In this episode of Resilience Gone Wild, host Jessica Morgenthal sits down with Mitch Rawlyk, a regenerative farmer and climate advocate, to discuss his personal journey from eco-anxiety to environmental action. Mitch shares how he transitioned from a career in meteorology to hands-on regenerative agriculture, focusing on food systems, water management, and sustainability.
This conversation unpacks the shift from sustainability to regeneration, highlighting how small, intentional actions can create major ecological impacts. Mitch emphasizes the power of getting involved, taking action, and working with nature rather than against it. Whether you're just starting your sustainability journey or looking to make a bigger impact, this episode will leave you feeling empowered, inspired, and ready to get your hands dirty.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
Yay. Welcome, Mitch Rolick. So excited to be
here with you. Yay. Hi.
We are in opposite ends of the
North American
hemisphere, I think. I recall it with. It
is about 84 degrees where I am and
negative 24, this is Fahrenheit,
where Mitch is, and we're dressed slightly differently.
(00:24):
And, he is headed out soon to cut
firewood to make sure he stays warm. And
I've got my air conditioner on. So it's
so fun to be, like, so far apart,
but yet so connected in the conversation we're
gonna have. So thank you so much for
being here, Mitch.
And just, like, I'm gonna ask you to
introduce yourself, but I'm gonna throw a few
things out that was the reason I fell
(00:46):
in love with this the ability to have
this conversation.
Software developer and scientist turned regenerative farmer,
and the picture of Mitch online is in
overalls and, like, just really down and dirty.
We just talked about the fact that he
has 30 chickens and
a dairy cow that might or might not
stay his dairy cow.
(01:08):
And it's about geospatial tools, giving people
the tools to
create a better planet. And,
you know, eco anxiety
driving some of it and turning it into
some positive purpose. And and that's the message
we're gonna send today. So, Mitch, you tell
me about your tell us all about yourself.
Yeah. Sure thing. Thanks. And, thanks so much
(01:29):
for having me, Jessica. It's an honor to
be here. Really excited to be chatting with
the audience.
Yeah. So my name is Mitch.
My background is in earth system science
and applied meteorology.
So that's it's a kind of a fancy
word of saying meteorological data science.
Upon, you know,
(01:51):
being in those fields
and
especially from a traditional academic background,
there's not too much of
solutions
being presented or at least I wasn't when
I was going to school, it was very
much like style of thinking here problems.
Here's a degree. Have fun out there.
It's like, okay. Great. Thanks. That's really cool.
(02:14):
The world's on fire, and I just have
no idea what to do here
other than knowing
that we're in trouble here.
And I was always really passionate about food
and having gone through my own personal health
journey regarding food and and whatnot and really
going into that as well. Food is actually
(02:35):
a huge
component of
the the climate change solutions as well.
And being really passionate about food. My partner,
she's also super passionate about food. She loves
cooking.
So Wait. Let me ask you. Just in
terms of, like, what comes up around when
you say or think food? Because it's not
(02:56):
as simple as,
you know, I like to eat Doritos. You
know? Like, that is not and by the
way, I don't. But that's not where you're
going. I think that what's in your head
when you say we're passionate about food. So
just give us a little bit of that
that joy of what that means.
Yeah. You bet. I think,
the the biggest part
is just having an intimate connection with the
(03:19):
food. And we,
so we're in Central Alberta in Canada where,
as you were saying earlier, it gets very
cold, and it stays cold
for a very large
part of the year.
Pretty much the whole year or covered in
snow.
Basically, from
last year is a good example. We
had frosts in mid June
(03:41):
Wow. And
frosts in early September. So our growing
season is only about
ninety
something days sometimes. Other times, it's upwards of
a 14.
But we don't get to pick and choose,
the days each year. We just get plan
on it. We get served.
As a meteorologist,
(04:01):
you know, you can't quite plan on the
number of days without frost.
Yes. But it is handy. Like, my,
actually, my master's was in frost prediction for
vineyards in,
New Zealand. So
that has come super in handy for many,
many, many reasons.
One of them being, like, okay. Let's,
(04:22):
let's get out there,
start missing some some
of the garden, which,
I guess that's a good place to start,
is we moved
to the middle of nowhere in Alberta
in 2021
in August. So growing season was basically already
done. We didn't really grow anything that year.
So 2022
(04:43):
was our first year of actually growing food,
and we didn't really have any gardening experience
whatsoever. It was just, like, okay. Let's figure
this out.
And
it wasn't very big. It was big to
us at the time. It's like, oh, wow.
Look at this garden. It's so big.
But we certainly weren't growing all of our
own food.
(05:03):
And then
Was the goal just to, like, have dinner
one night and actually have lettuce that you
grew and be like, yay. Yeah. I grew
my own lettuce.
I think year one, we were growing,
onions,
celery,
potatoes,
some cabbages, peas.
We didn't have a greenhouse.
Yeah. Just pretty chill stuff,
(05:27):
more than you'd find in a suburban backyard.
Mhmm.
So enough to, like, put a solid dent
in our grocery bill, I suppose.
Yeah.
And we were successful at that and
identified some pretty cool microclimates
and warm microclimates
around our house so we could grow mushrooms.
(05:47):
And,
on the southwest facing side of our house,
we're growing eggplants,
peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers.
Yeah.
It's so interesting. Like, you're you're such such
a short season,
and it gets so cold. Like, the fact
that it's one side of your house gets
the sun and is warmer
(06:09):
makes a big difference. It's like you can
grow that stuff only on one side of
your house. Yeah. If you don't have a
greenhouse, then you really have to leverage those
physical Yeah.
Planes and
how the sun interacts with each side of
it. So on the Southwest basic side, we're
growing,
tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, peppers,
and then
(06:29):
not even,
three meters away. That's about three yards away.
We're growing mushrooms, we've got wine caps and
lion's mane, oysters, and shiitakes.
Wow.
Because that's the north facing and Yeah. Side
of the house. It's a little bit cooler,
a bit shadier,
by sunlight. So it's just a natural place
(06:51):
for those
crops to
grow. And then the main market, not market
gardener, I guess, homestead garden has grown
now from
what I was describing earlier to
a
I I haven't measured the actual, but, like,
several rows, and we've grown more than enough
to last us the entire year. And so,
(07:13):
lots of storage crops, beets, potatoes, carrots, squash.
You have one of those root sellers that
we actually don't really need it to keep
things cool. Right? We I would love to
have a root. So right now, what we're
using is just a really cold room
in our
I guess, we call it the cold room.
It just happens to be the coldest room
in our house.
(07:34):
Yeah.
And then the carrots and
potatoes and beets, they go into wood shavings
and
big totes. Yeah.
And they store really, really well.
Awesome. Okay. I have to this is a
complete
aside, but I learned this morning
that
button mushrooms, the generic
(07:54):
white, like, insignificant,
somewhat tasteless mushrooms,
are actually just the
early stage of
the darker portobello mushrooms. Like, okay. That's blew
my mind that button mushrooms turn into portobello
mushrooms.
I I had no idea.
Me neither. How cool is that? Right? So
(08:15):
mushroom mushroom to mushroom. So lion's mane are
I've paid a lot of money for lion's
mane mushrooms. They are pretty cool. Yeah. And,
I'm not too sure what,
kind of trees you have in in your
do you have birch in New York, though?
Right? Yeah.
Yeah. So that's what we are growing our
lion's mane with. So we have Oh, okay.
Birch logs
(08:37):
about six feet long,
six inches in diameter.
And then you can buy these inoculated dowels
from a place called North Score. That's where
I got mine. You can get them tons
of other places too. And then,
actually, North Square too, they have a special
drill bit, and you go
drill bit into there, put the dowels in,
seal it with beeswax.
(08:58):
And, yeah, this year, we've got lots of
lines made. That's awesome. That's exciting. Yeah. Okay.
