From Astronomy to Climate with MOLECULE Bernadette Rodgers

What is your Earth Archetype?  Take the Quiz!
https://quiz.eartharchetypes.com/

When I first talked with Bernadette about being on the show, she wasn’t necessarily a fan of being classified as a Molecule Earth Archetype.  

My response was, “Cool, you are under no obligation to agree with me.  Let’s just explore.”  Thankfully she was willing to give it a go 🙂

What we found out surprised us both!  

From imagination to light…

Planets far away in the galaxy to the planet we all call home…

We dug into the molecular details.  

Give it a listen and join the fun with us.  

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
When it comes to astronomy in general, 99% of the information

(00:05):
that we get is from light that we collect from space, right?
That's-- which isn't just the visible light that we see
when we switch on a light bulb, but infrared light,
X-ray light, the whole spectrum, the electromagnetic spectrum.
But that's all we get, right?
Other fields of science, you can go into the lab

(00:25):
and put things under a microscope.
You can measure them with a scale and a ruler.
But with space, other than within our own solar system,
we have collected just a little bit of actual physical data
or physical material.
But 99% of it is from light that we collect from space.

(00:46):
And so astronomers, of course, have become incredible experts
at processing and interpreting and analyzing light.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Welcome to the EarthMates podcast.
Together, we explore how to find your path
from climate anxiety to community action

(01:08):
by asking, who are you?
Because just like any relationship, that matters.
So get ready to be raw and real, but also playful and silly
with me, chief relationship officer Amber Peoples,
as we discover what's possible through the lens

(01:29):
of the five Earth archetypes.
Curiosity and subscription buttons highly encouraged.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Welcome, my friend.
Today, as I record this session, we are at winter time here
in the Northern Hemisphere.

(01:50):
And since I am above the 45th parallel,
we are getting some cold weather, in fact, colder than normal.
Though my friend here, Bernadette, she is enjoying
some Baja California.
So you'll see some flowers and turquoise and beautiful things
surrounding her along with the sunshine.
I don't know where you are, but I'm curious.

(02:11):
Can you tap into it for a little bit?
Perhaps it's the Northern Hemisphere,
but it's six months from now.
And you're feeling that warm sunshine on you, even if you're
in the Arctic.
And so wherever you are, I would like you to take a moment
with your breath and your body and your senses
and just feel into what is it that nature is sharing with you?

(02:35):
What is your environment giving you?
And can you really listen and enjoy and honor that?
And while you do that, I'm going to count to five,
quietly in my head.
And here we go.
Thank you.

(03:07):
Now, I'm officially going to introduce our wonderful friend
who's down there in Baja California, Bernadette Rogers.
We met recently at a climate reality project Get Together.
And it's a leadership program run by Al Gore
to support people in their use of skills
to advance climate solutions.

(03:28):
Well, we had a bunch of wine and cheese,
and I was actually told, you've got to talk to Bernadette.
I'm like, cool, who's Bernadette?
And Bernadette comes on over, plops herself down.
And what we got to talk about was our paths
that led us to this moment.
With her years as an astronomer, I was so intrigued
by her path towards climate action

(03:50):
and how it relied on working with people different than her.
So today, I'm excited to learn more about her evolution
and share it all with you and welcome Bernadette.
I am so curious to hear what is your version
of that introduction and story.
Thanks, Amber.
And thanks for inviting me to do this.
This is exciting for me.

(04:11):
It's my first time doing a podcast, so I'm excited.
And yeah, I'd love to talk about my story
because it's-- well, it's been exciting for me.
It's been quite an evolution.
I am a professional astronomer.
I've got a PhD in astronomy quite a while back now.

(04:34):
And I worked for over a dozen years, almost 13 years
in South America and Chile at Gemini Observatory,
fabulous job, beautiful place, wonderful country,
raised my two children there with my husband.
And then-- well, I could go back farther and tell you more

(04:58):
history, but we'll just start from there, I guess.
And as I was there-- well, I will go back just a little bit
to say that even as I was a graduate student in the 90s,
I actually taught global warming in an introduction
to astronomy class to students, which

(05:21):
is really the first time, I guess, that I understood it myself,
to be honest.
But it was already something that was sort of academically known.
Then James Hanson had already spoken to Congress.
We'd already had the first few copy meetings
that the International Climate Conference meetings
they started in '92.

(05:41):
So this problem of global warming was out there.
But it still, I guess, for me at least,
and I think for a lot of people seemed very academic.
It was something that we read about, and we talked about,
and climate scientists were studying it.
But it wasn't something that I felt

(06:02):
was close to me in my life.
And I feel like a lot of people felt that way.
So anyway, I finished my PhD, went off to Chile.
Got this great job as postdoc, ended up staying there.
Like I said, for over 12 years and becoming
the head of science operations at this observatory.

(06:22):
And the whole time just sort of gradually getting more
and more concerned about this problem of global warming
and climate change.
So finally, I guess around 2009, I really
decided that I needed to do more about this.

