May 6, 2025 • 37 mins
On Friday, April 11, over 300 high school students from across northeast Ohio gathered for the 2025 NEO Youth Climate Summit, hosted by Laurel School and Global Shapers Cleveland. The event brought students together to discuss and collaborate on solutions for climate change, sustainability, and environmental justice.
The summit was kicked off with a keynote address by a young climate activist, Sage Lenier. Sage was honored by TIME Magazine as a 2023 Next Generation Leader. She started teaching about climate change while still a student at UC Berkeley and has since founded her own non-profit, Sustainable and Just Future.
In this episode, we share her message to the students. Hear what one Gen Z'er has to say to young environmental leaders about meeting the future with excitement and innovative solutions. And hear from Angela Yeager, a teacher whose students in Laurel School's Environmental Justice Semester planned the event. Organizers called it a "beaming light for young people demanding change in the face of the climate crisis." And it was.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Diane Bickett (00:04):
You're listening to EcoSpeak CLE, a podcast for
the eco-curious in NortheastOhio.
My name is Diane Bickett and myproducer is Greg Rotuno.
Together, we speak with localsustainability leaders and
invite you to connect, learn andlive with our community and
planet in mind.
Hello friends, On Friday, April11th, hundreds of high school
(00:25):
students from across our regiongathered for the 2025 Northeast
Ohio Youth Climate Summit hostedby Laurel School.
The event brought studentstogether to discuss and
collaborate on climate change,sustainability and environmental
justice solutions.
The summit was kicked off witha keynote address by a young
(00:46):
climate activist named SageLanier.
Sage was honored by TimeMagazine as a 2023 Next
Generation Leader.
She started teaching aboutclimate change when she was just
a student at UC Berkeley andhas since started her own
nonprofit called Sustainable andJust Future.
I wanted to bring you hermessage to the students, so I
(01:07):
recorded her keynote address forthis podcast.
Hear what one Gen Z-er has tosay to young environmental
leaders about meeting the futurewith excitement and innovative
solutions.
First up, though, I speak withAngela Yeager.
She's a teacher at LaurelSchool and she gives us some
background about this event.
Welcome, Angela Yeager, ateacher at Laurel School who is
(01:31):
instrumental in putting on theNortheast Ohio Youth Climate
Summit.
And hi, Angela, tell us alittle bit about what's
happening today here at theCleveland Public Library in
downtown Cleveland.
Angela Yeager (01:43):
Well, the Cleveland Public Library is
buzzing with excitement thismorning.
We have 300 students from over30 schools in Northeast Ohio
attending a student-led andstudent-run conference around
climate change and climatejustice, and it's just
incredible to watch all of theyoung people falling into their
(02:04):
roles and doing their leadershiproles and the excited high
school students tricklingthrough the door.
Diane Bickett (02:09):
So it's all high school students from all over
the area and this is the thirdyear you put this on.
Angela Yeager (02:16):
This is our second year.
Second year so last year wasthe first and it was planned in
a matter of three months with acohort of graduates from Laurel
School's Environmental Justicesemester and they really wanted
a way to further theirengagement and advocacy and we
had 100 students join at CaseWestern's Think Box and it was
(02:37):
such a success that they were,by the time the summit was over,
they were already talking aboutnext year.
Diane Bickett (02:42):
Okay, and what do you want the students to get
out of?
Today was over.
They were already talking aboutnext year.
Okay, and what do you want thestudents to get out of today?
I really hope that they leavefeeling inspired.
I want them to feel likethey're not alone in caring
about the planet and people andour future together, and I want
them to walk away withactionable things that they can
do.
There's a big surprise comingat the end of the summit and
(03:12):
they're going to be invited toapply for mini-grants sponsored
by Global Shapers, cleveland andthe Climate Reality Project to
get their ideas off the ground.
Okay, and today is somepresenters, but also like
hands-on learning activities,Like.
Can you describe a couple ofthose?
Angela Yeager (03:24):
Yeah, the students really.
You know it's everything andbut the kitchen sink right.
The students really wanted todo it all, so there are, you
know they have crafted openingremarks, there's a climate
science 101 session happening.
They have invited and flown ina keynote speaker, sage Lanier
from New York, and then in theafternoon we'll have breakout
(03:47):
sessions.
There are 14 unique breakoutsessions planned by students,
with students, in partnershipwith outside organizations, so
they're the ones teaching it.
It's really exciting.
And then, to top it all off,there's an opportunities fair,
where over 30 organizations fromNortheast Ohio are going to
share opportunities thatstudents can participate in
(04:08):
right now, wow, well, I justlove that you're bringing all
this together and Sage Lanier isgoing to be the keynote and
we're going to record that forthis podcast.
So, listeners, I wish you allcould be here, because there's
so much energy already and it'sonly 830 in the morning.
It's going to be a great day,so thank you for allowing me to
(04:30):
come in and try to capture someof this.
Sage Lenier (04:34):
Hi everyone, good morning.
There you go.
I loved a lot of thoseresponses that I just heard.
I heard a lot of.
I really want to learn whatwe're supposed to be solving.
I'm your girl, let's do it, youand I.
I'm about 10 years older thanyou and I've been spending a lot
of time lately actuallythinking about that, because the
(04:57):
idea of 10 years is huge, butreally you and I don't look all
that different in terms of age.
I've been spending a lot oftime thinking about what 10
years means, because it's been10 years since I was 16 and I
was sat in your shoes, in yourseat, basically, and on my own
(05:23):
journey of discovery, and on myown journey of discovery Ten
years ago, we didn't actuallyreally talk about climate change
really largely, I only learnedabout it in AP Environmental
Science.
I was already very passionateabout social issues.
Coming to this, though, Irealized that it kind of
eclipsed all of the otherstruggles that I was already
very passionate about, becausehow can you have human rights on
(05:46):
a dead planet?
I think the curriculum that Iwas learning, too, was so
alarmist.
It was so good at raisingawareness of the problems.
I started having panic attacks.
Basically, we were learningabout topsoil collapse and how
food system yields where foodagricultural yields were going
to fail in my lifetime at thesame time that we were going to
(06:09):
add 3 billion people.
And I was looking around at, forexample, hundreds and hundreds
of new homes being built inSouthern California, where I
grew up, and I was like this isTinder.
This is a terrible idea andeveryone thought I was crazy.
Really, but being able to holdthat truth for 10 years
(06:31):
personally and to have beenright about it, it's not.
It's not something I want to beright about, but, like, in
January, we saw 12,000 buildingsrazed to the ground in Los
Angeles.
That's not the first fire.
It won't be the last.
It was just the biggest ever inAmerican history.
I think.
Lately I've been sitting withthat truth of like I've been
(06:53):
right and I'll continue to beright.
And so what kind of planning doyou, can you and I do now, so
that when the world, when, when,the, when, everyone writ large
finally is like oh my God, wait,this is so bad, you guys are
right about this.
Who has a plan?
(07:13):
We can be standing there likeI've got?
blueprints.
I actually have scenario A, B, C.
I've got scenario K.
You and I were born into aworld that feels like it's
constantly breaking, especiallylately the news, even the
weather, the rules, thecorrelation between hard work
(07:37):
and payoff.
We are looking at an economywhere you can work 35, you can
work a grueling blue collar jobfor $35,000 a year, or you can
become an influencer and makethat in a single post, or you
can make a lot more than that ifyou learn how to do a crypto
rug pole.
So the correlation between hardwork and payoff is eroding.
(08:04):
Hard work and payoff is erodingand it feels like nothing makes
sense for us.
