and what was what was
the lesson?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
What was the message they taught you?
Speaker 4 (29:54):
You know too, there's the mentor that was a personal mentor.
Then there's sort of the I guess in all actual
mentor the intellectual mentors that Catherine Hayow, who's a climate
scientist also a writer.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
She she has written a lot, a lot of these
ideas of how do you how do you talk about
climate change to you know, the Christian right or to
conservative audiences, and her work has been really an inspiration
sort of how to.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Approach a lot of these issues. And then I don't know.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
Wick Allison was the publisher of D the magazine, founder of
D magazine and charismatic character, a big, complicated personality. But
you know what, what I loved about how he saw
what he was building with the magazine. He didn't just
see it as a you know, a source of information
or source of entertainment. He saw it really as the
purpose of the magazine was to be a force for
(30:44):
good in the city. And how he was able to
leverage that and how he ran the company, but then
also how he used that platform to really drive change
has been instrumental. How I kind of think about what
we could possibly do with with our thanks that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Do you do you find yourself drawing back on things
that he would say and do and.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
That the best one is and this is maybe not
the best journalistic concept, but his famous line was there's
no conflict of interests.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
There are only interests, and.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
Which I do come back to a lot because I
think there's a there's a root pragmatism about that that
you realize everyone is is everyone has interests and you
just got to figure out, you know, how to its balance.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
It seems like so much of your role is how
do you connect all of these different It's what I
keep coming back to.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
I mean, look, that's that's a CEO's role so.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Much of the time, but yours is your role is
so unique as you're really trying to pull two differing opinions,
but they are I mean points of view. How do
I pull them closer and closer together in a positive
way that everybody can move forward, move forward, right, mark
to the same beat, so to speak.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
What what what story about the environment? Do you feel
like isn't being told right now?
Speaker 4 (32:02):
That's that's a good one, you know, I think it's
being told, but I don't think you know it.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
It's framed in this way. I think a lot of
people know that.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
But just the pure loss of habitat about adversity, but
both on a you know, a regional level, on a
macro level. We often talk about, you know, the loss
of the Amazon. It seems like something maybe far away,
but I think you know, the amount of development, the
growth of cities, not just in the US but around
the world.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Like we're just in a.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
Rapidly losing habitat and that's what's what's driving just sort
of a remarkable reduction and of the number of species
in the world, and then the extinction event.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
I think we we've.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Talked about climate for a long time and there's an
abstractness to it. You know, different levels of carbon in
the atmosphere and warming and different dates of when we're
in But the reality is we're living through like a
mass extinction event, and we're losing a tremendous amount of
of of of animals, and we don't really understand the
true implications of that.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
In a long term frame.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
And I think we should be talking a lot more
about that.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Okay, let's move towards a little optimism.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
Can make me.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Feel optimistic, not in general, but about the environment.
Speaker 4 (33:18):
Don't turn on the news in the last week, No,
I mean, I think I think we're you know, this
is how I think about it. You know, there's a
lot of fear out there, there's a lot of uncertainty.
I think this is what when we are talking to
corporate leaders, when you talk to you know, we're speaking
on a day where there's a major primary there's a
lot of change in the plocal environment. But I think
(33:40):
what we're living through is one of those upsetting revolutionary
moments where we're living through an industrial a new industrial revolution,
a technology revolution. I think with all of that kind
of change and shifting of you know, shifting of how
things we're used to things going, there's an opportunity for
that shift to lead into a better alignment.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Of of everything.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
I mean, I think we have a real opportunity now
to sort of reset the playing board and and and
you know, transcend a lot of these sort of traditional
in passes and polarized sort of positions where we can
find new alliances and allegiances and new investment and.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Where we're going.
Speaker 4 (34:16):
And I think we have the technology is there. Like
we do a lot of work with innovators and entrepreneurs
and startups that are building businesses that you know, are
improving the environment, but also have you know, a bottom line,
you know, feasibility, and a lot of that is being
driven by just an incredible amount of amazing technology that's
being developed. I mean, one of the reasons we were
(34:37):
in Phoenix for the golf tournament was there's this group
out there called Terrem Labs that is just developing these
new these new ways of building mass production packaging that's
all based on organic materials and all completely combustible. So
we have the capacity to create a much cleaner, healthier world,
but we just got to get there.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
But those are the great stories that people need to
nowatly because I think that you know, it's a couple
of years ago the whole thing with the straws, the
paper straws, and you know, you can look at a
paper strong go Okay, what is this really doing right?
Speaker 2 (35:09):
And I think those.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Stories that you can say like these are bigger things
going on, I think help people frame it in their
own mind a little bit versus like the person you're
having trouble breaking through too kind of don't oh yeah,
like this is doing anything right.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
So what do you with.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
The expo coming up? What are you most excited about
about the upcoming xpo? I mean, I think we have
an incredible lineup of speakers. We have everyone from Bob Ballard,
the guy who founded the Titanic, Sylvia Earle, famed oceanographer,
Richard Wiese, the head of the Explorers Club, a lot
of amazing business leaders, a lot of people from a
former President of Mexico, Phillipe Calderone. So I think we're
(35:52):
bringing what arthextries to do as we bring together really
high level people from the policy and politics world, from
the investment world, but also so different than some of
our other you know, environmental commerces people that they're engaged
in science and research and exploration and all these exciting
things that I think have people inspired about, you know,
being out in the world and loving it. Okay, so
(36:14):
last question, four years in your role at Earth X.