(06:46):
I was worried.
I felt that cognitive dissonance of knowing
that something bad is happening out there and not paying attention
to it and not really doing what I felt like I needed to do.
So then it still took a few more years.
But when I first started doing activism work in 2010,

(07:10):
and I could talk more about that if you're interested
within my first actions.
But then it took until 2014 when my family,
we all decided to move back to the United States.
And we moved to Portland, Oregon.
And that's when I really sort of dove in full time
as a climate activist.
Awesome.

(07:30):
So yeah, definitely just a celebration of honoring
that life journey that you've been on Bernadette and the wisdom
that is held in that evolution.
And I would like to start a little bit
back in your time as an astronomer.
And within the sciences, I'm finding more and more astronomy

(07:51):
is such a unique science because you still have hypothesis.
You still have experiments.
You still have targets that you're zeroing in on.
But it's the types of questions being asked
are they aren't even necessarily social science questions.

(08:12):
They are almost mystical questions.
Is sometimes what I'm hearing, especially
when we look at people that blend astrophysicism,
it's asking questions like, why are we here?
Where did we come from?
What is the origin of life?
And so I'm really curious when you make the choice
to get a PhD in astronomy and then get this amazing opportunity

(08:37):
to be at the center for 13 years in Chile,
what drew you to be so curious to dedicate a third of your life?
You're working hours to really engage in this.
Yeah, that's a great question.
It's--

(08:59):
even that was an evolution.
When I was in graduate school, I was an older graduate school student.
And a lot of-- I was already in my 30s,
and a lot of the graduate students that were in their 20s
had come straight from undergrad.
And they'd known, since they were little,
they always wanted to be an astronomer.
They fell in love with astronomy when they read Starbucks

(09:21):
as a baby or whatever.
And that really wasn't so much the case for me.
I've always been interested in space.
I've always enjoyed math and science academically.
And I was pretty in-fetched with NASA.
So I would say that my entry was really kind of through NASA,

(09:43):
rather than directly towards the astrophysics end of it.
I started my career as a computer scientist, actually.
My undergrad was in computer science.
I worked for IBM for a while, and I worked
for--
at the NASA Ames Research Center in California for a while,

(10:05):
which was really fun.
It was really neat.
I was doing programming for experiments
that would fly on the space shuttle or the space station.
And I also was interested, actually, in being an astronaut,
at one point in my early days of my career,

(10:25):
that never materialized.
But that sort of got me on this track
towards wanting to get a PhD in astronomy and become an astronomer.
And then I really--
I love astronomy because of what you're talking about,

(10:46):
because it is--
so it's really a luxury and a privilege to work in this field
because you get to just have these big ideas that are questions
that aren't always necessarily very practical.
There's not always a lot of pragmatic uses for the information.

(11:08):
But they spark such curiosity and excitement and interest
in people that it's always fun to talk to people about astronomy.
As soon as you tell somebody you're a astronomer,
their eyes just light up and they have a million questions.
And usually, it's like, you know, stump the astronomer time

(11:30):
because they ask about something that they
read in the paper and some story or some book
that I have no idea about.
[LAUGHS]
So even the study of astronomy is so broad.
Personally, I studied how stars form and how planets form around stars.
So really neat and interesting area of the study,

(11:53):
but very different from studying the origin of the universe
and cosmology and how galaxies form and all that.
So I was always sort of a little bit more closer to home,
like looking at other solar systems and how the stars form
and how the planets form.
But in the '90s was when we first discovered planets

(12:13):
outside of our solar system.
So that is something that, like, kids today
are growing up with, as a known fact, that, you know,
I didn't have when I was a kid.
And so that's really fun, too, like this idea
that we now know there's thousands of planets out there
around other stars.
We always suspected it.
But now we can actually--

(12:35):
we still can't really see them, usually,
but we've advanced enough in our technology
and in our knowledge of stars and space
to be able to really try and understand
what those planets might look like, what they're made of,
how they work, which brings us back to our own planet, right?

(12:57):
And how amazing and unique our planet is.
We still haven't found anything else very similar to the Earth.
I think that it was kind of a roundabout route for me
to get into astronomy.

(13:18):
But once I got there, I just really fell in love
with the beauty of it, the fun of looking
at these incredible images.
And then the science side of it is really trying
to understand them, you know, the astrophysics
and doing the calculations and figuring things out.
But for me, I'd like to also step back and just remember

(13:39):
like the big picture, the big idea, what's interesting about this.
And why is it so cool?
And then, you know, that's where most of my interest
in astronomy and love of astronomy comes from.
And then when I worked at this observatory,
it was really great because this Gemini Observatory

(14:02):
does what's called Q Observing, which
means that as the employees of the observatory do most
of the observing.
So it's sort of a service observing style.
So the astronomers from all over the world
that are awarded time, request time, and get time
to use the telescope don't actually usually come to the telescope.