I think a lot of us feel eachday like we're trudging through
a lot of just uncertainty andjust chaos, confusion.
So the world is breaking inmany ways.
That's not our fault, but it isour opportunity, Because when
(08:26):
everything starts to crack, newideas have the ability to
finally break through.
The momentum of the old systemis eroding.
It's slowing down system.
A new momentum so that we canstart, so that the path towards
progress is a momentous force ofits own.
(08:48):
So this is not about fixingjust one thing.
It's about rethinking howeverything fits together.
I started off asking questionsabout how the world works, to go
into asking how it could workwhen I was 19,.
(09:15):
So my sophomore year in collegeum, you know, I I like I said I
learned about this in highschool and realized, all right,
like sounds like we're all goingto die is probably the biggest,
most important thing that Icould spend my career working on
.
Let me, let me do a degree init.
And it was the same thing.
Every class I went to wasdoomsday sermon after doomsday
sermon about how everything wasso bad and the nuances of the
(09:37):
problem and the depth of theproblem.
And I was looking around myselfat all these passionate young
people who had come to one ofthe best environmental programs
in the nation in the world, andwe were all so jazzed up, we
were so energized and peoplewere starting to wilt.
People were changing theirmajors, People were giving up.
A lot of the people who I wentto school with are not working
(09:57):
in the environmental fieldprofessionally now.
Um, a lot of that because theydon't feel like there's
something that can be done.
Um, a lot of that because theydon't feel like there's
something that can be done.
And so I realized since theseventies and this is not this
is not anyone's fault, but sincethe seventies these people who
are now professors or climatescientists or academics or
policy writers they've beenfighting an uphill battle to try
(10:18):
to convince people that it'seven happening Right, so they've
developed this scare to caremodel.
What they're not seeing, though,about the way that things are
different now is that we're thefirst generation to grow up.
Accepting climate change is justlike axiomatic.
We're like, yeah, I can see it,I can feel it.
There wasn't fire season when Iwas little.
Now there's fire season.
(10:38):
It's pretty bad.
We don't have to be convincedright, and so continuing to pile
it on is not productive.
And I was also hearing aboutall these disparate crises.
I was like plastic pollutionand fast fashion and I never
really understood that.
I thought that you know Amazonand hyper-consumerism and Shiam.
(10:58):
I was like these Shiam actuallywasn't even a thing.
When I was in college I'vewritten, I've given several
speeches on that I knew thathyperconsumption was a problem.
I didn't really see anyonemaking the connection with that.
On climate change, I was stillreally concerned about this
whole topsoil degradation thingthat I learned about in high
(11:20):
school, still felt like no onewas talking about that and I was
like I feel like food is maybethe first priority, even if the
climate system breaks down, likefood, food feels like the first
priority.
And so I was like none of thesethings are connecting in my
brain, none of these things areconnecting in my classes.
I want to know the truth abouteverything.
I want to know what, how weshould even be prioritizing
(11:41):
these things.
Is plastic pollution reallyimportant?
Is that a waste of time?
So I started going around theuniversity and I started taking
classes in every college.
I studied a little bit of like.
I took classes in the businessschool.
I studied policy, food systems.
I took a couple engineeringclasses.
(12:01):
I did really, really badly inthem.
I was really just trying tolearn the truth about everything
.
And as I went I started writing.
I started writing thiscurriculum and I ended up
titling it Solutions for aSustainable and Just Future.
I wanted it to be solutionsoriented, I wanted it to be
action focused and it was kindof just my attempt at cutting
(12:27):
through all that chaos, all thatnoise, all that, the breakdown
of correlation that we feel as ageneration, and just having
something that felt clear andlike it made sense.
And so then I started teachingit the next semester.
And so I started off with 25students and I was 19 years old
and the first time I ever got infront of a classroom my face
was like beet red and the lessonplan that I prepared actually
(12:51):
only lasted me 20 minutes and Ihad 50 minutes to teach.
And I was really, I was reallypanicked.
So I figured it out for therest of the class and I kept
going.
I kept signing myself up toteach this class every semester.
But the next semester I was sosurprised because my wait list
was actually maxed out.
I had signed up to have aclassroom of 50 students and I
(13:14):
had 50 plus 25 on the wait list.
To have a classroom of 50students, and I had 50 plus 25
on the wait list.
And so then the next semester Igot a class of 85 students and
it maxed out the wait list.
And then the next semester Iwent to them and I said, can I
have 150?
And they were like no, that'snot allowed.
And I was like, yeah, but I hada maxed out wait list here and
they were like no one's everdone that before and I was like,
yeah, but why not?
(13:35):
And so we got 160 seats thatsemester.
We filled every single one.
And then my senior year, when Iwas 21, I had 300.
Which had never, never, neverbeen done before.
It was way too much pressure.
Way too much pressure.
I was 21.
It's a lot.
(13:57):
I have a lot of criticisms aboutthe whole, like youth can save
us, youth must leave, kind ofthing.
Like we're.
Like we're kind of too youngfor that, honestly, um, I'm old
enough for it now.
But I want you guys to enjoyyour lives and enjoy the rest of
your youth.
And that program was so popularbecause I think there was such
a demand.
Everyone was feeling the samething as me I want solutions, I
(14:19):
want action, I want to feeloptimistic, I want to know what
there is I can do.
And the testimonials coming outof that program were like this
completely changed my mind.
I went from knowing nothingabout climate change having a
small, you know a smallcuriosity about all that
doomsday stuff I was hearingabout, to now I feel like I know
(14:40):
everything I need to know.
I'm just going to go dark,that's fine Moodlighting, okay,
I like moodlighting, we can makeit a little serious.
All right, kill the ongoing,that's why I don't.
Andreas.
All right, kill the on-go,that's why I don't.
And so these testimonials ofpeople saying, like I know what
(15:03):
my role to play is, I was like,okay, I think we might have done
something here.
Like I think that this, this, Ididn't really believe in it.
I didn't really believe that inthe power of what it was.
But those testimonials werethis constant reinforcement of
no, you're right, no, you'reright, no, you're right.
Like this is what people need.
(15:24):
And so, coming out of college, Iwas trying to figure out what
to do with that, because, youknow, we had this framework
where we're doing things thathadn't been done before, but
there wasn't really a clear pathforward, and that's what a lot
of people don't talk about quitea bit when it comes to
leadership.
Like you're really makingthings up as you go, you don't
know what your options are, andit's really scary and uncertain
(15:45):
at times.
I ended up turning it.
I ended up launching as anonprofit and, with the
nonprofit launch, within likethree months, time Magazine had
reached out and they wanted todo this huge feature on me and I
was just like what?
And when I tell you that thatlegitimized me to other people
(16:08):
so much, like I was the sameperson before and after, having
a Time Magazine award next to myname, but all of a sudden the
world wanted something for me,right, I was being invited to
Paris to speak and I was going,honestly, all around the world,
to different countries, todifferent cities across the
United States, and I was.
(16:30):
I was so surprised that thatlegitimized me because I was
like I'm the same person I wasyesterday and also I think you
know there's an effect Peoplesee you on stage once, or they
see a viral video once and thenmaybe it just kind of happens
from there.
But so now where I'm at with it, with the work, is we're
(16:50):
working on a pre-productionprocess for a Hollywood
docuseries to try to convertthat curriculum into a big
picture format and hopefullybring it to the world so that
people can buy into this vision.
For what about our world couldlook like?
We're launching a podcast,because that's, I guess, the way
to reach people.
(17:11):
We're doing a lot of big mediathings this year, but separately
.