What are the next four years going to do?
Speaker 4 (36:21):
I think, you know what a lot of the stuff
we were talking about today in terms of building out
new programs, so that Earth X is more than just
an event in April, where you know, we have, you know,
a footprint that extends around the year. That April is
really the celebration of a year's worth of work. And
I think there's a tremendous opportunity to kind of build
on a lot of partnerships we've built up over the
(36:41):
years and really help, you know, accelerate a lot of
that change that we're talking about a minute ago that
makes people optimistic. How can we be more supportive of
helping those organizations, groups, technologies kind of push a new
future that's exciting.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
I mean, I would imagine you wake up pretty energized
every every.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Day, mostly mostly in April twenty third, not wake up.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
So I'm going to wrap up with one question.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
If you were to go back and write a story,
if you're going to investigate and write a story, what
would it be right now?
Speaker 4 (37:13):
Oh no, this is not a one. I was working
on something last summer that's sort of a history, so
you still do Yeah, yeah, I was working on it,
sort of an obscure history of a nineteenth century botanist
and how that had like these sort of almost butterfly
effect ripples into a larger kind of history of America.
(37:34):
I like finding those sort of forgotten characters that touched
the broader kind of historical narrative.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
In a big way. Interesting.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Are you going to do it or are you just
kind of something your toying with.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
I'll stick with it. I've told enough people now that
I have to episode two. There you go, we'll have
you back there.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Peter, thank you for joining us. A lot of fun.
We look forward to checking out X the Expo and
we'll go from there.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Perfect awesome, appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Thanks
This is CEOs You Should Know with Dallas, market president
of iHeartMedia, Chris Long. I want to welcome everybody to
this edition of CEOs.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
You Should Know Dallas.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
My name is Chris Long, and I'm the market president
for iHeartMedia and I am here today with my new
friend Peter Simmec from earth X.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Peter, Welcome, Thanks so much, Chris, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, we're excited to have you.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
And as I warned you about two minutes ago, we
have to start with our opening question and it really
comes out of iHeartMedia is the nation's largest audio platform,
with eight hundred and sixty radio stations across one hundred
and sixty markets, podcasting, streaming, anything and everything you could
(00:47):
think of with audio. So I think I would be
remiss if I didn't ask you what was your first concert?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
And what podcast are you listening to right now?
Speaker 3 (00:55):
All right?
Speaker 4 (00:55):
First concert was late nineties Page and Plan that Madison
Square Garden the year they were touring with. I forget
some sort of Egyptian orchestra. So it's just fantastic.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Age in plant.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Okay, piece of led Zeppelin missing a couple of the
key members, but.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I don't know on that. I mean, we're gonna have
to talk because I told Peter.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Ahead of time that you know, we've begun a ranking system,
and I think that's at least top three or four,
Amanda will.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
To be quite honest with you, I don't know who
those people are until you said, thanks for paging both
of us. Now, then we'll go. Then we'll go to.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Maybe you've heard of his podcast, Peter, what are you
listening to podcasts?
Speaker 4 (01:37):
No, I'm deep in this podcast called Inside Trump's Brain,
which is the journalist Michael Wolfe, who's a somewhat controversial
journalistic figure but probably knows about Trump and Epstein deeper
than than many other people. Somewhat problematically can give the
amount of time you spent with them. But it is
an fascinating sort of insider's look at kind of our
(01:57):
current our current world.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
It sounds like a very leap, deep and winding rabbit hole.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
It is a rabbit hole.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Curious when do you listen.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
Making dinner at night? Okay, doing laundry.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Well, it's just interesting because you know, we talk about
like everybody has their own different listening habits, whether it's
for podcast streaming or whatever. You know, I tend to
be a dog walk listener, and as we were talking
about the Kan City Chiefs earlier, that's when I listened
to everything and everything Chiefs related.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
So anyway, we're excited to have you today.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Because we're gonna talk about Earth x YE and as
one of the most recognizable environmental platforms. I find it
interesting that you're based here in Dallas, in the heart
of oil and gas and all that comes with that.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Talk to me a little bit about that. How did
how did you start?
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Yeah, no, I mean that that very much is the
idea our founder, Trammel Crow says that, you know, you
can't preach to the choir if there's no choir. And
the idea of doing an environmental organization in a city
like Dallas or in a state like Texas, I think
it gives us an ability to kind of reach people
that aren't traditionally messaged to or engaged in the environmental
conversation and to think more broadly about what it means
(03:08):
to be engaged in trying to protect the future of
the planet. You know, we were founded fifteen years ago
really as an Earth Day street festival in Dallas, and
very much that idea of how do we get people
excited about about the sort of original Earth Day mission
and go back to the original Earth Day in the
early seventies. That movement was really what helped create the
EPA past, the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts and
(03:29):
all that happened under a Republican administration.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
So part of that mission.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Is to kind of bring back that there is still
this capacity that is need to build biparsing consensus around
these critical issues because we're all invested in energy, we're
all invested in the environment, in agriculture and food, and
there has to be ways to find common ground among
some of these cases.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, we can disagree on a lot of things as
a nation, but I would imagine air, water, land all
pretty important to both sides, pretty important so called aisle
so to speak. So when did you so, you said
Earthechs started fifteen years ago, You've been there for quite
some time.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
I've been around for about four years, okay, Yeah, and
you know we call it a fifteen year old startup.