So on a separate topic, and we'll do
a mushroom episode another day. Mushrooms are
magical,
incredibly
nutritious, and and needed for our body of
all different types. And they grow.
Anybody can grow mushrooms. Like, there's just there's
(09:19):
it's a science.
It's it's got some physics and chemistry and
all that to it, but it's pretty darn
cool. And you just need some trees that
you can drill into and put the spores.
Like, it's pretty interesting.
Yeah. And this is that,
we could talk about this later. Just one
quick note is, it's important to have the
right tree
for the kind of mushroom that you're trying
(09:40):
to grow. That's amazing. That's amazing. But that
that information is For another day. Available. Yeah.
Totally for because that's such an important important
topic. Okay. I don't wanna get us I
don't wanna lose us completely so that we
don't cover some of the key points, which
are your geospatial tools,
eco anxiety,
downstream responsibility,
regenerative
thinking and systems, and what got you here
(10:04):
to this moving with your partner to
the middle of nowhere,
not having any knowledge about, actually, it sounds
like, how to grow food,
but wanting to be this kind of, you
know, in this in this life.
Yeah. You bet. So I think it kinda
started
from a position
(10:25):
of being really down in the dumps with
eco anxiety, soul nostalgia, whatever you wanna call
it. It was during
the wildfires,
or the bushfires in Australia, and I was
living in New Zealand at the time. I
lived in Wellington with my partner,
and I was working
at a
(10:45):
peanut butter factory.
Wow. And,
all there is to do to peanut butter
factory is wear
earmuffs and load peanuts into the machine,
put peanut butter into the jars,
and
put those jars into boxes and then stack
those boxes and then
clean stuff up. So there was a lot
(11:07):
of time to think and all this
terrible stuff. And the sun
was blocked out by the smoke,
and having a background in
climate stuff, it was just like, oh, man.
This is this is Wow. Really,
brutal.
Yeah.
And then combined with the fact that I
I didn't feel like I was doing anything
(11:30):
really made that a lot worse.
And so And there's this weird pretend world.
You're like, can everything keeps going.
This the assembly line keeps going. Mhmm. And
you keep doing it, but the world is
burning around you. Right? Like Yeah. Like, how
is that
fit?
Yeah. Exactly. So I didn't feel quite like
(11:51):
I was doing the right thing.
And there was just like a
it was it was depressing.
And so what I actually really wanted to
do
was
take a permaculture design course
and then go back to school, bring them
out. I just finished my master's
and do civil engineering and design cities
(12:13):
that were smart instead of,
not very smart, which is, in a lot
of ways how they're signed right now. And
I was explaining this to one of my
friends, and she said, oh, you should listen
to this podcast where this guy,
his name's Rob Edas. He,
was the one of the founders of a
(12:34):
company called Verge Permaculture.
They've since closed those doors, but,
I listened to this podcast like, oh, my
goodness. This is fantastic.
And
I ended up booking a consultation with him
and paying to to chat with him because
he was an ex engineer turned into this
(12:54):
permaculture guy in Alberta. It's like, okay. And
that's where I grew up.
Oh.
Yeah. So it was contextually relevant and okay.
Cool. And we had a great chat. I
was still in New Zealand at this point,
and then COVID hit. Oh my god. All
of what? So you got the fires. You
got
the
redundancy or the linear
peanut butter factory
(13:14):
that's disconnected to the food chain,
and Yeah. You've got COVID.
Yeah.
And so I got on the last
plane back to Canada.
My girlfriend, she stayed in New Zealand.
And then I ended up I've been getting
a fair bit into
(13:35):
programming and teaching myself programming
while I was working,
these pretty mundane jobs just because,
I was like, okay. Well, a better upskill.
So I ended up just
teaching
myself Python and watching YouTube videos and
focusing mostly on
weather event visualization
(13:57):
and
just getting pretty comfortable with that.
And then
fast forward a little bit. Code happens. I'm
back home. I'm in my parents' basement.
Still just
plugging away it, teaching myself Python,
and doing some more advanced things and machine
learning stuff. And then I was like, okay.
(14:19):
I'm actually going crazy here. I gotta
I gotta get out of here because I'm
just in my parents' basement.
This wasn't the plan. Yeah. This was not
the plan. And my girlfriend is 20,000 miles
away or Yeah. Across the world. Yeah.
And so what I ended up doing is
I ended up emailing Skye Rob that I
had spoken with earlier is asking if he
(14:40):
knew of any volunteer opportunities.
He said sure to come up to my
farm. So I went up to his farm
and then I ended up
getting a job with Verge permaculture. I started
teaching, the climate and
mapping sections of Verge's PDCs,
permaculture design courses, and being,
I suppose, exposed to a different kind of
(15:02):
paradigm
of regenerative solutions.
And that really
opened up
my eyes a lot. I was like, okay.
Cool.
Yeah. The world is in trouble,
but
you could do something about it. And I
came out
of that phase of life with
(15:24):
the understanding that, yeah, we're all we all
have,
a footprint.
We
also have handprints, and those handprints can be
way bigger
than the footprints. Okay. And that's That's so
interesting. I've never heard that you have to
go deeper into that. So Yeah. And that's,
I haven't I have
I as far as I know, that was
(15:45):
an original thought. I don't think I've heard
that anywhere else. It's like, yeah. We have
hands. And that that's our defining
thing as humans is we've got these opposable
thumbs, and we can do things with them.
But in terms of our environmental
impact, it's always,
communicated as a footprint.
So I like the idea of having,
(16:06):
Just so just like what's coming to me
is that a footprint isn't as
as deep into responsibility.
Right? Like, it just happens. But a handprint
is intentional, and you need to be responsible
for your actions. Is that the difference? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
And you can do things. So I feel
like it's empowering to understand that you have
(16:27):
a handprint too. It's like you can do
things,
that are fairly simple to make the world
a better place. And so even just reframing
it is that has,
really helped with any sense of nostalgia and
eco anxiety. It was like, I can do
things,
and my well-being is
(16:47):
can is almost hinged on me using my
hands to to do something.
So what you're saying is that I think
I'm hearing is that
simply
getting a sense of agency
and a sense of
empowerment
Mhmm. By connecting it with
your the things you can actually do
(17:10):
versus Yeah. The passiveness
of your footprint, of where you're standing,
changes everything, and it and it is a
hugely,
effective solution to ego anxiety.
Like, to to use that language, that metaphor,
I'm all about metaphor, like, your handprint
is your empowerment.
Yes. So
do something with your hands. It's
(17:31):
Yeah. And,
for me, it was just putting putting a
potato in the ground. Honestly, it was just
like, oh, that's that's how he that's that's
all you have to do. You just have
to put a potato on the ground and
in several
months, just
come back and get more. That's it.
That's pretty cool. Yeah. And,
(17:51):
so that's how it all really
started. And then,
in 2021
in May, I was up
at Rob and Michelle's,
and helping out on their farm.
And
a property
came up for sale, and she was like,
oh, you should just go take a look
at this.
We talk about Assad on the radar at
(18:12):
all.
And so I drove by,
checked it out. It was amazing.
At this point, Maddie, my partner, she's still
in New Zealand.
But it was I,
I she was
going to be coming to Canada because I
I couldn't even go back So she had
to buy into this life choice?
(18:34):
I I did not sell very hard. Oh,
great. I called I called her. She's like,
hey. You wanna be farmers in the middle
of the North? She said, absolutely. Let's go.
Wait. I wanna just have for a sec
because you mentioned something, and I wanted to
jump back into it. You used the language
changing I think this is you can tell
me if I got it right or not.
Changing the the regenerative
(18:55):
paradigm.
I assume that's all connected to that.
Yeah.