I'm also very interested inbeing an operator, so I'm
helping businesses that Ibelieve in.
That could change the economy,that could solve environmental
problems, to grow.
And so that's my personalbalance between talking about
the thing and doing the thing.
(17:32):
So I want to take you all alonga little bit with what the
process actually was.
So the first thing I started torealize was climate change is
not the problem that we'retrying to solve.
I like to use this analogyTrying to solve climate change
is like trying to cure a coughwhen you have bronchitis.
(17:54):
That is not the problem.
That is just a symptom of theproblem.
I was trying to go deeper.
Why is climate change happening?
Because of energy emissions.
Why do we use so much energy.
Why do we burn so much carbon?
Because it's profitable.
Why is it profitable?
Because we have a system ofextraction.
(18:16):
And so when I started to peelback the layers, I started to
realize that the problem wasactually economic.
We have a system of, we have alinear economy.
We extract resources fromnature, we turn them into things
, we ship those things allaround the world, we consume
(18:37):
them and then we throw them awayand we start all over again,
and this process happens fasterand faster and faster every year
, where everything from ourjeans to our phones, to our cars
to our houses gets cheaper andcheaper, so that it gets
unusable quicker and so you needa new one.
And that's actually where themajority of our carbon emissions
(18:59):
are embedded in.
7% of global emissions come frommining.
That's called a hard to abatesector.
I would say it's more likeimpossible to abate.
And so I was like okay, so howdo we solve the mining problem?
Well, we're actuallylandfilling the majority of what
we mine.
So if we could increase metalrecyclings, we could stop mining
(19:20):
.
And this is not the answer thatis comfortable for the economic
forces at large.
So it's not the answer that wego for.
We try to say you know, we haveto build more solar panels and
build more wind turbines, andthat is, of course, true.
But when you actually look atthe numbers, we can see that
(19:40):
just mathematically, factually,logistically, because these are
tremendous feats ofinfrastructure that also require
a fair amount of mining, wecannot build enough renewable
energy fast enough to stay undertwo degrees Celsius.
It is completely impossible.
So we have to use less energy.
And so how do we use lessenergy?
We have to build a differenteconomy, but there's so much
(20:03):
opportunity Once that's clearfor us.
There's so much opportunity forexcitement and innovation there
.
So for me, it was therealization that climate change
is not an isolated issue.
It's tied into how we grow ourfood, how we build our cities,
how we power our lives, how ourculture prioritizes
individualism and consumptionluxury goods right, I was
(20:29):
realizing that the economy wasdriving overconsumption.
Overconsumption was drivingwaste, and waste was driving
environmental collapse.
And so if the system is theproblem, then we need new
systems, not just better slogans.
Right, this is bigger thankeeping it in the ground.
This is bigger than protestingoil companies.
(20:54):
What we need is to reallycreatively reimagine not just
what a better world could looklike, but what does a better
world look like while systemsare collapsing?
Because it is true that foodsystems are going to be
disrupted, and so that is why weneed a plan A, b, c, d, e and
all the way through, k, and itfeels daunting, but that's the
(21:16):
work of your and my lifetime andthere's kind of nothing else
that we can do.
You and I have.
You know, the cards were dealtbefore we were born and the arc
of our lifetime where we mightsee three degrees Celsius in our
lifetime and you're in mylifetime is to basically try and
(21:36):
keep every single mouth fed andcommunities intact and kids in
schools, while globally, peopleare displaced and crisis is
escalates right and that mightsound scary, but it's also the
truth, and when you can reallyaccept that, it stops feeling as
(21:59):
scary because it's just thework.
There's nothing to be afraid of.
There's work, work to be doneright.
Every single day is a newopportunity for building more
resilient, more flexible systemsthat make it so that the people
who would be our grandchildrenare inheriting a world where
they can hopefully not justsurvive but thrive.
(22:21):
That's the work every singleday.
There's no apocalypse comingright.
This is something that I have,that I say to myself all the
time, and it centers me In 2500,in the year 3000, there will
still be several billion peopleon this planet.
Right, there's no extinction ofthat happening.
There's no asteroid.
(22:41):
But what state those peoplelive in?
You know how well they arecapable of navigating the world
that they inherit is up to ustruly, and that makes me feel
better actually about ourability to create change.
So what do solutions look like?
What do solutions look like,the biggest thing that we need
(23:05):
to be normalizing, mainstreamingand talking and thinking about
outside of just climate action,outside of just renewable energy
?
very very important thingsunderstood yet, so we're not
working on the solutions yetbecause we don't understand them
.
Is the circular economy?
The opposite of waste is notrecycling, even though it is for
(23:28):
mining, it's designing wasteout.
E-waste is the fastest growingwaste stream on the planet, and
so that's everything from phonesto, honestly, cars at this
point, because they're becomingvery technological, phones to,
honestly, cars at this point,because they're becoming very
technological, and so everysingle year are okay.
(23:50):
Let me give you an example.
Actually, when I was five, myparents gave me a phone Terrible
idea.
It was a flip phone, and maybesome of you have had flip phones
, but probably most of youhaven't.
But that's what was around whenI was five.
With the flip phone, you wereable to take the back of the
phone off and pull out thebattery and then you could
replace the battery, and so wedidn't actually really carry
(24:11):
around charges back then, or mymom, Like my mom, had it in her
purse.
My mom would carry around anextra battery, and so what that
meant, because of the design ofthe phone, was that you didn't
have to replace your phone whenthe battery started dying, as
most people do now today.
But obviously that's a littleless good for profit than
selling people a whole brand newphone.
(24:32):
So they started designingphones in ways where there's
really really tiny screws.
It's really really hard toaccess.
The battery is hiddenunderneath all of this tech and
if you open it, you void yourwarranty.
And so now I hear people allthe time say my battery is like
crap, now I need to get a newphone.
And so that's a small.
It's a very micro example,right, but that's happening on
(24:54):
every single scale in oureconomy and in our world, and it
increases the rate at which weextract resources and have
carbon emissions, increase ouremissions, and so designing for
circularity doesn't mean havingthe same crappy designed phones
and just recycling them.
It means designing phones thatlast forever, that you can take
(25:15):
the battery out, that you cantake the camera out, so you can
upgrade it.
Small example but get creative,think about it.
It.
There's ways to do this inevery industry and in every
facet of our world.
With food, you know, someonementioned composting earlier.
Composting is the way thatwe've actually just done things
forever.
(25:35):
Composting is is thealternative to landfill.
For all of human history, weonly composted.
There wasn't such thing astrash.
Everything was compostable.
You either made things out ofleather you know animal skin or
you made them out of animal, ofplant fibers like cotton.
Um, stone, iron maybe, butanything that we created as
(25:57):
humans could biodegrade into theearth.
It could just just turn.
If you lost it, if itdisappeared, it would just turn
back into something.
And my grandma can talk to youabout how she remembers when
polyester came out, which iscrazy, because the shirt I'm
wearing is polyester and theshoes I'm wearing are made of
polyester, and this is a.
(26:17):
It's not polyester, but this isa petrochemical byproduct.
So quickly did our world becomedesigned with petrochemical
byproduct?
So quickly that did our worldbecome designed with
petrochemicals?
With petroleum we can.
It's like unfathomable to us,but there are people living with
us today who remember when itwasn't so, and it is so possible
to design that out, design outfossil fuels.
(26:41):
So this isn't hypothetical.
It's already happening inpieces and there's a long way to
go.
But if we look at it as aneconomic transit formation, then
we can solve the polycrisis ofclimate change and resource
over-extraction and ecosystemdegradation and over-pollution.
