August 7, 2022 • 63 mins
Tom Bowman is an advisor, speaker, and changemaker who believes that the solutions to even the world’s toughest problems are within our grasp. His gift for distilling complex problems and scientific information to their central nugget empowers people to take ownership and act.
As principal of Bowman Change, Inc., Tom works with people and organizations who care deeply about their communities and their world. Bowman’s contributions as a strategic advisor on an Action for Climate Empowerment framework for the United States are helping shape our world’s future. This strategic framework is an initiative by educators, activists, policymakers, communication professionals, and others to advance the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Bowman’s latest book, What if Solving the Climate Crisis Is Simple?, was heralded by Michael Mann as an “inspiring, concise primer on climate action.” He has been featured by CNN, NPR's Marketplace, Time, New York Times, Science and other leading media outlets.
www.bowmanchange.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/can-a-playa-play--3433224/support.
As principal of Bowman Change, Inc., Tom works with people and organizations who care deeply about their communities and their world. Bowman’s contributions as a strategic advisor on an Action for Climate Empowerment framework for the United States are helping shape our world’s future. This strategic framework is an initiative by educators, activists, policymakers, communication professionals, and others to advance the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Bowman’s latest book, What if Solving the Climate Crisis Is Simple?, was heralded by Michael Mann as an “inspiring, concise primer on climate action.” He has been featured by CNN, NPR's Marketplace, Time, New York Times, Science and other leading media outlets.
www.bowmanchange.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/can-a-playa-play--3433224/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Yeah, yeah, old school, that's what I'm talking about. Listening.
This ain't for everybody. Some of y'all need to hear it.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I know you're in the trenches fighting me, but check
it out. I'm gonna put it down like this. Why
I can give him the things. Understand everything you're going through.
It's all part of the master plant or what you say,
Cause you got saved.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Everything was gonna be pictures with Queen. You better wake up.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Son.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
Don't nothing come to a.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Super but say God worse his dead reach the fire.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Well you know what he says.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
He's just don't work blackly, don't get said. Yeah, he's
just said. He hoops his hands to the pot, looks
back to say makes fit. Some of y'all ain't been
in the switchers five minutes and you're not ready to question.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I ain't mad. I'm just sitting you with the real
If you got for.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Men, I was still sip.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Now, how do you think that makes you feel? Check
this out? He'p gas. This is deep hunt. I mean,
y'all have saw nothing but the son is trying to
reach something. But I think he was there for the position.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Of farms fight his glory trumping might be part of
your TESTI money, but it ain't paen to the stoke
now I want to stuff his proper's side way back.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
In the day. Why I sing the hook right here?
See if the church getting.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
Lace working out, working up, we yes can yes, he can.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Think you're not saying the fire repros of just fly
you you say, why you what your shut shake? What
would Jesus do? Why you're answering if you ain't trying
to do what he's saying. You told you he was
gonna have tribulations, but you thought he was played for
one minute. You trying to how good guy the beca't
nobody missus talk the next vintage?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Your back fight so fast? I'm like your moon walking.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Oh yeah, I'm listening to myself that I ain't no better.
It ain't like I've been talking as every word a man.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
At the letter.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
But we told us we gotta remember that. We say yo, yeah,
found down, the say humble, let him annoy. It ain't
even as I thought it was. I mean, lying up,
I told you, but it showed up betting better all
the time.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Bus that's fast, ain't if we're going through the kphill.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
God put that on this hub like they say, you
can shop now you walk to.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
Everyone. Welcome to the show, show hosts Lamar Patterson. This
is kind of play a play. I just thought i'd
give a minute the big boy upstairs. You know it's
my hope and my wish that your belief that with
his help, boy, we're gonna be able to make it. Boy,
this thing that we call life because it's a whole
bunch of crazy. It's going on out there right about now,
(02:36):
so I know we're gonna make it. And anyway, i'd
like to say, welcome to the show again. We have
a great dynamite show lying there for you as usual.
Well try to bring our guests to the show that
can enlighten you, help you some type of positive way.
So moving forward with us again thing that we call
(02:57):
life because a lot of things could be changed and made.
That our guest today, mister Tom Bowman, is an advisor, speaker,
change maker that believes, you know, solutions are within our
grasp and we're gonna be speaking on what is solving
the climbing crisis is simple. So yes, we definitely go
(03:20):
delve into that one, boy, because we got fires, we
got droughts. We got all kinds of stuff going on
right now and we need a solution. With that being said,
let me see as I guess with us. Mister Bowman,
are you with us?
Speaker 6 (03:32):
It's my pleasure to be here. Thank you, La Month.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Thank you so much for taking time out to come
in and chat with us. You know, you have a
very powerful message. And like I was saying, boy, we're
dealing with these things every day and it's amazing how
we take so many things for granted. And thank you
for joining us.
Speaker 6 (03:52):
You bet my pleasure.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
So Tom, let me see if I can call you Tom.
Speaker 6 (04:00):
Of course.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
A book out what a solving the climate crisis is simple,
so that is a great, great place to start. But first, man,
we got a list of questions here for you. Man,
I think I need to go ahead and run through them.
Speaker 6 (04:15):
There you go.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
I don't want to start up asking you how many
dogs you got? You know, so you know this this
climate issue and I know we seeing what's going on
with the world today, you know, and always talk to
my friends about you know, when I was tad bien younger,
how we knew the season without having to you know,
(04:39):
rely on the calendar. We just just a new one. Yeah,
we can tell by the boy the weather.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So let me see.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
The first one got for you is why is climate
change referred to as a wicked problem? And why is
climate change one of them?
Speaker 6 (04:59):
Yeah? That is that is a great question. A wicked
problem is a term that's been given to any kind
of problem that is so complicated we can't figure out
how to solve it. And the idea of a wicked
problem is that it's so complex that you can't see
the whole thing. You can't get all the information you
want to have to make a decision, and even if
(05:21):
you try to solve the part you can see, you're
probably going to create other problems that you can't see.
And so it's sort of a it's sort of a
defeatist mentality that says, the best we can do with
a wicked problem is we can do our best to
manage it, but we can't really solve it, and we
have to understand that as much as we try, we're
(05:44):
still going to take some lumps along the way. And
a lot of scientists refer to climate change in this
exactly this way, and if you like, I can get
into it. There's a reason why they describe it that way,
and I think that that's a big mistake.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
That's better go for it all, right.
Speaker 6 (06:05):
So the reason that it's so easy to think of
climate change as something that we can't solve is because
we've learned about it from people who study the complexities
of global systems. You know, scientists are looking at at
atmospheric chemistry and physics, the way heat moves around our planet,
the way ocean currents interact with that, the way the
(06:28):
biosphere all life on the planet interacts with that, the
way the polar ice sheets interact with that, and it
is a really complex I mean, the ideas are pretty simple,
but all the interactions are really complicated, and so we've
learned to think of it in complex terms. And unfortunately,
the way that experts, so called experts, have talked to
(06:51):
us about how to solve the climate crisis has followed
that same model. So it sounds like the climate solutions
are these credible, complicated entangled Gordian knot of energy systems,
food production systems, global delivery and transportation systems, international finance systems,
(07:13):
international aid systems, international and local and national level governance systems,
urban planning and architecture systems, utility systems, all of this
stuff is when you think of it as systems are
interacting with each other. So let's say you and I
decide we're going to try to solve carbon emissions coming
(07:35):
from food production from agriculture, and we start pulling on
that thread in this not pretty soon we have to
figure out how our fertilizers and herbicides, which are made
from fossil fuels, get generated, and how we're going to
transport our crops, where we're going to get water from,
how we're going to fund our business. So we're dealing
with national governance, we're dealing with international markets, and it
(07:59):
all becomes so complex that it feels like we're too
small to solve it. And it also creates this false
impression that the solutions need to be managed by some
sort of cadre of technical elite people who can see
the whole problem, map out some kind of master plan,
(08:20):
and then somehow govern this master plan across the entire world.
We all know that nothing works that way, right, and
we also know, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 5 (08:35):
Now, I'm just to ask you, are these the same people?
Hopefully these won't be the same people that's been following
the past model.
Speaker 6 (08:43):
Well, well, I'm really describing kind of an idea that
has propagated in a lot of our thinking. And some
of it we're aware of it. Some of it's kind
of unconscious. And the reason I wrote this book is
that I do have done so much work with scientists
of the years that I've watched this way of thinking
(09:03):
play out. And the logical conclusion of every lecture, every documentary,
every every book I've read is, Man, we're in a
We're in a world of trouble, and we know it's
a wicked problem. So we can't really solve it, but
we need to try our best, and so we need
to somehow muster the political will to do the hard work,
(09:26):
even though we know we're going to get hit along
the way with some you know, some pretty terrible consequences.
And that just strikes me as a as a bad
place to start. And so uh, and so I wrote
the book remembering what an art teacher told me one time,
and this is a this is a true story. I
(09:46):
was working on a painting when I was a young guy,
and I couldn't solve it. I mean, everything I did
seemed to just keep it in you know, kind of
ugly and make it worse. And he came up behind
me and he said, I tell you what, do hang
it on the wall upside down and go home, because
when you come back tomorrow, you're going to see it
(10:07):
differently than you've ever seen it before, and you're going
to know exactly what's wrong with it. And I did it,
and he was exactly right. And that's a metaphor for
the way to look at problems that seem intractable. Right.
If you think a problem can't be solved, it might
just be that every solution we try has an assumption
(10:30):
in common because we're so used to seeing the problem
in the same way. And so hanging the picture upside
down is a metaphor for let's go hunting for our
assumptions as we try to solve this and see if
they're really true. Let's set them aside for a minute
and see what happens, see what reveals itself. And when
(10:50):
you do that, with the climate crisis as complex as
it looks, you discover that it really just boils down
to doing one thing, and that is to stop burning
fossil fuels. We know we want to do it as
quickly as we can because the consequences are so bad
if we don't, and we know we don't want to fail,
because the consequences are so bad if we don't. And
(11:13):
so there's sort of a new mantra in this little
book I wrote. And the mantra is stop burning fossil
fuels well before mid century and absolutely positively do not fail. Now,
that might not be easy to think about on a
global scale, but it's very easy to start thinking about
at the scale of our own community, of our own
(11:35):
businesses where we work, of our own households, where we live.
And all of a sudden, this becomes something we can
all start to work on, and it means we're no
longer dependent on this idea that somebody is going to
figure out a master plan and somehow figure out a
way to marshal all the people of the world to
do the same thing. It doesn't have to work that way.
(11:57):
Nothing works that way. We can actually do this locally everywhere.
We can all be empowered and engaged, and we can
make progress faster than we ever thought possible.
Speaker 5 (12:08):
So what do you think the issue is that getting
humanity to all get on the same page. Because it
seemed like, for some reason people are kind.