I mean earthex has been a lot of things over
those fifteen years. I mean a lot of people locally
and Dallas probably remember when it was a big environmental
festival that took place down in Fair Park and we
had a one hundred thousand plus people doing everything from
little kids climbing trees to Sylvia Earl, the famed oceanographers
scuba diving in a pop up pool, and then political
(04:27):
leaders from around the country sort of speaking on stages.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
About three years ago.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
We stepped back and kind of reimagined what the event
is to try to see how we could lean into
that original message. Where do we add value to There's
a lot of environmental events that happen now an around
the world, and where do we add value When it
came back to that DNA of being a Texas based
group that's trying to build these sort of common ground,
market based bipartisan conversations around around the planet.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
So, yeah, so you.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Joined four years ago, there was a change three years
ago where you brought in for that change.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Yeah, I mean I've worn a few hats.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
When I first joined, it was at a time when
the earth X is building some new partnerships of the
United Nations and some other groups, and originally worked on
some impact campaigns. Actually, I spent about the first year
with earth X traveling the world. A giant dinosaur puppet
that we were doing activations.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
And rewind Yeah, say that again.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
So in about four or five years ago, the United
Nations Development Program launched a climate activation campaign and the
premise was a giant dinosaur walks into the un and
gives a speech saying, you know, the humanity can save itself,
unlike my species, we.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Didn't have a choice. Okay.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
The cool thing about that campaign is they had the
dinosaur voiced in about forty plus languages by celebrities in
those different languages. So in English it was Jack Black.
In danishue was Nikolai Costellwildel the Game of Thrones. So
this campaign went viral, and what we did at Earth
X was build out a sort of in person activation
campaign where we took the real life dinosaur to you
(06:01):
went events to Davos, to Rwanda for a youth summit,
and we sort of traveled with this dinosaur just raising
awareness around around climate and the necessity for everyone to
kind of be invested in saving the planet.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Okay, don't be humble. Was this your idea?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
No, it wasn't my idea.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
It was it was a big team originally put the
whole thing together and then but the activation piece was
sort of the brain child of two friends of mine.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
That's crazy idea. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Well, the reason I ask is that as i've I've
spoken to leaders such as yourself, it's fascinating when you know,
you hear about those aha moments or when oh, I
was sitting on a chair by the pool and I
decided to do this. Like we had one guest, Shannon
McClinton from Farmhouse Fresh, and she's like, yeah, I was
a runner and I used to get my heels with
(06:49):
crack and I made a lotion and I sent it
to Oprah and they got back to her, like, you know,
those moments are amazing.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
The closest to that moment we had is, you know,
I went to south By Southwest that year and my
friend brought one of those crazy plastic dinahs for our costumes,
and I thought it was kind of an insane idea,
And you wore it to crash this thing?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
He wore it.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
I never went to Dino, but he walks into this
room where they were having a panel conversation about the campaign,
and everyone went crazy and phones went up and everyone
was shooting, and it was like, Okay, there's something here,
so we want we found that we kind of doubled down.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
And so you've been at Earth X for four years
fifteen years old.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Started as a festival, right, Were you aware of VERTHEX
at that time?
Speaker 4 (07:29):
I was, you know, I was a journalist here in
Dallas for years, and that's one of the reasons that
drew me to it, Like I think, you know, there
was this environmental group in my backyard that some people
knew about, a lot of people maybe didn't know about,
but that was quietly building out these relationships of groups
like the UN and it had this sort of Dallas
reached to the world, which I think is one of
the unique things about Earthex.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
And one of the things we're trying to.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
Really develop is how do we use our convening power
to not just bring together people from different backgrounds and
cultures and perspectives, but how can we bring the world
to Dallas and then also Dallas to the world. So
we're doing a lot of work this year with local
environmental groups and trying to connect them to international conservation
organizations to see how that sort of best practice that
know how can inform how we think about preserving our.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Own sort of backyard.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
How big of an organization is Earthex.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
It depends how you frame it. You know, our thirty
to forty employees, but you know we work with a
wide range of parts. Sure, so our event will have
it's one conference in April from the twentieth to the
twenty second, but there'll really be twenty plus conferences happening
within that umbrella. And that's because we have relationships with
all these other organizations that'll come in and hose house
(08:35):
their own their own events within our event.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
So obviously, in a rule like yours, with the focus
of earth X, pretty important job it is you. There's
there's purpose and responsibility. Right, let's rewind a little bit.
Got out of high school. You went to the University
of Dallas, that's right, English major.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yes, I did a little snooping on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
So but what you know, you're in an important leadership
role now coming out of University Dallas.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
What was the dream?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
What was the goal? Great? You know, I wanted to write.