And we can just simply keep theclothes that we have, because I
(27:04):
think we make 80 billiongarments of clothes a year right
now and there's only 8 billionpeople.
I think we landfill like 10billion a year.
If we could just keep all thethings that we have cycling, we
can cut out the 10% of carbonemissions that come from the
fashion industry.
We can stop polluting therivers in Bangladesh and
Pakistan.
We can stop polluting therivers in Bangladesh and
(27:24):
Pakistan because H&M is pouringpolluted dyes into their rivers.
We can stop destroyingecosystems to grow more cotton.
We can stop extracting oil tomake more petroleum.
But it's a system redesign thatwe have to look at in order to
really see solutions.
And so there's two types ofpeople.
(27:46):
There are people who I don'twant to say complain, complain
about the system.
I don't want to sell our fourmothers in the environment
movement short, because most ofthem are women.
I think it was really important.
For the past 55 years, peoplehave been sounding, slamming the
alarm and trying to say thisisn't working.
(28:07):
This is scary.
Something is really deeplywrong here, and they were right,
but it behooves us now to moveon and to start thinking about
what a better world could looklike, to start offering people a
vision for what a better worldcould look like.
So I think that's the issue too.
We I'm including all of you inthe climate movement, because
(28:27):
you are and never can leavesorry.
We as a movement are pretty badat reaching people.
We reach them with thisalarmist narrative, but the way
to win the culture war is tooffer people a path out right.
Consumption doesn't make us feelgood.
It makes us feel empty, andeveryone feels broken over the
(28:49):
cost of living.
A lot of people feel that theylack dignity in their lives
because they can't afford tohave kids and pay rent and have
a dignified life, and so wecan't just say hey, yeah,
there's microplastics in yourblood stream.
We have to say, right, and whatif there were companies here,
(29:14):
here in our country, or global,international companies that
worked for the people that madeecosystems better, that turned a
profit, that offered a livingwage and that you were proud to
work for.
This is something that's reallyinteresting.
That's a few years out fromwhere you're at right now.
(29:35):
People talk about how youngpeople go to, you know, harvard
or UCAN or wherever, and youcome in with these essays where
you're saying I want to be adoctor, I want to solve climate
change, I want to solve HIV, Iwant to cure cancer, and you
leave, especially the reallyprestigious schools as a
(29:57):
consultant or in the financeindustry, and it's because
there's a lack of options.
And so I'm at this reallyinteresting age group where a
lot of my friends who wereidealists a few years ago are
now giving up a little bit, orthey feel like they're being,
they're selling out, sellingthemselves out a little bit, and
they haven't given up hope,though, and so the challenge is
(30:20):
to create opportunities, createthe types of income streams,
companies, challenges where wecan use those brilliant,
brilliant, brilliant minds forbetter, and I'm really excited
about, for example, there's thiscompany called Synonym I always
like to use real life examples.
There's this company calledSynonym, and they are building
(30:45):
the biomanufacturing economy,and what does that mean?
So, basically, if I want tomake this shirt or if I want to
make a shirt that says EJ on it,got some in the crowd.
There are hundreds and hundredsof factories all over the world
that I can place an order inreally easily and you can maybe
get like a nice 100% organiccotton.
(31:05):
But if you want to do itcheaply as possible, you're
going to get 100% polyester,which again petrochemical right,
it's from petroleum.
Right now there is nobiomanufacturing capacity, so we
don't have.
If I want to start aplant-based meat company or a
plant-based plastic company thatbiodegrades and is safe for the
earth, I have to build my ownfactory, which makes the cost,
(31:27):
the startup cost, for thosecompanies really, really high.
Anyone tomorrow can start ahoodie company, right?
A hoodie with their littleslogan on it.
You see an influencer, they goviral.
You know what was that?
One Demure she had merch withinlike a week, right?
One Demure she had mergedwithin like a week, right?
So there's an existingmanufacturing capacity for that.
(31:48):
And so this company Synonym I'mfriends with the CEO in New
York.
He wants to build thebiomanufacturing capacity that
we don't have, so that I canstart the same companies, but
better for the planet right.
So there's this reallywonderful opportunity for
innovation and starting newcompanies and being
entrepreneurs and building goodthings.
That isn't just don't fly, don'teat meat, don't do this, don't
(32:09):
do that, which I think is a lotof the narrative that we push as
the environmental movement.
That's a lot of the narrativethat we absorb every day.
There is a lot of things thatwe do need to change.
It's not going to be painless.
You are going to have to giveup a little bit of steak Okay,
maybe a lot, but there arereally cool alternative steak
companies.
There's really cool, excitingopportunities here, and if we
(32:32):
can win that culture war, we canget people to believe that our,
our way would be better, wouldbe happier, would be more joyful
, would be more sophisticated.
That's how you win, not bytelling, not by shaming, not by
telling people don't do this,don't do that, and so that's a
lesson for us as communicators,but it's also, you know, an
(32:54):
opportunity for us to filter outwhat we're digesting, whether
or not the headlines that you'rereading fit in with the
narrative that you want about.
Right, how can you be moreexcited?
How can you be more visionary?
Builders aren't just coders orCEOs, though, right.
Builders are students, they'reartists, they're entrepreneurs,
they're organizers, they'reengineers.
(33:15):
This is going to take peoplecoming from every single part of
society.
This is going to takearchitects.
This is going to take farmers.
You can do this from everysingle angle.
I swear to you, I even havefriends who are climate venture
capitalists.
It's real.
Okay, it's real.
You can do that.
That's really your calling inlife.
You can be a climate venturecapitalist.
(33:37):
And so one of the things that Ireally want you all to walk away
with is the idea that rebellionis not just resistance, it's
creation.
We have to architect a visionfor what a better world could
look like.
We have to get into engineeringsomething that's brand new, and
we have to convince the generalpublic, the world, that our way
(33:58):
would be better.
It's not enough to just pointout the problem and say this
sucks.
We have to sell people on anidea for what would be better.
So the future right now feelsincredibly uncertain.
The news is breaking, the rulesare breaking, the weather is
(34:23):
breaking, but there's a veryexciting opportunity there.
When the old system stopsworking, the future is no longer
something to be inherited, it'ssomething to be written.
We can imagine cities that feedthemselves and clothes that
(34:43):
never become trash, and aneconomy that heals more than it
harms.
We can imagine the type ofworld that doesn't engineer
ecological crises in the firstplace.
We don't have to regulate itout, we don't have to fight the
polluters.
It just isn't there.
We are in a very strange moment, especially as a generation
(35:09):
who's coming up, who doesn'thave the institutional power,
who doesn't have the money thatour grandparents do, who doesn't
have the media control.
But I think what we can do atthis very fragile moment in
history, where nothing abouttomorrow, is certain.
That's scary, but it's alsowonderful.
(35:29):
It's also wonderful because inthe last 10 years, as someone
who's been in the climatemovement, it's just been working
against this system that had somuch momentum.
It was, you know, these bigparties and this extravagance,
this overabundance, this hyperconsumption, and I was fighting
(35:50):
to just be heard in the midst ofall that noise.
But all of that is breaking,and so there's an opportunity to
be heard now.
Every generation of people intheir youth has a movement,
every single one.
That's not unique to us asyoung people or Gen Z, that's
not unique.
Young people are alwaysidealists.
That's our job.
But in this very fragile moment, where nothing is certain, so
(36:19):
we could lead next, we could bethe generation that did not just
fight for a future, we could bethe generation that built one.