I think it's
there's
basically, like, three paradigms. There's degenerative, sustainable,
and regenerative.
And I think
that looking back, I was stuck in a
sustainable
paradigm. I was like, k. We're almost like
(19:18):
we're not doing
enough. We're and sustainable in like, there's a
lot of good things that have been done
in the name of sustainability,
and not to discredit
anyone who's
in that field doing those things. But in
this particular context, it's like, with sustainability,
we're doing less bad.
Yeah. I'm with you a % on this.
(19:38):
Like, I'm so happy that you're in that
same place because it's driving me bananas
to use that language.
Yeah.
But with regenerative, it's like we're doing more
good. Yeah. Net positive. Bad. Yeah. Exactly. And
so,
even
having
the brain start to realize that, okay. That's
a possibility.
(19:59):
You can do that. That's really cool.
I would like to stay in that realm
of thinking and Yeah. Just be a happier,
more joyful human to be around growing food
and sharing that abundance with people I care
and love.
You know?
It's pretty cool.
And so that's
(20:21):
what,
we ended up really
doing. It's like we we grow a lot
of food, and we share
surplus, and
we've grown from having six chickens to 30
plus and having a dairy cow. We've got
two two dogs, four cats.
And it's
super fun. I mean, that it's not to
(20:41):
say there's not a lot of work.
I mean, we do that to ourselves. I
am particularly
bad at that, or I get the ideas
for a project.
And it's way bigger than I
thought it was, but it's
I've already rent rented a mini excavation, and
we're we're going for it. So it's super
fun. But, it's it's been it's been it's
(21:04):
been a really good time, and I don't
think that would change it for anything.
And you're to just because you shared it
with me, so I figure it's a little
bit public. And for and you're gonna be
sharing this as a family soon. So Yes.
You know, committing to raising a family in
this environment,
which is Yeah. A statement, a big statement.
I I think and that's, really important to
(21:24):
touch on because
when I look back on when
I was in that
eco depressive state
Yeah.
I did not wanna have children.
It was just like, no. No way. I
don't wanna bring anyone up in this world.
It's
it's going to hell in a handbasket.
(21:44):
Not a chance. And now
it's like, no. It's I'm excited for this.
This is That's amazing.
Yeah. So it's really,
shifted
a lot for me.
Anything about us, it's just because I ended
up putting a potato in the ground.
That's enormous. That's so huge. And you're spreading
the word. I know I met you through
(22:05):
LinkedIn and your newsletter and these, like, hopeful
but
reason you know, but
rational and honest
state of the world sort of
posts and language
and,
work that you're work that you're doing
with
movement forward. It's like, okay. This
we can do this better.
(22:27):
Let's look at it as a system. What
could have been different
if we you know, there was just one
in Hawaii, as I mentioned, I was reading,
you know, what could have been better than
just
waiting for reactive behavior, but instead to be
proactive
and, you know or letting the beavers build
the dams and raise the water as opposed
(22:48):
to getting rid of the beavers, losing the
water, dealing with fires, and then being like,
oh, what's the solution to this?
So you wanna talk about
Yeah. I think that's been,
where
my work and focus is going is definitely
towards water,
because it's just the common thread in all
of these problems. Yeah. It seems to keep
(23:09):
coming up. We've got the ocean that we
kept to care about the water more. We've
got water systems. We've got fires. We've got
agriculture,
just water pollution, all marine life and land
life that is that is
that is threatened because of water that's not
enough or not right,
human systems that aren't yeah. So
(23:30):
keep going. Water. Tell us more about water.
On and on and on.
I think the,
the biggest sort of turning point
for me was,
I was teaching the the climate sections
of the permaculture design courses and,
doing more research on that,
(23:53):
and came across a
piece of work
from
Victor Gorshkov and Anastasia
MacKharavia.
I am not very good at pronouncing her
last name.
I think you did pretty darn well. Physicists,
and their work is around the biotic pump
theory.
Mhmm. And so, essentially, what that is is
(24:15):
trees,
and
I'd say actual forest ecosystems, healthy forests,
they produce an abundance of things like pollen,
dust,
fungal spores, other bacterial spores.
And what these act as are cloud condensation
(24:36):
nuclei
where,
basically, water vapor can adhere to and then
turn into clouds, and then there's precipitation.
So, effectively,
that's actually that's only part of it.
But what happens
when
clouds condense?
Which I really think I mean, that 99.999%
(25:01):
of the people in this world and the
listeners in this don't have any idea how
clouds
are precipitated.
So Mhmm. Keep going. This is great. And
meteorologist
talks water, and it's really about
getting water to move through the system.
Yes. Yeah. And having nature do most of
that Yeah. Work for us as the conveyor
(25:21):
belt.
And so this is where the conveyor belt
actually really turns on is when
the water droplets condense on these cloud condensation
nuclei.
And
have you ever
heated up
a,
I don't know, an aluminum can
(25:42):
with a little bit of water in it,
and then
put a put a cap on it and
then let it cool on the counter?
Well, I assume that the condensation
builds up and then it drips down.
What yeah. So the water condenses once it
cools
Mhmm. And then it caves in. And then
so when you
(26:03):
kinda extend that to,
an atmosphere
Mhmm. What happens is when and that happens
because when water condenses, it actually shrinks.
I can't remember the exact number, but I
think it's, like,
1,200
times
Wow.
Volumetrically.
Yeah. And
so nature aborts a vacuum,
and so air
(26:24):
rushes in to take its place, and that
is the start of how,
like, very continental areas can actually
get rain
because this conveyor belt has been started, and
it's all based on this micro vacuum
that's produced when one,
basically,
(26:44):
cloud condensation nuclei
gets condensed on.
And so air fills in, air
rushes up, and,
more more cooling, more condensing, and that's precipitation.
And that's all kick started by healthy
forest ecosystems.
Right. So without healthy forest ecosystems, all of
(27:04):
those basic inputs
don't exist.
So there can't be any of that movement
of the conveyor belt
to get the the the inputs
to then turn into rain.
Yes. And moreover, like, the Healthy Force ecosystems,
the amount of evapotranspiration
Right. There,
(27:25):
will actually help locally cool a place because
when things evaporate,
much like when we sweat,
it cools. And we do enough local cooling,
well,
you can really offset a lot of
global warming. Yeah. So I've I heard not
that long ago that in Europe, the coastlines,
and I'm sure this is true everywhere, but
(27:47):
the topic was about in Europe, that that
the coastlines have all been pushed back for,
housing and,
you know, life on the water because we
all want to live on the water, and
that all those forests that were along the
coastline
have been
taken away, moved back, and that you're not
(28:08):
getting you know, the so the storms
are the different the water system
and the storm system is
deeply affected by the loss of the forests
along the coastlines of Europe. Yeah. And to
try to recover that, which
there's a recognition
that it's desperately needed for the system to
(28:29):
work,
to cool from climate change and to create
enough water in these drought systems and that
to
to reduce the variability
in the storms in the water, but then
everybody would have to leave the coast. You
know? Like, and that how do you how
do you deal with that? What what what
do we do?
Like, so you you know how it works,
but what do we do? You're the hopeful
(28:50):
guy.
I think I don't know if it's a
matter of leaving the coast. Like, humans
when you look back in history, we have
we have an affinity to
coastlines and water. Like, we're not we're not
gonna leave the coast anytime soon, but I
think the
important part is to
build
by
bulldozing,
but by actually incorporating these systems into our
(29:13):
built environment.
Because,
I mean,
sea level is going to rise. So I
think it is,
in part, you know, smart to move those
back,
to a certain degree. Right. I still need
to build up some mitigated factors. So even
have mangroves where the current development is would
be cool.
(29:33):
But then to have an actual
forest ecosystem built into our human built environment
Right. Would be
the best way to go forward.