(14:26):
They get their data, you know, over the internet.
And so those of us that actually worked
at the observatory have this incredible privilege
to go to the top of the mountain, see the night sky,
see the incredible views, it's a really fabulous place to work.
And then take data for other people.
So I ended up observing all different kinds of things,

(14:48):
not just my own field.
So I would study distant galaxies or, you know,
the moons of Jupiter or exploding stars
or all different kinds of things.
You never know, you know, what might be in the schedule
that night?
So that was really fun.
I really love how you paint at a picture

(15:12):
with your description there.
I find that really fascinating with how
you're talking about this field of science is kind
of along that almost storytelling, imaginative style.
Because all fields are creative.
We are all creating something new.
But I do think this imagination piece tends

(15:32):
to be more in that realm of the mystic or the artist.
And I really love how you showed how
that's such a central part of your experience of astronomy.
And I'm curious as you're looking at these planets
that you said you literally can't see,
so you have to imagine them.

(15:53):
But you're imagining them with data, with measurements.
I'm wondering how does that work for you?
Because I think about as I try to imagine how do I imagine,
I don't see it in facts and figures and data, you say.
So I'm curious how you do that, like how

(16:15):
you form an image of a planet in your mind
that we don't have pictures of to prove,
but you have this information coming at you helping you imagine it.
How do you do that?
Yeah.
I guess it is the science brain that can read a graph or read data

(16:41):
more than just seeing the numbers.
You can actually interpret that in real time and see something there.
So when it comes to planets, when it comes to astronomy in general,
99% of the information that we get is from light that we collect from space.

(17:03):
Which isn't just the visible light that we see when we switch on a light bulb,
but infrared light, x-ray light, the whole spectrum, the electromagnetic spectrum.
But that's all we get, right?
Other fields of science, you can go into the lab and put things under a microscope.
You can measure them with a scale and a world learn.

(17:24):
But with space, other than within our own solar system,
we have collected just a little bit of actual physical data,
but our physical material.
But 99% of it is from light that we collect from space.
And so astronomers, of course, have become incredible experts
at processing and interpreting and analyzing light.

(17:50):
And when it comes to extra solar planets, we can't see them because the star,
they're relatively small dark bodies that exist very close to bright stars, right?
If you look at our solar system, for example,
being on another planet around another star looking at our sun,

(18:13):
would never see our Earth, Irvingus, or Mars,
maybe Jupiter, you know, but because they're just too close to the star
and they're too small and dark.
And so what we do is we collect light mostly from the star
and then use that to interpret these, to discover these planets around the star.

(18:37):
And the things that we can learn are the orbits, how long it takes the planets to go around.
So we know the length of their year, we know how far they are from the star.
And then we can determine their mass.
So you get an idea of, and sometimes if you're lucky, you can determine also their size.

(19:00):
So then you can get an idea of the density, whether they're like, you know,
heavy iron planets or light gaseous planets,
like the big planets in our outer solar system, Saturn, Jupiter,
or whether there's a whole category that are called water worlds,
which are kind of the closest thing to Earth planets,

(19:20):
which again, we don't see the planet, we don't see the oceans,
but we can determine the size and the mass and the distance from the star
so that we can get an idea of the density,
whether they might have a lot of water on them, and also the temperature,
whether it's ice or gas or liquid.

(19:44):
So, you know, it's really just this, you know,
spy story, right? This investigative thing where you have to like
piece together all these little bits of information and then figure out what that's telling us.
And we've gotten pretty good at it, especially over the last couple of decades now

(20:06):
that we've discovered thousands of stars of planets around other stars,
and we have discovered this whole category of what are called super-Earths
because they're usually much bigger than our planet,
and water worlds where it looks like there's a lot of ocean or water
on the surface of these planets. So, that's how, and then

(20:27):
other people besides myself go even farther to actually like draw pictures
of what they might look like and things like that.
But yeah, we're piecing together these bits of information and trying to
try and to form an image.
Ah, I love that you said that astronomers are essentially experts in light.
Like that is, that is a title.

(20:48):
The best tape line I've heard in a while.
I love that.
Yeah, we spend a lot of time analyzing the light all across the spectrum.
And I love why, you know, if with your focus being on planets,
they say that you would move from looking at planets all around the world,

(21:13):
or not the world, that's totally the wrong way to say it,
all around the galaxy, the galaxy, to really looking at the world that we live in,
the world that literally when we look at the Greek root of eco is
at all, that's, that, and especially as we look at what used to be called global warming,

(21:38):
my understanding is that now it's shift across the board to a climate change,
though you might have a better insight on that than I do,
is it is an issue of light in a lot of ways.
And lights reaction to carbon and carbon ability or how it interacts with light
and blankets light and traps light and it's heat and it's source.

(22:01):
And that's right.
That's right.
That's such a, that makes so much sense why there's connections there for you.
Right, and I call it light, which I think makes it easier to relate to,
because people, you know, think about light, because it's such a big part of our lives.
But in the broadest sense, right?
And in that sense, this thing, the electromagnetic spectrum is also energy.