Speaker 6 (12:17):
Of stuck, very much stuck, And I think I want
to ask another question. What if we don't have to
be on the same page. What if that's another distraction
that's keeping us from from getting off the sidelines ourselves
and becoming active. I know a lot of social scientists
(12:39):
who will say that the research shows that the most
useful thing we can do to combat the climate crisis
is try to get the people who are most concerned
about it activated. These are the people who are most
amenable to doing something right now. And the more we
engage with people who want to do something instead of
(13:00):
bring all our effort into trying to convince the deniers
to come along with us, the more we'll start actually
changing things in the world for the better. And as
people start to see the world changing for the better,
it starts to create this sense of social momentum, of
mutual expectations, and we can all start generating more momentum
(13:21):
towards positive change. It doesn't have to be smooth, it
doesn't have to be consistent everywhere it but the more
we generate it's like a snowball rolling down the hill
is what we're trying to start, and so more people
who are more deeply on the sidelines than say I
am will start to join in the process, and that
(13:42):
will influence the people in their networks that they know,
and that will gain spread and we can hopefully change
our culture and generate the kind of political momentum that
will cause policymakers to join us in this work.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
Yeah, I'll just say to ask you that too. How
much do you think that how much influence do you
think the policy makers would have with this, because seemed
like a lot of him are stuck.
Speaker 6 (14:07):
Also, Oh they are.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
You know.
Speaker 6 (14:10):
I talked to a congressman who represented me at one time.
We were at a town hall that he was hosting,
and somebody in the audience spoke up about an issue
that mattered to a lot of people and said, why
isn't Congress going to do this? Because we know we
all want it, And he said, look, he just sort
of he just sort of told the truth for a moment,
(14:32):
he said, you know, you have to understand.
Speaker 5 (14:35):
Yeah, he said, for a moment, he said, for a
moment a moment.
Speaker 6 (14:38):
Well, but this is the thing, Yes, I know exactly,
but this is the thing that we all we all suspect,
we've all been told, and here he was saying it
out loud. He said that every member of Congress is
there to represent the people who paid to put them there.
He didn't say they're there to represent you and me.
He said they're there to represent the people who wrote
(14:59):
the big checks. And so anything we want to push
through the Congress, we have to figure out how to
push it through when everybody there is representing the money
to put them there. Now, where's the big money. It's
in big, big corporations. It's in entrepreneurs who who have
enjoyed a fairly laissez faire kind of regulatory environment and
(15:20):
made money. And it's the people who are invested in
industries like fossil fuels that don't want to give up
the advantages that they have, right. And so that's the
political landscape we have to work in. And I am
as hopeful as anybody else that Congress will really pass
the kind of infrastructure bills and climate bills that the
(15:41):
Biden administration is talking about. But whether they're successful or not,
we can't wait for some other administration and Congress to
replace them. We need to be moving now. And it
leads me to wonder, is the federal government going to
be the last one to the party. Right, our state
(16:01):
and state governments and local governments and businesses and ordinary
people going to be pushing so much change that we
can generate a momentum that causes the federal government to
join us. And of course it's not that it's not
just binary. It's not that they'll do nothing until we
(16:22):
do a lot. They have done things the Clean Power Plan,
the regulations on pollution from coal fired power plants, the
risk you know, the protecting of Arctic wild lands from
oil exploration. There's a lot going on that's in government
and outside of government. It's just that we need so
(16:43):
much more of it.
Speaker 5 (16:47):
I guess what I'm saying. The Temptation has had this
song out once upon a time called Ball of Confusion,
and that's what I'm saying. Right now in the world
is this big ball of confusion, and nobodybody really knows
what to believe and who to believe and when to believe. So,
you know, it's hard to facilitate any kind of change
(17:10):
without you know, somebody moving in the same direction at
the same time. And that's what I see that's not
happening right now. So what do you see time it
helped remy that problem to even affect a climate change
because it's you know, everything's going on now, the pandemic.
Everything in the whole political world is so confusing.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
You know.
Speaker 5 (17:33):
I mean, it's kind of hard to focus on this.
But even though we see it every day with the drought, yeah,
with the fires, you know, this affecting the whole food chain.
You know, we see it, we're living with it daily.
But everybody's so inundated with all this other madness that's
going on, and it really got all confusion. So what's
(17:56):
going to stop people or that slap of side the
head to make everybody just stop right now listen, you
know what I mean? Yeah, so they at least get
the memo. That's where I'm at, you know, because I'm
seeing all the problems, and everybody else see the problems,
but they're so busy on this survival mode and confused.
So yes, I don't know.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
Yeah that that is a really really good question. And
it's not as it's not. It's not simple. There is
a real this. This is just the fact there is
a psychological I want to say, a trend. But it's
not just that we humans are programmed to prioritize the
(18:40):
challenges that are immediate over the challenges that seem like
we can deal with them later, right, and and so
long term challenge. This is part of the reason that
scientists like to call climate change a wicked problem. It
evolves slowly over time, and so there's always something that
feels more urgent, right, Pandemic is more urgent. The state
(19:02):
of the economy, the state of whether I have a
job or not, how am I going to put food
on the table, all those kinds of things that be
able to keep my family healthy. These these questions feel
far more urgent and salient than and tangible than whether
the climate is changing. One of the ways I think
(19:23):
we can get the slap on the side of the
head that you're talking about to be effective is that
in these moments when we see floods in Europe and
horrific fires in the West, heat stress in the southern
part of the United States, and you know, millions of
(19:44):
refugees climate refugees migrating north to our southern border from
places that are becoming unlivable, is to shift a narrative.
You know, we always hear in the news about these
problems we never hear about solutions to these problems or
progress on these problems. And I would just like to
(20:06):
tell your listeners that there is a there is a
counter narrative that's not getting much attention that says that
Europe is banning the sale of internal cobustion engine cars
and trucks by twenty thirty. That Ford, the biggest you know,
has announced an all electric F one fifty, which is
the biggest selling vehicle in the United States by a mile.
(20:29):
The state of California has made enormous progress across the
entire economy on reducing carbon emissions because of its forward
looking climate laws. The state of Iowa gets forty percent
or so of its electricity from wind power. There's a
community that was wiped out by a tornado in Kansas
(20:51):
called Greensburg that rebuilt as a green city. They get
one hundred percent of their electricity from wind power. So
there is gress happening everywhere. It's just that we don't
tend to pull it all together and say is this
a sign? Are these things together collectively a sign of
(21:13):
our capacity to move in the right direction? I think
they are. It's just that the news media has never
told the story in that way. And so most people,
most of us, hear a little anecdote about success here
or a little thing about something there, and we think
it's just a fragmentary thing, and we're waiting for somebody
to tell us there's a master plan. But I'm here
(21:36):
to tell you that if you just start letting those
listen to those stories with a different filter that says, hey,
I heard about something else yesterday, and I hear about
this today, and I heard about something else last week.
There seems to be a lot going on right and
it's that beehive of activity that in our society that is,
(21:58):
I think our biggest hope for changing the world more
quickly than we expect we can. That's my optimistic voice.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
Well, listen, we know a lot of people walking around
here with their eyes they're wide open, but they're still shit.
So we're going to help those out. But Tom, in
your book, you described having a moment of climate epiphany.
What happens is that change?
Speaker 6 (22:27):
Boy? Yeah, this is something I don't really wish on anybody,
but it sure happened to me. I used to own
an exhibit design company, so I had about a dozen
employees and we designed exhibits for museums and public aquariums
and trade shows for corporate clients. And in the course
of doing that, I was hired by the National Academy
(22:48):
of Sciences in Washington, DC to create a new museum
for them, a small new museum. And anybody who would
say no to the opportunity to design a museum in
the nation's capital would my profession would be nuts, you know,
So of course I jumped at the chance. And the
National Academies is a nonprofit chartered by Abraham Lincoln to
(23:11):
advise the government on matters of science and medicine and engineering.
So all those NRC reports national security are National NRC
National Research Council reports. That's an arm of the National Academies, right,
So it's the elite scientists come together and they're inducted
(23:32):
based on the quality of their work. So that was
my client. And the first exhibit we did was about
climate science back in two thousand and three, and so
it was like going to graduate school as an independent
study with climate scientists because I had to learn what
I had to learn the story in order to translate
it into exhibits that speak to the rest of us
(23:53):
who aren't scientists, right, And I remember being really worried
by what I saw back then, and the attitude among
the scientists in two thousand and three was, you know, yeah,
this is potentially really bad. Thank goodness, we have time
to sort this out because people are not unwise enough
that we're going to do something really, really dangerous. So
(24:17):
I kind of went back to work like anybody else
would on other projects, and in three years later, I
was hired by the Script's Institution of Oceanography in Southern California,
which is another highly, highly regarded scientific research institution, and
they have a public aquarium. So they wanted to do
an exhibit that would open in two thousand and seven
(24:39):
about climate science, and the attitude among the scientists in
just three years had just flipped one hundred and eighty degrees.
They were, you know, the emissions in China and Asia
had general had just skyrocketed beyond anybody's expectations. The Arctic
was starting to melt the ice much faster than anybody
(25:02):
had expected. And so I was sitting picture this. I'm
sitting in this conference room at the aquarium that's got
Florida ceiling windows. It's on the second floor on a
bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean in this beautiful cove in
southern sunny southern California. Right, it's an idyllic setting. And
so we're sitting there talking about what we're going to
(25:24):
put in the exhibit, the science officer and I and
I just casually mentioned to her, you know, the people
at the National Academies had said, keep an eye on
the ocean. The ocean covers. You know, almost eighty percent
of our planet can absorb so much heat before the
water actually starts to warm that when you start to
(25:47):
see rises in ocean temperature, it means that we're going
to be committed to a changing climate for five hundred
or one thousand years. And she said, oh, well, we're
part of this project. It's called Argo, and we have
robotic floats in every ocean in the world, and we've
already measured warming in every ocean in the world to
(26:08):
a depth of one thousand meters that's three thousand feet deep,
covering more than three quarters of a planet. Right, And
that's the moment of epiphany.
Speaker 5 (26:23):
You know.
Speaker 6 (26:23):
The dictionary says an epiphany is a sudden, intuitive insight
into some aspect of reality. Well, the thing about a
real epiphany is that it changes your life because it
hits you like a ton of bricks all at once.
And in that moment, everything I knew about the potential
(26:44):
risks and horrors of a destabilized climate came home to
me all at once, and I realized that we're way
farther into this than I had imagined. And I mean
literally the hair on the back of my mind next
stood up. It was I actually looked over my shoulder.
Its like, is there a predator behind me?
Speaker 1 (27:05):
You know?
Speaker 6 (27:05):
It has that kind of emotional feel to it, right,
And I was kind of, you know, trying to catch
my breath. My sense of hey, I'm a cool business
owner with my client, everything's cool just was just stripped away.
And she said, in that moment, by the way, my boss,
the director of the aquarium, would like to meet you
(27:26):
now for the first time. So I walked into her
office and I sat down. She's a scientist, and she
chatted for a minute, and then she looked at me
because I was literally shaking, and she said, is there
anything you want to ask me? And I said, yeah,
how do you cope with knowing what you know? And
she said oh, we can have a real conversation about
(27:48):
this now, you know. And I drove home that night
thinking can I stuff this genie back in this bottle
and go back to the life I used to lead?
And I mean just two hours ago I was leading.
