January 22, 2025 • 37 mins
Zach Torpie and Katie Zakrzewski dive into the whirlwind of events that have transpired since their last recording. From unexpected political upheavals worldwide to drastic weather conditions in the United States, they explore the ever-changing landscape of global and national politics. As they kick off the new year, Zach and Katie tackle the major changes in leadership and their impacts on environmental policies, focusing on case studies from Brazil and Australia. They examine the contrasting approaches of leaders like Lula da Silva and Anthony Albanese, highlighting the nuances and challenges in balancing economic growth with environmental preservation. As the U.S. transitions back to a Trump presidency, the hosts speculate on the potential shifts in environmental policy and the role of influential figures like Elon Musk. Join them for a lively discussion on the intersection of politics, environment, and the conservative movement's role in shaping the future of climate action.
- Introduction and Catching Up on Global Events
- Weather Extremes in the U.S. and Their Implications
- Wildfires in California: A Discussion on Forestry Management
- Brazil's Leadership Shift: From Bolsonaro to Lula
- Australia's Climate Election and Albanese's Challenges
- The Role of National Leaders in Environmental Policy
- Predictions for U.S. Environmental Policy Under Trump
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Zach (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to the Green Tea Party, where we discuss
conservative solutions to environmental problems. My name is Zach
Torpy.
>> Katie (00:07):
And I'm Katie Zakreski. Together, we'll guide you
through complex issues and provide strategies to address
them all while remaining faithful to our conservative
values.
>> Zach (00:16):
Trust me, it'll be a good time.
>> Katie (00:18):
Yeah, it's a party, so grab your mugs and
we'll pour the tea.
Well, Zach, we survived 2024. I never
thought we were going to be able to say that, because there has been
a ton of stuff happen since we last recorded an
episode and since we last talked.
>> Zach (00:33):
Yeah. It's been an
eventful, what, a couple months?
>> Katie (00:38):
Yep. Uh, for
election. Yeah. For all of our listeners, we are still the
United States of America. Let's see if that's the
case by the time this episode comes
out, because of how quickly things are changing. And,
Zach, it seems like since we last
talked, there's been upheaval all
(00:58):
over the place. I know we hadn't originally decided to talk
about this for banter, but I'm thinking just in the last,
what, month and a half since we've recorded
an episode, you've had a
military coup that lasted all of, like, six hours in
South Korea.
Trudeau stepped down, like, in the middle of
nowhere. Trump got
(01:20):
reelected by margins that are, like, absolutely
insane. Nobody predicted it.
Completely disproved the media. And that dude from Harvard
who's been predicting presidents, like, he's Punxsutawney
Phil for the last 40 years. And
I know I'm missing something else. There's been all sorts of
stuff in the Middle east, all sorts of
(01:40):
stuff all throughout Europe.
>> Zach (01:42):
Uh, became the first buddy.
>> Katie (01:43):
Yeah. Elon became the first
buddy in charge of a Meme Department name.
If you'd have told me in 2016, when Harambe died,
that this is where we would be in 2025, I wouldn't have
believed you confirming that Harambe was the
anchor being for our timeline. Um,
so unfortunately, we are only going
(02:03):
downhill from here. But. Yeah, no, it's been crazy
stuff. I mean, not just here, so take heart in that. Or
maybe be terrified of that.
>> Zach (02:10):
Yeah. And currently half of the country is on
fire while the other half is freezing.
>> Katie (02:16):
Yeah. Heat Miser and Snow Miser are duking it out as we
speak over the United States because I'm sitting here in Arkansas
and we never get Snow. We got 8 inches of snow over the last
four days. So. Yeah,
hashtag, no infrastructure.
>> Zach (02:29):
Um, my projects. It's a negative 20 right now.
>> Katie (02:33):
Yeah. And then all of California is unfortunately on fire.
And I don't say that jokingly. I say that. I mean, at this
point, it's like a hydra. You've got a new fire every
time one goes out, and I don't even know that they're able to put them out
anymore.
>> Zach (02:45):
Yeah, that'll probably be a future episode.
>> Katie (02:47):
So. Yeah, that's probably a future episode all about wildlife
and resource management and woods management and why we need more
foresters. I'm, uh, gonna go ahead and mint
this now. I. I said something the other day. Oh, let
me find the message, because I. I just want to.
Okay. In our discord, like, we
have. My friend group has a discord where we've got a strand
that's just politics and news, which is essentially just
(03:10):
people tagging me to be like, what's going
on? What's a gas stove? Like,
constantly. Um, and somebody
had mentioned. They said, I got
it right here in front of me. I. They were
like, what's going on with the wildfires in California? Like, what started
that? Like, was that a gender reveal gone wrong? And
(03:30):
so I just kind of, like, gave the update on what I had heard
from everybody and from different environmental organizations
and things of that nature, and I
said, I think that the governor of
California, Gavin Newsom, should just start hiring, like,
10,000 Foresters and park rangers for, like,
$65,000 a year and be like, your
job is solely to mitigate wildfires in
(03:52):
California. And somebody was like, well, for that
cost of living, they'd have to live in a commune. And I was
like, it's California.
You think they can't start a private
environmental forestry and, like, park fellowship
program paid for the donations of, like, all of
the wealthiest people in the world who live in the state.
>> Zach (04:12):
Yeah.
>> Katie (04:12):
Like, is that such a. Like, a crazy idea that we haven't figured
out how to hire enough people to put out wildfires? And the wealthiest
people in the world, I think, live in this state.
>> Zach (04:20):
I mean, a whole lot of. It's also water management, water
storage. I guess my personal barbs with California, uh,
and their water management style, how they really need to
redo their whole system and management style.
>> Katie (04:31):
Yeah.
>> Zach (04:31):
Going forward. It's a interesting issue that
we will need to address going forward. This will be a
very deeply reassured episode at some point.
>> Katie (04:40):
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's why I'm. And of course, pick a number
and get in line. I think that's why I'm as angry as I am,
because it's always in situations like this where I Think
I'm angry for multiple reasons. Because as with any
situation, you've got some of the wealthiest people in the world in
California, and yet the wildfire doesn't care
how much you make. It's. It's disproportionately. Well, I'm
not gonna say disproportionately. It's impacting people of
(05:02):
all, you know, wealth categories and, and
lifestyles. But it's doing
that because of mismanagement that's being shown
now. And I think that somebody had said, I
heard this on the news this morning. Somebody said something to the effect
of you all, it always takes a disaster or a
war or something like that to showcase just
(05:23):
how badly funds have been managed and
resources have been managed for years on
end. And so now people are digging up all this footage of,
oh, well, we don't have enough money to do that. Oh, well, the person who did that wasn't
actually all that qualified. Well, explain that to
the family of four who's lower income, working class, blue
collar, who just lost, like, what little they had
because you don't know how to push money around. That's a
(05:45):
crazy thought to me. And like, in. In
a state that prides itself on being like
an environmentalist, hippie, eco state, like,
gang.
Maybe y'all should sit down on this topic for a little bit.
Yeah.
>> Zach (05:58):
So, uh, we'll definitely get to that. Maybe it'll be next week's episode.
>> Katie (06:01):
Yeah, Peterson, feel free to cut as much of that as you want. That was kind of like an
off the cuff ramble. Sorry about that, bud. Okay,
getting in today's episode. That's not going to sound like an
unscripted ramble. Zach. Tell us a little bit
more. We're kicking off the New year. It looks like you've got some pretty interesting stuff
you want to chat about today. And of course, I will weigh in with my
two. Approximately two, uh, dollars and, well,
I guess like 2.3 cents adjusted for
(06:24):
inflation. Tell us a little bit about today's episode,
Zach.
>> Zach (06:28):
So we're having a major change in leadership
in America. And I thought it'd be
interesting to look at how this change in leadership has
affected other countries at the national level and how that
they have changed their policies on the environment and what impacts
they've had.
>> Katie (06:43):
Yeah, interesting. Let's hear about it
took two little.
>> Zach (06:47):
Case studies on Australia and
Brazil. So we'll start with Brazil.
They famously went from Jair
Bolsonaro, who was commonly called the
Trump of South America.
>> Katie (06:59):
Mhm.
>> Zach (07:01):
To Lula de Silva who is a
much more socialist, environmentally
focused president who has.
And Brazil's had a lot of corruption and stuff.
He's been tied and then untied and
then cleared by the courts. It's been very
confusing, you know, as you. As Brazilian politics.
>> Katie (07:19):
Yeah, as you do. Yeah. No. Well, not
just them either. Not just
their leaders either. It makes you feel any better.
>> Zach (07:30):
So every country experiences change when a
new national leader is elected. You'll be going
through the same with the election of President Donald Trump transitioning
from Joe Biden. And it's important to understand how that
power that the president or prime minister has
can impact policy and
change the direction nation takes on environmental
(07:50):
issues. So with
Brazil, they have the largest tropical rainforest
in the world and have one of the most diverse ecosystems known
to man. They are such a critical part
of the global environmental
ecosystem because of how dense
their biodiversity is.