(22:25):
It really light is energy. It's there kind of, that's interchangeable.
And so you're right, the problem of global heating and climate change is an energy imbalance
when it comes down to it on our planet.
And it has to do with the radiation or the light or the energy coming from the sun

(22:45):
and then being trapped by the carbon pollution in our atmosphere,
which is what's heating up the surface.
And so that imbalance is, yeah, directly related to the light we're getting from the sun.
And then how that, the whole, the whole way the planet works, right?
The whole biosphere, the whole ecosystem on the, on the really macro scale of like,

(23:12):
if you think of the Earth as a box as a machine or something, how that operates
is very much a balancing thing. Earth is nature and general is, is amazing at finding balance, right?
And so energy balance is what keeps our planet at a constant temperature within a small range of

(23:36):
temperatures. And what's happening now with global heating is that we, the Earth is seeking a new
balance and it's going to be at a higher temperature because we've changed the atmosphere.
And so yeah, it's very much about light and about energy and radiation.
And I use all three of those terms kind of interchangeably, you know, there's slight

(24:01):
distinctions between them, but not a lot. The electromagnetic spectrum is an energy spectrum.
And so yeah, that's, that is what global heating is. And
that's sort of, you know, if you want to be technical about the terminology, the, the
underlying thing that's happening is this energy imbalance, which causes global heating.

(24:24):
And then the consequences of that heating is the climate change, which is the term that most
people use now because it just encompasses so much more than just the temperature.
As, as we now know, and it's very obvious, there's, you know, all these effects of that change in
temperature, which are the weather systems and the floods and the storms and the droughts and,

(24:47):
you know, all the different manifestations of that change in climate.
But, but I do, yeah, to go back to, you know, the astronomers connection to that, I think,
when I give talks about climate change, I often start with, with a picture of the planet, right? And
talk a little bit about my background because I do think having that real macro view of our home

(25:17):
as a planet, as this massive organic, you know, operating machine, for me at least puts it in
perspective, you know, it helps us understand that we're just a small piece of this amazing system
of our biosphere. And unfortunately, we've sort of become a really dominating piece now because of

(25:45):
our actions over the last many decades. But we are still just part of this big ecosystem, and
the earth is still bigger than we are. And so there's a lot of potential there for nature's natural
resilience to help us get back to a balance that, you know, is livable. But we really need to do our part to

(26:11):
stop pushing it out of balance.
And I would love to now shift kind of into this evolution that you really had starting in 2014,
where you moved from what kind of sounds like in a lot of ways following your bliss, like you had,
you know, the computer science and then NASA and then Chile, like it sounds like this amazing

(26:36):
journey of if you follow that, you're going to, you know, be in the right direction for where you
should be. But it, I think the emotional baggage that's around climate change is not one of bliss.
It's one of a lot of challenging emotions like grief and perhaps even guilt. And so I'm wondering

(26:57):
with this shift, you know, clearly you have the knowledge, you know, this really amazing in-depth
knowledge from this planetary system way of understanding the world and how all of that data
really matters when it comes to something that so many of us, it may be even hard to grasp the size

(27:17):
of it as you're facing this information, what was it that made you make this big change in your life
in 2014 to become an activist for the climate? Yeah, it was a combination of things of course,
you know, but there was, I would say, a trigger, an event that happened for me.

(27:46):
So I moved to Chile in 2001. My career was going on very well. I loved my job. We loved where we lived.
And, but I was, you know, getting more and more concerned sort of a click activist as people say,
you know, reading a lot, clicking on things, liking on Facebook, maybe signing a petition or something

(28:06):
here and there, but very much sort of just, you know, yeah, one finger on the mouse type of activist.
And in 2009, I was attending a science talk at the observatory. And at the time,

(28:30):
there was a new, a new observatory being built, which is in a 747 aircraft. And so it's built, it was
built by NASA. It operated for several years. It's now been decommissioned, but it's called Sophia,
it was this stratospheric observatory for infrared astronomy. And basically a 747 airplane with a big

(28:54):
telescope in the side and it would fly up to 35,000 feet and then literally open the side of the
airplane, the door to allow the telescope to see directly out and take data and fly around for,
you know, 10 hours at night so that you could observe and take data. And the reason you do that,
of course, is because especially for infrared observing, you want to get as high as you can above the

(29:21):
atmosphere or as far up in the atmosphere as you can to get good data, which is why the,
the space telescope that we have now, the James Webb Space Telescope is so amazing because it's
of course outside the atmosphere completely. And so I'll sub part of the reason why telescopes are
on high mountains, but an airplane at 35,000 feet is way higher than any mountain, right? And so it's

(29:43):
a great idea for infrared observing. However, it's a 747 flying around for 10 hours at night,
taking data. And anyway, I attended the science talk about this observatory that was coming online
and it was just an offhand comment in the talk, but the person speaking mentioned that one of the

(30:08):
principal scientists for a camera for this observatory had stepped back from the project
after working on it for years because he decided that he didn't want to be associated with the,
with the emissions of this flying observatory. And you know, this was 2009 and when I tell this story

(30:34):
now, especially to young people, it's not a surprise to them that somebody would make a life decision
based on climate change because young people today are doing this a lot. But at that time,
it was really the first time that I heard about somebody that made a career choice,
you know, allowed the issue of climate change to influence a career decision.

(30:58):
And I was at the time living in Chile flying around for science meetings and travel the way
astronomers tend to do. And it just really hit me. It was kind of a wake up moment of like,
you know, this problem, this is a big problem and we need to stop pretending like it's not affecting us.