And the answer, of course to that question is not
a chance. And so it fundamentally caused me to refocus
(28:11):
my career. I started working with scientists and social scientists
a lot more. I eventually sold my decarbonized, my exhibit
design company. We got recognition for that. I sold it
to my employees. And because they're just you need to
be doing work on climate change beyond exhibits, I felt,
and so and so I opened a consultancy just be
(28:35):
able to be in the conversations that could lead to
what I thought would be productive work. And I said,
I don't wish this on anybody, because that moment of it,
I mean, I wrote an emotional roller coaster for a
couple of years after that, you know. And one scientist
said to me, I feel optimistic on you know, Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
(28:55):
I feel pessimistic Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday is up
for grabs. And I can tell you it's I don't
go through that anymore. But WHOA, what a ride. So
my hope is that we can in fact be joyous
and enthusiastic about creating the world we want to live in,
(29:18):
rather than live a life of dread trying to avoid
catastrophes that we don't want to see.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (29:26):
And that's the cut of the scary part of being
on that balance and that balance being right there to
balance it. And I was thinking too while I was
listening to your tom. I'm a fisherman, and I'm looking
at how the ocean has changed, or should I say,
even the quality of fish in the last five years.
(29:47):
I notice how it dropped off, you know, and figure
out Well, matter of fact, let me ask you, since
this is more or less your feel, do you feel
like the climate change hast on the ocean life?
Speaker 6 (30:03):
Oh? Absolutely yeah. One of the sort of poster children
of that is penguins in South America that live off
of krill, tiny shrimp, and the changes in ocean temperature
are moving the krill elsewhere from where the penguins are.
And so I mean there was a time in South
(30:26):
America where there were you know, hundreds thousands of penguins
on the beach starving because their food supply was gone.
There's this kind of disruption is happening everywhere in the
climates because of the changing climate, as animals that can
move and plants that can migrate easily go as far
(30:47):
as they can. But that disrupts all the ecosystems for
everybody else. So, yes, that's happening in the ocean. The
oceans are also being overfished. The amount of plastic pollution
and agricultural runoff that's running into the oceans is just staggering,
and that has an impact on local populations of fish too.
(31:10):
So it's a you know, it's a it's a multiple
bunch of bunch of hits at once. I suspect that
you're seeing.
Speaker 5 (31:19):
So what do you think we can do about this?
Speaker 6 (31:26):
Yeah, that's been the sixty fourth dollar question. And I
will tell you that the advice from social scientists has
been really interesting. For a long time. They have said
the most important thing each of us can do about
climate change is to talk about it more with our families, friends,
co workers, employers, politicians, everybody. The amount the lack of
(31:52):
climate talk is one of the reasons that policymakers don't
and the media don't feel like this needs to be
our top priority issue. And this is a really you know,
this is taking a human psychology approach to the problem.
Right that we can list all the actions we should,
(32:12):
we can take, and I can give your listeners some
pointers if you'd like, But the most important thing we
can do is break the ice, because when we do,
we discover that we're not alone in our worry. Everybody
is worried. The research on public opinion shows that vast
majorities of people of all political stripes are concerned about
(32:33):
the changing climate and want something done. But if we're
all quiet about it, if we don't talk about it,
and the research shows that not very many of us
are talking about it very much. If we don't break
that ice and make it normal to voice our concerns
and our enthusiasm for the for the world we can
create without smog and other kinds of pollution, and with
(32:59):
the kind of strife that comes with climate change, we're
kind of keeping a lid on it, on our capacity
to act and our willpower to act. So, from a
from a very fundamental how do societies change point of view?
Talking about climate and talking about it as an opportunity
(33:20):
to create a better world. Are the most important things
we can do. And then each of us can do
the things to decarbonize our business and our household and
to make us more resilient to you know, more more
extreme weather depending on where we live. And we can
get into those things if you like. But I think
(33:41):
that talking fundamentally is the big deal. Okay, And that's
not what anybody's going to tell you, right because everybody's
going to tell you we need a climate a carbon tax,
or we need an infrastructure bill, or we need to
invest in this or that that's all really good stuff
to do. We should do it, and talking about it
(34:02):
more is one of the ways we start, you know,
sort of rallying ourselves to demand that of our elected leaders.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
Yeah. I guess that's a good start. But then there's
people out there that are the mindset that you know, well,
we've been talking about it, so now what And then
we get into what you spoke about a little while ago,
you know, the electric cars and a lot of stuff
going electric. Matter of fact, I built the house that's
all electric, and at first I wasn't sure if I
(34:33):
was doing the right thing. But I'm kind of okay
with it now seeing how things are going. Yeah, so
what do you think. You know in the next five
ten years you're going to see more electric homes. Well,
we see the electric cars coming now, but what other
changes do you see?
Speaker 6 (34:51):
Yeah, all electric homes is a big deal. Energy efficiency
in everything that uses energy is a huge deal. It's
the cheapest form of new energy in the world. It's
the energy. Don't we stop using because we're more efficient? Right,
And for anybody buying anything that uses energy, a refrigerator,
(35:13):
a computer, a television, any of it, if you look
for the energy Star symbol when you're shopping, that's a
good place to start. Because Energy Star is a program
that identifies the top percentage of energy efficiency in any category,
(35:33):
and as more and more products meet that standard, they
raise the standard. So there are very there are fewer
energy star rated products, and as more and more products
meet that standard, they raise the standard again. And that's
a way of encouraging improvements over time.
Speaker 5 (35:51):
Right.
Speaker 6 (35:51):
So your ten year old refrigerator energy Star refrigerator is
far more energy intensive than a new energy Star refrigerator,
and so utility companies want you to change them want
you to replace them. And obviously everybody's financial circumstances are different.
So if you can build an all electric home or
(36:15):
convert your home to all electric energy star systems, you're
way ahead. If you can't afford to the same rules apply.
You want to use more natural light, more natural air
fans for air conditioning instead of air conditioning, if you
can do it led lighting, you know, the simple kinds
(36:39):
of things. If you live in a hot place, try
to have more shade right around your home because it'll
keep the air cooler that's coming into your home. If
you live in a cold place, you want good insulation
to keep it warm. These are real, basic ideas, right
and finding ways to just implement those ideas in all
the things we do is a good way for each
(37:02):
of us to reduce our energy demand and therefore reduce
our carbon footprint. While we press for the market to
change and for politicians to wake up and pass legislation
that won't really help us make bigger progress.
Speaker 5 (37:19):
Well, I guess I should say I'm happy to be
alive to see some of these chains is unfold. But
let me stay right here, Tom for our listeners have
just joined us. If you'd like to join the conversation.
You could dial six four six nine two nine two
eight seven oh and press number one on your phone
and we'd be glad to let you join the conversation
(37:40):
if you'd like to ask the guests a question or
two about moving forward and how you could help this
climate thing. Tom. In your book, what is Solving the
Climate Crisis? Is simple? You wrote a chapter in there,
and I'm very interested in hearing you speak all this
(38:02):
about how what is it if you wrote an entire
talks about climate justice and confronting injustice as a white man?
Why did you write about system racism in a book
about solving the climate crisis?
Speaker 6 (38:17):
Thank you for asking that question, because most interviewers don't
ask that question. You know, we're I'm glad.
Speaker 5 (38:25):
You're not, because I wanted to looking inquiring mind wants.
Speaker 6 (38:32):
To know that's right, that's right. I live in Long Beach, California,
which is part has the busiest seaport in the United States,
the Ports of Long Beach in Los Angeles. There's a
freeway that comes out of that port that has something
like seven thousand semis on it every single day hauling
containers away from the port, and then equivalent number of
(38:57):
trucks are coming back every day into the port to
deliver empty shipping containers to send back to China, to
load up with more stuff to bring to big box
stores and bring it back here. Seven thousand trucks a
day produce all kinds of diesel pollution. Guess who lives
close to the freeway. It's not wealthy white people. It's
(39:19):
people of color and people with low incomes. And that's
true everywhere. And it means that those who have darker
skin and those who who have lower incomes are suffering
higher rates of asthma, childhood disease, respiratory disease, more loss
(39:40):
of work because you're out sick, more days at the
emergency room, more loss of income, and all together poorer
health than people who look like I do. Because I'm
a white guy. So forever, forever, I have been hearing
in the scientific press in papers that climate impacts people disproportionately,
(40:04):
and that the people who will suffer from climate change
of the most are people of color and people with
low incomes here in the United States and all around
the world. Right I began working on a project last year,
a collaborative project to try to build a strategy, an
integrated strategy for the hopefully what we hope would be
(40:25):
a Biden administration to start developing a plan to engage
and get the public empowered and involved in this. And
it was a multi ethnic, multiracial, multi profession set of
dialogues that made absolutely I mean, it's like another kind
of epiphany. Right. The idea that there's disproportional impacts is
(40:49):
well understood, but until you really confront it, until you're
really in dialogue people with people who live with it,
it's not as powerful. And I grew up in horrendous
smog in southern California. I know what that's like. And
I lived in a mixed race, low income part of
Los Angeles for a few years that was hot in
(41:11):
the summer and tensely smoggy, and nobody had any money
for air conditioning, and it was a really difficult place
to be. And I realized that most of the people
who lived there didn't have opportunities to earn more money
and get out of there if they wanted to. This
is just ridiculous. This is offensive, and I mean it's
(41:34):
offensive right now, not twenty fifty years from now. As
the climate changes it's just not right right now. And
so I wrote the chapter to kind of explore a
little bit about how we get acculturated into systems that
we all know are racist and wrong and unfair, and
(41:59):
we find ourselves else in those systems. Get how did
I get here as a white person. You know, a
lot of white people don't want to confront this because
it's uncomfortable. They don't you know, they say their hearts
are in the right place. We all believe our most
of us believe our hearts are in the right place,
or a lot of us do anyway, And yet here
we are in a system that's still giving me an
(42:21):
advantage that somebody else doesn't have. What's up with that?
And so I heard I heard calls during the Black
Lives Matter protests last summer after the murder of George
Floyd that white people need to start having their own
conversation about race. And so I wrote this chapter thinking,
you know, that's really true, and the only way to
(42:43):
start it is to be as awkward as I am
and just start it. And so the chapter looks at
it kind of reflects on my own experience of going
into business trying to make a living, finding that that.
You know, my mentors in school, and my mentors in business,
(43:06):
and my clients in business all have expectations that I'm
trying to meet in order to advance. And all of
those structures are fundamentally unjust. You know, they favor certain
people over other people for no legitimate reason. Right, the
(43:27):
people of color and the low income people who participated
in these climate action dialogues were just as as knowledgeable
and wise and had as much experience as the people
who had been educated at Ivy League schools and had
the best degrees and credentials and were white. It didn't matter, everybody,
You know what I came, please jump in.
Speaker 5 (43:52):
He who created the game also created the rules. Yes,
so true, and unfortunately we're dealing with the same today
with just about everything. I just want to say right
here too. I definitely applaud you for that chapter in
the book and recognizing that and people never really think
(44:15):
about it in the terms that you just mentioned that.
You know, lower income families are destined to live in
certain areas because of the economic situation. You know, people
talk about it, but they really really really really don't
take a hard look at what that really means because
guess what, they don't live in that part of Long
Beach or that part of Torrents where you know, the
(44:38):
oil refining gas and oil refinery is always catching on
fire and the fallout. You know, people never really think
about that because they're so quick and easy to say, well,
I don't live there, and it really doesn't you know,
I feel sorry for them, But what does that actually
mean at the end of the day to the individual
that's right dealing with that on.