I didn't know what I wanted to write. I was.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
I was writing short stories and poetry and all those
very lucrative, practical things. And and you know, I looked
at my heroes, my writing heroes, and a lot of
them were journalists, so I uh, like, you know, people
like Hemingway or Fakner and and so I thought, well,
if I'm going to try to figure out how to
be a journalist, why not move to Rome and couch
surf and try to break in that way. So I
(09:33):
moved to Italy for about a year and sort of
started to get little assignments as a stringer and a
reporter and kind of moved into journalism and then just
fell in love with the profession. So it very quickly
became the thing that I really For most of my career,
I was a long form magazine writer and investigative reporter,
which is interesting, an amazing ticket into anyone's life that
you can kind of learn about people.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
And how they work.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Okay, so I'm gonna I'm gonna go off path just
for a second. Most interesting person you wrote about?
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Oh man, that's a tough one. I'll tell you kind
of a while stares. First one that puffs to mind.
There is, I don't know if you know, the Star Club,
famous club in the eighties back in Dallas. Back in
the eighties, kin sort of a cultural movement. It's famous
because it's the place where the drug ecstasy kind of
hit the America.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Everyone's got to be known for something, right.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
That's what they're famous for.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
So it was sort of in a certain sense of
birth of a certain kind of club culture. So I
was investigating a lot of the people around that world
at that time, and there was one there was this
rumor of this one kind of drug dealer who became
quietly like the extpsy kingpin of Texas in the in
the eighties.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
And he's a sort of elusive character.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
And it took months to track him down and finally
found him on the hilltop in Georgia after having served,
you know, multiple years in jail for running this global
drug empire. Was now I'd read that to himself as
like a kind of new age guru running like.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
The Texas Kaiser, so saying he was the Texas Kaiser.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
So said, yeah, exactly. So it was that was just
you found him on a mountain top, on a mountaintop
in Georgia. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
You know, I have more fun doing this because the
stories that I hear, and that was not on my
Bengo card, it's.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
A random one.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
I did a lot of writing about subcultures and kind
of funny American character.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
How did how did?
Speaker 1 (11:21):
How did you get into that? Like it just kind
of story took you that way?
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Yeah, the story.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
I mean, it's sort of my rule of dumb with
journalism is if if I was obsessing about a topic
or staying up too late researching it, then then I
knew that was something I wanted to find a way
to write about.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Okay, So this is interesting because in that role, like
you said, you found something you had an interest in,
and if you felt like you could write about it,
you did. So it's a very singular role. Well, now
you're in a leadership position, an important leadership position where
you're you know, you have a large staff, you're putting
on very important events.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
It sounds like you're going to the un some pretty
heady stuff that you're responsible for.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Did you ever see in that role as an investigative
journalist moving that direction because they don't seem to track together.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Yeah. No's that's a good point.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
It's you know, but I always when I, even when
I was writing, there was always sort of an entrepreneurial
angle to it.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
That's fair. I was trying to one of the reasons.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
One of the ways I got into the type of
writing I was doing is I launched sort of an
online digital journal, so I was always trying to like
figure out how to run my own thing, build my
own publications, going with different ideas, and then back to
the obsession sort of later in my career, I was
really just writing a lot more about environmental issues and
becoming a passion about that and wanting to sort of
(12:38):
engage in that in a broader way.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
But I think to a certain extent, you're right. I
mean I was used to running my own.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Clock, running on my own schedule, really loved that freedom.
But then transitioning into that leadership role and also you know,
working in the team and building a staff super thrilling
as well.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
So at what point in all of that, Because it's
interesting when you talk to CEOs and founders and they
kind of have different paths.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
You know, there's a lot of CEOs came up through
a company founders. You know, we've spoke.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I mentioned Shannon McClendon from Farmhouse Fresh and doctor Harrison
from dentistry, Like they knew in college that they wanted
to do that and they started right out of college.
They never worked for a big corporation. They created their
own companies, right, think about like you kind of came
from a different literally you're a different angle from any
of these other leaders that I've found. What was the
(13:29):
biggest challenge you found moving from a you know what
in sales would be called almost an individual contributor. You
ran your own business, did what you needed to do
from your own clock for the most part too. Now
you got people coming to you, they're looking to you.
You're setting the culture, you're setting the vision and all
of that.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Talk about that transition.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Yeah, the challenge or the transition.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
I mean, I'll talk a little bit about sort of
what where the commonality was, because I think that a
lot of the work I did as a writer was
really trying to understand people and their motivation and you know,
what drives them?
Speaker 3 (13:59):
When it's spires them?
Speaker 4 (14:00):
What why they show up to do the things they do,
why they make the choices? And I think I kind
of lean into that a lot in turn of understanding,
you know, what was the team I had, what.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Were the pieces we need? What would what did people
care about?
Speaker 4 (14:11):
How can you find the right lanes for people to
work in their space so that they're you know, empowered
and have the ability to do what they do, and
that that was a different way to maybe come at
it than coming.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Up through more of a familiar corporate structure.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
But like, I think that that ended up serving and
you know, has been serving well, and in the role
I'm in now.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Yeah, yeah, I don't think. I don't think there's any
one way.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
And then so I find it interesting that, you know,
because again, you could look at it on the surface
and say, well, you were a writer, you worked for
yourself and all that, but you were creating a business.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
You know, Yeah, you were the.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Business so to speak, and your ideas were the business.