(08:10):
Uh, I think it's in Brazil that you can. You have more
species per acre than you have
per acre of, like, trees than you have species of
trees in the entire US And Canada.
>> Katie (08:21):
Wow. Okay. Wow.
Yeah. So that's really like a wonderland for.
>> Zach (08:27):
Yeah.
>> Katie (08:27):
Forestry and animals and
ecosystems and conservation, folks. Okay.
>> Zach (08:32):
This is where evolution is happening.
Only the strongest survive, but.
>> Katie (08:40):
Right, right.
>> Zach (08:41):
Even the strongest die when you have deforestation
and slash and burn strategies to
increase farmland for soy and
cattle.
>> Katie (08:50):
So, yeah, survival of the fittest didn't account for mankind
goofing that for everybody else. Sorry about that, gang.
>> Zach (08:56):
So during Jair
Bolsonaro's time, he was not a believer in climate
change. He said, we preserve more
rainforest than any country in the world. And no country
has the right or moral right to talk about the
Amazon. You destroyed your own ecosystems was basically
like, don't talk to me about the Amazon. This is our
ecosystem. We'll take it. We'll do with it what we want.
(09:19):
And under Jair
Bolsonaro, they took a much more
exploitation strategy of the
Amazon and started opening more
mines, doing more slash and burn, opening more areas
for farming, and
really was not in a state of preservation.
He did defund a lot of the environmental ministries
(09:41):
and just reduced the impacts that the, uh,
environmental groups have on the running of the
nation. So under
Bolsonaro, there was a
52 to 59 increase
in deforestation, which is
levels that haven't been seen since 2000s when Lola was
(10:01):
working on reducing the deforestation when he was first elected
as president.
>> Katie (10:06):
Interesting.
>> Zach (10:08):
Just to start off, I have a
graph you can't see, but it's basically under Lula, you
can See a precipitous decline in the amount of
deforestation from
2003 to 2011.
And then once Bolsonaro takes office,
that graph just starts going right back up. It started. It
started increasing once Lulu was out of office before Bolsonaro,
(10:30):
but increased much more once Bolsonaro
took power. And it was also. It's also
part of the rhetoric and how he speaks
and the way he talks. Like in the US we had the issue
of Democrats appearing soft on
immigration and the way they spoke about it in the media,
which drove in more immigration during their
time. So under Bolsonaro, you had the
(10:52):
same effect of Bolsonaro was like, it's
time to get. Make your money, go in, do whatever you
want, do you can get access to this territory.
We're not going to punish you. We're going to allow you to do it. We're all for
this. Make as much money as possible. And people
understood that and went in and started slashing, burning,
and opening up more areas for farming,
(11:13):
mining, you know.
>> Katie (11:16):
Everything that wasn't conservation.
>> Zach (11:18):
Yes.
>> Katie (11:19):
Everything else, essentially.
>> Zach (11:22):
So in his first three years,
8.4 million acres disappeared from the
Amazon, which is the size of Belgium or
Maryland. And most
that area was slash and burned and turned into soy farms and cow
grazing. And there was
constant conflicts with local indigenous communities
that Bolsonaro didn't offer any protection to, which is
(11:45):
like something Brazil had historically been pushing for and, like,
protecting their local communities.
Give me one second. I got my cat's banging on.
>> Katie (11:54):
Yeah, mine did, too, at the exact same time yours
did.
>> Zach (11:57):
So the other doors open.
>> Katie (11:59):
I'm like, why synchronize Cat. Cat.
>> Zach (12:03):
It's a pool. Okay, walk out.
Are you good?
>> Katie (12:11):
Yes, sir.
>> Zach (12:14):
Yeah. So there's much more
conflict with indigenous communities and much less protections for
them, which something Brazil had been doing to
preserve more conservation and
give the rights of these lands to the communities so as
they know how best to operate them and keep the
ecosystems thriving. But, um,
(12:34):
Bolsonaro did away with all that. There was
much less protection.
>> Katie (12:40):
That is so crazy. I always feel like. And maybe,
maybe you're. You're different than me, Zach. I don't know. But I
feel like when we were kids,
like, so much of, like, cartoons and media,
like, direct, like, aimed at kids, like, even like
Nat Geo kids and stuff like that was
like, do you know the joke, how we were like, man, I thought
(13:00):
quicksand was going to be a much bigger deal as an adult than
it actually is because of what I was taught as a kid. I
feel like that with the Amazon rainforest. Like,
people never shut up about the Amazon when we were
kids, about how important it was, about how we had to
protect the Amazon, we had to protect the rainforest. Like,
I mean, like, go, Diego, go. Stuff like that. And
(13:21):
I was like, man, we're gonna have this rainforest thing all figured out by the time
I become an adult.
Nope. Psych. So it's kind of
strange, like, looking at it as an adult being like, oh, man.
Yeah, they were, they were hard at work on that when we were kids.
All we ever heard about as kids was the, the rainforest,
working on the rainforest and nope, we're still working on the
rainforest. Yikes.
>> Zach (13:40):
Yeah, it, it hasn't gotten much
better. They have not stopped deforestation,
they've only slowed deforestation.
>> Katie (13:49):
Yeah. Crazy that I'm gonna be telling my kids about the
rainforest. That's just nuts to think about.
>> Zach (13:55):
Back in my day.
>> Katie (13:56):
Yeah, when we were kids, we were going to have that all
sorted out. So hopefully it'll be all sorted
out by the time you have kids.
We'll see. Yikes.
>> Zach (14:08):
But on a positive note, since L.
Da Silva was elected in
2019.
>> Katie (14:15):
Mhm.
>> Zach (14:16):
Deforestation has gone down by
62% this first year.
He still has a long way to go and is facing a lot of internal political
conflicts. Bolsonaro's party, I think, still has a
strong coalition in their
congress. So he can't run, he
can't implement all his strategies and, uh,
(14:37):
legislation that he wants, but they have successfully
reduced deforestation and a lot of it is just
rebuilding from what Bolsonaro sort of took
away. Because when a person like Bolsonaro comes
in, you have a brain drain in your
industries that he's targeting. So everyone who was part of
the environmental ministry left. So now he's having to recruit
and rebuild that ministry from the ground
(14:59):
up. And so,
you know, now that I, uh.
>> Katie (15:04):
I'm sorry to cut you off, Zach. Now that I think about it, I wonder if that's something we
kind of take for granted being in America. Because in a lot
of these other countries, when you see a leader who's not very pro
environment takeover, all the environmental people
leave and they go somewhere else, presumably the
U.S. and now we're about to have a not so pro
environment leader take over. And I don't think anybody's
going anywhere, you know,
(15:27):
well, maybe Canada until we annex them, um, to be
the 51st state if we don't get Greenland first. Um,
oh, that also happened.
>> Zach (15:35):
We'll see what happens with Doge and them making everyone Come back into
the office.
>> Katie (15:41):
I wonder what's gonna go on on that.
Yeah, so maybe they won't go to.
But maybe they'll like join another. I have no idea. Who
knows? I don't know.
Time will tell and I don't even want to begin to guess.
>> Zach (15:55):
Yeah. So
Lula is working on rebuilding their organizations,
but he's also working on making
Brazil the fourth largest export of oil in the world.
Currently, I think they're eighth or ninth. And
this is odd with it at odds with his environmental agenda,
which he's trying to work on. It's important
(16:16):
to see that each president doesn't have total control
and they do have limits to their power and
there is nuance to every president and how they're going to
implement their strategies. And they're
balancing, working on the economy, working on the
environment. The environment's not always going to be a top priority, which
it usually isn't going to be. And it might go to
(16:36):
the wayside for improving exports,
improving other industries
and growing the economy. So
it's, it's interesting to look at how these uh, leaders
weigh their options and how they implement strategies
when faced with these different, um,
issues.
>> Katie (16:55):
Interesting. Yeah. And it's really interesting to see how like,
especially in this government where things are like, pretty
contentious between two primary players, that you'll see
a balance on their environmental policy of
oh, well, if I'm going to do one thing pro environment, I'm going to do one thing
fossil fuel or pro fossil fuel to
hopefully win over the biggest swath of people
imaginable. So that's uh, a really
(17:17):
interesting strategy of balancing those
initiatives.
>> Zach (17:21):
Yeah.
Well now, taking a trip down under, we're going to
take a look at the impact
of Anthony Albanese in
Australia. In May
2022, the Australian PM position was
handed over from Scott Morrison to Anthony Albanese
in what some people in the media called the climate
(17:42):
election in Australia. This was an election
where the Green parties and a new party,
the Teals, came in and
took some power in the Parliament, in the parliament and
got some influence and huge campaigning on, uh,
the environment. This is a major part of Albanese's
campaign and he hasn't
(18:02):
been all, uh, he, we. He was brought,
brought up to be.