Speaker 6 (44:59):
A daily that's that's exactly right. And you know, my
own life experience is kind of a microcosm of the
problem because when I lived in central south central Los Angeles,
I didn't have any money either. You know, I would
I would spend the weekend junkyard parts for my car
to keep it running so I could try to get
(45:21):
to work during the week, you know, And do I
do I yeah, Do I pay the rent or do
I fix my car this month? Do I buy this
food or do I buy the new pair of shoes
I need. I know what that's like, and I know
the stress that goes with it. And I remember seeing
an interview with a woman who was very low income,
(45:44):
and she was talking about the fact that a lot
of people beat up on poor people for spending their
money on things like cigarettes, and she said, man, smoking
is the is the thing that helps me get through
two jobs a day when I'm exhausted and stressed. And
I know the reality of that. I know the reality
(46:05):
she's talking about because I've lived in the midst of
it and I've actually experienced it myself. And yet I
was able to work my way out of there. And
I have never felt comfortable with the fact that I
was able to work my way out of there. And
I know damn well that a lot of people there can't,
(46:27):
not because they don't want to, not because they don't
have drive, not because they don't work hard, but because
they're just in they can't get the education that would help,
or their skin color and accent and ethnic background or
national you know, their immigrants, whatever it is, puts barriers
(46:51):
up to them that I didn't have to contend with.
And that's just horrible, that's just wrong.
Speaker 5 (47:01):
Trust me, you definitely understand because I can relate as
a black man. I could never relate to everything that
you're saying because I come from a little town in Texas.
Was totally totally racist, so you know, I lived with
some of that stuff in my life, and when I
came to California. You mentioned South Central, but I went
(47:24):
to a Catholic school on forty first in Central. I
think I was the only black guy there. I was
the only black guy in the whole school. So I
just know about that. And one thing I can say
about our former president, he shone He shone a light
on a lot of these racial issues that people knew existed.
(47:46):
But they try to play like they didn't. Yeah, you
try to play like they're not there. But he pulled
a cover off a lot of that stuff. So I'm
glad that a lot of these things are being addressed
because they're good and bad people with all races, all cultures,
all nationalities, all over the world. And if anybody has
(48:07):
ever traveled anywhere, I'm sure that you've recognized it. Good
and bad people all over the world.
Speaker 6 (48:13):
It does, of course, and you also discover, yeah, you
also discover that we live in the We live in
a country that is wealthier than any in the history
of the world, and that that's not the case in
most of the places you travel to, right and much
of the world that you can travel to and and
(48:33):
the I mean, this is another side of the both
practical and moral climate challenge, is that everybody who lives
in countries that have been impoverished want to want to
have a comfortable lifestyle like we enjoy here. And we
are you know, we are the majority of the world's emissions,
(48:54):
those of us who live in the industrialized world the
carbon emissions, and the people in low income countries are
disproportionately living with the consequences. We need to get our
act together here fast. And you know, not just for
to save ourselves, but also because come on, folks, this
(49:15):
isn't this world wasn't put here just for me to
have a happy life and then leave nothing behind. I mean,
that makes no sense to me.
Speaker 5 (49:24):
It's all the confusion.
Speaker 6 (49:27):
Yeah, let's talk.
Speaker 5 (49:29):
Let's talk a little bit about your action for climate empowerment.
Speaker 6 (49:33):
Mm hmm, what is that? Yeah, So, so, you know,
part of the Paris Climate Agreement that Trump pulled us
out of and Biden put us back into is an
has an article in it, article twelve that that reaffirms
that from the underlying treaty that every nation of the
(49:55):
world needs to empower its citizens too, its residents to
participate in finding and implementing solutions to the climate crisis.
If you accept Biden's language that climate is the existential
threat of our time, the idea that we can continue
(50:17):
to live the way we live without changing anything in
the face of an existential threat just doesn't make any sense. Right.
If it's an existential threat, we need all of the expertise,
all the creativity, all of the initiative of an informed
and empowered public to create and implement solutions. And they'll
(50:37):
be different. In Texas. Solutions will be different than in
southern California or the Nebraska, or in New England or
in the Caribbean. There'll be solutions that fit that work
where each of us, where our communities are. So the
Paris Process urges every country to create a national strategy
(51:00):
to do this, to create policies for education and workforce
development and professional training, employee training, for public access to information,
public participation in policy making and organizational decision making, and
all the rest of it, and collaboration, cooperation with a
(51:23):
justice and gender equity and intergenerational you know lens. It says,
our kids and grandkids have the same rights to a
healthy world that we were born with to create a
national strategy to empower all of this across their societies.
And as it happens, some nations have done it, but
(51:45):
none of the major emitting countries of Europe, Japan, the
United States, China, India has done it. And so a
group of overall many years, a group of people who
are concerned about this from mostly from education work, but
from advocacy work, from communication work like I do to
(52:08):
have been talking about how do we create a national
strategy for a country as diverse as the United States is,
and recognizing that an election was coming up in twenty
twenty early in that year, as group of people got
together and said, let's figure out if we can create
the framework for a national strategy for the United States.
(52:31):
We don't have the standing. We're not the White House.
We can't officially do a national strategy for the United States.
But we can do a pilot project that is a
blueprint and that maps out the big themes if for
a national strategy for public engagement, if we do it
by recruiting a diverse group of professionals from different geographies,
(52:54):
different ethnic backgrounds, different professional backgrounds, and we bring them
together in dialogues and do the kind of exercises together,
forecasting exercises together, and strategic planning that will give us
a framework that we can give to the new administration
and say, here's the blueprint for creating a national strategy.
(53:16):
This should influence every policy in the federal government, and
you should encourage it across sub national governments, meaning states, counties, municipalities,
tribal governments, and organizations. And so we hosted a group
of online dialogues. We were doing this during the pandemic,
so we met over Zoom and it was these dialogues
(53:42):
were so incredibly inspiring and transformational because you realize the
depth of commitpacity that exists in this country, but it's
distributed everywhere. And so I was brought in. I was
invited into this process as a participant and also to
be one of the writers of the framework. So my
(54:04):
partner writing partner, Deb Morrison, and I wrote this strategic
planning framework for the United States, and it went through
three rounds of reviews. First of all, the coordinating team
reviewed it and we edited it, and then we brought
in a group of twenty very diverse strategic reviewers who
come from have different expertise and backgrounds. They reviewed the document,
(54:28):
and our mission was to give voice to the people
who created the insights the knowledge that was pooled here.
So we did another round of review, and then it
went out to the community itself, the networks of people
who had participated in their broader networks, and we got
literally a couple thousand comments or so. We responded to
(54:49):
every single one, did a final edit, and we released
this on November thirtieth of last year, and it has
gotten some, you know, some exposure within the Biden Harris administration.
It's gotten some exposure with some members of Congress, with
some folks in the news media, and we are continuing.
(55:12):
Those who were engaged in this process felt so energized
by it and by its potential that we are working
hard on different avenues to push the federal government in
this direction to be you know, our view is that
we should be we should lead the world in creating
(55:32):
a national strategy that works for the United States, brings
together educators, communicators, local activists, large scale activist organizations, the
business community to create essentially a national mobilization to solve
the climate crisis. We argue that the all of government
(55:55):
strategy that the Biden Harris administration is pursuing really needs
to be met by an all of the society mobilization
to support it, to engage in it, to do it.
And so that's that's the nature of this work. I think.
Speaker 5 (56:12):
Yeah, I kind of add into my next question, do
you feel like the Biden administration is on the right track?
That's part one of the questions. The second part that
same question is do you feel like the powers that
be are going to let them play out?
Speaker 6 (56:29):
Yeah, two really good questions. I think the Biden administration
has been working really hard to get its feed under
it in this space. I think the appointment of Gena
McCarthy to be the Domestic Climates are and John Kerry
to be the International Climate Leader for the United States
ENVOY is a big, big first step. And Presidents signed
(56:51):
a an executive order that calls for an all of
government strategy and tasks the various federal agencies with working
on pieces of this. They also organize the what's called
the WEIJAK, the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, which
has an independent group that has already issued a final
(57:13):
report to the federal government, and they have also appointed
this process. I described last year is known by the
acronym ACE Action for Climate Empowerment so ACE, and they
have appointed a dual ACE national focal point, which is
one of the steps that the Paris Agreement calls for,
(57:34):
and the ACE focal points we are hoping will will
get the authorities to start really working on this strategic
work to empower the public, not just empower the federal
government to do its work. So in a way, all
eyes are on the Infrastructure Bill and whether it can
get through Congress in a way that is really really productive.
(57:57):
And in another way, behind the scenes, a bunch of
us are working as hard as we can to try
to gain traction for a whole of society mobilization model
that can work through the federal agencies, the Extension Agency,
the education leads, the rule makers, those who incentivize and
(58:18):
work with local communities, so that there is sort of
a top down meeting a bottom up, right, that's the
holy grail here, And will they succeed will we succeed?
We don't know unless you're one of the people who
is really in the room in those discussions in the
(58:41):
White House and in the federal agencies. It's hard to
read the tea leaves. But there are some positive signs,
and there's a real sense that people who work on
the climate crisis are are seeing enough of a difference
in the Biden administration that people have been energized by it.
(59:02):
With some skepticism, I mean, there's a you know, the
people are gonna hold the Biden administration's feet to the fire.
It could very easily slide into sort of status quo
with good intentions, but I don't think. I don't think
the people who work on climate are gonna stand for
that too long.
Speaker 5 (59:23):
Tom. Listen, we're just about out of time here, man,
but we're gonna leave that one a question mark open
for you. So I want to come back, come back
to the show man, so we can finish that conversation,
and we're gonna start it out with that one right there,
and we will be able to look at it again.
I think I'll look forward to that, Oh, definitely, definitely, Man,
(59:43):
I'm gonna look forward to it as well, because we're
both gonna be walking around with our eyes wide open
to see what they do.
Speaker 6 (59:49):
That's right, that's right. Listen, Thank you so much for
having me on Lamont. This has been terrific.
Speaker 5 (59:55):
Oh man, we enjoyed you immensely and I just want
to tell our listeners again, if you going to show late,
it'll be available worldwide, so you have no excuse, no
reason why you can't hear it. I can't get it
from anybody. And I tell you the same thing weekly.
Ask your mama, ask your daddy, ask your neighbor across
the street, ask the god's the gas station, of the
(01:00:17):
man who worked in a supermarket. Somebody be able to
tell you where you can hit a show, so you
don't have no excuse. And definitely, mister Tom Bowman, have
a message and each every one of you guys can benefit,
take notes and support. We do need to make changes.
And I want to thank you so so very much
for joining us today. Tom, I thank you again, and
(01:00:40):
the doors open come back anytime.
Speaker 6 (01:00:42):
Would love to have you, and thank you. It's been
my honor to be here.
Speaker 5 (01:00:48):
Continue to be safe. Everybody will see you guys next
week the same time to thirty pst. Be safe and
take this one home with you.
Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
God is good, good God.
Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
Yeah, it could have been my running through.
Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
The toy trap.
Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
That is what I never went to etihome now, God
good and she's my brother.
Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
No time, I'm got tath. I'm about to drop about
giving up. Oh Mama didn't know me. Never hackn me have.
Speaker 5 (01:01:34):
A thing on me.
Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
I thought the right from above, the love, the power
going there from the bear.
Speaker 4 (01:01:40):
We beginning they have a r never never have to run.
Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
I'm gonna shop until the ave my clothes.
Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
On my back, food on my table. What this over
me at night?
Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
Walla, I'm gonna keep hot. I should have been crazy
by now, said am I rave by now? I should
have been.
Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
Locked for now. Should have been talking now all the time,
all the time, all the time.
Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
God set sail. But non gives me power? What dude,
you don't talk about done wrong? But I don't sing
the blues.
Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
I gotta be wrong.
Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
But I wonder the bosses bes.
Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
But did you be s.
Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
Yes, my pat, I conduds and you'll do the rest.
I'm about talking about the thing about it and get
no good.
Speaker 3 (01:02:35):
I have to shout about it.
Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
I'm trying to cut him off, but it's two mannies.
Speaker 5 (01:02:38):
I'm talking pennies.
Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
There's never any thing that I need. Indeed, I know he.
Speaker 3 (01:02:42):
Will supply come right. Am.
Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
I gotta put a lot to have been wrong for now,
year at the end of a row.
Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
For now, Yeah, it should have been going now. I
should have been alone for now all the He's got
me all the time. God should have been coping out
(01:03:10):
my should have been opened up all the time.
Yeah, yeah, old school, that's what I'm talking about. Listening.
This ain't for everybody. Some of y'all need to hear it.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I know you're in the trenches fighting me, but check
it out. I'm gonna put it down like this. Why
I can give him the things. Understand everything you're going through.
It's all part of the master plant or what you say,
Cause you got saved.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Everything was gonna be pictures with Queen. You better wake up.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Son.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
Don't nothing come to a.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Super but say God worse his dead reach the fire.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Well you know what he says.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
He's just don't work blackly, don't get said. Yeah, he's
just said. He hoops his hands to the pot, looks
back to say makes fit. Some of y'all ain't been
in the switchers five minutes and you're not ready to question.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I ain't mad. I'm just sitting you with the real
If you got for.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Men, I was still sip.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Now, how do you think that makes you feel? Check
this out? He'p gas. This is deep hunt. I mean,
y'all have saw nothing but the son is trying to
reach something. But I think he was there for the position.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Of farms fight his glory trumping might be part of
your TESTI money, but it ain't paen to the stoke
now I want to stuff his proper's side way back.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
In the day. Why I sing the hook right here?
See if the church getting.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
Lace working out, working up, we yes can yes, he can.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Think you're not saying the fire repros of just fly
you you say, why you what your shut shake? What
would Jesus do? Why you're answering if you ain't trying
to do what he's saying. You told you he was
gonna have tribulations, but you thought he was played for
one minute. You trying to how good guy the beca't
nobody missus talk the next vintage?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Your back fight so fast? I'm like your moon walking.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Oh yeah, I'm listening to myself that I ain't no better.
It ain't like I've been talking as every word a man.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
At the letter.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
But we told us we gotta remember that. We say yo, yeah,
found down, the say humble, let him annoy. It ain't
even as I thought it was. I mean, lying up,
I told you, but it showed up betting better all
the time.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Bus that's fast, ain't if we're going through the kphill.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
God put that on this hub like they say, you
can shop now you walk to.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
Everyone. Welcome to the show, show hosts Lamar Patterson. This
is kind of play a play. I just thought i'd
give a minute the big boy upstairs. You know it's
my hope and my wish that your belief that with
his help, boy, we're gonna be able to make it. Boy,
this thing that we call life because it's a whole
bunch of crazy. It's going on out there right about now,
(02:36):
so I know we're gonna make it. And anyway, i'd
like to say, welcome to the show again. We have
a great dynamite show lying there for you as usual.
Well try to bring our guests to the show that
can enlighten you, help you some type of positive way.
So moving forward with us again thing that we call
(02:57):
life because a lot of things could be changed and made.
That our guest today, mister Tom Bowman, is an advisor, speaker,
change maker that believes, you know, solutions are within our
grasp and we're gonna be speaking on what is solving
the climbing crisis is simple. So yes, we definitely go
(03:20):
delve into that one, boy, because we got fires, we
got droughts. We got all kinds of stuff going on
right now and we need a solution. With that being said,
let me see as I guess with us. Mister Bowman,
are you with us?
Speaker 6 (03:32):
It's my pleasure to be here. Thank you, La Month.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Thank you so much for taking time out to come
in and chat with us. You know, you have a
very powerful message. And like I was saying, boy, we're
dealing with these things every day and it's amazing how
we take so many things for granted. And thank you
for joining us.
Speaker 6 (03:52):
You bet my pleasure.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
So Tom, let me see if I can call you Tom.
Speaker 6 (04:00):
Of course.
Speaker 5 (04:02):
A book out what a solving the climate crisis is simple,
so that is a great, great place to start. But first, man,
we got a list of questions here for you. Man,
I think I need to go ahead and run through them.
Speaker 6 (04:15):
There you go.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
I don't want to start up asking you how many
dogs you got? You know, so you know this this
climate issue and I know we seeing what's going on
with the world today, you know, and always talk to
my friends about you know, when I was tad bien younger,
how we knew the season without having to you know,
(04:39):
rely on the calendar. We just just a new one. Yeah,
we can tell by the boy the weather.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So let me see.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
The first one got for you is why is climate
change referred to as a wicked problem? And why is
climate change one of them?
Speaker 6 (04:59):
Yeah? That is that is a great question. A wicked
problem is a term that's been given to any kind
of problem that is so complicated we can't figure out
how to solve it. And the idea of a wicked
problem is that it's so complex that you can't see
the whole thing. You can't get all the information you
want to have to make a decision, and even if
(05:21):
you try to solve the part you can see, you're
probably going to create other problems that you can't see.
And so it's sort of a it's sort of a
defeatist mentality that says, the best we can do with
a wicked problem is we can do our best to
manage it, but we can't really solve it, and we
have to understand that as much as we try, we're
(05:44):
still going to take some lumps along the way. And
a lot of scientists refer to climate change in this
exactly this way, and if you like, I can get
into it. There's a reason why they describe it that way,
and I think that that's a big mistake.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
That's better go for it all, right.
Speaker 6 (06:05):
So the reason that it's so easy to think of
climate change as something that we can't solve is because
we've learned about it from people who study the complexities
of global systems. You know, scientists are looking at at
atmospheric chemistry and physics, the way heat moves around our planet,
the way ocean currents interact with that, the way the
(06:28):
biosphere all life on the planet interacts with that, the
way the polar ice sheets interact with that, and it
is a really complex I mean, the ideas are pretty simple,
but all the interactions are really complicated, and so we've
learned to think of it in complex terms. And unfortunately,
the way that experts, so called experts, have talked to
(06:51):
us about how to solve the climate crisis has followed
that same model. So it sounds like the climate solutions
are these credible, complicated entangled Gordian knot of energy systems,
food production systems, global delivery and transportation systems, international finance systems,
(07:13):
international aid systems, international and local and national level governance systems,
urban planning and architecture systems, utility systems, all of this
stuff is when you think of it as systems are
interacting with each other. So let's say you and I
decide we're going to try to solve carbon emissions coming
(07:35):
from food production from agriculture, and we start pulling on
that thread in this not pretty soon we have to
figure out how our fertilizers and herbicides, which are made
from fossil fuels, get generated, and how we're going to
transport our crops, where we're going to get water from,
how we're going to fund our business. So we're dealing
with national governance, we're dealing with international markets, and it
(07:59):
all becomes so complex that it feels like we're too
small to solve it. And it also creates this false
impression that the solutions need to be managed by some
sort of cadre of technical elite people who can see
the whole problem, map out some kind of master plan,
(08:20):
and then somehow govern this master plan across the entire world.
We all know that nothing works that way, right, and
we also know, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 5 (08:35):
Now, I'm just to ask you, are these the same people?
Hopefully these won't be the same people that's been following
the past model.
Speaker 6 (08:43):
Well, well, I'm really describing kind of an idea that
has propagated in a lot of our thinking. And some
of it we're aware of it. Some of it's kind
of unconscious. And the reason I wrote this book is
that I do have done so much work with scientists
of the years that I've watched this way of thinking
(09:03):
play out. And the logical conclusion of every lecture, every documentary,
every every book I've read is, Man, we're in a
We're in a world of trouble, and we know it's
a wicked problem. So we can't really solve it, but
we need to try our best, and so we need
to somehow muster the political will to do the hard work,
(09:26):
even though we know we're going to get hit along
the way with some you know, some pretty terrible consequences.
And that just strikes me as a as a bad
place to start. And so uh, and so I wrote
the book remembering what an art teacher told me one time,
and this is a this is a true story. I
(09:46):
was working on a painting when I was a young guy,
and I couldn't solve it. I mean, everything I did
seemed to just keep it in you know, kind of
ugly and make it worse. And he came up behind
me and he said, I tell you what, do hang
it on the wall upside down and go home, because
when you come back tomorrow, you're going to see it
(10:07):
differently than you've ever seen it before, and you're going
to know exactly what's wrong with it. And I did it,
and he was exactly right. And that's a metaphor for
the way to look at problems that seem intractable. Right.
If you think a problem can't be solved, it might
just be that every solution we try has an assumption
(10:30):
in common because we're so used to seeing the problem
in the same way. And so hanging the picture upside
down is a metaphor for let's go hunting for our
assumptions as we try to solve this and see if
they're really true. Let's set them aside for a minute
and see what happens, see what reveals itself. And when
(10:50):
you do that, with the climate crisis as complex as
it looks, you discover that it really just boils down
to doing one thing, and that is to stop burning
fossil fuels. We know we want to do it as
quickly as we can because the consequences are so bad
if we don't, and we know we don't want to fail,
because the consequences are so bad if we don't. And
(11:13):
so there's sort of a new mantra in this little
book I wrote. And the mantra is stop burning fossil
fuels well before mid century and absolutely positively do not fail. Now,
that might not be easy to think about on a
global scale, but it's very easy to start thinking about
at the scale of our own community, of our own
(11:35):
businesses where we work, of our own households, where we live.
And all of a sudden, this becomes something we can
all start to work on, and it means we're no
longer dependent on this idea that somebody is going to
figure out a master plan and somehow figure out a
way to marshal all the people of the world to
do the same thing. It doesn't have to work that way.
(11:57):
Nothing works that way. We can actually do this locally everywhere.
We can all be empowered and engaged, and we can
make progress faster than we ever thought possible.
Speaker 5 (12:08):
So what do you think the issue is that getting
humanity to all get on the same page. Because it
seemed like, for some reason people are kind.
Speaker 6 (12:17):
Of stuck, very much stuck, And I think I want
to ask another question. What if we don't have to
be on the same page. What if that's another distraction
that's keeping us from from getting off the sidelines ourselves
and becoming active. I know a lot of social scientists
(12:39):
who will say that the research shows that the most
useful thing we can do to combat the climate crisis
is try to get the people who are most concerned
about it activated. These are the people who are most
amenable to doing something right now. And the more we
engage with people who want to do something instead of
(13:00):
bring all our effort into trying to convince the deniers
to come along with us, the more we'll start actually
changing things in the world for the better. And as
people start to see the world changing for the better,
it starts to create this sense of social momentum, of
mutual expectations, and we can all start generating more momentum
(13:21):
towards positive change. It doesn't have to be smooth, it
doesn't have to be consistent everywhere it but the more
we generate it's like a snowball rolling down the hill
is what we're trying to start, and so more people
who are more deeply on the sidelines than say I
am will start to join in the process, and that
(13:42):
will influence the people in their networks that they know,
and that will gain spread and we can hopefully change
our culture and generate the kind of political momentum that
will cause policymakers to join us in this work.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
Yeah, I'll just say to ask you that too. How
much do you think that how much influence do you
think the policy makers would have with this, because seemed
like a lot of him are stuck.