When did you get to a point where you thought,
maybe not at Earth X, but somewhere you wanted to
lead the charge somewhere.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
You know.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
I think for so many people, COVID was kind of
that time when you step back and go, Okay, what
a I doing? Where's my I'd been up by that time,
been writing with d magazine for about a decade and
was looking for the next path and the next choice,
the next thing, and you know, I really a friend
of mine actually had joined our texts and he kind
of helped recruit me over and we had done a
(15:15):
lot of work together on sort of Dallas and Texas
policy and politics. He was a sort of a community organizer.
I was a writer, so we collaborated a lot, and
so it was really that idea. Again, I think the
isolation of COVID having worked, everyone was like, oh, we
had the shelter in place during COVID. I had not
been to the office for like a year before COVID
because I was just doing my own thing, and but
there was really that idea of Okay, what about joining
(15:37):
a team, what about And then we talked about the
dinosaur thing. When I traveled with my friend Marty Martinez,
who runs an agency here in town called Social Vault.
You know, it was really that working in a team
and a pair of I was like, this is a
lot of fun and we can do a lot and
we having those you know, collaborative skills and complimentary things.
It was kind of a yeah, that was sort of
like I want to go this way.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
So I would imagine with what you do at earth
X and getting the message out and all that, you know.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
The important work that you all do.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
There's a balance between urgency and optimism, you know, versus
you know, we're in this drastic situation versus, hey, there
are things we can do, and how do you find
that you merge that together and make the message that
people can work towards.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
That's that's a great question.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
I think it's, you know, messaging when I think about
what Earth acts is and what makes it unique back
to the you know what we're first talking about, you know,
it is about messaging because if you're trying to build
these bridges between different communities, different you know, groups of
people that maybe see issues in different ways, have different perspectives.
I find that it's really about how do you create
find the language that can you know, realign people's values
(16:43):
and why they're and why they why we have shared
sort of investment in some of these things. And sometimes
you know, the audience you're talking to is motivated by
the imperative of the moment. You know that that that
there is an urgency to act on some of these things.
And what we found, I think, especially in the climate
movement over the last decade or so, it's that same
urgency turns off other audiences. They're like, why are you
telling me that the sky is falling? There's you know,
(17:05):
I'm trying to avoid groceries. I'm trying to get my
kids through school. There are more important things, and so
then you have to shift that. Maybe it's you're approaching
not through that sort of sound the alarm, but more like, well,
don't you want to pass.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
The world down to your children?
Speaker 4 (17:17):
That's like the ones you grew up in, that kind
of thing, And so it's always I think, calibrating to
those different audiences and knowing who you're talking to and
then finding that common ground.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
So I would imagine as I'm thinking about this, your
experience as an investigative journalist and talking to a lot
of different people, different beliefs, backgrounds, et cetera. When you're
sitting in rooms with business leaders, thought leaders, activists, you
have all these disparate positions. Do you find your background
(17:47):
allows you to pull pieces together and find common ground?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (17:51):
I mean, to be honest, my job for a lot
of years was trying to get people to tell me
things that they wouldn't tell anybody. Sure, So yeah, whatever
reason that that background and some inate ability to be
able to.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Build that trust.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
And often it's one of the best skills you learn
as a journalist is just shut up and just be
quiet and then you just let people talk and talk
and talk, and then they say all the things you
want them to say without you even asking.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
But yeah, I think it is exactly that. I think
it's about.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
Back to that idea of how do you understand people's motivations,
their background, where they're coming from, why they might think
the way they do, what really, you know, what really
is why they're invested in issue or why they may
see the world in a certain way, and then just
kind of lean into that and try to look at
the world through their eyes.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
So we're not on camera right now.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I'm smiling at Peter because I just realized, given your background,
this is kind of like me playing one on one
with an NBA player interviewing you. So thanks for being
kind and taking it easy on me. I would have
to imagine that it was a little overwhelming though at first.
Right you're taking on other people now, and not that
(19:00):
you didn't, but but as you you came in, you
were elevated. Now you're setting the course. Did the course
change at all with earth Aechs?
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Did the vision?
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I mean, I mean had divisions that it's still pretty clear,
But were there things you had to change?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
And how did you go about that great.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Question, I think, yeah, it's incredibly overwhelming because I think
earth X is a is a large, complicated organization.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
We work in a lot of spaces.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
Like one of our virtues is we try to you know,
be all encompassing in terms of different focuses and industries.
And we were talking to people in energy and corporate
sustainability and conservation and so there's a lot of different
ways you could do and I almost felt like I
got handed, you know, keys to a really nice sports
car and then it's like, Okay, how do I know
how to drive this thing? And yeah, I think one
(19:45):
of the questions that you know, I was personally invested
in and heard from people from the outside, a lot
of people who have familiar with earth expert out of
ten is like, so what does what does earth X do?