Greg Rotuno (36:30):
We hope you've enjoyed this episode of EcoSpeak
CLE.
You can find our full catalogof episodes on Spotify, apple
Podcasts or wherever you getyour podcasts.
New episodes are available thefirst and third Tuesday of each
month.
Please follow EcoSpeak CLE onFacebook and Instagram and
become part of the conversationpodcast.
New episodes are available thefirst and third tuesday of each
month.
Please follow eco speak cle onfacebook and instagram and
become part of the conversation.
If you would like to send usfeedback and suggestions, or if
(36:51):
you'd like to become a sponsorof eco speak cle, you can email
us at hello at eco speak clecom.
Stay tuned for more importantand inspiring stories to come.
You're listening to EcoSpeak CLE, a podcast for
the eco-curious in NortheastOhio.
My name is Diane Bickett and myproducer is Greg Rotuno.
Together, we speak with localsustainability leaders and
invite you to connect, learn andlive with our community and
planet in mind.
Hello friends, On Friday, April11th, hundreds of high school
(00:25):
students from across our regiongathered for the 2025 Northeast
Ohio Youth Climate Summit hostedby Laurel School.
The event brought studentstogether to discuss and
collaborate on climate change,sustainability and environmental
justice solutions.
The summit was kicked off witha keynote address by a young
(00:46):
climate activist named SageLanier.
Sage was honored by TimeMagazine as a 2023 Next
Generation Leader.
She started teaching aboutclimate change when she was just
a student at UC Berkeley andhas since started her own
nonprofit called Sustainable andJust Future.
I wanted to bring you hermessage to the students, so I
(01:07):
recorded her keynote address forthis podcast.
Hear what one Gen Z-er has tosay to young environmental
leaders about meeting the futurewith excitement and innovative
solutions.
First up, though, I speak withAngela Yeager.
She's a teacher at LaurelSchool and she gives us some
background about this event.
Welcome, Angela Yeager, ateacher at Laurel School who is
(01:31):
instrumental in putting on theNortheast Ohio Youth Climate
Summit.
And hi, Angela, tell us alittle bit about what's
happening today here at theCleveland Public Library in
downtown Cleveland.
Angela Yeager (01:43):
Well, the Cleveland Public Library is
buzzing with excitement thismorning.
We have 300 students from over30 schools in Northeast Ohio
attending a student-led andstudent-run conference around
climate change and climatejustice, and it's just
incredible to watch all of theyoung people falling into their
(02:04):
roles and doing their leadershiproles and the excited high
school students tricklingthrough the door.
Diane Bickett (02:09):
So it's all high school students from all over
the area and this is the thirdyear you put this on.
Angela Yeager (02:16):
This is our second year.
Second year so last year wasthe first and it was planned in
a matter of three months with acohort of graduates from Laurel
School's Environmental Justicesemester and they really wanted
a way to further theirengagement and advocacy and we
had 100 students join at CaseWestern's Think Box and it was
(02:37):
such a success that they were,by the time the summit was over,
they were already talking aboutnext year.
Diane Bickett (02:42):
Okay, and what do you want the students to get
out of?
Today was over.
They were already talking aboutnext year.
Okay, and what do you want thestudents to get out of today?
I really hope that they leavefeeling inspired.
I want them to feel likethey're not alone in caring
about the planet and people andour future together, and I want
them to walk away withactionable things that they can
do.
There's a big surprise comingat the end of the summit and
(03:12):
they're going to be invited toapply for mini-grants sponsored
by Global Shapers, cleveland andthe Climate Reality Project to
get their ideas off the ground.
Okay, and today is somepresenters, but also like
hands-on learning activities,Like.
Can you describe a couple ofthose?
Angela Yeager (03:24):
Yeah, the students really.
You know it's everything andbut the kitchen sink right.
The students really wanted todo it all, so there are, you
know they have crafted openingremarks, there's a climate
science 101 session happening.
They have invited and flown ina keynote speaker, sage Lanier
from New York, and then in theafternoon we'll have breakout
(03:47):
sessions.
There are 14 unique breakoutsessions planned by students,
with students, in partnershipwith outside organizations, so
they're the ones teaching it.
It's really exciting.
And then, to top it all off,there's an opportunities fair,
where over 30 organizations fromNortheast Ohio are going to
share opportunities thatstudents can participate in
(04:08):
right now, wow, well, I justlove that you're bringing all
this together and Sage Lanier isgoing to be the keynote and
we're going to record that forthis podcast.
So, listeners, I wish you allcould be here, because there's
so much energy already and it'sonly 830 in the morning.
It's going to be a great day,so thank you for allowing me to
(04:30):
come in and try to capture someof this.
Sage Lenier (04:34):
Hi everyone, good morning.
There you go.
I loved a lot of thoseresponses that I just heard.
I heard a lot of.
I really want to learn whatwe're supposed to be solving.
I'm your girl, let's do it, youand I.
I'm about 10 years older thanyou and I've been spending a lot
of time lately actuallythinking about that, because the
(04:57):
idea of 10 years is huge, butreally you and I don't look all
that different in terms of age.
I've been spending a lot oftime thinking about what 10
years means, because it's been10 years since I was 16 and I
was sat in your shoes, in yourseat, basically, and on my own
(05:23):
journey of discovery, and on myown journey of discovery Ten
years ago, we didn't actuallyreally talk about climate change
really largely, I only learnedabout it in AP Environmental
Science.
I was already very passionateabout social issues.
Coming to this, though, Irealized that it kind of
eclipsed all of the otherstruggles that I was already
very passionate about, becausehow can you have human rights on
(05:46):
a dead planet?
I think the curriculum that Iwas learning, too, was so
alarmist.
It was so good at raisingawareness of the problems.
I started having panic attacks.
Basically, we were learningabout topsoil collapse and how
food system yields where foodagricultural yields were going
to fail in my lifetime at thesame time that we were going to
(06:09):
add 3 billion people.
And I was looking around at, forexample, hundreds and hundreds
of new homes being built inSouthern California, where I
grew up, and I was like this isTinder.
This is a terrible idea andeveryone thought I was crazy.
Really, but being able to holdthat truth for 10 years
(06:31):
personally and to have beenright about it, it's not.
It's not something I want to beright about, but, like, in
January, we saw 12,000 buildingsrazed to the ground in Los
Angeles.
That's not the first fire.
It won't be the last.
It was just the biggest ever inAmerican history.
I think.
Lately I've been sitting withthat truth of like I've been
(06:53):
right and I'll continue to beright.
And so what kind of planning doyou, can you and I do now, so
that when the world, when, when,the, when, everyone writ large
finally is like oh my God, wait,this is so bad, you guys are
right about this.
Who has a plan?
(07:13):
We can be standing there likeI've got?
blueprints.
I actually have scenario A, B, C.
I've got scenario K.
You and I were born into aworld that feels like it's
constantly breaking, especiallylately the news, even the
weather, the rules, thecorrelation between hard work
(07:37):
and payoff.
We are looking at an economywhere you can work 35, you can
work a grueling blue collar jobfor $35,000 a year, or you can
become an influencer and makethat in a single post, or you
can make a lot more than that ifyou learn how to do a crypto
rug pole.
So the correlation between hardwork and payoff is eroding.
(08:04):
Hard work and payoff is erodingand it feels like nothing makes
sense for us.
I think a lot of us feel eachday like we're trudging through
a lot of just uncertainty andjust chaos, confusion.
So the world is breaking inmany ways.
That's not our fault, but it isour opportunity, Because when
(08:26):
everything starts to crack, newideas have the ability to
finally break through.