And better yet, to have that
forest ecosystem
extend
from the coast upwards to the mountains so
that that conveyor belt is actually
Wow. Fully in movement, and it's it's going.
(29:56):
It's moving like it actually should be.
Like, you can look at Spain and Valencia,
the floods
last year.
That's kinda,
that's what happens
when we totally get rid of these coastal
wetlands
Yeah. And then denude
the mountains of these vital,
(30:17):
trees and forests that provide a,
natural service for us.
Not it's not for us. It's for the
for the planet. That's the Yeah. Planet's natural
air conditioner. Right? So it's,
it's it's not a surprise. And I think
if anyone was really, really interested in
learning more about that, there are lots of,
(30:38):
people out there to
pay attention to.
Anastasia
MacKerrabia is one of them, Alpha Lowe,
Rob Lewis,
Mian Mian. He's the meteorologist who's kind of
did a lot of this research, especially in
Valencia,
and Zach Weiss and Nick Steiner.
(31:00):
There's there's so many people It's so nice
to see, like, these are mentors and and,
you know,
these are mentors of yours that are offering,
you know, a path
to to understand the situation,
the science of it, and then to figure
out what to do next. And as you
said, you're an applied meteorologist.
Like, you apply science.
So it just like, I see you're the
(31:21):
the wheels turning on your head from these
these the research and the science that these
gurus did, and you're, like,
seeing change possible.
Yeah. I think it's it's
super, super possible.
And, like, beyond the people that I just
named there, there's there's I just think I
That was a million. It's so inspiring to
see so many people actually
(31:43):
talking about this, working on it. And we
need to be talking about it. Right? Like,
this doesn't go anywhere if we're talking in
a tiny little bubble, which is why I'm
happy that you're telling us about it.
And on that note, actually, Rob DeLayet and
Peter Bunyard's book, Cooling the Climate, I think
is probably it's the go to resource,
(32:03):
for
learning everything that I just talked about. Like,
it's they've got the numbers. They've done all
the math,
all the modeling.
I would highly recommend anyone to to read
that. Okay. So what do we do? So
we we just we're like, let's we're we're
gonna wrap this up with
the sage advice
from Mitch Rolick about
(32:25):
how to put this all into action. Like,
what can we as individuals do? What should
we be thinking about? You know, what's your
next post going to be about that
gives us some advice of something that we
can take and move forward so that we're
all part of the solution,
we're part of the regenerative
systems,
and we're not just
(32:46):
sitting in our footprint. We're using our handprint.
That's a great question.
I think, you know, that the advice that
got
me going,
which I hope will get other people going,
is to just start.
Yeah. That's it.
And put that one potato, and then it
(33:06):
makes 20 potatoes or whatever. Exactly.
And I remember hearing that I was actually
in the
back,
behind the curtain of a,
permaculture
online conference, and I was the, you know,
the the guy in the back doing all
the tech stuff. Mhmm. So I got to
walk all these amazing speakers live and whatnot,
(33:28):
And one of them was Stefan Sikowiak,
and he's a
permaculture
orchardist
in
in Quebec, in Canada.
And
he's just, like, looked right in the camera.
It's like, dust start.
And it was like, okay. It's it's time
to go. And so
(33:49):
it was it was that day. I was
like,
I went to
the the store and I over the gardening
store, and I bought seed potatoes. It's like
I and I love potatoes. It's my favorite
food, so it's natural.
It's
but it's just that one thing, like,
every single step matters.
And that gets to my sort of next
thing to bring this sort of together around
it. Like, we can't do this alone,
(34:12):
but we have to all participate. I mean,
this is community
impact.
Mhmm. But every individual
has to participate and not expect
someone else to do it. Like Yeah. Just
if it's a potato, like, give me if
you could, like, just throw a few right?
Use our hands. Like, other than the potato,
like, what are some of a few
(34:34):
simple things that you were like, yes.
You started
with people that you've seen, like, people that
you're sharing community with, people that are,
that are making movement happen forward in small
steps.
I think for
a lot of people,
it's
there there's a fear in starting because
(34:56):
we've,
kind of
been worked out of trusting our own intuitions
and actually how simple it is Mhmm. To
do these things.
So
there's
no failure
in growing food. This everything's just a learning
opportunity.
Yeah.
And even if it fails, it's still gonna
taste good. Right?
(35:19):
And you know what? Somebody was telling me
that they grew like kale. Actually, Matt Zucker,
who was on city the city,
episode a couple weeks ago,
and he didn't
harvest it in time.
And it got bitter, but it was still
edible.
So, like, it's all about learning. Right? Like
Yeah. Wow. Look at that. I grew kale.
Now I have
(35:40):
to keep learning. Like, you have to stay
in the game.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's really good
for
mental healthiest. Like, you gotta go outside. You
have to observe. You have to be part
of these systems that you are cultivating.
Yeah. And
that's it's good to get out there and
just observe and be a part of it
(36:02):
and get your hands dirty and have, like,
have fun. It's supposed to be fun.
And that's the biggest,
what we're trying to do,
is have these systems that
are more or less passive,
that work together.
And there's,
saying it's like, it's not this,
(36:24):
it's not the solar panels, the rainwater harvesting
tank, the
the ducks, and
the garden that make a permaculture
property. It's how they work together.
And so, for example, I've got a rainwater
harvesting tank here.
The system that I got a little bit
too ambitious about this year was to take
(36:45):
the overflow from that tank, put it into
a pond where there's gonna be ducks that
will be fertilizing in there that will overflow,
cascade into a swale,
that'll cascade into another one, another one, and
then a pond at the bottom overflow to
a natural,
depression on the property. And there's,
fruit trees all,
interspersed in there. There's
(37:06):
apples, cherry cherries,
plums,
Siberian peach.
Wow.
And they all get watered along the way.
And they all get watered on the way.
The system.
Yeah.
And that's
that's that's super fun to,
give yourself permission to experiment with those kind
(37:27):
of things.
It's just
have fun. And get those fingers dirty. Like,
I happen to be, like, kind of a
not an anti germaphobe.
We've got all this germaphobia.
Like,
keep clean, keep antibacterial
soap and and all this, and we have
no immune systems left.
Right? We're not eating whole foods. Yeah. We're
not we don't have an immune system because
(37:49):
we're not connecting with germs and bacteria and
whatever else. So just for a moment, go
down that path just with a cup minute
or two that we have left. Like,
not just get out there for five minutes
in nature like we I talk about a
lot, but, like, get out there and
get your frigging hands dirty. So go go
for that for a minute. And, like, and
your mouth dirty too. I mean, when we
(38:09):
when I go and get, like, a carrot
from the garden, it's like, I don't care
that there's dirt on here. It's gonna wipe
that.
We don't use any chemicals. We just add,
straw, leaf mulch,
what have you on on top
to keep the soil covered. And then just
grab a carrot, wipe it on your pants
a little bit, you know, don't have too
much grit, but it's fine.
(38:31):
It's probably better for you to have
have that on there.
Take a bite? Yeah. And there's your think
I'll tell you. I can No. It's gonna
I can It'll Basically, it'll be better. Yeah?
Yeah. It'll save you, not just not kill
you. Yeah. Exactly.
Awesome. Thank you. Last words of wisdom?
(38:51):
Just start. Just start. Fun. Yeah. Have fun.
Those are the two huge, huge, huge, beautiful
things to say. Thank you so much for
it. That's so much. So appreciative.
And,
maybe in August, I'll make it up to
the middle of Alberta. I don't think I'll
be able to make it, but
get my my Florida
thin blood up there
before. That is the warmest month here. So
(39:13):
Maybe I'll see you in August. Thank you.
And congratulations,
Vance, on on everything that you're doing and
on and your growing family.
Thanks, Jessica. Beautiful. Thank you. Love you the
time.