>> Katie (18:06):
I was about to say, I don't even think I've heard of him since he won the election.
Yikes.
>> Zach (18:10):
Yeah. So many people in Australia
voted with an emphasis on climate change and reducing Australian
emissions, as they're currently the
highest emitter per person in the G20
more than the US and China and just
squeaking out Saudi Arabia.
>> Katie (18:25):
Oh, my Lord. What are they doing in Australia?
Go one. Oh, come
on. Australia.
>> Zach (18:32):
They sell coal to, uh, China. Lots of coal to China.
>> Katie (18:36):
Australia. I think guys were supposed to
destroy climate change, not join them.
>> Zach (18:42):
Yeah. So
Albany's campaigned on climate change. It was used as
a. Viewed as a huge climate change candidate,
stating I want to join the global effort and together
we can end the climate wars. But
has been kind of lackluster in that.
>> Katie (18:58):
Yeah, it's.
>> Zach (19:00):
So the one. One thing they
did was they enshrined into law a
target to cut emissions by
43% by 2030, up from the
26 to 28 cut that was
planned, which is the equivalent to
eliminating emissions from Australia's
entire transport or agricultural
(19:21):
sector. But
words aren't legislation. They're not
action. And many have been disappointed
by what has actually been implemented and
feel that there's been no significant progress
actually being pushed forward. And it's been more of
just the same old, same old.
>> Katie (19:42):
Nah, man. You mean that campaign slogan didn't transfer over
into a perfect bill?
>> Zach (19:46):
That's crazy.
>> Katie (19:47):
That's nuts. Who could have anticipated that
live while he was campaigning?
>> Zach (19:53):
Wow.
>> Katie (19:53):
To get votes. That's
nuts, man. Why didn't I think of that?
>> Zach (20:00):
So a lot of critics that voted for him are
concerned that he m. Made some
allusions to preventing new coal
and oil and gas projects, which has not
happened. Currently, only about
30% of Australia's electricity comes from renewable sources,
which.
>> Katie (20:18):
Wow, that's bad. That's really bad.
Oh, gosh.
>> Zach (20:23):
Considering like they're one of the sunniest places
in the world and it's just always sunny and
hot there.
>> Katie (20:29):
Yeah. Yeah.
>> Zach (20:32):
And solar is far cheaper
for, uh, residents to do. They don't have like an onerous
regulations like we do in the U.S. it's like
a permit's like an app you. Or a thing
you do online with your phone. It takes like
10 minutes.
>> Katie (20:47):
Let me. And. And you would think that like
they'd also have wind to some extent.
Right. With uh, so much of. You know what, Before
I show just how stupid I am, let me go ahead
and Google. Ah, Australia. Wind
turbines. Wind map. Wind
turbines. Wind energy.
(21:07):
Wind.
>> Zach (21:10):
Yeah, they have the.
>> Katie (21:12):
Yeah. Has, uh, has offshore
and onshore wind farms to
growing source of energy in Australia. I was about to say y'all
ain't got no excuse for not having wind or solar
at least.
>> Zach (21:25):
Yeah. So it's growing, but it hasn't
taken the huge uptick that people were hoping for.
And considering they have the
Amazon, uh, of the ocean in the Great Barrier
Reef. They have a lot of reason to
protect. Protect that and the
tourism that brings in, which is a huge money driver in Australia.
But they have a goal to get
(21:48):
to 80, 82 renewables by the end of the
decade. But as we said before, goals
are not action. Goals are not plans. Goals are just words.
It's. If you don't make any
progress, any movement towards your goal, you're not doing anything.
What's the point of the goal then?
>> Katie (22:03):
Not to mention, and I mean this with all due respect,
that is an insane goal.
>> Zach (22:08):
Yeah.
>> Katie (22:11):
82 by 2030.
>> Zach (22:13):
Aren't.
>> Katie (22:13):
Ah, we hoping for, like, 50 by,
like, 2050 or
something like that? And they're like,
yeah. Oh, my Lord. Like,
what. What's the go. There was like, a 2035 goal. There was
like, a 2050 goal. I mean, we're not gonna hit them. Sorry.
But it doesn't matter. Um, and.
Sorry, I don't think we're gonna hit them, but I
(22:36):
definitely think Australia is probably not going to hit that
82% in the next five years.
Good luck, gang.
>> Zach (22:43):
Yeah. So without any major progress
towards environmental policy, the Labor Party can
expect major election challenges from the Greens
and teals in the 2012. In the
2025 election. M. So this year. So
they're under threat to lose a lot of power if they
don't take major action.
>> Katie (23:01):
Well, that's a good thing. I mean, that's kind of like. I mean,
Zach, uh, hell, we've been saying it for the last six months.
I mean, something like that is almost like
capitalism, innovation and competition
is going to let voters figure out. Okay,
you know. Yeah. I mean, and we saw it. I'm just going to say it.
I'm not a Donald Trump fan, but we saw it this election cycle. People
(23:22):
were so mad at how things were that they were willing to
vote for literally anything and everything. That wasn't how
things have been.
>> Zach (23:29):
Yes.
>> Katie (23:29):
So I. I don't think that's exclusive to Americans.
>> Zach (23:32):
Yeah. This is the change. These are the change
elections these past couple years.
>> Katie (23:37):
Yes.
>> Zach (23:37):
Every government, right, the incumbents have
just been getting kicked out left and right,
bigger than everyone expects.
>> Katie (23:45):
The polls so much over
the last six months in particular, that if a country
was having an election, either, like,
the extreme version of who they thought good or bad was
going to be elected, was elected. And the people that you've
seen around for, like, decades
were completely, like, told, okay,
(24:05):
we're sick of you. Like, like, if you were
symbolizing the things that we've had, it ain't enough. It ain't worth
it. And I'm hearing this from like all
other countries. And I mean, I'm not saying like I have
ops and all these. No, like I don't, I don't have
sleeper cell agents in all these countries. But if you
just browse social media and like a YouTube comment
section, you start finding people all over
(24:27):
the world complaining about the exact same things,
saying the exact same stuff. It's not just exclusive to us. I know
in a lot of Western American media we think, oh man,
this, everything that's happening is because of us. I don't know about that. I just
know that everybody's having the exact same problem right now.
>> Zach (24:41):
Inflation was a major global issue and every
nation is facing the consequences.
>> Katie (24:46):
People are bad.
>> Zach (24:47):
Yeah, Parker Bug issues.
>> Katie (24:50):
Yep.
>> Zach (24:51):
It's the economy, stupid.
>> Katie (24:53):
M. It literally is. And that's
exactly what happened.
>> Zach (24:57):
So this inaction in Australia by
Albanese is eerily similar. Similar to lack of progress made
under Scott Morrison in the Liberal Party. Gets m. A
little confusing with their different name of parties.
>> Katie (25:07):
Mhm.
>> Zach (25:09):
So Albanese is at least said the right things.
But under Scott Morrison they, they were, they had
no plan, no action, no interest reducing
emissions. They're heavily supported by the fossil fuel industries and
the mining industries, which is a major part of the
Australian economy and major donors to
politics, which is why it's hard
for governments to take a stand against these
(25:31):
industries.
>> Katie (25:31):
Mhm.
>> Zach (25:33):
And Scott Morrison often referenced
future technologies as way to address climate change
and basically made no active plans. Was
famous for bringing coal into Parliament.
So they got an improvement in
verbiage but not an improvement in action.
So it's interesting to see how these two, uh,
(25:53):
presidential changes or. Yeah, presidential and prime minister
changes contrast in Lula.
>> Katie (25:59):
Ah.
>> Zach (25:59):
And Albanese.
Lula made a major difference right away on
deforestation, whereas Albanese has
said all the right things but had very little
impact.
>> Katie (26:11):
I think you've made an interesting point though, Zach. Uh, and this is something that
we're going to start seeing in the next few election cycles. I
think before a lot of politicians,
regardless of their political leaning, were not talking about climate change
to the extent that they were now. And so I think a lot of
voters could just say either A, they don't know
about that topic or B, they just don't know better about
that topic. So I'm not going to, I'm going to kind of be
(26:34):
merciful on migrating of their climate
concerns in that area. But now that you've got a lot of
politicians who are talking the talk,
but don't walk the walk. Shows that they
know better, shows that they know what the problem
is and what the solutions are. They just don't care.
And so I think that that's why you're seeing such a visceral
reaction from so many voters, especially
(26:57):
in the last couple of cycles. Because I think this
uptick in communication about
climate change and environmental issues from politicians who
then do nothing about it when they're elected is
starting to showcase that a lot of these people have known for quite a long
time. They're just willing to say whatever they have
to to get their position
reelected.
>> Zach (27:17):
Yeah, yeah. And it's
do you trust the honest man who's saying what you don't want, or do you trust the
man who's lying, who's saying what you do want?