The momentum of the old systemis eroding.
It's slowing down system.
A new momentum so that we canstart, so that the path towards
progress is a momentous force ofits own.
(08:48):
So this is not about fixingjust one thing.
It's about rethinking howeverything fits together.
I started off asking questionsabout how the world works, to go
into asking how it could workwhen I was 19,.
(09:15):
So my sophomore year in collegeum, you know, I I like I said I
learned about this in highschool and realized, all right,
like sounds like we're all goingto die is probably the biggest,
most important thing that Icould spend my career working on
.
Let me, let me do a degree init.
And it was the same thing.
Every class I went to wasdoomsday sermon after doomsday
sermon about how everything wasso bad and the nuances of the
(09:37):
problem and the depth of theproblem.
And I was looking around myselfat all these passionate young
people who had come to one ofthe best environmental programs
in the nation in the world, andwe were all so jazzed up, we
were so energized and peoplewere starting to wilt.
People were changing theirmajors, People were giving up.
A lot of the people who I wentto school with are not working
(09:57):
in the environmental fieldprofessionally now.
Um, a lot of that because theydon't feel like there's
something that can be done.
Um, a lot of that because theydon't feel like there's
something that can be done.
And so I realized since theseventies and this is not this
is not anyone's fault, but sincethe seventies these people who
are now professors or climatescientists or academics or
policy writers they've beenfighting an uphill battle to try
(10:18):
to convince people that it'seven happening Right, so they've
developed this scare to caremodel.
What they're not seeing, though,about the way that things are
different now is that we're thefirst generation to grow up.
Accepting climate change is justlike axiomatic.
We're like, yeah, I can see it,I can feel it.
There wasn't fire season when Iwas little.
Now there's fire season.
(10:38):
It's pretty bad.
We don't have to be convincedright, and so continuing to pile
it on is not productive.
And I was also hearing aboutall these disparate crises.
I was like plastic pollutionand fast fashion and I never
really understood that.
I thought that you know Amazonand hyper-consumerism and Shiam.
(10:58):
I was like these Shiam actuallywasn't even a thing.
When I was in college I'vewritten, I've given several
speeches on that I knew thathyperconsumption was a problem.
I didn't really see anyonemaking the connection with that.
On climate change, I was stillreally concerned about this
whole topsoil degradation thingthat I learned about in high
(11:20):
school, still felt like no onewas talking about that and I was
like I feel like food is maybethe first priority, even if the
climate system breaks down, likefood, food feels like the first
priority.
And so I was like none of thesethings are connecting in my
brain, none of these things areconnecting in my classes.
I want to know the truth abouteverything.
I want to know what, how weshould even be prioritizing
(11:41):
these things.
Is plastic pollution reallyimportant?
Is that a waste of time?
So I started going around theuniversity and I started taking
classes in every college.
I studied a little bit of like.
I took classes in the businessschool.
I studied policy, food systems.
I took a couple engineeringclasses.
(12:01):
I did really, really badly inthem.
I was really just trying tolearn the truth about everything
.
And as I went I started writing.
I started writing thiscurriculum and I ended up
titling it Solutions for aSustainable and Just Future.
I wanted it to be solutionsoriented, I wanted it to be
action focused and it was kindof just my attempt at cutting
(12:27):
through all that chaos, all thatnoise, all that, the breakdown
of correlation that we feel as ageneration, and just having
something that felt clear andlike it made sense.
And so then I started teachingit the next semester.
And so I started off with 25students and I was 19 years old
and the first time I ever got infront of a classroom my face
was like beet red and the lessonplan that I prepared actually
(12:51):
only lasted me 20 minutes and Ihad 50 minutes to teach.
And I was really, I was reallypanicked.
So I figured it out for therest of the class and I kept
going.
I kept signing myself up toteach this class every semester.
But the next semester I was sosurprised because my wait list
was actually maxed out.
I had signed up to have aclassroom of 50 students and I
(13:14):
had 50 plus 25 on the wait list.
To have a classroom of 50students, and I had 50 plus 25
on the wait list.
And so then the next semester Igot a class of 85 students and
it maxed out the wait list.
And then the next semester Iwent to them and I said, can I
have 150?
And they were like no, that'snot allowed.
And I was like, yeah, but I hada maxed out wait list here and
they were like no one's everdone that before and I was like,
yeah, but why not?
(13:35):
And so we got 160 seats thatsemester.
We filled every single one.
And then my senior year, when Iwas 21, I had 300.
Which had never, never, neverbeen done before.
It was way too much pressure.
Way too much pressure.
I was 21.
It's a lot.
(13:57):
I have a lot of criticisms aboutthe whole, like youth can save
us, youth must leave, kind ofthing.
Like we're.
Like we're kind of too youngfor that, honestly, um, I'm old
enough for it now.
But I want you guys to enjoyyour lives and enjoy the rest of
your youth.
And that program was so popularbecause I think there was such
a demand.
Everyone was feeling the samething as me I want solutions, I
(14:19):
want action, I want to feeloptimistic, I want to know what
there is I can do.
And the testimonials coming outof that program were like this
completely changed my mind.
I went from knowing nothingabout climate change having a
small, you know a smallcuriosity about all that
doomsday stuff I was hearingabout, to now I feel like I know
(14:40):
everything I need to know.
I'm just going to go dark,that's fine Moodlighting, okay,
I like moodlighting, we can makeit a little serious.
All right, kill the ongoing,that's why I don't.
Andreas.
All right, kill the on-go,that's why I don't.
And so these testimonials ofpeople saying, like I know what
(15:03):
my role to play is, I was like,okay, I think we might have done
something here.
Like I think that this, this, Ididn't really believe in it.
I didn't really believe that inthe power of what it was.
But those testimonials werethis constant reinforcement of
no, you're right, no, you'reright, no, you're right.
Like this is what people need.
(15:24):
And so, coming out of college, Iwas trying to figure out what
to do with that, because, youknow, we had this framework
where we're doing things thathadn't been done before, but
there wasn't really a clear pathforward, and that's what a lot
of people don't talk about quitea bit when it comes to
leadership.
Like you're really makingthings up as you go, you don't
know what your options are, andit's really scary and uncertain
(15:45):
at times.
I ended up turning it.
I ended up launching as anonprofit and, with the
nonprofit launch, within likethree months, time Magazine had
reached out and they wanted todo this huge feature on me and I
was just like what?
And when I tell you that thatlegitimized me to other people
(16:08):
so much, like I was the sameperson before and after, having
a Time Magazine award next to myname, but all of a sudden the
world wanted something for me,right, I was being invited to
Paris to speak and I was going,honestly, all around the world,
to different countries, todifferent cities across the
United States, and I was.
(16:30):
I was so surprised that thatlegitimized me because I was
like I'm the same person I wasyesterday and also I think you
know there's an effect Peoplesee you on stage once, or they
see a viral video once and thenmaybe it just kind of happens
from there.
But so now where I'm at with it, with the work, is we're
(16:50):
working on a pre-productionprocess for a Hollywood
docuseries to try to convertthat curriculum into a big
picture format and hopefullybring it to the world so that
people can buy into this vision.
For what about our world couldlook like?
We're launching a podcast,because that's, I guess, the way
to reach people.
(17:11):
We're doing a lot of big mediathings this year, but separately
.
I'm also very interested inbeing an operator, so I'm
helping businesses that Ibelieve in.
That could change the economy,that could solve environmental
problems, to grow.
And so that's my personalbalance between talking about
the thing and doing the thing.
(17:32):
So I want to take you all alonga little bit with what the
process actually was.