(39:38):
This has been a production of BLI Studios
produced by me, Kai. Follow along with our
other BLI produced shows at balancinglife'sissues.com/podcast-BLI.
Got an idea for the show? Email me,
Kai, at balancing life's issues dot com. And
don't forget to stay in touch with your
host, Jessica, at jessica@winwinwinmindset.com.
(39:58):
Anything else to add, Miles?
Yay. Welcome, Mitch Rolick. So excited to be
here with you. Yay. Hi.
We are in opposite ends of the
North American
hemisphere, I think. I recall it with. It
is about 84 degrees where I am and
negative 24, this is Fahrenheit,
where Mitch is, and we're dressed slightly differently.
(00:24):
And, he is headed out soon to cut
firewood to make sure he stays warm. And
I've got my air conditioner on. So it's
so fun to be, like, so far apart,
but yet so connected in the conversation we're
gonna have. So thank you so much for
being here, Mitch.
And just, like, I'm gonna ask you to
introduce yourself, but I'm gonna throw a few
things out that was the reason I fell
(00:46):
in love with this the ability to have
this conversation.
Software developer and scientist turned regenerative farmer,
and the picture of Mitch online is in
overalls and, like, just really down and dirty.
We just talked about the fact that he
has 30 chickens and
a dairy cow that might or might not
stay his dairy cow.
(01:08):
And it's about geospatial tools, giving people
the tools to
create a better planet. And,
you know, eco anxiety
driving some of it and turning it into
some positive purpose. And and that's the message
we're gonna send today. So, Mitch, you tell
me about your tell us all about yourself.
Yeah. Sure thing. Thanks. And, thanks so much
(01:29):
for having me, Jessica. It's an honor to
be here. Really excited to be chatting with
the audience.
Yeah. So my name is Mitch.
My background is in earth system science
and applied meteorology.
So that's it's a kind of a fancy
word of saying meteorological data science.
Upon, you know,
(01:51):
being in those fields
and
especially from a traditional academic background,
there's not too much of
solutions
being presented or at least I wasn't when
I was going to school, it was very
much like style of thinking here problems.
Here's a degree. Have fun out there.
It's like, okay. Great. Thanks. That's really cool.
(02:14):
The world's on fire, and I just have
no idea what to do here
other than knowing
that we're in trouble here.
And I was always really passionate about food
and having gone through my own personal health
journey regarding food and and whatnot and really
going into that as well. Food is actually
(02:35):
a huge
component of
the the climate change solutions as well.
And being really passionate about food. My partner,
she's also super passionate about food. She loves
cooking.
So Wait. Let me ask you. Just in
terms of, like, what comes up around when
you say or think food? Because it's not
(02:56):
as simple as,
you know, I like to eat Doritos. You
know? Like, that is not and by the
way, I don't. But that's not where you're
going. I think that what's in your head
when you say we're passionate about food. So
just give us a little bit of that
that joy of what that means.
Yeah. You bet. I think,
the the biggest part
is just having an intimate connection with the
(03:19):
food. And we,
so we're in Central Alberta in Canada where,
as you were saying earlier, it gets very
cold, and it stays cold
for a very large
part of the year.
Pretty much the whole year or covered in
snow.
Basically, from
last year is a good example. We
had frosts in mid June
(03:41):
Wow. And
frosts in early September. So our growing
season is only about
ninety
something days sometimes. Other times, it's upwards of
a 14.
But we don't get to pick and choose,
the days each year. We just get plan
on it. We get served.
As a meteorologist,
(04:01):
you know, you can't quite plan on the
number of days without frost.
Yes. But it is handy. Like, my,
actually, my master's was in frost prediction for
vineyards in,
New Zealand. So
that has come super in handy for many,
many, many reasons.
One of them being, like, okay. Let's,
(04:22):
let's get out there,
start missing some some
of the garden, which,
I guess that's a good place to start,
is we moved
to the middle of nowhere in Alberta
in 2021
in August. So growing season was basically already
done. We didn't really grow anything that year.
So 2022
(04:43):
was our first year of actually growing food,
and we didn't really have any gardening experience
whatsoever. It was just, like, okay. Let's figure
this out.
And
it wasn't very big. It was big to
us at the time. It's like, oh, wow.
Look at this garden. It's so big.
But we certainly weren't growing all of our
own food.
(05:03):
And then
Was the goal just to, like, have dinner
one night and actually have lettuce that you
grew and be like, yay. Yeah. I grew
my own lettuce.
I think year one, we were growing,
onions,
celery,
potatoes,
some cabbages, peas.
We didn't have a greenhouse.
Yeah. Just pretty chill stuff,
(05:27):
more than you'd find in a suburban backyard.
Mhmm.
So enough to, like, put a solid dent
in our grocery bill, I suppose.
Yeah.
And we were successful at that and
identified some pretty cool microclimates
and warm microclimates
around our house so we could grow mushrooms.
(05:47):
And,
on the southwest facing side of our house,
we're growing eggplants,
peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers.
Yeah.
It's so interesting. Like, you're you're such such
a short season,
and it gets so cold. Like, the fact
that it's one side of your house gets
the sun and is warmer
(06:09):
makes a big difference. It's like you can
grow that stuff only on one side of
your house. Yeah. If you don't have a
greenhouse, then you really have to leverage those
physical Yeah.
Planes and
how the sun interacts with each side of
it. So on the Southwest basic side, we're
growing,
tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, peppers,
and then
(06:29):
not even,
three meters away. That's about three yards away.
We're growing mushrooms, we've got wine caps and
lion's mane, oysters, and shiitakes.
Wow.
Because that's the north facing and Yeah. Side
of the house. It's a little bit cooler,
a bit shadier,
by sunlight. So it's just a natural place
(06:51):
for those
crops to
grow. And then the main market, not market
gardener, I guess, homestead garden has grown
now from
what I was describing earlier to
a
I I haven't measured the actual, but, like,
several rows, and we've grown more than enough
to last us the entire year. And so,
(07:13):
lots of storage crops, beets, potatoes, carrots, squash.
You have one of those root sellers that
we actually don't really need it to keep
things cool. Right? We I would love to
have a root. So right now, what we're
using is just a really cold room
in our
I guess, we call it the cold room.
It just happens to be the coldest room
in our house.
(07:34):
Yeah.
And then the carrots and
potatoes and beets, they go into wood shavings
and
big totes. Yeah.
And they store really, really well.
Awesome. Okay. I have to this is a
complete
aside, but I learned this morning
that
button mushrooms, the generic
(07:54):
white, like, insignificant,
somewhat tasteless mushrooms,
are actually just the
early stage of
the darker portobello mushrooms. Like, okay. That's blew
my mind that button mushrooms turn into portobello
mushrooms.
I I had no idea.
Me neither. How cool is that? Right? So
(08:15):
mushroom mushroom to mushroom. So lion's mane are
I've paid a lot of money for lion's
mane mushrooms. They are pretty cool. Yeah. And,
I'm not too sure what,
kind of trees you have in in your
do you have birch in New York, though?
Right? Yeah.
Yeah. So that's what we are growing our
lion's mane with. So we have Oh, okay.
Birch logs
(08:37):
about six feet long,
six inches in diameter.
And then you can buy these inoculated dowels
from a place called North Score. That's where
I got mine. You can get them tons
of other places too. And then,
actually, North Square too, they have a special
drill bit, and you go
drill bit into there, put the dowels in,
seal it with beeswax.
(08:58):
And, yeah, this year, we've got lots of
lines made. That's awesome. That's exciting. Yeah. Okay.
So on a separate topic, and we'll do
a mushroom episode another day. Mushrooms are
magical,
incredibly
nutritious, and and needed for our body of
all different types. And they grow.
Anybody can grow mushrooms. Like, there's just there's
(09:19):
it's a science.