And we know you have this big event, but how
are you actually having an impact in the world. And
so one of the first things that I kind of
want to to focus in on is how do we
both tell the story of the work we've done and
then also find ways in which we can sort of
(20:06):
advance and have more tangible impact around our event and
outside our event. So that was sort of we're creating
I mentioned building these bridges between local environmental groups and
international We started working IUCN, which is an international conservation network,
on a biodiversity plan to build out. We're moving towards
(20:27):
building out sort of an urban biodiversity plan for Dallas
to try to look at how we could be better
stewards of the nature that exists in the city, because
there is a lot of amazing, you know, outdoor spaces
in Dallas, even though it doesn't have that reputation. And
then also we launched a sort of a nonprofit within
our nonprofit called the Artheics Institute to look at sort
of biparson policy and say, Okay, we're convening all these
(20:48):
people that have different perspectives and trying to find this
common ground, but how do we make sure that those
conversations actually turn into tangible suggestions.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
And so we're.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
Looking year one not around nuclear energy, which is a
big issue in Texas. Texas has really emerged as a
leader and especially state leveled new energy regulation. How can
we kind of help bring that conversation to the rest
of the country. So we're convening a lot of state
legislators from around the country in April. And then part
of that is to come up with some policy recommendations that.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Can kind of outlast the conference and be passed on.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
To other advocates who want to see those turn into reality.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Great, let's talk a little bit about Earth Xxpo.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yeah, tell me the ideation how it started.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
The expo itself, I mean it came out of that,
came out of that street festival, sure, and then and
then really was about being bringing in as much of
the general public into into the environmental conversation. And to
do that by being you know, a big fund spectacle,
almost like a trade show where you have all these
different NGOs exhibiting boots, but then also you know, activities
(21:49):
and things that are happening, and you know, actually after
after COVID again back to that that pivot point, that's
when we kind of stepped back and said, you know,
this type of event wasn't having as much traction as
it did back in twenty nineteen when we had one
hundred and twenty thousand plus people in a fair park,
and figuring out, you know, how can we kind of
evolve So this year, actually our event the last two
(22:09):
years was more of a traditional business conference this I
think we're trying to find this happy medium sure, because
we do have access to this large green space within
within the at Hilton Adatole where the conference takes place,
and we'll have activations from Keep America Beautiful and the
FIFA Dallas team that they're doing kind of a preview
of of their community engagements that they'll be doing during
(22:32):
the World Cup. Because we're doing a whole sports and
sustainability conference also at the event this year, so we're
finding ways to bring in some of those groups to
show off what they do and create some fun and excitement.
We'll have a whole sort of free component to the
conference this year in addition to the sort of traditional conference.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Well, I would, I mean, I think we all know
that sometimes, most times the best way to get a
message through is sharing with people versus talking at people.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
And that sounds like a great environment.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Different touch points interest like you said, you know, soccer
and the other ways to just have that conversation is
so important.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
I was at the waste Management Phoenix open about a
month ago, and not a place where you'd think there'd
be an elevated conversation.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
About the environment coverage.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
Yeah, but they they have put together over the last
however many years, this program where they've completely eliminated landfilled
trash cans at the event. So you have one hundred
and eighty thousand people coming in every day, and they've
systematically worked with every single vendor so that every piece
of material that touches food has to be compostable, and
every everything that isn't compostable must be recyclable. So all
(23:38):
they have is compost and recycle ements the whole thing.
It's a nearly zero waste event. Interesting, and it's golf,
and not just golf, but like the biggest party golf tournament. Well,
and within twelve you know, a few hours of being
on the ground there, you forget that there aren't garbage cans.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
At first, ke where are the garbage cans? I don't
know what to do.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
But then suddenly you don't think about it anymore. And
that's a perfect exam about how you can use events
or sports or these.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Topics and issues that people love.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
They're already sort of cultural drivers that can create this
sort of behavioral change without it making you feel like, oh,
it's my responsibility to be good. Yeah, I'm a bad
I'm a bad person for putting it in the wrong.
Can they just make it so that it's really it's
it's like stupid proof.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
So for those of you that don't know, google waste
management golf tournament, that's it.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
I didn't realize that.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
Yeah, I was blown away by it, really And I'm
a little bit of a recycling skeptic because I know
that there's a lot of stories out there where some
of the recycling ends up in landfills and Indonesia and
all sorts of It's.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
A complicated world.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
But this was a proof positive that in this closed
environment they were able to actually build out a circular
system for trash.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Okay, I just have to ask was that their original
plan or did they did it evolve?
Speaker 3 (24:53):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
I don't know if I can speak on behalf of
wastemage journalists.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
I know I didn't.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
I got a tour, I didn't get that deep. But no,
I think that it's you know that they were committed
to how do we how do we build more sustainable
sporting events? And now part of what waste Management does
as a service and their sustainability team is they go
and consult with other sports groups, teams, leagues around the
country to kind of build out these kinds of systems elsewhere.
So it's encouraging because it's like it's not a again,
(25:20):
like you said, it's not a I'm a bad person,
or I need to know something, or it's my response.