>> Katie (27:25):
Exactly. And I think a lot of voters are going to start
ynn now
it's.
>> Zach (27:31):
Interesting looking at how these top leaders
have impacted their environment policies. And
now we will have the fortune to look
at how Trump will change Biden's
environmental policies and the differences that are going to happen
once the keys, uh, of the White House change
hands.
Like, it'll be interesting to see
(27:53):
what Trump does with the Inflation Reduction act if he's
actually going to start tear, if he's going to tear it down or if
he's going to try and tweak it. He does
have all,
all political forms of power are in
Republican hands now. Judicial,
House Representatives, Senate president.
(28:14):
So there is no reason that Trump can't have his
total complete stamp on environmental policies.
>> Katie (28:19):
And now. Go ahead, go ahead. I didn't mean to cut you off.
Go ahead.
>> Zach (28:23):
And we'll just have to see. Will, will
Republicans representatives argue for, for the
environment policies that are helping their districts and the money
they're getting from the Inflation Reduction act, or will they say,
all right, you got it, Trump. We'll, we'll take this out. No
problem. Get rid of this.
>> Katie (28:38):
M yeah, I'm going to make a Nostradamus
prediction here and maybe I'm like, totally and completely wrong. So go ahead
and jot this one down as one of the crystal ball
moments to fact check in the future game.
But I, I, I, uh, really have to wonder because
we've already started to see, like, the beginning of
fractures in the gop, especially
over the last couple months, with some of the things that
(29:00):
Elon Musk has talked about that
some conservative members of Congress did not agree
with. So we've already kind of started to see some
butting heads there. I wonder if climate
and the Inflation Reduction act is going to be another one of those
tension points or one of those fracture points.
Because Mike, uh, Johnson had kind of raised this, I guess
about a month ago about, you know, the Inflation
(29:22):
Reduction act is too costly. This is just a load of
baloney. We just need to get rid of this. And then a lot
of Republicans and red states that got money for
the Inflation Reduction act, like hold on, wait a minute.
Someday, right? We already got that money.
Can we just keep that money? So I,
I genuinely wonder, Zach, if this is going to be one of
(29:43):
those points where they were like, yeah, but
so I mean, I mean clearly money is the name of the
game for the Republican Party and
you can have a productive
capitalistic economy without
sacrificing your environmentally friendly
morality. I think it's just finding a way to marry
(30:03):
the two in a way that speaks to conservatives. Instead of having
a, what, a few billion dollar price
tag on a capstone piece of
legislation that you pass that then has benefits after
the fact, I think it can be done a lot more intelligently. So
I'm hoping that by having the wizard of
Electric Vehicles elected as the best
buddy, um, we'll see a
(30:25):
push in that. So I don't know, maybe that's just
my way out there. You heard it here first on Green Tea Party
Radio. Katie's an Astradamus prediction. Is
it eco might actually get more prevalent now
that Elon is higher up in the government than he ever
could have been before?
>> Zach (30:41):
I think it'll be interesting to see what Elon's influence will be.
Yeah, but there's a question of does
Elon just want to shut the door behind him now that he's
the entrenched EV in the U.S. uh, just kind.
>> Katie (30:53):
Of like monopolize it by being friends with
the President, you know, like, like do you, do you want to make your
stuff better by comparing it to other people or do you only want your
stuff to be sold?
>> Zach (31:03):
The theory I've heard from people who work at Tesla is
that he is willing to trade the subsidy
EV subsidies that his company gets and that every
company would get get rid of those in
order to get more
rights on, uh, and an easier review of the
full self driving and a faster
(31:23):
allowance of that to go more public.
>> Katie (31:26):
I have a better idea for you, Zach.
We can give Elon all of those things as long
as every cybertruck is destroyed and all
production is halted on them immediately.
And if you can guarantee me that in writing. You can
study whatever the hell you want to study, so long as I never
have to look at another cybertruck ever again. Hey, I got a better
(31:47):
idea. Let's take all the cyber trucks and only
self. And only study the self driving on them
so if they crash, we don't lose anything.
There it is. Elon. Call me
501-618-0234
and yeah, I don't care. No,
give him my number. The whole planet can have my number if there's a
chance that we're going to get rid of the cyber
(32:10):
truck. Love Ev
cannot get over how ugly the cybertruck is. Yeah.
>> Zach (32:15):
I'm so interesting predicament for Trump to. And
Republicans in Congress.
>> Katie (32:19):
Yeah.
>> Zach (32:20):
What they're going to do with all this money they have going into
their Going into mainly rural and Republican districts
and whether they're just going to throw that away to
appease Trump's ego.
>> Katie (32:31):
Yeah. Or if he just renames it something pro
Trump so that they don't think, oh, I'm getting
bucks.
>> Zach (32:37):
Yeah. You know the Trump
Saves the Environment Act.
>> Katie (32:41):
Yeah. Yeah. You know what? Let's do it. If that's.
What if that's the name we got to put on it to get it to happen.
Okay, go ahead.
>> Zach (32:49):
And uh, I've seen similar things like that with the, uh,
reframing of the carbon
carbon border feed adjustment and calling it
the carbon tariff. Being like this is a carbon
tariff on foreign countries that flew too much like China.
>> Katie (33:03):
Yeah.
>> Zach (33:04):
I'm sure Trump appears that he's like, oh, that's.
>> Katie (33:06):
That sounds. Tariffs on China.
>> Zach (33:08):
Yeah, I can keep buying that.
>> Katie (33:09):
Yeah. I mean, man, if that's all we got to do to get people to
sign on to. You can take the word carbon out of it, man. Just make it the
Patriot Environmental act or something like that. Slap the
word Patriot Eagle America, Mount Rushmore
in there. The Teddy Roosevelt Patriot Trump Act. I
don't care. Call it whatever you want to call it.
The we hate China because they're polluting
(33:29):
like crazy act. I don't care. The suck this
India and China act again, I don't care whatever we
gotta call it or whoever we gotta please to get the
going. That's what I'm fine with. Call it
whatever, I don't care. Yeah. So I, uh,
there's another Nostradamus prediction if Trump is going to rename
some of the, uh, Biden environmental stuff that
(33:49):
benefits rural and red districts to, you know,
further his legacy on that. I don't know. Again, I don't care.
Just get it done.
>> Zach (33:57):
All right. Should we do our hit? Our
closing?
>> Katie (34:01):
Yes, I think we've got a few action steps,
just a few simple ones to ease you back
into the saddle at the beginning of the year. We've, uh, got a
few simple ones here. Write your member of Congress. If
you've got a new member of Congress, write your old member
of Congress. Thank them if they were involved in any
climate work or tell them how much you appreciated their
(34:21):
work representing you. And if you're getting a new member
of Congress, reach out, introduce yourself, let them know that you're a
young conservative who's concerned about the environment and climate change and
that you look forward to helping, uh, your new Member
of Congress's office and being an informative constituent
as much as you can. Just a little something to get the ball rolling.
Be sure to share this episode on your social media feed
(34:42):
and share your opinion about this topic. What do you think about some of
the stuff that we've talked about? What are some of your predictions for once
this administration changes and climate change and
environment here in the United States? We'd love to hear from you
more on Twitter. Uh, it's GTP Radio
Show, I think. No, maybe G.T. i don't know. Let
me, let me. What is our Twitter? I. I fought.
(35:02):
You know what, Elon Musk, you can have
all the studies you want
if you give me the Twitter handle. I
want it is GTP
radio show because uh, some other
GTPR with like 3 followers already existed and
if I find. Find you, you better pray I don't.
(35:23):
Yeah, so there you go. Reach out to us on social media.
Let us know what you think. Let us know what's on your mind. Share our
stuff. We're going to be more active on social media this year. Some things are
going to change. So get excited for
that. Okay. And
let me. Before we read our closing, let me. I'm
just going to copy and paste the one that we have from the old document that's
(35:43):
already formatted from a two person episode so we don't have to
stumble through it because I it up every time
for you our listener. Email us with your
thoughts. Our email is info
greent party radio.com.
>> Zach (35:58):
Thank you for listening to Green Tea Party Radio and a very special
thank you to all of our patrons. We couldn't do this without you.
If you're interested in getting early access episodes as well as Green Tea Party
Radio merch, check us out @greent party
radio.com if your feedback tell us what's
on your mind. And follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and
TikTok.
>> Katie (36:16):
And just so you know, this is our passion project. We
don't have any organizational sponsor. No George
Soros, nobody on the left funding us to be
sleeper cells.
What?
>> Zach (36:28):
Elon.
>> Katie (36:30):
Yeah. Uh, Elon. Elon. We could have a sponsor.
Elon. That email is
infogreenc40radio.com. No, but seriously, we don't
have a organizational sponsor. Um, we're just a group
of young people that are building a movement because we want the world to know that
conservatives have important things, things to say about climate change. And
just a reminder, Green Tea Party Radio is not
representative of the Diocese of Little Rock Catholic Climate
(36:52):
Covenant, or any of our employers.