It's it's got some physics and chemistry and
all that to it, but it's pretty darn
cool. And you just need some trees that
you can drill into and put the spores.
Like, it's pretty interesting.
Yeah. And this is that,
we could talk about this later. Just one
quick note is, it's important to have the
right tree
for the kind of mushroom that you're trying
(09:40):
to grow. That's amazing. That's amazing. But that
that information is For another day. Available. Yeah.
Totally for because that's such an important important
topic. Okay. I don't wanna get us I
don't wanna lose us completely so that we
don't cover some of the key points, which
are your geospatial tools,
eco anxiety,
downstream responsibility,
regenerative
thinking and systems, and what got you here
(10:04):
to this moving with your partner to
the middle of nowhere,
not having any knowledge about, actually, it sounds
like, how to grow food,
but wanting to be this kind of, you
know, in this in this life.
Yeah. You bet. So I think it kinda
started
from a position
(10:25):
of being really down in the dumps with
eco anxiety, soul nostalgia, whatever you wanna call
it. It was during
the wildfires,
or the bushfires in Australia, and I was
living in New Zealand at the time. I
lived in Wellington with my partner,
and I was working
at a
(10:45):
peanut butter factory.
Wow. And,
all there is to do to peanut butter
factory is wear
earmuffs and load peanuts into the machine,
put peanut butter into the jars,
and
put those jars into boxes and then stack
those boxes and then
clean stuff up. So there was a lot
(11:07):
of time to think and all this
terrible stuff. And the sun
was blocked out by the smoke,
and having a background in
climate stuff, it was just like, oh, man.
This is this is Wow. Really,
brutal.
Yeah.
And then combined with the fact that I
I didn't feel like I was doing anything
(11:30):
really made that a lot worse.
And so And there's this weird pretend world.
You're like, can everything keeps going.
This the assembly line keeps going. Mhmm. And
you keep doing it, but the world is
burning around you. Right? Like Yeah. Like, how
is that
fit?
Yeah. Exactly. So I didn't feel quite like
(11:51):
I was doing the right thing.
And there was just like a
it was it was depressing.
And so what I actually really wanted to
do
was
take a permaculture design course
and then go back to school, bring them
out. I just finished my master's
and do civil engineering and design cities
(12:13):
that were smart instead of,
not very smart, which is, in a lot
of ways how they're signed right now. And
I was explaining this to one of my
friends, and she said, oh, you should listen
to this podcast where this guy,
his name's Rob Edas. He,
was the one of the founders of a
(12:34):
company called Verge Permaculture.
They've since closed those doors, but,
I listened to this podcast like, oh, my
goodness. This is fantastic.
And
I ended up booking a consultation with him
and paying to to chat with him because
he was an ex engineer turned into this
(12:54):
permaculture guy in Alberta. It's like, okay. And
that's where I grew up.
Oh.
Yeah. So it was contextually relevant and okay.
Cool. And we had a great chat. I
was still in New Zealand at this point,
and then COVID hit. Oh my god. All
of what? So you got the fires. You
got
the
redundancy or the linear
peanut butter factory
(13:14):
that's disconnected to the food chain,
and Yeah. You've got COVID.
Yeah.
And so I got on the last
plane back to Canada.
My girlfriend, she stayed in New Zealand.
And then I ended up I've been getting
a fair bit into
(13:35):
programming and teaching myself programming
while I was working,
these pretty mundane jobs just because,
I was like, okay. Well, a better upskill.
So I ended up just
teaching
myself Python and watching YouTube videos and
focusing mostly on
weather event visualization
(13:57):
and
just getting pretty comfortable with that.
And then
fast forward a little bit. Code happens. I'm
back home. I'm in my parents' basement.
Still just
plugging away it, teaching myself Python,
and doing some more advanced things and machine
learning stuff. And then I was like, okay.
(14:19):
I'm actually going crazy here. I gotta
I gotta get out of here because I'm
just in my parents' basement.
This wasn't the plan. Yeah. This was not
the plan. And my girlfriend is 20,000 miles
away or Yeah. Across the world. Yeah.
And so what I ended up doing is
I ended up emailing Skye Rob that I
had spoken with earlier is asking if he
(14:40):
knew of any volunteer opportunities.
He said sure to come up to my
farm. So I went up to his farm
and then I ended up
getting a job with Verge permaculture. I started
teaching, the climate and
mapping sections of Verge's PDCs,
permaculture design courses, and being,
I suppose, exposed to a different kind of
(15:02):
paradigm
of regenerative solutions.
And that really
opened up
my eyes a lot. I was like, okay.
Cool.
Yeah. The world is in trouble,
but
you could do something about it. And I
came out
of that phase of life with
(15:24):
the understanding that, yeah, we're all we all
have,
a footprint.
We
also have handprints, and those handprints can be
way bigger
than the footprints. Okay. And that's That's so
interesting. I've never heard that you have to
go deeper into that. So Yeah. And that's,
I haven't I have
I as far as I know, that was
(15:45):
an original thought. I don't think I've heard
that anywhere else. It's like, yeah. We have
hands. And that that's our defining
thing as humans is we've got these opposable
thumbs, and we can do things with them.
But in terms of our environmental
impact, it's always,
communicated as a footprint.
So I like the idea of having,
(16:06):
Just so just like what's coming to me
is that a footprint isn't as
as deep into responsibility.
Right? Like, it just happens. But a handprint
is intentional, and you need to be responsible
for your actions. Is that the difference? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
And you can do things. So I feel
like it's empowering to understand that you have
(16:27):
a handprint too. It's like you can do
things,
that are fairly simple to make the world
a better place. And so even just reframing
it is that has,
really helped with any sense of nostalgia and
eco anxiety. It was like, I can do
things,
and my well-being is
(16:47):
can is almost hinged on me using my
hands to to do something.
So what you're saying is that I think
I'm hearing is that
simply
getting a sense of agency
and a sense of
empowerment
Mhmm. By connecting it with
your the things you can actually do
(17:10):
versus Yeah. The passiveness
of your footprint, of where you're standing,
changes everything, and it and it is a
hugely,
effective solution to ego anxiety.
Like, to to use that language, that metaphor,
I'm all about metaphor, like, your handprint
is your empowerment.
Yes. So
do something with your hands. It's
(17:31):
Yeah. And,
for me, it was just putting putting a
potato in the ground. Honestly, it was just
like, oh, that's that's how he that's that's
all you have to do. You just have
to put a potato on the ground and
in several
months, just
come back and get more. That's it.
That's pretty cool. Yeah. And,
(17:51):
so that's how it all really
started. And then,
in 2021
in May, I was up
at Rob and Michelle's,
and helping out on their farm.
And
a property
came up for sale, and she was like,
oh, you should just go take a look
at this.
We talk about Assad on the radar at
(18:12):
all.
And so I drove by,
checked it out. It was amazing.
At this point, Maddie, my partner, she's still
in New Zealand.
But it was I,
I she was
going to be coming to Canada because I
I couldn't even go back So she had
to buy into this life choice?
(18:34):
I I did not sell very hard. Oh,
great. I called I called her. She's like,
hey. You wanna be farmers in the middle
of the North? She said, absolutely. Let's go.
Wait. I wanna just have for a sec
because you mentioned something, and I wanted to
jump back into it. You used the language
changing I think this is you can tell
me if I got it right or not.
Changing the the regenerative
(18:55):
paradigm.
I assume that's all connected to that.
Yeah.
I think it's
there's
basically, like, three paradigms. There's degenerative, sustainable,
and regenerative.
And I think
that looking back, I was stuck in a
sustainable
paradigm. I was like, k. We're almost like
(19:18):
we're not doing
enough. We're and sustainable in like, there's a
lot of good things that have been done
in the name of sustainability,
and not to discredit
anyone who's
in that field doing those things. But in
this particular context, it's like, with sustainability,
we're doing less bad.