(31:22):
We need to really, you know, I guess let it in, let it affect our lives and become more real for us.
And I, it made me think, you know, what am I doing and what should I be doing and what can I be doing?
And so that was kind of, you mentioned at the beginning, you know, that we met at this climate

(31:45):
reality event. And when I trained for climate reality with the Al Gore project,
in 2018, one of the things they have you do is everybody tells their sort of wake up moment or
a how moment about getting involved in climate activism and it's not everybody has one.
I mean, some people come to it just kind of gradually, but most people, or at least a lot of people,

(32:11):
do have sort of a moment where you just realize like we need to be doing more. And that was,
that was the moment for me. And I also like telling that story because that person obviously didn't
make that decision with me in mind. He didn't even know me. But, you know, you never know the consequences

(32:35):
right of your actions and that, that butterfly wing effect of, you know, just hearing that happened,
hearing about that decision by that man triggered something for me and set me on a trajectory
that still is still, you know, the question I asked today, what, what more can I be doing? But it really

(32:57):
allowed me to sort of wake up to the idea that this problem needs our attention
and that you can make big choices with it in mind because as we go into the future, we all are
going to be making big choices with this in mind. It's going to, it took a long time for a lot of

(33:19):
us to wake up, but it's now hitting us all over the head. So,
yeah, I think that's, I just want to point out the, the beauty of that question. And it's such a critical
reframe from a common question we hear, which is, well, what can I do? And it's, it's, it's, it's exactly

(33:39):
like that emoji on your phone or it's like, nah, and that's really, you know, a big part of what drives
me to tell stories like the errors and share stories like yours is because we really have to look at
that question because it is a disempowering question. And the question that you ask instead on what
sounds like an almost daily basis is instead, what more can I be doing? And, and what I'm curious

(34:06):
about with that is, is to hear more about how that evolution happened for you. I know that you've,
you've done amazing work with, uh, three 50 dot org. You trained at climate reality. You've
worked with science, uh, scientist rebellion. You've even been arrested twice, uh, in climate actions
that you've done. And some of those things, I'm sure there were, there were moments where you

(34:32):
leaped ahead in what you were doing. I'm sure that first time you're arrested probably may have felt
like one of those. Um, but I also see that, you know, this is, this is over now 10 years of your life. And,
and you've, you've learned and grown and become a different person as a result. And so I wonder
when you ask yourself this question of what more can I be doing, how does it feel energizing rather

(34:58):
than let's say draining or even exhausting? Because burnout is, is a concern when it comes to this
type of work too. So I'm curious, what really energizes you and drives you is, is you continue asking
this question for 10 years now? Yeah. Um, you know, some of it may be personality,

(35:19):
I've been willing to make big changes in my life. So I've never been sort of afraid of like, well,
let's just try something different. And when I left professional astronomy when we moved to Portland,
I originally thought I would get a job, um, doing climate work. And I figured my science background
and my management experience would land me in a job. And I looked for a while and I didn't actually

(35:45):
find anything. And, um, and I started doing volunteer work sort of in, you know, in parallel as I was
looking. And then, um, as it happened for me, I really got into the volunteer work. And I realized
that where I am in my life, um, the career wasn't so important for me. I mean, I feel like I,

(36:08):
I was in kind of a privileged place that I was pretty well, pretty stable financially, pretty far
advanced career-wise as far as not like looking to climb any new ladders or anything like that.
And so I felt like I could use that privilege to really just give, give my time and dive into the work.
I did pick up teaching as a job instead. And, and I'm a part-time teacher as well. But I, I dove into

(36:38):
the volunteer work, you know, just head over heels. And, um, I've been so energized by the work and the
people. It's just been an amazing journey and experience. I had no idea coming into it what I would
be doing or, you know, who I would end up meeting and what would happen. It was all completely unplanned.

(37:03):
But I had heard of 350.org while I was still in Chile. That was one of the first actions I did in 2010
was, uh, they, there was something called 10, 10, 10. I remember it was the, a big global day of action.
And 350 was behind that. And, um, so then when I moved to Portland in 2014, I looked them up and it

(37:26):
turned out that Portland chapter was just getting started. Which kind of surprised me. I figured they'd
already be going strong, but they were just getting started. So I got in on the ground floor there
and ended up working with them for years. Um, and just the, the, the, the personal growth and education
for me has been amazing. My worldview has opened up so much. From stuff, I just, I didn't know,

(37:55):
no, I didn't know, you know, that, um, I've learned a lot more about climate justice, about social
and racial justice. I've also learned a lot and I try and learn more all the time about Indigenous
wisdom, um, because that feels like such a big piece of our solution to this. Um, and just being

(38:17):
around amazing people that have already dedicated their lives to, both young and old, you know,
older activists that have been doing stuff like this for 50 years and young activists that are 20
and 25 that are already just pouring themselves into it. Um, I, I think I've really, you know, I could

(38:37):
say, and it's sort of cliche, but that it's also true that, you know, I'm motivated a lot by my
children. I have two young adult children and, you know, worry about the future is a natural thing as a
parent that drives me at some level, but I think the more selfish reason is once I got into it,
I've, I've just been enamored by the people I've met and everything I've learned and the work that