Speaker 6 (14:07):
Also, Oh they are.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
You know.
Speaker 6 (14:10):
I talked to a congressman who represented me at one time.
We were at a town hall that he was hosting,
and somebody in the audience spoke up about an issue
that mattered to a lot of people and said, why
isn't Congress going to do this? Because we know we
all want it, And he said, look, he just sort
of he just sort of told the truth for a moment,
(14:32):
he said, you know, you have to understand.
Speaker 5 (14:35):
Yeah, he said, for a moment, he said, for a
moment a moment.
Speaker 6 (14:38):
Well, but this is the thing, Yes, I know exactly,
but this is the thing that we all we all suspect,
we've all been told, and here he was saying it
out loud. He said that every member of Congress is
there to represent the people who paid to put them there.
He didn't say they're there to represent you and me.
He said they're there to represent the people who wrote
(14:59):
the big checks. And so anything we want to push
through the Congress, we have to figure out how to
push it through when everybody there is representing the money
to put them there. Now, where's the big money. It's
in big, big corporations. It's in entrepreneurs who who have
enjoyed a fairly laissez faire kind of regulatory environment and
(15:20):
made money. And it's the people who are invested in
industries like fossil fuels that don't want to give up
the advantages that they have, right. And so that's the
political landscape we have to work in. And I am
as hopeful as anybody else that Congress will really pass
the kind of infrastructure bills and climate bills that the
(15:41):
Biden administration is talking about. But whether they're successful or not,
we can't wait for some other administration and Congress to
replace them. We need to be moving now. And it
leads me to wonder, is the federal government going to
be the last one to the party. Right, our state
(16:01):
and state governments and local governments and businesses and ordinary
people going to be pushing so much change that we
can generate a momentum that causes the federal government to
join us. And of course it's not that it's not
just binary. It's not that they'll do nothing until we
(16:22):
do a lot. They have done things the Clean Power Plan,
the regulations on pollution from coal fired power plants, the
risk you know, the protecting of Arctic wild lands from
oil exploration. There's a lot going on that's in government
and outside of government. It's just that we need so
(16:43):
much more of it.
Speaker 5 (16:47):
I guess what I'm saying. The Temptation has had this
song out once upon a time called Ball of Confusion,
and that's what I'm saying. Right now in the world
is this big ball of confusion, and nobodybody really knows
what to believe and who to believe and when to believe. So,
you know, it's hard to facilitate any kind of change
(17:10):
without you know, somebody moving in the same direction at
the same time. And that's what I see that's not
happening right now. So what do you see time it
helped remy that problem to even affect a climate change
because it's you know, everything's going on now, the pandemic.
Everything in the whole political world is so confusing.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
You know.
Speaker 5 (17:33):
I mean, it's kind of hard to focus on this.
But even though we see it every day with the drought, yeah,
with the fires, you know, this affecting the whole food chain.
You know, we see it, we're living with it daily.
But everybody's so inundated with all this other madness that's
going on, and it really got all confusion. So what's
(17:56):
going to stop people or that slap of side the
head to make everybody just stop right now listen, you
know what I mean? Yeah, so they at least get
the memo. That's where I'm at, you know, because I'm
seeing all the problems, and everybody else see the problems,
but they're so busy on this survival mode and confused.
So yes, I don't know.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
Yeah that that is a really really good question. And
it's not as it's not. It's not simple. There is
a real this. This is just the fact there is
a psychological I want to say, a trend. But it's
not just that we humans are programmed to prioritize the
(18:40):
challenges that are immediate over the challenges that seem like
we can deal with them later, right, and and so
long term challenge. This is part of the reason that
scientists like to call climate change a wicked problem. It
evolves slowly over time, and so there's always something that
feels more urgent, right, Pandemic is more urgent. The state
(19:02):
of the economy, the state of whether I have a
job or not, how am I going to put food
on the table, all those kinds of things that be
able to keep my family healthy. These these questions feel
far more urgent and salient than and tangible than whether
the climate is changing. One of the ways I think
(19:23):
we can get the slap on the side of the
head that you're talking about to be effective is that
in these moments when we see floods in Europe and
horrific fires in the West, heat stress in the southern
part of the United States, and you know, millions of
(19:44):
refugees climate refugees migrating north to our southern border from
places that are becoming unlivable, is to shift a narrative.
You know, we always hear in the news about these
problems we never hear about solutions to these problems or
progress on these problems. And I would just like to
(20:06):
tell your listeners that there is a there is a
counter narrative that's not getting much attention that says that
Europe is banning the sale of internal cobustion engine cars
and trucks by twenty thirty. That Ford, the biggest you know,
has announced an all electric F one fifty, which is
the biggest selling vehicle in the United States by a mile.
(20:29):
The state of California has made enormous progress across the
entire economy on reducing carbon emissions because of its forward
looking climate laws. The state of Iowa gets forty percent
or so of its electricity from wind power. There's a
community that was wiped out by a tornado in Kansas
(20:51):
called Greensburg that rebuilt as a green city. They get
one hundred percent of their electricity from wind power. So
there is gress happening everywhere. It's just that we don't
tend to pull it all together and say is this
a sign? Are these things together collectively a sign of
(21:13):
our capacity to move in the right direction? I think
they are. It's just that the news media has never
told the story in that way. And so most people,
most of us, hear a little anecdote about success here
or a little thing about something there, and we think
it's just a fragmentary thing, and we're waiting for somebody
to tell us there's a master plan. But I'm here
(21:36):
to tell you that if you just start letting those
listen to those stories with a different filter that says, hey,
I heard about something else yesterday, and I hear about
this today, and I heard about something else last week.
There seems to be a lot going on right and
it's that beehive of activity that in our society that is,
(21:58):
I think our biggest hope for changing the world more
quickly than we expect we can. That's my optimistic voice.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
Well, listen, we know a lot of people walking around
here with their eyes they're wide open, but they're still shit.
So we're going to help those out. But Tom, in
your book, you described having a moment of climate epiphany.
What happens is that change?
Speaker 6 (22:27):
Boy? Yeah, this is something I don't really wish on anybody,
but it sure happened to me. I used to own
an exhibit design company, so I had about a dozen
employees and we designed exhibits for museums and public aquariums
and trade shows for corporate clients. And in the course
of doing that, I was hired by the National Academy
(22:48):
of Sciences in Washington, DC to create a new museum
for them, a small new museum. And anybody who would
say no to the opportunity to design a museum in
the nation's capital would my profession would be nuts, you know,
So of course I jumped at the chance. And the
National Academies is a nonprofit chartered by Abraham Lincoln to
(23:11):
advise the government on matters of science and medicine and engineering.
So all those NRC reports national security are National NRC
National Research Council reports. That's an arm of the National Academies, right,
So it's the elite scientists come together and they're inducted
(23:32):
based on the quality of their work. So that was
my client. And the first exhibit we did was about
climate science back in two thousand and three, and so
it was like going to graduate school as an independent
study with climate scientists because I had to learn what
I had to learn the story in order to translate
it into exhibits that speak to the rest of us
(23:53):
who aren't scientists, right, And I remember being really worried
by what I saw back then, and the attitude among
the scientists in two thousand and three was, you know, yeah,
this is potentially really bad. Thank goodness, we have time
to sort this out because people are not unwise enough
that we're going to do something really, really dangerous. So
(24:17):
I kind of went back to work like anybody else
would on other projects, and in three years later, I
was hired by the Script's Institution of Oceanography in Southern California,
which is another highly, highly regarded scientific research institution, and
they have a public aquarium. So they wanted to do
an exhibit that would open in two thousand and seven
(24:39):
about climate science, and the attitude among the scientists in
just three years had just flipped one hundred and eighty degrees.
They were, you know, the emissions in China and Asia
had general had just skyrocketed beyond anybody's expectations. The Arctic
was starting to melt the ice much faster than anybody
(25:02):
had expected. And so I was sitting picture this. I'm
sitting in this conference room at the aquarium that's got
Florida ceiling windows. It's on the second floor on a
bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean in this beautiful cove in
southern sunny southern California. Right, it's an idyllic setting. And
so we're sitting there talking about what we're going to
(25:24):
put in the exhibit, the science officer and I and
I just casually mentioned to her, you know, the people
at the National Academies had said, keep an eye on
the ocean. The ocean covers. You know, almost eighty percent
of our planet can absorb so much heat before the
water actually starts to warm that when you start to
(25:47):
see rises in ocean temperature, it means that we're going
to be committed to a changing climate for five hundred
or one thousand years. And she said, oh, well, we're
part of this project. It's called Argo, and we have
robotic floats in every ocean in the world, and we've
already measured warming in every ocean in the world to
(26:08):
a depth of one thousand meters that's three thousand feet deep,
covering more than three quarters of a planet. Right, And
that's the moment of epiphany.
Speaker 5 (26:23):
You know.
Speaker 6 (26:23):
The dictionary says an epiphany is a sudden, intuitive insight
into some aspect of reality. Well, the thing about a
real epiphany is that it changes your life because it
hits you like a ton of bricks all at once.
And in that moment, everything I knew about the potential
(26:44):
risks and horrors of a destabilized climate came home to
me all at once, and I realized that we're way
farther into this than I had imagined. And I mean
literally the hair on the back of my mind next
stood up. It was I actually looked over my shoulder.
Its like, is there a predator behind me?
Speaker 1 (27:05):
You know?
Speaker 6 (27:05):
It has that kind of emotional feel to it, right,
And I was kind of, you know, trying to catch
my breath. My sense of hey, I'm a cool business
owner with my client, everything's cool just was just stripped away.
And she said, in that moment, by the way, my boss,
the director of the aquarium, would like to meet you
(27:26):
now for the first time. So I walked into her
office and I sat down. She's a scientist, and she
chatted for a minute, and then she looked at me
because I was literally shaking, and she said, is there
anything you want to ask me? And I said, yeah,
how do you cope with knowing what you know? And
she said oh, we can have a real conversation about
(27:48):
this now, you know. And I drove home that night
thinking can I stuff this genie back in this bottle
and go back to the life I used to lead?
And I mean just two hours ago I was leading.
And the answer, of course to that question is not
a chance. And so it fundamentally caused me to refocus
(28:11):
my career. I started working with scientists and social scientists
a lot more. I eventually sold my decarbonized, my exhibit
design company. We got recognition for that. I sold it
to my employees. And because they're just you need to
be doing work on climate change beyond exhibits, I felt,
and so and so I opened a consultancy just be
(28:35):
able to be in the conversations that could lead to
what I thought would be productive work. And I said,
I don't wish this on anybody, because that moment of it,
I mean, I wrote an emotional roller coaster for a
couple of years after that, you know. And one scientist
said to me, I feel optimistic on you know, Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
(28:55):
I feel pessimistic Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday is up
for grabs. And I can tell you it's I don't
go through that anymore. But WHOA, what a ride. So
my hope is that we can in fact be joyous
and enthusiastic about creating the world we want to live in,
(29:18):
rather than live a life of dread trying to avoid
catastrophes that we don't want to see.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (29:26):
And that's the cut of the scary part of being
on that balance and that balance being right there to
balance it. And I was thinking too while I was
listening to your tom. I'm a fisherman, and I'm looking
at how the ocean has changed, or should I say,
even the quality of fish in the last five years.
(29:47):
I notice how it dropped off, you know, and figure
out Well, matter of fact, let me ask you, since
this is more or less your feel, do you feel
like the climate change hast on the ocean life?