It just we just shift the way we do things
and suddenly it just becomes second nature. It's like seat belts,
Like we all wear seat belts that there was once
a fight where people are like, I remember you to
put my seat belt on. Yeah, Like it's so many
things like that. Or we can just find those cultural
touch points. Sports is a good one. Fashion is a
(25:41):
good one. And so we're at earthechts trying to find
those things that aren't typically thought of as your you know,
granola three hugger, crunchy type topics, but show how those
can be drivers and behavioral change.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
You mentioned something a minute ago about making connection and
really making an impact on people and trying to change
perspective at least find common ground, and you said it's
about listening.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
I talked to our teams here that.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
I work with that so often you think when it's
about sharing an idea, it's one hundred percent about talking
and listening is such an underutilized skill and so it's
funny should say that in your role prepared you so
much for that as a journalist is just shut.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Up and listen.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Yeah, it's pretty powerful. So okay, speaking of that, tell
me a top line. How you bridge someone you know,
we talked in Texas and all of that and preaching
the choir, which I think is a great way of
thinking of it. How do you bridge some of those
gaps between you know, the energy sector so to speak,
and what earthects is doing, Like, how do you do that?
Speaker 4 (26:51):
Yeah, I mean, well two things. One the example I
like to use because we do a lot of work
with hunters in the fishing community and angler community, and
actually the hunting community does does raise a ton of
money for conservation and a lot of the dollars that
go into the hunting licenses, it goes into how you
know we pay for public lands and and and but
(27:14):
you know, if you look at you know, in the
traditional sort of environmental community, there's a lot of obviously
people that are invested in wildlife and invested in life
and the peda supporters of the world, and so that
that seems like there should be a hard heart break
there in terms of perspective, But part of it is
just like how do you how do you frame what
the problem is?
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (27:34):
And so if people are coming at the problem with
different definitions.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
As long as the solutions are aligned, that's fine.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
So if you're talking to an environmentalist, you might talk about,
you know, restoring ecology or improving biodiversity, or how you know,
the open lands can sequest your carbon.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
And these kinds of things.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
If you go to the more conservative sort of ranching community,
that might not be something that they're interested in. But
if you say, don't you want to preserve open lands
because it's your heritage and it's part of your family's
history and you want your kids to grow up in
the same sort of environment that you treasured, then suddenly,
if they're preserving and creating wild spaces that are you know,
(28:12):
for for a different reason, those are still going to
be having those same benefits of you know, expanding habitat
and increasing biodiversity and sequestering carbon. So I think it's
sort of how you frame the issue can be helpful,
and the energy too. I think one I'll be like
one might be Frank, I think that the climate movement
kind of by demonizing the energy industry for so long,
(28:33):
missed an opportunity. And one way to think about is
within the oil and guests, you know, get into the
weeds on the whole history around messaging. But within the
oil and gas industry there's a ton of really you know,
accomplished engineers and scientists who may have them know how
to at least transition out of some of these you know,
more problematic sources of energy that that should be seen
(28:56):
as partners in the problem, not as not as adverse.
I remember being on a call with a an engineer
at Exon Mobile who was talking about one of the
problems he was working on. That's reducing methane emissions from pipelines. Now,
they weren't doing that because Exon Mobile was invested in
the climate, you know, climate change issue. They have to
(29:17):
ensure their pitch a bit in recent years. But they
were doing because there's a bottom line reason, like if
they were losing product from those pipelines. But the end
result was they were keeping methane out of the atmosphere.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
So at the end of the day, what do you care?
Speaker 4 (29:28):
Right, So how do you how do you build those
bridges and see people, as you know, as part of
the as part of the solution, not.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Part of the problem. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
So you talked a little bit about your heroes and
writing in your career journey to where you are today
as CEO of attacks. Who's a mentors or a mentor
that you can point to? Think about that that really
guided you along the way, and what was what was
the lesson?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
What was the message they taught you?
Speaker 4 (29:54):
You know too, there's the mentor that was a personal mentor.
Then there's sort of the I guess in all actual
mentor the intellectual mentors that Catherine Hayow, who's a climate
scientist also a writer.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
She she has written a lot, a lot of these
ideas of how do you how do you talk about
climate change to you know, the Christian right or to
conservative audiences, and her work has been really an inspiration
sort of how to.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Approach a lot of these issues. And then I don't know.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
Wick Allison was the publisher of D the magazine, founder of
D magazine and charismatic character, a big, complicated personality. But
you know what, what I loved about how he saw
what he was building with the magazine. He didn't just
see it as a you know, a source of information
or source of entertainment. He saw it really as the
purpose of the magazine was to be a force for
(30:44):
good in the city. And how he was able to
leverage that and how he ran the company, but then
also how he used that platform to really drive change
has been instrumental. How I kind of think about what
we could possibly do with with our thanks that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Do you do you find yourself drawing back on things
that he would say and do and.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
That the best one is and this is maybe not
the best journalistic concept, but his famous line was there's
no conflict of interests.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
There are only interests, and.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
Which I do come back to a lot because I
think there's a there's a root pragmatism about that that
you realize everyone is is everyone has interests and you
just got to figure out, you know, how to its balance.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
It seems like so much of your role is how
do you connect all of these different It's what I
keep coming back to.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
I mean, look, that's that's a CEO's role so.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Much of the time, but yours is your role is
so unique as you're really trying to pull two differing opinions,
but they are I mean points of view. How do
I pull them closer and closer together in a positive
way that everybody can move forward, move forward, right, mark
to the same beat, so to speak.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
What what what story about the environment? Do you feel
like isn't being told right now?