>> Zach (36:55):
And if you want to hear our show on your college radio
station, email
us@infoeenteapartyradio.com
give us the details about your campus and your radio station. That, uh,
email, again, is info greent
partyradio.com thanks for
listening.
>> Katie (37:11):
Thank you for listening.
>> Zach (37:13):
All right, let's work.
>> Katie (37:14):
Zach. Let me hit stop here, Peterson.
>> Zach (37:17):
First episode of the year in the books.
>> Katie (37:18):
We did it. We nailed it.
Hello, and welcome to the Green Tea Party, where we discuss
conservative solutions to environmental problems. My name is Zach
Torpy.
>> Katie (00:07):
And I'm Katie Zakreski. Together, we'll guide you
through complex issues and provide strategies to address
them all while remaining faithful to our conservative
values.
>> Zach (00:16):
Trust me, it'll be a good time.
>> Katie (00:18):
Yeah, it's a party, so grab your mugs and
we'll pour the tea.
Well, Zach, we survived 2024. I never
thought we were going to be able to say that, because there has been
a ton of stuff happen since we last recorded an
episode and since we last talked.
>> Zach (00:33):
Yeah. It's been an
eventful, what, a couple months?
>> Katie (00:38):
Yep. Uh, for
election. Yeah. For all of our listeners, we are still the
United States of America. Let's see if that's the
case by the time this episode comes
out, because of how quickly things are changing. And,
Zach, it seems like since we last
talked, there's been upheaval all
(00:58):
over the place. I know we hadn't originally decided to talk
about this for banter, but I'm thinking just in the last,
what, month and a half since we've recorded
an episode, you've had a
military coup that lasted all of, like, six hours in
South Korea.
Trudeau stepped down, like, in the middle of
nowhere. Trump got
(01:20):
reelected by margins that are, like, absolutely
insane. Nobody predicted it.
Completely disproved the media. And that dude from Harvard
who's been predicting presidents, like, he's Punxsutawney
Phil for the last 40 years. And
I know I'm missing something else. There's been all sorts of
stuff in the Middle east, all sorts of
(01:40):
stuff all throughout Europe.
>> Zach (01:42):
Uh, became the first buddy.
>> Katie (01:43):
Yeah. Elon became the first
buddy in charge of a Meme Department name.
If you'd have told me in 2016, when Harambe died,
that this is where we would be in 2025, I wouldn't have
believed you confirming that Harambe was the
anchor being for our timeline. Um,
so unfortunately, we are only going
(02:03):
downhill from here. But. Yeah, no, it's been crazy
stuff. I mean, not just here, so take heart in that. Or
maybe be terrified of that.
>> Zach (02:10):
Yeah. And currently half of the country is on
fire while the other half is freezing.
>> Katie (02:16):
Yeah. Heat Miser and Snow Miser are duking it out as we
speak over the United States because I'm sitting here in Arkansas
and we never get Snow. We got 8 inches of snow over the last
four days. So. Yeah,
hashtag, no infrastructure.
>> Zach (02:29):
Um, my projects. It's a negative 20 right now.
>> Katie (02:33):
Yeah. And then all of California is unfortunately on fire.
And I don't say that jokingly. I say that. I mean, at this
point, it's like a hydra. You've got a new fire every
time one goes out, and I don't even know that they're able to put them out
anymore.
>> Zach (02:45):
Yeah, that'll probably be a future episode.
>> Katie (02:47):
So. Yeah, that's probably a future episode all about wildlife
and resource management and woods management and why we need more
foresters. I'm, uh, gonna go ahead and mint
this now. I. I said something the other day. Oh, let
me find the message, because I. I just want to.
Okay. In our discord, like, we
have. My friend group has a discord where we've got a strand
that's just politics and news, which is essentially just
(03:10):
people tagging me to be like, what's going
on? What's a gas stove? Like,
constantly. Um, and somebody
had mentioned. They said, I got
it right here in front of me. I. They were
like, what's going on with the wildfires in California? Like, what started
that? Like, was that a gender reveal gone wrong? And
(03:30):
so I just kind of, like, gave the update on what I had heard
from everybody and from different environmental organizations
and things of that nature, and I
said, I think that the governor of
California, Gavin Newsom, should just start hiring, like,
10,000 Foresters and park rangers for, like,
$65,000 a year and be like, your
job is solely to mitigate wildfires in
(03:52):
California. And somebody was like, well, for that
cost of living, they'd have to live in a commune. And I was
like, it's California.
You think they can't start a private
environmental forestry and, like, park fellowship
program paid for the donations of, like, all of
the wealthiest people in the world who live in the state.
>> Zach (04:12):
Yeah.
>> Katie (04:12):
Like, is that such a. Like, a crazy idea that we haven't figured
out how to hire enough people to put out wildfires? And the wealthiest
people in the world, I think, live in this state.
>> Zach (04:20):
I mean, a whole lot of. It's also water management, water
storage. I guess my personal barbs with California, uh,
and their water management style, how they really need to
redo their whole system and management style.
>> Katie (04:31):
Yeah.
>> Zach (04:31):
Going forward. It's a interesting issue that
we will need to address going forward. This will be a
very deeply reassured episode at some point.
>> Katie (04:40):
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's why I'm. And of course, pick a number
and get in line. I think that's why I'm as angry as I am,
because it's always in situations like this where I Think
I'm angry for multiple reasons. Because as with any
situation, you've got some of the wealthiest people in the world in
California, and yet the wildfire doesn't care
how much you make. It's. It's disproportionately. Well, I'm
not gonna say disproportionately. It's impacting people of
(05:02):
all, you know, wealth categories and, and
lifestyles. But it's doing
that because of mismanagement that's being shown
now. And I think that somebody had said, I
heard this on the news this morning. Somebody said something to the effect
of you all, it always takes a disaster or a
war or something like that to showcase just
(05:23):
how badly funds have been managed and
resources have been managed for years on
end. And so now people are digging up all this footage of,
oh, well, we don't have enough money to do that. Oh, well, the person who did that wasn't
actually all that qualified. Well, explain that to
the family of four who's lower income, working class, blue
collar, who just lost, like, what little they had
because you don't know how to push money around. That's a
(05:45):
crazy thought to me. And like, in. In
a state that prides itself on being like
an environmentalist, hippie, eco state, like,
gang.
Maybe y'all should sit down on this topic for a little bit.
Yeah.
>> Zach (05:58):
So, uh, we'll definitely get to that. Maybe it'll be next week's episode.
>> Katie (06:01):
Yeah, Peterson, feel free to cut as much of that as you want. That was kind of like an
off the cuff ramble. Sorry about that, bud. Okay,
getting in today's episode. That's not going to sound like an
unscripted ramble. Zach. Tell us a little bit
more. We're kicking off the New year. It looks like you've got some pretty interesting stuff
you want to chat about today. And of course, I will weigh in with my
two. Approximately two, uh, dollars and, well,
I guess like 2.3 cents adjusted for
(06:24):
inflation. Tell us a little bit about today's episode,
Zach.
>> Zach (06:28):
So we're having a major change in leadership
in America. And I thought it'd be
interesting to look at how this change in leadership has
affected other countries at the national level and how that
they have changed their policies on the environment and what impacts
they've had.
>> Katie (06:43):
Yeah, interesting. Let's hear about it
took two little.
>> Zach (06:47):
Case studies on Australia and
Brazil. So we'll start with Brazil.
They famously went from Jair
Bolsonaro, who was commonly called the
Trump of South America.
>> Katie (06:59):
Mhm.
>> Zach (07:01):
To Lula de Silva who is a
much more socialist, environmentally
focused president who has.
And Brazil's had a lot of corruption and stuff.
He's been tied and then untied and
then cleared by the courts. It's been very
confusing, you know, as you. As Brazilian politics.
>> Katie (07:19):
Yeah, as you do. Yeah. No. Well, not
just them either. Not just
their leaders either. It makes you feel any better.
>> Zach (07:30):
So every country experiences change when a
new national leader is elected. You'll be going
through the same with the election of President Donald Trump transitioning
from Joe Biden. And it's important to understand how that
power that the president or prime minister has
can impact policy and
change the direction nation takes on environmental
(07:50):
issues. So with
Brazil, they have the largest tropical rainforest
in the world and have one of the most diverse ecosystems known
to man. They are such a critical part
of the global environmental
ecosystem because of how dense
their biodiversity is.
(08:10):
Uh, I think it's in Brazil that you can. You have more
species per acre than you have
per acre of, like, trees than you have species of
trees in the entire US And Canada.
>> Katie (08:21):
Wow. Okay. Wow.
Yeah. So that's really like a wonderland for.
>> Zach (08:27):
Yeah.
>> Katie (08:27):
Forestry and animals and
ecosystems and conservation, folks. Okay.
>> Zach (08:32):
This is where evolution is happening.