(39:04):
I've done, um, and the sense of doing something, you know, the, the feeling of, of making a difference
in having an impact, um, even if it's small, you don't always see the impact or know right away,
but, but like I was saying about the butterfly wing effect, you never know, um, what the knock on

(39:25):
effects are going to be of something that you did, even if it feels like it wasn't like you do a rally
or a march or something and maybe it's not well attended and you think, oh, you know, that didn't
feel like it was, did much, but then it turns out, you know, somebody knew comes into your organization
or your work and then they end up doing amazing things or, you know, so there's, you, we don't always

(39:49):
know the impact, but there is a lot of impact in this work and it's had a huge impact on me personally.
Yeah, it sounds like the, I see kind of a couple themes there and one is that you're,
you're really living your own story, just like you were so deeply impacted by this one comment
that was made at a presentation about this observatory on an airplane.

(40:15):
And, and now you really keep that as fuel to be like, well, I know it works because it worked on me.
And so there's, there's some power there. There's, there's, there's some similarity to what I'm doing
here with these podcasts is, you know, my, my moment of, of, uh, kind of that hinged my trajectory was
in 2016 when I was asking big questions around what's next for me, what's next for the planet,

(40:41):
what's next for anybody. And, and I heard two phrases, uh, which were as earth as your home,
arts or your skill set. And I've been running with that since 2016, uh, with, with everything in me
and it's taken so many twists and turns, um, and it's, and it's driven me to, to find out, well,

(41:01):
if arts are my skill set, what are other people's skill sets so that I can help point them in that
direction and help facilitate in that way. So I really get that there is this power of, um, you know,
sharing, sharing what worked for you because you, you, you have that visceral experience.
Yeah. And the other piece that I think is so key about what you said is the community.

(41:22):
Like, the, the, these people that you've met that you probably wouldn't have in, in other circumstances
within your life and how they've intrigued you and taught you and built relationships with.
And I know one of the things we connected on is the fact that one of the groups in particular that
you are kind of constantly fascinated by is the artists that you work with. Particularly, I believe

(41:47):
that there's students at different colleges like PNCA and you can talk more about what that acronym
means for the, for people who don't know. Um, but yeah, I'm curious. What is it that, that really
intrigues you to bring the, the science of ecology and climate to place to colleges where that is not
the focus. The focus is learning how to film and do graphic design and things like that. I would

(42:13):
love to hear about that, that experience that you have in that community that you feel has developed
around that. Yeah. Well, I knew and I met, you know, at a climate reality event. So
I do feel like once you're in, once you just start showing up, you know, you just start doing stuff.
It almost doesn't matter what you do, but you start showing up and you meet other people that are

(42:34):
showing up and, and you just start making connections and you find amazing people. And I mean,
that was how you and I found each other too. Climate groups that I've worked with always have sort of
art teams and, you know, I'm not an artist, but I've dabbled with those folks just because it's fun
to, you know, paint signs and do things like that. But a few years ago, it was actually during the pandemic,

(43:00):
I think it was fall of 2020. I saw an opening for a science teacher at the Pacific Northwest College of
Art, which is in downtown Portland. It's actually a college of, well, am it, will am at university.
But it's an art school in art college and they were looking for a liberal art science teacher and I

(43:23):
started teaching there and I love it. It's been so great because I feel like, well, it's just really fun
to teach art students first of all. Creatives are amazing and art students are just, yeah, they're
just a joy to work with. They don't really care too much about science typically. But they,

(43:48):
but that's okay. They're curious and that's the most important thing anyway. So,
so I really enjoy the students there and the, what I feel like is useful as far as me teaching
and science is that art is so important in the educating the world and waking up the people of

(44:18):
the world about this crisis. There's just no doubt, you know, the scientists have known about this
for decades and if it was just a matter of scientists being able to, you know, find the right solutions
and tell people and then they happen, we would have, we would be on a very different trajectory now.

(44:39):
But that is not what has happened and we're now 30 plus years into working on this climate crisis
and studying the science of it is only going to get us so far, right? We need to, as a society,
sociologically, like embrace the transformation that's necessary and who better to, you know,

(45:06):
help affect culture and bring about a paradigm shift that we need than artists. Like you said,
that telling the story is, it's all about story in the end. And so, what I feel like I try and do
as a science teacher in an art school is give the artist just enough science to be dangerous, right?

(45:30):
You know, because they care about this, they've heard about climate change, especially,
like I said, young people have been hearing about it, you know, their whole lives.
And they can be very depressed and discouraged from hearing how little our elected leaders

(45:56):
are really doing to solve this, even as we are doing things. I mean, to be positive, I would say we
are making progress, but it's so slow compared to the transformation that we need and the timeline
that we need it to happen on. But, you know,
culture shifts can be fast, right? Once they finally happen, they might take a while to get there,

(46:19):
but then they happen. And this is something where we really need a culture shift. We can't just wait
around for our governments to slowly implement the policies that we need, especially because they're
really heavily influenced and corrupted by, you know, fossil fuel industry and other,

(46:41):
sort of invested interests, but the people, the culture can change independent of that, and then that
is really what drives our leaders. I read that somewhere that said that, you know, our leaders
don't lead, they follow, right? So people can lead, and artists have such an important role to play in