Yeah. I'm with you a % on this.
(19:38):
Like, I'm so happy that you're in that
same place because it's driving me bananas
to use that language.
Yeah.
But with regenerative, it's like we're doing more
good. Yeah. Net positive. Bad. Yeah. Exactly. And
so,
even
having
the brain start to realize that, okay. That's
a possibility.
(19:59):
You can do that. That's really cool.
I would like to stay in that realm
of thinking and Yeah. Just be a happier,
more joyful human to be around growing food
and sharing that abundance with people I care
and love.
You know?
It's pretty cool.
And so that's
(20:21):
what,
we ended up really
doing. It's like we we grow a lot
of food, and we share
surplus, and
we've grown from having six chickens to 30
plus and having a dairy cow. We've got
two two dogs, four cats.
And it's
super fun. I mean, that it's not to
(20:41):
say there's not a lot of work.
I mean, we do that to ourselves. I
am particularly
bad at that, or I get the ideas
for a project.
And it's way bigger than I
thought it was, but it's
I've already rent rented a mini excavation, and
we're we're going for it. So it's super
fun. But, it's it's been it's been it's
(21:04):
been a really good time, and I don't
think that would change it for anything.
And you're to just because you shared it
with me, so I figure it's a little
bit public. And for and you're gonna be
sharing this as a family soon. So Yes.
You know, committing to raising a family in
this environment,
which is Yeah. A statement, a big statement.
I I think and that's, really important to
(21:24):
touch on because
when I look back on when
I was in that
eco depressive state
Yeah.
I did not wanna have children.
It was just like, no. No way. I
don't wanna bring anyone up in this world.
It's
it's going to hell in a handbasket.
(21:44):
Not a chance. And now
it's like, no. It's I'm excited for this.
This is That's amazing.
Yeah. So it's really,
shifted
a lot for me.
Anything about us, it's just because I ended
up putting a potato in the ground.
That's enormous. That's so huge. And you're spreading
the word. I know I met you through
(22:05):
LinkedIn and your newsletter and these, like, hopeful
but
reason you know, but
rational and honest
state of the world sort of
posts and language
and,
work that you're work that you're doing
with
movement forward. It's like, okay. This
we can do this better.
(22:27):
Let's look at it as a system. What
could have been different
if we you know, there was just one
in Hawaii, as I mentioned, I was reading,
you know, what could have been better than
just
waiting for reactive behavior, but instead to be
proactive
and, you know or letting the beavers build
the dams and raise the water as opposed
(22:48):
to getting rid of the beavers, losing the
water, dealing with fires, and then being like,
oh, what's the solution to this?
So you wanna talk about
Yeah. I think that's been,
where
my work and focus is going is definitely
towards water,
because it's just the common thread in all
of these problems. Yeah. It seems to keep
(23:09):
coming up. We've got the ocean that we
kept to care about the water more. We've
got water systems. We've got fires. We've got
agriculture,
just water pollution, all marine life and land
life that is that is
that is threatened because of water that's not
enough or not right,
human systems that aren't yeah. So
(23:30):
keep going. Water. Tell us more about water.
On and on and on.
I think the,
the biggest sort of turning point
for me was,
I was teaching the the climate sections
of the permaculture design courses and,
doing more research on that,
(23:53):
and came across a
piece of work
from
Victor Gorshkov and Anastasia
MacKharavia.
I am not very good at pronouncing her
last name.
I think you did pretty darn well. Physicists,
and their work is around the biotic pump
theory.
Mhmm. And so, essentially, what that is is
(24:15):
trees,
and
I'd say actual forest ecosystems, healthy forests,
they produce an abundance of things like pollen,
dust,
fungal spores, other bacterial spores.
And what these act as are cloud condensation
(24:36):
nuclei
where,
basically, water vapor can adhere to and then
turn into clouds, and then there's precipitation.
So, effectively,
that's actually that's only part of it.
But what happens
when
clouds condense?
Which I really think I mean, that 99.999%
(25:01):
of the people in this world and the
listeners in this don't have any idea how
clouds
are precipitated.
So Mhmm. Keep going. This is great. And
meteorologist
talks water, and it's really about
getting water to move through the system.
Yes. Yeah. And having nature do most of
that Yeah. Work for us as the conveyor
(25:21):
belt.
And so this is where the conveyor belt
actually really turns on is when
the water droplets condense on these cloud condensation
nuclei.
And
have you ever
heated up
a,
I don't know, an aluminum can
(25:42):
with a little bit of water in it,
and then
put a put a cap on it and
then let it cool on the counter?
Well, I assume that the condensation
builds up and then it drips down.
What yeah. So the water condenses once it
cools
Mhmm. And then it caves in. And then
so when you
(26:03):
kinda extend that to,
an atmosphere
Mhmm. What happens is when and that happens
because when water condenses, it actually shrinks.
I can't remember the exact number, but I
think it's, like,
1,200
times
Wow.
Volumetrically.
Yeah. And
so nature aborts a vacuum,
and so air
(26:24):
rushes in to take its place, and that
is the start of how,
like, very continental areas can actually
get rain
because this conveyor belt has been started, and
it's all based on this micro vacuum
that's produced when one,
basically,
(26:44):
cloud condensation nuclei
gets condensed on.
And so air fills in, air
rushes up, and,
more more cooling, more condensing, and that's precipitation.
And that's all kick started by healthy
forest ecosystems.
Right. So without healthy forest ecosystems, all of
(27:04):
those basic inputs
don't exist.
So there can't be any of that movement
of the conveyor belt
to get the the the inputs
to then turn into rain.
Yes. And moreover, like, the Healthy Force ecosystems,
the amount of evapotranspiration
Right. There,
(27:25):
will actually help locally cool a place because
when things evaporate,
much like when we sweat,
it cools. And we do enough local cooling,
well,
you can really offset a lot of
global warming. Yeah. So I've I heard not
that long ago that in Europe, the coastlines,
and I'm sure this is true everywhere, but
(27:47):
the topic was about in Europe, that that
the coastlines have all been pushed back for,
housing and,
you know, life on the water because we
all want to live on the water, and
that all those forests that were along the
coastline
have been
taken away, moved back, and that you're not
(28:08):
getting you know, the so the storms
are the different the water system
and the storm system is
deeply affected by the loss of the forests
along the coastlines of Europe. Yeah. And to
try to recover that, which
there's a recognition
that it's desperately needed for the system to
(28:29):
work,
to cool from climate change and to create
enough water in these drought systems and that
to
to reduce the variability
in the storms in the water, but then
everybody would have to leave the coast. You
know? Like, and that how do you how
do you deal with that? What what what
do we do?
Like, so you you know how it works,
but what do we do? You're the hopeful
(28:50):
guy.
I think I don't know if it's a
matter of leaving the coast. Like, humans
when you look back in history, we have
we have an affinity to
coastlines and water. Like, we're not we're not
gonna leave the coast anytime soon, but I
think the
important part is to
build
by
bulldozing,
but by actually incorporating these systems into our
(29:13):
built environment.
Because,
I mean,
sea level is going to rise. So I
think it is,
in part, you know, smart to move those
back,
to a certain degree. Right. I still need
to build up some mitigated factors. So even
have mangroves where the current development is would
be cool.
(29:33):
But then to have an actual
forest ecosystem built into our human built environment
Right. Would be
the best way to go forward.
And better yet, to have that
forest ecosystem
extend
from the coast upwards to the mountains so
that that conveyor belt is actually
Wow. Fully in movement, and it's it's going.
(29:56):
It's moving like it actually should be.
Like, you can look at Spain and Valencia,
the floods
last year.
That's kinda,
that's what happens
when we totally get rid of these coastal
wetlands
Yeah. And then denude
the mountains of these vital,
(30:17):
trees and forests that provide a,
natural service for us.