Only the strongest survive, but.
>> Katie (08:40):
Right, right.
>> Zach (08:41):
Even the strongest die when you have deforestation
and slash and burn strategies to
increase farmland for soy and
cattle.
>> Katie (08:50):
So, yeah, survival of the fittest didn't account for mankind
goofing that for everybody else. Sorry about that, gang.
>> Zach (08:56):
So during Jair
Bolsonaro's time, he was not a believer in climate
change. He said, we preserve more
rainforest than any country in the world. And no country
has the right or moral right to talk about the
Amazon. You destroyed your own ecosystems was basically
like, don't talk to me about the Amazon. This is our
ecosystem. We'll take it. We'll do with it what we want.
(09:19):
And under Jair
Bolsonaro, they took a much more
exploitation strategy of the
Amazon and started opening more
mines, doing more slash and burn, opening more areas
for farming, and
really was not in a state of preservation.
He did defund a lot of the environmental ministries
(09:41):
and just reduced the impacts that the, uh,
environmental groups have on the running of the
nation. So under
Bolsonaro, there was a
52 to 59 increase
in deforestation, which is
levels that haven't been seen since 2000s when Lola was
(10:01):
working on reducing the deforestation when he was first elected
as president.
>> Katie (10:06):
Interesting.
>> Zach (10:08):
Just to start off, I have a
graph you can't see, but it's basically under Lula, you
can See a precipitous decline in the amount of
deforestation from
2003 to 2011.
And then once Bolsonaro takes office,
that graph just starts going right back up. It started. It
started increasing once Lulu was out of office before Bolsonaro,
(10:30):
but increased much more once Bolsonaro
took power. And it was also. It's also
part of the rhetoric and how he speaks
and the way he talks. Like in the US we had the issue
of Democrats appearing soft on
immigration and the way they spoke about it in the media,
which drove in more immigration during their
time. So under Bolsonaro, you had the
(10:52):
same effect of Bolsonaro was like, it's
time to get. Make your money, go in, do whatever you
want, do you can get access to this territory.
We're not going to punish you. We're going to allow you to do it. We're all for
this. Make as much money as possible. And people
understood that and went in and started slashing, burning,
and opening up more areas for farming,
(11:13):
mining, you know.
>> Katie (11:16):
Everything that wasn't conservation.
>> Zach (11:18):
Yes.
>> Katie (11:19):
Everything else, essentially.
>> Zach (11:22):
So in his first three years,
8.4 million acres disappeared from the
Amazon, which is the size of Belgium or
Maryland. And most
that area was slash and burned and turned into soy farms and cow
grazing. And there was
constant conflicts with local indigenous communities
that Bolsonaro didn't offer any protection to, which is
(11:45):
like something Brazil had historically been pushing for and, like,
protecting their local communities.
Give me one second. I got my cat's banging on.
>> Katie (11:54):
Yeah, mine did, too, at the exact same time yours
did.
>> Zach (11:57):
So the other doors open.
>> Katie (11:59):
I'm like, why synchronize Cat. Cat.
>> Zach (12:03):
It's a pool. Okay, walk out.
Are you good?
>> Katie (12:11):
Yes, sir.
>> Zach (12:14):
Yeah. So there's much more
conflict with indigenous communities and much less protections for
them, which something Brazil had been doing to
preserve more conservation and
give the rights of these lands to the communities so as
they know how best to operate them and keep the
ecosystems thriving. But, um,
(12:34):
Bolsonaro did away with all that. There was
much less protection.
>> Katie (12:40):
That is so crazy. I always feel like. And maybe,
maybe you're. You're different than me, Zach. I don't know. But I
feel like when we were kids,
like, so much of, like, cartoons and media,
like, direct, like, aimed at kids, like, even like
Nat Geo kids and stuff like that was
like, do you know the joke, how we were like, man, I thought
(13:00):
quicksand was going to be a much bigger deal as an adult than
it actually is because of what I was taught as a kid. I
feel like that with the Amazon rainforest. Like,
people never shut up about the Amazon when we were
kids, about how important it was, about how we had to
protect the Amazon, we had to protect the rainforest. Like,
I mean, like, go, Diego, go. Stuff like that. And
(13:21):
I was like, man, we're gonna have this rainforest thing all figured out by the time
I become an adult.
Nope. Psych. So it's kind of
strange, like, looking at it as an adult being like, oh, man.
Yeah, they were, they were hard at work on that when we were kids.
All we ever heard about as kids was the, the rainforest,
working on the rainforest and nope, we're still working on the
rainforest. Yikes.
>> Zach (13:40):
Yeah, it, it hasn't gotten much
better. They have not stopped deforestation,
they've only slowed deforestation.
>> Katie (13:49):
Yeah. Crazy that I'm gonna be telling my kids about the
rainforest. That's just nuts to think about.
>> Zach (13:55):
Back in my day.
>> Katie (13:56):
Yeah, when we were kids, we were going to have that all
sorted out. So hopefully it'll be all sorted
out by the time you have kids.
We'll see. Yikes.
>> Zach (14:08):
But on a positive note, since L.
Da Silva was elected in
2019.
>> Katie (14:15):
Mhm.
>> Zach (14:16):
Deforestation has gone down by
62% this first year.
He still has a long way to go and is facing a lot of internal political
conflicts. Bolsonaro's party, I think, still has a
strong coalition in their
congress. So he can't run, he
can't implement all his strategies and, uh,
(14:37):
legislation that he wants, but they have successfully
reduced deforestation and a lot of it is just
rebuilding from what Bolsonaro sort of took
away. Because when a person like Bolsonaro comes
in, you have a brain drain in your
industries that he's targeting. So everyone who was part of
the environmental ministry left. So now he's having to recruit
and rebuild that ministry from the ground
(14:59):
up. And so,
you know, now that I, uh.
>> Katie (15:04):
I'm sorry to cut you off, Zach. Now that I think about it, I wonder if that's something we
kind of take for granted being in America. Because in a lot
of these other countries, when you see a leader who's not very pro
environment takeover, all the environmental people
leave and they go somewhere else, presumably the
U.S. and now we're about to have a not so pro
environment leader take over. And I don't think anybody's
going anywhere, you know,
(15:27):
well, maybe Canada until we annex them, um, to be
the 51st state if we don't get Greenland first. Um,
oh, that also happened.
>> Zach (15:35):
We'll see what happens with Doge and them making everyone Come back into
the office.
>> Katie (15:41):
I wonder what's gonna go on on that.
Yeah, so maybe they won't go to.
But maybe they'll like join another. I have no idea. Who
knows? I don't know.
Time will tell and I don't even want to begin to guess.
>> Zach (15:55):
Yeah. So
Lula is working on rebuilding their organizations,
but he's also working on making
Brazil the fourth largest export of oil in the world.
Currently, I think they're eighth or ninth. And
this is odd with it at odds with his environmental agenda,
which he's trying to work on. It's important
(16:16):
to see that each president doesn't have total control
and they do have limits to their power and
there is nuance to every president and how they're going to
implement their strategies. And they're
balancing, working on the economy, working on the
environment. The environment's not always going to be a top priority, which
it usually isn't going to be. And it might go to
(16:36):
the wayside for improving exports,
improving other industries
and growing the economy. So
it's, it's interesting to look at how these uh, leaders
weigh their options and how they implement strategies
when faced with these different, um,
issues.
>> Katie (16:55):
Interesting. Yeah. And it's really interesting to see how like,
especially in this government where things are like, pretty
contentious between two primary players, that you'll see
a balance on their environmental policy of
oh, well, if I'm going to do one thing pro environment, I'm going to do one thing
fossil fuel or pro fossil fuel to
hopefully win over the biggest swath of people
imaginable. So that's uh, a really
(17:17):
interesting strategy of balancing those
initiatives.
>> Zach (17:21):
Yeah.
Well now, taking a trip down under, we're going to
take a look at the impact
of Anthony Albanese in
Australia. In May
2022, the Australian PM position was
handed over from Scott Morrison to Anthony Albanese
in what some people in the media called the climate
(17:42):
election in Australia. This was an election
where the Green parties and a new party,
the Teals, came in and
took some power in the Parliament, in the parliament and
got some influence and huge campaigning on, uh,
the environment. This is a major part of Albanese's
campaign and he hasn't
(18:02):
been all, uh, he, we. He was brought,
brought up to be.
>> Katie (18:06):
I was about to say, I don't even think I've heard of him since he won the election.
Yikes.
>> Zach (18:10):
Yeah. So many people in Australia
voted with an emphasis on climate change and reducing Australian
emissions, as they're currently the
highest emitter per person in the G20
more than the US and China and just
squeaking out Saudi Arabia.
>> Katie (18:25):
Oh, my Lord. What are they doing in Australia?
Go one. Oh, come
on. Australia.
>> Zach (18:32):
They sell coal to, uh, China. Lots of coal to China.