Speaker 6 (30:03):
Oh? Absolutely yeah. One of the sort of poster children
of that is penguins in South America that live off
of krill, tiny shrimp, and the changes in ocean temperature
are moving the krill elsewhere from where the penguins are.
And so I mean there was a time in South
(30:26):
America where there were you know, hundreds thousands of penguins
on the beach starving because their food supply was gone.
There's this kind of disruption is happening everywhere in the
climates because of the changing climate, as animals that can
move and plants that can migrate easily go as far
(30:47):
as they can. But that disrupts all the ecosystems for
everybody else. So, yes, that's happening in the ocean. The
oceans are also being overfished. The amount of plastic pollution
and agricultural runoff that's running into the oceans is just staggering,
and that has an impact on local populations of fish too.
(31:10):
So it's a you know, it's a it's a multiple
bunch of bunch of hits at once. I suspect that
you're seeing.
Speaker 5 (31:19):
So what do you think we can do about this?
Speaker 6 (31:26):
Yeah, that's been the sixty fourth dollar question. And I
will tell you that the advice from social scientists has
been really interesting. For a long time. They have said
the most important thing each of us can do about
climate change is to talk about it more with our families, friends,
co workers, employers, politicians, everybody. The amount the lack of
(31:52):
climate talk is one of the reasons that policymakers don't
and the media don't feel like this needs to be
our top priority issue. And this is a really you know,
this is taking a human psychology approach to the problem.
Right that we can list all the actions we should,
(32:12):
we can take, and I can give your listeners some
pointers if you'd like, But the most important thing we
can do is break the ice, because when we do,
we discover that we're not alone in our worry. Everybody
is worried. The research on public opinion shows that vast
majorities of people of all political stripes are concerned about
(32:33):
the changing climate and want something done. But if we're
all quiet about it, if we don't talk about it,
and the research shows that not very many of us
are talking about it very much. If we don't break
that ice and make it normal to voice our concerns
and our enthusiasm for the for the world we can
create without smog and other kinds of pollution, and with
(32:59):
the kind of strife that comes with climate change, we're
kind of keeping a lid on it, on our capacity
to act and our willpower to act. So, from a
from a very fundamental how do societies change point of view?
Talking about climate and talking about it as an opportunity
(33:20):
to create a better world. Are the most important things
we can do. And then each of us can do
the things to decarbonize our business and our household and
to make us more resilient to you know, more more
extreme weather depending on where we live. And we can
get into those things if you like. But I think
(33:41):
that talking fundamentally is the big deal. Okay, And that's
not what anybody's going to tell you, right because everybody's
going to tell you we need a climate a carbon tax,
or we need an infrastructure bill, or we need to
invest in this or that that's all really good stuff
to do. We should do it, and talking about it
(34:02):
more is one of the ways we start, you know,
sort of rallying ourselves to demand that of our elected leaders.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
Yeah. I guess that's a good start. But then there's
people out there that are the mindset that you know, well,
we've been talking about it, so now what And then
we get into what you spoke about a little while ago,
you know, the electric cars and a lot of stuff
going electric. Matter of fact, I built the house that's
all electric, and at first I wasn't sure if I
(34:33):
was doing the right thing. But I'm kind of okay
with it now seeing how things are going. Yeah, so
what do you think. You know in the next five
ten years you're going to see more electric homes. Well,
we see the electric cars coming now, but what other
changes do you see?
Speaker 6 (34:51):
Yeah, all electric homes is a big deal. Energy efficiency
in everything that uses energy is a huge deal. It's
the cheapest form of new energy in the world. It's
the energy. Don't we stop using because we're more efficient? Right,
And for anybody buying anything that uses energy, a refrigerator,
(35:13):
a computer, a television, any of it, if you look
for the energy Star symbol when you're shopping, that's a
good place to start. Because Energy Star is a program
that identifies the top percentage of energy efficiency in any category,
(35:33):
and as more and more products meet that standard, they
raise the standard. So there are very there are fewer
energy star rated products, and as more and more products
meet that standard, they raise the standard again. And that's
a way of encouraging improvements over time.
Speaker 5 (35:51):
Right.
Speaker 6 (35:51):
So your ten year old refrigerator energy Star refrigerator is
far more energy intensive than a new energy Star refrigerator,
and so utility companies want you to change them want
you to replace them. And obviously everybody's financial circumstances are different.
So if you can build an all electric home or
(36:15):
convert your home to all electric energy star systems, you're
way ahead. If you can't afford to the same rules apply.
You want to use more natural light, more natural air
fans for air conditioning instead of air conditioning, if you
can do it led lighting, you know, the simple kinds
(36:39):
of things. If you live in a hot place, try
to have more shade right around your home because it'll
keep the air cooler that's coming into your home. If
you live in a cold place, you want good insulation
to keep it warm. These are real, basic ideas, right
and finding ways to just implement those ideas in all
the things we do is a good way for each
(37:02):
of us to reduce our energy demand and therefore reduce
our carbon footprint. While we press for the market to
change and for politicians to wake up and pass legislation
that won't really help us make bigger progress.
Speaker 5 (37:19):
Well, I guess I should say I'm happy to be
alive to see some of these chains is unfold. But
let me stay right here, Tom for our listeners have
just joined us. If you'd like to join the conversation.
You could dial six four six nine two nine two
eight seven oh and press number one on your phone
and we'd be glad to let you join the conversation
(37:40):
if you'd like to ask the guests a question or
two about moving forward and how you could help this
climate thing. Tom. In your book, what is Solving the
Climate Crisis? Is simple? You wrote a chapter in there,
and I'm very interested in hearing you speak all this
(38:02):
about how what is it if you wrote an entire
talks about climate justice and confronting injustice as a white man?
Why did you write about system racism in a book
about solving the climate crisis?
Speaker 6 (38:17):
Thank you for asking that question, because most interviewers don't
ask that question. You know, we're I'm glad.
Speaker 5 (38:25):
You're not, because I wanted to looking inquiring mind wants.
Speaker 6 (38:32):
To know that's right, that's right. I live in Long Beach, California,
which is part has the busiest seaport in the United States,
the Ports of Long Beach in Los Angeles. There's a
freeway that comes out of that port that has something
like seven thousand semis on it every single day hauling
containers away from the port, and then equivalent number of
(38:57):
trucks are coming back every day into the port to
deliver empty shipping containers to send back to China, to
load up with more stuff to bring to big box
stores and bring it back here. Seven thousand trucks a
day produce all kinds of diesel pollution. Guess who lives
close to the freeway. It's not wealthy white people. It's
(39:19):
people of color and people with low incomes. And that's
true everywhere. And it means that those who have darker
skin and those who who have lower incomes are suffering
higher rates of asthma, childhood disease, respiratory disease, more loss
(39:40):
of work because you're out sick, more days at the
emergency room, more loss of income, and all together poorer
health than people who look like I do. Because I'm
a white guy. So forever, forever, I have been hearing
in the scientific press in papers that climate impacts people disproportionately,
(40:04):
and that the people who will suffer from climate change
of the most are people of color and people with
low incomes here in the United States and all around
the world. Right I began working on a project last year,
a collaborative project to try to build a strategy, an
integrated strategy for the hopefully what we hope would be
(40:25):
a Biden administration to start developing a plan to engage
and get the public empowered and involved in this. And
it was a multi ethnic, multiracial, multi profession set of
dialogues that made absolutely I mean, it's like another kind
of epiphany. Right. The idea that there's disproportional impacts is
(40:49):
well understood, but until you really confront it, until you're
really in dialogue people with people who live with it,
it's not as powerful. And I grew up in horrendous
smog in southern California. I know what that's like. And
I lived in a mixed race, low income part of
Los Angeles for a few years that was hot in
(41:11):
the summer and tensely smoggy, and nobody had any money
for air conditioning, and it was a really difficult place
to be. And I realized that most of the people
who lived there didn't have opportunities to earn more money
and get out of there if they wanted to. This
is just ridiculous. This is offensive, and I mean it's
(41:34):
offensive right now, not twenty fifty years from now. As
the climate changes it's just not right right now. And
so I wrote the chapter to kind of explore a
little bit about how we get acculturated into systems that
we all know are racist and wrong and unfair, and
(41:59):
we find ourselves else in those systems. Get how did
I get here as a white person. You know, a
lot of white people don't want to confront this because
it's uncomfortable. They don't you know, they say their hearts
are in the right place. We all believe our most
of us believe our hearts are in the right place,
or a lot of us do anyway, And yet here
we are in a system that's still giving me an
(42:21):
advantage that somebody else doesn't have. What's up with that?
And so I heard I heard calls during the Black
Lives Matter protests last summer after the murder of George
Floyd that white people need to start having their own
conversation about race. And so I wrote this chapter thinking,
you know, that's really true, and the only way to
(42:43):
start it is to be as awkward as I am
and just start it. And so the chapter looks at
it kind of reflects on my own experience of going
into business trying to make a living, finding that that.
You know, my mentors in school, and my mentors in business,
(43:06):
and my clients in business all have expectations that I'm
trying to meet in order to advance. And all of
those structures are fundamentally unjust. You know, they favor certain
people over other people for no legitimate reason. Right, the
(43:27):
people of color and the low income people who participated
in these climate action dialogues were just as as knowledgeable
and wise and had as much experience as the people
who had been educated at Ivy League schools and had
the best degrees and credentials and were white. It didn't matter, everybody,
You know what I came, please jump in.
Speaker 5 (43:52):
He who created the game also created the rules. Yes,
so true, and unfortunately we're dealing with the same today
with just about everything. I just want to say right
here too. I definitely applaud you for that chapter in
the book and recognizing that and people never really think
(44:15):
about it in the terms that you just mentioned that.
You know, lower income families are destined to live in
certain areas because of the economic situation. You know, people
talk about it, but they really really really really don't
take a hard look at what that really means because
guess what, they don't live in that part of Long
Beach or that part of Torrents where you know, the
(44:38):
oil refining gas and oil refinery is always catching on
fire and the fallout. You know, people never really think
about that because they're so quick and easy to say, well,
I don't live there, and it really doesn't you know,
I feel sorry for them, But what does that actually
mean at the end of the day to the individual
that's right dealing with that on.
Speaker 6 (44:59):
A daily that's that's exactly right. And you know, my
own life experience is kind of a microcosm of the
problem because when I lived in central south central Los Angeles,
I didn't have any money either. You know, I would
I would spend the weekend junkyard parts for my car
to keep it running so I could try to get
(45:21):
to work during the week, you know, And do I
do I yeah, Do I pay the rent or do
I fix my car this month? Do I buy this
food or do I buy the new pair of shoes
I need. I know what that's like, and I know
the stress that goes with it. And I remember seeing
an interview with a woman who was very low income,
(45:44):
and she was talking about the fact that a lot
of people beat up on poor people for spending their
money on things like cigarettes, and she said, man, smoking
is the is the thing that helps me get through
two jobs a day when I'm exhausted and stressed. And
I know the reality of that. I know the reality
(46:05):
she's talking about because I've lived in the midst of
it and I've actually experienced it myself. And yet I
was able to work my way out of there. And
I have never felt comfortable with the fact that I
was able to work my way out of there. And
I know damn well that a lot of people there can't,
(46:27):
not because they don't want to, not because they don't
have drive, not because they don't work hard, but because
they're just in they can't get the education that would help,
or their skin color and accent and ethnic background or
national you know, their immigrants, whatever it is, puts barriers
(46:51):
up to them that I didn't have to contend with.