Speaker 4 (32:02):
That's that's a good one, you know, I think it's
being told, but I don't think you know it.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
It's framed in this way. I think a lot of
people know that.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
But just the pure loss of habitat about adversity, but
both on a you know, a regional level, on a
macro level. We often talk about, you know, the loss
of the Amazon. It seems like something maybe far away,
but I think you know, the amount of development, the
growth of cities, not just in the US but around
the world.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Like we're just in a.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
Rapidly losing habitat and that's what's what's driving just sort
of a remarkable reduction and of the number of species
in the world, and then the extinction event.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
I think we we've.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Talked about climate for a long time and there's an
abstractness to it. You know, different levels of carbon in
the atmosphere and warming and different dates of when we're
in But the reality is we're living through like a
mass extinction event, and we're losing a tremendous amount of
of of of animals, and we don't really understand the
true implications of that.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
In a long term frame.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
And I think we should be talking a lot more
about that.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Okay, let's move towards a little optimism.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
Can make me.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Feel optimistic, not in general, but about the environment.
Speaker 4 (33:18):
Don't turn on the news in the last week, No,
I mean, I think I think we're you know, this
is how I think about it. You know, there's a
lot of fear out there, there's a lot of uncertainty.
I think this is what when we are talking to
corporate leaders, when you talk to you know, we're speaking
on a day where there's a major primary there's a
lot of change in the plocal environment. But I think
(33:40):
what we're living through is one of those upsetting revolutionary
moments where we're living through an industrial a new industrial revolution,
a technology revolution. I think with all of that kind
of change and shifting of you know, shifting of how
things we're used to things going, there's an opportunity for
that shift to lead into a better alignment.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Of of everything.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
I mean, I think we have a real opportunity now
to sort of reset the playing board and and and
you know, transcend a lot of these sort of traditional
in passes and polarized sort of positions where we can
find new alliances and allegiances and new investment and.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Where we're going.
Speaker 4 (34:16):
And I think we have the technology is there. Like
we do a lot of work with innovators and entrepreneurs
and startups that are building businesses that you know, are
improving the environment, but also have you know, a bottom line,
you know, feasibility, and a lot of that is being
driven by just an incredible amount of amazing technology that's
being developed. I mean, one of the reasons we were
(34:37):
in Phoenix for the golf tournament was there's this group
out there called Terrem Labs that is just developing these
new these new ways of building mass production packaging that's
all based on organic materials and all completely combustible. So
we have the capacity to create a much cleaner, healthier world,
but we just got to get there.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
But those are the great stories that people need to
nowatly because I think that you know, it's a couple
of years ago the whole thing with the straws, the
paper straws, and you know, you can look at a
paper strong go Okay, what is this really doing right?
Speaker 2 (35:09):
And I think those.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Stories that you can say like these are bigger things
going on, I think help people frame it in their
own mind a little bit versus like the person you're
having trouble breaking through too kind of don't oh yeah,
like this is doing anything right.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
So what do you with.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
The expo coming up? What are you most excited about
about the upcoming xpo? I mean, I think we have
an incredible lineup of speakers. We have everyone from Bob Ballard,
the guy who founded the Titanic, Sylvia Earle, famed oceanographer,
Richard Wiese, the head of the Explorers Club, a lot
of amazing business leaders, a lot of people from a
former President of Mexico, Phillipe Calderone. So I think we're
(35:52):
bringing what arthextries to do as we bring together really
high level people from the policy and politics world, from
the investment world, but also so different than some of
our other you know, environmental commerces people that they're engaged
in science and research and exploration and all these exciting
things that I think have people inspired about, you know,
being out in the world and loving it. Okay, so
(36:14):
last question, four years in your role at Earth X.
What are the next four years going to do?
Speaker 4 (36:21):
I think, you know what a lot of the stuff
we were talking about today in terms of building out
new programs, so that Earth X is more than just
an event in April, where you know, we have, you know,
a footprint that extends around the year. That April is
really the celebration of a year's worth of work. And
I think there's a tremendous opportunity to kind of build
on a lot of partnerships we've built up over the
(36:41):
years and really help, you know, accelerate a lot of
that change that we're talking about a minute ago that
makes people optimistic. How can we be more supportive of
helping those organizations, groups, technologies kind of push a new
future that's exciting.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
I mean, I would imagine you wake up pretty energized
every every.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Day, mostly mostly in April twenty third, not wake up.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
So I'm going to wrap up with one question.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
If you were to go back and write a story,
if you're going to investigate and write a story, what
would it be right now?
Speaker 4 (37:13):
Oh no, this is not a one. I was working
on something last summer that's sort of a history, so
you still do Yeah, yeah, I was working on it,
sort of an obscure history of a nineteenth century botanist
and how that had like these sort of almost butterfly
effect ripples into a larger kind of history of America.
(37:34):
I like finding those sort of forgotten characters that touched
the broader kind of historical narrative.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
In a big way. Interesting.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Are you going to do it or are you just
kind of something your toying with.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
I'll stick with it. I've told enough people now that
I have to episode two. There you go, we'll have
you back there.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Peter, thank you for joining us. A lot of fun.
We look forward to checking out X the Expo and
we'll go from there.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Perfect awesome, appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Thanks
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