Not it's not for us. It's for the
for the planet. That's the Yeah. Planet's natural
air conditioner. Right? So it's,
it's it's not a surprise. And I think
if anyone was really, really interested in
learning more about that, there are lots of,
(30:38):
people out there to
pay attention to.
Anastasia
MacKerrabia is one of them, Alpha Lowe,
Rob Lewis,
Mian Mian. He's the meteorologist who's kind of
did a lot of this research, especially in
Valencia,
and Zach Weiss and Nick Steiner.
(31:00):
There's there's so many people It's so nice
to see, like, these are mentors and and,
you know,
these are mentors of yours that are offering,
you know, a path
to to understand the situation,
the science of it, and then to figure
out what to do next. And as you
said, you're an applied meteorologist.
Like, you apply science.
So it just like, I see you're the
(31:21):
the wheels turning on your head from these
these the research and the science that these
gurus did, and you're, like,
seeing change possible.
Yeah. I think it's it's
super, super possible.
And, like, beyond the people that I just
named there, there's there's I just think I
That was a million. It's so inspiring to
see so many people actually
(31:43):
talking about this, working on it. And we
need to be talking about it. Right? Like,
this doesn't go anywhere if we're talking in
a tiny little bubble, which is why I'm
happy that you're telling us about it.
And on that note, actually, Rob DeLayet and
Peter Bunyard's book, Cooling the Climate, I think
is probably it's the go to resource,
(32:03):
for
learning everything that I just talked about. Like,
it's they've got the numbers. They've done all
the math,
all the modeling.
I would highly recommend anyone to to read
that. Okay. So what do we do? So
we we just we're like, let's we're we're
gonna wrap this up with
the sage advice
from Mitch Rolick about
(32:25):
how to put this all into action. Like,
what can we as individuals do? What should
we be thinking about? You know, what's your
next post going to be about that
gives us some advice of something that we
can take and move forward so that we're
all part of the solution,
we're part of the regenerative
systems,
and we're not just
(32:46):
sitting in our footprint. We're using our handprint.
That's a great question.
I think, you know, that the advice that
got
me going,
which I hope will get other people going,
is to just start.
Yeah. That's it.
And put that one potato, and then it
(33:06):
makes 20 potatoes or whatever. Exactly.
And I remember hearing that I was actually
in the
back,
behind the curtain of a,
permaculture
online conference, and I was the, you know,
the the guy in the back doing all
the tech stuff. Mhmm. So I got to
walk all these amazing speakers live and whatnot,
(33:28):
And one of them was Stefan Sikowiak,
and he's a
permaculture
orchardist
in
in Quebec, in Canada.
And
he's just, like, looked right in the camera.
It's like, dust start.
And it was like, okay. It's it's time
to go. And so
(33:49):
it was it was that day. I was
like,
I went to
the the store and I over the gardening
store, and I bought seed potatoes. It's like
I and I love potatoes. It's my favorite
food, so it's natural.
It's
but it's just that one thing, like,
every single step matters.
And that gets to my sort of next
thing to bring this sort of together around
it. Like, we can't do this alone,
(34:12):
but we have to all participate. I mean,
this is community
impact.
Mhmm. But every individual
has to participate and not expect
someone else to do it. Like Yeah. Just
if it's a potato, like, give me if
you could, like, just throw a few right?
Use our hands. Like, other than the potato,
like, what are some of a few
(34:34):
simple things that you were like, yes.
You started
with people that you've seen, like, people that
you're sharing community with, people that are,
that are making movement happen forward in small
steps.
I think for
a lot of people,
it's
there there's a fear in starting because
(34:56):
we've,
kind of
been worked out of trusting our own intuitions
and actually how simple it is Mhmm. To
do these things.
So
there's
no failure
in growing food. This everything's just a learning
opportunity.
Yeah.
And even if it fails, it's still gonna
taste good. Right?
(35:19):
And you know what? Somebody was telling me
that they grew like kale. Actually, Matt Zucker,
who was on city the city,
episode a couple weeks ago,
and he didn't
harvest it in time.
And it got bitter, but it was still
edible.
So, like, it's all about learning. Right? Like
Yeah. Wow. Look at that. I grew kale.
Now I have
(35:40):
to keep learning. Like, you have to stay
in the game.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's really good
for
mental healthiest. Like, you gotta go outside. You
have to observe. You have to be part
of these systems that you are cultivating.
Yeah. And
that's it's good to get out there and
just observe and be a part of it
(36:02):
and get your hands dirty and have, like,
have fun. It's supposed to be fun.
And that's the biggest,
what we're trying to do,
is have these systems that
are more or less passive,
that work together.
And there's,
saying it's like, it's not this,
(36:24):
it's not the solar panels, the rainwater harvesting
tank, the
the ducks, and
the garden that make a permaculture
property. It's how they work together.
And so, for example, I've got a rainwater
harvesting tank here.
The system that I got a little bit
too ambitious about this year was to take
(36:45):
the overflow from that tank, put it into
a pond where there's gonna be ducks that
will be fertilizing in there that will overflow,
cascade into a swale,
that'll cascade into another one, another one, and
then a pond at the bottom overflow to
a natural,
depression on the property. And there's,
fruit trees all,
interspersed in there. There's
(37:06):
apples, cherry cherries,
plums,
Siberian peach.
Wow.
And they all get watered along the way.
And they all get watered on the way.
The system.
Yeah.
And that's
that's that's super fun to,
give yourself permission to experiment with those kind
(37:27):
of things.
It's just
have fun. And get those fingers dirty. Like,
I happen to be, like, kind of a
not an anti germaphobe.
We've got all this germaphobia.
Like,
keep clean, keep antibacterial
soap and and all this, and we have
no immune systems left.
Right? We're not eating whole foods. Yeah. We're
not we don't have an immune system because
(37:49):
we're not connecting with germs and bacteria and
whatever else. So just for a moment, go
down that path just with a cup minute
or two that we have left. Like,
not just get out there for five minutes
in nature like we I talk about a
lot, but, like, get out there and
get your frigging hands dirty. So go go
for that for a minute. And, like, and
your mouth dirty too. I mean, when we
(38:09):
when I go and get, like, a carrot
from the garden, it's like, I don't care
that there's dirt on here. It's gonna wipe
that.
We don't use any chemicals. We just add,
straw, leaf mulch,
what have you on on top
to keep the soil covered. And then just
grab a carrot, wipe it on your pants
a little bit, you know, don't have too
much grit, but it's fine.
(38:31):
It's probably better for you to have
have that on there.
Take a bite? Yeah. And there's your think
I'll tell you. I can No. It's gonna
I can It'll Basically, it'll be better. Yeah?
Yeah. It'll save you, not just not kill
you. Yeah. Exactly.
Awesome. Thank you. Last words of wisdom?
(38:51):
Just start. Just start. Fun. Yeah. Have fun.
Those are the two huge, huge, huge, beautiful
things to say. Thank you so much for
it. That's so much. So appreciative.
And,
maybe in August, I'll make it up to
the middle of Alberta. I don't think I'll
be able to make it, but
get my my Florida
thin blood up there
before. That is the warmest month here. So
(39:13):
Maybe I'll see you in August. Thank you.
And congratulations,
Vance, on on everything that you're doing and
on and your growing family.
Thanks, Jessica. Beautiful. Thank you. Love you the
time.
(39:38):
This has been a production of BLI Studios
produced by me, Kai. Follow along with our
other BLI produced shows at balancinglife'sissues.com/podcast-BLI.
Got an idea for the show? Email me,
Kai, at balancing life's issues dot com. And
don't forget to stay in touch with your
host, Jessica, at jessica@winwinwinmindset.com.
(39:58):
Anything else to add, Miles?
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