And that's just horrible, that's just wrong.
Speaker 5 (47:01):
Trust me, you definitely understand because I can relate as
a black man. I could never relate to everything that
you're saying because I come from a little town in Texas.
Was totally totally racist, so you know, I lived with
some of that stuff in my life, and when I
came to California. You mentioned South Central, but I went
(47:24):
to a Catholic school on forty first in Central. I
think I was the only black guy there. I was
the only black guy in the whole school. So I
just know about that. And one thing I can say
about our former president, he shone He shone a light
on a lot of these racial issues that people knew existed.
(47:46):
But they try to play like they didn't. Yeah, you
try to play like they're not there. But he pulled
a cover off a lot of that stuff. So I'm
glad that a lot of these things are being addressed
because they're good and bad people with all races, all cultures,
all nationalities, all over the world. And if anybody has
(48:07):
ever traveled anywhere, I'm sure that you've recognized it. Good
and bad people all over the world.
Speaker 6 (48:13):
It does, of course, and you also discover, yeah, you
also discover that we live in the We live in
a country that is wealthier than any in the history
of the world, and that that's not the case in
most of the places you travel to, right and much
of the world that you can travel to and and
(48:33):
the I mean, this is another side of the both
practical and moral climate challenge, is that everybody who lives
in countries that have been impoverished want to want to
have a comfortable lifestyle like we enjoy here. And we
are you know, we are the majority of the world's emissions,
(48:54):
those of us who live in the industrialized world the
carbon emissions, and the people in low income countries are
disproportionately living with the consequences. We need to get our
act together here fast. And you know, not just for
to save ourselves, but also because come on, folks, this
(49:15):
isn't this world wasn't put here just for me to
have a happy life and then leave nothing behind. I mean,
that makes no sense to me.
Speaker 5 (49:24):
It's all the confusion.
Speaker 6 (49:27):
Yeah, let's talk.
Speaker 5 (49:29):
Let's talk a little bit about your action for climate empowerment.
Speaker 6 (49:33):
Mm hmm, what is that? Yeah, So, so, you know,
part of the Paris Climate Agreement that Trump pulled us
out of and Biden put us back into is an
has an article in it, article twelve that that reaffirms
that from the underlying treaty that every nation of the
(49:55):
world needs to empower its citizens too, its residents to
participate in finding and implementing solutions to the climate crisis.
If you accept Biden's language that climate is the existential
threat of our time, the idea that we can continue
(50:17):
to live the way we live without changing anything in
the face of an existential threat just doesn't make any sense. Right.
If it's an existential threat, we need all of the expertise,
all the creativity, all of the initiative of an informed
and empowered public to create and implement solutions. And they'll
(50:37):
be different. In Texas. Solutions will be different than in
southern California or the Nebraska, or in New England or
in the Caribbean. There'll be solutions that fit that work
where each of us, where our communities are. So the
Paris Process urges every country to create a national strategy
(51:00):
to do this, to create policies for education and workforce
development and professional training, employee training, for public access to information,
public participation in policy making and organizational decision making, and
all the rest of it, and collaboration, cooperation with a
(51:23):
justice and gender equity and intergenerational you know lens. It says,
our kids and grandkids have the same rights to a
healthy world that we were born with to create a
national strategy to empower all of this across their societies.
And as it happens, some nations have done it, but
(51:45):
none of the major emitting countries of Europe, Japan, the
United States, China, India has done it. And so a
group of overall many years, a group of people who
are concerned about this from mostly from education work, but
from advocacy work, from communication work like I do to
(52:08):
have been talking about how do we create a national
strategy for a country as diverse as the United States is,
and recognizing that an election was coming up in twenty
twenty early in that year, as group of people got
together and said, let's figure out if we can create
the framework for a national strategy for the United States.
(52:31):
We don't have the standing. We're not the White House.
We can't officially do a national strategy for the United States.
But we can do a pilot project that is a
blueprint and that maps out the big themes if for
a national strategy for public engagement, if we do it
by recruiting a diverse group of professionals from different geographies,
(52:54):
different ethnic backgrounds, different professional backgrounds, and we bring them
together in dialogues and do the kind of exercises together,
forecasting exercises together, and strategic planning that will give us
a framework that we can give to the new administration
and say, here's the blueprint for creating a national strategy.
(53:16):
This should influence every policy in the federal government, and
you should encourage it across sub national governments, meaning states, counties, municipalities,
tribal governments, and organizations. And so we hosted a group
of online dialogues. We were doing this during the pandemic,
so we met over Zoom and it was these dialogues
(53:42):
were so incredibly inspiring and transformational because you realize the
depth of commitpacity that exists in this country, but it's
distributed everywhere. And so I was brought in. I was
invited into this process as a participant and also to
be one of the writers of the framework. So my
(54:04):
partner writing partner, Deb Morrison, and I wrote this strategic
planning framework for the United States, and it went through
three rounds of reviews. First of all, the coordinating team
reviewed it and we edited it, and then we brought
in a group of twenty very diverse strategic reviewers who
come from have different expertise and backgrounds. They reviewed the document,
(54:28):
and our mission was to give voice to the people
who created the insights the knowledge that was pooled here.
So we did another round of review, and then it
went out to the community itself, the networks of people
who had participated in their broader networks, and we got
literally a couple thousand comments or so. We responded to
(54:49):
every single one, did a final edit, and we released
this on November thirtieth of last year, and it has
gotten some, you know, some exposure within the Biden Harris administration.
It's gotten some exposure with some members of Congress, with
some folks in the news media, and we are continuing.
(55:12):
Those who were engaged in this process felt so energized
by it and by its potential that we are working
hard on different avenues to push the federal government in
this direction to be you know, our view is that
we should be we should lead the world in creating
(55:32):
a national strategy that works for the United States, brings
together educators, communicators, local activists, large scale activist organizations, the
business community to create essentially a national mobilization to solve
the climate crisis. We argue that the all of government
(55:55):
strategy that the Biden Harris administration is pursuing really needs
to be met by an all of the society mobilization
to support it, to engage in it, to do it.
And so that's that's the nature of this work. I think.
Speaker 5 (56:12):
Yeah, I kind of add into my next question, do
you feel like the Biden administration is on the right track?
That's part one of the questions. The second part that
same question is do you feel like the powers that
be are going to let them play out?
Speaker 6 (56:29):
Yeah, two really good questions. I think the Biden administration
has been working really hard to get its feed under
it in this space. I think the appointment of Gena
McCarthy to be the Domestic Climates are and John Kerry
to be the International Climate Leader for the United States
ENVOY is a big, big first step. And Presidents signed
(56:51):
a an executive order that calls for an all of
government strategy and tasks the various federal agencies with working
on pieces of this. They also organize the what's called
the WEIJAK, the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, which
has an independent group that has already issued a final
(57:13):
report to the federal government, and they have also appointed
this process. I described last year is known by the
acronym ACE Action for Climate Empowerment so ACE, and they
have appointed a dual ACE national focal point, which is
one of the steps that the Paris Agreement calls for,
(57:34):
and the ACE focal points we are hoping will will
get the authorities to start really working on this strategic
work to empower the public, not just empower the federal
government to do its work. So in a way, all
eyes are on the Infrastructure Bill and whether it can
get through Congress in a way that is really really productive.
(57:57):
And in another way, behind the scenes, a bunch of
us are working as hard as we can to try
to gain traction for a whole of society mobilization model
that can work through the federal agencies, the Extension Agency,
the education leads, the rule makers, those who incentivize and
(58:18):
work with local communities, so that there is sort of
a top down meeting a bottom up, right, that's the
holy grail here, And will they succeed will we succeed?
We don't know unless you're one of the people who
is really in the room in those discussions in the
(58:41):
White House and in the federal agencies. It's hard to
read the tea leaves. But there are some positive signs,
and there's a real sense that people who work on
the climate crisis are are seeing enough of a difference
in the Biden administration that people have been energized by it.
(59:02):
With some skepticism, I mean, there's a you know, the
people are gonna hold the Biden administration's feet to the fire.
It could very easily slide into sort of status quo
with good intentions, but I don't think. I don't think
the people who work on climate are gonna stand for
that too long.
Speaker 5 (59:23):
Tom. Listen, we're just about out of time here, man,
but we're gonna leave that one a question mark open
for you. So I want to come back, come back
to the show man, so we can finish that conversation,
and we're gonna start it out with that one right there,
and we will be able to look at it again.
I think I'll look forward to that, Oh, definitely, definitely, Man,
(59:43):
I'm gonna look forward to it as well, because we're
both gonna be walking around with our eyes wide open
to see what they do.
Speaker 6 (59:49):
That's right, that's right. Listen, Thank you so much for
having me on Lamont. This has been terrific.
Speaker 5 (59:55):
Oh man, we enjoyed you immensely and I just want
to tell our listeners again, if you going to show late,
it'll be available worldwide, so you have no excuse, no
reason why you can't hear it. I can't get it
from anybody. And I tell you the same thing weekly.
Ask your mama, ask your daddy, ask your neighbor across
the street, ask the god's the gas station, of the
(01:00:17):
man who worked in a supermarket. Somebody be able to
tell you where you can hit a show, so you
don't have no excuse. And definitely, mister Tom Bowman, have
a message and each every one of you guys can benefit,
take notes and support. We do need to make changes.
And I want to thank you so so very much
for joining us today. Tom, I thank you again, and
(01:00:40):
the doors open come back anytime.
Speaker 6 (01:00:42):
Would love to have you, and thank you. It's been
my honor to be here.
Speaker 5 (01:00:48):
Continue to be safe. Everybody will see you guys next
week the same time to thirty pst. Be safe and
take this one home with you.
Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
God is good, good God.
Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
Yeah, it could have been my running through.
Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
The toy trap.
Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
That is what I never went to etihome now, God
good and she's my brother.
Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
No time, I'm got tath. I'm about to drop about
giving up. Oh Mama didn't know me. Never hackn me have.
Speaker 5 (01:01:34):
A thing on me.
Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
I thought the right from above, the love, the power
going there from the bear.
Speaker 4 (01:01:40):
We beginning they have a r never never have to run.
Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
I'm gonna shop until the ave my clothes.
Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
On my back, food on my table. What this over
me at night?
Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
Walla, I'm gonna keep hot. I should have been crazy
by now, said am I rave by now? I should
have been.
Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
Locked for now. Should have been talking now all the time,
all the time, all the time.
Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
God set sail. But non gives me power? What dude,
you don't talk about done wrong? But I don't sing
the blues.
Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
I gotta be wrong.
Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
But I wonder the bosses bes.
Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
But did you be s.
Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
Yes, my pat, I conduds and you'll do the rest.
I'm about talking about the thing about it and get
no good.
Speaker 3 (01:02:35):
I have to shout about it.
Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
I'm trying to cut him off, but it's two mannies.
Speaker 5 (01:02:38):
I'm talking pennies.
Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
There's never any thing that I need. Indeed, I know he.
Speaker 3 (01:02:42):
Will supply come right. Am.
Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
I gotta put a lot to have been wrong for now,
year at the end of a row.
Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
For now, Yeah, it should have been going now. I
should have been alone for now all the He's got
me all the time. God should have been coping out
(01:03:10):
my should have been opened up all the time.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.