>> Katie (18:36):
Australia. I think guys were supposed to
destroy climate change, not join them.
>> Zach (18:42):
Yeah. So
Albany's campaigned on climate change. It was used as
a. Viewed as a huge climate change candidate,
stating I want to join the global effort and together
we can end the climate wars. But
has been kind of lackluster in that.
>> Katie (18:58):
Yeah, it's.
>> Zach (19:00):
So the one. One thing they
did was they enshrined into law a
target to cut emissions by
43% by 2030, up from the
26 to 28 cut that was
planned, which is the equivalent to
eliminating emissions from Australia's
entire transport or agricultural
(19:21):
sector. But
words aren't legislation. They're not
action. And many have been disappointed
by what has actually been implemented and
feel that there's been no significant progress
actually being pushed forward. And it's been more of
just the same old, same old.
>> Katie (19:42):
Nah, man. You mean that campaign slogan didn't transfer over
into a perfect bill?
>> Zach (19:46):
That's crazy.
>> Katie (19:47):
That's nuts. Who could have anticipated that
live while he was campaigning?
>> Zach (19:53):
Wow.
>> Katie (19:53):
To get votes. That's
nuts, man. Why didn't I think of that?
>> Zach (20:00):
So a lot of critics that voted for him are
concerned that he m. Made some
allusions to preventing new coal
and oil and gas projects, which has not
happened. Currently, only about
30% of Australia's electricity comes from renewable sources,
which.
>> Katie (20:18):
Wow, that's bad. That's really bad.
Oh, gosh.
>> Zach (20:23):
Considering like they're one of the sunniest places
in the world and it's just always sunny and
hot there.
>> Katie (20:29):
Yeah. Yeah.
>> Zach (20:32):
And solar is far cheaper
for, uh, residents to do. They don't have like an onerous
regulations like we do in the U.S. it's like
a permit's like an app you. Or a thing
you do online with your phone. It takes like
10 minutes.
>> Katie (20:47):
Let me. And. And you would think that like
they'd also have wind to some extent.
Right. With uh, so much of. You know what, Before
I show just how stupid I am, let me go ahead
and Google. Ah, Australia. Wind
turbines. Wind map. Wind
turbines. Wind energy.
(21:07):
Wind.
>> Zach (21:10):
Yeah, they have the.
>> Katie (21:12):
Yeah. Has, uh, has offshore
and onshore wind farms to
growing source of energy in Australia. I was about to say y'all
ain't got no excuse for not having wind or solar
at least.
>> Zach (21:25):
Yeah. So it's growing, but it hasn't
taken the huge uptick that people were hoping for.
And considering they have the
Amazon, uh, of the ocean in the Great Barrier
Reef. They have a lot of reason to
protect. Protect that and the
tourism that brings in, which is a huge money driver in Australia.
But they have a goal to get
(21:48):
to 80, 82 renewables by the end of the
decade. But as we said before, goals
are not action. Goals are not plans. Goals are just words.
It's. If you don't make any
progress, any movement towards your goal, you're not doing anything.
What's the point of the goal then?
>> Katie (22:03):
Not to mention, and I mean this with all due respect,
that is an insane goal.
>> Zach (22:08):
Yeah.
>> Katie (22:11):
82 by 2030.
>> Zach (22:13):
Aren't.
>> Katie (22:13):
Ah, we hoping for, like, 50 by,
like, 2050 or
something like that? And they're like,
yeah. Oh, my Lord. Like,
what. What's the go. There was like, a 2035 goal. There was
like, a 2050 goal. I mean, we're not gonna hit them. Sorry.
But it doesn't matter. Um, and.
Sorry, I don't think we're gonna hit them, but I
(22:36):
definitely think Australia is probably not going to hit that
82% in the next five years.
Good luck, gang.
>> Zach (22:43):
Yeah. So without any major progress
towards environmental policy, the Labor Party can
expect major election challenges from the Greens
and teals in the 2012. In the
2025 election. M. So this year. So
they're under threat to lose a lot of power if they
don't take major action.
>> Katie (23:01):
Well, that's a good thing. I mean, that's kind of like. I mean,
Zach, uh, hell, we've been saying it for the last six months.
I mean, something like that is almost like
capitalism, innovation and competition
is going to let voters figure out. Okay,
you know. Yeah. I mean, and we saw it. I'm just going to say it.
I'm not a Donald Trump fan, but we saw it this election cycle. People
(23:22):
were so mad at how things were that they were willing to
vote for literally anything and everything. That wasn't how
things have been.
>> Zach (23:29):
Yes.
>> Katie (23:29):
So I. I don't think that's exclusive to Americans.
>> Zach (23:32):
Yeah. This is the change. These are the change
elections these past couple years.
>> Katie (23:37):
Yes.
>> Zach (23:37):
Every government, right, the incumbents have
just been getting kicked out left and right,
bigger than everyone expects.
>> Katie (23:45):
The polls so much over
the last six months in particular, that if a country
was having an election, either, like,
the extreme version of who they thought good or bad was
going to be elected, was elected. And the people that you've
seen around for, like, decades
were completely, like, told, okay,
(24:05):
we're sick of you. Like, like, if you were
symbolizing the things that we've had, it ain't enough. It ain't worth
it. And I'm hearing this from like all
other countries. And I mean, I'm not saying like I have
ops and all these. No, like I don't, I don't have
sleeper cell agents in all these countries. But if you
just browse social media and like a YouTube comment
section, you start finding people all over
(24:27):
the world complaining about the exact same things,
saying the exact same stuff. It's not just exclusive to us. I know
in a lot of Western American media we think, oh man,
this, everything that's happening is because of us. I don't know about that. I just
know that everybody's having the exact same problem right now.
>> Zach (24:41):
Inflation was a major global issue and every
nation is facing the consequences.
>> Katie (24:46):
People are bad.
>> Zach (24:47):
Yeah, Parker Bug issues.
>> Katie (24:50):
Yep.
>> Zach (24:51):
It's the economy, stupid.
>> Katie (24:53):
M. It literally is. And that's
exactly what happened.
>> Zach (24:57):
So this inaction in Australia by
Albanese is eerily similar. Similar to lack of progress made
under Scott Morrison in the Liberal Party. Gets m. A
little confusing with their different name of parties.
>> Katie (25:07):
Mhm.
>> Zach (25:09):
So Albanese is at least said the right things.
But under Scott Morrison they, they were, they had
no plan, no action, no interest reducing
emissions. They're heavily supported by the fossil fuel industries and
the mining industries, which is a major part of the
Australian economy and major donors to
politics, which is why it's hard
for governments to take a stand against these
(25:31):
industries.
>> Katie (25:31):
Mhm.
>> Zach (25:33):
And Scott Morrison often referenced
future technologies as way to address climate change
and basically made no active plans. Was
famous for bringing coal into Parliament.
So they got an improvement in
verbiage but not an improvement in action.
So it's interesting to see how these two, uh,
(25:53):
presidential changes or. Yeah, presidential and prime minister
changes contrast in Lula.
>> Katie (25:59):
Ah.
>> Zach (25:59):
And Albanese.
Lula made a major difference right away on
deforestation, whereas Albanese has
said all the right things but had very little
impact.
>> Katie (26:11):
I think you've made an interesting point though, Zach. Uh, and this is something that
we're going to start seeing in the next few election cycles. I
think before a lot of politicians,
regardless of their political leaning, were not talking about climate change
to the extent that they were now. And so I think a lot of
voters could just say either A, they don't know
about that topic or B, they just don't know better about
that topic. So I'm not going to, I'm going to kind of be
(26:34):
merciful on migrating of their climate
concerns in that area. But now that you've got a lot of
politicians who are talking the talk,
but don't walk the walk. Shows that they
know better, shows that they know what the problem
is and what the solutions are. They just don't care.
And so I think that that's why you're seeing such a visceral
reaction from so many voters, especially
(26:57):
in the last couple of cycles. Because I think this
uptick in communication about
climate change and environmental issues from politicians who
then do nothing about it when they're elected is
starting to showcase that a lot of these people have known for quite a long
time. They're just willing to say whatever they have
to to get their position
reelected.
>> Zach (27:17):
Yeah, yeah. And it's
do you trust the honest man who's saying what you don't want, or do you trust the
man who's lying, who's saying what you do want?
>> Katie (27:25):
Exactly. And I think a lot of voters are going to start
ynn now
it's.
>> Zach (27:31):
Interesting looking at how these top leaders
have impacted their environment policies. And
now we will have the fortune to look
at how Trump will change Biden's
environmental policies and the differences that are going to happen
once the keys, uh, of the White House change
hands.
Like, it'll be interesting to see
(27:53):
what Trump does with the Inflation Reduction act if he's
actually going to start tear, if he's going to tear it down or if
he's going to try and tweak it. He does
have all,
all political forms of power are in
Republican hands now. Judicial,
House Representatives, Senate president.