(47:02):
that, probably the most important role. And so, yeah, ITT, Ecology and Resilience, I also teach a course
called Living on Planet Earth. And a lot of it is about, you know, what's happening on our planet
right now, and then, um, and then inspiring, hopefully, the students to put that, take some of that into

(47:24):
their artwork and whatever they decide to do with their careers to really help, help move this needle
that we need to move. But I, for me, apparently, it's, it's a whole bunch of different things. So,
what's worked for me is to just keep trying new stuff and do new things, and, you know, I've worked with
probably, at least to have a dozen different organizations doing different kind of jobs from board

(47:47):
members to speaker, to, you know, teaching art students to being a treasurer and doing budgets, and,
you know, you just kind of keep trying different things. I feel like it's a buffet out there.
Yeah, I love that. I love your sense of curiosity. I love your sense of

(48:07):
diving into the mystery. But I also appreciate your acknowledgement of, you know, that there's certain
things that some individuals can do and some can't, like the ability to get arrested. Like, you talked about
that your, your kids are young adults now, but, you know, if your kids were still like young, like
toddlers, that would be a much bigger commitment to make, and, and you're at a place where your life

(48:32):
can allow for that. And, and I think that's another important part for us to all acknowledge in this
journey is what are the, what are the sides of us that we can't do? Where, where are our boundaries?
Or where are the things that we're not as good at? And we need to rely on other people to help us with.
And I think that's, you know, a good example to you with you working at the college, where it's,

(48:54):
it's focused on art students, and you, you acknowledge, okay, you can't teach science the way that you
would teach it if you were teaching an astronomy class at a, at a state college, uh, two people that,
you know, are majoring in that, that you have to adapt it for people. And, and I think acknowledging
these sides of us that, um, I refer to them as our shadow sides, are really important too, because

(49:17):
we can't just wish them away. We can, we can practice them, we can grow with them, we can shift at
different stages of our life. But I think that they are an important part to acknowledge just as much
as the superpowers that we have, because it will guide us in the right direction. And I think your
story is a wonderful example of that. Yeah, I agree. And your whole concept of sort of this spectrum

(49:43):
and these different types, um, you know, recognizing our strengths and our, and our shadow aspects.
Um, and then allowing other people to fill in the other pieces, you know, one way that people
get overwhelmed and discouraged here is that they somehow think that, you know, they can't solve

(50:05):
the whole problem in there for they shouldn't, can't do anything. And that's, of course, silly and
crazy, because none of us are gonna all by ourselves solve this problem. But we can have a huge impact
and, and we can rely on other people to do their peace and have an impact. I mean, I think the,
the community aspect of it and the really, um, embracing everybody's strengths and also acknowledging

(50:30):
everybody's, um, challenges is, is allows us as a, as a community to really, um, not only make progress,
but also have stronger relationship and really, you know, uh, just respect and honor our humanity,
while we're also doing this important work. And I do feel like the, the real direct action stuff

(50:57):
that I tend to be involved in, um, one of the possibly sort of negative side effects of it,
I think is that people tend to think, well, I don't want to do that. And therefore, you know, I can't
do anything or something like people thinking that climate activism means, you know, you have to go

(51:17):
out and sit down on the street and get arrested or whatever. And it's, that's just so not true.
There's, there's so many things to do. Even if you like being involved with direct action,
but don't want to be arrested, there's plenty of work to do that doesn't involve getting arrested.
But even if you want to do something completely different, like, you know, create films and podcasts or

(51:38):
become a speaker or be a teacher or go into politics or, you know, there's many, many directions
that activism can go. Um, but I personally do think that the, the direct action thing is sort of a
powerful piece right now, just because we're in the midst of really trying to, um, actualize, manifest

(52:06):
this shift that we need. So that, that's my main focus on that, but, but that doesn't mean there aren't
plenty of other things to do. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that brings us actually to the end of the hour. And my
last two questions that I, I always want, like, to sneak in here. Um, and one of them, uh, what you just
said fits in so well to this, this penultimate question, uh, which is having this broad spectrum of

(52:35):
community and worlds that you've interacted with and, um, environments and light signals and energy
and all these things that you have these in-depth relationships with, I am curious how you would look at
or define or have experience of this really important phrase that I think is critical in our movement

(52:58):
towards, uh, climate justice, which is reciprocal relationships. And that can be human to human,
that could be human to, uh, plant that could be water to air, that could be light to energy,
you know, there's, there's so many relationships out there. And I'm curious with your broad spectrum

(53:19):
of life experiences and knowledge, how would, how do you look at that concept? Mm-hmm.
I, the first thing that comes to mind with it is the, uh, the indigenous idea of reciprocity,
which has really just come into my consciousness in the last few years. The, you know, amazing,

(53:43):
of course, bestseller by, uh, Robin Wildkimmer, writing Sweet Gras, which is just such an amazing book
and I use it with my students and, um, and she talks a lot about reciprocity. And it's an idea,
you know, in, you know, we talk about earth relationship and in our human relationships,