So the first thing I started torealize was climate change is
not the problem that we'retrying to solve.
I like to use this analogyTrying to solve climate change
is like trying to cure a coughwhen you have bronchitis.
(17:54):
That is not the problem.
That is just a symptom of theproblem.
I was trying to go deeper.
Why is climate change happening?
Because of energy emissions.
Why do we use so much energy.
Why do we burn so much carbon?
Because it's profitable.
Why is it profitable?
Because we have a system ofextraction.
(18:16):
And so when I started to peelback the layers, I started to
realize that the problem wasactually economic.
We have a system of, we have alinear economy.
We extract resources fromnature, we turn them into things
, we ship those things allaround the world, we consume
(18:37):
them and then we throw them awayand we start all over again,
and this process happens fasterand faster and faster every year
, where everything from ourjeans to our phones, to our cars
to our houses gets cheaper andcheaper, so that it gets
unusable quicker and so you needa new one.
And that's actually where themajority of our carbon emissions
(18:59):
are embedded in.
7% of global emissions come frommining.
That's called a hard to abatesector.
I would say it's more likeimpossible to abate.
And so I was like okay, so howdo we solve the mining problem?
Well, we're actuallylandfilling the majority of what
we mine.
So if we could increase metalrecyclings, we could stop mining
(19:20):
.
And this is not the answer thatis comfortable for the economic
forces at large.
So it's not the answer that wego for.
We try to say you know, we haveto build more solar panels and
build more wind turbines, andthat is, of course, true.
But when you actually look atthe numbers, we can see that
(19:40):
just mathematically, factually,logistically, because these are
tremendous feats ofinfrastructure that also require
a fair amount of mining, wecannot build enough renewable
energy fast enough to stay undertwo degrees Celsius.
It is completely impossible.
So we have to use less energy.
And so how do we use lessenergy?
We have to build a differenteconomy, but there's so much
(20:03):
opportunity Once that's clearfor us.
There's so much opportunity forexcitement and innovation there
.
So for me, it was therealization that climate change
is not an isolated issue.
It's tied into how we grow ourfood, how we build our cities,
how we power our lives, how ourculture prioritizes
individualism and consumptionluxury goods right, I was
(20:29):
realizing that the economy wasdriving overconsumption.
Overconsumption was drivingwaste, and waste was driving
environmental collapse.
And so if the system is theproblem, then we need new
systems, not just better slogans.
Right, this is bigger thankeeping it in the ground.
This is bigger than protestingoil companies.
(20:54):
What we need is to reallycreatively reimagine not just
what a better world could looklike, but what does a better
world look like while systemsare collapsing?
Because it is true that foodsystems are going to be
disrupted, and so that is why weneed a plan A, b, c, d, e and
all the way through, k, and itfeels daunting, but that's the
(21:16):
work of your and my lifetime andthere's kind of nothing else
that we can do.
You and I have.
You know, the cards were dealtbefore we were born and the arc
of our lifetime where we mightsee three degrees Celsius in our
lifetime and you're in mylifetime is to basically try and
(21:36):
keep every single mouth fed andcommunities intact and kids in
schools, while globally, peopleare displaced and crisis is
escalates right and that mightsound scary, but it's also the
truth, and when you can reallyaccept that, it stops feeling as
(21:59):
scary because it's just thework.
There's nothing to be afraid of.
There's work, work to be doneright.
Every single day is a newopportunity for building more
resilient, more flexible systemsthat make it so that the people
who would be our grandchildrenare inheriting a world where
they can hopefully not justsurvive but thrive.
(22:21):
That's the work every singleday.
There's no apocalypse comingright.
This is something that I have,that I say to myself all the
time, and it centers me In 2500,in the year 3000, there will
still be several billion peopleon this planet.
Right, there's no extinction ofthat happening.
There's no asteroid.
(22:41):
But what state those peoplelive in?
You know how well they arecapable of navigating the world
that they inherit is up to ustruly, and that makes me feel
better actually about ourability to create change.
So what do solutions look like?
What do solutions look like,the biggest thing that we need
(23:05):
to be normalizing, mainstreamingand talking and thinking about
outside of just climate action,outside of just renewable energy
?
very very important thingsunderstood yet, so we're not
working on the solutions yetbecause we don't understand them
.
Is the circular economy?
The opposite of waste is notrecycling, even though it is for
(23:28):
mining, it's designing wasteout.
E-waste is the fastest growingwaste stream on the planet, and
so that's everything from phonesto, honestly, cars at this
point, because they're becomingvery technological, phones to,
honestly, cars at this point,because they're becoming very
technological, and so everysingle year are okay.
(23:50):
Let me give you an example.
Actually, when I was five, myparents gave me a phone Terrible
idea.
It was a flip phone, and maybesome of you have had flip phones
, but probably most of youhaven't.
But that's what was around whenI was five.
With the flip phone, you wereable to take the back of the
phone off and pull out thebattery and then you could
replace the battery, and so wedidn't actually really carry
(24:11):
around charges back then, or mymom, Like my mom, had it in her
purse.
My mom would carry around anextra battery, and so what that
meant, because of the design ofthe phone, was that you didn't
have to replace your phone whenthe battery started dying, as
most people do now today.
But obviously that's a littleless good for profit than
selling people a whole brand newphone.
(24:32):
So they started designingphones in ways where there's
really really tiny screws.
It's really really hard toaccess.
The battery is hiddenunderneath all of this tech and
if you open it, you void yourwarranty.
And so now I hear people allthe time say my battery is like
crap, now I need to get a newphone.
And so that's a small.
It's a very micro example,right, but that's happening on
(24:54):
every single scale in oureconomy and in our world, and it
increases the rate at which weextract resources and have
carbon emissions, increase ouremissions, and so designing for
circularity doesn't mean havingthe same crappy designed phones
and just recycling them.
It means designing phones thatlast forever, that you can take
(25:15):
the battery out, that you cantake the camera out, so you can
upgrade it.
Small example but get creative,think about it.
It.
There's ways to do this inevery industry and in every
facet of our world.
With food, you know, someonementioned composting earlier.
Composting is the way thatwe've actually just done things
forever.
(25:35):
Composting is is thealternative to landfill.
For all of human history, weonly composted.
There wasn't such thing astrash.
Everything was compostable.
You either made things out ofleather you know animal skin or
you made them out of animal, ofplant fibers like cotton.
Um, stone, iron maybe, butanything that we created as
(25:57):
humans could biodegrade into theearth.
It could just just turn.
If you lost it, if itdisappeared, it would just turn
back into something.
And my grandma can talk to youabout how she remembers when
polyester came out, which iscrazy, because the shirt I'm
wearing is polyester and theshoes I'm wearing are made of
polyester, and this is a.
(26:17):
It's not polyester, but this isa petrochemical byproduct.
So quickly did our world becomedesigned with petrochemical
byproduct?
So quickly that did our worldbecome designed with
petrochemicals?
With petroleum we can.
It's like unfathomable to us,but there are people living with
us today who remember when itwasn't so, and it is so possible
to design that out, design outfossil fuels.
(26:41):
So this isn't hypothetical.
It's already happening inpieces and there's a long way to
go.
But if we look at it as aneconomic transit formation, then
we can solve the polycrisis ofclimate change and resource
over-extraction and ecosystemdegradation and over-pollution.
And we can just simply keep theclothes that we have, because I
(27:04):
think we make 80 billiongarments of clothes a year right
now and there's only 8 billionpeople.
I think we landfill like 10billion a year.