(28:14):
So there is no reason that Trump can't have his
total complete stamp on environmental policies.
>> Katie (28:19):
And now. Go ahead, go ahead. I didn't mean to cut you off.
Go ahead.
>> Zach (28:23):
And we'll just have to see. Will, will
Republicans representatives argue for, for the
environment policies that are helping their districts and the money
they're getting from the Inflation Reduction act, or will they say,
all right, you got it, Trump. We'll, we'll take this out. No
problem. Get rid of this.
>> Katie (28:38):
M yeah, I'm going to make a Nostradamus
prediction here and maybe I'm like, totally and completely wrong. So go ahead
and jot this one down as one of the crystal ball
moments to fact check in the future game.
But I, I, I, uh, really have to wonder because
we've already started to see, like, the beginning of
fractures in the gop, especially
over the last couple months, with some of the things that
(29:00):
Elon Musk has talked about that
some conservative members of Congress did not agree
with. So we've already kind of started to see some
butting heads there. I wonder if climate
and the Inflation Reduction act is going to be another one of those
tension points or one of those fracture points.
Because Mike, uh, Johnson had kind of raised this, I guess
about a month ago about, you know, the Inflation
(29:22):
Reduction act is too costly. This is just a load of
baloney. We just need to get rid of this. And then a lot
of Republicans and red states that got money for
the Inflation Reduction act, like hold on, wait a minute.
Someday, right? We already got that money.
Can we just keep that money? So I,
I genuinely wonder, Zach, if this is going to be one of
(29:43):
those points where they were like, yeah, but
so I mean, I mean clearly money is the name of the
game for the Republican Party and
you can have a productive
capitalistic economy without
sacrificing your environmentally friendly
morality. I think it's just finding a way to marry
(30:03):
the two in a way that speaks to conservatives. Instead of having
a, what, a few billion dollar price
tag on a capstone piece of
legislation that you pass that then has benefits after
the fact, I think it can be done a lot more intelligently. So
I'm hoping that by having the wizard of
Electric Vehicles elected as the best
buddy, um, we'll see a
(30:25):
push in that. So I don't know, maybe that's just
my way out there. You heard it here first on Green Tea Party
Radio. Katie's an Astradamus prediction. Is
it eco might actually get more prevalent now
that Elon is higher up in the government than he ever
could have been before?
>> Zach (30:41):
I think it'll be interesting to see what Elon's influence will be.
Yeah, but there's a question of does
Elon just want to shut the door behind him now that he's
the entrenched EV in the U.S. uh, just kind.
>> Katie (30:53):
Of like monopolize it by being friends with
the President, you know, like, like do you, do you want to make your
stuff better by comparing it to other people or do you only want your
stuff to be sold?
>> Zach (31:03):
The theory I've heard from people who work at Tesla is
that he is willing to trade the subsidy
EV subsidies that his company gets and that every
company would get get rid of those in
order to get more
rights on, uh, and an easier review of the
full self driving and a faster
(31:23):
allowance of that to go more public.
>> Katie (31:26):
I have a better idea for you, Zach.
We can give Elon all of those things as long
as every cybertruck is destroyed and all
production is halted on them immediately.
And if you can guarantee me that in writing. You can
study whatever the hell you want to study, so long as I never
have to look at another cybertruck ever again. Hey, I got a better
(31:47):
idea. Let's take all the cyber trucks and only
self. And only study the self driving on them
so if they crash, we don't lose anything.
There it is. Elon. Call me
501-618-0234
and yeah, I don't care. No,
give him my number. The whole planet can have my number if there's a
chance that we're going to get rid of the cyber
(32:10):
truck. Love Ev
cannot get over how ugly the cybertruck is. Yeah.
>> Zach (32:15):
I'm so interesting predicament for Trump to. And
Republicans in Congress.
>> Katie (32:19):
Yeah.
>> Zach (32:20):
What they're going to do with all this money they have going into
their Going into mainly rural and Republican districts
and whether they're just going to throw that away to
appease Trump's ego.
>> Katie (32:31):
Yeah. Or if he just renames it something pro
Trump so that they don't think, oh, I'm getting
bucks.
>> Zach (32:37):
Yeah. You know the Trump
Saves the Environment Act.
>> Katie (32:41):
Yeah. Yeah. You know what? Let's do it. If that's.
What if that's the name we got to put on it to get it to happen.
Okay, go ahead.
>> Zach (32:49):
And uh, I've seen similar things like that with the, uh,
reframing of the carbon
carbon border feed adjustment and calling it
the carbon tariff. Being like this is a carbon
tariff on foreign countries that flew too much like China.
>> Katie (33:03):
Yeah.
>> Zach (33:04):
I'm sure Trump appears that he's like, oh, that's.
>> Katie (33:06):
That sounds. Tariffs on China.
>> Zach (33:08):
Yeah, I can keep buying that.
>> Katie (33:09):
Yeah. I mean, man, if that's all we got to do to get people to
sign on to. You can take the word carbon out of it, man. Just make it the
Patriot Environmental act or something like that. Slap the
word Patriot Eagle America, Mount Rushmore
in there. The Teddy Roosevelt Patriot Trump Act. I
don't care. Call it whatever you want to call it.
The we hate China because they're polluting
(33:29):
like crazy act. I don't care. The suck this
India and China act again, I don't care whatever we
gotta call it or whoever we gotta please to get the
going. That's what I'm fine with. Call it
whatever, I don't care. Yeah. So I, uh,
there's another Nostradamus prediction if Trump is going to rename
some of the, uh, Biden environmental stuff that
(33:49):
benefits rural and red districts to, you know,
further his legacy on that. I don't know. Again, I don't care.
Just get it done.
>> Zach (33:57):
All right. Should we do our hit? Our
closing?
>> Katie (34:01):
Yes, I think we've got a few action steps,
just a few simple ones to ease you back
into the saddle at the beginning of the year. We've, uh, got a
few simple ones here. Write your member of Congress. If
you've got a new member of Congress, write your old member
of Congress. Thank them if they were involved in any
climate work or tell them how much you appreciated their
(34:21):
work representing you. And if you're getting a new member
of Congress, reach out, introduce yourself, let them know that you're a
young conservative who's concerned about the environment and climate change and
that you look forward to helping, uh, your new Member
of Congress's office and being an informative constituent
as much as you can. Just a little something to get the ball rolling.
Be sure to share this episode on your social media feed
(34:42):
and share your opinion about this topic. What do you think about some of
the stuff that we've talked about? What are some of your predictions for once
this administration changes and climate change and
environment here in the United States? We'd love to hear from you
more on Twitter. Uh, it's GTP Radio
Show, I think. No, maybe G.T. i don't know. Let
me, let me. What is our Twitter? I. I fought.
(35:02):
You know what, Elon Musk, you can have
all the studies you want
if you give me the Twitter handle. I
want it is GTP
radio show because uh, some other
GTPR with like 3 followers already existed and
if I find. Find you, you better pray I don't.
(35:23):
Yeah, so there you go. Reach out to us on social media.
Let us know what you think. Let us know what's on your mind. Share our
stuff. We're going to be more active on social media this year. Some things are
going to change. So get excited for
that. Okay. And
let me. Before we read our closing, let me. I'm
just going to copy and paste the one that we have from the old document that's
(35:43):
already formatted from a two person episode so we don't have to
stumble through it because I it up every time
for you our listener. Email us with your
thoughts. Our email is info
greent party radio.com.
>> Zach (35:58):
Thank you for listening to Green Tea Party Radio and a very special
thank you to all of our patrons. We couldn't do this without you.
If you're interested in getting early access episodes as well as Green Tea Party
Radio merch, check us out @greent party
radio.com if your feedback tell us what's
on your mind. And follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and
TikTok.
>> Katie (36:16):
And just so you know, this is our passion project. We
don't have any organizational sponsor. No George
Soros, nobody on the left funding us to be
sleeper cells.
What?
>> Zach (36:28):
Elon.
>> Katie (36:30):
Yeah. Uh, Elon. Elon. We could have a sponsor.
Elon. That email is
infogreenc40radio.com. No, but seriously, we don't
have a organizational sponsor. Um, we're just a group
of young people that are building a movement because we want the world to know that
conservatives have important things, things to say about climate change. And
just a reminder, Green Tea Party Radio is not
representative of the Diocese of Little Rock Catholic Climate
(36:52):
Covenant, or any of our employers.
>> Zach (36:55):
And if you want to hear our show on your college radio
station, email
us@infoeenteapartyradio.com
give us the details about your campus and your radio station. That, uh,
email, again, is info greent
partyradio.com thanks for
listening.
>> Katie (37:11):
Thank you for listening.
>> Zach (37:13):
All right, let's work.
>> Katie (37:14):
Zach. Let me hit stop here, Peterson.
>> Zach (37:17):
First episode of the year in the books.
>> Katie (37:18):
We did it. We nailed it.
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