(54:07):
I think most people recognize reciprocity as a, um, as a necessary part of a relationship, right?
A give and take, a feeling that you don't want to feel that you're always the one giving. And, um,
you don't want to be the one that's always just getting stuff either, right? That would be a new
view of relationships. So you, you, you need that reciprocity. And what I learned from Robin Wildkimmer

(54:32):
from other indigenous readings is that that's our, should be our relationship to the earth as well.
Both us are humanity overall, our species and even on an individual basis, I think.
She talks about the honorable harvest and the idea that, um, you know, earth is not just

(54:53):
here for us to exploit. It is, we are an integral part of the planet and everything is interconnected
and we need to take care of our home as much as our home takes care of us.
Um, so that's where I see reciprocity and that's, and I have to confess that it wasn't in my consciousness

(55:15):
until just a few years ago, um, and it's so important. It makes so much sense that it's one of the
joys, one of the things I'm grateful for that I've, uh, learned in the last few years.
Yeah, talk about a culture shifting book that Brady Sweetgrass had such a profound effect on our culture

(55:37):
and understanding. And I think to many of us brought this idea of reciprocity to, to more than
just the foreground, but a place that we didn't even remember, even if our own ancestors centuries
ago had those had those relationships. Um, it's, it was such a such an important book that I,

(55:57):
I really honor how you tried to speak of it as, as it feels like it's continuing to unfold in you
as you, as you find how do I actualize this? How do I do this on a, on a day to day basis?
I, I think that's whole sort of, I would call it kind of an indigenous radonessence, this uplifting
of indigenous voices in North America, at least, um, is so critical to all of us getting sort of the,

(56:26):
the consciousness shift that we need to, to embrace the solutions in, in the right way and to
let the right solutions come forward, not just capitalist solutions, but really, um, solutions that
honor the interconnectedness of everything in our biosphere and really look for solutions that are
healing, uh, which, yeah, that, that book was a huge step in, that breakthrough, I think,

(56:54):
such a great book. Yeah. And so that leads us to our very last question, which is you,
you, you, kind of, allow me to kind of take you on twists and turns, uh, as I, as I,
as I poked at your different answers and, uh, and, uh, give me the opportunity to be curious and
explore with you, but I always want to make sure that I give one final chance to all of my,

(57:18):
my friends here that join me on the podcast and ask all the things that we talked about.
What is something that you wish I would have asked? What did I not touch on? What is important to you
that we missed? What is something personal about you that you want people to know? Whatever,
whatever angle you want, but what's one more thing you would like to make sure that we get to share

(57:38):
before we, before we leave for this time? Well, you did a very good job of having to say, because you,
you've covered a lot. I think, hmm, I mean, we did, we did touch on it, but I do think that the
personal growth and the rewards that come from this work, and I feel like too much when I talk to

(58:05):
other people, they, they are focused on the sacrifices that we have to make, um, to, and there are sacrifices
we should be real, you know, for, especially those of us with privilege and with a lot of material,
well, um, we need to cut down on our consumerism and, and our materialism, um, and there are

(58:29):
sacrifices associated with that, but there's so much reward, um, that I think it's, it's, uh,
important to emphasize that, and this is, this is not some painful, you know,
march across the desert. There, there's so much to be, so much joy to be found in so much, um,

(58:53):
beauty and life-enhancing, uh, wealth, uh, that, uh, that comes from sort of really examining our
lifestyles and paying attention to what really matters and paying attention to relationships,
and doing work that is, um, important and impactful, but, you know, just really embracing the beauty

(59:16):
of this and, and to be honest, one of the joys I found is that there's a tremendous number of women
working in this work and coming from a science background, I've spent my whole career in male-dominated
fields for the most part, even when I was a computer scientist and then as an engineer and as an astronomer,

(59:39):
and it's, I find interesting as well as refreshing and, and joyful for me that, uh, I've,
mostly, in most of the groups I'm in, it's dominated by women, and I, I think that's kind of an
interesting insight in itself, and it's also been, been a source of joy for me to work with young

(01:00:02):
people to work with women to work with just folks that are care so much about our planet and our future,
so that's the, I, I think we really need to keep emphasizing the joy in this work.
Yeah, I almost hear a redefinition of the word abundance, you know, from, instead of from extractive

(01:00:27):
abundance to collaborative perhaps, or joyful abundance. Yeah, and regenerative, you know, there's,
when you're not just burning up resources, your, your, your, the abundance comes from things that
are replenishable, you know, like relationships and, um, storytelling and art. Yeah.

(01:00:56):
Beautiful. Well, thank you so much for this amazing conversation, Bernadette. I'm so glad
that our worlds came together and I look forward to continuing to, to weave and explore the mysteries to
thank you, Amber. I really appreciate you having me on. Thanks so much. Hey, Earthmate, how did that

(01:01:19):
episode resonate? Did it stretch you? Inspire you? Or perhaps, Urqu? I'm here for it, so please reach out.
Besides the socials, we have a community to practice with on our website, eartharchetypes.com,
where more earth archetypes can guide your path and become dear friends. A great place to start is

(01:01:42):
the quiz to discover your type. Oh, and on your way, I'd love for you to hit the subscribe button.
See you again soon.
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