If we could just keep all thethings that we have cycling, we
can cut out the 10% of carbonemissions that come from the
fashion industry.
We can stop polluting therivers in Bangladesh and
Pakistan.
We can stop polluting therivers in Bangladesh and
(27:24):
Pakistan because H&M is pouringpolluted dyes into their rivers.
We can stop destroyingecosystems to grow more cotton.
We can stop extracting oil tomake more petroleum.
But it's a system redesign thatwe have to look at in order to
really see solutions.
And so there's two types ofpeople.
(27:46):
There are people who I don'twant to say complain, complain
about the system.
I don't want to sell our fourmothers in the environment
movement short, because most ofthem are women.
I think it was really important.
For the past 55 years, peoplehave been sounding, slamming the
alarm and trying to say thisisn't working.
(28:07):
This is scary.
Something is really deeplywrong here, and they were right,
but it behooves us now to moveon and to start thinking about
what a better world could looklike, to start offering people a
vision for what a better worldcould look like.
So I think that's the issue too.
We I'm including all of you inthe climate movement, because
(28:27):
you are and never can leavesorry.
We as a movement are pretty badat reaching people.
We reach them with thisalarmist narrative, but the way
to win the culture war is tooffer people a path out right.
Consumption doesn't make us feelgood.
It makes us feel empty, andeveryone feels broken over the
(28:49):
cost of living.
A lot of people feel that theylack dignity in their lives
because they can't afford tohave kids and pay rent and have
a dignified life, and so wecan't just say hey, yeah,
there's microplastics in yourblood stream.
We have to say, right, and whatif there were companies here,
(29:14):
here in our country, or global,international companies that
worked for the people that madeecosystems better, that turned a
profit, that offered a livingwage and that you were proud to
work for.
This is something that's reallyinteresting.
That's a few years out fromwhere you're at right now.
(29:35):
People talk about how youngpeople go to, you know, harvard
or UCAN or wherever, and youcome in with these essays where
you're saying I want to be adoctor, I want to solve climate
change, I want to solve HIV, Iwant to cure cancer, and you
leave, especially the reallyprestigious schools as a
(29:57):
consultant or in the financeindustry, and it's because
there's a lack of options.
And so I'm at this reallyinteresting age group where a
lot of my friends who wereidealists a few years ago are
now giving up a little bit, orthey feel like they're being,
they're selling out, sellingthemselves out a little bit, and
they haven't given up hope,though, and so the challenge is
(30:20):
to create opportunities, createthe types of income streams,
companies, challenges where wecan use those brilliant,
brilliant, brilliant minds forbetter, and I'm really excited
about, for example, there's thiscompany called Synonym I always
like to use real life examples.
There's this company calledSynonym, and they are building
(30:45):
the biomanufacturing economy,and what does that mean?
So, basically, if I want tomake this shirt or if I want to
make a shirt that says EJ on it,got some in the crowd.
There are hundreds and hundredsof factories all over the world
that I can place an order inreally easily and you can maybe
get like a nice 100% organiccotton.
(31:05):
But if you want to do itcheaply as possible, you're
going to get 100% polyester,which again petrochemical right,
it's from petroleum.
Right now there is nobiomanufacturing capacity, so we
don't have.
If I want to start aplant-based meat company or a
plant-based plastic company thatbiodegrades and is safe for the
earth, I have to build my ownfactory, which makes the cost,
(31:27):
the startup cost, for thosecompanies really, really high.
Anyone tomorrow can start ahoodie company, right?
A hoodie with their littleslogan on it.
You see an influencer, they goviral.
You know what was that?
One Demure she had merch withinlike a week, right?
One Demure she had mergedwithin like a week, right?
So there's an existingmanufacturing capacity for that.
(31:48):
And so this company Synonym I'mfriends with the CEO in New
York.
He wants to build thebiomanufacturing capacity that
we don't have, so that I canstart the same companies, but
better for the planet right.
So there's this reallywonderful opportunity for
innovation and starting newcompanies and being
entrepreneurs and building goodthings.
That isn't just don't fly, don'teat meat, don't do this, don't
(32:09):
do that, which I think is a lotof the narrative that we push as
the environmental movement.
That's a lot of the narrativethat we absorb every day.
There is a lot of things thatwe do need to change.
It's not going to be painless.
You are going to have to giveup a little bit of steak Okay,
maybe a lot, but there arereally cool alternative steak
companies.
There's really cool, excitingopportunities here, and if we
(32:32):
can win that culture war, we canget people to believe that our,
our way would be better, wouldbe happier, would be more joyful
, would be more sophisticated.
That's how you win, not bytelling, not by shaming, not by
telling people don't do this,don't do that, and so that's a
lesson for us as communicators,but it's also, you know, an
(32:54):
opportunity for us to filter outwhat we're digesting, whether
or not the headlines that you'rereading fit in with the
narrative that you want about.
Right, how can you be moreexcited?
How can you be more visionary?
Builders aren't just coders orCEOs, though, right.
Builders are students, they'reartists, they're entrepreneurs,
they're organizers, they'reengineers.
(33:15):
This is going to take peoplecoming from every single part of
society.
This is going to takearchitects.
This is going to take farmers.
You can do this from everysingle angle.
I swear to you, I even havefriends who are climate venture
capitalists.
It's real.
Okay, it's real.
You can do that.
That's really your calling inlife.
You can be a climate venturecapitalist.
(33:37):
And so one of the things that Ireally want you all to walk away
with is the idea that rebellionis not just resistance, it's
creation.
We have to architect a visionfor what a better world could
look like.
We have to get into engineeringsomething that's brand new, and
we have to convince the generalpublic, the world, that our way
(33:58):
would be better.
It's not enough to just pointout the problem and say this
sucks.
We have to sell people on anidea for what would be better.
So the future right now feelsincredibly uncertain.
The news is breaking, the rulesare breaking, the weather is
(34:23):
breaking, but there's a veryexciting opportunity there.
When the old system stopsworking, the future is no longer
something to be inherited, it'ssomething to be written.
We can imagine cities that feedthemselves and clothes that
(34:43):
never become trash, and aneconomy that heals more than it
harms.
We can imagine the type ofworld that doesn't engineer
ecological crises in the firstplace.
We don't have to regulate itout, we don't have to fight the
polluters.
It just isn't there.
We are in a very strange moment, especially as a generation
(35:09):
who's coming up, who doesn'thave the institutional power,
who doesn't have the money thatour grandparents do, who doesn't
have the media control.
But I think what we can do atthis very fragile moment in
history, where nothing abouttomorrow, is certain.
That's scary, but it's alsowonderful.
(35:29):
It's also wonderful because inthe last 10 years, as someone
who's been in the climatemovement, it's just been working
against this system that had somuch momentum.
It was, you know, these bigparties and this extravagance,
this overabundance, this hyperconsumption, and I was fighting
(35:50):
to just be heard in the midst ofall that noise.
But all of that is breaking,and so there's an opportunity to
be heard now.
Every generation of people intheir youth has a movement,
every single one.
That's not unique to us asyoung people or Gen Z, that's
not unique.
Young people are alwaysidealists.
That's our job.
But in this very fragile moment, where nothing is certain, so
(36:19):
we could lead next, we could bethe generation that did not just
fight for a future, we could bethe generation that built one.
Greg Rotuno (36:30):
We hope you've enjoyed this episode of EcoSpeak
CLE.
You can find our full catalogof episodes on Spotify, apple
Podcasts or wherever you getyour podcasts.
New episodes are available thefirst and third Tuesday of each
month.
Please follow EcoSpeak CLE onFacebook and Instagram and
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